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Cinema Paradiso shows

2007-08-18T17:43:00.000-07:00

Inspector Gadget, the week's second picture about a virtuous mechanical man, is not actually a cartoon, but it's based on one and is as close as "live action" gets to animation.

Thanks to director David Kellogg, it whizzes through a flimsy plot - dumb-but-decent security guard Matthew Broderick gets turned into gizmo wizard by beautiful scientist Joely Fisher and finds himself the number- one target of evil billionaire Rupert Everett - shaking its knowing booty all the while. Snipes are taken at Disney, Saturday- morning cartoons and Madonna; the language is crisp and Everett manages to suggest what a good Bond he'd make if only people would stop associating camp with wickedness. Trouble is, like the Pompidou centre, Inspector Gadget wears all its intelligence on the outside. You're never tempted to poke around within, and by the time you've left the cinema, you can barely remember a thing about it.
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What does everyone love about The King and I? The Rodgers & Hammerstein songs, of course. So it may seem a little perverse for Andy Tennant to revisit this territory - minus the music - with Anna and the King.

Tennant is that sort of director, though. As with Fools Rush In and Ever After, his previous, deeply laborious attempts at "liberal" romantic comedy, he's not content to entertain. In this case, he wants the story of a no-nonsense governess, Anna (Jodie Foster), who arrives in Siam to teach the king's son English and ends up discovering love, to highlight issues about race and class.
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Foster is not the woman to bring such pedagogy to life. If you watch her face it's like she's being pecked at by invisible and malicious birds. They've dug dark caves beneath her eyes and left only a strip of flesh for a smile, and while that's fine for her early scenes - she's supposed to be harassed and "hidden" - it's a disaster for those moments when we're supposed to watch her melt. Poor Chow Yun-Fat, as King Mongkut, deserves better. Thanks to him, Siam's "progressive" despot appears intelligent, oppressive and loveable all at the same time (his hair, which sticks up at the back like a duck's tail, adds to the effect).

And in that sense, Tennant is also to be congratulated. His desire to make us understand Mongkut may bore conservatives and frustrate radicals (while Harriet Beecher Stowe's revisionist classic, Uncle Tom's Cabin, is constantly invoked, Mongkut often appears too much of an "Uncle Tom") but something solid remains.

The film, through Anna, defends Mongkut's right not to be judged by the money-grabbing West. Replace Siam with modern-day China and the fact that Mongkut "gets away" with beheading two Buddhists seems genuinely controversial.

Also concerned with the pernicious effects of imperialism is Ismail Merchant's Cotton Mary. Here, though, the native at the heart of the tale has little power. Cotton Mary (Madhur Jaffrey) is an ambitious hospital nurse of mixed race - her mother was Indian, her father British - who saves the life of a white baby by having her sister wet-nurse it. In return, the baby's mother, Lily Macintosh (Greta Scacchi), effectively concedes control of her family, which includes a caddish husband, John (James Wilby), and bewildered seven- year-old daughter, Theresa (Laura Lumley). Mary abuses this trust with gusto.

Jaffrey has great fun with a role that Anna Magnani would have loved, and Scacchi gives off a sleepy misery that's hypnotic. The problem lies with Alexandra Viets's screenplay, obviously based on her own experience as a privileged white child in India, which only gives us insight into Mary in flashes and goes way too easy on Lily. If the makers of Cotton Mary were prepared to acknowledge that this is Theresa's story, such a bias would make sense, but, for the most part, they seek to present the film's point of view as objective. Mary schemes against the family's loyal servant, Abraham, who's known Lily since she was a child, and hires in his place a drunken brute. Mary's link to dissolute chaos is clear - but are we really expected to believe in Abraham's saintliness, or the idea that Lily's family was worthy of it?

Events are always threatening to turn grand guignol (Mary's sister sports both baby-girl ribbons and a wheelchair). Somehow, though, Merchant keeps a brake on the wheels and, for all its faults, Cotton Mary leaves a satisfyingly nasty taste in the mouth.

As the re-release of Cinema Paradiso shows, Giuseppe Tornatore used to be an efficient director. The gruff projectionist (Philippe Noiret) and frog-legged little hero, Toto, may come sugar-coated, but at least they looked as if they belonged in their environment. The double-act in The Legend of 1900, Tornatore's latest, stick out like prosthetic thumbs. Tim Roth is a genius pianist who has lived all his life on an ocean cruiser; Pruitt Taylor Vince the trumpeter who falls in love with his gift and tries to lure him on to dry land. Vince looks particularly uncomfortable with the gushy lines (this is an ode to flattery, not friendship). Roth just hams it up. As for the atmosphere - think Only Fools and Horses meets Titanic.

designers don't compromise

2007-07-18T17:44:00.000-07:00

This year allegedly has been the British high street's annus horribilis. Take Marks & Spencer. The fashion press has set upon Auntie like a pack of rabid dogs. What does Style Police have to say to the harbingers of doom? Begone, because 1999 has been a stellar year for the British high street. Who gives a rat's arse if a few fat cats haven't earned their Christmas bonuses? Hip kitties have had a ball with this year's colours, shapes and prize-fighting trends.

