Movie & Music

When a female FBI agent goes missing in mysterious circumstances, the Agency calls on the very retired and reticent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) - through his ex Agency partner, the now busy and committed physician, Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). She has her own problems, trying to save the life of a young boy with serious brain disease. But she convinces Mulder, who is soon intrigued by convicted pedophile priest Father Joe (Billy Connolly) whose apparent psychic powers lead the FBI to their first grisly clue. As another woman goes missing, the urgency intensifies but Mulder's willingness to believe is shaken and those around him, even Scully, draw back from the inexplicable.

Review by Andrew L. Urban:
It's complicated - but not too much so. And I'm referring to the revived old relationship between Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) - as well as the plot. The fans will lap up this thrilling new feature that has gestated in the belly of the hugely popular series for years. From its no holds barred start to its heartfelt finish, the film is compelling entertainment, thanks in part to a great script and in part to the top performances.

Mature in every way, the film and its characters lead us scene by scene through a maze of clues and scares as the story elements start to converge. I don't want to spoil the revelations by saying more about that, except that it's clever and credible. The writers have woven a rich and complex story in which the characters move with great dramatic payoffs.

Duchovny and Anderson bring a maturity to their characters, infused with a well worked subtext about their relationship, which sustains throughout, without relying on gimmicks or stretches of credibility. Both actors bring depth and emotion to the film, as does the wonderful Billy Connolly, who clearly responded to the challenge of playing Father Joe, a repentant pedophile with a psychic gift - or is it just fantasy? Connolly is superbly in command of his character and shows us a level of complexity that elevates his support role to a higher plane.

Great support from Amanda Peet and Alvin Xzibit Joiner as FBI agents, the former very matter of fact and let's get the job done, the latter dismissive of Mulder and his openness to the psychic.

The film's great achievement is that even within the bounds of its genre as a supernatural thriller, it generates a much deeper resonance about a range of issues, from God and faith to the mysteries of daily life.

Review by Louise Keller:
The white of snow provides the setting for this dark tale in which the unexplained provides the most provocative questions. It's hard to believe it has been ten years since the highly popular X-Files TV series finally found its way to the screen, but it's no surprise that the chemistry between David Duchovney's Mulder and Gillian Anderson's Scully remains as binding as ever. Nothing is simple: from the tense plot involving severed body parts and animal tranquilisers to Billy Connolly's remorseful pedophile priest whose psychic visions are punctuated by tears of blood. And not least is the complexity of Mulder and Scully's multi-layered relationship, beginning with their personal bond before ricocheting into areas of their fundamental individual differences. Superbly made with an edge of the seat tension that lingers, X-Files fans will be more than satisfied as the credible and incredible sit side by side in an explosive melee.

There's something eerie about the opening snow-covered sequence in Somerset West Virginia, when Billy Connolly's grey, messy haired psychic is flanked by an army of FBI agents, as he uses his talents to locate frozen body parts buried in the snow. Connolly himself is buried as deeply inside his tortured character as is the arm wrapped in black plastic beneath the snow, as he delivers a ghost of a man whose sins have stripped him of a soul. Amanda Peet and Xzibit join the cast as agents on the case, but all the warmth and humanity belong to Mulder and Scully, who both reveal the scars from their past as well as the unshakeable bond that keeps them together. Mulder has become a recluse, while Scully questions her right as a doctor to make decisions for her young patient. As they unwittingly become involved in this new case involving a missing FBI agent, their involvement becomes deeper and deeper, like footprints in the snow.

Jamiroquai's sophomore record had all the slinky grooves and great musicianship of the debut, but it also offered a better set of songs and more ambitious musical themes. As with Emergency on Planet Earth, Jason Kay's dead-on impression of Stevie Wonder and Sly Stone drives the group's blend of acid jazz and funky R&B.

"Space Cowboy" and "Light Years" were hits all over the world, and made the band stars in Europe and Japan, while substantial clubplay earned them a degree of recognition for American audiences. But Jamiroquai refused to be known as simply a party band; the group takes on social issues such as homelessness and Native Americans' rights.

