Waters Still Run Deep?: FFC Interviews Mark Waters

Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Interviews

MwatersinterviewtitleMay 2, 2004|Mark S. Waters looks a little like Colin Firth and hails from the banal horrors of South Bend, IN. As we chatted politely in his suite at Denver's Hotel Teatro, I noticed that his speech is halted by a little stammering now and again, which I interpreted as nerves or excitement or, perhaps, both. Mr. Waters's laughter, though, when it comes, is booming and infectious. Mainly there to ask him about his interesting debut film The House of Yes, about his treatment of Asians in his two Lindsay Lohan vehicles, and about how it was that he found himself directing a parade of 'tween flicks after so auspicious a beginning, I have to say, after a time it dawned on me that Mr. Waters was in fact desirous of a mainstream career. Call it hopelessly Pollyannaish, but it had literally never occurred to me that people who make debuts as cunning as The House of Yes would consciously move on to safe and popular films. That being said, Mr. Waters has expressed that Mean Girls will be the last flick of this sort for him, and as swan songs go, one could do worse: it's not very good, but in a culture of lowered expectations, sometimes you take what you can get.

Godsend (2004)

Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Drama, Horror, Robert De Niro, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, Thriller

**/****
starring Greg Kinnear, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Robert De Niro, Cameron Bright
screenplay by Mark Bomback
directed by Nick Hamm

Godsendby Walter Chaw SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. Godsend's spine-tingling set-up doesn't just trump its conclusion, it literally beats the hell out of it. The suggestion is that the clone of a dead child begins to have supernatural dreams at the age his host was killed–a premise that fosters consuming dread and marks potentially the best mainstream horror film since The Ring. More, the film's changeling child's dreams remind of the "School of Dead Children" arc from Neil Gaiman's late lamented "Sandman" comic, a connection made resonant by the fact that screenwriter Mark Bomback's next project is the cautiously-awaited adaptation of Garth Ennis's "Hellblazer" title (Constantine). What else to feel than admiration at chilling passages where the shade of the dead child, clad complete in death-day attire of favourite jacket and new sneakers, questions its clone on its identity and on the location of its parents? All that goes out the window, though, in favour of an all-too-familiar Frankensteinian "Abby Normal" brain-transplant-gone-awry intrigue that seems to have been tailor-made for above-the-title player Robert De Niro to have a few inexplicable actor's moments. What results is a complete betrayal of absolutely everything eloquent about the film's pitch–not a twist so much as a cheat of the worst kind, one from an altogether different movie at that: the revelation that the Wizard of Oz is Godzilla.

Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius (2004)

Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Biopic, Drama, Romance, Sports, Theatrical

*/****
starring James Caviezel, Claire Forlani, Jeremy Northam, Malcolm McDowell
screenplay by Rowdy Herrington and Bill Pryor
directed by Rowdy Herrington

Bobbyjonesby Walter Chaw Displaying a troubling affection for long-suffering historical figures planted in the middle of amped-up costume epics, James ("I prefer Jim") Caviezel follows up his dazed turn as a saviour with another dazed turn as a saviour: Bobby Jones, the last voice of virtue in professional sports, steadfastly refusing to take one filthy piece of silver and so betray his amateur (Latin root: love) status on the PGA tour. Scored by another tongue-bath of a score by James Horner (bring a squeegee and a change of clothes, you'll feel like you've taken a swim in a spittoon), Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius is every bit as episodic, derivative, patronizing, and bloated as Horner's compositions–the man, by himself, defining a genre of picture perhaps fatally damaged by his very intrusion. (If there's any one indicator that the upcoming Troy is going to be awful, it's that Wolfgang Petersen (himself no great source for confidence) has elected to reunite with Perfect Storm collaborator Horner.) But there's so much more wrong with Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius than just the music, the winking title, and the truism that for as boring as golf is to watch on television, it's that much more boring to watch in reverent celluloid slow motion–no, the picture is also fatally tagged by a terrible screenplay and terrible direction (that includes a half dozen ball's-eye view shots: not as interesting as you might misunderstand), as well as the dreadfully persistent belief that the measure of a man's life are the crescendos and valleys rather than the caesuras and grace notes.

