CINEMA Journal          [home] [books] [women] [movies]

Martin Paule's Micro Movie Reviews: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z-

Gosford Park

Robert Altman, one of our more brilliant but also erratic directors, is fully in charge of his material here. A couple of dozen British bluebloods get together in 1932 at the titular estate for a weekend of shooting and backbiting. The story unfolds from two perspectives: that of the ruling class above stairs, and the phalanx of servants below. Altman is in brilliant form as he lucidly establishes the web of relationships between the guests as well as the goings-on that occur between the servants. Though there is a Christyesque whodunit built into the story, this is about as much a conventional murder mystery as Altman's earlier Nashville was a musical. In a cast full of capable players, the juiciest role is given to Maggie Smith who has a rollicking good time with her portrayal of an insensitive and resolutely rude countess.

The Good Girl

The writer/director team of Mike White and Miguel Arteta who made the off-kilter Chuck & Buck a few years ago return with this winning comedy-drama that deals with stasis. In an eye-opening performance, Jennifer Aniston plays Justine Last, a 30-year old Texas woman who is paralyzed by the routine of her life monotonously played out at the low-rent discount store where she works and at home with her pot-smoking lunk of a couch-potato husband played with customary brilliance by John C. Reilly. Justine becomes involved with a troubled young man leading to opportunities and disasters. The darkly comic, tightly written script evidences an acute ear for dialogue while neatly dodging any sitcom tendencies. Aniston is a standout doing something quite difficult: depicting an essentially boring woman in an engaging way that makes us care about her.

The Gambler (1997)

Very loosely based on Dostoevsky’s novel of the same name, at the outset we find the great Russian writer teetering at the edge of bankruptcy with just 27 days to produce a novel or forever lose the copyrights to all his work. He hires a stenographer to try and beat the deadline and treats her very badly as the film intercuts between the novel and the surrounding story of its creation. Though numerous liberties have been taken with historical and literary fact, ravishing period detail and nicely handled juxtapositions between the outer and inner stories save the day. As an additional treat, the 1930s film star Luise Rainer who hadn’t appeared in films for seven decades steals every scene in which she appears as a dowager who gets caught up in the obsession of the roulette tables. 

Gang Tapes

Shot on high-definition tape, this cinema-verité treatment of life in an L.A. street gang may well be repellant to many viewers given the unrelenting and aimless violence it depicts. The premise is simple: gangbangers hijack a van of tourists and steal their video camera which a 14 year-old would-be gang member then uses to record a summer’s worth of life on the streets of South Central Los Angeles. The film uses a non-professional cast, many of whom are actual gang members spouting largely improvised dialogue to create what appears to be a highly credible look at the gangsta subculture. Strong stuff.

Gangster No. 1

21 Grams

A top-notch cast that includes Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro provides the dramatic firepower in this collection of intersecting stories that deal with death and transformation. Upon initial viewing, I found the non-chronological exposition of the stories gimmicky. On second thoughts, I’ve come to see that rather than merely being a post-Pulp Fiction copycat, director Alejandro González Iñárritu heightens the tension and our involvement by only revealing slivers of his story arc as the film progresses. Shot with the same intense cinematography and vibe as his terrific Amores Perros (reviewed here), Iñárritu has come up with another powerful piece of filmmaking.  

The Girl from Paris

A big hit in France, this is the story of a woman about to turn 30 who gives up her city-based computer career, enrolls in an agricultural training program and then buys a ramshackle farm in a remote mountainous region. Despite her extensive training, she is ill-equipped to deal with the irascible former owner who stays on for 18 months while waiting for a new home to become available.  The old farmer watches her rehabilitate the farm and create a tourist destination with a mixture of jealousy, admiration and contempt. Director Christian Carion forgoes the obvious odd-couple jokes to offer a relationship that is far more complex while exploring their very different world views.   

