Sneakers

Yet another film that's only got one other review in the team room (Link). Hey, am I destroying a whole load of Googlewhacks here? Is the environmental protection agency going to be pounding down my door for destruction of the natural habitat of the Googlewhack¹?

Sneakers: The American name for trainers, or slang for Spies. It's probably why it's almost unheard of in the UK, despite having sterling performances from Robert Redford and Sidney Poitier. In fact, this is one of the few Robert Redford films that I actually watch.

It's got some of the best and most humorous dialogue I've seen in a movie. It's sort of like a buddy movie, but with six 'buddies' Dan Aykroyd is on top form in this, delivering lines like 'Uh, Whistler, I hate to tell you this, but you're blind.' totally dead pan. And no man alive does cool quite like Sidney Poitier.

Basic plot: A box exists that can crack any encryption code out there. Two NSA agents hire Redford's band of sneakers to steal it. But is everything what it seems? And what exactly is SETEC Astronomy?

If you are a history buff, or know your history of hackers, there loads of trivia hidden (and in plain sight) in this movie. IMDB has most of it.

However this film also demonstrates that movie composers are lazy² and prone to copy themselves. Listen to it, and you'll hear the soundtrack to Apollo 13.

Score: B- Slightly dated concepts of computers and networks, but more than compensated for by being cool as...

OQ: 'The one thing I can't do is hurry.'

Trivia: Prof. Len Adleman is one of the three mathematicians who invented the RSA (he's the "A") cryptosystem, currently the pre-eminent method of encrypting any form of data in the world. Adleman served as a mathematical consultant on the film, and as well as providing technical guidance to the film, he also spent several days constructing the slides Janek displays at the college symposium on "unbreakable codes" (which took Adleman a considerable amount of time to create using primitive early-'90s computer graphics technology).

He waived his fee in exchange for allowing his wife to meet Robert Redford, since she had a huge crush on him. (Aww...ain't that sweet.)

However, director Phil Alden Robinson then had the slides transposed as oil crayon scribbles, on account of the notion that "that's what a regular mathematician would have done". Adleman later remarked that this was indeed true and what he would have done, and would have saved him days if only he'd known. From IMDB

¹ Did you know you can't 'Google' anymore? You can 'perform a Google', or 'go a googling' or even 'rip him a new google.' Google have told people that they cannot use the word Google as a verb any more. Which is a shame, because the phrase 'Google his ass.' is going to be sorely missed. Somehow substituting Yahoo or MSN in there, doesn't seem to work. I'm going to have to fall back on my patented 'IMDB his ass.'

² IMHO. My opinion, not Standard Life's, the club's, the committee's or the board's. There, that ought to satisfy legal.

The Shadow

The Shadow! Oh man, I love this movie. 'Who knows what evil lives in the hearts of men? I know.....'

Where else could you have Ian McKellen and Tim Curry in the same movie? And Neelix! (Ethan Phillips in an uncredited cameo). Although I would say Ian McKellen was criminally underused, spending most of the movie in a zombie like state. Sort of like my friends when I'm talking about Star Trek. Tim Curry uses his patented over-actacting ability to act his ass off¹. And it didn't spoil the movie. In fact, it positively helped it! But it's really Alec Baldwin that makes the role of The Shadow his own, it really makes the film for me. I'm not an Alec basher, I think that given the right role, he can be excellent.

For me, this film is far superior to others of its ilk like The Phantom, Dark City and dare I say it: Dick Tracy. Everything seems to work for it. The cast is just spot on. Serious enough that the supernatural elements are taken for granted, yet with enough tongue in cheek for the comic elements to work. The soundtrack is excellent, dark overtones and light ditties.

Special effects, like the Shadow emerging from his own shadow pinned to the wall still look excellent, even today. For a film from 1994, this is quite something.

There's only one question left to ask really. Why the hell isn't this already in my DVD collection?

In a nice and refreshing change, the bad guy isn't dead at the end of the movie. It's been said that the Batman franchise got into trouble (Joel Schumacher kind of trouble) because they kept killing off the bad guys.

Score: B- Would have been a B+, but for ITV4's inept advert breaks that come at the worst possible time during the movie.

OQ: 'Oh, that knife...'

Margo Lane: We need each other.
Lamont Cranston: No we don't.
Margo Lane: We have a connection.
Lamont Cranston: No we don't.
Margo Lane: Then how can you explain that I can read your thoughts?
Lamont Cranston: My thoughts are hard to miss.
Margo Lane: And why is that?
Lamont Cranston: Psychically, I'm very well endowed.
Margo Lane: I'll bet you are.

Lamont Cranston: I'll see you later
Margo Lane: Hey, how'll you know where I am?
Lamont Cranston: I'll know

Margo Lane: Oh, God I dreamed.
Lamont Cranston: So did I. What did you dream?
Margo Lane: I was lying naked on a beach in the South Seas. The tide was coming up to my toes. The sun was beating down. My skin hot and cool at the same time. It was wonderful. What was yours?
Lamont Cranston: I dreamed I tore all the skin off my face and was somebody else underneath.
Margo Lane: You have problems.
Lamont Cranston: I'm aware of that.

