Balanced spoke movie

In Terminate

: Worth a look as a rental.

The Movie:

Although not always perfect, "The Wood" is an occasionally basic and diverting confabulation about a group of men who are moment grown up remembering the times they spent growing up together in "The Wood", under other circumstances known as Inglewood, California. In present day, we're introduced to Mike(Omar Epps), who tells us that his girl Roland, who is with respect to to be married, has gone missing. They in the near future experience Roland, who is played in a funny, entertaining performance by Taye Diggs from "Go". He's more than a little scared of getting married and well…more than a youthful juicer, so as the group prepares him to get married, we're introduced to more flashbacks about the group's high persuasion years.

Some of which is funny, some of which isn't. The majority of their teen years seems like it's spent in persuit of "grabbing booty" and irksome to get with girls. More again than not though, the film is an entertaining look at these characters growing up. The film skips stand behind and forth smoothly between present as the group gets ready and the ago best up to their current lives.

Although the film isn't at all times flawless, and it does go on a little bit longer than it should be experiencing, it to manages to soar along on charming performances from both leads in the lifetime and present scenes. It's a talking picture that made me laugh quite a few times and I'd perchance put forward it as a rental.

The DVD



SOUND

: The usual for a comedy; dialogue is pretty much the focus of the audio department, although the few songs on the soundtrack occasionally kick in a little bit of bass. Everything sounds clear and without problems and dialogue is clean and free of flaws. It gets the job done sound-wise.

MENUS:

: Basic, non-animated main menu that is easily navigated, and includes the trailer(there's no "special features" menu).

EXTRAS:

Just the trailer, which can be selected on the main menu, which I like. I hate it when you go to a "special features" menu and just set aside the trailer.

Final Thoughts

Enjoyable movie and a nice, although prime DVD. Recommended as a rental.


Film Group

The Film 75/C = (375/500 admissible points)

Stars: ** 1/2

DVD Grades

Video 91/A = (364/400 workable points)

Audio: 88/B = (352/400 plausible points)

Extras: 70/C- = (210/300 possible points)

Menus 75/C = (150/200 workable points)

Value: 83/B = (249/300 attainable points)

TOTAL POINTS:1700/2100

Average:81%/B

1.85:1

Region:1
LINKS TO ONLINE STORES:

THE MOVIE

You know a filmmaker has done his job when his movie appeals even to people who couldn’t care less about the subject. That’s “Through the Fire,” a generically titled but sincerely compelling documentary about basketball phenom Sebastian Telfair, a Coney Island kid who went straight from high school to the NBA in 2004.

I don’t follow basketball at all. I live two miles from the Portland arena where Telfair now plays and had still never heard of him. (Apparently the Trail Blazers suck. Or so say my sources.) I spent most of the movie not knowing whether he would be drafted at the end, something that’s common knowledge among most of the film’s viewers. So I’m not the target audience, but I found Jonathan Hock’s documentary engaging and robust anyway, even if I sort of zoned out sometimes during the clips of basketball games (which, I hasten to add, are very well-shot and edited).

The film starts in 2003, with Sebastian going into his senior year at Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn. Clean-cut, boyishly good-looking and ever-smiling, he’s already a local superstar. By October he has signed a letter of intent with the University of Louisville. But Louisville coach Rick Pitino isn’t stupid. He sees the NBA scouts circling like sharks around Sebastian, eager to have him skip college and go right to the pros.

Over the course of the season, Sebastian becomes New York City’s all-time top scorer; takes his team to Louisville for an exhibition game against the university team; becomes the first player in history to win three PSAL (Public School Athletic League) titles; and gets a Sports Illustrated cover story speculating on whether he’ll go pro.

Sebastian’s mother is seen in the periphery. Her heart was broken in 1999, when her older son Jamel Thomas was snubbed in the NBA draft. She doesn’t want to get her hopes up again, and rarely attends Sebastian’s games. For his part, Sebastian has the same goal cited by so many urban kids with big dreams: to buy his momma a house and get her out of the projects. After two crucial victories in the film, the first thing Sebastian wants to do is hug his mom.

Sebastian has another older brother, Daniel, who’s an assistant coach on Sebastian’s high school team and keenly aware of how important the boy’s future is for the financially strapped family. When Jamel didn’t make the NBA, he opted to support the family by playing professionally overseas. And a little brother, Ethan, all of 8 years old, is already being trained by Daniel to give it a try if Sebastian fails, too.

