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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 27 December 2006

Princess Diana’s death on 31 August 1997 shocked people around the world.  Most all of us can remember where we were on hearing the news.  The magnitude of the event and the effect it would have on the people of Great Britain could never have been predicted.  A sea of flowers was placed outside the gates of Buckingham Palace and her home at Kensington Palace.  People slept in the streets so that could watch the funeral procession.  London came to standstill.

One year earlier, Diana had divorced Prince Charles.  Whilst it seemed to be a mutual decision, the majority of the public took the side of Princess Diana.  The feeling was that she had been caught up in the royal “institution” and cast aside because she didn’t fit their mould.  Charles’ rumoured affair with Camilla Parker Bowles did further harm to the royal family’s image.

Stephen Frears’ film looks the actions of Queen Elizabeth and other members of the Royal Family in the week following Princess Diana’s death.  In her 45 year reign, the Queen had never come under such scrutiny from the British people.  She did not release a statement, she did not lower the flags to half mast and she did not make an appearance to comfort the mourners.  Newspaper headlines were scathing of her decisions and one survey suggested that one in four citizens were in favour of abolishing the monarchy.

If we believe what the film tells us, the Queen’s savour was the newly elected British Prime Minister, Tony Blair.  Mr Blair had gauged the mood of the public and felt that the Royal Family’s actions, whilst in line with protocol, were incorrect.  He nervously pressured the Queen into bowing to the public’s demands.  History tells us that she did.  On 5 September 1997, the Queen left her summer holiday home at Balmoral, travelled to Buckingham Palace, paid her respects and gave a live broadcast to the nation at 6pm.

In my eyes, the film does not take a stance on whether the Queen’s initial decision to ignore the public was right and wrong.  It does however give us plenty to think about.  We get to see the events unfold from the Queen’s perspective and it’s quite different from what you might think.  She has been brought up to believe in the importance of protocol and it’s hard for her to fathom why she should do anything considering Diana was no longer a member of the Royal Family.  For instance, the flags weren’t lowered to half mast even after the death of her own father in 1952 (who was King at the time).

If you’re wondering how writer Peter Morgan came up with the script, the film’s website tells us that it has been based on “extensive interviews, devoted research, discreet sources and informed imagination.”  Given that the Queen is such a private person, I’d like to how exactly how much of the story is based on fact as opposed to “informed imagination”.  It may not be as accurate as a portrayal as we are led to believe.  That said, the Queen’s private secretary has invited a few of the filmmakers over for lunch early next year so there’s an implication that it has her Majesty’s approval.

What makes the film so compelling are the terrific performances turned in by Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II and Michael Sheen as Tony Blair.  I’ve seen the film twice and I’m finding it hard to remember what their real-life counterparts look and sound like.  Their posture, voice and demeanour are just as I would imagine.  Mirren has been declared a certainty to win the best actress Oscar in March next year but I’d like to see Sheen rewarded with a nomination for best supporting actor.  They’re equally good.

The film’s re-enacted drama feels a little overdramatised at times (I still don’t understand the significance of the stag subplot) but director Frears maintained my interest by including actual news footage.  We get to listen to the BBC news reports and hear the actual interviews from members of the public who were critical of the Queen.  It gives the film a heightened sense of reality and believability.

I must bow and remove my hat to The Queen.

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 18 December 2006

Babel marks the third time that writer Guillermo Arriaga and director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu have worked together on a major film.  In 2000, they crafted Amores Perros which is ranked the 142^nd greatest film of all time on the Internet Movie Database.  The equally powerful 21 Grams was released in 2003 and earned Academy Award nominations for stars Benecio Del Toro and Naomi Watts.  There’s no denying that this talented Mexican duo know how to make a great movie.

In Babel, four different stories are told.  Richard (Pitt) and Susan (Blanchett) are an American couple on a holiday looking to rebuild their troubled marriage.  Amelia (Barraza) is a housekeeper living in the United States who is about to return home to Mexico for her son’s (Bernal) wedding.  Yuseef and Ahmed are two mischievous children from a poor but tight-nit Moroccan family.  Chieko (Kikuchi) is a deaf Japanese girl who is sick of her father (Yasujiro) and longs to find a boyfriend.      

These stories overlap but more importantly, there’s a common theme – our struggle to connect with one another.  We live in a world where it’s physically easy to communicate (thanks to phones, the internet, etc) and yet we are still divided by culture, race, language and financial status.  Even within our own homes, we create imaginary barriers to avoid dealing with problems and conflict.

It’s an interesting topic to explore and the film does so without telling us what conclusions to reach.  All you need do is watch the drama unfold and make of it what you will.  What are these characters thinking?  Why are they like the way they are?  Why are they masking their true feelings?  What’s great about the film is that we’ll all have different answers to these questions.  Some you will relate to.  Others you will not.

