The
cold wave that has hit the Centre of The Universe has made the
world a very
strange place to move about in. Everything seems to creak and
crunch and have a
high degree of definiteness to it. It feels like everything is
right on the edge of its
breaking point, including nerves. Deep cold causes an incredible
amount of passive
stress in the body. Because it’s very difficult to say loose
when the tendency is just
to stand still and not provoke the air any more than you have
to. But tomorrow
promises to bring an end to all this nonsense. The Prairies are
already warming up,
Just in time for the arrival of The Boy and his girlfriend, The
Big A, for a ski trip to
Banff Alberta, which has now, evidently, become The Boy’s
obsession as a real down
home place to live. He calls it Whistler without all the rich
bastards. To me, however.
anything further west of London Ontario is nothing more than a
vast wasteland,
where they still trap animals for fur. Kind of like anything east
of Montreal.
THE KING OF TORTS (IN PAPERBACK) (TWO SPUDS)
Consistent with my mainstream predilections in TV and movies,
I also plow through
a number of bestsellers each year, and for the past decade or
more, I have counted
John Grisham as probably my favourite bit time author. Although
I do like Stuart
Woods, James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly and Elmore Leonard as
well.
The King Of Torts is kind of an extension of Grisham’s last
novel, The Summons, but
mostly because it introduced one of the characters who is also
in The King Of Torts.
Every one of Grisham’s novels explores in depth, a different
aspect of the American
systems of jurist prudence. This one explore the class action
or mass tort area. This
is a very high profile area of the law where the lawyers act more
like venture
capitalists than lawyers. Its also an area where lawyers band
together to share the
wealth. Now that sounds like it’s all about greed and excess
in America and on one
side of the coin, I guess it is. But it’s also about taking
company’s who make bad
products to task for their transgressions.
King of Torts is the story of a young lawyer who gets recruited
by a big drug
company to launch a class action suit against one of their competitors.
Then through
the quantum mechanics of Grisham’s great storytelling and
depth of legal insight,
It lays out the rise and fall of this poor schlub’s career
over the following year and a
half. This, of course, is completely riveting because Grisham
is a very skillful
bestseller writer, with an easy breezy and accessible style that
makes his stories
easy to follow even for the attention span challenged like myself.
I read Grisham
books in about a week of just-before-bed sessions. The Wife will
gobble this book up
in probably two sittings, since she is attention span rich.
The bottom line here is that since book one (A Time To Kill) Grisham
has put out a
consistently excellent product. Two Spuds everyone and a few like
The Runaway Jury
and The Rainmaker which are XL. For me a Grisham book hitting
the big paperback
table at Costco is a real cause for celebration.
RUNAWAY JURY (2 SPUDS)
The Fox, our local review theatre down in the Beaches, has installed
new comfy seats
with lots of good old fashioned leg room. Couple that with the
$6.00 ticket price and
the fact that the first three rows of the theatre are probably
the best seats in the
house and you’ve got a combo that’s hard to beat for
early evening entertainment.
So away we went to see Runaway Jury, which was adapted from the
John Grisham
book of the same name, and actually stays reasonably close to
the spirit and story
line of the book insofar as a Hollywood movie can.
This kind of movie is something that American’s do well.
It revolves around the issue
of gun control and a lawsuit brought against a gun manufacturer
in Louisiana, by the
wife of a man who was killed by a disgruntled employee.
Like all John Grisham pieces, which tend to zero in on a specific
slice of the legal life,
this one examines the area of jury selection and all the stuff
that goes into making
sure that a big fat corporate client actually gets the jury that
it wants in order to
achieve a favourable verdict. The case itself was important because
in addition to
putting a price on a human life which is taken by a gun, it’s
one of those cases that, if
lost, could have opened up a whole world of liability to all gun
companies.
(Something the King Of Torts, would be drooling over).
Runaway Jury, is marvelously put together. With Gene Hackman as
the big time jury
consultant, Dustin Hoffman as the down home defense attorney,
and John Cusak and
Rachel Weicz, as the…well, I can’t actually tell you
that. This film has an awesome
amount of energy and tension in it, the kind of stuff that keeps
you riveted to your
seats because the bad guys are painted in such a cynical colour
that, you’re just
dying to see them get the shaft, but at the same time you’re
wondering if they
actually will.
I think there must be an unwritten law somewhere in Hollywood
that any movie
Involving a trial of any kind is not allowed to tip its hand either
way. This, of course,
is great for the viewer because you’re always guessing right
to the end, more or less.
Admittedly, the book was a lot more cunning and subtle than the
movie, but that’s
kind of always going to be the case. I wouldn’t sweat it.
This movie is all about
powerhouse performances and legal intrigue in America and on that
level it works
extremely well. Runaway Jury should be hitting the video stores
on February 17. So if
you can’t make it down to a review theatre to see it, you
can pick it up then.
Something this spud strongly advises you to do.
LORD OF THE RINGS—THE RETURN OF THE KING
Throughout the history of film, there have only been a very finite
number of movies
that I would classify as complete masterpieces on every level.
We’re talking bigger
than 2 XL spuds here. The titles that jump most quickly to mind
for me are:
Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, Chinatown, The Philadelphia Story,
It’s A Wonderful
Life, The Third Man, The Wizard of Oz. The great Kirisawa film,
Ran. Stuff like that.
Well this is the calibre of film were talking about when we talk
about the Lord of The
Rings. The Return Of The King is the third part of what is the
most ambitious trilogy
ever put on film. If you know anything about how movies are made
then you have to
be completely awestruck by the level of craftwork contained in
this film. It has set
new levels for everyone in the big time movie business to work
to in so many areas,
it’s sickening. If you’re a fan of JRR Tolkien, you
have to be extremely impressed with
how astonishingly well this film captures both the story and the
spiritual essence of
his great books. It’s really does bring them to life in
a most convincing fashion. If
you’re a devotee of acting and acting talent, what you have
here is a complete sweep
of tour de force performances, from humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits,
trolls, wizards
and ents (trees) alike. And if you’re a fan of directors,
you’re not likely to find a
director with a bigger, bolder imagination than tiny little Peter
Jackson.
In this day and age where we have come to take so much about moviemaking
for
granted, we are often led to believe that well done special effects
can make up for
any number of a film’s defects in other areas. Well, I’m
happy to report that that is no
longer the case. Because here in this trilogy, we have special
effects that are so good
they are barely noticed. Instead these effects synch so harmoniously
with the other
outstanding elements of this film that we are taken to that very
special place inside
the minds of both Mr Jackson and Mr Tolkien. Its indeed a world
that is so well
rendered that you would simply rather sit in your big comfy movie
seat and marvel
as opposed to looking for the lines of demarcation between the
foreground set and
the background matte painting. Where you just gape at the flying
dragons and 2o0
foot tall mammoths instead of looking for some overly mechanical
nuance that will
lead you to find fault with the scene.
And voila. There is so much magnificence is every single scene
that you can do
nothing but sit back and let it all play out before your eyes.
Another world, full and
rich and incredibly interesting. True movie magic. This is why
I go to the movies.
The fact that this movie must actually compete with four others
on the Academy
Awards night is laughable. The fact that there will be some people,
maybe even a lot
of people out there in the precious academy who would vote for
one of its
competitors points out the fundamental asshole-shness of awards
in the first place.
Well that’s it for this episode. Next report comes from
Spud Central III.
COPYRIGHT 2004 - COUCH POTATO CHRONICLES
