BIGGIE AND TUPAC - guns don't kill rappers, rozzers do

BIGGIE AND TUPAC is another of Nick Broomfield's investigative documentaries. As with KURT AND COURTNEY, his imagination has been caught by the infamous and officially unsolved fatal shooting of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls. The theory doing the rounds before the documentary was made was that Biggie and Tupac were caught in the cross-fire of an East coast/West coast gang war. The on-stage and on-record verbal histrionics - as a well as a punch-up at the MGM Grand - attested to the rivalry.

But Broomfield uncovers a more complicated truth. First off, neither Tupac nor Biggie were the ghetto thugs they pretended to be in their rap videos. Tupac attended a school for the performing arts and Biggie went to a private school. Both, however, were drawn to the "thug life" and "glamourised" their personal histories.

Second off, while the middle-class media might portray rap as the inspiration of all manner of social ills, it is clear that Tupac was himself influenced by gangster films. Still, he only started behaving like a violent mafiosi when he drifted into the orbit of record producer and alleged gangster, Suge Knight.

Third and most importantly, Broomfield uncovers what seems to be common knowledge on the streets of Compton. A number of people allege that Suge Knight killed Tupac to avoid paying him millions of dollars in royalties. He then arranged a hit on Biggie to make it seem like an East-West gang war. Knight was apparently able pull the double-hit off because he had a number of LAPD rozzers on his pay-role.

It's a fantastic and credible story, not least because Broomfield's witnesses aren't a bunch of nut-jobs, as in KURT AND COURTNEY, but an apparently honest cop and guilt-ridden middle-man. And I do rather like Broomfield's documentary style, which makes the difficulties in uncovering the story as much a part of the film as the final information itself. The most impressive example of this is Broomfield's final interview with Suge Knight in prison. Broomfield's normal cameraman is too fearful for his life to film Suge, so a free-lance photographer is brought in. The guy is so nervous he can barely keep the camera on the subject. This, more than any filmed interviews, is testament to the menacing power exerted by such men.

BIGGIE AND TUPAC went played Sundance and went on release in 2002. It is available on DVD.

A GOOD YEAR - charming, if utterly predictable, romance

I know, I know. Movies where ruthless capitalist bastards "find themselves" in lushly photographed socialist villages are a tad predictable. A GOOD YEAR is no different, but if you're willing to accept the format, it has a lot of laughs and some good old-fashioned sappy romance. Russell Crowe camps it up in the opening act as Max, a greedy capitalist bond-trading bastard par excellence. He manipulates the market to within an inch of the law, shags around, insults his underlings and generally enjoys his Master of the Universe status. When his uncle (Albert Finney) dies and leaves him a French chateau, Max' first impulse is to sell it for a ton of money via his similarly ethically-challenged best-mate and estate agent (Tom Hollander.) There is little in life funnier that seeing Crowe drive past a bunch of French cyclists, give them the finger and shout out "Lance Amrstrong". There's also little funnier in life than seeing a banker stuck in an empty swimming pool unable to reach his blackberry.

Of course, Max is redeemed. He falls in love with a ballsy local waitress (Cotillard, unrecognisable out of her Piaf make-up.) He remembers his uncle and his own youth (Freddie Highmore). He reconciles with his illegitimate cousin (Abbie Cornish) and even his best mate softens. The highlights are the lush photography and Tom Hollander's scene-stealing role as the oleaginous agent. Of course, it's schmaltz. But superior schmaltz all the same.

A GOOD YEAR was released in autumn 2006 and is available on DVD.

DIE HARD 4.0 aka LIVE FREE OR DIE HARDER aka The Best Summer Blockbuster of 07!

YES YES YES!!! Finally, a summer blockbuster that does what it says on the tin, and then some. Action movie, buddy movie, witty one-liners and Bruce Willis as NYPD cop John McClane blowing shit up. This movie is a noble addition to the DIE HARD franchise. It doesn't feel tired or re-hashed. It never slides into pastiche or post-modern winking at the audience. It just does what it always did but bigger and better.

In this installment, John McClane (Willis) is sent to pick up a computer hacker called Matt (the amiable and comically gifted Justin Long) and deliver him to the Feds in Washington, headed up by the always brilliant Cliff Curtis. Matt, along with a bunch of other low-level nerds, have unwittingly helped a mean terrorist bring down all the computer networks in the US, causing mayhem. The terrorists want to kill the hacker, which results in some cool one-liners and some wicked stunts - the dogs bollocks of which is an awesome truck-blowing-helicopter-up scene in a tunnel.

