The Producers - Ulla dance now!

(posted by guest reviewer, Nik)

I was naturally skeptical. How could the modern version of The Producers simultaneously live up to the critical acclaim of 1968 Mel Brookes original as well as being faithfully in keeping with its subsequent Broadway adaptation? Moreover, could Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick match the exceptionally high standards of Mostel and Wilder as a pair of social inadequates and misfits - unwittingly and incompetently making the best bad play in history?

Happily, the answer is "yes" on all counts. Broderick and Lane develop a wonderful on screen chemistry from the very start - Broderick is totally convincing as the bumbling accountant looking naively to the lights of Broadway (and manages to be sufficiently distinctive from the Wilder depiction not to draw unwanted comparisons) - Lane eases in the part of the smoozy Max Bialystock, corrupting Bloom, lusting after Ulla, and boning various and sundry octogenarians. Moreover, the film is absolutely true to its roots, maintaining the overt homoerotic love story between the two male leads - as well as the total campness throughout.

The supporting cast is good too - Uma Thurman especially plays an excellent all singing, all dancing, all parts jiggling Ulla - Swedish and brazen in her "If you've got it, flaunt it" role. Gary Beach plays a convincingly gay Roger de Bris, and an excellent Hitler - and Will Ferrell acts within himself but perfectly adequately as flagrant homosexualist Nazi Franz Liebkind. Whereas the film cannot take credit for the score, which was developed for Broadway, it is all well performed and befits the adaptation.

Ironically though, the best and funniest scene and song of the film remains from the original - Springtime for Hitler (and Germany). I remember watching the Brookes version for the first time at 15 years old and tears streaming down my face at dancing Swastikas and prancing SS-guards - it would have been a real let down if the modern version didn't do this scene justice. Fortunately, Stroman goes to town, unleashing a lavish, bright and wonderfully shot stage scene that is true to the original but nevertheless full of modern touches, and brought to life by the charms of Beach as Ze Fuhrer! It made me laugh, that's the main thing.

Finally, the interplay between Ulla and Bloom is interesting, especially given their discordant physical size, and adds to the sense that the real lovers in this play, the true couple, happily reunited at the end, are Bloom and Bialystock.

Don't get me wrong now, this film doesn't replace or supplant the original, nor indeed should it discourage us from visiting the Broadway show. Rather it compliments both, and brings the joy of the big stage to a worldwide audience. I even managed to enjoy it sitting next to a couple of loud, annoying American girls who insisted, despite my protestations, on a running commentary.

Buy your chocolate raisins, stock up on your popcorn, visit the toilet beforehand, take front row seats, and enjoy!

THE PRODUCERS is on general release in the UK and US. It goes on release in Austria on the 24th February, in France on the 8th March and in Germany on the 16th March 2006

RIZE - Spinal Tap meets Mad Hot Ballroom

RIZE is a documentary made by famous US photo-journalist Dave LaChapelle. It tells the story of the rise of a new form of dancing called "Krump" in the worst parts of Los Angeles - and the ability of this form of dancing to give oppressed black kids some self-respect and an aim in life. It is well shot, has lots of energy, and my only slight criticism is that the balance is too much toward showcasing the hot dance moves and too little towards analysis and substance. After all, when four year old girls start doing "str*pper dance" we might want a little social context! Still, RIZE is worth checking out - it's a lot of fun, the music is fantastic and it has its fair share of laugh out loud moments.

However, the weirdest thing about this documentary - and what took me by surprise - is that this dance craze was originated by a man called Tommy the Clown, who, no kidding, wanders around the 'hood in a clown suit, multi-coloured afro wig and full face paint. On the one hand, we see that this is not a safe place to live: little kids get gunned down going to the store. On the other hand, we have to believe that no one slaps the bejesus out of Tommy for wearing a clown suit! (I grew up in rural, Tory England which is about as far removed from Compton as you get, but a guy walking down the street in a clown suit would get slapped silly there.) The completely bizarre nature of the craze had me wondering whether this doc was really a gigantic hoax. I just read the Ebert review and he wonders the same thing. If it is, then it is superbly done, and if it isn't then it is tremdendously heart-warming. Either way, go check it out, and if you need a second opinion, check out my mate Nik's review.

RIZE was premiered at Sundance and shown at Cannes. It is already on release in the US, Germany, France and the UK. It goes on release in Austria on the 27th January 2006.

BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING - 57 varieties of Pure Comedy Gold

BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING is a cracking French movie directed by Jean Renoir in 1932. Running at just under an a hour and a half it can be taken as a hillarious little French farce. Boudu the tramp is saved from drowning by Monsieur Lestingois, a bourgeois bookseller. Lestingois - the spirit of kindness and middle-class condescension, welcomes Boudu into his home. But instead of being meek and thankful, Boudu brings chaos in his wake, pouncing on Lestingois' wife and mistress into the bargain! Cineastes can also watch this movie for glimmers of Renoir's greatness - all the characteristic traits are there, from long tracking and panning shots to split-focus long shots with plenty of action in deep focus. Those with a political bent can argue over whether it is Boudu or the Bourgeois who comes off worse in this comedy of manners. In the 1960s, the film gained a cult following: Boudu was perceived as a proto-hippie thanks to his "anarchic" disrespect for bourgeois convention. However, with his infantile behaviour and supreme egotism, Boudu can also be "read" as an allegory of how Big Government and Welfare States infantilise their citizens....In short, this is a film that repays viewing and remains relevant seventy years after its original release.