Shot in three countries and featuring four languages, Babel is a true example of international cinema.  Funnily enough, Gonzalez Inarritu faced the same problems that some of the characters did in his movie.  Not only was he working with non-professional actors, he had to get them to speak in languages (such as Arabic) that he didn’t even understand.  Thankfully for us, we get subtitles.

The film has received much publicity in the past week having been nominated for seven Golden Globe Awards – more than any other film this year.  It includes nods for best picture, best director and best screenplay.  Three performances were singled out for nomination in the acting categories – Brad Pitt as Richard, Rinko Kikuchi as Chieko and Adriana Barraza as Amelia.  I’m not sure about Pitt’s nomination but the Globes have gotten it right by singling out Kikuchi and Barraza.  They were the two most interesting characters and the two I felt most empathy for.  I’d love to see them both nominated for an Oscar.

When it premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Babel won the best director prize.  Recent winners of the same award include Hidden, Elephant, Punch Drunk Love and Mulholland Drive.  It’s a magnificent list of films and I’m more than happy to see Babel join their company.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 21 December 2006

Blood Diamond is a Hollywood-style action flick set against the backdrop of a very serious subject matter.  This may sound like a contradiction but the film’s method is effective.  I enjoyed the heart-pumping adventure scenes whilst also learning much about an issue I didn’t previously know about.

A “blood diamond” is one which has been illegally smuggled out of a country at war.  They are sold to foreigners and the proceeds used to pay for weapons (which only add to the war’s ferocity).  Human rights organisations have tried to ban such diamonds but it’s been very difficult given the cunning methods used by those involved.

The African country of Sierra Leone was at civil war throughout the 1990s.  To fund the war, militia were exporting a glut of blood diamonds.  It is here where director Ed Zwick’s film is set.  Writer Charles Leavitt’s story is one of fiction but it highlights the many real problems that the people of Sierra Leone faced during this unstable time.

Danny Archer (DiCaprio) is a Zimbabwean diamond smuggler working in Sierra Leone.  Whilst spending a brief period of time in prison, Archer meets a fisherman named Solomon Vandy (Hounsou) who has found an elusive pink diamond (thought to be “priceless”).  Vandy cleverly buried the diamond before he was captured but it’s going to be a hazardous journey to get past the armed fighters and return to its location.

Archer knows this is the opportunity of a lifetime.  He must have that diamond.  The problem is that Vandy has no intention of sharing it with him.  Things change when Vandy is released from prison and cannot find his wife and two children.  Overcome with worry and grief, he thinks they have been taken to a refugee camp.  Archer promises to use his contacts to find Vandy’s family if, in return, he agrees to split the proceeds from the sale of the diamond 50-50.  An uneasy partnership has been formed.

Complicating the situation is the arrival of Maddy Bowen (Connolly), an American journalist looking to write an exclusive on the diamond smuggling industry.  Archer senses that her journalistic connections will be needed and so gives her tit-bits of insider information to feed her story.

We are now in a position where Archer, Vandy and Bowen are working together but will different objectives.  Archer wants wealth and the freedom to escape this war-torn country.  Vandy wants his family and the chance to give them a better life.  Bowen wants fame and the power to make people stand up and listen.  Will they betray each other to achieve their goals?  The question will be asked.

I’ve said this before but Leonardo DiCaprio is the actor of my generation.  No role is too difficult and the broadness of his resume is a testament to that fact.  DiCaprio gives an incredibly passionate performance in Blood Diamond and his South African accent is remarkably precise.  Djimon Hounsou and Jennifer Connelly are also terrific.  It may feel clichéd at times (thanks to the endless number of close shaves) but they make the story and its characters believable.  You will understand what drives them.

Given the difficulty, the movie was not able to shot in Sierra Leone.  Most scenes were filmed in South Africa and Mozambique.  The beauty of the undulating landscape has been captured by Portuguese cinematographer Eduardo Serra (Girl With Peal Earring).  It’s backed by a dominant music score from James Newton Howard (The Village).  It all adds up to a film that you have to see on a big screen (or at the very least with a home surround sound system).

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 15 December 2006

Night At The Museum is a cool family movie.  It’s not trying to tell us a message and it’s not trying to make us feel warm and fuzzy.  All it asks is that you sit back, relax and enjoy.

Larry Daley (Stiller) is a divorced father who is struggling to make ends meet.  He’s been fired and it looks like he’ll have to move out of his apartment.  Worst of all, Larry just found out that his son, Nick (Cherry), didn’t invite him to his school’s career day.  It seems that Nick is embarrassed by his dad’s inability to hold down a job.

