Freddy Got Fingered
Dir: Tom Green
With: Tom Green, Rip Torn, Marisa Coughlan, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Harland Williams, Anthony Michael Hall
87 mins, cert 18 www.freddygotfingered.com
In the US, this has been hailed as the 21st century's worst movie; I think it is the 21st century's worst cultural artefact. Watching it was among the worst experiences of my life, up there with having a quarter of millimetre shaved off my upper molar without anaesthetic by an eccentric dentist when I was 15.
MTV's pampered star Tom Green has here co-written, directed and starred in his very own gross-out comedy, and he has never looked more grotesquely unfunny and untalented, playing an unemployed cartoonist and babbling away like David Helfgott without the piano. At various stages, he capers around in an eviscerated stag's carcass, swings a new-born baby around by its umbilical cord, masturbates a horse and an elephant, and licks the protruding bone from a fractured leg.
There is simply no way of exonerating this movie. Imposing a so-bad-it's-good interpretation won't work because, with atrocious arrogance, Green has already claimed the privileges of so-bad-it's-good status with his loopy infantile schtick. Is Green playing the "genius" card - experimental absurdism, neo-horror comedy, etc, etc? That won't wash because Green finally comes on so very sentimental about the need to express himself and break free of his uptight dad (played, gawd help us, by Rip Torn). Eventually it ends up in Pakistan, of all the hilarious, irrelevant not-the-U-S-of-A places! And there was us thinking the age of irony was over. Stay away.
La Ville Est Tranquille ****
Dir: Robert Guédiguian
With: Ariane Ascaride, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Gérard Meylan, Alexandre Ogou, Pierre Banderet, Jacques Boudet
133 mins, cert 18
After the disappointment of A L'Attaque, with its self-defeating film-within-a-film tricksiness, the return to muscular humanist conviction in Robert Guédiguian is refreshing. Once again, he finds his setting in Marseilles where many strands are skilfully interweaved, taking in ugly fanatics from the far right, exhausted cynics from the liberal left, Arab youth, redundant dockers and smack addicts. Guédiguian employs actors familiar from much of his previous work - a virtual repertory company - and chief among these is Ariane Ascaride, the anguished mother of a 16-year old junkie. This is a passionate, powerful performance from Ascaride. The movie's whole interlocking short-story structure delivers something very different from the drollery of a Tarantino or an Altman. It accumulates into a steady emotional severity, but relieved with humour and sensuality. The final flourish of despair is arguably excessive: but this is an impressive work from a bold and unashamedly idealistic film-maker.
America's Sweethearts ***
Dir: Joe Roth
With: Julia Roberts, Billy Crystal, Catherine Zeta-Jones, John Cusack, Hank Azaria, Stanley Tucci
102 mins, cert 12 www.spe.sony.com/movies/americassweethearts
Billy Crystal's Hollywood comedy comes on like Wag the Dog crossed with the interview scene from Notting Hill. Crystal wrote the script and plays a haggard movie PR supremo in charge of a huge press "hospitality event" at a Nevada hotel where fractious reporters have to be convinced of a bogus story: that the estranged married stars, John Cusack and Catherine Zeta-Jones, are sensationally rekindling their romance, when actually they still hate each other like poison. Meanwhile, Cusack gets kind of interested in Zeta-Jones's put-upon sister-cum-assistant: a (very notionally) less glamorous Julia Roberts. It's all rollicking good fun, though I wasn't sure about Hank Azaria's comedy Latino accent (he does far funnier voices in The Simpsons). In the end, Crystal, that seasoned Oscar host, can't quite bring himself to skewer the movie biz, so he ends up soft-pedalling the Hollywood satire in favour of light-hearted romance.
Atlantis: the Lost Empire ***
Dir: Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise
With the voices of: Michael J Fox, James Garner, Cree Summer, Don Novello, Claudia Christian, Phil Morris
95 mins, cert U disney.go.com/disneypictures/atlantis/flash/index.html
Reasonable half-term holiday fare from Disney - a young archaeologist journeys forth to find the lost city of Atlantis - with sprightly voice characterisations from Michael J Fox, James Garner and John Mahoney. But the bar has been raised very high for new American animations by the Toy Stories and of course Shrek, and discerning young customers may find the script and graphics just don't cut it. They, and we, might be drumming our fingers before the next biggies arrive: Pixar's Monsters Inc and of course the mighty (non-animated) Harry Potter. This isn't too bad while we're waiting.
Jeepers Creepers **
Dir: Victor Salva
With: Gina Philips, Justin Long, Jonathan Breck, Patricia Belcher, Brandon Smith, Eileen Brennan
90 mins, cert 15 www.mgm.com/jeeperscreepers
The first 15 minutes of this horror flick are great: a brother and sister arguing in the front of their old car - a 1970s model for maximum genre retro-worship - while a serial killer in a manky old truck cruises Duel-ishly up behind them. But then, well - it all goes right down the pan, with all the tired old Scary Movie irony, right down to a semi-serious Safety v Death moment. Writer/director Victor Salva has got some moves, but it's not genuinely scary or genuinely funny. So what's the point?
Princess Mononoke ***
Dir: Hayao Miyazaki
With the voices of: Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Minnie Driver, Billy Bob Thornton, Gillian Anderson
133 mins, cert PG www.princess-mononoke.com
This 1997 movie, much admired as the crowning work of Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli, is now on release in the dubbed American version - although British critics were shown the subtitled original - and it emerges as a fervently inventive and imaginative legend about man's collision with nature: medieval warrior Prince Ashitaka and his alliance with Forest Spirits and Wolf Gods against the early Iron Age profiteers. I must admit to being agnostic about the animation: particularly the humans' saucer-eyed moppet faces: but the story has simplicity and force, with captivating images and gutsy narrative ideas recalling Kipling, Ovid and Homer.
Annie Hall *****
Dir: Woody Allen
With: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane, Paul Simon, Shelley Duvall, Janet Margolin, Colleen Dewhurst, Christopher Walken
93 mins, cert PG
Comparing Woody Allen's still glorious romantic comedy with the tacky Sex and the City is a good way of showing just how much sheer class it has. Never mind how many times you've seen it on television: getting this BFI-reissued 1977 classic on the big screen shows to the full Allen's spacious Manhattan streetscapes with bickering characters approaching in leisurely long-shot, and unobtrusive visual touches like Diane Keaton's photo-series of Woody holding up the lobster, now on display in her apartment. Lovely performances, and more superb gags in one minute than most movies manage in 90. It's like drinking champagne.
