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DVDevotee - Journey To the Centre of the Earth (Roadshow Films)

Column: The Word on DVDs | Date Published: Wednesday, 13 May 09 | Author: Geoff Setty | | 2 years, 9 months ago

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Brendan Fraser has recently inherited amusing action hero status in the mold of Harrison Ford. And like Harrison Ford’s latest film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, this one is plagued with problems. As a film, it was originally shot in 3D. You remember 3D, the brief and exceptionally forgettable movie fad of the ‘50s. Well in some ways it’s back, only to be forgettable once again. And that is one of the issues with this film; its hook is the 3D gimmick so there is an over-reliance on things popping out of the screen at the expense of plot, character development and a script that really delivers. Fraser plays Professor Trevor Anderson who is asked to look after his nephew Sean, played with teenage boredom by Josh Hutcherson, for a few days. Inspired by the Jules Verne novel, they head to Scandinavia after finding a shitload of loose change sitting in jars (is that as implausible as it sounds?), as opposed to skiing in Canada and meeting the exceptionally pretty Hannah, played by Anita Briem, who is fourteen years younger than Fraser in real life.

There is a bit of fun and witty dialogue with the three of them and they fall down a mountain and before you can say “shit, isn’t this The Mummy 4?”, they wind up somewhere near the centre of the earth. From there it seems to be about Hannah and Trevor hooking up – making many a viewer vomit in their mouths – while they find a way home. This film never really seems to get out of first gear and even the supposed action bits are lackluster, with the flick putting all of its eggs in the ‘wow 3D’ basket. The direction is competent from Eric Brevig, a former Xena: Warrior Princess director, but let’s make sure he never gets near a film camera again. While the three leads are all passable, the issue comes in with the relationship between Fraser and Briem. He looks old enough to be her preacher in church and that is truly scary. It would have been way more appropriate to see young love blossom between Sean and Hannah with Fraser doing some witty asides to camera. I guess the truth is, this could have been a lot worse – it could have been The Mummy 4.

	DVDevotee - Slumdog Millionaire (Icon Films): There is an expectation that the film awarded the Best Picture each year at the Academy Awards is going to have a reasonable stake to be just that, the best picture of the year. And this year as in several others – I’m looking in your direction big boat movie and southern retard film – the Academy of motion pictures stuffed it up. That’s not to say that Slumdog Millionaire is a bad film, in fact it’s a very good film, just not as good, in my opinion as Frost/Nixon. Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of Jamal who as the film opens is being interrogated for suspected cheating on Who Wants to be a Millionaire – thankfully the Indian version as I couldn’t do with anymore Eddie Maguire. The story on how he knew the answers to all of the questions are told in flashback, extracting emotion from each one, until we find out exactly how this ’slumdog’ rose from zero to almost conquering hero in a small matter of time. Interwoven with this story is the love triangle between Jamal, his brother Salim and the beautiful Latika, who unfortunately is used as a pawn in Indian society. The film progresses rather predictably towards a bit of an all singing all dancing finale. If this sounds like its Hollywood doing Bollywood, you’re just about spot on. hat said, the direction from Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) is excellent and the young cast are doing a fantastic job of making you feel every moment of their love, pain and triumph at seeing this one through. Slumdog Millionaire is in interesting film, as like Gump it rewards the underdog. You can actually smell the shit rising off the streets. All of that said though, Slumdog is far from the greatest film of 2008, and shouldn’t be lauded as such. But, if you want an entertaining couple of hours with a bit of singing thrown in, Slumdog is just the ticket.
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	DVDevotee - The US vs. John Lennon (Roadshow): At various times so far in my life, I’ve had ‘older’ relatives tell me that The Beatles were a great band in the early days when churning out variations of I Want To Hold Your Hand, but interest waned when they started coming up with ‘weirder’ sounds later on. John Lennon is usually named as the culprit responsible for steering the band down the path of both unusual behaviour and music. Could that be right? This engaging documentary checks out John Lennon’s introduction to the late 1960s radical protest movement in the United States which coincided with the first term of the troubled Nixon administration. After watching it, I wondered whether or not I preferred sitting back and getting good vibes just from classic solo albums of the early 1970s like The Plastic Ono Band and Imagine or also seeing the dude develop as a political activist. The film makers flash on to the counter culture struggle of the ‘60s and ‘70s and Lennon’s growing political activity which included supporting activist groups like the Black Panther Party, for which he was seen as a threat to US national security. It seems that John Lennon was not merely content to sit in some mansion somewhere, but wanted to use his public profile to engage with common humanity while at times writing and recording great music. The narrative doesn’t get bogged down while mapping out such things as John Lennon’s determined efforts to gain permanent residency of the United States after the break up of The Beatles, and the many obstacles placed in his way from tentacles reaching to highest levels of the US Government. With the other stuff, some good visuals and interviews drive the story as well as cool early post-Beatles music and much footage of John Lennon expressing his passionate libertarian views with the stoic and faithful Yoko Ono always at his side.
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