A Day (-Lewis) At The Oscars

Paul Thomas Anderson's latest effort There Will be Blood had no less than eight chances to haul away the American film industry's most coveted of baldies. It one best cinematography…and an even bigger one.

This is a true return to form, if not an out-and-out evolution, for the director who entered the radar of avid film buffs with Boogie Nights (1997), which brought him his first Oscar nod. He then cemented his place among top-notch filmmakers a couple of years later with Magnolia (1999), netting thee more (unsuccessful) Oscar nominations.

Daniel Day-Lewis's performance simply shouldn't have been beaten - and wasn't. Lewis's virtual clinic on how to act comes through the character Daniel Plainview, a dirt-poor prospector in late 19th century America. Plainview has a bit of a tumble while attempting to man his New Mexico silver mine all by his hard working self. The fall not only nets a badly broken leg, but a discovery of a good chunk of silver that ended his run as a solo miner.

After hiring a crew and delving deeper for the shiny bits the earth has to offer, his lone mine spits out the darker side of our planet's wealth offerings, black gold, Texas tea, oil that is. And Plainview, being quick on the up-take, begins his first drilling operation and his career as an oil man is off and running.

It is on this drilling site that the "blood" part makes its first appearance. A member of the drilling crew is killed in an accident leaving an infant son orphaned and creating a golden opportunity for Plainview. He adopts the boy and sets off to buy up as many drill sites as possible, with the boy in tow to add to his honest credentials as a family business man here to help the little guy extract vast fortunes from his meagre land holdings.

It is worth mentioning that, up to this point there, has been little to no dialogue in nearly 30 minutes of film. This is a risk few directors have taken with success in the past, but Anderson pulls it off remarkably well, setting up to a slow and powerfully building tension that rarely declares itself openly, but is always hiding around the corner.

The film gains a head of steam after a young man by the name of Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) pays an evening visit to the modestly successful oilman, telling him of "an ocean of oil under his family ranch". So Plainview and his 'son' head out to have a look. Under the guise of quail hunting they explore Sunday's claim and find the term 'ocean' to be the correct noun for the quantity of oil. This is literally is bubbling to the surface in some corners of the ranch. Thus the soon to be oil barren swoops, not only buying the Sunday ranch but nearly all the land in and around the rural and unsuspecting community.

It is in these dealings that Plainview makes a promise to the person who becomes his formidable antagonist, Paul's twin brother Eli (also played by Dano). Young Eli is an evangelist preacher and "faith healer", presiding over the local Church of the Third Revelation. He binds Plainview to a $5000 donation to the church to be included in the sale price of his father's land. It is the ensuing relations between these two 100%-morally bankrupt men that adds the meat to the bones of the film. This relationship culminates in one of the best set pieces in film history, yah I said it, in the final scene of the film.

And at the risk of playing the spoiler, oh yes, there will be blood...

Fools Gold

Lee Ober comes over all philosophical - and also finds time to review The Golden Compass...

OK, it's official. I guess I have to admit that I'm becoming a curmudgeonly old bastard. The more I see what's on offer to modern youth, the more I lose faith our species' ability to come up with creative solutions to anything except what useless products need buyin' to distract and define us (and more and more often, to think for us).

I mean, Christ! We got small things like this 'food & air deal' to sort out and the only saviour I hear anyone talking about is the incredible world-shrinking internet that brings all the world's suburban knowledge and lays it at the doorstep of every grass hut in Africa. No need to realise that the vastness of the World Wide Web is so crammed with lies and half-truths on any possible subject that to find a kernel of useful fact is harder than deer hunting in London.

I do agree with most people on one thing, the world is shrinking. But it is not shrinking in the sense that we are all getting closer and sharing more information or imaginative ideas. Quite the opposite, it's shrinking into intellectual laziness. And this is true right through society down to children's literature and films. And if you don't agree or think me the nutter pessimist, consider this: What did the generation weaned on the imaginative ideas of the likes of Shell Silverstein, Dr. Seuss, J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis accomplish? Oh, not much - only went to the damn moon!

