Rush In Rio

Remember the bad old days of music on VHS, when most videoed concerts ran for a standard TV-show length of 45 minutes? If you were lucky, a premier band released 75 minutes worth, but that was rare. Canadian trio Rush always provided far better value for money than most of their rivals (not that I think they have any equals). Their previous live video, the remarkable A Show Of Hands (1988), filmed over two nights at Birmingham’s NEC, plays for 90 minutes.

This is the first DVD from Rush and, despite various production difficulties including the band’s lack of prep time for a pro sound-check, it’s an amazing film. Shot with 22 cameras in Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana Stadium, this venue sees Rush performing for a 40,000-strong audience on 23rd November 2002.

Neil Peart - the Professor

Starting with Tom Sawyer, the band recycles other 1980s’ tracks such as New World Man, before launching into new material like Earthshine. Unlike many progressive-rock bands, Rush play artfully composed instrumentals - including their momentous YYZ - without any danger of appearing self-indulgent, because such works maintain their commitment to creativity and musicianship. The Pass is introduced as one of the band’s own favourites, and it’s followed by Big Money and The Trees, with lyrics that comment on capitalism and politics. Closer To The Heart was a late addition to this tour’s set-list, especially for the Brazilian audiences, because Rush discovered it was the most popular of their songs, down south. The often-neglected Natural Science precedes a brief intermission, but the band return to the stage in spectacular fashion with a cartoon dragon on the main projection screen, perfectly synchronised to physical fire effects to mark the beginning of One Little Victory.

The second half of the show continues with more songs from the latest album, and their live versions of Ghost Rider and Secret Touch are even more energetic than the studio tracks. Dreamline and the brooding Red Sector ‘A’ segue into the main instrumental section of the show, which includes Neil Peart’s awesome solo O Baterista, an impressive piece that aims to present a narrative of drumming and drums. Rush have pointedly ignored rock stars’ vogue for ‘unplugged’ versions of their songs, but here we find Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson sitting down with acoustic guitars for a folksy arrangement of protest-song Resist, which does at least give Peart a break from the circular array of his revolving drum kit.

Geddy Lee

It’s mostly older material from then on, with the powerhouse ‘Overture’ from 2112, a livewire rendition of The Spirit Of Radio (still, I think, Rush’s most successful 45-rpm single), a medley of By-Tor And The Snowdog with Cygnus X-1 (only the intro), in an encore that closes with Working Man - a track from their very first album.

Alex Lifeson

At nearly three hours, RUSH IN RIO (2003) offers magnificent entertainment, complete with Peart’s frankly staggering variety of percussive beats, Lifeson’s hilarious warbling rant about jazz, and there’s also Lee’s unusual stage-decor of laundry machines. If your musical tastes include anything by Led Zeppelin, Rush  are regarded as leaders of the next generation of innovative rock acts. Diehard fans will not be disappointed.

An extras disc features Andrew MacNaughton’s excellent documentary The Boys In Brazil (54 minutes), which details the planning and execution of Rush’s first ever visit to Brazil for the tour’s last three dates (all stadium shows) with the 60,000 crowd in San Paulo being the largest audience Rush have ever played to as a headline act.

Tolkien 3

Peter Jackson’s epic ‘Tolkien trilogy’ revolutionised fantasy movies, starting with The Fellowship Of The Ring (2001), followed by The Two Towers (2002), and this closing chapter, THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING (2003). For this great Middle-earth saga to work on-screen, with original cinema versions and the full set of ‘extended editions’ many liberties were reportedly taken with JRR’s texts. As I have not read those books, my view of what’s widely acclaimed as the ultimate form of literature in its genre, and this adaptation, remains limited to an SF interpretation of the grandiose spectacle as a legend about disarmament. 

It’s a triumph of genuinely noble wisdom over madness, and details valiant efforts to avert the possibility of catastrophic warfare simply by disposal of the doomsday weapon. Since the One Ring can only be un-made in the fires of Mordor, we can see this notion of a meltdown destruction putting an end to such 'evil', and so the ring becomes a prime WMD example. This notion is reflected in varied sci-fi works but, perhaps most tellingly, with the annihilation of the cyborg stealth weapon, in Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), that saves the future for humanity.

