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Reviews
Death Defying Acts (2007)
Death Defying Acts Dies An Inglorious Death.
What a travesty ! Houdini's character and life is already fascinating enough, Why bother to fictionalise to such an extent with unconvincing characters and an unbelievable story ? Wrapping this poorly told and flimsy fabrication in a narration that belonged more in a Disney or Hallmark product than a film by a much - awarded and deservedly acclaimed director didn't help much either. Zeta - Jones and Ronan were unconvincing and severely lacking in chemistry as a mum and daughter. Pearce was excellent but there was a woeful lack of conviction in his relationship with both Zeta Jones and Ronan. Why would Houdini get involved with such an obvious con - artist partnership when he dedicated so much of his life to exposing fake mediums and psychics. The film also did great disservice to Houdini himself by showing that he deceived his audiences as willingly as the shysters he exposed. I saw this film last night at its Brisbane premiere and was frankly staggered by the extravagant compliments paid to it's director and the film itself by both her interviewer and audience members during the question and answer session following the screening. It's good to be polite but a little criticism wouldn't have gone astray, even in the director's presence. One brave soul did hazard to ask why fictionalise to such an extent and Gillian Armstrong replied that her film was more about the eternal truth of love than the great illusionist himself. She also seemed very eager to point out that she wasn't responsible for the script or the storyline. Compared to the 1953 film Houdini starring Tony Curtis, Death Defying Acts showed very little evidence of progress in over 50 years of commercial film making and certainly wasn't worthy of either it's leading man Guy Pearce or director Gillian Armstrong.
Alexander (2004)
Alexander Revisited is the film Stone wanted us to see.Bloody, beautiful and brilliant.
Perhaps my above summary of the final version of Oliver Stone's much maligned and previously much mucked about Alexander may seem over the top.If you've seen the theatrical version and/or the so - called Director's Cut, you ain't seen nothing'yet! I'm a great admirer of Mary Renault's Alexander Trilogy and Robin Lane Fox's Alexander The Great( the result of a lifetime's research by the Oxford history professor who was Stone's chief historical adviser for the film). If you think I'm overrating Stone's meticulously researched,wonderfully well acted and beautifully photographed movie,read Fox's review and article on Wikipedia's entry for Alexander The Great( links ). If you haven't read any of the Renault trilogy(for me she's almost clairvoyant in her uncanny ability to evoke Alexander and his times, especially Book 2 The Persian Boy ( the story of Bagoas, Alexander's eneuch - related as a personal memoir )I urge you to give it a try.It's far superior to the more recent trilogy by the Italian writer Valerio Manfredi, though the translators may be at fault here- but I doubt it. As for Alexander Revisited, please don't judge Stone's movie till you've seen this final 3and a half hour version for yourself.I hope you'll enjoy it this time around.