Played with inutterable charm by Michel Simon, Boudu is such an incorrigible rogue that this movie is truly one of the best-loved in France, and the critics of the time pressed Renoir to make a Boudu series - Boudu in Society, Soldier Boudu - in the manner of Charlie Chaplin's tramp movies. Sadly, finances did not allow this. Ah well, at least Londoners have a rare opportunity to see Boudu's first and only outing during January 2006 at the National Film Theatre.

AWARDS SEASON 2005: Gay cowboys stomp on Aragorn

Awards season continues apace. After the Golden Globe nominations, we now have the results of 3 separate polls of movie insiders: the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC); the National Board of Review (NBR) and the LA Film Critics (LAFC). I stand by my predictions that in the Globes and Oscars, the gay cowboys will win over more deserving flicks such as Capote, Walk the Line and A History of Violence. So far, I have been proved correct. For what it's worth, I've also asterisked the critics' choices that I agree with. It's especially good to see Terrence Howard getting a big shout out for the tremendous Hustle and Flow.

BEST PICTURE: Brokeback Mountain (NYFCC & LAFC) Good Night and Good Luck (NBR)

BEST ACTOR: Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain (NYFCC) Philip Seymour Hoffman*, Capote (NBR & LAFC)
BEST ACTRESS: Reese Witherspoon, html">Walk the Line (NYFCC) Felicity Huffman*, Transamerica (NBR) Vera Farmiga, Down to the Bone (LAFC)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: William Hurt, A History of Violence (NYFCC & LAFC) Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain (NBR)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Maria Bello*, A History of Violence (NYFCC) Gong Li, Memoirs of a Geisha (NBR) Catherine Keener, Capote (LAFC)
BEST DIRECTOR: Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain (NYFCC, NBR & LAFC)
BEST SCREENPLAY: The Squid and the Whale (NYFCC & NBR) Capote* (LAFC)
BEST FOREIGN FLICK: Wong Kar Wei's 2046* (NYFCC) Hidden/Cache*** (LAFC)
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: 2046* again! (NYFCC) Good Night and Good Luck, (LAFC)
BEST BREAK-OUT PERFORMANCE: Terrence Howard, Hustle and Flow****(NYFCC & LAFC)

JOYEUX NOEL - Eurofromage!

JOYEUX NOEL/MERRY CHRISTMAS is a big fat euro-fromage that shouldn't work but kinda does! It is a movie so over-laden with peace, goodwill and humanity, that any honest god-fearing capitalist should be vomiting as they watch it. That I enjoyed this movie will be an eternal source of shame and dishonour. But I did. I fell for it. Watching those lovely soldiers in World War One uniforms downing their rifles, crossing no man's land and singing carols, as on that famous Christmas in 1914, brought a tear to my eye. However, as we all know, Christmas movies suck, and just to redress the balance, let me list a whole bunch of reasons why any self-respecting cineaste should have been throwing rotten tomatoes at the screen.....

1. We get the Wrong German. British audiences know two German actors on sight - Benno Fuermann - the steroid-induced twat in the Nibelung movie - and Thomas Kretschmann - the gorgeous skipper in King Kong. The hero of JOYEUX NOEL is Benno not Thomas, and that, dear ladies, sucks.

2. The story thread that involved Diane Krueger going to the freakin' front line to sing carols to the troops is so ridiculous that it makes Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo look like a plausible depiction of continental dating. This is not helped by the fact that Krueger and Fuermann, who play opera singers, are the worst lip-synchers in the history of cinema. A generation raised on Madonna is not gonna be convinced.

3. As with all movies financed by EU tax breaks, we have 5% of Barroso's recommeded daily allowance of Euro-propanda. The Germans are OKAY, the French are OKAY, the nasty English are absent, instead we have the Brits own oppressed ethnic minority - the Scots etc.

4. In general, the production values of this movie are piss-poor. I've seen more solid-looking sets on a 1970s episode of Doctor Who. In JOYEUX NOEL we see $22 million thrown at the screen, with barely a decently photographed shot in the entire 100 minutes. I mean, what happened to the cash? Was the executive producer smoking crack?

5. While I applaud the complex web of EU wide tax breaks that allows rich bastards to recycle tax losses by financing duff films, part of me screams at the lack of free market rigour to the whole process. It's not that this film will lose money that bothers me. It's that it was DESIGNED to lose money. After all, how can you hope to cream the US market in a war movie where not only do the Yanks not win, they aren't even in it?

JOYEUX NOEL/MERRY CHRISTMAS is already on release in Europe and the Far East. Somewhat bizarrely, it goes on limited release in the US on the 3rd March 2006.

JUST LIKE HEAVEN - the mediocre movie that scuppered the Universal/Dreamworks deal

JUST LIKE HEAVEN is a formulaic romantic comedy with the emphasis on romance rather than comedy. Reese Witherspoon takes a giant step back from her Oscar-worthy role as June Cash in WALK THE LINE to play Elizabeth Masterson, a workaholic medic. When Elizabeth has a car accident and falls into a coma, her spirit starts haunting her old apartment, now the home of Indie-flick darling, Mark Ruffalo. So begins an otherworldly romance that is so formulaic it has an A-level in Further Math. A real let down givem how much I normally love these two actors and the generally positive reviews from the professionals. The only redeeming feature of JUST LIKE HEAVEN is the cameo performance by the supremely funny Jon Heder, who plays a spiritual-bookstore owner. Heder reprises his lovable eccentric doofus role from the truly funny and romantic flick NAPOLEON DYNAMITE. I strongly suggest you rent that instead.

JUST LIKE HEAVEN is on global release.