Of course, the DIE HARD flicks have always outdone themselves with the baddies too, and in this installment we get Timothy Olyphant in an arguably career-making role as genius hacker Thomas Gabriel. He manages real menace as well as some cutting sarcasm. He has a Kung Fu side-kick played by Maggie Q and she inadvertantly provides Bruce Willis with some of his best comedy riffs. Lest you think McClane's treatment of the Kung Fu chick verges on the misogynistic, we have him rescuing his daughter Lucy, who has inherited her father's balls of steel. So the chicks are represented, so to say.

Is this movie absolutely 100% perfect? If I were being picky I'd say that Len Wiseman is not my idea of a good director of action scenes. And the Kevin Smith cameo is weak - or is it just my disappointment to see him selling out like this? And, while I am willing to suspend my disbelief so far, the whole jet fighter scene is plain ridiculous.

But this is all marginal quibbling around the central fact that DIE HARD 4.0 is THE summer blockbuster of 2007. Have no fear my friends, the PG-13 certified movie does not let us down. So head to your local multiplex in all confidence. This flick is Yippee-Kay-Yay-Tastic.

DIE HARD 4.0 aka LIVE FREE OR DIE HARDER is on release in Japan, the UK, the US, Finland, Kuwait, Bulgaria, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Norway, Russia, Serbia, Sweden, Greece, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Cyprus, India, Japan, Lithuania, Turkey, Belgium, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Taiwan. It opens in Israel, Singapore, Thailand, Mexico and Poland this weekend and in South Korea on July 19th. It opens in Slovenia, Brazil, Australia, Bolivia, New Zealand and Argentina in August and in Spain in September and in Italy in October.

THE COVENANT - less horror, more nonsense

THE COVENANT is a mildly amusing teen flick that happens to have some warlocks and wire-fu in it. A teenage girl transfers to an exclusive American prep school and begins flirting with a hot guy from the swim team. Trouble is, the hot guys from the swim team are collectively known as the "Sons of Ipswich". This means that they have low level super-powers and drive about in cool cars saying stupid things like: "I'm going to make you my Wee-yotch!" One of the Sons starts a feud with the other sons, culminating in him taking the hot chick hostage and some low-level wire-fu stunts. Stuff gets blown up. The boy gets the girl. You don't get those 90 minutes back. But hey, what should we expect from the director of the piss-poor Exorcist prequel, not to mention THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT and CUTHROAT ISLAND? Renny Harlin has sure fallen a long way off the pace of DIE HARD 2.

THE COVENANT was released last fall and is now available on DVD.

SKETCHES OF FRANK GEHRY - hagio-doc

SKETCHES OF FRANK GEHRY is a documentary in which the film-maker, Sydney Pollack, is a friend and a fan of the subject, pioneering architect Frank Gehry. Pollack's documentary lacks balance. It is good on the process by which Gehry creates his buildings but less good at what makes up the man and what Gehry's place in the evolution of architecture is. It is noticeable than when talking heads praise a building we see beautiful photography of that building. When detractors mention a building, we do not see it. Instead we quickly cut to another fan who blows them out of the water. Now, I have no view either way. I know little about architecture. Problem is that after watching this messily organised documentary I am no nearer an understanding of the debate. I took my cousin Bugsy -an architect - along to the screening. He is an architect and an agnostic on Gehry's work and found the documentary too lightweight on architecture to satisfy professional interest and yet too superficial to give an interesting emotional impression of Gehry. So, two thumbs down from Family007.

SKETCHES OF FRANK GEHRY played Toronto 2005. It was released in the US, France, Australia, Belgium and Spain in 2006 and in the Netherlands, Italy and Japan earlier this year. It is currently on release in the UK and opens in Germany on July 5th 2007. It is currently available on Region 1 DVD.

SHUTTER - like a Thai Ju-On

SHUTTER is a scary-ass Thai horror film. Two college kids are driving home from a mate's wedding and accidentally run over a young woman. Instead of stopping to help, the boyfriend - a photographer - urges his girlfriend to keep on driving. After that, perhaps as manifestations of their guilty consciences, images of the dead girl show up in his photos and they both feel that her gruesome spirit is stalking her. It's nuts and bolts spooooooky horror: lots of "jump out of your skin" moments even though there is nothing radical or pioneering here save the fact that this is a Thai rather than Japanese movie. Recommended for regulation scares but it also works as a thriller with a satisfying revelation near the end. And yes, there is a Hollywood re-hash scheduled for next year, natch.

SHUTTER was released in Thailand back in 2004 and his since been released in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Poland, Brazil, Mexio, Japan, Italy and Argentina. It is currently on release in the UK and is available on Region 1 DVD.