Rea r view
— Phil Kay
It’s the blockbuster season, so Phil heads to waste beeaUse they lt;t\e this tilm to be getting on with. so /ere is no time Pearl Harbor and comes out fighting. tor long seenes. The thing. the point. the plane is ratmned down you like you re the kamika/e.
his is a diatribe. a rant. it is also a eonsidered lament; good tilms are You'll be glad to know two boy s beeome two men. fly on same
so wonderl‘ul and sometimes bad ones are the worst erime sine-e a squadron. Ben .-\t'lleek. the atllieted atleetee. gets the wings and the nurse.
world war. The paintings that make the biggest money are the good He meets her like a ehunky :\meriean rower in the \arsity team. too big. too
ones. How is it that film got away from Us and went awt‘ul. stopped being bold. too eompletely formed as an aetor in trout or us to be lwlieyable. 'l'hey
the result ol~ someone‘s personal love as the guiding l‘oree'.’ kiss a lot and the gang of girls meet the gang ot‘ guy s in the steamy platt‘orm
Pearl Harbor is ludierous. liilariotts. an astoundingly shitey and untiunny shot and there is the one with glasses. the less pretty one. the purely loyely
least full of the least heartt'elt imagery and oy'er—wanting-to-be—heartl'elt one our heroine and the whorey one that talls tor . . . and I am serious
dialogues. Jesus: best buddies. one true toying pair. then buddy dies and the here. t'alls t‘or loyely liw en Bremner. I know. I know. and he has a terrible
two left tall in loye. then Buddy is baek not dead. god it is all oy'er the plaee: stammer and gets to dribble and. I think. tall oy'er. When We The (‘row d saw
Idaho. Dover. Normandy. Hawaii. 'l‘here‘s a bit when they play ehieken in him intro-ed with a stammer we all did a silent gulp. too tremendously
the planes and By-(it)d—You—Remind-I\1e-()t-Me-Son talk. stilt-coloured. shoeked and wronged to ey en make the eonseious noise of the gulp. In other
hard-nosed laps and empty sunny hospital wards. eoekpits that will not words the True (iulp. The one without the dramatie noise to emphasise what open. love making in the hanger ' istruly t‘elt.
lle stammers and you ean see in his eyes that it
isn‘t right. ,/ 'l‘here may eyen be a guy who had the job ot ptttting some indieness into a big budget tilm as it had beeome ()searly popular reeently'. .-\nd he may haye seen 'Ii‘ui/is/mIIi/ig years ago then been giy en .lu/r’m l)mt/\'ey'-Bm‘ and seen liwen and seen he eould do Ameriean and seen all his bases loaded with proyen etioky'—indie—laughter guy.
I saw all the silly shots and hurried storyline seenes. sublimation ol‘ the non—elassieally handsome. the eloning of forgettable Buddy'l‘ype aetors that must be going on. all the buildings ot‘justit'ied Ameriean rage I eould handle and l lasted only titty - three minutes or eighty million dollars worth.
It is a beast weighed down to being immobile by
The very first shot is a big sky about to settle into its the weight ol‘ its thousands and thousands of on'ely third second on the sereen and they have to shove the A piereings. It was all about true low and I left beeause I bi-plane into it. halting. slow motion. not a seeond to wanted to be with my low ratherthan this pretenee.
L.“ 5‘ -i John Fardell
wherle thleyl littllltg tlheI loy'ely I lasted only parae tutes o t ty: tey s ea a po tee - boat for a harbour lights eseapade. l fl 'three saw a lilm that eould not start it was mlnutes or so bus ' ‘stablishing its 'll'. ' ' '
t“ ~ “ eighty mIIIIon V
The lilm I left was all about big
kisses and declarations and eliehesk dollars worth- . . this film uses them as it' to bandage the warplane until there was no plane.
Christ. there is stuff in there you ean not beliey'e. (let stoned or just go and watch it like the world's greatest spoot' in advance of itself. There is everything you eould eyer imagine in a Pearl Harbor tilm . . . the boys who grow up on a farm with erop dusting planes. they niek one and fly and they have the exact same dynamie as men as boys so we get it.
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136 THE LIST 7—21 Jun 2001