The Last Unicorn (1982) – DVD

Posted in1980s, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Family, Fantasy, France, Japan, UK, West Germany

*/**** Image D Sound D
screenplay by Peter S. Beagle, based on his novel
directed by Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass

by Walter Chaw Rankin & Bass’ typically sloppy adaptation of Peter S. Beagle’s classic The Last Unicorn (adapted for the screen by Beagle himself) is terribly voiced and animated, even by the ’70s Bakshi/flash-frozen/Saturday-morning conveyor belt standard. The melancholy poetry of Beagle’s novel, rife with dread and the vertiginous feeling of falling into chaos, is notable for its similarity to the big eye, little mouth of traditional anime but falls short of that gold standard in terms of performance and detail. Mouths don’t move, backgrounds are static and recycled, and it doesn’t help that the colours on the print making it to the DVD format look as though they’d been left in the front window for too long.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) [New Line Platinum Series] – DVD

Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, DVD, Horror

***/**** Image A+ Sound A+ Extras A+
starring Jessica Biel, Jonathan Tucker, Erica Leerhsen, Andrew Bryniarski
screenplay by Scott Kosar
directed by Marcus Nispel

by Walter Chaw With its low-angle compositions, gradual evolution of animalistic antagonists (from opossum to kid to crippled man to monster), discovery of a feral child, claustrophobic sets drenched in water, and neo-feminist slant, what Marcus Nispel’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre resembles most is not Tobe Hooper’s 1974 masterpiece, but James Cameron’s 1986 masterpiece, Aliens. In structure and execution, in fact, even in visual style, Nispel’s picture recasts Aliens with its cannibalistic hillbilly clan the insectile “other” and tight tank-top sporting Jessica Biel as stand-in for Sigourney Weaver’s tight tank-top sporting über-mater. The problem with the comparison is that where Hooper’s original presented its nihilism in detached tableau (the first attack is a classic in savage hopelessness), Nispel’s remake sports the intimate camerawork favoured by Cameron-inspired action films, replacing the existential desolation of Hooper’s vision with more standard flight and fight sequences. As genre exercises go, despite a decent amount of sadistic gore, the picture is better spoken of as a thrilling, beautifully shot action film that only flirts around with social significance.

Love Actually (2003) [Widescreen] – DVD

Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Christmas, Comedy, Drama, DVD, France, Romance, UK, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image B+ Sound A- Extras A-
starring Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson
written and directed by Richard Curtis

Loveactuallycap

by Walter Chaw I actively, aggressively dislike this film. Richard Curtis's Love Actually says something of its intentions in a subplot involving an aged rocker (Bill Nighy) who knows he's creating a reprehensible piece of garbage in an attempt to cash in on the gaffed demographic that champions boy bands as the pinnacle of the art. The picture is a sex comedy in the worst senses of the genre: It's puerile, misogynistic, and breathtakingly stupid, with a keen focus on pratfalls and serendipity–all the while hoping that you won't notice the inappropriateness of its plays for heart-warming uplift. Curtis, after scoring a couple of times in the genre as screenwriter with Notting Hill and The Tall Guy, chooses Love Actually as his directorial debut, and its hatefulness speaks to the source of the comprehensive misanthropy of Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean (Atkinson makes a cameo; Curtis is a writer for "Mr. Bean"). A shame that Curtis's hyphenate turn begins to betray the man as ugly and self-indulgent.

Life on the Barge: FFC Interviews Tilda Swinton & David Mackenzie

Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Interviews, UK

YoungadaminterviewtitleApril 25, 2004|It's in the mezzanine of what remains one of the more interesting places in Colorado to see a film, Denver's Mayan Theater, that I've come to meet Scottish director David Mackenzie and one of the stars of his sophomore film Young Adam, the strikingly, ethereally beautiful and staunchly uncompromising Tilda Swinton. Far more delicate-seeming in person than on the screen, Ms. Swinton is dressed in a loose brown shirt that she'll pull over her legs, knees folded against her chest, several times during the course of our conversation–a charming, almost alarmingly childlike pose from an actress I most readily associate with ferocious, audacious turns in Derek Jarman's free-verse celluloid poetry and best-of-bad-movie appearances in everything from Vanilla Sky to The Beach to The Statement. Her work marked by a driving curiosity about the riddle of (most often sexual) identity and the role of film as oral tradition, she proves to again be the strongest ingredient of a conflicted picture, playing the role of a disquiet wife of a bargeman in Young Adam with her trademark ferocity and intelligence. Mackenzie, by contrast or complement, is a little shy, almost sheepish. We traveled a little way from Young Adam to talk more generally about poetry and the cinema, as well as the damnable inadequacies of conventional communication.