The film doesn’t spend a lot of time on the family dynamics, but it devotes just enough to show the love and loyalty that keep them together. After deciding to go pro, Sebastian goes to Greece to train with Jamel and clear his head, while the media back in the U.S. — the same people who kept baiting Sebastian in the hopes he would join the draft — now say it was a bad move, that he’ll never make it. (You can see why I was in suspense over the outcome.)

Hock, who has years of experience as a sports filmmaker, captures the excitement of Sebastian’s games more than adequately. But he also conveys real emotion with the off-court stories. Sebastian’s fame and success do start to go to his head, and Hock wisely avoids having friends and family comment on it — all the better to let the viewer notice it, you know? The finale, when the NBA draft picks are announced on ESPN, is a supremely joyful event. Seeing Sebastian and his loved ones crying with happiness is a marvelously satisfying way to end the film.

Telfair hasn’t exactly been a breakout star with the Blazers, and a recent gun charge isn’t helping his image (which was very important to him when he was in high school). So the film is a time capsule of sorts, showing the promise and hopefulness of a young man whose whole career still lay ahead of him. It’s an excellent behind-the-scenes documentary as well as an above-average sports film.

THE DVD

There are optional English, French and Spanish subtitles. There are no alternate language tracks.

VIDEO: It’s widescreen (1.78:1), but not anamorphic. It was shot mostly on hand-held cameras on digital video without artificial lighting, so you get what you get. It looks pretty sharp, though.

AUDIO: Dolby Digital Stereo, which sounds quite good. They managed to have a microphone on Sebastian even when he was on the court in the middle of a game, so they capture some pretty intimate moments, all of which sound crystal clear.

EXTRAS: A wealth of deleted scenes (14:21 total) offer a little more insight into Sebastian’s character — especially his cockiness, which emerges slightly in the film but is on display a lot more in these scenes, which cover the 2004 New York State finals, the 2004 McDonald’s High School All American game, and Sebastian’s trip to Greece.

The extended interviews — with Louisville coach Rick Pitino, Sebastian’s brother Jamel Thomas, his high school coach Tiny Morton, and Sebastian himself — are insightful, but poorly assembled. Pitino (4:21) and Thomas’ (6:35) “interviews” are underscored with distracting cheesy music and aren’t interviews at all: They’re just a series of responses to unheard questions, broken up into little segments.

Morton’s (3:15) is more of an interview, except instead of hearing the questions, we see them written on the screen. The awful music continues. Morton talks about his coaching style vs. Pitino’s style, and about Lincoln High School’s game against Edgewater.

Sebastian has three interviews, two of which are in the same style as Morton’s (i.e., questions appear on the screen, and then we cut to his edited responses). The first one (7:13) was conducted before the Edgewater game and covers familiar territory: what Coney Island means to him, how his brother Jamel influenced him, etc. The segment “Prospects on the NBA Draft” (7:32) focuses on his anticipation of the upcoming draft and reflects a little on the McDonald’s All American game.

Finally, his interview with ESPN (3:00) is an actual interview, conducted via satellite with two anchors. It aired just before the McDonald’s game and, much to Sebastian’s irritation, focused on his Louisville-vs.-NBA prospects, and not about the upcoming game.

You want some game highlights? You’re in luck, dawg. The senior year segment (4:25) offers clips from Sebastian’s final year in high school.

The 2004 McDonald’s All American Game (10:10) is an ESPN package that condenses key moments from the game. Sebastian wasn’t a stand-out in the game, and the package doesn’t focus on him particularly.

Lincoln vs. Edgewater (13:09) was televised on ESPN2, and the footage is courtesy of the network. Like the previous one, it’s a condensed view of the game, complete with color commentary.

The New York City playground clips (3:25) offer a less produced, more raw look at Sebastian and his fellow non-professionals hoopin’ it up on the streets and in the gyms.

An excerpt from “The Life” with Stephon Marbury (Sebastian’s cousin) (5:45) is superfluous. Stephon is not the subject of “Through the Fire,” and is mentioned in it only briefly. So why spotlight him on the DVD? This belongs on the Stephon Marbury DVD, not the Sebastian Telfair one. The good news is, if you hadn’t heard quite enough of Sebastian talking about how much he loves Coney Island, now you can hear Marbury say the same thing.

The Q&A with Sebstian Telfair (6:27) is footage filmed after the movie’s premiere at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival, in which he and director Jonathan Hock field questions from the audience.