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

Jim Jarsmusch unfailingly makes interesting films, but beginning with 1996’s Dead Man, he has shown a disturbing tendency to dispense with any form of logic in his films. Though his earlier films Down by Law, Stranger than Paradise and Mystery Train were certainly out there conceptually, each operated with its own cohesive, crazy logic and consistency. Not so with Ghost Dog. Jarmusch seems so intent on drawing parallels between Mafia, samurai and hip-hop cultures that his story has characters behaving illogically in the extreme. In fact, the entire narrative of the film depends on our buying into a group of gangsters going after a hit man for no discernible reason who has been a loyal and effective contractor. That said, there is still a great deal to enjoy here. Forest Whitaker emanates tremendous strength and believability as the assassin and is supported by a good cast and wonderful visuals from Jarmusch’s reliable cameraman Robby Muller. The parallels between the gangster and samurai cultures are interesting not withstanding the plotting problems, and the soundtrack by Wu Tang Clan’s RZA is appropriately fierce. Laden with tributes to martial arts movies, Akira Kurosawa, and to westerns, there is plenty for the cinema fan to chew on here, but as with a large box of popcorn, when you’re finished you may still find yourself hungry.

The Girl of Your Dreams aka Niña de tus Ojos

Fluency in Spanish and some knowledge of Spain’s civil war history and relationship with Nazi Germany would undoubtedly add to an appreciation of this odd film that ranges between farce and slapstick. It is 1938 and a Spanish film company has arrived in Berlin to shoot a period romance that will be filmed in both German and Spanish versions (something that apparently happened fairly frequently in this era when Franco and Hitler were burgeoning fascist buddies). The Schwartzenegger-like German-version leading man attempts to bed his Spanish equivalent while Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels has similar designs on the leading lady (the delectable Peneope Cruz). As with films such as The Producers and Life is Beautiful, milking the Third Reich for laughs can be a dicey business, but this film largely succeeds at its comedic aims while presenting a little-known aspect of film history.

Gunner’s Palace

As the U.S. grows increasingly mired in its Iraq misadventure, this documentary detailing the lives of a group of grunts bivouacked in one of Sadam Hussein’s former pleasure palaces grows in resonance. These soldiers lead lives of great dichotomy: they spend their leisure hours playing electric guitar, clicking away on laptops, and watching porn. Their on-duty time alternates between dreary routine and ennui punctuated by episodes of stark terror as they patrol the streets of Baghdad not knowing if the cars alongside them will suddenly explode.    

Ghost World

A well-written and sharply-observed comedy-drama that focuses on a pair of girls fresh out of high school trying to find their way while bravely maintaining the hipper-than-thou attitude that made them a band apart in school. Directed by Terry Zwigoff who made the terrific documentary Crumb, and based on the comics of Daniel Clowes, the story is a bit nondescript. The girls (Thora Birch and Scarlett Johannson) play a mean trick on a nerdy loser in love (Steve Buscemi) and one of them then falls for him. Now, given that this is a movie by a couple of middle-aged guys about a middle-aged guy fawned on by a teen babe, one might expect a dirty-old-man fantasy. But what we get is something far more funny and serious and charming. And its skewering of high art and political correctness are great fun too.

The Gleaners and I

French film director Agnes Varda explores the lives of a handful of people who survive by gleaning leftovers in both rural and urban French settings. Her sympathetic treatment makes this an involving look into a barely-visible underclass with a long tradition.

Go Tigers!

In Massillon, Ohio when a child is born, representatives from the high-school football team’s boosters club come to the hospital to present mother and baby with a miniature football. An eye-opening sociological documentary, Go Tigers! focuses on a single season in the life of this   Ohio town of 30,000 where nearly everyone lives and breathes football. As just one indication of the sport’s importance here, grade-school boys are routinely held back to repeat the eighth-grade so that they can enter high school when they’re bigger and stronger. The film takes no stance, using well-edited footage to portray a town in which a school bond issue hinges on how well the football team performs. What emerges is a disturbing portrait of a town living vicariously through the exploits of its high-school Spartans.     

