Eastwood

Watched a double-bill of DVD films directed by Clint Eastwood, last night.

Caught up with crime drama/ murder mystery Mystic River, which benefits from quietly understated performances by Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins, but is derailed by Sean Penn going slightly OTT. I liked the nifty cameo from Eli Wallach (as shopkeeper of 'Loonie liquors') during which he delivers the great line: "Scary as a glass of milk!"

Followed that with the WWII epic Flags Of Our Fathers, about Iwo Jima and its aftermath. This proved to be very watchable, and thankfully not half as grossly-sentimentalised as Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, but Eastwood's latest effort was rather uninvolving due to some wooden acting from its young stars (Ryan Phillippe, weak as ever... has he made any 'good' films? Adam Beach was much better in Windtalkers). FOOF is great as pure spectacle, though, and is a solid piece of storytelling about how one image can (be used/ abused? to) inspire many.

Neither of these films are as good as Eastwood's tragic drama about a female boxer, Million Dollar Baby... After recent offerings, I wonder now if Eastwood has considered making another western without starring in it?

Tideland

Okay, the little girl (Jodelle Ferland, Silent Hill) is absolutely brilliant in the film... and hopefully, there'll be a clutch of special 'child actor' film awards with her name on them! One or two of the surreal fantasy bits - especially the submerged house effects (curiously, its obvious CGI fakery only adds to the general underwater weirdness) are quite fascinating but, after my first DVD viewing of Tideland, it seems to have been very overrated by the critics.

I agree that it's a great film, and never boring for a second, but this isn't the masterpiece that some have claimed. The pace is often tired (like Jeff Bridges' character, did Gilliam fall 'asleep' ... and let his usually hyperactive imagination 'die' from an overdose of wishfulfilment?), and its combo of genre references (basically Psycho meete Alice In Wonderland) is hardly original... Jan Svankmajer did all this stuff years ago!

Although some might be (oh-my-gosh) shocked by the parents' junkie scenes, and the contentious "silly kisser" scenes with adult Dickens and little Jeliz-Rose, too much of what's on screen seems twee and trite compared to more powerful and genuinely unsettling Asian fantasy-chillers available today.

Director Terry Gilliam might say that he's found his inner child, but this just feels like an old man's film.

My score for Tideland: 7/10.
At least it's much better than the horribly clunky Brothers Grimm!

28 Days

Where does the time go?

Seems like I only put new calendars up last week... now it's February, already! Has the fast-foward button got stuck again?

Dracula 3000

If you thought Patrick Lussier's Dracula 2000 (aka: Dracula 2001), and its sequels Dracula II and Dracula III makes the above trilogy seem quite brilliant and inventive!

Synopsis: Oh, wouldn't it be a lark if they found Count Orlock undead on a spaceship?

Although director Darrell Roodt made the so-so mystery-thriller Second Skin (with la Henstridge) a few years back, he's obviously learned nothing since, and I can't figure out how he's still in work... Are they just throwing money away on such German and South African co-productions as this, now?

Dracula 3000 (D3K) shuffles around plot-points from Event Horizon and Supernova (but without big-budget effects, or any star-name players in its cast), and somehow manages to make cheesy fun like Jason X look like truly great cinema in comparison!

In D3K, Casper Van Dien plays the cardboard Van Helsing, onetime BayWatch babe Erika Eleniak looks every year of her mid-thirties now, Coolio (who, judging from his characterisation of a 3rd millennial spacer, might've seen Dark Star but not Star Trek) is so terrible and useless an actor I'm surprised they didn't offer the role to his shadow, and Tiny Lister simply overacts even more than usual. No wonder Udo Kier phoned in his video-log appearance.

Don't be fooled by the Giger-esque poster artwork. The Dracula of this movie (that's 'movie' pronounced "tiresome rubbish" and which feels like a thorn in your eye) is no cyber-goth creation, but a sorry panto version of the prince of darkness. Honestly, D3K makes its 80 minutes runtime feel like an all-nighter. Make no mistake; sitting through this film - without resorting to regular use of your remote-control's fast-forward button - is not entertainment, it's an ordeal (I will probably be in therapy until spring-time!).

If you pride youself on having the stamina to watch anything (no matter how bad) and haven't seen the awful Dracula 3000, yet, I suggest you prepare for something that feels like a jaw-load of nagging toothache (is that really how you want to spend an evening at home?) before you go and rent it... The only sane reason for seeing D3K is to discover the 21st century's new benchmark for utter boredom that's available on DVD.

5 books

A quick listing of some recommended reading...

The UK edition of Steve Aylett's Lint isn't due until March 2007, but readers who are already familiar with Aylett's investigative biography of cult figure Jeff Lint can wallow in And Your Point Is?, a collection of wry and livewire criticism of "scorn and meaning in Lint's fiction". Another generous helping of Aylett is served up by Fain The Sorcerer, a short novel introduced by Alan Moore, delivering an accurate summary of the attributes and literary appeal of Aylett's work. He's an author who's not afraid of interviewing himself. Find out more about the staggeringly talented young Mr Aylett by visiting www.steveaylett.com.

A second genre writer with two books out now is notable SF author Rudy Rucker. He's another personal favourite... Mathematicians In Love (Tor) throws together romance and science with surprising results, while Mad Professor (Thunder's Mouth) is another fabulously rich collection of Rucker's short fiction. There's more info at www.rudyrucker.com.

Finally, there's John Gribbin's The Universe: A Biography (Penguin/ Allen Lane), a pop science book tackling its subject in a highly intriguing manner.