Despite its glorification of warfare, referencing the crusades (as ‘halflings’ can be read as children), here, somewhat perversely, even the long dead are called upon to fight as ghosts. Whatever your views, this remains action cinema of repeatedly astonishing displays when levels of magical threat expands from shire (village), to fortress (city), to realm (the world). There are many grotesque fantasy horrors in Middle-earth's journey, but I always found that Shelob the giant spider is the most nightmare-inducing creature of them all. As for this movie's protracted string of awkwardly sentimental endings, I think Jackson’s ROTK should have shown the newly crowned monarch, with elf royalty, and other people, bowing to the heroic hobbits... and then a fade to black. That would have been a more sensible as the final scene.

Demonlover

What begins as a routinely credible intriguer about industrial espionage stealthily but relentlessly develops into a meditation upon and an expose of the disturbing and complex roles that sex with violence play in global corporate media markets. DEMONLOVER (2002) by Olivier Assayas, maker of stylised French comedy-drama Irma Vep (1996), delivers his very best movie, so far. It’s one of this century’s new classics and an often dazzling picture that’s the most underrated Euro-Asian psychological thriller of its decade. 

Despite some quite adverse critical reactions, Assayas' extraordinarily perceptive character-studies of women in control, and women being controlled, overcomes initially baffled reservations about its lack of obvious narrative logic, especially on repeat viewings. With the fascinating central performances, by Connie Nielsen, Chloe Sevigny, and Gina Gershon, there is executive rivalry for management promotions on a brokered virtuality project for securing a world monopoly on ‘adults only’ anime. Cold ambitions are stymied by romantic entanglements and office politics. Cat-burglar exploits result in a clumsy murder and subsequent cover-up, but more answers than questions about frequently bewildering crimes when conventional plotting segues, quite inexplicably, into resolutely horrific surrealism. Assayas’ deeply tragicomic leanings are startling in both aspect and affect.

Demonlover defies expectations and dramatic standards by providing no comforting explanations for those in need of reassurance that the heroine will escape, or at least survive. After upsetting all the ‘wrong’ people by hacking into the forbidden ‘Hellfire Club’ website, the unwary thief is kidnapped for (perversely, off-screen) a systematic ordeal of drug abuse and torture, later thoroughly broken by sadomasochistic experience when she returns to work, at an office now run by a mysterious assistant.

Palpable fetishistic eroticism follows during nightmares of gamely fighting a way out of anomalous captivity. Is this just another weirdo activity in a cyber-sexy damnation trial? Glossily mesmeric and peculiarly anonymous, eager to jettison its rationality, while counter-balancing everyday mundanity with an exotic glamour of hyper-fast edits of intoxicating imagery, Demonlover might appear annoyingly imprecise, yet it's overloaded with tantalising subtexts. It’s ironic, as a recklessly unfocussed critique of sociopathic corporations, and a headlong ride into garishly wondrous oblivion. This is essential viewing for anyone who enjoyed Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983), and eXistenZ (1999), or Wenders’ superbly enigmatic Until The End Of The World (1991). 

Adaptation

Written by Charlie Kaufman, directed by Spike Jonze, and with an excellent dual-role for Nicolas Cage, portraying Charlie and his twin Donald, comedy-drama ADAPTATION (2002) offers an offbeat deconstruction and meta-dissection of screenwriting and the nature of making movies. 

It boasts outstanding support from Meryl Streep, Tilda Swinton, and Maggie Gyllenhaal, with Brian Cox as story-maven Robert McKee, plus endearing cameo appearances for studio flashbacks about Jonze’s classic Being John Malkovich (1999). Prompted by a case of writer’s block, this is bursting with searing pathos for profoundly creative struggles, while attempting to turn literary art-forms into something more commercial.

But “..what if the writer is attempting to create a story where nothing much happens?” It never succumbs to entirely maudlin sentiment or gentle whimsy, but explores with a fascinating wit, various models of documentary realism, bizarre fantasy, and almost everything between such polarised opposites. This peculiarly amusing satire remains essential viewing for any keen fans of genuinely innovative cinema.

