Without the Arno, Florence would be like Romolo - The Florentine

8
Thursday 8 February 2007
Movie REVIEWS
Thursday February 8
Movies in English showing in Florence
by James Douglas
ODEON THEATRE
DREAMGIRLS
Bill Condon’s adaptation of the 1981
Broadway show Dreamgirls is a bigproduction
musical given the lavish,
big-screen treatment that visually at
least may make up for its alleged shortfalls
in the musical department. Supposed
to be, but not confi rmed to be,
the story of the rise to mainstream success
of The Supremes and manager
Berry Gordy Jr.’s Motown Records in
the 1960s, the movie chronicles the
on- and off-stage lives of the trio. Jennifer
Hudson’s showstopper ‘And I Am
Telling You I Am Not Going’ has had
the critics scurrying for superlatives.
Monday February 12
ODEON THEATRE
THE HOLIDAY
Grisly romantic comedy from the
queen of the chick fl ick, Nancy Meyers’
The Holiday is an overstuffed turkey
of a movie that bizarrely gets its Italian
release way off season. However, even
the most generous Christmas cheer
would barely rescue this hopelessly
miscast (Jack Black as romantic hero!),
woefully misconceived transatlantic
tryst tripe. Despite superior British
cast (Winslet, Law, Sewell) and given
the limitations of the incompetent Diaz,
Meyers’ dull script and the movie’s idiotic
premise, the director’s talents are
wasted on mindless frivolity so lame it
can barely move. For sad singles only.
Tuesday February 13
ODEON THEATRE
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
‘You owe it to yourself to see this fi lm.
If you do not, and you have grandchildren,
you should explain to them
why you decided not to’. So says
eminent fi lm reviewer Roger Ebert in
a dramatic departure from his measured,
impartial style. And he underlines
the impending catastrophe now
more than ever in the news that global
warming represents. Al Gore’s environmental
campaign laid out the facts
and let the audience draw the obvious
conclusion. Davis Guggenheim’s fi lm
of this campaign, An Inconvenient
Truth, serves to reinforce the point.
An alarming and essential documentary
that reminds us of what it is to be
human. A global warning.
Wednesday February 14
BRITISH INSTITUTE
Femmes Fatales
BAD TIMING
Nicolas Roeg’s 1980 neo-noir Bad
Timing has memorable performances
from his wife Theresa Russell
as Milena Flaherty, troubled
femme fatale, and Art Garfunkel
as her hapless victim. Fragmented
time lines, Viennese location, edgy
soundtrack and an array of unpleasant
characters, even a strangely
subdued Harvey Keitel as the police
inspector, make this a challenging
and disturbing exercise in obsession
and despair. The distributors tried to
pull the plug on it at release, calling it
‘sick’, ‘depraved’, etc.
Thursday February 15
ODEON THEATRE
STEP UP
Clichéd crowd-pleasing dance movie
for hip hop tweenies who didn’t get
West Side Story, Footloose or Fame.
For them Step Up may be a step up.
For others an unusually chaste and
unchallenging urban fairy tale.
Weeks 8 February - 22 February 2007
Monday February 19
ODEON THEATRE
STRANGER THAN FICTION
At last, a movie with a mind! Marc
Forster’s intriguing Stranger than
Fiction is the story of Harold Crick
(Will Ferrell) who hears the narrative
of his life from a mysterious voice in
his head. This intelligent and funny
examination of the intertwining of fi ction
and reality has a particularly fi ne
performance from Emma Thompson
as the novelist whose fi ction becomes
Crick’s reality. It may be the familiar territory
of interfaces opened up by the
likes of Woody Allen and more recently
Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation) but Forster’s
movie is consistently inventive,
thought-provoking and entertaining.
Tuesday February 20
ODEON THEATRE
BOBBY
Emilio Estevez’s
Bobby is the story
of the assassination
of Senator
Robert Kennedy
at the Ambassador
Hotel, Los
Angeles in 1968.
Ladling 60s idealism
and liberal politics into his script
and direction, Estevez takes the interlinked
stories of 22 hotel staff and
guests who witnessed the event and
in the Altman-like ensemble mosaic
pieces together the spirit of the age.
With an extraordinarily high-powered
cast and a passionate appeal for peace
and justice, the movie impacts movingly
in our time, and the presence of
Kennedy himself in authentic newsreel
footage rather than in the performance
of an actor adds resonance to the tragedy
of lost promise.
www.thefl orentine.net
Wednesday February 21
BRITISH INSTITUTE
Femmes Fatales
BODY HEAT
Sizzling neo-noir thriller with Kathleen
Turner as the femme fatale treading in
the footsteps of many predecessors as
she lures her lover into a plot to kill her
husband. With more than a hint of the
classic Double Indemnity, Lawrence
Kasdan’s Body Heat (1981) holds its
own as ‘great trash’—taut, convincing,
sexy, suspenseful and darkly satisfying.
Thursday February 22
ODEON THEATRE
BREAKING AND ENTERING
Anthony Minghella’s Breaking and
Entering takes the urban transition
zone of London’s King’s Cross redevelopment
area for its locale. And it is in
this everyman’s land of contemporary
London that the parallel and intersecting
lives of a representative cross-section
of London life play out their stories:
Jude Law as Will, the high-fl ying
architect; Miro, the Bosnian refugee
and athletic cat burglar; Amira (Juliette
Binoche), his mother; Oana, the Russian
prostitute; and more. The characters
learn to live together and say ‘I’m
sorry’ when circumstances demand
apology as the only way forward.