humanresistor

The most important thing about "Iris" is also the most obvious one: the performances from the four main actors are extremely strong - in fact, it's not worth singling one of them out, they all make the film immediately worth watching.

The structure of the film, with the intertwined stories of two relatively brief periods in Iris Murdoch and John Bayley's life, is also superficially impressive, and creates some impressive juxtapositions. On the other hand, it's this structure that makes "Iris" unrewarding after the first viewing - it jumps from past to present far too frequently, which hampers the plot (there basically isn't one), and means that very little insight is gained into what the characters actually do for a living. Having John Bayley tell us how brilliant Iris is doesn't really engender confidence if all she does in the movie is make a few catty remarks and scribble a few pages.

The depiction of a couple in love and their ageing and death is very nicely done - it's just a pity that we're denied enough detail about what makes Iris and John so special as individuals.

Briefly speaking, nothing in this movie makes any sense at all, either on the level of overall plot or of individual scenes or even lines. This would have to be one of the most relentlessly stupid movies ever made. As soon as it looks like something is remotely intelligible, the actors and director seem to do their utmost to bring in yet another non sequitur.

The dialogue seems to have been written by someone who's never actually heard a conversation between people before, and acted by people who've never participated in one.

However, it's extremely amusing. This is an extraordinarily bad movie, but that's not because it's boring. The pink lunchbox, the contact lenses with white-out on them, the rubber skulls, the guy who keeps laughing constantly for no reason, the suburban living room in the middle of the deserted island, the power that attacks your arm when you "mix the particular place, not here but on the outside" (that is, say the name of a city)... champagne cinema.

You could do much worse than track a copy down - but beware - some video copies have the goofiest scenes edited out!

The reviews of "Zoolander" have tended to say one of two things:

"it's stupid", or "it's stupid fun". Briefly speaking, I'd choose the

latter option, but there's more to it than that.

What makes "Zoolander" such an entertaining movie is not simply

the ridiculous plot and script; on paper, sometimes it's just too silly

and sometimes it doesn't work.

It's the realisation of the basic idea that makes it effective. The

acting is very strong, the direction creates just the right mood, and

the production design is really excellent. The story, such as it is, is

excellently paced, and the movie flies by.

You really get the impression that thought and care went into

perfecting the stupidity.