DVDs of the week: An Incovenient Truth, Crank and Driving Lessons
DVDs of the week: An Incovenient Truth, Crank and Driving Lessons
An Inconvenient Truth U, Paramount, £19.99
If Al Gore won the popular vote in that notorious US election, the makers of An Inconvenient Truth may have reasoned, then surely millions would pay to see his movie about global warming.
An Inconvenient Truth: Al Gore is agreeably relaxed and dignified And indeed this important film caters to a mild cult of Gore, and spins us a number of perhaps genuinely felt stories about his personal struggles, in presenting his motivation for espousing the cause of raising awareness of the ecological crisis faced by the world.
Gore is agreeably relaxed and dignified, but some will wish the film achieved greater detachment from his Democratic affiliations - as global warming is distinctly non-partisan in its effects.
On the other hand... it all rings painfully true. Gore's relative lack of ego helps him put himself at the service of his "message" - and the message, presented in a clear, careful and convincing manner with some astonishing images, chills the blood - even as it makes us sweat by announcing that 2005 was the world's hottest year on record.
Droughts, floods, storms, melting icecaps, ice ages caused by changes to ocean currents, seasonal changes that disturb the balance of nature in innumerable ways, new diseases: Gore shows us that the earth is a delicate system and that the projected world population of nine billion in 2052 may face horrific consequences from the already ghastly results of our civilisation. The disaster threatening the world is mind-boggling, and, as Gore says, "a moral issue". Philip Horne
Crank 18, Universal, £19.99
In this reworking of the central idea that fuelled Speed (1994), Jason Statham plays the bus. He's Chevy, a professional hitman in LA who has been injected by underworld nutjob Ricky Verona with "the Beijing cocktail", a drug that will kill him if his adrenaline level drops below that of a rampaging rogue elephant.
Which is what he resembles as he charges around the city searching for Ricky while simultaneously pumping himself up with an ingenious range of extreme stimuli, including large quantities of cocaine, "kicking some black ass", and a vigorous - and very public - sex session with his surprised girlfriend.
It's concocted with appropriately frenetic verve by first-timers Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, and features a furiously pounding soundtrack. There's comedy, extreme violence, and some spectacularly destructive car chases. But perhaps the best measure of Crank's intent is that 89 stunt persons are listed in the credits. Marc Lee
Driving Lessons 15, Tartan, £16.99
The first film as a director by writer Jeremy Brock (Mrs Brown, The Last King of Scotland) has been much praised as a charming British character study.
It's true that the teenage Rupert Grint (Ron from the Harry Potters) and Julie Walters as the aged, depressive actress to whom he acts as personal assistant give this suburban coming-of-age movie crossed with an odd-couple road-movie plenty of welly.
But the knowing clichés into which Brock translates his own experiences (he was companion to Peggy Ashcroft), pre-emptively compromising with the demands of the marketplace, make us doubt that this is how things could ever have happened
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/12/30/nosplit/bfdvds130.xml
An Inconvenient Truth U, Paramount, £19.99
If Al Gore won the popular vote in that notorious US election, the makers of An Inconvenient Truth may have reasoned, then surely millions would pay to see his movie about global warming.
An Inconvenient Truth: Al Gore is agreeably relaxed and dignified And indeed this important film caters to a mild cult of Gore, and spins us a number of perhaps genuinely felt stories about his personal struggles, in presenting his motivation for espousing the cause of raising awareness of the ecological crisis faced by the world.
Gore is agreeably relaxed and dignified, but some will wish the film achieved greater detachment from his Democratic affiliations - as global warming is distinctly non-partisan in its effects.
On the other hand... it all rings painfully true. Gore's relative lack of ego helps him put himself at the service of his "message" - and the message, presented in a clear, careful and convincing manner with some astonishing images, chills the blood - even as it makes us sweat by announcing that 2005 was the world's hottest year on record.
Droughts, floods, storms, melting icecaps, ice ages caused by changes to ocean currents, seasonal changes that disturb the balance of nature in innumerable ways, new diseases: Gore shows us that the earth is a delicate system and that the projected world population of nine billion in 2052 may face horrific consequences from the already ghastly results of our civilisation. The disaster threatening the world is mind-boggling, and, as Gore says, "a moral issue". Philip Horne
Crank 18, Universal, £19.99
In this reworking of the central idea that fuelled Speed (1994), Jason Statham plays the bus. He's Chevy, a professional hitman in LA who has been injected by underworld nutjob Ricky Verona with "the Beijing cocktail", a drug that will kill him if his adrenaline level drops below that of a rampaging rogue elephant.
Which is what he resembles as he charges around the city searching for Ricky while simultaneously pumping himself up with an ingenious range of extreme stimuli, including large quantities of cocaine, "kicking some black ass", and a vigorous - and very public - sex session with his surprised girlfriend.
It's concocted with appropriately frenetic verve by first-timers Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, and features a furiously pounding soundtrack. There's comedy, extreme violence, and some spectacularly destructive car chases. But perhaps the best measure of Crank's intent is that 89 stunt persons are listed in the credits. Marc Lee
Driving Lessons 15, Tartan, £16.99
The first film as a director by writer Jeremy Brock (Mrs Brown, The Last King of Scotland) has been much praised as a charming British character study.
It's true that the teenage Rupert Grint (Ron from the Harry Potters) and Julie Walters as the aged, depressive actress to whom he acts as personal assistant give this suburban coming-of-age movie crossed with an odd-couple road-movie plenty of welly.
But the knowing clichés into which Brock translates his own experiences (he was companion to Peggy Ashcroft), pre-emptively compromising with the demands of the marketplace, make us doubt that this is how things could ever have happened
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/12/30/nosplit/bfdvds130.xml
posted by presgore19 at 12:48 PM
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