Reviews

I don't follow the rationale that says that a film that has only adequate direction and okay acting and then gives it 3 out of 5. I agree that Willem Dafoe gives one of the better performances, but you cannot hang a movie around one role, and one that is effectively a cameo at that. The sexual innuendo is puerile and lends the whole thing the air of a grubby schoolboy fantasy, somewhat like the Bored of the Rings spoof computer role playing game in the 80s. That seems to be the best explanation for JJL and Jude Law's sudden outbreak of lust during the film; that they satisfy some pubescent urge, rather than adding to or advancing the film and its narrative. The film is not misleading or confusing; it's simply very badly structured and the ending predictable and unsatisfying. It doesn't challenge the intellect; rather it insults it.

I've seen a lot of Cronenberg's earlier work and at times this seems like a pastiche, when I had expected considerably better things of him.

The themes of technology, reality versus fantasy and the loss of identity are rich for exploration in film (perhaps the most efficient warping of reality), and the subject of many a paranoia, but they have not been well served by this film.

Dark City was dark and twisted but that managed not to alienate and irritate its audience. Even The Truman Show managed a better stab at the topic than our Canadian auteur. For a better consideration of these themes then I would suggest consulting the works of Philip K. Dick and for a better directed version than The Matrix, which has just opened in the UK. Oh, and if I choose to use the term 'suckfest' then it is because I consider that the movie deserves such a low colloquialism.

First stumbled across late one Friday night on Tv, this is a much maligned little film. Sure, it's a little odd, perhaps confrontational given the (alleged) morality of it's era but once you get over your initial surprise that Dean Martin star of so many truly awful Jerry Lewis films made something as quirky as this, then it's well worth staying up until two in the morning like I did. Dean Martin gives a good performance as - well, Dean Martin, but the show gets stolen by the husband and wife whose marriage is busy falling apart in smalltown America when Martin turns their world topsy turvy. Wilder, it seems, cannot make bad movies and this is a refreshing twist on the now over-used "handsome stranger stuck in small town after car trouble scenario." Much better than everyone claims....