Grand Illusion

Criterion Films offers a greatly improved viewing experience with their DVD release containing a restored, digitally-repaired version based on the camera negative of this anti-war classic by Jean Renoir. This is the story of a group of French POWs and their relationships with their German captors that served as the template for The Great Escape and many other films that followed. The cast that includes Erich von Stroheim as s courtly German commandant is very fine and Renoir's script is a powerful indictment of the madness of war. What also emerges is the realization that though WWI is widely seen as the first chapter of truly modern, mechanized warfare, it was perhaps the last conflict in which there was genuine respect and even sometimes friendship between the combatants.

Grave of the Fireflies aka Hotaru no haka

Though I am not usually a great fan of animation, this grief-infused story of a boy and his little sister orphaned by U.S. firebombing in the final months of WWII is a great achievement and hugely affecting.  The story of their attempt to survive in the face of starvation and devastation is both simply and poetically told. There is nothing in the film that could not have been depicted by live action, but the use of animation seems to me to reduce the story to its essential, symbolic nature and thus animation is the right choice. Highly recommended.
 

Gallipoli

This 1981 Peter Weir film stars a youthful Mel Gibson as a young WWI soldier whose idealism is ruptured by the brutal realities of modern warfare. A good balance of highly detailed battle scenes and character-driven drama, Gallipoli makes its anti-war points powerfully.

Gal Young, Un

Victor Nunez made this film on a shoestring but that is no handicap. Set in depression-era Florida, a widow is swept off her feet by a smarmy con man who then sets about tricking her out of everything she has including her self respect. The director gets winning performances from his cast of unknowns.

Gattaca

The sci-film poses a perfectly credible premise: in the future genetically-modified humans known as Valids who have had all imperfections expunged are the privileged class. Conversely, ordianry human are known as In-Valids and are discriminated against. Ethan Hawke plays an In-Valid who assumes the identity of an injured Valid and through ingenious means manages to fool the system for a time.  Smartly conceived and executed.   

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs

Director Bertrand Blier won an Oscar for his 1978 film about a man (Gerard Depardieu) who manfully struggles with his wife’s nearly insatiable sexual appetites. It is the sort of ribald comedy of which the French are masters.

Gilda

Rita Hayworth largely built her formidable reputation as a screen temptress in her portrayal of a South American casino owner's wife who takes up with her husband's right-hand man (Glenn Ford). Although the story concludes on a preposterous note, there is plenty of atmosphere, tension, and mystery to keep us going along the way to that ragged conclusion.

Gimme Shelter

David and Albert Maysle's documentary offers chilling coverage of the ill-fated Rolling Stones concert held at Altamont Speedway in Northern California. Things turn nasty when the Hell's Angels serving as the security force (what could the promoters have been thinking?) begin viciously beating members of the crowd for getting too close to the stage. That coupled with the presence of lot of bad acid results in a freakish rock n' roll nightmare. It is the antithesis of Woodstock. On the positive side, the Stones offer rousing performances of some of their biggest hits including the occasion-appropriate "Sympathy for the Devil." 

The Great Escape

This 1963 WWII film about allied POWs plotting to escape a German prison still packs plenty of adventurous punch today.  Based on actual events, the film features a very game international cast with a rambunctious Steve McQueen playing the Yankee who won't be tamed.
 

The Great Train Robbery

Donald Sutherland and Sean Connery exhibit great chemistry in this cinematic gem shot in Ireland that tells the story of a daring robbery committed on a moving train in19^th century Britain.

Greystoke, Legend of Tarzan

This umpteenth telling of the Tarzan story is Hollywood's most faithful adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs book. The segments set in Britain are not perhaps as compelling as the jungle footage, but Sir Ralph Richardson who plays Tarzan's doting uncle is simply terrific. Solid entertainment.

