Post a Comment        E-mail To A Friend        Join The List

DVD Festival: The Last King Of Scotland, Flushed Away, The Ex, The Fountain

by Kathryn Durfee, Jamie Henson
05/22/2007

Kathryn:

This week's reviews explore the wilds of Africa and the world that exists in the plumbing systems of London with The Last King of Scotland and Flushed Away.

In 1971, Uganda's citizens proudly welcomed President Idi Amin to power. He gained support and fueled the excitement of his people by promising new roads, new schools, and generally better lifestyles for Ugandan natives. However, hundreds of thousands of corpses later, the Ugandans realized that Amin was no different than past tyrants and there was no end of fear in sight.

Inspired by this ominous figure, director Kevin MacDonald's The Last King of Scotland is a fictional tale of the relationship between Amin and his personal physician. James McAvoy (Chronicles of Narnia's fawn Mr. Tumnus) portrays young Dr. Nicholas Garrigan. Reluctant to follow in the footsteps of his father and become a family physician, he decides to leave Scotland for somewhere more exciting. He vows to spin the globe and go to the first place his finger lands, but goes with a second spin after fate presents him with Canada. Thus, he ventures to Uganda.

He first volunteers in a rural clinic with a doctor and his wife, but it is not long before he becomes the personal physician and virtual right-hand man to Amin. After mending an injured hand and taking the initiative to put a dying cow out of its misery, Garrigan catches the eye of the new leader. In addition, it turns out that Amin is a huge fan of Scotland.

While Garrigan is initially cocky about his new position of power, it is not long before he joins the rest of Amin's staff and the people of Uganda, who live in fear of their leader. Amin trusts the young Scot with some of the most important decisions involving the country and relies on him to maintain the health of his many wives and children. When he disagrees with the methods used in raising Amin's sons and sympathizes with Kay, one of his wives (Kerry Washington), he begins to lose favor with the President.

As he gets more and more involved with the President's family, Garrigan understands the skepticism and fear of his fellow administrators. He wants to return to Scotland, realizing he is in way over his head. However, Amin will not allow him to leave. Young Nicholas must therefore fight to escape Uganda, not only to save his own life but to publicize the truth of Amin's rule.

This incredibly chilling film is shot somewhat roughly; scenes shot with hand-held cameras recall the savagery of Amin. The camera follows Amin's rise and fall artfully: early in the film, Amin is flattered by the camera and shown as a fatherly figure. Most shots romanticize the landscape of Uganda. As the truth comes out, camera angles are harsher, lighting is more unflattering, and many of the scenes are bathed in darkness.

Forest Whitaker, who took home the Oscar for Best Actor, perfectly illustrates the dual nature of this figure. Jolly and fatherly at first, he seems like a kind and humble figure, reluctant to come to power but willing to do so for his people. His true nature soon shines through as he becomes more and more paranoid and fearful of the people around him. In the end, he has fully transformed into a monster that cares only for himself. James McAvoy shines as Nicholas, an innocent who is given a rude awakening to the brutality of Africa.

After the haunting experience that is Scotland, I had to watch something a bit lighter. I turned to my expansive collection of animated films and chose Dreamworks/Aardman's recent release Flushed Away. Lately, many studios have jumped on the computer animation bandwagon, hoping to gain notoriety and profit from the style's popularity. Therefore, I am a bit skeptical of each new release - I scrutinize each trailer in order to figure out if it is a good story with strong characters or simply another cash cow. Having fallen in love with Aardman's Wallace and Gromit series years ago and the later Chicken Run, I was more willing to accept Flushed Away into my carefully organized and hand-picked library. Indeed, Aardman continues to deliver.

Flushed Away opens with Roddy (voiced by Hugh Jackman, Wolverine!) running amok in his posh London townhouse while his owners are away. Through an unfortunate series of events precipitated by the arrival of Sid, a sewer rat, Roddy ends up flushed down the loo and into the underground world of sewer dwellers. He ends up with Rita (Kate Winslet), a mouse on a mission to find a valuable ruby from Queen Elizabeth's crown in order to save her huge and impoverished family.

However, this quest is made more difficult by the fact that she is not the only one searching for the ruby. The Toad, voiced by Gandalf, er, Sir Ian McKellen, has dispatched his henchmen Whitey and Spike (Bill Nighy and Andy Serkis) to keep tabs on Roddy and Rita. In addition, his trench-coat-sporting French cousin Le Frog (Jean Reno) and his team of kung-fuing froggies are on the trail. The Toad's ultimate goal is to destroy the city and wipe out the race of rats. Though Roddy initially wants only to get back to the safety of his cage, Rita helps him discover the true meaning of family.

