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The Magic Flute
- By Paul Bullock
When you hear the name Kenneth Brannagh what do you think of? Toff? Luvvie? The guy who played Gildroy Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets? How about visionary director? With his sterling roster of acting achievements its easy to forget that Brannagh has impressed behind the camera as well. Bursting onto the directorial scene with his critically-lauded adaptation of Henry V at the tender age of 29 (Orson Welles was only three years younger when he made Citizen Kane), he quickly proved himself a precocious talent, and cemented his reputation with a handful of other Shakespearean adaps (Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet among them) and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. These films certainly had their flaws (mostly Brannagh's irksome habit of casting either his fellow British thesps or American actors in roles not suited to them), but they were handsomely mounted and ambitious pieces of filmmaking which proved that Branagh has a spark of brilliance about him that suggests he has the capability to make at least one film of bizarre creative genius. The Magic Flute is certainly not that film, but it's further confirmation of his talent. Based on Mozart's opera and updated to the First World War by Branagh and his co-writer Stephen Fry, The Magic Flute is an age old tale of love, magic and good vs evil. And that's about all I can tell you. As someone unfamiliar with the original (and indeed opera as a whole), all but the basic story passed me by and that will certainly prove a massive stumbling block in attracting new fans. Lovers of opera may also find themselves alienated by Brannagh's adaptation, which has been modernised (not just in the setting; there is also some very definitely un-18th Century humour), given a CGI boost and very much turned into a film. Yet, it's for this very reason that The Magic Flute impresses. All too often just recently, the stage has been brought to the screen in lacklustre, unimaginative productions which have acted more as visual souvenirs of the originals than films in their own right. However, Brannagh has, as he does with most of his adaptations, opened the story out and used the medium of cinema to create a visual feast packed with some magnificently outlandish images, from one scene in which a character plunges headfirst into a giant pair of red lips to a marvellously creepy slow pan out of a wall populated by human faces. He is ably supported by a young cast of opera stars who put in some strong performances against the pyrotechnics and manage to convey the emotion of the piece well, so you’ll still be engrossed even if you don’t quite know what’s going on. But it’s the director who stands out more than anything. Once again Brannagh has marshalled a unique, gloriously cinematic piece of film-making that certainly has its flaws, but confirms its director as one of this country's finest (and most underrated) talents.
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A Very British
Gangster
- By James Ellaby
Being the most famous undercover reporter
in the country certainly has its downside.
Like not being able to work undercover.
So Donal McIntyre has been stuck making
little-seen documentaries on Five,
but will be hoping that this movie
- born out of one of those - will
lead to better things. A Very British
Gangster sees him following the life
of notorious Mancunian ganglord Dominic
Noonan (aka Lattlay Fottfoy, or 'Look
after those that look after you, fuck
off those who fuck off you') and while
he's not undercover he still manages
to get his subject and associates
to open up to him. Of course, the
issue with a documentary when compared
to undercover reportage is that everyone
is aware that they are being filmed,
which instantly changes what they
say and how they say it, so you're
never quite sure what to take with
a pinch of salt, and Noonan is neccessarily
coy about his crimes. There's plenty
of them of course, and he's involved
in three separate court cases during
the duration of filming, while events
take a real shift when Dominic's even-more-notorious
brother Dessie gets stabbed and murdered
in Chorlton. Anyone round here will
have to remember his funeral, which
was one of Manchester's biggest and
grandest of recent years, like something
from The Godfather or The Sopranos.
McIntyre's direction of this documentary
is well aware of the parallels between
real life and fiction, and he explains
in the making-of-featurette that people
like Noonan like to live their lives
as if they were Tony Soprano, so he
illustrates this with explicit references
like the frequent use of Alabama 3
songs (along with Oasis tunes to highlight
the Mancunianness of it all) and numerous
shots of Noonan driving that echo
The Sopranos credit sequence. By doing
it this way, McIntyre runs the risk
of A Very British Gangster being one
of those laddish "well 'ard" glamorisations
of crime and gang-life, but one thing
this film is definitely not is glamorous,
and if you watch the lives that these
people live in some of Manchester's
poorest areas. More importantly, he
recognises the real story isn't what
Noonan of his young drug dealers have
to say for themselves, but it's the
tragedy of his young son and his godson,
both of whom are innocent lads now,
but seem to have little hope of escaping
their circumstances or their family's
business. If McIntyre gets nothing
else across to you from this excellent
documentary, then that tragedy should
certainly hit home.
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The Tripper
- By James Ellaby
A horror film where the serial killer wears
a Ronald Reagan mask? Directed by David
Arquette? Yes, this is truly a very bizarre
movie indeed, which sees a bunch of neo-hippies
travelling to a music festival in the California
redwoods where they get picked off by the
axe-wielding Reagan-obsessed Republican
psychopath. And that's about it in terms
of plot, mainly because this is Arquette's
homage to the cheesy slasher films he cherishes
so dearly, and for better and for worse,
The Tripper is certainly very much like
those. That means a load of irritaing characters,
senseless violence and little else, other
than the rather obvious satirical political
side of a film where 'Reaan' hacks up hippies,
though Arquette isn't too heavy-handed in
that sense, with the victims hardly shining
beacons of humanity. One of them's played
by Jason Mewes (Jay from 'and Silent Bob'
fame, basically playing Jay with short hair) for crying out loud, and they spend
most of their time getting high on various
illegal substances. Arquette and wife (and co-producer) Courteney Cox both appear in the film, along with Thomas Janes, Paul Reubens, Lukas Haas and Jaime King, meaning that there's plenty of familiar faces around, but they struggle to lift an uninspiring script that lacks the kind of comic sparkle or serious horror edge to make any of it worthwhile. It may be an homage to rubbish horror films, but surely that doesn't mean that it actually has to be a rubbish horror film too? Fans of cheap slasher flicks might enjoy it, but you'd probably have to be as high as the hippies to get any real fun from it.
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Flashpoint -
By James Ellaby
There's two kinds of kung-fu films it seems. There's the ones that are like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero or House Of A Thousand Daggers, and they are almost balletic in style, epic in scale and are extremely well-made and classy. And then there's the other kind, the vast majority in fact, which are all like Flashpoint. Directed by Wilson Yip and starring Donnie Yen, it tells the tale of a violent cop who does what he needs to do to get the job done, even if the squares at city hall don't like it. Etc. If he has to break a few bones to bring the bad guys to justice, then so be it. There's a new Triad gang in town though, and Detective Ma (Yen) has just had his ass busted by the authorities for some maverick thing or other, so it's a matter of pride and vengance when an undercover cop gets hurt by the gang, and Ma has to really kick some serious ass to bring them down. We're talking a 20-minute fight scene at the end. Yeah! Unfortunately, it's all so braindead that the only real pleasure any sane person will get from it is laughing at some the more odd subtitles that crop up (like one cop calling another one 'a naked hunky man' for no good reason. Flashpoint is a film that doesn't have much going for it other than a glossy style and lots of slow-mo kung-fun stuff. If that's your bag then great, but don't expect this to be like Hero or those kind of films, beacuse it is for die-hard fans only.
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