Waiting…
Dir: Rob McKittrick
So here it comes again. Middle America’s younger generation are suffering from various levels of dissatisfaction at being stuck in their minimum wage jobs. Hear that faint sound of déjà vu in the distance?

Waiting… is a grand amalgamation of Clerks and Empire Records with a bit of snotty American Pie-style teenery thrown in for some good-looking measure. In fact, the restaurant in question looks somewhat like the producers of the OC vomited all over it. We couldn’t possibly have realistic-looking waiters now, could we?

 

The characters are all standard teen-disillusionment fare. Van Wilder plays the Jason Lee-Stifler-like character who’s ridiculously pretty for a waiter and got the chilled, macho, ‘I’m a bad-boy, me’ act down to the eatery floor. Typically, the staff are populated with the slutty-looking gobby girls, the near-middle-aged chefs and a couple of sensitive souls just trying to figure out their lot in life. And what teen-flick would be complete without their very own lukewarm Jay and Silent Bob? Except this time the fat fuck ain’t so silent. Take your time to marvel at the all-too-frequent cliché of the white, middle class wannabe gangstas.

 

Of course, no film like this would be complete without its ‘quirks’ which manifest here as the Dick Showing game. Yes, if a male colleague manages to flash his genitalia at another then the recipient gets called a ‘fag’ and is given a kick up the arse. If you squint you can see the testosterone dripping from the walls as each ‘man’ livens up the day’s dull proceedings. ‘Lad culture’ really has a lot to answer for.

 

 

We’ve all seen this type of film before. Some, like Clerks, do it to perfection, back when it was still vaguely original. Others are less adept. The closing credits even include a thanks to Kevin Smith and a commendation to the character Randall for their inspiration to Waiting… Plenty of waiters and waitresses around the world will no doubt identify with the subject matter here but this film still isn’t anything like as clever or witty as it thinks it is.

 

 

 

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Dir: Mike Newell
Potter is back, oh yes, make no mistake, and it’s all change at Hogwarts.

First up, all of a sudden the kids have begun to notice each other. In that way. Yes, the rude way. Watch out mums and dads, there may be some hopeful glances and sexual tension in this flick. Hermione has turned into something of a hottie herself but we also have to contend with the casting of new hotties in the characters of Fleur Delacour, Cho Chang, Victor Krum and Cedric Diggory. That’s potentially one rather titillating night out, but fear not folks; it’s still a family film.

 

Now that he’s the grand old age of 14 Harry has to contend with brand new evils: girls. The Yule Ball is coming up and he has to find a girl to ask and then get her to say yes. And does he manage it? Of course not, he is a boy after all and not being wonderfully great at ‘getting things done’ he and Ron get stuck with two girls whom they have not even a passing interest in.

 

To find the girl to play the character of Harry’s crush the film makers trawled through 5,000 potential actresses and came up with the one with the least acting experience of all. That being none. Not a scrap. Well, she must have been doing something right. The role went to 18-year-old Katie Leung and very nice she looks too.

Not only did, director, Newell and his pals scour the country for his child actors, they also scoured the planet too. A genuine French girl (Poesy Clemence) has been cast in the role of Fleur, the Beaxbatons Triwizard nominee, and, after combing Bulgaria to find Victor Krum they eventually found what they were looking for right at home in London. The actor Stanislav Ianevski, a real life Bulgarian, was discovered at boarding school over here.

 

Another change that’s been made for the fourth film is the hiring of a British director. Yes, really. After three films using an American and then a Mexican the powers that be finally decided to use a homegrown man to make the homegrown films. And this ain’t just any British director. Oh no, we have the only man who was smart enough to cast Johnny Depp and Al Pacino in the same film (Donnie Brasco). Yes, really. He also made the it’s-cool-to-slag-it-off-but-you-know-you-like-it-really Four Weddings and a Funeral.

 

In other words, this is not just a kids’ film. It has not been made to imitate a normal kids’ film and it’s also been giving the rating of 12A. Meaning that it’s not necessarily appropriate for anyone who isn’t in the beginnings of puberty thanks to some fast paced, violent and frightening sequences.

 

Other new editions to the cast include some the finest of the cream of the acting crop. The wonderful Miranda Richardson is cast as nosy reporter Rita Skeeter, the woman who takes it upon herself to prove to the world that Harry Potter is an attention-seeking fraud. Richardson, who you may know from such programmes as Blackadder (where she played the squeaky Elizabeth I), and Sleepy Hollow.