Grind (1997)

The underrated Billy Crudup is excellent as a recently released prisoner who lusts after a racecar driving career as well as his sister-in-law in this somewhat routine film that is saved by the Crudup's characterization and a certain, grungy credibility.
 

Grosse Pointe Blank

This pitch-black comedy stars John Cusack as a hit man that combines an assignment with an appearance at his high-school reunion.  The star’s sister, Joan, is remarkably good as his secretary and the counterpoints between massive violence and small, intimate details are memorable.  
 

Ground Zero

This Australian film is a dramatization based on true events in which a man tries to uncover the reasons behind his father's death. The suspenseful story suggests he may have died because he knew too much about England's A-bomb testing program.

Guinevere

Steven Rea does a fine job portraying a randy photographer with a long track record of attracting young women as proteges and lovers. His newest conquest (played wonderfully by Sarah Polley) comes from a family that stands in absolute antithesis to Real values and lifestyle.  Flawed but worth a watch for the central casting.

DVDs To Your Doorstep!

 

General Della Rovere
Roberto Rosellini's exquisite character study concerns a smalltime hustler
who is pressed into service by the Gestapo as a stand-in for a general in the
Italian resistance who has recently been killed by the Germans. Playing his
role to the hilt, the con-man over time becomes somewhat ennobled and balks
at his ultimate task: to identify a leader of the resistance who remains
anonymous among a group of Italian partisan prisoners. A great story of a
con-man who ultimately cons himself.
 

Getting To Know You
Adapted from three short stories by Joyce Carol Oates, the action is rooted
in a dreary bus station where a brother and sister await the departure of
their respective busses. He's headed to college, she's dithering between
visiting her estranged father or going to visit her mother who is in a mental
hospital. The girl encounters a young man in the station who eavesdrops on
the lives of waiting passengers  and other denizens of the terminal. Though
she's initially turned off by his motor mouth chatter, she slowly becomes
absorbed by his telltale narratives. His tales form several stories within
stories, each concerned with abandonment, loss and neglect. Heather Matarazzo
who plays the girl and first gave notice of her skill in "Welcome To The
Dollhouse" also reviewed here, delivers an indelible, understated performance
here. This is fascinating, elliptical stuff that will please readers of
Oates' stories.

DVDs To Your Doorstep!

Girls Don't Cry
The often tragic  consequences of blurred gender identity have been blunted
by the tawdry exploitation of the issue in countless TV shows and
sensationalist media treatments. That is not the case here. The story is a
humane and tragic one brilliantly realized by first-time director Kimberly
Pierce. Loosely based on actual events, this is the story of Teena Brandon,
(superbly characterized by Hilary Swank who richly deserved the Oscar she
won) a Nebraska girl who thinks of herself as a boy. She cuts her hair short,
inverts her name to Brandon Teena, stuffs a sock into her crotch and moves
from Lincoln to a small prairie town where he assumes his new identity while
falling in with a group of white trash losers who form a sort of extended
family. Brandon charms the women in this group with his genteel and sensitive
manner, something they've not encountered in men before. Lana, (Chloe
Sevigny) a troubled girl seeking escape from her depressing life is
especially attracted to him and they launch into a full blown love affair
that is tinged with impending doom. This finally is a Romeo and Juliet yarn
with two Juliets. The supporting cast expertly renders the redneck culture
that reels with anger when Brandon's deception is uncovered. One of the best
films of 1999.

Gods and Monsters
James Whale who directed the classic 30s version of "Frankenstein" was a
notorious homosexual. This film starring a dessicated Ian McKellan,
imagines his final days during the 1950s, slowly dying in Hollywood, long
after his career is finished. As in the somewhat similar "Love and Death on
Long Island", he becomes obsessed over a hunky young gardener (Brendan
Fraser) who only belatedly realizes Whale is gay. McKellan is marvelous as
the fading queen as is Lynne Redgrave as his dour housekeeper. Some of the
most memorable scenes are flashbacks in which Whale recalls his directorial
career.

