derekmcmillan Reviews

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Eyes Wide Shut (contains spoilers)

[8/10 · 27 December 2006]

I can honestly say this is the most unusual Christmas film I have seen. However I watched it on Christmas Eve and the action all takes place during advent. There are some jolly characters in red cloaks but no beards but they are taking part in a somewhat satanic prelude to an orgy and they soon drop the cloaks to reveal that is all they are wearing apart from the occasional thong.

And the viewer/voyeur is sometimes invited to see the nudity through the eyes of a doctor – Dr Bill Harford – first the naked body of an unconscious woman whose life he saves and the naked body of an apparent suicide victim And for all the nudity, Bill Harford's sexual encounters are all unfulfilled. His initial encounter with Domino (a name which presages the "fancy dress" masked orgy he later attends – is interrupted by a telephone call from his wife (curse these mobile phones!) He himself turns down the offers of his deceased patient's daughter and a fancy dress shop owner who offers him his underage daughter "for anything the doctor orders!" And at the satanic fancy dress orgy he sneaks into, he is teased and then caught and sent off with a warning.

There film is also a thriller in the more traditional Hitchcock sense of the term. There seem to be two murders but the good Doctor drops all his investigations and accepts the unlikely explanations of his rich client who turns out to have been behind one of the masks. In the end he is content to go back to his beautiful wife and keep his eyes wide shut.

The dialogue transcript is available online but the URL cannot be posted here. Try Google!

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

It was IMDb that goofed!

[1 June 2006]

The film was likable and undemanding with some good special effects. I think some of them were a bit old. Dr. Jean Grey/Phoenix transformation was remarkably like Willow in Buffy TVS except that she kept her red hair on. I was disappointed when she pulled the Matrix trick of making the bullets stop in mid air. That was so clever when they did it *for the first time* in The Matrix but it is so old hat now.

The film had a semi-serious message about prejudice and exclusionism. The idea that you can "cure" differences between people which are not illnesses is a bit of a sideswipe at Bush and his religious cohorts who claim they can cure homosexuality. And of course there are people who accept the cure because they can't take the persecution any more.

However nothing is allowed to get in the way of the spectacle. Ian McKellen is magnificent in the role of Magneto, showing you what Gandalf would have been like if he had turned to the dark side perhaps. His clothes sense alas has not improved. Nobody could get away with *that* helmet.

Vinnie Jones is a thick thug. (no further comment seems necessary!) Rebecca Romijn is brilliant as Mystique but we don't get to see nearly enough of her. This is not a reference to the "artistically necessary" nudity. Her character has a lot of scope for trickery and cunning plots but she loses her powers early on.

It was a bold decision to kill off Patrick Stewart's Xavier and deprive Magneto of his powers. It means any sequel will be the poorer. Possibly this was intended as a way to signal this time there really won't be a sequel? If so look out for the prequel! IMDb refers to a mistake in the film - Wolverine's wounds disappearing. Anyone who looked during this scene would have seen them healing. Special powers. Ever heard of them?

V for Vendetta (2005)

Valid but violated by Hollywood

[3 April 2006]

*"People should not fear their governments. Governments should fear their people!"* "V for Vendetta" is great fun. It is an adventure film with some serious messages included. It is usually possible to wade through the deepest ideas in an adventure film (for example, X men, Catwoman) without getting your ankles wet. This is a bit different.

John Hurt and Stephen Fry are always good value for money and Hugo Weaving in the title role was a revelation with his ability to create a role brilliantly while hiding behind a mask for the whole of the movie.

Terrorism, homophobia, racism and islamophobia are all dealt with in the film in different ways. There are chilling insights into the secret camps where alleged terrorists are tortured for the good of the state. And the media are not exonerated either.

Most crucially the plot shows the way the religious right can use terrorism as an excuse for repression. In the course of the narrative responsibility for a terrorist outrage is shifted to whoever is the current enemy of the state. It comes as no surprise to find out that the author of this "9/11" turns out to be the dictatorship itself.

John Hurt is very good as a dictator and he also plays a caricature of himself on a TV show hosted by Steven Fry's character, Deitrich. Deitrich falls foul of the secret police for his pains. He expected to get away with a grovelling public apology. Instead he is killed when a copy of the Koran, which he kept because of its poetry, is found in his house.

If you have ever had a sneaking suspicion that Guy Fawkes was the only man to enter Parliament with honest intentions, the sight of millions marching in Guy Fawkes masks to overthrow a corrupt government based on lies is inspiring.

And that is where the film falls short. What happens next? It is here that the emasculation of the original story is most keenly felt. The "politics" were not exciting and spectacular enough so they remained on the cutting room floor. The original story of V was not from a socialist but an anarchist perspective but at least didn't leave the basic questions unasked; the original message of the story has been toned down and given the Hollywood treatment.

I still think the film does fulfil in an attenuated form, the concept of the original writer, Alan Moore "../the central question is, is this guy right? Or is he mad? What do you, the reader, think about this? Which struck me as a properly anarchist solution. I didn't want to tell people what to think, I just wanted to tell people to think, and consider some of these admittedly extreme little elements, which nevertheless do recur fairly regularly throughout human history."/ You have to like action/adventure films to appreciate it but if you do, this film is for you.

"People should not fear their governments. Governments should fear their people!" Derek McMillan

Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! (2006 TV Movie)

Stop messing about!

[8/10 · 14 March 2006]

A lot of my childhood was spent lying in front of the wireless listening to Round the Horne or Hancock's Half Hour or watching Carry On films. Probably the most famous line in comedy "Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it infamy!" still makes me laugh.