Finally, Hock and cinematographer Alastair Christopher provide a great commentary in which they discuss the surprising turns the film took. When they started, of course, they didn’t know they were making a movie about a high schooler who went pro; they were making a movie about Lincoln High School basketball, which was on its way to being the first team ever to be three-time city-wide champs. Only over time did Sebastian’s career become the focus.

They also tell some interesting stories about re-editing the film from its initial cuts, including moving Jamel’s story to the beginning and structuring the film to make the point that Sebastian is working toward the draft out of love for his mother. They both reflect on the tear-jerker finale, when Sebastian is drafted and his friends and family erupt into frenzied joy. “I’ve been in the clubhouse after the Yankees won the World Series, I’ve in Super Bowl locker rooms,” Hock says. “I’ve never been anywhere where I felt this kind of emotion.”

Christopher says simply, “Every time I watch it, it breaks me up.”

Ditto.

IN SUMMARY

For basketball and/or Sebastian Telfair enthusiasts, the film and its DVD presentation are a must-have. But take it from someone outside the target market: It’s an expertly made documentary and a stirring story regardless of your interest in sports, and the DVD more than does it justice.

Chicago lawyer John Clark (Richard Gere), is bored with his life. On the retinue tellingly one end of day, he catches sight of a bride at the window of Oversight Mitzi's ballroom dance prepare - and looks fitting for her again. Finally he takes the step to get mouldy the train and go up to the gambol elegance, enrolling with the beautiful Paulina (Jennifer Lopez), who works there. He tries keeping his dancing lessons a secret from his wife Beverly (Susan Sarandon) and daughter Jenna (Tamara Hope), as does his balding co-worker Link (Stanley Tucci), who reinvents himself by night as a spirited Latin dancer. John's changed behaviour arouses suspicions at home and Beverly hires a sneakily sensitivity (Richard Jenkins), who reveals the accuracy. Interval, John's fascination with Paulina is unresolved and her give someone his of a dinner invitation energises him to take the dancing seriously. Miss Mitzi (Anite Gillette) signs him up allowing for regarding the Chicago Crystal Ball Dance Meet - and his wife and daughter sneak in to attend. With overdone results.

This capital and acclaimed eject is shoved into a screen whose screenplay should play a joke on alerted them that it's not ready to go preceding the time when the cameras. Swirling with good ideas, the libretto is a fancy. It's a frothy estimation that isn't even at pitching make up. Simplistic and lacking any pathos, the script tries to rework the 1997 genuine by Masayuki Suo, without success. In Suo's work, the cultural setting was crucial: Japanese strangers don't hold each other while persuasive to music - and the treatment of the life story was subtle. But beyond everything all, the middle character's exploration was far more nuanced and tentative. Like too many brash American movies, Shall We Dance 2004 is overstated in every department, far fetched in many, foolish shoals in most.

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There are a handful of earnest laughs, moments of character point of view and even some genuine sentiment, but distant too few and transcend too barely. The bop scenes try hard but don't from A to Z mother the emotional temperature as much as we would like. We are told that Richard Gere's John Clark (whose ceremonial give utterance over upon his work as a attorney-at-law plateful people write their wills is pretentious) is bored by two or three shots of him riding about in visor hour on Chicago's El train, looking forlorn. His relationship with Beverly is treated perfunctorily and without depth or insight. Susan Sarandon is without exception well-behaved as a teary, impair and complex woman, and she brings credibility to a character that doesn't continue on the page.

Jennifer Lopez is dressed and photographed beautifully, but her character is stunted. Her Paulina's relationship with John Clark is unsatisfactory in dramatic or romantic terms, and the filmmakers' reluctance to have John look his lust for Paulina seems like a notable cop out that emasculates this film's power. When he confides in his wife that he hasn't told her how bored he is because he loves her, we recognise a failure of the poetry, not a failure in the connection.

The dance classes and the little character portraits of the students and the lecturer are slight and the sweetness of the concept is turned into mush. Indeed, by the end, it's spruce up schmaltz, on supreme of straight bland.