13 Going on 30 (2004)

Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Romance, Theatrical, Time Travel

**/****
starring Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Judy Greer, Christa B. Allen
screenplay by Cathy Yuspa & Josh Goldsmith and Niels Mueller
directed by Gary Winick

13goingon30by Walter Chaw Threatening at any moment to veer off the populist tracks and become something legendarily, unpleasantly subversive, the middling 13 Going on 30 is really little more than a collection of "I Love the '80s" vignettes presided over by Jennifer Garner's peculiar mien. It's also peculiar that the genre of body-swapping/quick-aging jibber-jabber is making a resurgence now a couple of decades after the last spate (18 Again, Vice Versa, Big), and peculiar again that with Mark Waters's Freaky Friday and Gary Winick's 13 Going on 30, the genre is being re-imagined through the prism of young women. (Perhaps not so strange when you consider that the key demographic slavered over by studio wonks has shifted from the pre-adolescent boys of the mid-'80s to post-Titanic pre-adolescent girls.) It's clear that this film is meant to satisfy some sort of wish-fulfillment fantasy for 13-year-old members of the babysitters' club, but with Eighties references that can only be amusing to people who've passed the third-decade mark, it manages mostly to be a wish-fulfillment fantasy for thirtysomething men who want emotionally immature, sexually malleable women who happen to resemble television starlets.

Young Adam (2003); Millennium Mambo (2001); Secret Things (2002)

Posted in****/****, 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Esoterica, France, Romance, Taiwan, Theatrical, UK

YOUNG ADAM
**½/****
starring Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan, Emily Mortimer
screenplay by David Mackenzie, based on the novel by Alexander Trocchi
directed by David Mackenzie

Qian xi man po
****/****
starring Shu Qi, Jack Kao, Tuan Chun-hao, Chen Yi-Hsuan
screenplay by Chu T'ien-wen
directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien

Choses secrètes
***½/****
starring Coralie Revel, Sabrina Seyvecou, Roger Mirmont, Fabrice Deville
written and directed by Jean-Claude Brisseau

Youngadametcby Walter Chaw David Mackenzie's Young Adam opens with a shot from below of a duck paddling placidly along the surface of a lake that's replaced by a woman's corpse, then replaced by a filthy barge-worker and his mate fishing the cadaver out with a gaffing hook. Young Adam is a beautiful picture, really, its interiors sepia-tinged like a cameo photograph and its exteriors bleached and desperate, and as a film about surfaces, it marches to its own logic with the dyspeptic malaise, if not the consistent nihilistic poetry, of a Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Surfaces include skin, of course, and a scene where tattooed Les (Peter Mullan) washes his hired help Joe (Ewan McGregor) is as blandly erotic as a scene where Joe performs cunnilingus on Les's wife Ella (Tilda Swinton), an act that wins him the fried egg he was denied at breakfast. Consumption suggesting sustenance seeps into a scene where Joe covers his girlfriend, Cathie (Emily Mortimer), with custard, ketchup, and mustard before caning and raping her. Joe's furnace is unquenchable: as Biblical doppelganger, his carnal curiosity is constantly stoked by the invitation of moribund English housewives and widows–and his ire is only aroused when an appropriate mate choice threatens to free him from his fleshy fixations. Young Adam is about being trapped and listless, about the lost generation afflicted by a plague of ennui–paddling in a circle, floating between updrafts in the widening gyre.

