THANKS FOR THE LOVELY GWTW FEEDBACK.
A TRIBUTE TO SCHINDLER
I see that Schindler’s List [SABC3.Thursday.00.30] is on again. The movie was voted in as Best Picture of 1993, earning Stephen Spielberg a long overdue directing accolade. The movie, based on the best selling novel by Thomas Keneally tells a story of bravery and human compassion.
THE FACE OF NAZI EVIL
Spielberg uses gritty black and white to tell a tale of the Haulocast, where the Nazis set out to eradicate Jews, gypsies, gays and other ethnic minorities, not because they were an enemy or a threat, but because they were deemed racially inferior and for that reason, not fit to live.
NEESON AS SCHINDLER
Oskar Schindler was A Polish Catholic who could easily, as many did, stand by and let the Nazi killing machine perform its grisly task. He chose instead to help, in a small way, saving lives where he could.
THE REAL OSKAR SCHINDLER
Liam Neeson gives a wonderful performance as Schindler, who put his own life and that of his family on the line, to follow the dictates of his conscious.
BRITISH ACTOR BEN KINGSLEY
Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes do brilliant backup as does Embeth Davidtz in a key cameo role. This is Spielberg at his best, not only a director really on top of his game, but also a man telling a story close to his heart.
PHILIP DICK-A FEEL FOR THE FUTURE?
Spielberg also directs Minority Report [e.tv.Sunday.20.00], based on a short story by Philip Dick. When he was writing, many dismissed his work as the ramblings of a paranoid schizophrenic. Now, almost half a century later, Dick’s darkly fantastic stories have a ring of the future about them.
WILL IT ALL COME TRUE?
Tom Cruise gives, as he usually does, a slick, well honed performance, with Colin Farrell and veteran Swedish actor, Max von Sydow fleshing out the supporting cast.
MOORE WITH ANNETTE BENING
Julianne Moore is very much around at the moment, playing Annette Bening’s partner in The Kids Are All Right. Moore is a very gifted and talented actress whose range knows few bounds.
MOORE WITH GYLLENHAAL,CRUDUP AND DUCHOVNY
She appears three times on TV this week, in roles both large and small. She is part of an uneasy quartet; David Duchovny, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Billy Crudup play the other three, in Trust The Man [e.tv. Thursday. 20.30], a comedy a little light on laughs but watchable enough.
MADGE AS MOVIE STAR
When Madonna was trying to break into the movies, instead of acting, she tried a subtle blend of hot, graspy, gaspy sexual fun and games. In Body of Evidence [e.tv.Friday.02.10], she was abysmal, so was the movie.
MS CORNWELL WAS NOT AMUSED
So bad, in fact, that Patricia Cornwell who had written a novel of the same name, became extremely hot and cross, threatening law suits, left, right and centre. Julianne Moore was one of the real actors trying to make Body of Evidence seem better than it was. She’s not that good.
NONE SO BLIND...
Dear Julianne Moore will always have a soft spot in my heart for out Joan Baezing Joan Baez in Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There, her Alice Fabian was delicious, but I digress. Moore appears with The Kids Are All Right co star Mark Ruffalo in Blindness [M-Net.Wednesday.22.30], based on a novel by Jose Saramago.
A FEW TRIFFIDS MIGHT HAVE LIVENED UP THE ACTION
This is another disaster/post apocalyptic tale, so popular at the moment; this one owes a great deal to The Day of the Triffids. I don’t know why the producers didn’t go the whole hog and just make a decent version of the John Wyndham classic, it might have made a much better movie.
DREW BARRYMORE AND KATHERINE MOENING PLAY A SAME SEX COUPLE
Everybody’s Fine [M-Net.Saturday.20.30] boasts a fine cast, headed by Robert de Niro. He has versatile support from Drew Barrymore, Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale.
FATHER AND DAUGHTER
The movie is family drama deluxe, leaning just so slightly towards soap opera; saved only by some really good acting from all concerned.
A TRUELY OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE
TransAmerica [e.tv.Thursday.22.35] is a Road movie with a difference, Felicity Huffman is superb, as a final stage sex change who discovers a son he/she never knew. Their journey together is a revelation.
