Review of "Sicko"

He’s not pretty and he’s certainly not subtle, but Michael Moore knows how to ask a loaded question. After the global success of his documentaries Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, the new target for Moore’s unusual brand of polemic is America’s health care system and the private insurance companies that dominate its landscape. The weapons of choice that he uses to brandish his affable form of left-wing patriotism at the subject are the usual collection of suffering ordinary people, comparisons to other systems around the world, and his clever but naughty use of sarcasm.

Sicko starts at ground level, introducing us to a handful of people who have fallen foul of a health care system that depends upon insurance companies as middlemen between patient and doctor. With returns to shareholders as their primary agenda, Moore exposes the way these companies are geared to declining help for people in need. He rounds up a call centre operator who weeps recalling the people she rejected. He rounds up a Medical Director admitting the error of her ways at a Congressional hearing, and he rounds us up with some truly heart-wrenching case studies. Take some tissues.

Moore then moves onwards and upwards: to Canada where health care is free and where people live in fear of falling sick on a day-trip to the USA. Then to Britain where people laugh at his questions about what they pay for medical services. Pay? Then to France, where they shrug with vague contempt before relaxing with a glass of red and the certain knowledge that they will outlive their average American counterpart. In his coup de grace, Moore visits Cuba with a boatload of sickly American heroes, and discovers how America’s closest enemy treats these people who cannot get health care in their own country.

It’s a fascinating film, with Moore in a low-key and reflective mood, but it’s not without its problems. There’s no voice given to the other side of the story, no attempt to really explain why the system evolved that way (other than a quick glossing over of some Nixon-era policy decisions), and there is some very ordinary cinematography. But these don’t matter to Moore: as almost the lone voice of the left in the USA, he just wants to make it clear that the system doesn’t work. As he points out, Americans copy or buy everything that’s good from everywhere else in the world – the food, the wine, the cars, the technology. Why not copy the universal, free health care systems that work so well elsewhere? It’s a very good question.

Review of 'Black Snake Moan'

This is one of those films likely to divide audiences. It could be described as a Southern tale of sin, redemption and the blues. Or as sexist trash. Either way there’s no denying the powerful work done by Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci in two wonderful central performances that undoubtedly help to make the film more than it really is.

Ricci plays Rae, a young woman unable to deal with a terrible force that, as she says, “starts in mah head, spreads to mah belly and then goes lower.” With her boyfriend Ronnie (Justin Timberlake) away in the army, her sexual urges lead her to strutting around the steamy Tennessee town in cut off shorts and top, in search of something that will help scratch her itch. Anyone, it seems, will do. After a wild drug-fueled night, she is found unconscious, beaten up and near naked by Lazarus (Jackson), an old blues guitarist barely able to hold in his own passions after his wife has left him for another man. Lazarus decides that Rae is a sign from God and is determined to purge her evil ways in order to redeem himself. This involves chaining her inside his house and playing her some good ol’ Memphis blues. Music, it seems, is the best way to keep the black snake of infidelity from your door.

Writer/director Craig Brewer (who also made Hustle & Flow) works the first half of the film as black comedy and it’s delicious in parts. Ricci’s sexy waif and Jackson’s tortured bluesman are finely supported by John Cothran Jr. who plays the local Reverend, called in to pour holy water on the fires of desire. But the second half, when Ronnie returns home early from his tour of duty and when Ricci starts to wear clothes, switches to a more conventional and less successful romance narrative, with Lazarus now in charge of saving the fragile Ronnie as well. But thanks to some toe-tapping blues and because Jackson and Ricci have painted such endearing portraits for their two lost souls, there’s enough good will to get the ending over the line.

Review of 'Mr. Brooks"

The man named Mr. Brooks (Kevin Costner) has a problem: although he’s rich, successful, good looking, with a beautiful wife and daughter, he’s a serial killer. But the film named Mr. Brooks has an even more serious problem: although it’s stylishly photographed in a collection of classy locations with a well-known cast, it is utterly ludicrous. Man and film are beyond comprehension or redemption.

