grahamdavidhughes Reviews

Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)

As wonderfully preposterous as religion itself!!

[10/10 · 16 April 2006]

There is an invisible wizard who lives in the sky who sends his only son down to planet Earth in the guise of a human so some wops can nail him to a tree.

(FYI It's the same invisible wizard who invented tapeworms and let the holocaust happen).

What is so wonderful about this film is that it makes the preposterous nonsense that idiotic zealots have been killing each other over for centuries seem even more preposterous by setting it as an anachronistic high camp musical farce with 70s wah-wah guitars! A must see for anyone who considers themselves a Christian - with any luck it will make them see what a bunch of baloney the whole sad sorry saga really is.

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

The Circle Is Now Complete...

[10/10 · 17 May 2005]

So here we are at the end of it all. To those who haven't seen it yet, I swear you will not be disappointed. Unlike the last two, you will NOT find yourselves fighting to defending this film, backs against the wall, muttering lame excuses about Star Wars being kids films, about Lucas having a grand vision, about us all just having grown up… Revenge Of The Sith needs no defence. It's just great.

Revenge Of The Sith is everything Phantom and Clones were not. Like the original trilogy, it is about a WAR (Star WARS – geddit?) and the people caught up in it. Not Trade Routes, Taxation Issues, Immaculate Conceptions, Pod Races, Lakeside Retreats or Jar Jar frinkin' Binks. It's about space wizards flying about in space ships blasting hell out of stuff and then chopping what is left up with their lightsabers. Joy!! And yes, Georgie-boy, you can get away with clunky dialogue and wooden acting when the pace is fast enough. And Sith hits the ground running. From the opening scene racing around an immense space battle to the final bitter lightsaber duel, the action doesn't let up for a second. It is one hell of a roller-coaster ride.

What's more, we get GRAND THEMES again! Simple Good vs. Evil – not Gungans vs. 'Roger Roger' Robots. There is also the feeling of SPACE!! By not wasting time returning to Tatooine time and time again, we now get to see about seven new planets in all their glory, which expands the Star Wars universe instead of shrinking it. Another return to form is the EMOTIONAL IMPACT! I couldn't give a flying bantha fart when Qui-Gon died. Anakin's dead mum – who gave a Kentucky Fried toss about her silly lolling dead head? But this one – wow! I found myself choking back the tears for the last half hour of the movie. And, best of all, we get our beloved WOOKIEES back!! In a nutshell, this film has EPIC written all over it. Like the originals. And unlike I and II, it thoroughly deserves it's place in the Star Wars canon.

Come to think of it - looking back, were the previous instalments essential in any way, shape or form? "Anakin's mum died and he was a bit upset. He later married Padme." That is really all you need to know in the run-up to Episode III. You could cover that in the opening crawl. Or in a piece of throw-away dialogue.

So what do we do now? Now that we know without doubt that Mr. Lucas still has the magic touch? Do we burn our DVDs of Episode I and II? Do we pretend they never happened, that they were some kind of bad dream? Or… Do we demand that Lucas REMAKE Phantom and Clones and bring them up to scratch with Sith? Get rid of the bloody children, Sweet Valley High picnics, frolicking cattle and infernal gungans?? He's fiddled about with the originals enough, isn't it high time to do some top-notch digital jiggy-pokery with the lamentable prequels? Well I for one say that he should – what's he got to lose? We'll all pay to see them again. It'll be another billion in the bank. Just keep to the simple formula – Space Wizards. Rocket Ships. Big Explosions. Lightsaber Duels. WE WANT ALL OUT WAR!!! Hell, it's really not that hard to impress us die hard fans – it's not rocket science, George. You've done it for Sith, now PLEASE do it for the first two.

Children of Paradise (1945)

Let down by, well... everything

[1/10 · 17 October 2004]

The 'tragic' tale of an incredibly beautiful woman who is loved by every man she meets, and the clown she can never have.

The tragedy is the fact that the 'incredibly beautiful woman' is played by some trout-faced old minger.

You have better things to do than to waste three hours watching this boring, pointless, badly written crap. If it was a Hollywood film it would be laughed out of town.

Unfortunately, I have to fill up ten lines or this review won't get posted, so I'd like to take this opportunity to say that, believe it or not, there are some really good foreign language black and white films that won't bore you to tears - The Wages of Fear is brilliant, All Quiet on the Western Front is great, La Grande Illusion is pretty good, but avoid Ladri di Biciclette - it's bloody awful.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

BETTER THAN THE BOOK!!!