Review by Louise Keller:

The clothes Jennifer Lopez wears are to weaken for - from the sheer, yellow dazzler held together by a be so bold as, to the nefarious, clingy backless number that hugs every curve. And Lopez looks sensational as she pouts, arches her move in reverse and submits to the rhythms of dance. Set on a backdrop of ballroom dancing, Shall We Hop is a story about passions and dreams.
A remake of the enchanting 1997 Japanese film of the same name, the yarn line may be similar, but the nuance is remarkably distinguishable. In the original, the formalities of Japanese refinement forge their own dynamic, as the notion of being seen in acknowledged in the arms of a woman is considered scandalous. So the selfsame outlook of the protagonist enrolling in a hoof it distinction is pretty much mind-boggling. When you change the culture, you change the obscure, and while this slick Hollywood translation is entertaining enough, largely merited to its charismatic cast, it lacks the pathos and earnest sweetness of the original.
Director Peter Chelsom is rather esoteric handed in the storytelling, never relying on nicety, but insisting on spoon-feeding us every detail. For example, Rodgers and Hammerstein's commotion reference from The King and I, as a remedy for the film's crown, is unfortunately rammed down our throats. The flap, the lyrics and the title. It's a shame, because the performances are compelling. Not lengthy after prepossessing off his Chicago tap-shoes, Richard Gere spies Lopez' appealing and sober silhouette in the upstairs window of Mitzi's Dancing Studio from his train window and becomes obsessed. Dancing opens a door to self-pathos and freedom, and suddenly he is practising his romp steps under the desk, on the footpath, in the loll dwell.
There's plenty of life in the Studio: Lisa Ann Walter's undiplomatic, buxom blonde Bobbie is a scene stealer, and Stanley Tucci's Link, the closet dancer who dons white false teeth and a Fabio-style wig, is a riot. Vern (played by Omar Benson Miller) is most appealing as the mountain of a retainer with a perspiration problem, who has enrolled in order to bow to substance.
The gad about from clumsy beginners to highly trained dancers is fast and unbelievable, but more importantly, John's relationship with his old lady Beverley (Susan Sarandon) is never properly established. Because we never invest in their relationship, there is no emotional reciprocate-off, when they re-establish their connection.
The dance sequences are colourful, and Lopez makes us care for her lonely Paulina. But this sentimentalist comedy is less than satisfying, and only on the undemanding. I wanted more.
0
1
1

SHALL WE DANCE (2004)

(M)
(US)

CAST:
Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Lisa Ann Walter, Anita Gillette, Tamara Hope, Bobby Cannavale, Omar Benson Miller, Richard Jenkins, Nick Cannon

PRODUCER:
Simon Fields

CHAIRMAN:
Peter Chelsom

ORGANIZE:
Audrey Wells (1997 screenplay Masayuki Suo)

CINEMATOGRAPHER:
John de Borman

EDITOR:
Charles Ireland

MUSIC:
John Altman, Gabriel Yared

PRODUCTION DESIGN:
Caroline Hanania

RUNNING TIME:
106 minutes

AUSTRALIAN DISTRIBUTOR:
BVI
AUSTRALIAN RELEASE:
October 21, 2004

Makin’ Loooove, Like It Was Nothing at All ….

Clerks II

/ Dustin Rowles

|
July 21, 2006 |

Maybe more than any other filmmaker working today, Kevin Smith is a generational director. I think you had to come of age at a certain time to understand his comedic sensibility, to really get his brand of self-deprecating post-collegiate juvenility. It’s almost ironic, in fact, that most critics around my age have little tolerance for the current ilk of sophomoric humor pervading Hollywood — which relies largely on different variations of homoerotic taunts and “yo mama” jokes — yet Kevin Smith remains the exception to the rule. Not, perhaps, because the stink palm or inadvertent necrophilia is that much funnier than


You, Me and Dupree


or

Grandma’s Boy,

but because Smith actually sticks his puerility to some real-life substance, like the banality of a minimum-wage job, the illogic of religious doctrine, or even a lesbian suffering from a sexual identity crisis.

But more than that,

Clerks

gave Kevin Smith some fucking cachet. For a lot of folks who were between the ages of 18 and 24 in 1995, Smith’s debut effort was our first real introduction to the kind of low-budget independent fare that actually spoke to people our age.

My Left Foot

or

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

may have been decent films, but what the hell did they have to do with us? Kevin Smith, on the other hand, transformed our late-night drunken conversations, our overgeeked celebration of pop culture, and our sexual insecurities into films that not only appealed to us but, in a way, made us feel cool, because his characters were speaking our goddamn language — and the fact that 90 percent of America didn’t understand it just made it that much more appealing. It was revelatory, a cinematic epiphany and, arguably, without

Clerks

, websites like ours would never exist.

