Film Reviews www.list.co.uk/film
COMEDY I LOVE YOU, BETH COOPER (15) 101min ●●●●● COMEDY DANCE FLICK (15) 82min ●●●●●
Few genres are as ripe for parody as the ‘I’m gonna dance my way out of the ghetto’ teen flick. Unfortunately, few comic talents have such a lamentably poor track record as the Wayans clan, creators of the vile Scary Movie series as well as White Chicks and Little Man. To say that spoofing the dance
genre brings out the best in the Wayans style of grotesque physical slapstick is the kindest possible comment on Dance Flick, a spoof on a par with such molten excrement as Date Movie or Meet The Spartans. Director Damien Dante Wayans’ film features Shoshana Bush as Megan, a failed ballet dancer who teams up with an arrogant street-dancer (Damon Wayans Jr) to compete in a street- dance battle in the mould of those featured in Step Up 2: The Streets, Save The Last Dance or Honey. Dance Flick does manage a couple of passable set pieces, one a parody of Fame called ‘I’m Gonna Be Gay Forever’, the other a ballet which reminds Megan of her mother’s death in a car accident, poignantly entitled ‘Your Momma Died in A Car Crash’. Otherwise it’s fart, camel-toe, and assorted bad-taste non-gags all the way, reaching a mirthless nadir when a blind Ray Charles lookalike falls down a manhole. (Eddie Harrison) ■ General release from Fri 21 Aug.
WAR/THRILLER INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (18) 152min ●●●●●
Quentin Tarantino’s much talked about men-on-a-mission WWII movie has been a long time coming, but his sixth feature (originally inspired by the 1978 film of almost the same name) is here now, and it’s great. Brad Pitt’s Lieutenant Aldo Raine and his band of Nazi-bushwacking Jewish- American GIs provide the film’s Dirty Dozen element, but their bloody antics are only one of the plot strands of this multiple narrative romp through occupied France. The others comprise two separate plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler, one dreamed up by French Jew fugitive Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent), who runs a cinema in Paris at which Joseph Goebbels plans to premiere his latest piece of cinematic propaganda, and the other an Allied operation run by film critic-turned-commando Lieutenant Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender channelling Graham Greene to priceless effect) in collusion with German actress and double agent Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger). Tarantino takes his time bringing the narrative strands together, cutting
back and forth between them with lengthy, often very wordy scenes. All of the dialogue is spoken in its original language and so much of it is French and German, which isn’t just for authenticity’s sake, but is also integral to how the plots are cleverly played out. There’s also plenty of action, a good deal of black humour and a number of superbly staged set-pieces (particularly the opening homage to Sergio Leone). The most memorable thing about the film, however, is its villain, the urbane ‘Jew hunter’ Colonel Hans Landa. Playing him with palpable glee, Austrian actor Christoph Waltz steals the film. (Miles Fielder) ■ Out now on general release.
John Hughes protégée Chris Columbus desecrates his mentor’s memory with the ill-timed release of this so-called ‘comedy’. Columbus once rode high with comedies Home Alone and Mrs Doubtfire but his return to the teen genre in which he made his debut with Adventures in Babysitting is one big prom-night flop. Slumming it from her Heroes day job, Hayden Panettiere plays Beth Cooper, a high school cheerleader coveted by geek Dennis Cooverman (an average Paul Rust). After exclaiming ‘I Love You Beth Cooper’ in his graduation speech, the object of Cooverman’s affections is flattered enough to pay him a house call, leading to a night of drunken parties, skinny dipping, self-discovery and nuclear-strength schmaltz.
Columbus and screenwriter Larry Doyle offer a continual stream of borrowings; Cooper’s brother is an army bully straight out of Hughes’ s Weird Science, Ferris Bueller star Alan Ruck gets a thanklessly minor role, and Cooverman’s best buddy Rich (Jack T Carpenter) constantly talks about 1980’s film Risky Business. Such outdated references, stuffed into the mouths of a young cast reveal all; Columbus can do nothing but artlessly ape; real filmmakers like Hughes observe life, not just other movies. (Eddie Harrison) ■ General release from Fri 21 Aug.
DRAMA JUST ANOTHER LOVE STORY (KAERLIGHED PA FILM) (18) 100min ●●●●●
While much has been made of Danish cinema’s interest in realism in the wake of Dogme, how many Scandinavian films have been equally interested in self- reflexivity? Whether it’s von Trier’s overlooked Manderlay playing like a homage to curious 1970s slavery romancers Mandingo and Drum or Thomas Vinterberg’s homages to sci-fi and western respectively in It’s All About Love and Dear Wendy, there seems to be a knowing streak at work. Director Ole Bornedal calls his film Just Another Love Story so he can offer a
tale of confused and adopted identities. Julia (Rebecka Hemse) careers into the back of another car driven by the married Jonas (Anders W Berthjelsen), and as he goes to her aid a strange obsession takes hold. When she ends up in a coma and he starts to visit, the partly responsible Jonas may feel guilty, but he’s also besotted. As he helps her out of her comatose state he is also taken by her wealthy family to be the man Julia met whilst backpacking in Cambodia. Why disabuse them, when Julia seems to be returning to health, and he gets to spend time with a woman he’s falling in love with?
Bornedal as writer and director eventually loses interest in the subtleties of psychology and social milieu for a thriller denouement (the simultaneously charming and scary Nikolas Lie Kaas is drafted in), but this is a knowing thriller, aware of its conventions and still capable of getting a few moments of surprise and shock out of the audience. (Tony McKibbin) ■ GFT, Glasgow from Fri 21 Aug.
24 THE LIST 20–27 Aug 2009