Another Cavalry Movie from Ford, and this time Johnny Reb's in the firing line as Yankee Colonel Wayne leads his troops on a demolition mission and kidnaps feisty southern belle Constance Towers. Here Ford's portentous 'Civil War is Hell' message doesn't quite gel with his trademark tomfoolery-drunken gags, funny fistfights and casual misogyny. The resulting film is strangely blank.
Danny Elfman looks like winning big awards for Big Fish, his sumptuous score for Tim Burton's best film. His track record—Men In Black, Good Will Hunting, Spider-Man—suggests they might even decide it's his turn for an Oscar. Supporting his work here is a stream of era-evoking pop songs from Elvis ("All Shook Up"), Buddy Holly ("Everyday"), Bing Crosby, The Allman Brothers and Canned Heat. And—perhaps incongruously—a new Pearl Jam track, "Man Of The Hour".
The original Mamet movie, a bravura directorial debut and a punchy manifesto, 1987's...Games pits frigid psychologist Lindsay Crouse against louche confidence trickster Joe Mantegna in the eponymous Chicago poker joint. Crouse is intrigued, Mantegna applies the charm, but soon the cons escalate and, in true Mametian style, the line between 'shark' and 'mark' disintegrates.