Now we have the uninspired multi-billion euro industry that is Harry Potter. It does have to be said that young Harry is a well-portrayed character and Miss Rowling sure knows her child psychology, but the story is given in such a way that readers cannot submerse themselves in the imagination of the thing. What I mean is, basically, you are left to watch the plot unfold as it is very meticulously fed to you, rather than walking beside the character and discovering the storyline as he does. This takes a writing talent and imagination that J.K. Rowling simply does not posses.

I don't think it a far stretch to believe a society enamored with such lazy "entertain me" drivel will ultimately be content to simply watch as others tell the story of their lifetimes, it's just way too much work to participate.

Over the top? Just wait, it gets better.

The newest addition to this spoon-fed storytelling genre makes Harry Potter look like a work by Milton. Philip Pullman's widely read trilogy, His Dark Materialshas just been released. The first installment, The Golden Compass, will no doubt be one of the major film events of the Winter. The plotline of this film is not merely fed to the waiting wide- open mouths of the audience, it is actually patronising to the intellect (even, I think, of a ten-year-old). You need only bring your eyes to this one, folks. And, to be fair, visually the film is nothing short of stunning. It is no doubt a masterpiece of CGI animation melted seamlessly with live action. The polar bears alone are worth the price of admission if CGI is your thing. But the work to create the visuals far outstrips the content they are meant to deliver.

The Golden Compass takes place in an alternate universe in which everyone has a being in the form of an animal that walks (or flies) next to them and is completely bound to that person's life force. The heroine of the tale is a young orphan girl named Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) whose lineage allows her to read the mysterious Golden Compass which tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about whatever you ask of it. Handy, no?

She is burdened with the task of saving her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), and her best friend Roger (Ben Walker) from the evil clutches of the Church-like Magisterial who have a clever plan to not only control the world, but to eradicate free thought. Rough job yes, but needs must. And, to tell the truth, she never once seems bothered by the weight of the world on her tiny shoulders - tough girl, I tell ya.

The film begins fine, all is set up, this universe's peculiarities and pivotal movers and shakers all introduced. Then begins what is probably the weakest aspect of an already shallow story. Characters start turning up out of nowhere. Literally, just like that, the dreadfully powerful feminine wiles of Mrs Coulter (Nicole Kidman) storm into Lyra's life and whisk her away to begin her adventure.

It soon becomes obvious that Coulter is not the best choice of guardian and when it seems this is so much the case that Lyra's very life is in danger, a band of sea-faring 'Gyptions' turn up and save the day - taking her aboard their ship and heading North. Then a witch, Serafina (Eva Green) enters, again no context needed I guess, and offers her assistance while speaking of prophecies and whatnot. But there's no time, or need, to digest what this might mean as they arrive in The North to find Sam Elliot playing...well...Sam Elliot in every film you have ever seen him in. This time his character is Lee Scoresby, and he introduces Lyra to Iorek Byrnison (voiced by Ian McKellen), a polar bear with wicked armour. here, the real CGI fun begins...

The rest is entirely predictable - but at least it's a visual roller-coaster that is never far from its next horrifying curve or drop. No need to think, kiddies, just hold on and watch the simplicity of the world fly by, quickly.

I did have one real thought while leaving the cinema, (no thanks to the filmmaker), the film's irony in that central to its plot is the fight to preserve free thinking - yet it manages to render actual free thought irrelevant.

In cinemas now. Running time:114 minutes

La Voldemort Subite
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

It was always going to be a toughie, this one, for director David Yates. The Order of the Phoenix, the fifth book in the now complete HP book series, is the weightiest of all the tomes - being around 750 pages in the hardback edition - and one that shifted the plot along in leaps, bounds and the occasional totter.

