reviews
SATIRE Fight Club
(18) 133 mins at ir it *
Provocative, abusive. subversive and very. very funny
In the opening scene the camera pans up out of Edward Norton's gut, along the barrel of a gun Brad Pitt has stuck in his mouth, drops off the side of a high rise bank building and down to the basement, where it enters a van through a bullet hole in the rear window to reveal an enormous bomb before flying back up top. The final scene is gloriously nihilistic, and in between brutal bare knuckle fights, biting satire on consumerism and scathing comment on the breakdown of man's role in society pummel the
audience into submission.
Jim Uhls' adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel directed by David Fincher (Seven) is provocative, abusive, subversive and very, very funny. That's a combination that hasn’t much been in evidence in American cinema since the 705 when films like Network, M'A *S*H and Easy Rider stuck a finger in the air at the Man and said, 'Swivel on that, motherfucker.’
Palahniuk’s source novel is stuffed full of ideas - he is the Kurt Vonnegut of our generation - and to them Fincher and Uhls bring manic pacing, warped visuals and a surreal sense of mischief (see if you can catch the subliminal messages). Norton and Pitt are as dynamic as ever as, respectively, the washed out yuppie and charismatic misanthrope who start a revolution with no more sophisticated an action than beating the crap out of each other in a desperate attempt to get in touch with their lost masculinity. Ultimately, the political/economic satire implodes on itself, but that's the point. Includes six deleted scenes. (Miles Fielder)
I Released to own on video through Twentieth Century Fox priced £74.99. Chuck Palahniuk appears at Borders Books, Glasgow on Fri 70 Nov (see Books
preview).
RENTAL Galaxy Quest
(PG) 97 mins H: H:
Spoofs are dangerous things, most likely to go horribly wrong (see exhibit
A: Spaceba/ls). Galaxy Quest is a rare
exception. Tim Allen, Alan Rickman
and Sigourney Weaver lead a cast of a
SCI-fl TV show, Galaxy Quest, who are
mistaken for real interstellar adventurers by a race of aliens who need help to fight a barbaric space tyrant. It cleverly pokes fun at egotistical actors and obsessive fans of shows like Star Trek, most particularly, and is extremely funny Without being trainspottery. (Universal)
(Mark Robertson)
Kevin And Perry Go Large
(15) 80 mins at it
Comedy films are like comedy records. They rarely do justice to either medium. Kevin And Perry Go Large, an
excuse for Harry Enfield and Kathy Burke to go on location in Ibiza with
126 THE “ST 2-l6 Nov 2000
their much loved adolescent double- act, is not worthy of critICism as cinema (it makes Morcambe and Wise's That Riviera Touch look ambitious) and, as comedy, it does nothing that Enfield's TV show doesn't do more succinctly and with rather more class. It would have been better cramming its handful of jokes into a ten-minute sketch. (Warner) (Mark Fisher)
Mission To Mars
(PG) 109 mins * it
Martians, slick special effects, Tim Robbins, Gary Sinese and all directed
‘ by Brian de Palma — surely this will be great. But somehow it isn’t.
Communication with the first Mars landing party is lost, so our c0urageous heroes set off into the unknown on a rescue mission. Basically this is a 2007 rip off with added action and the cheesiest script this side of Jupiter. The dialogue is naff and the final fifteen minutes are so corny and predictable that you end up laughing in all the wrong places. (Buena Vista)
(Henry Northmore)
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Thomas And The Magic Railroad (U) 79 mins * 1k
Britt Allcroft, creator of the Thomas The Tank Engine animated television series, climbs aboard for this big screen version of the Reverend Wilbur Awdry children’s books. And it’s a bizarre ride, mixing live action with willfully quaint animation, aimed squarely at under tens. Whilst children will be lapping up the story in which Thomas aids The Conductor (Alec Baldwin) against the evil Diesel train, adults will be wondering what happened to Allcroft's classic series narrated by Ringo Starr. Surely it was never this juvenile! (Warner) (Alan Smithee)
The Whole Nine Yards (15) 98 mins Jr it it
Jonathan Lynn's screwball crime comedy that teams fidgety Matthew Perry with laid-back Bruce Willis. Nicholas Ozeransky (Perry) is a hen- pecked Montreal dentist whose shrewish French-Canadian wife (Rosanna Arquette) has saddled him with her late father’s debts. Jimmy 'The Tulip' Tudeski (Willis) is the affable hit- man who has just moved in next door. Not hard to tell what happens next, but though Willis and Perry never step outSide of their respective screen personas, the pairing of works surprisingly well. (Warner)
(Alan Smithee)
RETAIL
Donald Cammell’s Wild Side
(18)111mins 4r Ht
Notoriously, Cammel's (co-director of Performance) final film was butchered by his producers shortly before he shot himself. Cammell's Wife and his editor rescued Wild Side and painstaking re- edited it from sexploitation B-movie travesty to the psycho-sexual thriller the director intended. It’s an interesting, enjoyable, if uneven film in which the OTT Christopher Walken was clearly encouraged to chew the furniture. Though there’s good support from Anne Heche and Joan Chen. The DVD includes interviews With Cammell’s collaborators plus the late filmmaker’s own argument. (Tartan £15.99; £19.99 on DVD) (Miles Fielder)
Magnolia
(18) 186 mins i: t ir * it
Is Paul Thomas Anderson the new Orson Welles? After the majestic sweep of Boogie Nights came this even more audaCious epic about one extraOrdinary day in the San Fernando Valley as a bunch of peOple find their lives switch into revelatory mode. Flawless performances (Tom CrUIse and William H. May have never been better While Julianne Moore is as mea5ured as ever), exqumte writing and an exhilarating score by Aimee Mann. Undoubtedly, one of the 90s defining Cinematic statements. (Entertainment £12.99, £14.99 Widescreen) (Brian Donaldson)
5'35 HMV
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Of Freaks And Men
(18) 89 mins it x x x it
Absolutely mesmerising tale of pornography set in turn of the 20th century St Petersburg that’s by turns erotic, Sinister and funny. Handsome pornographer Johann and his creepy aSSistant Victor insinuate themselves into the lives of two wealthy families Where they find subjects for their erotic films including a pair of Siamese twins. Filmed in sepia tone and With an eerie soundtrack, this is like nothing you've seen before. Not much in the way of extras on the DVD, though. (Tartan £15.99; £19.99 on DVD) (Miles Fielder)
STAR RATINGS
it it it it it. Unmissable
* at 1k * Very 00d
3': it at Wort a shot
* * Below average
it You've been warned j