The Punisher (2004)

Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, Germany, Revenge, Romance, Superhero, Theatrical, Thriller

***/****
starring Tom Jane, John Travolta, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Laura Harring
screenplay by Michael France and Jonathan Hensleigh
directed by Jonathan Hensleigh

by Walter Chaw A barometer of our culture–an exploding western world balanced between listless fatalism on the one side and violent nihilism on the other (Elephant and Young Adam vs. Walking Tall, The Passion of the Christ, and Man on Fire)–at this exact moment in time, long-time blockbuster scribe Jonathan Hensleigh's hyphenate debut is his adaptation of Marvel Comics' vigilante title The Punisher. With the possible exception of Mel Gibson's ode to sadism, this is the year's most irredeemable picture thus far, but it's elevated by a bracing idea, an astonishingly courageous idea: that its hero and villain are equally reprehensible, and, by extension, that both of them do what they do because in their psychotic haze, the only thing they have to tie them to any kind of illusion of equilibrium is the dangerous idealization of their families. When a picture like this appears in the middle of a glut of vigilante flicks and in the middle of a society that may have been led into a predictably cruel and bloody war on the basis of a personal grudge, one forgiven by many for its specious association with a collective insult to our illusion of sanctuary, people should prick up their ears. While The Punisher may not be a particularly good film, it is a particularly important one.

Prey for Rock & Roll (2003) – DVD

Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Music

*½/**** Image A Sound A Extras D+
starring Gina Gershon, Drea De Matteo, Marc Blucas, Shelly Cole
screenplay by Cheri Lovedog & Robin Whitehouse
directed by Alex Steyermark

by Walter Chaw Released haphazardly in the same calendar year as Alex Proyas's endlessly disappointing Garage Days, Alex Steyermark's Prey for Rock & Roll travels similar garage band routes while taking the distaff trail and deciding to play it as if its central band, the cleverly monikered Clam Dandy, is better than horrible (in an L7 78-played-at-45 kind of way). My familiarity with grrrl rock begins and ends with a Seven Year Bitch concert at the base of Seattle's Space Needle about a decade ago, as well as a brief affection for Hammerbox, but I remember the genre being at its best full of anger and tempo. That Clam Dandy doesn't rock too terribly hard is a major stumbling block only exacerbated by director Steyermark's decision to feature a few of their listless, pop-inspired heavy metal tunes in their allegedly poignant entirety. It makes for rough-going in the not-so-proud Light of Day/Satisfaction tradition.

Ripley’s Game (2002) – DVD

Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, DVD, FFC Must-Own, Italy, Mystery, Thriller, UK

**** Image A Sound A
starring John Malkovich, Dougray Scott, Ray Winstone, Lena Headey
screenplay by Charles McKeown and Liliana Cavani, based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith
directed by Liliana Cavani

Mustownby Walter Chaw When I heard that The Night Porter auteur Liliana Cavani was adapting one of Patricia Highsmith's Mr. Ripley novels, I knew to expect something more in line with René Clément's brilliant Purple Noon than Anthony Minghella's lavishly simpering The Talented Mr. Ripley. What I didn't anticipate was that this film, which never received any sort of domestic theatrical distribution before being summarily dropped, supplement-free, onto the home video market, would be one of the best of its year–indeed, of its kind. Ripley's Game is doomed to the "direct-to-video" label and an ignominious eternity buried in the Blockbuster shelves for the occasional stunned bemusement of the well traveled and the John Malkovich fetishist–it languishes there while over-masticated tripe like The Alamo finds its way to thousands of screens, its lingering impact to remind again that the slippery slope in Hollywood's distribution game just got steeper. Ripley's Game would have looked great on the big screen–and some genius robbed us of the opportunity to see it that way, thinking we'd prefer American Splendor or Along Came Polly.

Bergman – Unfiltered: FFC Interviews Nir Bergman

Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Interviews, Israel

NbergmaninterviewtitleApril 18, 2004|"Cigarettes, okay?"

And of course I agree. The bar of Denver eatery Panzano is low-hung with a thin haze of "cool" (not to be confused with "stale" or "seedy") second-hand smoke, the sort of atmosphere romanticized by noir and one where I feel curiously out-of-time. A gauzy pre-spring Colorado day obliges by shooting shafts of sunlight cathedral-like through the particulate pollution, reminding of a scene in Nir Bergman's debut Broken Wings (Knafayim Shvurot) in which a depressed teen ponders the worlds-upon-worlds of dust motes in perpetual Brownian motion.