So how to get all of its complex contents across in just over two hours on the silver screen? Impossible, right? Yep. But, by God, the team has done a good job.

In this, arguably the darkest of the Potter movies thus far, the special effects are stunning. The early Dementors sequence, the flight on broomsticks through London, the final huge scrap in the Ministry of Magic - all take the series of films to greater heights of techno-brilliance - albeit the latter owes a huge debt to a certain battle scene between Darth Vader and Obi Wan Kenobi a few decades ago.

But that's JK Rowling's plagiarism, rather than the director's.

The plot: Harry has been ignored all summer and is pretty hacked off about it. After his repelling of the Dementors to save cousin Dudley, Our Hero is threatened with expulsion from Hogwarts and effectively put on trial at the Ministry of Magic.

Prior to this, an embarrassed Ron and Hermione explain that they were forbidden to get in touch with him by Professor Dumbledore - who, meanwhile, has reassembled the Order of the Phoenix to fight the resurgent Voldemort.

Not that the Minister of Magic is buying this, of course. As far as Cornelius Fudge is concerned, Harry is a liar, Dumbledore is nuts, the Dark Lord is NOT back and Hogwarts is leading its pupils astray.

As a result, in comes the deliciously sadistic ministry under-secretary Dolores Umbridge (magnificently played by Imelda Staunton) as this year's Protection against the Dark Arts teacher. Umbridge is swiftly promoted to 'High Inquisitor' and wields her new-found powers mercilessly. Things are changing for the worst in and out of Hogwarts…so what can Harry and the gang do?

I have to say this latest movie is brilliant fun, possibly as good as the Goblet of Fire, and the best turn - apart from Staunton - is without doubt the sexy-but-lethal Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange.

She's mad as a box of frogs, that one...

Past-it Action Hero

All good things...
Except in Hollywood, of course, they frequently don't come to an end, do they? With the cameras now rolling on the fourth addition to the Indiana Jones chronicles (which, begrudgingly, even this reviewer must acknowledge as being a fairly exciting prospect), the time seems wearily appropriate for catching up with John McLane (and, this time around, his grown-up daughter) and booing and hissing at the latest evil villain, with whom he must match wits.

Willis's charming grin is, of course, still firmly in place as, to be fair, is the franchise's emphasis on mostly exciting action set-pieces. What, unfortunately, seems now to be entirely absent is any sense of coherent narrative structure or the lip-smackingly evil but villainously intelligent characterisations of an Alan Rickman in the original Die Hard (1988) or Jeremy Irons in ...with a vengeance (1995). In their place, a perfunctory Dr Evil-esque plan that inevitably involves McLane and which, with weary predictability, puts his daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) in mortal peril. Oh, and McLane isn't really getting on with his offspring at the film's outset...

In a nutshell, McLane is asked to escort hyper-hacker Matt Farell (Justin Long) into FBI custody - Farell is among a number of computer geniuses that have got the feds twitchy since their HQ computers were (temporarily) hacked. When Farell's apartment is converted into Swiss Cheese by certain terrorist types just after McLane comes a-knocking, everyone's favourite NYPD detective smells one of his famous rats, and the pair come into the orbit of Thomas Gabriel (a very overplayed, would-be psychotic Timothy Olyphant), a very bitter former NSA computer expert, who's out to teach Uncle Sam a thing or two by systematically shutting America down, via the internet. A so-called Fire Sale - everything must go...

All well and good - these days, it doesn't sound any more unlikely a plan than, say, flying jet airliners into tall buildings or blowing yourself up on the Metro. Unfortunately, whether due to budget restrictions or simple laziness on the parts of director Len Wiseman and writer Mark Bomback, we never really get to see what the awe-inspiring and terrifying consequences of such action might be, short of a few nasty traffic pile-ups and lots of lights going out. To wit, McLane isn't really put through much hell before, inevitably, he starts getting well-'ard with the terrorists.