Guinevere
Coming of age stories are a dime a dozen, and they usually center on boys
or young men. That this is about a young woman, and that it features an
astonishingly natural performance from Sarah Polley are two of this film's
pleasures. Harper (Polley) is the 20-year old daughter of a wealthy and
emotionally remote San Francisco family of lawyers. At a loss for what to
do with her life, she is unenthusiastically on the verge of entering
Harvard. At her sister's wedding she falls for Connie, (Steven Rea) a
50-ish Irish photographer of bohemian predilections and a profound liking
for the bottle. Before you can say protege, he has become her mentor and it
is only later she finds that he is a serial svengali having gone through a
chain of young women before her. But that hardly matters to Harper; there
are other issues that insure their affair is a tumultuous one. See this
movie for Polley's marvelous handling of her seduction scene. She is at
once awkward, playful, shy and seductive and does more with a simple glance
or gesture than most actors can pull of with a handbag of histrionics. The
film's only flaw is a trumped-up conclusion, but given the delights that
precede it, this is forgivable and not fatal.
 

Grease
Though I'm rarely entertained by musicals, the bright, candyfloss 50s
design and magnetism of the male lead, John Travolta, won me over to
"Grease". Travolta is a member of the T-Birds, the greaser element at
Rydell high, who develops a crush on a virginal young Australian girl
(Olivia Newton-John who only becomes effective in the latter stages of the
film when she transforms herslef into a vamp). The production numbers are
mounted with great verve and the dancing is a pleasure. Too bad that
veterans like Sid Caesar and Eve Arden are given very little to do.
 

Get Shorty

Based on an Elmore Leonard book that hones in on the B-movie industry, John
Travolta is an enforcer for a loan shark who comes to Hollywood and becomes
involved with a sleazebag producer. A razor-sharp script laced with dark
humor and nice performances all 'round make this a pleasurable
entertainment.
 

Get Crazy AKA Flip Out
Drugs, sex and rock 'n'roll. Not to mention gratuitous car crashes, frat
house humor and sight gags galore. That's the stuff this monument to
ultra-silly sendups thrives on. Fans of "This is Spinal Tap", "The Blues
Brothers" and Cheech & Chong movies should seek this obscurity out. A Bill
Graham-like rock promoter and his crazed crew ready their Saturn Theatre
for a New Year's extravaganza while a billionaire developer plots to burn
it down to make way for a high rise. Malcolm McDowell does a hilarious turn
as Reggie Wanker, a Rod Stewart/David Bowie clone.
 
 

The General
The title refers to the name given Irish mobster Martin Cahill by the
police. Director John Boorman brings this frightening yet enjoyable biopic
about a sociopath to the screen with heaps of energy and a sizzling
performance by Brendan Gleason as the title character who was gunned down
in 1994, possibly by the IRA. Cahill is an iconoclast who is pathologically
opposed to all forms of authority and who maintains a curious menage a
trois relationship with his wife and her sister. Be warned: there are
scenes of immense brutality, but these are mediated by others of immense
humanity and humor.
 
 
 

Girls Town

Four teenage girls, two black and two white hang together as buddies in
what appears to be a New York neighborhood. After one of the black girls
commits suicide, her friends discover through her journal that she was
raped. The girls decide to exact their own vengeance against the
perpetrator. This is a small film with minimal aims and pretensions that
succeeds as a result of the very believable friendship that exists between
the girls. One quibble though-one of the girls is a single mom, yet her
predicament is curiously soft-pedalled. Her child seems to be only a minor
distraction; we never see her dealing with the diapers and inevitable
loneliness of her situation.
 
 

Grand Canyon

Ambitious and moving, this is an examination of a collection of lives lived
in L.A. that in the end, intersect in surprising ways. With its large
ensemble cast and intertwining plot lines, it is reminiscent of "Short
Cuts" but has its own distinct point of view.
 