I almost forgot the most enjoyable characters of the film: a colony of singing slugs that inhabits the London underground. The film does incorporate some pop songs and sing-alongs, as most kids' movies do, but most of these are performed by the slugs.

Yes, the storyline follows the basic formula for an animated family film, but writers Sam Fell and Peter Lord have succeeded in making Flushed Away stand out among the rest. Multiple viewings are required in order to catch all of the references and jokes on the sly, but the film is so enjoyable that there should not be any complaints.

While I plan to stay out of Africa, I might look into the London sewer system for my next vacation, though I will only subject myself to this if I can play with the slugs.

Jamie:

I hate to be the one to say it, but Zach Braff isn't turning out as well as we hoped. Sure, he's the quirky kid on Scrubs that can't ever win in love, had sex with Natalie Portman to start feeling again in Garden State, and finally seemed to become a man with a pregnant girlfriend in The Last Kiss, but he always plays the same guy. He's either J.D. the funny, yet sensitive guy or J.D., the overly emotional, pensive guy, or both, as he is on Scrubs. He will always be J.D. of Sacred Heart (I'm trying to say he just needs to get a new manager).

His role is not too far from his usual stomping grounds in this week's romantic comedy, The Ex. Braff plays Tom Reilly, a late twenty-something slacker (that's how he's described, but it's not very obvious) living in NYC with his wife Sofia (Amanda Peet, Syriana). The day Sofia gives birth to their son, Tom gets fired from his job, forcing them to move to rural Ohio for the advertising job her father offers him. Chip Sanders (Jason Bateman, Smokin' Aces) foils every attempt Tom makes in the hopes of stealing Sofia, his high school sweetheart. Tom keeps finding himself caught in situational quicksand, thanks to Chip's evil plotting. Oh, I forgot to mention Chip is in a wheelchair. Ah, so much family-friendly fun!

The movie is Hollywood in action; the writers (David Guion and Michael Handelman) have no notable filmography and the director (Jesse Peretz, the son of The New Republic's publisher) has a Foo Fighters video on his resume. There are a slew of small time cameos, the type of supporting characters who pop up everywhere and most of which appeared in Friends with Money.

And no Zach Braff production would be complete without a decently hip soundtrack. The movie has enough slapstick humor to carry it far enough. And although I like Amanda Peet ("Ain't nothin' finer than a fine naked woman holdin' a gun") and I haven't lost all hope in Braff (if you don't like it, let's have a sit-down), this is an ordinary romantic comedy - no High Fidelity, but better than Music & Lyrics.

I'm not always condescending, but the most important thing I've learned this year is this: I was wrong about Hugh Jackman. I should've seen it coming in The Prestige, but I didn't. The ex-stage actor apparently was just placed in shitty roles (say Van Helsing), but Darren Aronofsky's 2006 feature The Fountain - available on DVD this week - whipped me into shape on this Aussie.

Jackman plays Doctor Tom Creo, who researches cancer cures to try and cure his wife Izzi (Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardner). He also plays Tomas, in the alternate plot line, as a conquistador under Queen Isabella of Portugal (also the poignant Weisz). Tomas is fighting for the Queen against the Grand Inquisitor who is trying to take Spain from her. Jackman also plays Tommy in the Buddhist-like Aztec spirit world that connects the 16th century Spain plot with the parallel modern America line.

Aronofsky again stakes his claim as one of the most brilliant young writer/directors of our generation. The Fountain is full of magnificent imagery and romantic themes laid on the religious plot. The amazing graphic and special effects contribute to the purity and stunning color contrast notable in the real camera movements. He again brought Clint Mansell to his project for the orchestration, but added the Scottish post-rock band Mogwai along with the Kronos Quartet (who did the nightmarishly lovely soundtrack for Requiem for a Dream).

Filming actually started in 2002 with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett cast, but production ceased when Pitt abandoned the film. Thank Aronofsky (strategically placed instead of God) that the pretty boy quit; if he had not left I would still have no respect for Wolverine. This is the best movie I have seen in a long time (as you can probably tell by all of the smoke I've blown up Aronofsky's ass) and is every bit worth owning.

Name
Email
URL
Body
Are you human?