Thursday December 8
Little Fockers [M-Net.09.30]
KILLING DRIVER OR SHOULD THAT READ DRIVING KILLER?
Faster [M-Net.00.30]
The Stepfather [M-Net.02.40]
Friday December 9
IRISH DIRECTOR NEIL JORDAN
Ondine [M-Net.09.30]
Paranormal Activity 2 [M-Net.21.30]
Greenberg [M-Net.00.10]
The Stone Angel [M-Net.04.00]
Saturday December 10
The Kids Are Alright [M-Net.21.00]
INDEED
I Know What You Did Last Summer [e.tv.21.55 and 02.10]
Sunday December 11
The Tourist [M-Net.20.05]
Fighting [M-Net.00.30]
Monday December 12
Living Out Loud [M-Net.09.30]
The Sunset Limited [M-Net.22.30]
Ondine [M-Net.01.00]
Tuesday December 13
The Kids Are Alright [M-Net.01.30]
Greenberg [M-Net.03.15]
Snow White: A Tale of Terror [SABC3.01.00]
Wednesday December 14
The Tourist [M-Net.22.30]
Paranormal Activity 2 [M-Net.01.15]
***
THE DREADED CODE
One of the finest movies to come out of Hollywood in the 1930s was a film called These Three, directed by William Wyler, based on a hit Broadway play by Lillian Hellman named The Children’s Hour. Because of The Hayes Code, rigorously enforced at the time, both the plot and the title had to be changed.
MERLE OBERON WAS A HOLLYWOOD GREAT
Yet, somehow both Merle Oberon and Miriam Hopkins who play two single women with a intensely delicate relationship manage to convey their feelings for each other without saying a word. Such can be the power of great acting and sensitive direction.
SHIRLEY MACLAINE AS MARTHA AND AUDERY HEPBURN AS KAREN IN THE CHILDREN'S HOUR- Keira Knightley recently played Karen in a London stage revival
Over the next 70 years, English speaking cinema has had a rather skittish association with films about same sex relationships. In 1961, Wyler remade These Three, complete with the original title and a sniff of the Hellman plotline. Although Audery Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine starred, the film wasn't nearly as moving or emotive as the strangely titled These Three.
SUSANNAH YORK AND BERYL REID CAMP IT UP IN THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE
Others range from standard male fantasy (The Fox), to ludicrous stereotyping (The Killing of Sister George) to Personal Best, one of the most empathetic lesbian movie until Lisa Cholodenko made The Kids Are Alright [ M-Net.Saturday.21.00 and Tuesday.01.30], released last year
BENING AND MOORE
The movie sees a committed couple, Annette Bening and Julianne Moore, with teenage offspring facing a crisis triggered by the appearance of their children’s biological sperm donor father.
ANNETTE BENING AND JULIANNE MOORE FLANK DIRECTOR LISA CHOLODENKO
The movie, also written Cholodenko in collaboration with Stuart Blumberg, is funny, truthful and warmly satisfying. Mark Ruffalo is off beat and pleasing as the free range father, and well, the kids, Mia Wasikowska (recently Tim Burdon’s Alice) and Josh Hutcherson, are more than alright.
THE EXTENDED, RATHER EDGY FAMILY
The film is about real people with real emotions told with humour and insight. The Kids Are Alright is not a gay movie; it is a movie about ordinary people who happen to be gay.
A SUPERB PERFORMANCE FROM ANNETTE BENING
Annette Bening won a well deserved Oscar nomination for The Kids Are Alright. She’s never actually won; this year, she lost to Natalie Portman. In her time, Bening has also lost to Hilary Swank twice—one shudders and asks WHY?—and Whoopi Goldberg back in 1990. Her day will (hopefully) come.
THESE TWO
Ignore the tabloids, the tattle and the toddlers; Angelina Jolie can be a fearsomely good actress. However, teamed with Johnny Depp in The Tourist [M-Net.Sunday.20.05 and Wednesday.22.30]; the talented twosome brew a potentially potent blend that, unfortunately, doesn’t quite gel. Johnny leaves most of his acting to his right eyebrow, while Jolie seems a trifle distracted. As thrillers go, not that thrilling.
BE WARNED, THIS IS NOT A ROMANTIC COMEDY
Since winning an Oscar almost 20 years ago, Holly Hunter’s career has had its ups and downs. She stars with Danny de Vito and Queen Latifah in Living Out Loud [M-Net.Monday.09.30], a slice of urban life, with strong Chekhovian overtones; in fact the screenplay is loosely based on two stories by the great Russian writer.
ALWAYS IN KEY- BILLY STRAYHORN
With that kind of influence, don’t necessarily expect a happy ending; but, what an opening; Queen Latifah doing a version of Billy Strayhorn’s Lush Life.
BURSTYN AS ALICE
Another Oscar Winner from way back, is Ellen Burstyn, I’ve always had a soft spot for her; she somehow set the tone for the 70s when she created Alice (Doesn’t Live Here Anymore) for Martin Scorsese.