[10/10 · 18 December 2002]

It's so depressing that after over a century of film, we are still hearing the same pathetic whinge that movies are not as good as the books on which they are based.

I expect this hackneyed cliché to be spouted from some lazy tabloid hack, but it beggars belief that people choose to post such rampant idiocy ON A MOVIE WEBSITE. You are supposed to be movie fans, for God's sake - get a grip!

A BOOK is a COMPLETELY different medium than a FILM.

Would you say that the painting of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci is not as good as the events described in the Bible? Would you dream of lambasting the ballet performance of Romeo and Juliet because all your favourite lines from the play where missing?

To review a film on the basis that the director's imagination didn't quite live up to YOUR personally-invoked imagination is not only childish, but ignorant, bigoted and highly offensive to the thousands of people who work their arses off in order to keep us genuinely entertained for a couple of hours each week.

To bring an epic of this scale to the silver screen takes years of determination, focus and sheer hard graft. To make a sequel that is far and away the best film of the year takes absolute genius.

Hats off to Peter Jackson. John Ronald Reuel would have been proud.

So then, why I am saying the film of The Two Towers is better than the book?

Ah, that's because it only takes three hours to watch the film. It took me ages to read the book…!

Sounds silly doesn't it? It should. Now, next time you choose to share your informed opinion with the millions of other users of imdb, please bear that in mind.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

I Kick Arse for the Lord! (of the Rings)

[10/10 · 20 December 2001]

Wow.

I'm not going to mince words here. The Fellowship of the Ring is the best adaptation of a popular novel since The Godfather. Majestic, sweeping, awe-inspiring – and that's just the scenery. Over three short hours, the film races at breakneck speed through the trails and tribulations of the Fellowship. Exciting, exhilarating, tragic, funny, scary – it perfectly captures the essence of Tolkien's incredible tome.

Wonderfully directed by visual genius Peter Jackson, perfectly cast, acting worthy of the nods from the academy, jaw-dropping action sequences, a momentum that never lets up, the enduring beauty and terror of Middle Earth captured with perfection and an ending that leaves everyone salivating for more. This is the kind of film they invented the term ‘epic' just to describe. At last – an over-hyped movie that lives up to its hype. Hats off to New Line Cinema, who have risked their entire studio on this project and who deserve to be thoroughly rewarded for coming up with the goods. This film will set the benchmark rest of the twenty-first century.

The idiotic gripes listed in the imdb's user reviews just beggar belief. The classic whinge of ‘the film is not as good as the book' always leave me dumbfounded. People who resent the fact that their interpretation of a given novel does not exactly match the director's visualization are simply crazy – they are never going to. If you prefer books to film so much – don't bother seeing any literary adaptations. Ever. To film a motion picture of the book voted the best of the twentieth century is no small undertaking and Jackson has performed above and beyond the call of duty. As to the bits he missed out – good! They where boring anyway. Confused with all the characters? The ones with little guys are good and the ugly ones dressed in black are bad. The goodies are on a journey to destroy an evil ring, the baddies want the ring to enslave everyone – not too tricky eh? If you want to see a film that doesn't explain itself very well, have a peek at Lost Highway. Sit back and just enjoy the damn thing without feeling the need to nit-pick.

Without a doubt, one of the greatest films ever made.

Bring on The Two Towers.

Formula 51 (2001)

Pulp fiction meets Brookside! Joy!

[7/10 · 10 December 2001]

OK, so the `what' British film industry needs another gangster-flick about as much as Zsa-Zsa Gabor needs another facelift, but this film is worth a look just for the fact that it's not set in London (hurrah!), it's very funny and it features Samuel L. Jackson in a kilt. Coming from Liverpool myself, I loved the fact that someone has taken the effort to make a decent film about my city (the last film set in Liverpool was ‘Beneath the Skin' – shoe-gazing rubbish with Samantha Morton, who couldn't act her way out of a wet paper bag).

Energetically directed by Yu, with flamboyant performances by Carlyle, Ifans et al. 51st State is difficult not to enjoy. Okay, so it's not very deep and meaningful, and the plot may have been done a thousand times before, but that could just about describe almost every film that Hollywood has churned out this year. With film, as with any other entertainment medium, it ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it.

Moaning about the ‘dodgy' accents or the depiction of Liverpool as a haven for drug dealers and corrupt policemen is pointless nit-picking and should not detract from the fact that 51st State is a lively, refreshing and ultimately entertaining two hours worth of celluloid. It is also a damn sight better than all the British-films-not-made-by-Working-Title that have been released this year.