This is a rare insight into the man behind the comic figure and the whole production is a brilliant mix of tragedy and comedy right down to the final quotation from the coroner's court read in four different voices by Michael Sheen. He was brilliant in the role. Most of the other members of the Carry On team were so-so and their Kenneth Horne was very good but Michael Sheen carried the show and there should be an award of some sort for him.

It left me feeling "wow". To quote Kenneth Williams, to the cynic who says 'life is a joke' the only response can be 'Yes, well let's make it a good one.'

Fight Club (1999)

First class film

[10/10 · 15 February 2006]

I really enjoyed this amoral romp despite the violence which had a cartoon-comedy quality to it anyway and was not (despite the title) the focus of the film.

It is a very good film to watch on video because the immediate response is to look at it again once you know who Jack actually is to see how the whole thing works.

And "Marla Singer" was brilliant and rather a departure for Helena Bonham Carter.

I do not know if the film is the origin of the phrase, "don't beat yourself up!"

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)

Tilda Swinton

[12 February 2006]

Tilda Swinton is brilliant in the role of the Queen of Narnia and her make-up artist and costume designer deserve Oscars at least.

She has just the right tone of seduction and unpleasantness in her dealings with Edmund and her voice and facial expression are just spot on all the time. She has by far the best role of course.

Lewis put this female figure with bare shoulders at the centre of the story and it is interesting that he tends to like seductive female characters as his villains. He lived in an all-male society and had a very ambiguous attitude towards women.

As a child (and this is the spoiler!) I was disappointed with the part of the book which was based on Christian mythology. I was impressed and saddened by Aslan's sacrifice for Edmund. This was not least because that sort of thing did not happen in children's' books very often. Then when it turns out he knew all along that deep magic would bring him back to life it seemed a cheat.

I wonder how many children locked themselves in wardrobes after watching this film! Overall a magnificent spectacle at the heart of which was Tilda Swinton's haunting performance - brilliant.

The Angry Silence (1960)

Excellent propaganda

[25 November 2005]

The power of this film lies in the sympathy which it evokes. The sympathy for Tom and Anna Curtis is used to attack thousands of other ordinary people "the enemy within". Strikebreakers are real people with real feelings. Anyone who goes out on strike is scarcely human in this world. You can imagine how Gate Gourmet or McDonalds would love this film to bits! It is astonishing how many people pretend the film is showing reality as if it were some kind of documentary.

The choice of an ostensibly "realist" filming approach is intended to convince the audience that it is getting "the truth" and it is excellently acted. The right could afford to pay the best actors and the best writers could be suborned.

It is a film to remember whenever luvvie Attenborough parades his liberal conscience :)

Ruby (1992)

Spoilers would be difficult!

[9/10 · 15 September 2005]

An exploration of Ruby's motivation. Anyone who was not interested in this question would not bother to watch in the first place. I do not know if the film has "the right answer" but it is an answer which fits the facts.

It is well acted and well photographed and "period". The incredible tameness of the striptease act in Ruby's club for example is presumably what it was like in those days, "swinging sixties" or no.

As I say it would be tough to have a spoiler for this film because we already know the finale. It is tough to understand how he managed to shoot someone who one would have expected a half-way competent police department to keep a bit of an eye on, and the film has a go at explaining that.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)

The Sith hits the fan

[5/10 · 5 June 2005]

I pity Natalie Portman for the inevitable comparisons between her and Princess Leia. Leia had a much more active role and her relationship with Han Solo provided most of the laughs in the original Star Wars trilogy. Apparently Harrison Ford got on her tits (metaphor) and that was why they worked together so well on screen.

Princess Padme was pregnant and passive through most of episode three and her main function was to hear terrible things about Anakin Skywalker, give birth and die. With the best will in the world she could not be sexy and witty in that role.

She didn't appear in a golden bikini in chains either so there are swings and roundabouts! Ewan McGregor could have taken on a Han Solo role but as a Jedi, even a stroppy Jedi, he was restricted in what he could do. The plot called for him to be doomed to failure anyway.

Ian McDiarmid was brilliant despite struggling with some pretty weedy lines and he had to carry the film a lot of the time. He really is a first class actor but George Lucas is obviously out of touch with the fact that nobody can do an evil laugh these days....ever since Austin Powers they no longer work!

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

An Englishman's comment

[10/10 · 11 July 2004]

The White House has taken Osama Bin Laden off the "Ten Most Wanted" list. They have put on Michael Moore instead. Moore's film which smashed its way through a cordon of corporate censorship is an astonishing work of film journalism. The job which a good journalist or an honest politician (hah!) ought to be doing is being done by a TV comic and done brilliantly.

Understandably the establishment has pulled out all the stops to rubbish Michael Moore but the facts in the film speak for themselves and the Republicans have failed to address a single one of those facts.

The links between Bush and the Saudi Royal Family - undisputed.

The assistance given to the Bin Laden family to flee America - undisputed. The pressure on the intelligence services to "prove" Iraq the villain of the piece and exonerate Saudi Arabia - undisputed.

There are two points in the film where anyone not made out of stone (or New Labour!) would be moved to tears. They both show mothers crying out in anguish against the war...one Iraqi and the other a patriotic right-wing democrat from Moore's home town of Flint.

Another memorable figure is the army corporal who said "he would not go back to Iraq to kill other poor people" on behalf of the corporations who are then shown gloating about the wealth which they can reap from Iraq.

In a priceless sequence Moore approaches US politicians to see how many of them will sign up their sons to go and fight in Iraq......guess how many takers he gets.....

Go and see the film. Take the family.