A CLASS ACT-REDFORD AND PFEIFFER
Echoes of the past abound in Up Close and Personal [SABC3.Saturday.02.30], with Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer almost reenacting the human dynamics of A Star is Born. The setting now is the world of television and yes, she’s on the way up and he’s on the way out. This could have ended trite and silly but Redford and Pfeiffer are magnificent and their relationship is sharp without too much cloying sentiment.
ALL SINGING, ALL DANCING...
Cabin in the Sky [SABC3.Tuesday.02.30] is well worth waiting up for. It was made in 1943, at a time when Hollywood and Broadway, where the show originated, thought that the only thing that Black people could do was sing, dance and play the ukulele.
ETHEL WATERS AND LENA HORNE FLANK EDDIE ANDERSON.HE WAS A BIG STAR BACK THEN
Only the director, Vincente Minnelli, was white, the cast is all Black. Now is a chance to see Louis Armstrong, Ethel Waters, Rex Ingram and Lena Horne and hear Taking a Chance on Love and Happiness is a thing Called Joe. Terrific stuff, but I guess the word is African American these days.
CONAN DOYLE, WHO CREATED SHERLOCK HOLMES, WAS COMPLETELY TAKEN IN BY THE FAIRY PHOTOS
Taking of things fey, Photographing Fairies [SABC3.Monday.03.00] tells of a man, broken by war and personal loss, who tries to reach some kind of sanity and security by verifying the existence of fairy folk.
HE LOOKS MORE LIKE HIS DAD THAN HIS MUM
Toby Stephens—son of Robert Stephens and Maggie Smith—blends just the right mix of credulity and disbelief to conjure a truly touching performance. I mean, hell, you want to believe, don’t you?
HEY HO, THE GANG'S ALL HERE
The Royal Tenenbaums [SABC3.Saturday.21.30] is probably the most accessible of Wes Craven’s output. He and the Wilsons are up to their normal script expanding antics and a lot of the usual crew are in evidence, Anjelica Huston, Bill Murray etc.
GENE HACKMAN SEEMS CHEERFUL ENOUGH
But the plot does have a more formal structure and Gene Hackman, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Stiller do provide grounding and consistency. Just wait until you’re rich and famous and see who crawls out of the woodwork.
DENNIS FARINA ANDJACK KEHLER STEAL THE SHOW
Big Trouble [SABC2.Monday.22.00] is comedy in a more recognizable form. There are funny bits and pieces, incompetent hit men, displaced Russians and some hilarious performances from Dennis Farina, Tim Allen and Stanley Tucci, Barry Sonnenfeld directs from a story by Dave Barry.
THE VERY EXPRESSIVE FACE OF JOHN CUSACK
2012 [M-Net.Sunday.20.05] is about the end of the world, a muddled affair with John Cusack, Thandie Newton and Amanda Peet; like all disaster movies of this type, the adrenalin levels remain high and on reflection, there is a bell of truth in there, ringing faintly.
A FATEFUL DAY:A FATEFUL FLIGHT
During the grim day that dawned on 9/11, there was much carnage , so much death and destruction, that one is inclined to overlook another plane/weapon of devastation that did not reach its deadly destination.
THIS WAS NO AIRPORT MOVIE:THIS WAS REAL
Somehow, the passengers managed to overcome the hijackers and change the plane’s course. The aircraft crashed, killing everybody on board. United 93 [SABC1.Sunday.20.00] is a no nonsense, factual recreation of this event.
IT IS BIG AND IT IS THERE
People climb mountains because they are there. Everest [SABC3.Monday.23.15] is a made for television mini series about the first Canadians that conquered the Himalayan peak. Nothing startling, just the ups and downs of hanging onto ropes and not plunging to an icy death.
DANNY GLOVER PLAYS THE PRESIDENT; IT WAS HIS TURN
A little trivia to ease the pain:two links to South Africa this week. In 2012 [M-Net.Sunday.20.05] it is a geographical one. In Photographing Fairies [SABC3.Monday.03.00], one of the Cottingley fairy fibbers, Elsie Wright, came from South Africa.
My pick is Cabin in the Sky [SABC3.Tuesday.02.30].Why not?
Indeed!!