The United States of Leland (2004)

Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Disability, Drama, Theatrical

*/****
starring Don Cheadle, Ryan Gosling, Chris Klein, Jena Malone
written and directed by Matthew Ryan Hoge

Unitedstatesoflelandby Walter Chaw Featuring the valedictorians of the indie brat pack past and present, Matthew Ryan Hoge’s sophomore hyphenate feature The United States of Leland is woefully overwritten, self-indulgent, and plodding–a shame given the squandering of another nice clenched-jaw performance from Ryan Gosling, and no surprise given the full martyred weight of actor/producer/saviour-of-mankind Kevin Spacey, thrown behind the project as simultaneous catalyst for completion and guarantee for failure. Pedestrian in look and execution, it’s the sort of kiddie cautionary tale (wed here uneasily to our new cinema of disaffected nihilism) in which a message of the tragedy of the widening gyre is resolved with its main adult character cradling a limp body and howling his outrage to the uncaring heavens. If Mel Gibson were to take on a Judy Blume adaptation, it’d look a little like this.

Bulletproof Monk (2003)

Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Comedy, Fantasy, Theatrical

*/****
starring Chow Yun-Fat, Seann William Scott, Jamie King, Karel Roden
screenplay by Ethan Reiff & Cyrus Voris
directed by Paul Hunter

Bulletproofmonkby Walter Chaw There is a moment in the middle of Bulletproof Monk: Chow Yun-Fat leaps to the top of a car, brandishing two pistols, his overcoat flaring in slow-motion as he rains down bullets on the bad guys. It's an homage to Brother Chow's work with John Woo, of course, in the seminal HK action flicks The Killer, Hard-Boiled, and A Better Tomorrow–and Woo is listed among the film's producers. It sort of makes you wonder why the pair doesn't stop dancing around and just make another movie together already, particularly since neither Chow nor Woo has really made a film worth a damn since sailing over to a Hollywood that doesn't understand them. The American film industry would rather marginalize them into racial caricatures than take advantage of their unique talents.

Connie and Carla (2004) + Japanese Story (2003)

Posted in2000s, Australia, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Music, Romance, Theatrical

CONNIE AND CARLA
*½/****
starring Nia Vardalos, Toni Collette, David Duchovny, Stephen Spinella
screenplay by Nia Vardalos
directed by Michael Lembeck

JAPANESE STORY
*/****
starring Toni Collette, Gotaro Tsunashima, Matthew Dyktynski, Lynette Curran
screenplay by Alison Tilson
directed by Sue Brooks

Conniejapaneseby Walter Chaw SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. Pity Toni Collette, her inability to land a lead role that might catapult her into the limelight bespeaking of either a general dearth of quality lead actress roles or an inability to choose her "breakthrough" projects carefully. The highlight of a lot of good movies (The Sixth Sense, Clockwatchers, About a Boy) and bad ones (Muriel's Wedding, Hotel Splendide), too, her latest chance to evolve beyond accomplished second fiddle has elicited a glorified supporting role in Nia Vardalos's latest bit of unwatchable crowd-pleasing garbage (Connie and Carla) and the ingenue part in an embarrassing bit of housewife Orientalism erotica that transplants the Yellow Peril of the American 1950s to a modern-day Outback setting (Japanese Story).

FFC Interviews Jennifer Baichwal

Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Documentary, Interviews

by Walter Chaw|April 12, 2004|With just two feature-length documentaries under her belt, Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles and The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia, Toronto-based filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal has already established herself as among the most thoughtful, inquisitive artists in a genre finally hitting its stride. The questions she asks about the exploitation, reality, and evasiveness of truth are, in a way, the only ones that matter. Governed by a clarity of philosophy that includes a sharp self-regard of her role as filmmaker, her first two films deal with artists whose work has become the loci for fierce socio-political/existential debate, while her new project is something she describes as a departure: "political." The imagination shudders even as anticipation builds.