Much praise has been heaped on the stunts which are, in keeping with the 'Timex hero in a digital age' theme, nearly all genuine rather than CGI- based but, whether they're blue-screened or for real, things exploding are still just loud bangs if there's little or no suspense. Let's face it, charming though Willis still is (and this instalment's buddy-buddy factor works pretty well, thanks to an intelligent, twitchy turn from Long), there is never any doubt that it's going to be McLane victorious and, once again, entirely at ease with having just killed some 15-20 people.

Credibility was there in spades in Die Hard, despite its 'high concept' narrative - by part four, rhyme and reason seem to have been finally sacrificed for box-office certainties. A shame.

In cinemas now. Running time: 127 mins.

Shit and Run

Death Proof reviewed by James Drew

It really must have seemed like a great idea at the time. Quentin Tarantino teamed up with Sin City director Robert Rodriguez for a 70s sleaze-fest double bill, Grindhouse, which combines Rodriguez's zombie-schlock-splatter extravaganza Planet Terror with Tarantino's offering, Death Proof, plus several fake 70s-style trailers.

Guess what? In what must be a first for QT, the double-bill bombed, was panned at Cannes, and so is now being split into the two films for worldwide release, of which Death Proof is the first to be released in Belgium.

Alongside the adulation, Tarantino has long had his naysayers - despite the obvious brilliance of Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Kill Bill (I+II), detractors have pointed to the waste of time and money that was Jackie Brown and labelled him as a director obsessed with style over substance, so-called sassy dialogue over coherent narrative - a movie brat masquerading as Hitchcock (and his cameos don't help, either).

This reviewer would previously have pooh-poohed such as heresy, but no more. Just so there are no surprises in store, let it be known that Death Proof is, without a doubt, the worst, most self-indulgent piece of cinematic codswallop in some time - 'great' director or not.

Complete with all the 70s trimmings ('Our Feature Presentation' jingle at the start (charming in Kill Bill because of what followed), grainy colour under- and over-exposure, 'unintentional' jump-cuts, dialogue that's repeated, get the drift?) we have here a story of auto-slasher killer Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), a man who gets off on the high-impact pile-up.

During a near-interminable 110 minutes, he victimises two groups of four juicy babes (Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Jordan Ladd, Sydney Poitier (who has, to be fair, got absolutely glorious legs), Rose McGowan, Tracie Thoms, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Zoë Bell) with his 'death proof' 70s Dodge Charger.

'Stuntman''s car comes from a time before CGI effects in the movies, hence it's designed to allow stuntmen to survive any auto-accident, no matter how outrageous. He's got a little extra juice under the bonnet, too - handy for when you want to pile-drive your unsuspecting victims' car at 200mph.

Sounds like a riot, doesn't it? Well, at a pinch, with the genuinely exciting mega car- chase that brings a blessed end to proceedings, it might have been, had it only filled a half-hour 'Quentin Tarantino Presents' episode. Unfortunately, old QT (who also wrote and makes his inauspicious cinematography-director debut here) obviously reckons that 70s visuals overload and non-stop, teeth-grindingly irritating 'sassy girl talk' will hold the attention indefinitely.

They don't. They so don't. On, and on, and on it goes - imagine the opening diner scene in...Dogs or the Jack Rabbit Slims Thurman/Travolta chat in Pulp Fiction extended to 90-odd minutes, and you might get the picture. As a result, not only are you brutally bored by the girls' blabbering blah-blah, any sympathy/support for them in their plight hits the road hard and fast.

Worse, though, is the waste of Russell, a great actor from the 70s/early 80s films that inspired Tarantino and Rodriguez (Elvis (1979), Escape From New York (1981), The Thing (1982), in this doggerel. He's not frightening. He's barely sinister. Dark charm is about as good as his character achieves - and Russell has always had that in spades, anyway.

So there you have it. Will the real Quentin Tarantino step forward, please?

In cinemas now. Running time: 110 mins.