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JONATHAN’S REVIEW OF 'THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS'
It's hard to believe that another film will be released this year with anything like the number of bizarre, original, eye-popping ideas which burst out of 'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus'.
Once again Terry Gilliam has unleashed his imagination on the cinema screen as only he can, creating some spectacular set pieces which ravish the eye and linger in the memory. Just one example is the encounter Between a group of Tibetan monks and Tom Waits as the devil, something I'd no idea I'd enjoy so much until I saw it.
There are flaws though, and perhaps predictable ones. For one thing it's a hugely uneven film. Sadly the sections with Heath Ledger - set in the closest thing to the real world you're likely to see in a Terry Gilliam film - look rather flat compared to the flights of fantasy featuring Jude Law, Colin Farrell and in particular Johnny Depp, whose scenes are a real highpoint of the movie.
There's also a kind of conflict at work, between Terry Gilliam's fascination with the machinery and mechanics of 20th century film-making and the green screen world of modern fantasy film-production. Distorting lenses and CGI can make uneasy bedfellows.
Above all, there's no real narrative. That may be an understandable shortcoming given the well-publicised and enormous problems confronted in completing the film, and means that a marvellous experience is also a marvellously frustrating one at times.
But overall, if you enjoy cinema which transports you to other worlds, this film is unmissable. -
JONATHAN’S REVIEW OF 'COUPLES RETREAT'
In recent times on 'Film 2009', we've commented on the lack of mainstream films coming out of Hollywood which are aimed at a more mature audience. The people who don't want to spend their time in the cinema sending text messages. The people who decided "Halloween II' might be a bit too gory the first time around. Or who can remember back when Eddie Murphy was funny - if they really, really try.
So the arrival of a comedy featuring men and women on the brink of middle age should be welcomed just for its rarity value, and in 'Couples Retreat' a strong cast implements some good comic ideas in a solidly constructed plot.
It's also an unconventional Hollywood comedy, because the standard cloying warmth has been replaced by a degree of callousness. The downside there being that it's difficult to like the main characters very much, while there's a vaguely familiar flavour to many of the set pieces. The yoga scene calls to mind a similar moment in 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' for example.
So when it comes to extracting laughs from the age-old story of male and female, 'Couples Retreat' isn't exactly 'Annie Hall'. But it is an unpretentious hour and forty minutes where the jokes come along at regular intervals. -
JONATHAN’S REVIEW OF 'THIRST'
Even as a committed fan of Korean cinema, and particularly the work of Park Chan-wook, I'd have to admit that his last film - 'I'm a Cyborg But That's OK' had moments which left me bemused, alongside many others which showed just how brilliant and original a talent he is.
To a lesser extent, the same comment applies to 'Thirst'. It has a fantastic, high-concept premise, which at a stroke provides a new slant on the vampire movie. And when the genre has been so thoroughly mined over the decades, that really does show an inventive mind at work.
It also says something about the director - and probably about the expectations of Korean filmgoers - that nothing about this movie is predictable; in turns thought-provoking, broadly funny and gruesome, it defies any neat kind of categorisation.
The film's stunning and absorbing to look at too, with one beautifully composed shot after another. This is a director who clearly knows what he's after and how to achieve it.
The only slight problem is that it's not entirely clear what reaction he's hoping to provoke. So if I had to choose just one word to describe 'Thirst' it would be "Peculiar". While if I had to choose two they would be "Peculiarly entertaining". I enjoyed it a lot, but can't deny I was occasionally perplexed.
Credits
- Presenter
- Jonathan Ross
- Director
- Bex Palmer
- Producer
- Tom Webber
