NZ+film+criticism

Samples of Film criticism.

 John Grierson

=** Desperate Remedies (1993) **= =Review/Film: Desperate Remedies; Spoofing Movies With Arty Glamour= By STEPHEN HOLDENPublished: May 23, 1994 "Desperate Remedies," Stewart Main's and Peter Wells's gorgeous but silly mock epic, is a film that wants to have its cake and eat it too. The New Zealand film, which opened yesterday at the Quad Cinema, aspires to be the 90's answer to a 40's Hollywood costume drama, but with a big wink in its eye and layers of sexual ambiguity added.

Unfolding as a series of tableaux in which the actors mouth deliberately wooden dialogue while the camera adores their faces, the movie isn't acted so much as it is posed in a style that suggests a hybrid of Ken Russell and a Calvin Klein Obsession perfume ad. Peter Scholes's overwrought score, larded with excerpts from Donizetti's "Forza del Destino" coats the proceedings with a thick quasi-operatic gloss. "Desperate Remedies," which is set in a mythical colonial town called Hope, follows the adventures of Dorothea Brook (Jennifer Ward-Lealand), a beautiful and wealthy draper who lives in luxury with her doting companion, Anne Cooper (Lisa Chappell), and her younger sister, Rose (Kiri Mills). Dorothea is besieged with problems, the worst of which is Rose's opium addiction, stoked by a scoundrel lover named Fraser (Cliff Curtis). Dorothea determines that the only way to save Rose is to buy off Fraser and pay someone else to marry her sister. An ideal candidate appears in the form of Lawrence Hayes (Kevin Smith), a handsome stranger with a mysterious past, whom Dorothea spots coming off a ship.

In the omnisexual world of "Desperate Remedies," everybody gives everybody else the eye. Even Fraser and Lawrence pause in the middle of a fight to consider an erotic connection. Dorothea faces the most difficult romantic decisions. Will she choose a respectable marriage of convenience to William Poyser (Michael Hurst), a nasty local politician who wants her money? The dashing but disreputable Lawrence? Or the devoted Anne, who smothers her with kisses at every opportunity? Had "Desperate Remedies" had any narrative sweep it might have been an amusing genre-busting coup. But the story unfolds so choppily that it amounts to little more than an art director's pastiche of glamorous images, a series of beautifully photographed storyboards. Yet as an allusive post-modern spoof of movie history, "Desperate Remedies" has its charms. Ms. Ward-Lealand looks and acts like a cross between Greta Garbo in "Queen Christina" and Catherine Deneuve. Mr. Curtis's Fraser suggests the 50's John Derek wearing too much makeup and a nipple ring. Old-time movie fans will delight in spotting dozens of other homages to an era when the notion that the girl might end up going off with the girl instead of with the boy was unimaginable. Desperate Remedies Direction and screenplay by Stewart Main and Peter Wells; produced by James Wallace. Released by Miramax. Running time: 94 minutes. This film has no rating. At the Quad Cinema, 13th Street west of Fifth Avenue, Greenwich Village. WITH: Jennifer Ward-Lealand, Kevin Smith, Lisa Chappell and Cliff Curtis




 * b ) Discuss the film River Queen**


 * Synopsis**

'River Queen' depicts the **story** of Sarah O'Brien, an Irish immigrant to New Zealand, who becomes caught in the middle of the land wars between the European settlers and Maoris, by the Wanganui River. Kiefer Sutherland plays the leader of the European settlers (from Britain), whilst Cliff Curtis and Temuera Morrison play leaders of the Maori tribes


 * c) Discuss Bright Star**
 * Synopis**
 * London 1818: a secret love affair begins between 23 year-old English poet, John Keats (Ben Whishaw), and the girl next door, Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), an out-spoken student of high fashion. This unlikely pair begin at odds, he thinking her a stylish minx, while she was unimpressed not only by his poetry but also by literature in general. **


 *  However, when Fanny heard that Keats was nursing his seriously ill younger brother, her efforts to help touched Keats and when she asked him to teach her about poetry he agreed. The poetry soon became a romantic remedy that worked not only to sort their differences, but also to fuel an impassioned love affair. **


 *  When Fanny's alarmed mother and Keats' best friend finally awoke to their attachment, the relationship had an unstoppable momentum. Intensely and helplessly absorbed in each other, the young lovers were swept deeply into powerful new sensations, "I have the feeling as if we're dissolving," Keats wrote to her. Together they rode a wave of romantic obsession that only deepened as their troubles mounted. **

The inspiration of John Keats
 *  When Keats fell ill a year later, the two young lovers faced no marriage but separation. In Keats' own poignant words, "forever panting and forever young." [D-Man2010] **

See Bright Star