Desperate to win back his son’s respect, Larry goes to a job agency looking for anything that’s available.  The only position is that of a nightwatchman at the Museum of Natural History.  The previous three guards leave Larry a book of instructions and a set of keys.  They also give him an important piece of advice – “don’t let anything in or out”.

Larry realises the significance of their comment when the sun sets and the front doors are closed – the museum comes to life!  The human statues and the stuffed animals all start to move.  As you can imagine, mayhem ensues.  He is attacked by a dinosaur skeleton, has his keys stolen by a monkey and is chased by Attila The Hun.  Larry sums it up best when he mumbles to himself that “this is so not worth $11.50 an hour”.

Many viewers will see the obvious similarity in the story with that of Jumanji (the Robin Williams flick released in 1995).  I can forgive the lack of originality because of the wonderful characters that make Night At The Museum so entertaining.  Ben Stiller is great as Larry.  After getting over the initial shock of the situation, Larry has a few laughs by trying to outsmart the museum’s inhabitants.  He doesn’t always find success but his ridiculous plans are amusing to watch.

The funniest scenes in the film are those between Stiller and English actor Ricky Gervais (The Office).  As the museum’s curator, Gervais gives new meaning to the word “eccentric”.  He’s always trailing off and you never know what he’s trying to say.  It’s a shame he only appears in a handful of scenes.

Rounding out the diverse cast are legends Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney and Bill Cobbs who play the three former guards.  With an average age of 79, their appearance will bring back many memories for older members in the audience.

There are two types of “family films”.  In the first category, we have films targeted purely at kids – those where children go to have fun and adults go to keep an eye on them.  In the second category, we have films targeted at everyone – those where both children and adults can have a good time.  Night At The Museum easily falls into the later category.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 20 December 2006

After seeing the trailer for The Holiday, I braced myself for another predictable romance flick.  As the analogy goes however, one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.  This film is surprisingly good.  To use a quote that belongs on a movie poster – it’s the best romantic comedy of the year.

Amanda (Diaz) lives in Los Angeles and works in the movie industry.  Her job is to make the film trailers that we see in cinemas and on TV (note the irony given the first sense of this review).  She may be successful at work but her life at home is anything but.  Amanda has just broken up with her long-time partner, Ethan (Burns), after finding out he’d cheated on her.  With Christmas just around the corner, she needs to get away from the big city.  She needs a holiday.

Across the globe in a small town outside of London lives Iris (Winslet).  Working as a journalist, Iris has had an on-again, off-again relationship with a fellow employee named Jasper (Sewell) for the past three years.  After learning at the office Christmas party that Jasper has recently become engaged to a another woman, Iris bursts into tears.  She loved Jasper and the fact that he had been truthful with her has left her crushed.  She too needs to get away from her problems.  She too needs a holiday.

Both Amanda and Iris investigate their options on the internet.  They come across a website which runs a home exchange program.  The way it works is that two people meet and agree to swap homes for a defined period of time.  I’m sure I’d do it but it sure saves on the cost of accommodation.  As you can guess, Amanda and Iris meet online and agree to go through with it for two weeks.  Within 24 hours, they’re both travelling on a plane across the Atlantic.

It’s at this point where the movie comes to life.  In the UK, Amanda meets Graham (Law), Iris’s brother.  There’s an immediate attraction but they sense the difficulty in getting involved given that Amanda is only there for two weeks.  In the USA, Iris becomes friends with one of Amanda’s elderly neighbours, Arthur (Wallach).  Arthur was once a famous screenwriter and the two share stories about what Hollywood was like in the “golden days”.  Iris also meets Miles (Black), a struggling film composer with an actress for a girlfriend.  Is she again falling for a taken man?

For romantics in the audience, the film will provide much entertainment.  It may not happen in real life but the characters in The Holiday express their inner-most feelings with brilliant clarity.  Many will relate to their insecurities and this only adds to our willingness for Amanda, Graham, Iris and Miles to find happiness.

I admit to finding the Kate Winslet / Jack Black story the more interesting of the two.  Black has the most laughs in the film and it’s a shame he doesn’t get more screen time.  Winslet’s performance was easily my favourite.  She has an endearing charm that makes her easy to like.  It’s no wonder that she was nominated for four Academy Awards before turning age 30.

Those who can’t be wooed by the film’s romance might find enjoyment in the fact that the movie revolves around the film industry.  With Amanda working as a trailer maker, Jack working as a film score composer and Arthur as a screenwriter, it provides much commentary about the industry in general.  There’s a cute cinematic trick that writer-director Nancy Meyers (What Women Want, Something’s Gotta Give) weaves into the film (concerning Amanda) that will leave you smiling.

With a few nice touches and something for almost everyone, The Holiday is a nice, light-weight film to be watching over the Christmas break.