January 2007 Archives

Although not based on a true story but rather "inspired by real-life characters" ‘The Last King of Scotland’ chronicles the rise to power (and corruption) of General Idi Amin. This is done via our hero, and the token Scotsman of the picture, Nicholas Garrigan (played by James McAvoy).

Garrigan is a newly qualified doctor and after graduating feels the need for some excitement and ends up helping a rural medical outpost run by two Englishers Dr and Sarah Merrit (Adam Kotz and Gillian Anderson respectively). Fate lends a hand and Garrigan ends up accepting an appointment to General Amin, who has recently secured his coup in Uganda, as his personal physician. From here Garrigan is sucked into the lavish and yet dangerous lifestyle that his position provides.

As films go I found this to be one of the most absorbing features I’ve seen for quite some time. The implausible situation that arises is carried along by outstanding performances by the entire cast. Of particular note is the exceptionally unsettling performance of Forest Whitaker as General Amin, who alternates between dangerous charisma and outright insanity. McAvoy, playing the young doctor, is essentially a bit of a straight-man to Whitaker’s role, but carries the part so convincingly that you get whisked along with his rocky career. Anderson provides reliable and understated support, and Simon McBurney plays the creepy foreign office man with vitriolic conviction.

‘The Last King of Scotland’ could have turned out to have been a very drawn out affair. However, the choice of pacing by director Kevin MacDonald (who directed ‘Touching the Void’) keeps you often on the edge of your seat and desperate for more by the time the credits start to roll. The cinematography is excellent but not over the top, reminding me of ‘The Constant Gardener’ – in fact Anthony Dod Mantle has worked on many movies before including ‘Dogville’.

***** (out of 5)

There has for some time been that little voice of reason in the back of my mind trying to persuade me that I drink far too much. I'd always dismissed such thoughts with the justification that if I didn't need a drink before lunchtime that my alcohol intake was not yet of concern, plus I knew that I wasn't yet at the stage of running away from the police, can of special-brew in hand, dodging the passer's by on Mill Road. It doesn't help that, in general, my friends are far too polite to mention when they think I've had enough to drink (not that some of them are in a position to talk).

A week before Christmas, I had the opportunity to re-evaluate my drinking situation, when after a particularly heavy all day session I not only found myself throwing up for 12 hours, but unable to keep solid food down for 2 days and getting a fever to boot. The crunch came when after a few more days, my internal organs decided they were still suffering and permitted me to only eat the tiniest amounts of food on Christmas Day before feeling uncomfortably nauseous and bloated. The following days the rumbling continued; stomach cramps after eating a light breakfast of cornflakes and milk, only relieved with the goodness of a swig of gaviscon.

The luxury of spending several days in bed, due to self inflicted illness, gave me some time for reflection on my drinking.

As long as I can remember, I'd usually go out of an evening with the intention of drinking as much as I could with little thought to the consequences of such an action. From my very first week at University (sick on the bonnet of my car after staggering out of the student bar), chugging numerous cider and whisky chasers, to spending entire weekends drunk at sci-fi conventions (I'm not proud), smuggling bottles of chartreuse in my trench coat pockets, throwing up in the office after drinking champagne, beer and gin, knowing how late I could time it to the pub in order to get drunk enough on vodka and tonic's before closing time, collapsing in the hallway and sleeping on the carpet instead of making it up the stairs, it appears this has been a recurring feature of my adult life.

So since that fateful date on the 21^st December, I figured it was the sensible thing to stop drinking alcohol, and I haven't had a drop since.

No longer do I wake up bleary eyed at 9:00am, a blinding hangover, and fumbling for a reasonable excuse to be late for work. Gone are the days of throwing up on the train (both at night and in the morning), collapsing in the piss ridden hell that is the onboard toilet facility. Banished are the drunken conversations that I barely remember, with strangers I'd go out of my way to avoid when sober. I feel more alert, wake up 2 hours earlier, and I've already achieved more this year than I managed in the last 6 months. Most astonishingly (and this is a damning indictment of the level of my drinking), I have lost 15 lbs in weight since I gave up alcohol.

And when I can learn to enjoy a drink rather than to drink for drinks sake, perhaps I'll have a glass of wine with dinner, but until then…

A big hit on the art-house scene, the movie ‘Shortbus’ provocatively launches into the world of sexual relationships. The story is set in New York and follows the lives of various individuals, some of whom are in “normal” pairings, some are single, and some are just downright odd.

There are three central plot lines; the first follows Sophia (Sook-Yin Lee) and Rob (Raphael Barker) – concentrating mainly on Sophia who is a relationship councillor who has never experienced an orgasm. The second couple are Jamie (PJ DeBoy) and James (Paul Dawson), who are experiencing a troubled time. The final story revolves around the enigmatic Severin (Lindsay Beamish), a wound-up dominatrix character.

