Feist - The Reminder

Horribly overrated. This is adult contemporary gone mad. Cannot understand why Feist is getting all this love from the critics. Maybe because she is a Canadian. Her songs are ok as dinner background music -- specially if the dinner is good enough to keep you thoroughly occupied. Barely audible, her whiny drivel is irritating at best -- like the buzz of an over-friendly mosquito.

The Good German

Steven Soderbergh got his fill with Hollywood many years ago and has been making experimental films for a while now. His films are not about the films anymore but only about him and his desire to experiment. Whether it be the super-kitsch of the Ocean's Eleven franchise or the coldness of the all-digital Bubble or this 'too-literal' homage to the 40s noir Hollywood. Since he gave up on his films for himself, his films have given up. Take the Good German for example. A stylistic success but a horrible failure in every other department. Soderbergh is so engulfed in technique that he has no energy left for the plot or what is possibly the films biggest flaw -- the awful characterizations and performances. Yes, George Cloony who I generally like very much plays one of his worst roles ever. Toby Mcguire is probably the worst with Cate Blanchett a close second. The characters seem to be buckling under tremendous pressure and are truly having a miserably time adjusting to the forced period mood.

The Good German is two films playing at the same time. The visuals are straight 1940s with over-exposed, high-contrast images and leisurely editing but the dialogue and the characters are 2000s. This anachronism makes this film that would have otherwise been evocative rather difficult to watch.

Last King Of Scotland

There is a scene at the end of the film where Idi Amin Dada, the feral dictator of Uganda, tells the fancy white boy Nicholas that "we (Africa) are not a game. We are real. Your death is the first real thing that is going to happen to you."

These are powerful words that sort of self-mock this new "white-man's burden" that has lately gnawed at a good bit of Hollywood directors. 'Last King Of Scotland' is a better offering from the barrage of 'Africa Awareness' movies (Interpreter, Hotel Rwanda, Constant Gardener, etc) that have been doing the rounds of the award ceremonies.

Based on a novel by Giles Foden, the motive of "The Last King of Scotland" isn't quite clear. This is more a plot that works in a novel than in a movie. The novel and the film focus tightly on a young Scottish doctor who befriends Amin and becomes an unwitting adviser and an admirer. Eventually he sees the truth but by then he finds himself submerged in quite a lot of problems -- mostly of his own making.

This is also one of those correctionist stories that tries to interweave fiction to make history more palatable to the general populace. The problem with this approach is of course the smudging of the line that needs to exist to keep the two worlds apart. This story basically gets rid of that line and expects the viewer to use their judgment in scouring fiction from fact.

Forest Whitaker plays Idi Amin and does a pretty good job of building the kind of emotional tension that surrounds these type of wild, deranged psychopaths. He is scary and generally quite real. The rest of the cast is quite the usual fare of white folks trying to play fairly well scripted roles in an African country. Can someone tell me what Gillian Anderson is doing for ten minutes in this film?

Ace In The Hole

A brilliant, early 50s film by Billy Wilder, Ace In the Hole, is the kind of film that you know is not made anymore. A satire that is not glib and not too polished. Kirk Douglas is Charles Tatum, a big city reporter wasting in a small town in New Mexico. When he sees a potential story in the fate of a cave-in victim, Leo Minosa, he decides to milk it to his way back to the big press in New York. A modern, sharp-witted classic Billy Wilder film that failed originally is a darling among critics now and for good reason. It has so much to offer. Kirk Douglas is fantastic as a big-city reporter lusting for his 15 minutes, Jan Starling as the cold-blooded wife of Leo is a classic Hollywood sharp-talking-babe. Mr. Wilder's story leaves no man standing except the poor father and the hapless mother of the victim. The rest of the characters end up in the kind of circus that would put today's over-the-top all-pervasive media to shame.

Tatum seems to have amazing journalistic insights -- yellow or not. One of his classics that will live in my memory is:

"Good News is No News"