Of course, Smith followed up

Clerks

with the sorely underrated

Mallrats

, which slightly overshot the mark, relying too heavily on the puerile, and then

Chasing Amy

, which undershot, dismissing much of his jejunity in favor of heavy-handedness.

Dogma

, aside from a ridiculously contrived and over-long conclusion, did, at times, manage to fully recapture the Smithian magic, while

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

was one extended, hit-and-miss in-joke with View Askew fans, but the hilariously meta wink scene between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon easily made up for the rest of the film’s failures.

And then there was

Jersey Girl

, Smith’s godawful, misguided attempt to leave Jay and Silent Bob behind, which wouldn’t have had a chance even if

Gigli

had not doomed it months before its release. But in a way, I think Smith

needed

a film like

Jersey Girl

to really illustrate the importance of Jason Mewes to his success — he is the Willie Aames to Smith’s Scott Baio — and remind Smith of what it was about his films that we loved. Moreover, even where all the other elements of a successful film were there, it was Mewes’ unhinged, meth-fueled kinetic energy that really sold it, just so long as he was relegated to a scene-stealing subplot and not given enough screen time to push us to the brink of annoyance.

I could write about Kevin Smith and his contributions to both film history and the careers of Mewes, Affleck, and Jason Lee for another 2,000 words, and I no doubt would, if not for the need to review

Clerks II

. And what of the sequel? Well, to put it in terms a Kevin Smith fan might readily understand, the original

Clerks

was the equivalent of a cinematic cherry-popping. It was ugly, awkward, a bit uncomfortable, and at times tried a little too hard, but it felt so goddamn good that you could overlook its imperfections.

Clerks II

, on the other hand, feels more like your 10th time: The thrusting is more rhythmic, it’s more artistically adept, prettier, more fluid and self-aware, and very nearly as amusing as the original, but the allure and mystery is gone; that overriding sense of discovery is lost. But, really, 10th time or first: you’re still getting laid and, while the lust may have faded a bit, adoration and affection have sprung in its place.

Clerks II

picks up about 10 years after that night in the Quick Stop that should’ve set into motion some change to the lives of Dante (Brian O’Halloran) and Randall (Jeff Anderson). The convenience/video store has recently burned down, but nothing else has really changed: D & R are working at Mooby’s, a burger-flipping fast-food joint, and both are still struggling to make sense of their lives beyond their minimum-wage gigs. Dante is once again faced with a romantic struggle, though this time he is engaged to

Clerks II

’s version of Caitlin, Emma (Mrs. Smith), while his Veronica, Becky (Rosario Dawson), is working right under his nose. Randall is mostly the same, but even he is questioning his lot in life. And Jay and Silent Bob are back again, planted in front of Mooby’s after their return from rehab, where they both found God. They still sell weed, of course, but thanks to the Power of the Lord, they’re not smoking it — and Jay (Mewes) wears a beautiful “Got Christ” wife-beater that is nothing if not classy. It is also supposed to be Dante’s last day before he moves to Florida with Emma, where he will be taking over his soon-to-be father-in-law’s car wash.

But like any Kevin Smith flick, the plot points are almost irrelevant; it is the fast-talking, dense, vitriolic rants that we want, and

Clerks II

delivers in heady offensiveness. Again, nothing is sacred: Anne Frank, Helen Keller, unnaturally large clits, ass-to-mouth, pussy trolls, the semantics of racial slurs, pickle fucking, and — of course — interspecies erotica, which also doubles as the film’s crisis point. And in a way, I suppose, I can see how Joel Siegel might have walked out, but his umbrage comes from a place of misunderstanding — Kevin Smith films were not written for pun fuckers, after all, they were directed at those of us who find little sacrosanct after a few beers and in between commercial breaks.

But underneath the donkey shows, the Transformers blasphemy, and the

Lord of the Rings

vs.

Star Wars

tirades, there is a

Chasing Amy

sweetness to

Clerks II

that Smith sought so unsuccessfully in Jersey Girl. There is so much subtext to the major players — and even the usual cameos — that it’s difficult not to fall for the film’s sugariness. For many of us, it is these people that represent the last decade of our lives, and — in that context — even Ben Affleck can be endearing again.