Our comic-book-movie culture is 30 years old (it kicked off in 1978, with the Christopher Reeve Superman), and in those three decades of speed and light and destruction, of well-coiffed demigods in bodysuits zipping through the air and shimmying up walls, comic-book films have yielded more than their share of spectacle and thrills yet virtually nothing in the way of mystery. But in The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan's ominously labyrinthine and exciting sequel to Batman Begins, good and evil aren't just separate forces — at times, they're a whisper away from each other — and the movie exudes a predatory glamour that makes the comic-book films that have come before it look all the more like kid stuff. The Dark Knight is jammed with thorny underworld conspiracies, obscenely oversize tank-cars, and action scenes that teeter madly out of control, all blanketed by the psycho-anarchic musings of a villain so warped he turns crime into a contest of Can you top this? At two hours and 32 minutes, this is almost too much movie, but it has a malicious, careening zest all its own. It's a ride for the gut and the brain.

Batman (Christian Bale), that snake-hiss-voiced vigilante who plays out the vengeful fantasies that Bruce Wayne can only dream about, has now gone a good way toward cleaning up Gotham City; he has even inspired copycat Batmans. Then why so serious? Our hero is regularly referred to as ''the Batman'' (a phrase lifted from Frank Miller's graphic novel), with that the suggesting he's less a superhero than a sinister urban creature — just one among many. The woman Bruce loves, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), has been driven away by his moonlight escapades; she's now the squeeze of the lantern-jawed, shining-knight DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). What's more, thanks to Batman's crime-fighting spree — which the honorable lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) winks at under the table — a void has opened up. Into that space steps the Joker (Heath Ledger), a sick puppy in smeary clown makeup who wants to make the world feel his pain.

Bale, all steely reserve, once again captivates as the haunted caped crusader who must shed morality to beat the devil at his game. But just as Tim Burton's 1989 Batman was anchored by the joy-buzzer glee of Jack Nicholson's party-down Joker, The Dark Knight takes its cue from its Joker and his deadly circus of chaos. Heath Ledger's mesmerizing, scary-funny performance begins with the creepiness of his image: the greasy long hair, the makeup that looks as if he'd drawn it on with crayons, then messed it with tears. That ghostly rotting paint job covers his scarred smile (explained by a backstory that gives you the willies, even if he just made it up), and the disturbing thing is that when Ledger's Joker talks, with those ''Ehhh, what's up, Doc?'' vowels that make him sound like Al Franken crossed with a nerdish pedophile, you realize that the icky sloshing sound you hear is him sucking on his cheeks; he uses his attachment to those scars to fuel his sadistic (and masochistic) whims. This Joker may be a torture freak, but he also has a lost quality, a melancholy hidden within those black-circled eyes. He turns slaughter into a punchline; he's a homicidal comedian with an audience of one — himself. In this, the last performance he completed before his death, Ledger had a maniacal gusto inspired enough to suggest that he might have lived to be as audacious an actor as Marlon Brando, and maybe as great.

The Joker organizes the riffraff mobsters of Gotham City, but only to use them as bait, creating a whirlpool of corruption that sucks everyone down. He's an improv maniac, with no grand plan; his ultimate joke is to show that nobility won't hold in a world of disorder. At moments, the film's center doesn't hold. The deranged twist of what happens to Harvey Dent, for instance, seems at once too much and not enough. Mostly, though, that's because the movie didn't need it. Bale's seething, demon-saint Batman, locked in his dance of death with the Joker (''You complete me!'' says the villain, and for once he isn't kidding), is already an indelible figure of good battling it out with the darkness, right there in his own heart.

by:Coldplay

Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And everything you do,
Yeah, they were all yellow.
I came along,
I wrote a song for you,
And all the things you do,
And it was called "Yellow".
So then I took my turn,
Oh what a thing to have done,
And it was all "Yellow."
Your skin,
Oh yeah your skin and bones,
Turn into something beautiful,
You know, you know I love you so,
You know I love you so.
I swam across,
I jumped across for you,
Oh what a thing to do.
Cos you were all "Yellow",
I drew a line,
I drew a line for you,
Oh what a thing to do,
And it was all "Yellow."
Your skin,
Oh yeah your skin and bones,
Turn into something beautiful,
And you know,
For you I bleed myself dry,
For you I bleed myself dry.
It's true,
Look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine for,
Look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine.
Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And all the things that you do.