 

As scary Lord Voldemort (which must have been truly difficult to cast) is Ralph “Rayff” Fiennes, for whom they used an impressively small amount of make up. Instead of relying on mammoth amounts of CGI to make him look frightening, minimal amounts of prosthetics were used to give him a translucent pallor and evil-looking veins. It’s up to Ralph to do the rest of the job.

 

It’s about time someone from Only Fools and Horses was cast in a Harry Potter film and the lucky man in question is Roger Lloyd Pack, taking on the role of Ministry of Magic bigwig, Barty Crouch. The man in question being the one who played Trigger and, in the Vicar of Dibley, Owen Newitt.

 

Final newbie to the series is Brendan Gleeson (Kingdom of Heaven, Cold Mountain, Gangs of New York) who becomes Hogwarts teacher, Mad-Eye Moody. Brought in to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, Moody has become a bit on the paranoid side over the years, to the extent where he uses his magical eye to look for danger. Yet all is not what it seems…

 

 

New World
Dir: Terrence Malick
Colin Farrell should be Hollywood gold. Having Terrence Malick, Oliver Stone, Steven Spielberg and Joel Schumacher on your CV reference list is nothing to be sneered at. Yet somehow the boy from Bally K just can’t seem to make a truly decent successful film. The New World is meant to be an epic which it may be in length but fails deplorably in content. More a love story than an adventure of the discovery of America, the main focus is Pocahontas and her beau John Smith (Farrell). Unfortunately, from what we can gather, apart from a liking for bouncing around in fields she seems to have little in the way of a personality. The extent of their love for each other seems to be a lot of stroking and longful gazing into one another’s eyes. And by ‘a lot’ I really do mean ‘a lot’.

As per every other love story ever the two are torn apart when Smith is sent by the King to go discover other places. Enter Christian Bale stage left who also takes a shine to young Pocahontas. And why shouldn’t he? She is a Native American with enough forethought to shave her armpits after all. They end up getting married and… yeah the rest.

 

Though it is a beautifully shot film one does expect one or two more battle sequences and less diegetic music telling us precisely what is beautiful and at which bits we should be feeling sad. At well over two hours long this just isn’t worth sitting through.

 

 

Inside Man
Dir: Spike Lee
One suspects this is going to be one of those films that causes division amongst critics, and possibly audiences too. If you’re a Spike Lee fan or feel that the highs sufficiently outweigh the flaws then you’re on to a winner. But, like it or not, this film is flawed.

Spike Lee it may be but a Spike Lee Joint, as a definition of a sub-genre, it is not. Gone are the poor neighbourhoods and the pizza parlours. Gone are the biopics of high achieving African-Americans. Spike Lee has made an action film complete with twists, turns and fast talking cops.

 

The film opens with a drive through of New York streets set to Indian hip hop with beats heavy enough to get the pulses racing. This may excite the audience from the opening sequence and is a very effective piece of music to use but as the film continues we realise that it doesn’t quite match the tone of the film. It invokes ideas of racial disputes or explosive street scenes but none of these happen because Inside Man is about middle class people trying to steal money from each other whilst high ranking police men try to stop them. There are no underdog heroes in the film but, aside from the opening music, we would never expect there to be.

 

Denzel Washington returns to work with Lee for the fourth time as the slightly-corrupt-yet-good-guy cop put in charge of bringing down a Wall Street bank heist. He gives a typically steady performance with his trademark of ‘saying powerful things at a high volume’ in full use and working order. One almost feels sorry for his partner, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who is forced into his mighty shadow for the entirety of the film. Yet this is not a man who should be underestimated, after his impressive performances in Dirty Pretty Things, Kinky Boots and Love Actually. The London-born actor is certainly a talented one, though we may now have lost him to American filmmakers.

 

As another British actor currently rampaging his way through the American film industry, Clive Owen gives a scene stealing performance as the eerily calm head bank robber. It seems the old tradition of British actors playing the bad guys will never die as, quite plainly, they’re just better at it.