¹ Does anyone else wonder just how much they had to rein in Tim when they were shooting The Hunt for Red October? I'm guessing: a lot.

Who?

No this isn't a question, it's actually the name of a film. As I mentioned in my review of Capricorn One, this is the other 70s sci-fi thriller starring Elliot Gould. Ahh, the 70s... Back when Elliot still had most of his original hair.

I'm writing this review in the vain hope that if you ever spot this on TV, then I will have saved you from wasting about 93 minutes of your life. If that happens, I do expect at least a thank you from you, if not a small bar of chocolate. To think that I once thought The Core was a bad film. It has nothing on this film.

Where do I start? Certainly not at the beginning, because the narrative style doesn't support such an obvious starting place. Doctor Lucas Martino has been behind the iron curtain for several years and is being returned to the Americans. Don't ask why he was there, or why they're returning him, because you'll never be told. To make matters more complicated, he has been in a horrific car accident and has had his entire head and left arm replaced by metal.

That's about as sensible as the plot gets. It had some potential for a good thriller, because the Americans can't be certain he really is Dr Martino, so they don't know if it's safe to send him back to the top secret Project Neptune, since he could be a Soviet spy. Oh, and don't ask what Project Neptune is either, because that too is an equally unfulfilled inquiry. The reason it fails as a thriller is because you're constantly distracted by the man's ridiculous head. And it fails as sci-fi, partly because it's a weak film premise, but mostly because of the man's ridiculous head.

There's absolutely no tension in the film at all, people mostly react in fear at first, but after a few minutes, they are chatting away to him like it's the most normal thing in the world. If it was a film made in the 70s, but set in the future when such prosthetics were more common, this would be understandable, but this film is set in the 70s.

Then there's the visual effects for the make-up, which looks as if they went all out on budget and employed the same person who invents things for the kids to make on Blue Peter to design, build and apply the prosthetics, or as I call them: the pathetics. A more obvious pappier mache and silver spray paint job, I have never seen. It's something of a minor miracle that the other actors can keep a straight face while delivering their lines. During one of the more boring parts (and there's more than a few), I even wondered if perhaps there was a stage hand just out of shot periodically killing puppies to keep the mood sombre. I half expected to see "Puppy Exterminator" in the credits.

And finally, there's the flashback to the Soviets planning the whole thing, which completely ruins the actually ending where you don't know if he is a spy or not.

I wonder if the makers of this film realised that it's name would eventually become so ironic, because after watching this, I had only one question: What?!?

Score: So low, it's actually managed to fall off the Saxon Film Score. Lower than an F. I'd give it an F, but only in the school definition of F, like my friend Tom who managed to score an F- on a maths test.

OQ:

Alternative Titles: Also know as Robo Manor The Man with the Steel Mask (Europe: English title) (video title)

If you really really want to know, he isn't a spy. He's the real Doctor Martino. There was a plan to disguise a spy as him and send the spy back, but that spy died during the operation, so they had to send the real Doctor back. He then gives up all hope of returning to his former life at Project Neptune and becomes a farmer. See: I told you it wasn't worth it.

The Queen

I can't help but notice¹ that Symon from my company's film club and I share a similar fondness in films. We tend to like and dislike the same movies. If I was a girl, and he wasn't spoken for, and I was a girl², there'd be serious chemistry there. Then again, who want's to date someone who's exactly like them? That'd be boring. I want a woman who challenges³ me intellectually.

Have I not got to the film yet? Sorry.

I agree with most of Symon's review. Why then am I writing another one? Simply to say that if Helen Mirren doesn't get best actress award at the Oscars for this film, then there is no justice in the world. Seriously, at times I caught myself thinking "How did they get the Queen to appear in a movie about herself?" She's that good.

This is an excellent film about a troubling time for the royals. It's fairly sympathetic to their situation, showing that they just didn't know how to react to the situation and were for some reason unable to distinguish the difference between the public and private Diana. There's a gentle and fabulous balance between serious, sombre and humourous tones in the film. It opens with Queen Elizabeth II talking to her portrait painter, with her complaining that she's never been able to vote.

The film is full of detail and shows events in a new light and is what my dad would call "a quality product"

Score: A solid B+

OQ: Symon has, as usual, found the best line in the movie. It raised a few laughs from the audience. I'm going to steal it and use it myself, because I can't think of any better ones that don't involve swearing.

Aide: Prime Minister, it's Gordon on the phone for you.
PM: Tell him to hang on.

Although there is another one that's almost as good, when Blair is defending the Queen to his press secretary. I can't remember the whole thing, and it would lose something in the translation. Go and see the film for yourself, you'll see what I mean.

Trivia (Courtesy of IMDB): At the film's premier at the Venice Film Festival, Helen Mirren's performance received a five minute standing ovation.

¹ I've been to New York, I have to sound like Carrie from Sex and the City in at least one of my reviews

² I know I've already mentioned that. I just think it's important.

³ When I say challenge, obviously I mean long discussions about the nature of existence, and not Carol Vorderman's Sudoku Challenge. Although I have just recently got into Sudoku. Man, is that addictive.