The London foursome Coldplay are constant critic's darlings in the band's native U.K., showcasing melodic pop in a slew of EP releases and constant live shows since the spark of the new millennium. Not as heavy as Radiohead or snobbish as Oasis, Coldplay is a band of young musicians who are still honing their sweet harmonies on the debut release Parachutes.

Combining bits of distorted guitar riffs and swishing percussion, Parachutes is a delightful introduction and also quickly indicates the reason why this album earned Coldplay a Mercury Music Prize nomination in fall 2000. Frontman Chris Martin's lyrical wordplay is feministic in the manner of Geneva's Andrew Montgomery, but far more withered. The imagery captured on Parachutes is exquisitely dark and artistically abrasive, and the entire composition is tractable thanks to gauzy acoustics and airy percussion.

Coldplay's indie rock inclinations are also obvious, especially on songs such as "Don't Panic" and "Shiver," but it's the dream pop soundscapes captured on "High Speed" and "We Never Change" that illustrate the band's dynamic passion. This basic pop is surely a refreshing effort in the face of big productions like the Spice Girls and Westlife. Parachutes deserves the accolades it has received because it follows the general rule when introducing decent pop songs: keep the emotion genuine and real. And Coldplay has done that without hesitation.

Fans of "Sex and the City" will find everything they loved about the TV series in the movie of the same name: four catty, chatty, fashion-forward women talking about the problems with the men in their lives, including copious amounts of shopping, dining, drinking and, yes, sex.
If, like me, you're not one of those fans, you may plan to steer clear of this movie. But if you are dragged to a screening by the "Sex and the City" fan in your life, the good news is that you will survive the experience - and maybe even have fun.
After a spirited opening-credits sequence in which he summarizes the series for novices, writer-director Michael Patrick King throws us back into the New York social swirl of newspaper columnist Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her gal-pals: brittle Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), wide-eyed Charlotte York-Goldenblatt (Kristen Davis) and, winging in frequently from L.A., sexually voracious Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall).
All four are paired up with men, though the relationships are not without problems: Miranda and her bartender husband, Steve (David Eigenberg), are in a sexual dry spell, while Samantha feels tied down to her actor-model boyfriend, Smith (Jason Lewis). Carrie's life with Mr. Big (Chris Noth), the source of much of her romantic angst during the series, is going along smoothly - until they decide, in an oddly businesslike manner, to get married.
What begins as a small wedding mushrooms into a Vogue-bankrolled circus (complete with a Vivienne Westwood wedding dress that has higher billing than half the cast). Without divulging major plot points, know that things unravel, leading to more commiseration, which for these women means more shopping, dining and drinking.
Fans of the show will lap up this stuff like a well-mixed cosmopolitan, while nonfans will get some hearty laughs, especially from Davis' dizzy Charlotte. But I couldn't help but wonder (as Carrie always says) how fans will avoid some nagging questions, such as:
- Why couldn't King make more of "Dreamgirls' " Jennifer Hudson, Carrie's can-do assistant and plus-size version of Carrie's younger self, than just a Human Plot Device?
- Why is product placement for Coca-Cola and Doritos considered whorish and tacky in other movies, but here the slathering of luxury brand names - Tiffany, Louis Vuitton, Oscar de le Renta, Dior, Gucci, etc. - is considered classy?
- Why is Carrie allowed to sport a look - wearing a bra with backless dresses - that would get you laughed out of most redneck bars?
- Why is this movie so darn long?
- Finally, was this bonbon to the show's fans, four years after the "happily ever after" series finale, really necessary?

by:Oasis

Live my life in the city
There’s no easy way out
The day’s moving just too fast for me
Need some time in the sunshine
Gotta slow it right down
The day’s moving just too fast for me

I live my life for the stars that shine
People say it’s just a waste of time
When they said I should feed my head
That to me was just a day in bed
I’ll take my car and drive real far
To where they’re not concerned about the way we are
Cos in my mind my dreams are real
Are you concerned about the way I feel

Tonight I’m a rock n roll star

Live my life in the city
There’s no easy way out
The day’s moving just too fast for me
Need some time in the sunshine
Gotta slow it right down
The day’s moving just too fast for me

Tonight I’m a rock n roll star