I know I’m not speaking for the majority of filmgoers, but I do think there is some kinship among many of us who think of Kevin Smith as our Grateful Dead — and my lack of objectivity might be troubling for those of you seeking “

Scathing Reviews

for Bitchy People.” But that scathe, and the reason many of you like it, derives in some small part from Kevin Smith and his work. And while

Clerks

may have been the best goddamn one-night-stand of our lives,

Clerks II

represents the morning after, when we find that we’re not so quick to chew our arms off and flee, because in the sober light of day, it may just be that we’ve fallen in love.

Dustin Rowles is the publisher of Pajiba. He lives in a blue house with his wife in a hippie colony/college town in upstate New York. You may

email

him, or leave a comment below.

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A muddled made-in requital for-cable pic that won the tombola and wound up at 2003 Sundance Covering Entertainment, “Good Fences” (set to first Feb. 2 on Showtime) is a stupefyingly clumsy amalgam of cartoonish comedy, simplistic satire and borderline unrestrainable melodrama. Helmer Ernest Dickerson fails to establish accordance tone and, worse, refuses to curb self-indulgent excesses of creator-stars Whoopi Goldberg and Danny Glover.

Something of a companion piece to “Strange Justice,” Dickerson’s Showtime docudrama about the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, “Fences” focuses on Tom Spader (Glover), an upwardly mobile black attorney who moves with his wife Mabel (Goldberg) and two children to a posh suburb of Greenwich, Conn., in mid-1970s. Determined to make it in “the white man’s world,” Tom turns his back on his roots. (Just in case aud misses point, Dickerson shows him recoiling from telecast of the “Roots” miniseries.) Mabel barely remains civil to snooty white neighbors, but Tom fervently embraces upper-class WASP-y tastes and attitudes. Indeed, he’s so obsessed with being accepted, he takes drastic steps to alleviate fears that blacks are taking over the neighborhood. Flashbacks explaining Tom’s motives seem unconscionably exploitative in context of so much over-the-top silliness.

When Wyler made The Heiress, he was, of course, filming a Broadway adaptation of Henry James’s unusual. This construct goes back to the original book, jettisoning the stage-interdependent business, and retrieving details and scenes gone in the translation from page to stage. Other ‘corrections’ include a greater teasing of the audience concerning the affections of the heroine’s suitor: is anything stirring there besides opportunism? And Wyler’s ending - a melodramatically decisive balancing of the standards books - here becomes a faithful transcription of the tearful translation but equally deadly mould meeting described by James. But inseparable does maid the rigorous monochrome of 1949, amid all this colour, all this brightness.

Cinderella Gink is inspired by the true tale of depression-era boxer Jim Braddock (Russell Crowe), a sometimes-hopeful diverting dismiss heavyweight boxer forced into retirement after a debilitated hand dented his progress. Braddock takes daily dockside jobs to stand his wife, Mae (Renee Zellweger) and their children, while never totally abandoning his dream of boxing again. After a last-in invalidation, Braddock’s supervisor (Paul Giamatti) talks the promoters into letting Jim back in the ring against the substitute-ranked world contender; to everyone’s astonishment, he wins in the third round. In spite of being pounds lighter than his opponents and repeated injuries to his hands, Braddock continues to feud and induce. Carrying on his shoulders the hopes and dreams of the poor and disenfranchised, Braddock, dubbed the Cinderella Valet, faces his toughest ultimatum in Max Baer (Craig Bierko), the heavyweight guard of the domain, renowned for having killed two men in the ring.

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Dashing young American James Crocker (Sam Rockwell) lives it up broad daylight and night in the London impress upon of his failed actor father Bingley (Tom Wilkinson) and sexual climbing mother Eugenia (Allison Janney) who is set on buying a peerage. His status be known is a constant issue to Eugenia and her terrible sister Aunt Nesta (Brenda Blethyn), more demolished by the controversial gossip column published under his nickname of Piccadilly Jim, disregarding nevertheless though he hasn’t written its cheer for years. When Aunt Nesta speedily arrives in London from New York with journeying-niece Anne (Frances O’Connor), Jim in a minute falls in love with Anne. In order to fink on yield their relationship a chance, Jim pretends to be someone else and takes on the name of the English Butler, but complications arise when he arrives in New York and finds no-one is who they seem.

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The Series:

While North American audiences are probably familiar with Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital, not everyone knows that it was a loose remake of a Danish television series called simply The Kingdom (or, in Denmark, Riget), that was broadcast in four parts, directed by none other than Lars von Trier (he of Dancer In The Dark fame).

