It’s part spaghetti western, part film noir, add a dash of Trainspotting crossed with Good Fellas, with a bit of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction thrown in for good measure. It’s Guy Ritchie’s audacious and highly entertaining, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
When London’s low-life circuit gets tangled up in a variety of ways, it’s sometimes hard to tell the good guys from the bad ones, especially when everyone is trying to rip everyone else off. Talk about your vicious circles, sharks eat sharks in this one but sometimes the little ones get away.
The mayhem begins when best mates Eddie, Tom, Bacon and Soap lose a lot of money in a rigged poker game. From that moment on, this likable gang of four soon find themselves embroiled in a rogue’s gallery of miscreants.
The double-crosses and surprises come a mile a minute once our nefarious cast has been completely introduced. And the audience that I saw it with (although .several people did walk out) came completely unglued near the film’s finale. People were shouting at the screen and applauding many of the climactic moments.
Ritchie’s film (which he also wrote) barrels through the proceedings with a confidence that is breathtaking, while a platoon of actors (along with a lone, camouflaged woman) contribute solid performances. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is terrific fun, with understated (yet constant) violence and a laugh-out-loud script.
Forces of Nature is a stylish, great-date movie with a non-Hollywood ending. Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock star as two hapless travelers, who find their fortunes entwined during a two-day attempt to get from New York City to Savannah. All levels of misfortune follow our couple as they endure plane crashes, drug busts, a purse-snatching and more. But, along the way, we get know these two pretty well and the both of them turn out to be downright winning.
This is Bullock’s warmest performance since. Speed, she fairly glows on the screen. And Affleck is the strong, silent type with a glean in his eye to do the right thing. They make a great on-screen couple. In addition, Steve Zahn contributes his usual herky-jerky delivery in a bit role as Affleck’s best friend.
Director Bronwen Hughes stages some wonderfully photographed vignettes to a story (written by Marc Lawrence) that we’ve seen more than once before (from It Happened One Night to Romancing the Stone) but the whole farce is held together by the two extremely likable leads.
If you’ve never been to the Grand Canyon, now’s your chance. Just venture down to the foot of Canal Street where it dead-ends at the river. Look for the sign that reads: the Entergy IMAX theatre and duck inside; just don’t forget to hold onto the hand railings when you go because it’s quite a drop-off.
Grand Canyon: The Hidden Secrets is One of the oldest films in the IMAX canon but that doesn’t diminish its powerful impact. Sweeping helicopter vistas that plummet us down into narrow ravines and over churning river water achieve the desired, unsettling effect. Near the beginning of the film there’s a startling tableau as conquistadors, in search of gold, pause on the edge of the abyss. For a moment, it appears as if David Hockney and John Singer Sergeant had joined their talents to paint a vast, majestic panorama. Much of the film follows a recreation of John Wesley Powell’s famous 1869 explorations of the canyon.
We see the explorers running the rapids in flimsy boats that appear ready to burst into match sticks at any given moment. The voice-over narration is taken from Powell’s actual journals and notebooks-at times full of fear and, at others, approaching poetry. The only downside to Grand Canyon is the conspicuous lack of information- facts and figures—on this wonder of the world. Given its early production, it would seem that the producers were happy just to get the footage and get it on the screen. Still, this omission doesn’t detract from the rapturous images achieved in this 30-minute work.
I saw the film when the IMAX theatre was chock-a-block with grade school children. They were mesmerized, audibly reacting only when a series of close-ups depicting scorpions, spiders and snakes revealed life on the canyon floor. As usual, IMAX delivers the goods.