Mulholland Drive

Noir desires collide with a sleepwalking detective-story while this mind-bending narrative unfolds with archly trickster mendacity. David Lynch’s MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001) seems to be classic movie-making by happy accident. Much like Richard Kelly’s cult-worthy Donnie Darko (also 2001), this deals out its death cheating hands of marked cards, open to interpretations of romanticised fate that perhaps tolerates no rational explanation. 

Watching it is to just wonder why this puzzler exists at all. Elements from the auteur’s previous work drift into view, every now and then, so looking for visual expressionist references or thematic riffs on Twin Peaks (1990), and Lost Highway (1997), should be a sport you wish to play. Was Inland Empire (2006) supposed to be clarification?

Classification resistant and impossible to pigeon-hole, this mystery about murder and identity on the border of sanity abandons logic but not hope, in a convoluted fairytale that hinges upon Lynch’s apparent fascination with Jungian psychology.

Effortlessly blending dreams with harsh realities the artist’s ingenuity is utterly beguiling, as paired female characters switch from emotional transparency to morally opaque destiny in this dark realm charting the mechanics of creating films, and the overpowering quest for bright transcendental metaphors, whether its director thinks they are revelations or simple illusions. Who really cares what he thought, anyway? 

The Dr is in...

BHD

The battle of Mogadishu in 1993 gets a vivid big-screen treatment from a great filmmaker at the height of his technical proficiency and creative powers. Ridley Scott’s BLACK HAWK DOWN (2001) is a true-story horror of a military operation going tragically wrong. It shows what happens when professional soldiers confront a warlord’s militia forces. 

When any thorough tactical advantage is lost, American squads are outflanked and besieged by Somali belligerence and ferocity. Gritty and messy scenes of airborne troops are quite unnervingly mixed with a more traditional sort of gung-ho US action, epitomised by Tom Sizemore as the battalion commander. He strides purposefully through the mayhem of sundry guerrilla strikes in urban slums, to deliver a fearless portrait of unflinchingly single-minded heroism, staring into the face of sudden death and wanton destruction. Ewan McGregor, Eric Bana, and Sam Shepard are excellent in their supporting roles. 

Centred on a pair of helicopter crashes, and the desperate bravery of rescuers, it’s one of the greatest war movies ever made. John Moore’s similarly themed Behind Enemy Lines (2001), about a US jet pilot shot down in the Bosnian war, fails to match its grim intensity.

Rotary Action archive page about Black Hawk Down. 

X-Men

A starter-pack for this century’s golden age of superhero cinema, Marvel actioner X-MEN (2000) was primary, in many respects, although one previous low-budget attempt to launch a franchise was made for introducing mutants in Jack Sholder’s TV movie Generation X (1996). Bryan Singer’s fantastic adventure boasts  plenty of remarkable sci-fi aesthetics, with its fast cutting impressively blending staged stunts and special effects to ensure noisily convincing fights, frequently with the animalistic Wolverine (Hugh Jackson). 

Impossibly agile kids, talented prodigies, and social misfits, all despised by one witch-hunting senator, that make up the secluded outsider community of Xavier’s school for gifted students in New York state, are just a front for Prof X’s super-team. These X-Men aren’t keen on fighting for Superman’s much vaunted 'truth, justice, and the American way' but they will stop terrorist plots to irradiate world leaders at a UN summit, while also trying to save mankind from self-destructive impulses - which is altogether decidedly more pragmatic and honest than those woolly principles that Krypton’s last son usually upholds.

Xavier and Magneto are old friends who cannot agree on the shape of things to come. Rogue seems doomed to victim status, Wolverine is typically quite happy to just slay his enemies, and nice guys finish first, if not always like winners against prejudice, while the young X-Men are full of doubts and fears, just like us regular folks. After this major success, the Marvel way looked like the only way for this post-millennium world.  

Sequels tend to signify commercial exploitation, usually tolerated only as a necessary evil of an industry that needs to keep the reels turning. Yet the comics format - unlike novels, short stories, or plays - as source material for movies, would seem to demand a filmed trilogy, at least. Singer’s  X-MEN 2 (aka: X2, 2003) introduced German, Russian and other characters, with the spectacular action playing on a broader scale, that includes Wolverine versus Deathstrike in the greatest knife-fight ever filmed. 