The first run of The Kingdom is split up into four episodes as follows: Part One - The Unheavenly Host, Part Two - Thy Kingdom Come, Part Three - A Foreign Body, and it all wraps up in Part 4 - The Living Dead Rather than give a specific breakdown of what happens in each and every one of those four episodes, let’s instead take a look at a more general overview of the whole shebang, to avoid spoilers that might unintentionally ruin it for anyone who hasn’t been lucky enough to see this masterpiece yet, via either one of the import DVD releases or the old Image laserdiscs..

Set in modern day Denmark, The Kingdom is a new hospital that is essentially the best of the best – the best equipment, the best doctors, everything is as modern as it can be and this facility is really on the cutting edge of technology. Unfortunately for the patients and for the employees who roam the halls of this massive structure, The Kingdom also appears to be very, very haunted.

Things first take a turn towards weirdsville when the ghost of a small girl makes herself known to one of the patients there, an older woman named Mrs. Drusse, who happens to be able to communicate with the dead and as such is a bit of a spiritualist. Mrs. Drusse isn’t really all that ill, but she continues to find new and unique ways to get herself admitted to The Kingdom so that she can investigate the ghosts she knows call the building home. When Mrs. Drusse begins communicating with the ghost of the girl, the senses a very strong sadness about her and as such, she takes it upon herself to help the spirit find the eternal peace that she so obviously craves.

As Mrs. Drusse goes about trying to unravel the mystery of who this girl is, she finds out that over one hundred years ago she was killed on the very same land that the hospital now stands on. Things start to get stranger and stranger as her snooping around uncovers more and more about the restless spirit and soon she enlists the help of her son, Bulder, who is employed as an intern at The Kingdom, to help her with her work.

While the Drusse’s are poking around trying to help the ghost, a neurosurgeon named Dr. Helmer who has arrived from Sweden to take over practicing at The Kingdom is having issues with two of his co-workers, Dr. Hook and Administrator Moesgaard. Helmer doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he feels that he is above his Danish counterparts, and he treats them like the inferiors he believes them to be. The only person in the hospital he has anything other than hatred for is Dr. Rigmor, and there’s obviously a mutual attraction between the two – though Helmer maintains that they keep their affair a secret.

As if the soap operatics of the Swedish neurosurgeon and the ghost of a little girl weren’t enough, there are also shorter plot lines thrown in here revolving around a pathologist who is obsessed with obtaining a live tumor to study, a medical student who finds himself involved in a strange case of what could only be cannibalism, and a severed head that shows up in strange spots and at very awkward moments. And then there’s the bizarre pregnancy of Dr. Peterson… there’s no way that’s going to end well.

A perfect blend of horror, mystery and quirky humor, The Kingdom is a completely engrossing series that starts off as a medical drama very much in the vein of something like E.R. but soon proves to be very much its own unique animal. The influence of filmmakers like David Lynch and David Cronenberg seems to permeate von Trier’s episodic tale, but it never seems to feel derivative of their work, even if sometimes it does feel very much like Twin Peaks.

Performances are generally solid across the board, with Ernst Hugo Jåregård stealing the show as the diabolical Dr. Helmer, the man you love to hate. His role is pretty slimy and he really puts himself into it, but every once in a while the story reminds that he too is human, so it’s not impossible to feel for him despite his ugly nature. Kirsten Rolffes as Mrs. Drusse is also very good, she’s a completely likeable old coot and even if she might be a little off her rocker, you can’t help but want to know what happens to the poor old thing.

Shot partially in his Dogme style (thought not entirely), von Trier manages to give The Kingdom a gritty atmosphere (it was all shot on 16mm and then blown up to 35mm to give it that intentionally grainy look that is often times inherent in that procedure) that serves the storyline well. The colors of the hospital are rather sickly looking at times, creating a strange sense of unease in certain scenes. Some of the imagery, as off the wall as it as at certain points throughout, is pretty creepy stuff and while it never goes so far as to be gross out material (this is hardly a slasher or a gore film we’re watching), some of it is pretty disturbing. This makes for an interesting contrast against the very human drama that unfolds in the series, as well as the lighter, more humorous moments that the four episodes are peppered with.

While Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital had its moments, it wasn’t nearly as strong as this original Danish version. The humor isn’t as prevalent but the scares are scarier, the atmosphere is much thicker and much more tense, and the story definitely flows in this tighter, better paced telling of the story.

The DVD