An excellent crop this year in sci-fi, comedy and drama – Star Wars Episode I, The Matrix, The Mummy, The Sixth Sense, Galaxy Quest, The Thin Red Line – and a number of other quality productions.
I couldn’t resist watching THE MATRIX one more time. Also reviewed below are THE INSIDER and GREY OWL.
Indoors in sunglasses. Carrie-Anne Moss and Keanu Reeves in The Matrix.
Director: Andy & Lana Wachowski. USA.
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburn, Hugo Weaving.
Plot: A computer hacker discovers that the online world is more real than the ‘real’ world.
Review: I feel this is a movie good as much by accident than design. A ‘high concept’ movie without any deep plotting, it could have been awful, but Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne and Hugo Weaving turned out to be perfect casting. The screenplay is excellent, with a great opening sequence and a carefully maintained pace throughout. The CGI still holds up a decade-and-a-half later.
Happy days. I had at least two of these.
Very stylish, although occasionally schlocky, the movie set trends in street fashion. Watching it for the umpteenth time, the only thing I found slightly annoying was the excessive green tinting. This is a reference to the greenscreen computer displays of the 1980s. Although colour displays had been available for some time they were still expensive, so greenscreens remained common as the more easily affordable option in budget-conscious offices and lower-income households.
An entertaining ‘what if’ feature which spawned a moderately entertaining sequel and a disappointing third, by which time the concept had definitely worn itself out.
Score: 6/10.
… and you absolutely must see this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJDrpJhTycs.
Russell Crowe as Jeffrey Wigand in The Insider.
Director: Michael Mann. USA.
Cast: Russell Crowe, Al Pacino, Christopher Plummer.
Plot: A tobacco company scientist decides to blow the whistle on attempts to make the product more addictive.
Review: It’s always a pleasure to discover a good movie that one has never seen. Although a bit slow at times – the protracted opening sequence introducing Al Pacino and Christopher Plumber as a reporter and a TV presenter could easily have been dropped – it is well made, performed and scripted. This is a dramatized true story which uses necessary devices such as time compression and reduction of number of characters without losing it’s integrity.
The real Jeffrey WIgand.
Russell Crowe plays Jeffrey Wigand, the ‘insider’ who, in spite of massive legal threats and at great cost to his personal life, blew the whistle on tobacco industry manipulation of their product to make tobacco more addictive.
Pacino plays the investigative reporter Lowell Bergman who encouraged Wigand to open up. Wigand and Bergman expressed approval of how they were portrayed, although Bergman said he was sure he never shouted that much – but this is Al Pacino. The only off note is British stalwart Michael Gambon as a tobacco company chief exec – the man is just too British and his London-Irish accent can’t help bubbling to the surface in spite of valiant attempts at a mid-western accent.
Score: 7/10.
Director: Richard Attenborough. UK, Canada.
Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Annie Galipeau.
Plot: An English adventurer, passing himself off as a North American Indian, becomes a conservation pioneer.
The real Archibald Belaney with one of his adopted beavers.
Pierce Brosnan plays Archibald Belaney, who early in the 20th century successfully passed himself off as a native (Canadian) Indian and lived as a fur trapper, later becoming a passionate conservationist under the influence of his Indian wife. Belaney seems to have fooled everybody during his career, including the public, his wives and perhaps even himself. After his death, revelations about his English childhood, alcoholism (a fact omitted in this movie) and his multiple marriages severely undermined the sound conservation message his writings promoted.
I found the movie a little disappointing, but watchable. Pierce Brosnan gives a competent performance, but doesn’t really sell himself in the role. His wife is played by Annie Galipeau (of Mohawk ancestry in real life). She improves towards the end of the movie, but earlier on very unconvincing. I think this was partly due to production issues – in one scene she is speaking from a distance yet her voice is redubbed as if she is only inches away – and a script which makes her come over as just plain annoying at times.
Anahareo, Belaney’s wife.
Dare one say that the director, Richard Attenborough, didn’t get it right on this one? A thirty million dollar movie, but which leaves an impression of something made on a much lower budget. There’s no attempt at any insight into Belaney’s masquerade and the screenplay is not the best. The two baby beavers that the couple adopt promised some interesting scenes as they grew up, but the scriptwriters seemed to have forgotton about them later in the movie.
A conservation movie, historical drama, biopic or something else? I like to learn something from a movie such as this, and it did prompt me to read a little about the characters involved. Belaney’s wife emerges as the real hero. Anahareo (‘Pony’) lived for another fifty years after his death, becoming a conservationist in her own right and received much praise and official recognition for her work.
Score: 5/10. (I initially scored this 4/10, but I found it left a subtle impression on my mind, probably because I’m keen on conservation issues, so gave it an extra point in spite of the problems mentioned above.)
So, the best movie of 1999 is …
THE INSIDER
… because of it’s enjoyable performances from Crowe and Pacino, with many nice visual touches along the way, although a little long-winded in places at 2½ hours.
The next ‘The Best Movie of …’ will be the year 1957.
In eastern Europe in the 1970s there were few of the luxuries of western life. Families spent the summer stocking up the woodpile to keep themselves from freezing in the winter, black tea was (and still is) the staple drink, and with no TV, sitting and chatting was the major pastime. Walking everywhere, including wandering through the extensive woodlands in the autumn picking mushrooms, encountering bats, glow-worms, wandering horses, dogs, and occasional dense fog would be something well-familiar to the audience. I can see something of the Polish side of my family in this animation.
Can his day get any worse? John Cazale in Dog Day Afternoon.
THE BEST MOVIE OF ... 