 

Of course, this is no simple bank robbery, as the plot soon unfolds. The exquisitely rich bank owner, played by film veteran Christopher Plummer, is panicked by the presence of some damning materials about him which have been lying in a safety deposit box for 60 years. Not wishing to see his good name sullied he calls upon tough ‘fix it’ girl Madeliene White to rectify the problem. Being a ‘Spike Lee Joint’ any actor who is called upon to do their duty responds without question and the natural choice for this role is, of course, Jodie Foster who happily seizes the opportunity to glam up for a role. By the end of the film we’re still not entirely sure what her job actually is so the term ‘fix it girl’ has been applied.

 

The clever cinematography and ‘beaty’ music keeps the audience enthralled for the most part and the hard hitting entertainment doesn’t let up. All parts of New York society get a mention and the cast come in the form of just about every colour and creed available. Although this feels at times contrived it is refreshing to see a Sikh get a role in a film after the Muslims seem to have been hogging the limelight for so long. These wide representations are kept wisely light and Lee avoids the easy option of coming across preachy.

 

Similarly, Lee knows what to avoid when making films and his mantra of ‘avoid formula at all costs’ is mostly present here. This aversion of cliché makes Inside Man all the easier to watch and plays its part in smoothing out the flaws.

 

The main fault with this film is certain, rather large, plot holes which rear their heads. Why precisely the bank owner would choose to keep such damning material in his bank rather than giving it a good solid destroying many years ago is never answered along with a proper explanation of how on earth the robber pulled off the heist in the first place, unfortunately a potential plot spoiler prevents any further detail here.

 

Essentially, Inside Man is a good film. Its plot reveals slowly without the tempo unravelling and the characters are all three dimensional and well written. A lack of real action may turn away certain hardcore action fans but if you can ignore certain niggling parts of the plot then there’s plenty to like about Inside Man.

 

 

Brothers Grimm
Dir: Terry Gilliam
Poor Terry Gilliam. He doesn’t seem to be having a right lot of luck at the moment. The last film he made was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas way back in 1998 which wound up being a fair way from breaking even. His Don Quixote project never made it to fruition (though it did make a very entertaining documentary in the shape of Lost In La Mancha) and now Brothers Grimm has floundered at the US box office. After the past few years this man has had he really does deserve this project to be a sleeper success.
Grimm and Gilliam should have been a match made in fantasy cinema heaven. Surely the ‘only American in Monty Python’ would be in his element creating costumes, magic and fairy tales. Only Jim Henson (and he’s dead) could have had a better chance at making this work.

So what went wrong? Well Harvey and Bob, that’s what. The two Weinsteins (big wigs from Miramax for those who don’t know) came in at the 11th hour after MGM had pulled out and kept the film in production. They then promptly set about sticking their oars in and making unnecessary changes. Forcing Gilliam into a mainstream position that he doesn’t naturally fall in, they swapped the brilliant Samantha Morton (Minority Report) for the ‘hotter’ Lena Headey in the role of Angelika, the love interest. As a result, her character is unfulfilled and largely two-dimensional. Headley does give what is asked of her but little more. Had she been given the chance to shine, Morton would have brought considerably more integrity to the role.

The Brothers Grimm tells the story, once upon a time (well, 19th Century), of two siblings who make their living as con artists. They travel from village to village in French occupied-Germany convincing the people they are suffering from attacks by fairy tale creatures and then proceed to ‘save’ them from further harm. For a price, of course. This is fine until they are rumbled by, Gilliam favourite, Jonathan Pryce’s French nobleman who packs them off with the mission to stop another couple of tricksters in a nearby village. But all is not what it seems when they discover missing children and a real magical curse set over a forest.
The casting of Matt Damon and Heath Ledger as the double act of the title is another ‘standard’ choice. Ledger has clearly been working hard to make the world forget about his rom-com, teen-schmick past. Parts in Monster’s Ball and Lords of Dogtown have done their bit in upping his ‘real actor’ status and his performance eclipses Damon’s as Jacob, the brother obsessed with fairy tale stories. Here is a man that has bags of movie-star potential. Only time will tell if he lives up to his, slowly building, hype or go the road of Colin Farrell.

Not being without some typical non-mainstream inclusions, we are treated to a man getting torn in half and the gruesome death of, wait for it, a kitten. Yes this is a film to viewed with a macabre sense of humour and without the need for accuracy. Apparently German people have northern English accents, by the way.

Ultimately, however, this film just don’t ride. Lack of real structure, underdeveloped love story and a partial absence in atmosphere really let the side down. This is Terry Gilliam doing fairy tales. It should have been filled with dark Time Bandits-esq visions and even darker humour. Damn those Weinsteins.