Serial killer films can head in a few directions. There are whodunits where the audience tries to stay one step ahead of the police investigation. Or there’s the psychological thriller, where we know who’s doing the killing but enjoy the slow and appalling revelation about why. There are also the grisly slasher and erotic mystery versions, where the kicks are more visceral. Mr. Brooks is none of these, although it offers some bloody and some sexy moments. For all its many (far too many) storylines, it neither provides any suspense, nor tries to explain what is going on in the minds of any of the characters involved. And what a bunch they are! Firstly there’s Mr. Brooks himself, who is accompanied by his alter ego - or more likely his alter-id - Marshall (William Hurt) who pops up like an annoying jack-in-the box to explain the plot for anyone who might have fallen asleep. Then there’s Detective Tracy Atwood (Demi Moore) a beautiful multi-millionaire police detective chasing Brooks whilst fending off an ex-husband and a second serial killer named Meeks (Matt Schulze) who’s on the loose. Then there is Mr. Smith (Dane Cook), a serial killer in training who joins Brooks and the pop-up Marshall in the hunt for fresh targets. Lastly there’s Brooks’ daughter Jane, who seems to suffer from the same serial killing condition as Brooks senior, Marshall, Meeks and Smith. With all these killers, there may have been an opportunity to make this a black comedy – but there’s not a shred of humour in sight.

Writer and Director Bruce A. Evans was nominated for an Oscar back in 1986 for his writing on Stand By Me, but has really fallen short of the mark on this one. The performances are universally contrived and wooden, and everyone delivers their lines as if speaking to a dimwitted and hard of hearing aunt – particularly Hurt who manages to turn what should be the driving force of mania into a smarmy side-kick. Most strange however is the unresolved ending, which staggers from high action shoot-out to gothic graveyard horror before trying to convince us that Mr. Brooks is actually just a family man we’re meant to like and feel sorry for. Give us a break.

Review of "The Simpsons Movie'

From the first glimpse of the famous Twentieth Century Fox logo to the last frame of the credits, the verbal, visual and musical gags just keep coming. “Why would anyone go to the movies and watch something that they can stay at home and watch on television for free?” complains Homer to the audience. Because it’s very clever comedy from the team that have dominated prime time, sit-com television for most of the last twenty years, that’s why! Welcome to the widescreen, feature length world of Springfield, and its most famous dysfunctional family – the Simpsons.

With a clear play on current environmental concerns, The Simpsons Movie opens on Springfield threatened by an ecological disaster. Homer (voice of Dan Castellaneta) takes the problem over the tipping point when he dumps his pet pig’s poo in the local lake whilst rushing for free doughnuts. Faced with catastrophe, President Arnold Schwarzenegger (voice of Harry Shearer) and Environmental Protection Agency boss Russ Cargill (voice of Albert Brooks) decide to close Springfield down for good. The angry residents (there are apparently more than 300 individual character cameos in the shot) descend on the Simpson’s house, but the family escapes to the wilderness where Homer must decide whether to return and save Springfield from anarchy and destruction, whilst working out how to restore his family’s belief in him as father and husband.

There’s nothing extraordinary in the story: it’s merely a structure for the savage wit and animated antics that Simpsons fans have come to love and expect. Director David Silverman and a team of eleven credited writers make full use of the wide screen format, and mercilessly poke fun at the cinema medium, along with other regular targets such as religion, the government and – in one inspired sequence – Disney-style animation. It’s these gags that fuel the film and give it an almost non-stop energy. Hans Zimmer also has some fun with the music and some of the adapted songs – particularly the ‘Spider-pig’ lyrics sung by Homer – are priceless. As for the characters, well, this is indeed the Simpsons’ movie, with other Springfield regulars relegated to very minor roles – even the dastardly Mr. Burns. The focus is definitely back to the core family of Homer, Marge (voice of Julie Kavner), Lisa (voice of Yeardley Smith), Bart and Maggie (both voiced by Nancy Cartright. Yes, Maggie does finally say something!), and ultimately it’s a massive Simpsons episode. But who cares when such a talented team of writers creates so much to laugh at. Eeeeexcellent.