Stargate SG 1: The Ark of Truth

The first of the direct to DVD movies that Stargate has jumped medium to. This film is intended to wrap up those loose threads left unresolved at the end of the series. I don;t want to spoil it for you, as it's something you probably want to see first time yourself, but I can say it's very good. It starts well, keeps up the pace throughout and has a satisfactory conclusion. The character interaction is still an important part of the mix, and no-one is sidelined. Each character is used well and nothing feels out of place or forced. There's also the usual comedy moments, which I realised I had missed terribly from the TV show.

Overall, the look and feel is exactly like an episode from the series, albeit a little longer with a bit more budget for special effects.

Personally I hope that this new business model works for them. It would be a great wake up call to the Hollywood TV producers that the DVD market can more than cover your production costs, if the show is good quality with a loyal fan following. Hell it could even pave the way for cancelled shows to make a comeback in a new format. Here's hoping.

Score: A But then, I'm a huge Stargate fan.

OQ: .... Ahh...now that would be a spoiler, wouldn't it?

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers

...or "Why pushy parents should be taken out and shot."

Caught this on BBC 4 last night, and it was surprisingly good. Not that it shouldn't haven been, given the names attached, it's just that biographical films are not generally my bag. Still, I found it very watchable.

Starting with his radio career and his desire to break into films, the story concentrates on the self imposed tragedy of his private life. There are some up-beat moments, such as when he fools the casting director of his first film into thinking he's an eighty year old war veteran, after first being rejected for not looking the part. This first break catapulting him into stardom, which the film cleverly completely skips over in order to avoid detracting from the main story. But behind all his success, right up until her death was his pushy mother. A woman who instilled in him the idea that fame comes at the cost of your friends and family, but it's a price worth paying. This isn't to place all the blame for his problems with his mother, it's clear he's a deeply flawed individual. Geoffrey Rush plays him in an almost child like state, throwing tantrums whenever things don't go his way. But her pushy and demanding nature certainly didn't help him.

Only two of his four marriages are shown in the film, his first wife Anne and second, Britt Ekland (played wonderfully by Charlize Theron). Whether the film takes artistic licence or not, the implication is that both of these marriages broke down because of Sellers' selfish nature. The scene where he tells his two children and wife Anne that he loves them, just not as much as Sophia Loren is stomach churning, not least because his affair with Loren is all in his head.

Whenever something traumatic happens in Sellers' life, the narrative changes completely to Rush (as Sellers) stepping into the role of one of the other characters (Anne, his mother, Blake Edwards) as the world around the scene turns out to be a studio set, and shows Sellers re-editing his own life, altering their dialogue to create the happy ending he never had. It's quite evocative, rather unusual, but it strikes home because this is something that everyone has done in their own lives at some point.

Later in his life, he comes to despise the characters he has created and strikes out to do something completely different. However financial urgencies force him to do one more Pink Panther film. Ultimately when he does finally make a film that really matters to him, playing Chance the gardener in 'Being There', the film cuts to Sellers watching the movie on TV in an empty house. Having finally won the critical acclaim he always strove for, he now has no-one to share his success with.

Score: C+
Not usually my thing, but very watchable if a little sad.

OQ: You think he was harsh to me? He was. But that just means he learnt his lesson.

Vantage Point

Vantage Point is the sort of film that makes you want to run up to the director, shake him vigorously for ten minutes and say "Well? How do you like it?" There's a lot of shaky-cam. A lot*.

The film leans heavily on its use of showing the same event from eight points of view. In fact without this storytelling technique, it would be quite a dull film. Also a shorter film. The story is fairly compelling, although it's just not enough of a plot to fill the time on its own. It is filled with plot twists and cliffhangers. And when I say filled, I mean filled like a foot long Sub of the day with everything in it that's so big you get lockjaw trying to bite into it.

The constant cliffhanger and reset used throughout gets really irritating about half way through. I felt like I was watching an episode of Lost. "I'm never going to get any answers, am I?" was a nagging thought that kept popping up. The film seems to be an answer to the question nobody cared about; How many cliffhangers can you get in one film? It is constantly perforated with people looking at something out of camera shot going "Oh My God!" before rushing off and the focus immediately jumping to the next person. By about the fourth one of these I could hear the audience shifting in their seats and feel their frustration. Fortunately, the producer seems to be aware of how irritating this is and at about this point, the focus shifts into "more action, less faffing about".

After the twist in the middle (this isn't really a spoiler as there are so many twists), the film does pick up pace a lot, almost like it's looked at its watch and realised how little time is left before the end. However, this doesn't really make amends for torturing us with cliffhangers for the first half of the film.

I guess the moral of the story is that terrorists are quite happy to shoot hostages, assassinate presidents and blow up plazas full of people, but they won't run over small children or cute animals who have wandered into the road. So really, all we need to do is surround all our important buildings with small children and cute animals and they'll be perfectly safe. Also, the closer you stand to a bomb, the better your chances of survival with only a few cuts and bruises seem to be.

Score: C- A distinctly average plot bolstered by a tired and overused narration technique.

OQ: "Oh My God!"

*You can always tell the films where the city council refused to let them drive cars at high speed through the streets. They use shakycam to cover the fact that the "car chase" is being driven at 30 miles an hour.