Requiem FAD

Critically described as 'the greatest movie you’ll never want to see again', this intense psycho-drama of how drugs crush any shred of humanity in addicts is a bleak tragedy of errors. On first viewing, Darren Aronofsky’s REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000) was so powerfully grim, it was a week before I recovered from its lingering depressive mind-set. Hyper-charged editing patterns combine with surrealistic images and uncompromisingly morbid repetitions to create its unsettling moods. The provocative affect is mesmerising yet equally disturbing.

The furious barrage of hypnotic visuals sets RFAD far apart from any typical junkie pictures, like Terry Gilliam’s black-comedy Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (1998), so its relentlessly downbeat model of cynical pessimism eventually becomes a mind-shattering experience, that’s also heart-breaking because an addict’s quest for yet another dose of high sometimes mirrors wishful thinking about freedom  from inhuman cruelty in this modern world. Drug culture means no possibility of any fleeting escape from that all-consuming desire for a fix. 

While Ellen Burstyn steals the show as widow Sara Goldfarb, hooked on diet pills and obsessed by trashy TV shows, her low-life son Harry (Jared Leto), and his girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly), fail as heroin dealers, very soon falling into crimes that spiral all the way down to scenes like hell on Earth. Some pictures are unforgettable. This is not usually classified as genre horror and yet that’s exactly what this scary, weird, and crushingly depressing drama really is. 

What sticks in memory is genuine horrors without a pause, bloated with grisly shocks and intense suffering, evocative of social depravity for a devastating emotional landslide of startling images. Mental collapse and physical infection eventually results in hospitals or prison abuse, with paranoid hallucinations until... there’s no such thing in reality as a happy ending that exists beyond fantasy. 

Stunning evidence of a visionary imagination this cements director Aronofsky’s reputation as a fascinating American auteur to watch, and so his later work, in particular, The Fountain (2006), Black Swan (2010), Noah (2014), and Mother! (2017), reveals a talent for conjuring up weird wonders to rival those by David Lynch.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Ang Lee’s magnificent ‘wuxia’ sword-play adventure proved to be a breakthrough production as the biggest international success for Chinese language cinema. CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (2000) established a mainstream presence for Asian costume-drama martial arts, with its great popularity reflecting that of The Water Margin series on British TV in the late 1970s. Chow Yun-fat and Michelle Yeoh lead a varied cast, and CTHD helped to make Zhang Ziyi a star. Certainly, this fantasy is an improvement on the director’s western Ride With The Devil (1999). It offers a wonderfully seamless blend of kung fu thrills, romantic dramas with engaging characters, and plenty of exhilarating action, even if there’s about 15 minutes of set-ups, establishing dialogues and introductions, before the first battle sequence.

The main stars are both great, and they easily dominate proceedings with a hypnotic presence not always shared by the supporting cast, although Zhang is exceptional as Jen, a young rebel against several Chinese traditions. The story is basically familiar hokum, simply but honestly revising many of this genre’s Asian elements - about honourable warriors with idealistic passions, and the minutiae of a closed society still alien to westerners - but also inverting (and re-inventing) other diverse themes, including decisive feminism, optimistic nostalgia, and the tragedy of heroes burdened by repressive social mores.

Best known for his stylised gangster roles, Chow swaps handguns for a Green Destiny sword, and sunglasses for a Manchu ponytail. Yet, even with a newfound mastery of a blade, instead of his trademark automatic pistols, the two heroines eclipse Chow’s reluctant champion, and the longest combat scenes involve women. There’s one vigorous duel that’s equal to any of the spectacular fighting displays in The Matrix (1999), although unsurprisingly, because extremely capable stunts master Yuen Woo-ping was action choreographer on both films.

Unlike typical Hong Kong movies, such as New Dragon Gate Inn (1992), this lacks an almost relentless pacing, with black comedy, and general weirdness, but CTHD offers a distinctive energy, with high levels of visual polish and artistic style that only major projects can hope to achieve. I really can’t recommend this enough, especially to any wuxia fans who ever felt disappointed by the often low-grade finishing roughness applied to many similar movies.