 
 

Glengarry Glen Ross

David Mamet's difficult play about an office full of sleazeball real
estate salesmen makes a brilliant transition to the screen helped
immeasurably by a stellar cast. Al Pacino is the office sales star, Jack
Lemmon is touching and believable as the loser, and Alec Baldwin turns in
an extraordinary performance as the manager who plays wicked mind games to
spur his crew on to new acts of con artistry. In the tradition of "Death of
a Salesman", this is a sad look at the willingness to sell one's soul for a
few shekels.
 
 

Le Grand Chemin aka The Grand Highway

A delicate young boy is sent to the French countryside while his mother is
off giving birth. The story encompasses three weeks in which he undergoes
growth in the company of a tomboy neighbor and with his host couple whose
marriage is troubled. This was remade in America as "Paradise" which sadly
lacks the nuances of the original.
 
 

Greaser's Palace

Bad boy Robert Downey Jr.'s dad filmed a couple of midnight movie classics
two decades ago: "Putney Swope" and "Greaser's Palace". The latter is a
wildly original western in which a Jesus-like figure comes to a bizarre
frontier town where he performs assorted miracles. Downey Jr. does a great
bit as a mutilated child. With a nutso old man like Downey Sr., it's little
wonder that Junior's such a screwup.
 

The Grifters

Stephen Frears' tale of cons, deceit and incest features a sterling cast
and fine, hardboiled dialogue that harkens back to Elmore Leonard and 40s
noire. John Cusack is a young huckster whose estranged and tough as nails
mother (Anjelica Huston) turns up out of the blue just as he's hospitalized
after being beaten when caught in a swindle. Much more about these
fascinating characters than the confidence tricks they pull, the
relationship between Huston and Cusack's girlfriend (Annette Bening), who
in many ways resemble one another, is engrossing. Very dispassionate and
beautifully mounted in an icy sort of way.

Go
Yet another flick which simply can't be discussed without references to
Tarrantino generally, and "Pulp Fiction" specifically. This is director
Doug Limon's followup to his highly entertaining "Swingers"(reviewed
earlier). This one concerns a group of clerks who work at a supermarket and
their adventures over the course of 48 hours in which they deal drugs, go
to rave clubs, get involved with thugs and generally carry on
irresponsibly. The several story arcs overlap and criss cross and the same
events are told repeatedly from several character's viewpoints. If it
weren't for Tarrantino, this would all seem terribly outrageous and novel.
But even on its own terms, "Go" offers wickedly funny entertainment.
 

The Go-Between

Scripted by Harold Pinter and directed by Joseph Losey this is a gratifying
story about the subrosa love affair of a British aristocratic woman and
neighboring farmer which is facilitated by the title character, a young boy
who carries messages between them. A first-rate cast and idyllic settings
produce a memorable experience.
 
 

Going All the Way

Yet another coming-of-age movie, but one that distinguishes itself with
utterly believable characters and situations. In the early 50s, following
the Korean war, two young vets meet aboard a train on their way home. Sammy
is a gangly, introspective and insecure geek while Gunner is an assured
golden boy and former high school football hero. It turns out they went to
school together but never met because they traveled in very different
circles. During his service Gunner has emerged from his callow youth with
burgeoning intellectual interests. Sammy's familiarity with "Catcher in the
Rye" and Zen are attractive to Gunner so that a friendship, that on first
blush seems unlikely, develops.
 
 

The Great Santini

Robert Duvall's portrayal of a hard nosed USMC pilot locked in a battle of
wills with his teenage son is among the best performances of his generally
distinguished career. Though the conclusion is a bit pat, the relationship
between the authoritarian Duvall and his long-suffering family is finely
rendered.

[home][books][women[movies]

Shakespeare Umbrella-Easy Toys-Natalie Dessay--Lakmé--Rene Fleming--Bonney--von Stade--Kasarova--Rasa:--Love SpecialsWomen's fashion--Bartoli--erotic art--Charlotte Church--100 Hot Books--Gift Ideas--DVDs--Children's books