Legally Harry
Movies from late 2001
Originally written: December 2001
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
America's Sweethearts
Legally Blonde
Riding in Cars with Boys
The Contender
The talk of the moment is of course the opening of the first of the Harry Potter movies (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone). Cath and I heighed off to the opening night at the nearest cineplex, only to found it crowded with kids in capes and pointed hats, parents in tow, and a sign that all sessions had been pre-sold. So we went to our local small cinema where the movie was in two of the four cinemas and there had been no pre-selling. I loved the movie. Not as much as Cath, who having read the second book but not the first, came to it fresh and was knocked out by the creation of Hogwarts and the whole thing. After years of suffering through reviews where it was asserted that the translation from book to film had ruined the book, it is ironic that the major criticism of Chris Columbus' version of the first Harry Potter novel is that it is too close to the book. The film simplifies the book by removing many of the Tom Brown Schooldays' touches and Harry's dreadful life with the Dursleys before Hogwarts and concentrates on the main narrative thread of the search for the Philosopher's Stone of the title. There are still some amazing scenes in addition. The film-makers' realisation of the refectory in the school and their creation of a believable and exciting version of Quidditch are both major pluses.
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The acting is also universally good. You'd expect that from Maggie Smith (whose Professor McGonagall is a mature, magical Jean Brodie), Alan Rickman, Richard Harris and the British stage 'lovies' who fill the adult roles. But it is especially true of the four lead kids. Daniel Radcliffe (HP), Rupert Grint (Ron) and Tom Felton (Draco) are very good and Emma Watson (Hermione) is brilliant. But the stand-out is Robbie Coltrane who is Hagrid. Not only is he the personification of the half-giant but the sfx which make him appear consistently larger than the cast around him are dead clever. I thoroughly recommend this movie for kids of all ages.
Funny business
Two recent American comedies demonstrate the dichotomy between the heavy hand of the traditional studio movie and the insurgency of smaller movie making. America's Sweethearts had tons of money thrown at it, has a great cast (Cusack, Roberts, Zeta-Jones, Crystal, Azaria) and a classic idea - getting a separated star couple to pretend to be back together for the purpose of a media junket for a new movie. But Cusack and Zeta-Jones aren't quite Gene Kelly and Jean Hagen and the script is not strong enough to sustain the movie. Roberts is very good but Azaria has the worst over-the-top Hispanic accent since Speedy Gonzales. The result is an OK movie that has some good parts but no coherent whole.
Legally Blonde is also derived from a classic idea - fish-out-of-water goes to law school. But here the scripting is tight and the cast of lesser known faces is actually given some sort of story to work with. Particuarly Reese Witherspoon in the title role is very good indeed and carries the movie in the way that no-one does in America's Sweethearts. Directed by Robert Luketic, a young Australian with no previous feature movie experience, LB manages to keep the laughs coming, and you laugh with the characters, rather than at them. This is not a great movie, nor one destined for your top 200 films of all time list, but it is a very good one, and one worth watching.
Drew
You've gotta love Drew Barrymore. She refuses to conform to the skinny model scenario. In her lastest movie, Riding in Cars with Boys, 'based on a true story' she plays her character from 15 to 35. It's the sort of meaty role that she has been looking for for some time. And she is particularly good in the part. Unfortunately the movie itself is not as good as the lead actress, partly because of the presence of the incredibly annoying Stephen Zahn (the second most inexplicable leading man in contemporary film (the first most inexplicable leading man in contemporary film being Ben Stiller)) and the always appalling James Woods. Go and see it for Drew. She deserves your support and her performance will reward you.
The Contender
The best film I've seen these last two months I saw on video. It is The Contender, a political drama, set around the advice-and-consent hearings of a female Vice Presidential nominee. Joan Allen has the title role and is brilliant. How this performance was over-looked by the Academy in favour of St Julia's Erin Brockovich I don't know. Jeff Bridges as the President is almost as good, but you've come to expect that from him. He has been, with John Cusack, the most consistently interesting leading man of the last decade or so. Gary Oldman plays the committee head and is surprisingly good. After a plethora of overacting and poor performances in recent times, Oldman is very effective in this role. An intelligent script raises some interesting questions non the nature of democracy and the pressures on, and privacy of, candidates for political office. Not all the answers provided are as pat as you would perhaps expect. There are some nice shades of grey in the ideas and arguments. See this one, it's worth it.
[Note: Information about the movies mentioned, including cast and crew lists and all sorts of trivia, is available at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).]