gayeshortland Reviews

Stranger Inside (2001 TV Movie)

no ordinary women need apply!

[4/10 · 24 January 2006]

Compelling watching and some terrific performances. A storyline that kept up the interest and camera work that knew how to caress its subjects. So what's my gripe? After several days' thinking about it, I have to conclude it was lesbian fantasy more than the realistic drama it claims to be. Treasure had beauty and impact and I LOVED Shadow's mobile face - but we might as well have been watching two teenage boys - theirs was a lean male beauty. And as for Brownie!! Great performance but why did she also have to have the physique of a man -- a squat brutal one in this case? There wasn't any sense that we were watching ordinary women in a terrible predicament. And had none of them men or children on the outside? Where was their history? That older woman in group session was almost stuck in to compensate for the lack of all that. Secondly I agree that Treasure's brooding impassive personality prevented us from knowing her thoughts and really feeling for her and in the end robbed the film of emotional impact.

Wild River (1960)

my forty-year search rewarded

[10/10 · 30 January 2005]

There is little to add to the eloquent appreciations of Wild River by other users. Still, I want to pay my tribute. My father took me to see the film when I was a little girl and it made such an impression on me I have been searching for it for years. Odd, since I remembered nothing of the plot, retaining only fleeting images of autumn colours, Lee Remick's autumnal hair, the old ferry, an indelible impression of Montgomery Clift's face, the old woman surrounded by still 'figures in a landscape'. And the creation of a unique atmosphere so tangible, so lyrical, so elegiac it stayed with me for 40+ years. I've been wanting to know why it clung to me so. And wondering why it seemed to have disappeared without trace. This Christmas, in the fullness of time, my niece presented me with the DVD and I have at last seen it again. Why did it affect me so profoundly? That one's easy. Why had the film disappeared. That one's complex, as you know. What I hadn't expected was that stunning performance from the incomparable Jo Van Fleet. No Oscar? Were they mad? It is intensely interesting and sobering to reflect how politics can hold art hostage.

Troy (2004)

pathetic in the wrong way!

[1/10 · 26 January 2005]

A sad sad attempt to capitalise on "action-hero" potential in Homer's classic. The writer should be tied to somebody's chariot and dragged until he promised never to write a screenplay again. Brad, Orlando, Peter et al did their level best but were fighting a losing battle against a poor script. Brad certainly enlivened the landscape with his skirmishings. Shots of the aristocracy of Troy peeping over the battlements at warring heroes were positively Monty Pythonesque. And why, in an age when audiences are exhibiting a ravenous hunger for fantasy material, did they choose to leave out the gods? And how can we forgive them for filling up the screen-time with a sugary little love story while omitting such things as the great Cassandra with her prophecies of doom?

Alexander (2004)

I was deeply moved, hugely excited

[10/10 · 26 January 2005]

I went to scoff (possibly)and found myself riveted. (The battle scene against the Persians left me breathless -- I've never seen a better.) I found the whole film so gripping, so intensely exciting that I wasn't fully aware at the time of viewing of how deeply moved I was. But in the following days I found myself haunted by the tragic power of Colin Farrell's performance -- his and Stone's aim of presenting an Alexander who was "greatly tormented" (Farrell's words) being perfectly realised. But I cannot understand what is going on as far as reactions to this film are concerned. The attacks on it seem inexplicable. It may have flaws (it's a rare film that hasn't) and criticism is par for the course, but this film wasn't "reviewed" or "criticised" -- rather, US audiences and reviewers fell on it like a pack of wolves. WAS it homophobia? WAS it the Irish accents? (US audiences seem to think it reasonable that Stone should ask an Irish cast to ASSUME American accents to play Ancient Macedonians -- makes one think perhaps Stone's theme of xenophobia was timely . . .) WAS it just the usual bear-baiting inflicted on Oliver Stone? WAS it the political implications? The fact that it headed the International box office and that European audiences loved it suggests that SOME kind of phobia was at play in the US. It saddens me that Stone's vision and Farrell's performance should be, not just underrated, but ridiculed.

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)

superb - can't praise it enough

[10/10 · 26 January 2005]

A superb, stylish, original film that doesn't put a foot wrong, not for a moment. There is something fluid and seamless about it. True to Samurai theme the whole film is played with a forceful restraint which raises it well above the level of all those Tarantino wannabees -- never any sense it is straining to pander to our taste for blood or greed for the adrenalin rush (while actually providing large helping of blood and adrenalin!) Here's a neighbourhood Mafia we can really believe in! Full of wit too -- relationship between Ghost Dog and his French-speaking "best friend" which shows their perfect communication without a common language is so humorous. Forest Whitaker's performance is quite beautiful -- utterly convincing, quietly stunning. Music by The RZA is razor-edge cool, intensely exciting. Film relegates so much of the stuff I watch to just dead wood!