Moulin Rouge! (2001)

Here we are now, entertain us...

[10/10 · 10 September 2001]

Moulin Rouge is a splendid, opulent, extravagant celebration of dance, music and above all things, love. It will be completely lost on anyone for whom ‘dance' is a drunken stagger at a wedding reception, for whom ‘music' is a sorry collection of dust-gathering Celine Dion CDs or whose idea of ‘love' is putting up with somebody just because you are scared of being left on your own. If this adequately describes you, don't bother going to see the movie, you will not understand it, and therefore you will hate it. Unfortunate really, as Moulin Rouge is quite simply the most entertaining, different and interesting film of 2001.

Planet of the Apes (2001)

Marky Mark and the Monkey Bunch

[3 September 2001]

It's hard to be objective with this new vision of Planet of the Apes, as the overwhelming desire to compare it with the 1968 original is almost too much to bear for any would-be movie critic with too much time on their hands. However, a word of caution – they are two very different movies. The original, with its world-weary Heston, moralising anti-nuke plot and the gee-shucks-can't-we-all-just-get-along narrative, plays out like one of the better episodes of Star Trek. Tim Burton's take on the simian planet is a million miles away (literally) from the Franklin J. Schaffner version, and so we have the action and the hokey chimptalk, but none of the social relevance. This, quite frankly, damns the film, damns it all to hell and makes it yet another summer blockbuster of running about and shooting at nasty things.

However, considered out of the context of the whole Apes saga, this is a damn fine no-brainer popcorn-flick with plenty of action, plot twists, rugged heroes and monkey madness. Helena Bonham Carter makes a decent chimp, Tim Roth makes a decent psycho-baddie and Mark Wahlberg makes a decent, well, underwear model. There is enough to keep your average film junkie happy and the movie does not outstay its welcome.

Hollow, but entertaining nonetheless, Planet of the Apes (2001) is not a bad film and is only disappointing when compared with a) the original b) Tim Burton's back catalogue. It's also a damn sight better than the four sequels and the TV spin-offs. Come to think of it, The Simpson's Planet of the Apes Musical may not be such a bad idea after all...

La Dolce Vita (1960)

About as interesting as empty box

[18 May 2001]

Frank Capra once said that there are no rules in film-making, only sins, and the cardinal sin is Dullness. And I'm sorry to say that Dullness is something that La Dolce Vita has in spades. The story is uninspiring, the plot non-existent, the characterisation flat and the dialogue is about as profound as a fortune cracker. Maybe something got lost in the translation, maybe I'm low-brow and uncouth, maybe I expect too much. Then again, maybe I just want to be entertained.

I'm sure La Dolce Vita has its adoring fans who would defend this title to the hills and go on about how intelligent it all is, and how my generation has been 'dumbed-down' by Hollywood. But please, let's be honest, it's simply not that good. Watch Cinema Paradiso instead.

Dreaming of Joseph Lees (1999)

The epitome of all that is rotten about the British film industry

[1/10 · 27 April 2001]

Plotless, pointless, tediously dull and lifeless. This film is a serious contender for the worst film that Britain has ever made. It is therefore no surprise to see Samantha Morton, the actress in the equally dreadful Brit-flick Under the Skin (1997), takes the leading role.

Whereas dreadful Hollywood fodder like Showgirls, Battlefield Earth and Wild Wild West have some (although not many) redeeming features, Joseph Lees has none. It's not even fun to watch as a bad film. It starts off awful and then declines from there. It's the celluloid equivalent of Japanese water torture.

Why is it so bad? Well, it is the sum of its parts. The direction is pedestrian, the acting is rotten, the script is dull, the story is predictable, the setting is miserable and all the characters do is mope around for two hours looking depressed. However, it is the sheer pointlessness of it all that deals the crushing blow. There is nobody to root for, nobody you can equate to, nobody to really care about. There is no humour, no emotion, no life, no empathy and nothing to make you want to watch it to the end.

Imagine sitting for in an empty bar being spoken at by somebody incredibly boring and utterly unlikeable about something you do not care about. They talk in a dull, monotone voice, and after two painfully slow hours, they get up mid-sentence and leave without saying goodbye, even though you had the decency to sit there a waste a couple of hours of your life listening to their inane little tale.

It would be more enjoyable to sit through all eight hours of Andy Warhol's lesson in pointless film-making, Empire, without a toilet break. Why the producers saw fit to spend the limited resources of the British film industry to make a godawful film that nobody would want to see boggles the mind. The only use for this film would be to show film students in a 'How Not To Make Movies' class. Avoid at all costs.