dimanche 22 juillet 2012

Charles was Lyle Yates in Undertow in 1996

 Lost in a storm, transient Jack (Lou Diamond Phillips) seeks shelter in a remote woodland cabin and suddenly finds himself held at gunpoint by a deranged mountain man who lives there with his child bride. The storm is but the harbinger of a hurricane and though the reclusive Lyle Yates (Charles Dance) knows it, he is too paranoid to leave and so forces his wife Willie (Mia Sara) and Jack to flee. It's a small cabin and as the storm rages on, tensions mount. Matters reach one of several climaxes when Jack tries to persuade Willie to escape with him. Eventually the situation escalates into deadly violence, meaning that only two will walk away from their lonely shelter.
  
 
  
 
 
  
interview of the director Eric Red
A: Undertow was one of your early scripts.
ER: Yes.
A: And it got made like…pretty later on…I don’t have the date…
ER: It took ten years to get a movie made about three people in a house and a storm.
A: I’ve been following your career since "Cohen and Tate" but after "Bad Moon"" I lost sight of you. "Undertow" and "Vindicator" I know nothing about.
ER: Actually "Undertow" was before "Bad Moon". I made it for Showtime and it was the second highest rated film on Showtime in 1996. It was then released on video.
A: Who stars in it?
ER: Lou Diamond Phillips, Mia Sara and Charles Dance. Charles Dance is a terrific British actor.
A: He played in "Alien 3".
ER: Yeah, and in "Undertow" he plays a psychotic American mountain man. He gives a tour-de-force performance.
A: Is it an action picture?
ER: It has action in it. It’s about a drifter that gets washed off the road during a storm and gets rescued by a backwoods moon shiner and his wife in the moon shiner’s fortress of a house. The three of them get caught together during the terrific storm and the drifter gets involved with the moon shiner who’s quite psychotic and the abused wife. Gradually the drifter and the wife get together which amounts to a tremendous confrontation with the mountain man and his house full of weapons. The last half hour is pretty much straight action.
A: And are you satisfied with the final outcome?
ER: I loved it. I shot it in Lithuania in about 24 days. It was a terrific experience to film. It was critically reviled but was extremely popular. It’s not a critics film. I don’t know if any of my films are "critic films".
  
  
     

pic of the day


samedi 21 juillet 2012

Charles was David Carlton in Ali G

Ali G Indahouse is a 2002 film directed by Mark Mylod and written and performed by Sacha Baron Cohen
You’re not renowned for comedy. How did you get Ali G?
I was asked. When Mike Gambon and I were doing Gosford Park together, I went into make-up one morning and Mike said: ‘I’ve got this Ali G film.’ I said: ‘So have I.’ He replied: ‘I’ll do it if you do.’ We share the same agent so we went in and thought it would be fun for a few weeks. It was nice as – you’re right – I don’t do much comedy. In this business you are what you are deemed to be and if you don’t do much comedy you aren’t asked to do much.


 
Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen, Kellie Bright, Martin Freeman, Charles Dance, Michael Gambon, Tony Way
I suppose it was inevitable. Once Sacha Baron Cohen's comic alter ego Ali G was rightfully awarded iconic status for injecting something new into British comedy, it was only a matter of time before a feature film was greenlit........
The plot, such as it is involves Ali being drawn into the Machiavellian world of British politics by unscrupulous Deputy PM David Carlton (Charles Dance).
Carlton sets up the inept and naive wannabe Gangsta rapper as Parliamentary Candidate for Staines on the basis that he would offer 'street' appeal to his constituency. His real aim however, is to embarrass the Prime Minister (Michael Gambon) out of office and nab the job for himself
.
Unfortunately, The jokes are firmly of the 'groan' variety which favour base humour over wit every time.
No taboo goes unexploited, whether its bestiality, homophobia or sexism. All fair game you might say and I'm certainly no prude but the gags generally fall flat or just leave you shaking your head instead of laughing it off.
It has been proved with the likes of There's Something About Mary and American Pie that politically incorrect and tasteless movies can be genuinely hilarious, but the calibre of this screenplay is in an utterly inferior league.
One wonders what possessed Gambon and Dance to lend their award-winning talents to this misfire. In his favour, Dance at least looks positively humiliated throughout. Not least when dressed in drag at the finale.

The funniest scene in the whole film is a brief flashback sequence to when Ali and Julie first met. It amusingly shows a younger Ali as a long-haired Goth slow-dancing in a disco which adds a wafer-thin layer of substance to the character, who if we didn't already realise, is clearly a shallow disciple of fickle fashion trends. Baron Cohen's as yet, only other character, Borat, also makes a cameo along with the likes of Naomi Campbell, Richard and Judy, John Humphreys and Jon Snow.
There is mild enjoyment in seeing oft-talked about but never seen characters like Ali's girlfriend, Me Julie (Kellie Bright) and his hapless friends Ricky C (Martin Freeman) and Dave (Tony Way) finally brought to life.
However the overused slang, constant references to marijuana and Ali's ever-present misguided notion that he is actually cool just seem tired and dated in 2002.
Perhaps if the film had been released two years ago when the character was still fresh it might not be so noticeable.
The sparsely attended screening I went to perhaps indicates that the general viewing public have also had enough of the character as well.
4/10...Daniel Garrett