After a climactic (Sophia excepted) introductory sequence cutting rapidly between the antics of the main protagonists, our characters all end up at “The Shortbus”, a bohemian sex lounge where no taboos appear to exist. From there the story follows the separate threads as the characters explore, titillate, or just – to my mind at least – attempt to create new and interesting sexually-transmitted diseases.

To my desensitised but irreverent mind the main downfall of ‘Shortbus’, is that it portrays monogamous heterosexual relationships as being far from the norm. Given the portrayals displayed within the realms of the film, a naïve viewer would probably blunder out of the auditorium in a mild state of confusion. Whilst exploring the tricky subject of sex, the film assumes that the audience is mature enough to make their own decisions about the various, and often intriguing, shenanigans presented to them. Unfortunately the film appears to backfire somewhat and comes across as piece of shock cinema. The phrase “the fall of the Roman Empire” kept bouncing through my head, especially in the American national anthem scene.

I applaud the film for its no-holds-barred approach to telling the story. However, I did feel that the film was almost like a gayed-up version of ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ in as much as the characters all act with that self-obsessed desire for personal gratification without so much consideration to the people they were interacting with.

Having said which I did enjoy the humour within the film, and especially the more quirky scenes. For me, the minature cardboard-like model of New York used to link the various locations together stole the show.

*** (out of 5)

Everyone knows that you cannot capture on film that sense we call "smell", and therefore the essential fact remains that the story ‘Perfume’ as written will remain, in either its original printed and its newly interpreted cinematic form, merely a representation of that physical manifestation.

As filmgoers we must immediately dispense with any notion that ‘Perfume’ is going to give us an olfactory experience beyond smelling the rest of the crowd, and often their chosen foodstuff, in which we are seated! Therefore the film’s greatest possible challenge is scuppered from the outset, but does this really matter?

The answer to this question can be alluded to by comparing it with other films where the story-line does have a strong descriptive element in relation to smell. Any of the ‘Hannibal Lecter’ tales will do, and fans will remember the classic line "…and sometimes you wear ‘L’Air du Temps’, but not today.". In scenes where it is important the filmmaker can give enough information to allude to the scents and aromas experienced by our characters. However, where the fragrances are so central to the descriptive elements of the film and the characterisation of the parts, then the trick does not appear to work so well. Certainly flashing up signs such as "THE SMELL OF ORANGES" on the screen would wear a bit thin after a while and annoy the audience. So other techniques must be used.

Tom Tykwer (Run Lola, Run) appears to make use of colour throughout the film to draw our attention to interesting smells. Usually, and please consider this idea is based on a single viewing of the film, it appears that more vibrant colours on screen represent nicer smells. More often the objects, or persons in question draw the viewers’ attention to the source in question.

That’s enough hypothesis, now how about the rest of the movie? On balance I think I really enjoyed the film. The story is exceptionally simple, not least because the knowledge of who has caused the murders is apparent from the outset. This is not the main thrust of the film. We are introduced to the captured killer, the gifted and yet oh-so-simple Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw – of Nathan Barley fame, to name but one!). The tale then jumps, in rather a formulaic way back to Jean-Baptiste’s birth and troubled upbringing. The film is visually stunning and engrossing. Rather than spoiling further plot elements, as divulging much here will rather dilute the film, I will only say that as the film proceeds the pace changes significantly to a more leisurely rate. To my mind this was necessary, and whilst the young-adult Jean-Baptiste’s path seems directly mapped in front of him there are one or two cinematic surprises in store.

Some of the best actors are brought in for supporting roles, Dustin Hoffmann as the defunct perfumer and Alan Rickman as the father of one of the killer’s main obsessions, are both excellent as you would expect. Rickman gets to show off his extreme emotion acting skills in one very important scene.

Unfortunately this is really all there is to say about ‘Perfume’, it’s a very good film, excellently acted by all especially Whishaw who has a difficult part to play. The effects and cinematography are all impressive. And so on and so forth, so it must have been difficult to balance the needs of staying true to the book whilst producing a screenplay interesting enough to show about a subject matter that lends itself better to paper than celluloid. An interesting experiment and possibly a film that in years to come will lend itself to a technologic upgrade!

****1/2 (out of 5)

Having recently relocated one of the peripheral nofear reporting centres to more prestigious quarters in Cambridge we were pleased to enlist the help of various house history investigation companies to find out more about our purchase.

Not only was it intriguing to find out how the name of the road had changed over the years, we also discovered that this individual house would have been home to 7 people in its original form!  How times have changed!