BURSTYN AS HAGAR
We see her character stretch across the decades in an adaptation of Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel [M-Net.Friday.04.00]; the role of Hagar Shipley is not a sympathetic one but Burstyn does a fine job in a Canadian film directed by Kari Skogland.
A DARKER SHADE OF (SNOW) WHITE
Sigourney Weaver, who has quivered in Meryl Streep’s shadow for more years than she cares to mention, certainly helps to reinstate the Grimm in Snow White: A Tale of Terror [SABC3.Tuesday.01.00]. Weaver plays it as it should be; after all, strip Disney from the story and Snow White melts into a nasty, horror blood fest, festooned with an array of unpleasant characters, including those seven strange little men.
A SUMMER LONG AGO
By now everybody knows what Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Gosling and Freddie Prinze did in that movie [e.tv.Saturday.21.50 and 02.10]. Just by way of contrast, what are they doing this summer?
GELLAR AND PRINZE TODAY
Well, Hewitt is writing a sequel to her book The Day I Shot Cupid, Gosling has been seen locally while Gellar and Prinze spend most of their copious free time being married to each other.
INNOVATIVE WRITER/DIRECTOR/PRODUCER OREN PELI
Watching even the most innocent footage on a security camera can be disconcerting, even a little unnerving. Director Oren Peli took advantage of this when he made Paranormal Activity, a surprise box office money machine in 2009.
A SINISTER LIGHT
A sequel, which was financially inevitable, sees characters move sideways, rather than forwards or backwards in time. Paranormal Activity 2 [M-Net.Friday.21.30 and Wednesday.01.15] is not as coldly riveting as Paranormal Activity The First; although the frames are filled with characters created by Peli for the original.
THE STEPFATHER IN 1987
The Stepfather [M-Net.02.40] is even more vicious than he was in the 1987; his actions now tailored to an audience blunted by an extra two and a half decades of graphic blood letting. A terrifying thought; psychopathic villains don’t always twitch, scuffle, or drool.
THE STEPFATHER IN 2009
Sometimes, they look deceptively ordinary; neatly dressed and clean shaven. Director Nelson McCormick uses Dylan Walsh’s looks to great effect in this version of the movie inspired by a true life crime spree.
MANY A YEAR AGO JOANIE SANG
I am a Silkie in the Sea,
And when I’m Far and Far From Land,
My Home it is in the Sule Skerrie.
ALICJA BACHLEDA AND COLIN FARRELL
In Neil Jordan’s film Ondine, [M-Net. Friday.09.30], Colin Farrell stars as a frayed, worn down sailor who rescues a woman who may or may not be a Silkie. Steeped in Irish mythology, the movie is haunting, heightened by glistening shadows and restless surf, creating an atmosphere both windblown and cast adrift.
A STRANGER FROM THE SEA
The cast is outstanding, Stephen Rea, Alicja Bachleda, and newcomer Alison Barry complete Jordan’s talented quartet of characters. Truly, a wonderful film, with an unerring feeling for time and place.
TWO SIDES THAT SOMETIMES INTERTWINE
In cricket, every bowler thinks he is a batsman and every batsman can turn his arm over just a bit. Similarly, most serious actors can do a comic routine and every comedian dreams of dramatic glory.
BEN STILLER IN DRAMATIC MODE AS GREENBERG
Ben Stiller almost makes his dreams a reality in Greenberg [M-Net. Friday 00.10 and Tuesday.03.15] , a pithy study of human frailty. He plays a man a man so keen on winning that he almost loses his grip on reality.
MORE FAMILIAR?
To sample the other side of Ben Stiller’s acting mask, watch him in Little Fockers, still focking around this week [M-Net.Thursday.09.30].
AN UNUSUAL PROJECT FOR ACTION MEN JONES AND JACKSON
The Sunset Limited [M-Net.Monday.22.30] is a work by Cormac McCarthy, two voices in a darkly omnipresent dialogue, highlighting the versatility of actors Sam Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones. The setting is serious theatre; more Samuel Beckett than Jackie Brown or Men in Black.
BARE KNUCKLED AND BARE CHESTED
More in the Brown/Black mold are Fighting M-Net. Sunday.0030] and Faster [M-Net.Thursday.00.30].Fighting is a dose of bare knuckled energy directed by Dito Montiel and starring Channing Tatum. The movie contains not an ounce of extra fat; it is lean and mean from beginning to end.
ANBILLINA
Faster fuels itself on a diet of testosterone and revenge. In it, Dwayne Johnson and Billy Bob Thornton play characters called Driver and Cop; there is also a character called Killer. Remember a time when Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton were Anbillina. Sweetly, they wore vials of each other’s blood around their necks. One wonders where the blood is now?
A DIFFERENT KIND OF FAMILY IN ONDINE...
Just because I can, my pick is double bladed; Ondine [M-Net.Friday.09.30 and Monday.01.00] and The Kids Are Alright [M-Net.Saturday.21.00 and Tuesday.01.30]
...AND THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT
