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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-

Place Vendome

Though its plot is threadbare and doesn’t generate much suspense, Catherine Deneuve’s tightly controlled performance is the reason to check out this film. She is the widow of a jeweler who has committed suicide leaving behind a morass of debt and questionable dealings forcing her to attempt the sale of some illicit gems.

Pretty Village, Pretty Flame aka Lepa Sela, Lepo Gore

The opening frames of this film re-create in newsreel fashion a pompous 1971 ceremony in which a tunnel project is launched by Tito’s communist government in the country then known as Yugoslavia. During the ribbon cutting, an official slices open his thumb—a harbinger of the carnage that will follow the death of Tito. The story then cuts back and forth across four time periods focusing on the relationship between a Muslim boy and his Serbian pal who wind up on opposite sides of the Bosnian war and inevitably become enemies in a standoff at that same tunnel, now abandoned, that launches the film. There is a great deal of gore and tension that is punctuated with moments of surrealistic black humor. Though it is clearly a statement against war, the film seems sometimes to exult in the pyrotechnics that accompany the bloodshed.
 

Pola X

This visually arresting, allegorical tale by the idiosyncratic French director Leos Carax (Lovers on the Bridge, Mauvais Sang, Boy Meets Girl) is a sprawling and messy affair that has been condemned as pretentious. Though I’d be hard-pressed to tidily suggest the film’s themes—they seem to shift fitfully within a chaotic narrative, I still consider this work in balance a success due to its fabulous imagery and heartfelt portrayals. It is an adaptation of Herman Melville’s novel Pierre, or the Ambiguities in which a golden-haired young man (Gillaume Depardieu—Gerard’s handsome son) who lives in pampered luxury and enjoys success as a cult novelist abruptly throws over his idyllic lifestyle and elfin fiancé. The about face is triggered when he meets a wretched woman in the woods who says she is his illegitimate half-sister. Before you can say tout suite, they have moved to a cavernous warehouse in Paris housing terrorists and an orchestra that performs cacophonous industrial music. In his squalid new digs Pierre progressively grows more demented and obsessively embarks on a new novel that will tell the Truth with a capital “T”. Recommended to adventurous viewers of the type who revel in stuff such as Peter Greenaway films.

The Pledge

Jack Nicholson is back on track here after a number of going-though-the-motions efforts in recent years. He plays a Reno homicide cop who on his retirement day becomes ensnared in the investigation of the brutal murder and rape of a little girl.  He promises the victim's mother that he will track down the killer and attempts to keep his word despite the fact that the rest of his department is convinced that an Indian who committed suicide while in custody was the perpetrator.  Whether his quest is the result of his heightened ethics or the playing out of a mad obsession is left to our speculation. Actor-director Sean Penn's handling is careful and well thought out, avoiding just about all the cliches of the standard whodunit. This moody and haunting film ends without any neat wrapup.

A Passage to India

David Lean's adaptation of the celebrated novel by E.M. Forster stands among the finest work of this director retaining the subtle and ambiguous qualities of the book. A young British woman (Judy Davis in a tremulous, neurasthenic performance) travels to India during the 1920s in the company of her adventurous mother in law to-be (the redoubtable Peggy Ashcroft). They reject the cloistered, repressed colonial life of their fellow Britons and pursue friendships with the "natives," in particular with a young Muslim doctor who is thrilled at the opportunity to hobnob with the memsahibs. He arranges an expedition to some caves, which leads to misunderstandings and tragedy. A tragicomic look at the manners of the day and the gathering storm clouds that presage Indian independence two decades later, this is a nearly perfect film flawed only by an inappropriately florid score by Maurice Jarre and Alec Guiness' portrayal of a Brahmin that verges on Peter Sellers territory.

The Princess and the Warrior

Tom Twyker, the German director of Run Lola, Run and Winter Sleepers concerns himself a great deal with the meaning of chance and coincidence. He is also a highly imaginative storyteller with a refined pictorial sense who takes his scenarios in directions that can’t be predicted. Sissi is a meek mental hospital nurse who first meets Bodo when she is hit by a truck and he performs an emergency tracheotomy, saving her life. During convalescence she becomes fixated with Bodo and seeks him out only to discover that he is a deeply troubled criminal who can’t hold a job. Largely set within the confines of a psychiatric ward, there are some passing resemblances with One Flew Over The Cukoo’s Nest. But the division between staff and patients in this film is far more blurred as indeed are the connections between all the major figures in this startlingly original work.      

Pumpkin

For three quarters of its length this smart little comedy-romance manages to tread a thin line between black comedy and quirky drama, derailing in the end thanks to a couple of misjudged false endings and a slathering on of absurdity and sentimentality. Its failures occur when the film oscillates between pathos and satire, unable to decide where it needs to be.  Christina Ricci is fine as a vacuous sorority girl totally consumed with beating a rival sorority when we first meet her. In the course of coaching a physically handicapped and mentally slow young man for a special Olympics, she undergoes an awakening in which she realizes the emptiness of her existence. Indeed there is a segment in which she discovers death, corruption and decay that parallels the story of Siddartha’s realization of suffering when he escapes his palace home. Apart from the fizzling wrap-up, this offers a lot of smart entertainment in the manner of Heathers‑—a film it resembles.
 

Pitch Black

If you can overlook people doing some very stupid things in the face of scary space creatures, this variation on the Alien formula has some rewards for the sci-fi fan. A space craft crash lands on what appears at first to be a lifeless planet, killing all but a handful of survivors which includes a vicious prisoner (Vinn Deisel). As the film takes the inevitable then-there-were-none route, picking off one survivor at a time, it becomes an interesting guessing game to figure out who will survive—the outcome in that regard is unpredictable. Some solid special effects and a decent script make this a tolerable time passer.

Petits Freres

Director Jacques Doillon has an uncanny way with child actors as he proved with his affecting Ponette, drawing out breathtakingly natural performances that support a child’s point of view. In this film he examines the aimless lives of children at the edge of puberty who live in the depressing projects that ring Paris. The minimalist story centers on Talia, a 13-year old who is kicked out of her apartment together with her sweet-natured pit bull by an abusive stepfather. We follow Talia as she attempts to get by on the mean streets where latchkey kids emulate the older, more hardened teenagers who rule the roost in aimless rounds of thievery, dope dealing and casual violence. Sad and troubling as much of this is, there are moments of intense sweetness when the kids naturally gravitate back towards innocence.     

Pieces of April

This beautifully written and acted comedy-drama sneaks up and wallops you with a punch without resorting to a single cheap shot. It is Thanksgiving and April, a pierced and tattooed young woman who lives with her black boyfriend in a seamy New York neighborhood has invited her estranged suburban family to dinner. April and her family share a troubled past and an uncertain future—her mother is dying of cancer. The film cuts between the family driving towards April and April struggling to get dinner made in the face of many complications, not the least of which is her cluelessness in the kitchen coupled with an oven on the fritz. Though it operates superficially as a comedy, the film’s meaty underpinnings are redolent with anger and grief. Powerful, affecting stuff.

A Place in the Sun    

Montgomery Clift’s jittery anti-hero performance is the main reason to see George Steven’s adaptation of the Theodore Dreiser novel, An American Tragedy. He plays a young man from a lower-class background who ingratiates himself with the country-club set and commits a serious crime in attempting to leave his past behind. Though much of the social commentary of this 1951 film may seem dated, the underlying story of the quest for acceptance is timeless.

Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy

Ron Jeremy is an anomaly: he has starred in hundreds of porn flicks and enjoys a cult following despite his rotund body that's matted with hair and his decidedly ordinary looks. His nickname, “Hedgehog,”  grows out of his hirsute appearance. What Jeremy has going for him is an enormous schlong, formidable cunnilingus technique and the ability to become erect and ejaculate on command. This portrait of the star paints a picture of an uncomplicated clown who loves being the center of attention, who loves women, and has an immense appetite for all sensual things, including eating. Unfortunately when the documentary tries to dig deeper, it comes up empty-handed. Perhaps what we see is all there is. But despite all the gaiety there is an elemental melancholia that seems to inhabit this man envied by frat boys everywhere. 

Passion of Ayn Rand, The

Helen Mirren turns out to be an apt choice to play the author, a powerful egoistic woman with a lusty nature and the willingness to destroy anyone to advance her career. Based on a book by Barbara Branden, the ex-wife of Rand's younger lover and philosophical heir apparent, the story largely concerns that doomed romance. Eric Stoltz and Julie Delpy play the younger couple drawn under Rand's powerful influence while Peter Fonda plays her long-suffering, emasculated husband. Oddly, the film seems to at once glory in Rand's hard-headed politics while clearly depicting them as wrong-headed and impractical.   

The Pianist

Given Roman Polanski's enormous achievements as a director, this struck me as something of a disappointment.  The material, based on the actual wartime experiences of Jewish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman is powerful and certainly must have great resonance for Polanski who as a child also dodged the Nazis in Krakow. The director's unflinching look at the Holocaust avoids melodrama in its depiction of Szpilman's dogged struggle for survival against horrendous odds. Yet it is in the central portrayal (for which actor Adrien Brody won a Best Actor Oscar) that the film comes up a bit short. Though the man is obviously devoted to his music, we are not permitted to go much deeper. Though we see him oscillate between arrogance, bravery, and passivity, and then finally witness his reduction to a hobbling ghost against the backdrop of a devastated city, there is still a certain flatness in the character. Everything about him seems surface. At times I had the impression that Szpilman was merely a plot contrivance rather than a living, breathing human being. There is a dryness that pervades the film that is rather astonishing considering the subject matter and Polanski's emotional investment in the subject.  That said, this is still a powerful film that conveys with tremendous technical skill the experience of being a Jew on the run in war-torn Warsaw. In light of Polanski's rather tepid recent films, it must also be seen as something of a return to form.

A Panther in Africa

In 1969, Pete O'Neal fled the U.S. in the face of federal arms charges. A Black Panther, he went to Africa where he lived briefly in Algeria before settling permanently in Tanzania where he remains today. As this documentary made for PBS's POV series makes clear, he is a man caught between two cultures. Although he has been welcomed by his neighbors in the village that is now his home, and he generally finds Africa a more civil place that the Kansas City he was raised in, he is clearly torn. In one telling sequence, his elderly mother visits from the U.S. and it is quite likely that they will never see each other again. Over the course of the filming O'Neal undergoes a change. He at first is intent on being exonerated of the charges in the U.S., but by the end of the film, that is no longer an issue for him. He simply wants to continue developing the community teaching center he and his wife have nurtured over the past 30 years.      

DVDs To Your Doorstep!

Pack of Lies
Originally made for cable TV, this is a well crafted story dealing with
friendship, deceit and Big Brother. In the 60s, a pair of neighboring
families in suburban London, one British, the other American, enjoy a warm
friendship. One day a secret service type shows up at the American's door
saying there's a spy operating in the area. The government needs to
commandeer their home to catch the spy. Though initially unwilling, the
family acquiesces leading to betrayal and a tragic aftermath.

Petulia
Using flashback and flash-forward techniques, jump cuts and a dizzying story
line, English director Richard Lester levels a jaundiced eye on America in
the late 60s. A recently divorced, bored surgeon (George C. Scott) is picked
up by an emotionally unstable, prankish young woman (Julie Christy) who has
been married for just a few months and finds herself in an intolerably
abusive relationship. Set in San Francisco, (which in this film looks more
like L.A.) the city is awash with flower children who seem to largely ignore
the tragedy unfolding in Vietnam. Everyone comes in for a thorough trashing
at Lester's hands in this acerbic serio-comedy that features cameos by the
Grateful Dead and Janice Joplin. Perhaps more remarkable for its technique
than its heavy-handed commentary on the declining American empire, this 1968
film still seems fresh today.
 

Public Access

The first film by Bryan Singer who went on to make "The Usual Suspects",
this is the chilling story of a stranger who arrives in an idyllic
middle-America town and rents time on a local cable channel to put on a
program which seeks to unearth all of the community's darker secrets. With
a visually arresting opening, and an eery atmosphere, the film's only flaw
is an apparent lack of motivation on the part of the trouble maker.

Pack of Lies

Originally made for cable TV, this is a well crafted story dealing with
friendship, deceit and Big Brother. In the 60s, a pair of neighboring
families in suburban London, one British, the other American, enjoy a warm
friendship. One day a secret service type shows up at the Americans' door
saying there's a spy operating in the area. The government needs to
commandeer their home to catch the spy. Though initially unwilling, the
family acquiesces leading to a tragic aftermath.
 

Padre Padrone

Based on the autobiography of Sardinian writer Gavino Ledda, it discloses
his often brutal upbringing at the hands of a violent father. Taken out of
school at an early age to help tend his father's sheep, Gavino grows up
illiterate and ignorant of the outer world. It is only as a young man, when
he joins the Italian army that he develops the independence to defy his
domineering father. Directed by the Taviani brothers, the film offers
glimpses into a little-known agrarian society while the soundtrack includes
Sardinian harmony singing. May prove slow going for some viewers.

Petulia

Using flashback and flashforward techniques, jump cuts and a dizzying story
line, English director Richard Lester levels a jaundiced eye on America in
the late 60s. A recently divorced, bored surgeon (George C. Scott) is
picked up by an emotionally unstable, prankish young woman (Julie Christy)
who has been married for just a few months and finds herself in an
intolerably abusive relationship. Set in San Francisco, (which in this film
looks more like L.A.) the city is awash with flower children while it
largely ignores the tragedy unfolding in Vietnam. Everyone comes in for a
thorough trashing at Lester's hands in this ascerbic serio-comedy that
features cameos by the Grateful Dead and Janice Joplin. Perhaps more
remarkable for its technique than its heavyhanded commentary on the
declining American empire, this 1968 film still seems fresh today.
 

Pathfinder

This Norwegian production is told in the Lap language and as such may be,
along with the previously reviewed "In the Time of the Gypsies", the only
films ever made that require subtitling virtually everywhere they are
screened. Based on a legend and set hundreds of years ago, a young Lap boy
is captured by a gang of marauding cutthroats who demand that he lead them
to his fellow villagers who have fled. This is a thrilling adventure
coupled with a look at a little-known culture.
 

Paper Mask

A hospital orderly impersonates a doctor who has been killed in an auto
wreck. Watching him attempt to grapple with myriad medical situations is by
turns, grim, tense and comic. A wry look at the medical profession.
 
 

Paper Moon

This highly entertaining Peter Bogdanovich film is the story of a huckster
and his kid sidekick who tour the 1930s South fleecing the rubes. The leads
are played winningly by Ryan O'Neal and his real-life daughter, Tatum who
won an Oscar. She is about as convincing a child-actor as any who has gone
into film.
 

Paths of Glory

Stanley Kubrick's anti-war polemic follows the career of a French officer
(Kirk Douglas) during WWI who refuses to send his troops into a situation
that spells certain death for them. Two of his men are picked as scapegoats
by an evil general played expertly by Adolf Menjou to be court-martialed in
his stead.
 
 

Palookaville

A clever little comedy reminiscent of "Big Deal on Madonna Street" about a
group of hapless optimists who decide to rip off a jewelry store. These
amiable fuckups manage to break into a donut shop instead, but its the
indelible characterizations which makes this one work. Superficially it
looks like one of the many Tarantino clones that have dominated movies of
late, but this is a much kinder, gentler work.
 
 

Paris, Texas

Another film starring Harry Dean Stanton, this time as a guy who, following
the breakup of his marriage, wanders off into the desert abandoning his
young son, only to reappear years later when he attempts to resume a
relationship with his boy and later, to find his wife. Very atmospheric
with a great score by Ry Cooder. Like most of German director Wim Wenders'
films, this touches on the twin themes of rebirth and redemption.
 

Party Girl

The East Village takes on "Clueless" in this knowing comedy starring Parker
Posey as a New York naif who under straitened circumstances goes to work at
a public library. Though she is clearly unsuited to the job, she perseveres
while trying to maintain her lifestyle as a rent party organizer. A
charming subplot involves her on and off affair with a Lebanese felafel
pushcart operator. Slight but endearing.
 
 

Passion Fish

A soap opera star is paralyzed in an accident and sinks into deep despair
when she retreats to her family home in Louisiana where she can fully
exercise her bitchy tendencies. A nurse-companion (Alfre Woodard) turns up
and turns her life upside down. Unsentimental and meaty in every respect.
 
 

The Pawnbroker

Rod Steiger in a once-in-a-lifetime performance is Sol Nazerman, an
emotionally frozen Holocaust survivor operating a pawnshop in Harlem. I
believe he won an Academy Award for this performance. The supporting cast
of largely unknowns is very nearly equally moving. Beautifully photographed
and told.
 

Phantome de Liberté AKA Phantom of Liberty

One of Luis Buñuel's more outrageous efforts is a series of loosely
connected incidents that pokes fun at a variety of institutions. In one
scene a group of dinner guests are exceedingly open about their defecating
and secretive about their eating; there's something unforgettable about
the sight of a gaggle of French bourgeoisie astride toilets chowing down on
an elaborate feast! (Twenty years later, indie director Richard Linklater
used a similarly disjointed but effective approach in his "Slacker"
reviewed earlier.)
 

Phantom India

If you have any interest whatever in India, this documentary made by Malle
for French TV in the late 60s is the one to see. I have unsuccessfully
searched for a video version of the series which as I recall ran over six
hours on American public TV. The camera is quite invisible as Malle probes
the teeming and exotic totality that is India. Though probably a bit dated
by now, "Phantom India" still has much to offer anyone with an interest in
the subcontinent.
 

Phar Lap

The story of an actual racehorse from Australia who mysteriously died in
America in the 1930s, this smartly told tale has none of the schmaltzy,
tear-jerking so evident in others of the genre such as "National Velvet"
and "Black Beauty". This unsentimentalized story is a too strong for
younger children.
 
 

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Three Australian schoolgirls and a teacher on an outing disappear without a
trace. This is the setup for Peter Weir's enigmatic mystery which has just
been rereleased in video. Set at the turn of the century, it is highly
atmospheric and gorgeously filmed with an appropriately haunting soundtrack
by Zamfir, the pan pipe virtuoso. Be warned that there are no conclusions
here; those with a pronounced need for closure will come away dissatisfied.
 
 

The Pillow Book

The latest Peter Greenaway film, like its predecessors is awfully tough to
describe. The director has said that he is not interested in the
conventional ingredients of film such as plot and character and "The Pillow
Book" certainly proves that. What it shares with his other films are
gorgeous production design, an obsession with counting and occasional,
incredibly graphic sex and gore. The film is ostensibly about a
Chinese-Japanese woman who as a child has her body decorated by her
calligrapher-writer father with special birthday messages. After his death,
apparently at the hands of his bisexual publisher, the daughter goes on to
seek out lovers who can continue to apply literature to her body. In time
she comes to do a little body writing of her own. The story is told within
the context of the thousand year-old diary of a Japanese noblewoman and is
pictorialized with multi-screen techniques that undoubtedly work best on a
full-sized movie screen. So keep an eye out for any theatrical
presentations - though Greenaway is an acquired taste and his films don't
get much play here. A couple of other fairly indescribable efforts of his
that are worth seeking out: "The Draughtsman's Contract" and "Drowning by
Numbers".
 

The Player

The opening minutes of this Robert Altman film contain what is perhaps the
longest tracking shot ever made during which the institutions of Hollywood
are closely observed. Tim Robbins is a harried movie executive who is
receiving blackmailing letters while trying to deal with a possible looming
executive shuffle within his studio. The brilliant script pokes plenty of
fun at Hollywood with several screamingly funny vignettes in which
screenwriters pitch Robbins with outlandish scenarios. Compelling from
start to finish with dozens of cameos-try to spot all the film folk.
 
 

Playing for Time
 

Vanessa Redgrave delivers a stirring performance in the role of Fania
Fenelon, a Jewish cabaret singer who becomes part of a women's orchestra at
Auschwitz and thus "plays for time" while thousands of fellow Jews go to
the gas chambers. Intensely sad and upsetting.
 

Pleasantville

Of late there has been a spate of movies dealing with TV as a force
overtaking real life: "Ed-TV", "The Truman Show" and "Pleasantville. The
latter strikes me as the most successful of the lot. One night a teenaged
brother and sister get into a squabble over the TV remote; he wants to
watch a marathon airing of episodes from a 50s sitcom called Pleasantville.
He's an expert in all manner of trivia relating to the show and hopes to
win a contest run by the cable channel. In the tussle over the remote, it
is broken. Moments later a strange little TV repairman appears at the door.
He has a new remote for the kids; one that he promises has more "oomph".
The next thing we know, the siblings have been projected into their TV set
and they are now respectively Bud and Mary Sue, the teenagers central to
the Pleasantville family-a thinly disguised "Father Knows Best" clan. What
ensues is an examination of how these 90s kids with their Gen-X
sensibilities impact the nostalgic and repressed landscape of the sitcom.
The production shifts between black and white and color footage to
effectively differentiate the staid, conformist 50s from the liberated but
troubled present. Though there are some slow stretches in the middle, the
film is an incisive look at how we tend to romanticize the good old days
and lament our present era with its complex of problems.
 

Prizzi's Honor

A fine, unusual comedy deftly directed by John Huston with standout
performances by Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner, Anjelica Huston and Robert
Loggia. Nicholson is a slow-witted hit man who falls in love with WASP-ish
Turner causing all sorts of upset within his tightly knit Mafia family.
 

The Producers

My favorite Mel Brooks comedy is a study in irreverence. Crooked Broadway
promoter Zero Mostel connives to attract financing for a sure-fire flop: a
musical based on the life of Der Fuhrer that includes a production number
titled "Springtime for Hitler". I've seen it a couple of times and the
second viewing was just as much fun as the first.
 

Proof

A very different sort of story about a blind young man whose hobby is
taking photographs. Made in Australia, it deals with what is true and
false, and with human treachery. The mood ranges from wicked comedy to
troubling sadness and I think you'll stay with it all the way.
 

Prisoner of the Mountains

Two Russian soldiers are taken captive by a Muslim chief who wants to trade
them for his son who is being held as a political prisoner by the Soviets.
The soldiers develop a relationship with the chief's young daughter and we
are given glimpses of life in an Asian Russian republic-a world rarely
touched on in film. Beautiful photography is enhanced by deft pacing.
 
 

Point Blank

A really hardboiled crime drama with revenge at its heart is brought to the
screen with conviction by Lee Marvin in the lead role as a crook just
released from prison who is after the partner who shot and left him for
dead during a holdup. Great locales around L.A. and Alcatraz combine with
hard nosed action sequences for a gutsy impact. This may have been the
first movie to depict a guy getting slugged in the crotch!
 

Ponette
 

I don't recall any other film in which the portrayal of a very young child
has been so naturally achieved. The remarkable performance of four year-old
Victoire Thivisol as the title character is stunning in its believability.
It is as though the cameras and crew were invisible during filming so
natural is her performance. The genuiness and utter conviction of her
delivery reminds me of sociological documentaries such as "21-Up" where the
camera is frequently hidden. Ponette's mother has recently died in an auto
accident in which Ponette was injured. The film involves her attempts to
come to terms with her mother's disappearance and to grapple with the
concept of death. Ultimately, through her rich fantasy life in which her
mother figures large, she is able to arrive at some acceptance of what has
happened. Director Jacques Doillon spent many hours interviewing children
about their perceptions of death in developing his script. And this effort
shows-the dialogue is thoroughly believable and gives us glimpses into the
way children establish their world view. It also underscores the human
need to believe and explores the differences between superstition and
religion. It is especially interesting to see how Ponette's coping
mechanisms seem more effective and mature than those of her bereft father
and other mourning adults. There is a final scene in which Ponette's
mother seems to materialize which can be taken in a couple of ways; either
as an actual, mystical event, or as a product of Ponette's imagination. If
it is was intended as the former, (and I don't think it was) this would
serve to unhinge the thematic structure of the film. This is a stunning
work of observation without a scrap of the phony preciousness that in
lesser hands might have engulfed it.
 

The Party

One of my favorite Peter Sellers vehicles in which he plays an (Asian)
Indian man who works as an extra in the movies. The character has a large
dollop of the Inspector Clouseau qualities that made the Pink Panther
series so successful and is directed by Blake Edwards who knew how to get
the most out of Sellers' tremendous facility for physical comedy. Most of
the film involves Sellers creating havoc at a Hollywood party - the gags
come hot and heavy. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite hold up 'til the end
as the story depends more on dumb jokes in the final reel.
 
 

The Parallax View

A great political paranoia thriller from the 70s in which Warren Beatty
plays a reporter who discovers that many of the witnesses to a senator's
assassination have died mysteriously. Very believable in its execution, it
is taut and extremely well plotted. Nothing is quite as it seems, every
character is suspect and the total effect is quite nerve-wracking, in large
part thanks to a tense soundtrack full of disturbing effects and purposely
obscured framing of shots.
 

Performance

When I last watched this, I realized that it hadn't aged as gracefully as I
would have hoped. Nonetheless, its an interesting picture with a lot to
recommend it. Mick Jagger is very good as a washed-up, androgynous rock
star (not much of a stretch other than the washed-up part) and Edward Fox
delivers as a menacing gangster. The soundtrack feature song, "Ballad of
Nat Turner" still sounds crunchingly good after all these years and the
scene where Fox is fed a salad spiked with magic mushrooms is still a hoot.
 
 

Paradise Lost: The Robin Hood Hills Murder Mystery

The mutilated bodies of three murdered boys are discovered in a ditch near
Memphis. Soon after, a trio of teenagers are charged and convicted of the
crimes. This compelling documentary painstakingly analyzes the evidence and
concludes that the convicted boys were railroaded, largely based on their
dabbling in witchcraft and interest in heavy metal music. The filmmakers do
an amazing job of getting everyone to talk-the parents of the victims and
the accused, the prosecution and the defense. What emerges is a troubling
rush to judgment. There's a website mentioned in the closing credits which
details a horrendous list of troubles that have befallen many of the
involved parties since the conviction.
 

A Private Function

Only the British are capable of making a comedy like this that by turns is
grungy and irreverent then sly and knowing and finally, ultimately cruel.
The story, set in post WWII England during a period of strict food
rationing involves a pig that is strictly contraband and the various
villagers who want to get their hands on it.
 

Princess Caraboo

A winsome fable set in early 19th century England that concerns a young
woman of regal bearing, speaking a foreign tongue no one understands and
wearing exotic clothes who turns up out of the blue in the British
countryside. She is adopted by a wealthy family who are charmed by this
mysterious girl as are their servants, especially the butler, loopily
played for laughs by Kevin Klein. The film takes a number of gentle jabs
at the British caste system, justice, corruption and xenophobia on its way
to a surprising finale.
 

La Promesse

In a bleak industrial Belgian town a man and his teenage son scrabble for a
living by housing and hiring out illegal immigrants. They go about their
work in an amoral haze exploiting the illegals while living in barely
better circumstances themselves. The father is at once brutal and doting,
the son is frighteningly precocious and blithe in his larcenies. When an
African tenant falls at a subrosa jobsite, the dying man exacts a promise
from the son that he will look after his wife and child. The boy struggles
to find a moral compass while his father insists on covering up the
African's death to avoid complications with the authorities. Grittily
realistic with a minimal plot and lacking a score, the film is pictorially
very carefully worked out and recalls such other works of European cinema
as "The 400 Blows" and "The Bicycle Thief". An incisive and relentless
examination of xenophobia in today's multicultural Europe.
 
 

Pushing Tin