The Whole Ten Yards (2004)

Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Crime, Gangster, Theatrical, Thriller, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/****
starring Bruce Willis, Matthew Perry, Amanda Peet, Kevin Pollak
screenplay by George Gallo
directed by Howard Deutch

by Walter Chaw Oz (Matthew Perry, racing Ray Romano for title of television personality least suited for the big screen) is a dentist married to ex-moll Cynthia (Natasha Henstridge) and ex-hitman Jimmy (Bruce Willis) is married to ex-dental hygienist Jill (Amanda Peet). Oz is constantly mugging, falling down, running into things, and making funny faces, which leads me to believe that Oz might be afflicted by some toxic stew of epilepsy, Tourette’s Syndrome, and limited comic actor’s disease–the last of which the sort of thing that otherwise dull or homely children contract to get attention in class. Through a devastatingly disinteresting sequence of convoluted events, our whimsical quartet is menaced by Hungarian mobster Lazlo Gogolak (Kevin Pollak, in his fourth decade of needing a bullet to the head) and his dimwit son Strabo (Frank Collison)–resulting in a shootout and a desperate series of speeches that don’t do a thing to explain how Jimmy pretending to be a housewife in a David Lee Roth wig relates to stealing millions from the mob.

Rana’s Wedding (2003) + Osama (2003)

Posted in2000s, Afghanistan, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Netherlands, Palestine, Theatrical, United Arab Emirates

Al Qods Fee Yom Akhar
***½/****
starring Clara Khoury, Khalifa Natour, Ismael Dabbag, Walid Abed Elsalam
screenplay by Liana Badr, Ihab Lamey
directed by Hany Abu-Assad

OSAMA
*½/****
starring Marina Golbahari, Arif Herati, Zubaida Sahar, Gol Rahman Ghorbandi
written and directed by Siddiq Barmak

by Walter Chaw About thirty minutes into Hany Abu-Assad’s Rana’s Wedding (Al Qods Fee Yom Akhar), an old Palestinian man sets a small table down outside his building in Israeli-occupied Jerusalem, places a typewriter on top of it, and watches as Rana (Clara Khoury) is almost shot by an Israeli patrol when her cell phone is briefly mistaken for a revolver. The moment isn’t commented upon, and the next scene finds her wondering, as she’s wondered for the first parts of the film, where her true love is on this, the day that her father demands that she marry one of the suitors he’s approved for her or leave for Egypt to continue her schooling. The deadline sends Rana careening across the country in an increasingly complex quest to assemble the right people together to allow her to marry the man that she loves–the one who “understands me, and puts up with me when I’m angry.” The line is funny as the sentiment is familiar–it’s a grace note in a picture that somehow cloaks its ferocity in a sheath of gentility. Make no mistake that not commenting on the Israeli/Palestinian situation is not the same as avoiding the Israeli/Palestinian situation; as political films go, Rana’s Wedding is high among the films finding release in election year 2004 (Osama, The Fog of War, Broken Wings).

Ned Kelly (1970) – DVD

Posted in1970s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, UK, Western

*/**** | Image B- Sound C
starring Mick Jagger, Clarissa Kaye-Mason, Mark McManus, Ken Goodlet
screenplay by Tony Richardson and Ian Jones
directed by Tony Richardson

by Walter Chaw Somewhere between the islets of McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, just off the coast of Performance and Mad Dog Morgan, floats Tony Richardson's less visited, incomprehensible, woefully miscalculated Ned Kelly. Edited with a cheese grater and scored with bizarre faux-Aussie folk by strange bedfellows Shel Silverstein and Waylon Jennings, all while giving lie to David Mamet-as-director's claims to originality in dispensing with exposition in favour of oblique, impenetrable dialogue and stilted performances, Ned Kelly is also home to one of the worst performances by a rock star in a world that knows Graffiti Bridge and Glitter. Really just the kissing cousin of such of its contemporary counter-cultural misfires as Myra Breckinridge and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, the panicked 1970 policy of giving the kids what they want, whatever that might be, is filtered here through the disturbing prism of a 42-year-old Englishman's perspective. (Admittedly, as angry young men go, Mick Jagger is a better choice than Breckinridge's Rex Reed.) Curiously though, as it so often does, the rare convergence of everything gone wrong makes for pretty compulsive viewing.