We've taken a tip from the British Fashion Council and decided to hand out the odd gong to our fashion favourites. We're going to get up close and personal with the maestros behind what can only be described as a symphonic two seasons. So ladies and gentlemen, be upstanding for Style Police's very own 1999 Shopping Awards.
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QUEEN OF THE HIGH STREET

KAREN MILLEN

Karen Millen rules the street in 1999. She made sense out of autumn/winter by boldly going with colour, wild animal print and luxe leathers. Millen ruthlessly edited the ugliness out of bohemian and took her fabulous embroideries from summer pretty to winter disco glam. The secret of her success is Karen's eye for trendspotting plus MD Kevin Stanford's genius with the store concept and presentation. The new Knightsbridge Karen Millen is up there with Issey Miyake and earns 10 out of 10 for minimal chic.
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"Our girls are looking for glamour and they know they can find it in Karen Millen," says Millen. "The design is instinctive but I listen to my customer. I study weekly reports from all the shops that tell me what's working. This season has been demanding. The girls want luxury. We have factories in the Far East hand-stitching embroidered finishes which could take up to a day to produce. They sell for pounds 90."

Whereas a store like Kookai rips off the catwalk seam for seam, Millen works in a parallel time zone with the catwalk designers. "Colour has exploded this season and we've been pushing it 100 per cent," says Millen. "You've got to be brave and trust your instincts. I wouldn't have launched the shoe collection this season if I wasn't prepared to go for it."

Millen's olive green patent pumps trimmed with fuschia leather and her hot orange heels are genuinely up there with Prada on the trend thermometer. Ultimately Karen Millen is Queen because she delivers delectable new booty every week and hers is the best quality on the street this season.

CHEAP CHIC STORE

H&M

Style Police was about to lift our fatwah on Gap because their "Khakis a Go-Go" TV ad had us shimmying round the lounge like one of the Supremes. But once you actually see clothes on rails they have as much appeal as stale Christmas pud. H&M trounces Gap anyway for the Best Ad award. Who but H&M could persuade Johnny Depp, Patricia Arquette, Milla Jovovich, Salma Hayek, Steve Buscemi and Amber Valletta to model high street? H&M corral better photographers than Marie Claire: Terry Richardson, Michael Jansson and Mario Testino.

H&M is faster than a speeding bullet delivering seasonal musts to the stores 24-7. We're talking 300 million garments a year with new stock delivered every day of the year. You have to grapple and claw to bag essentials like this season's bead tweed A-line skirt or neon yellow stretch shell top for men. H&M is your fashion smash and grab. Pretend you're Meg Mathews and buy 10 pieces for an average pounds 20 a pop.

H&M is a winner because it is dirt cheap, fashion forward and in the zone with fabric technology. H&M's code of conduct is eco- friendly and on message for Y2K. They recycle, don't use sweatshop labour and won't use models who are "unhealthily thin or who look unhealthy". So you can splash the cash daily at H&M and massage your social conscience at the same time. And you know what? H&M knows how to make fashion a sly little giggle rather than a condescending sneer.

DESIGNER STUFF FOR CHEAP

TOP SHOP

Designing for the high street was viewed as a guest pass to the elephant's graveyard for faded fashion names. To be fair, Jasper Conran, Ben de Lisi and Pearce Fionda worked miracles for Debenhams. But you still have to fight through racks of dodgy German labels before you can find hidden gems. Top Shop not only bagged uber- conceptualist Hussein Chalayan and funky chick Tracey Boyd to launch new label TS Design, but they also created an oasis of calm in each Top Shop to show off their new baby.

This year Sherald Lamden, Clements Ribeiro and Marcus Lupfer joined the posse. "Britain produces the most brilliant designers who aren't necessarily interested in commerciality," says TS brand director Jane Shepherdson. "We wanted to tap this talent and support our young designers while introducing them to a new audience. We've seen TS design skyrocket."

Top Shop designers don't compromise. You'll find a seminal Chalayan paper dress for pounds 45, Lupfer's olive leather A-line dress for pounds 110 and Lamden's denim crop pants for pounds 50. Style Police loves Top Shop because it takes you back to teenage when fashion was fun. "The Top Shop girl will want to hang out in the store. Shopping is her hobby and we have to make the space work for her," says Shepherdson. "She can send an email, surf the net, lounge in the coffee bar or play a Sega game. We want the changing rooms to be like Top Shop girl's bedroom. She wants to have a giggle and she wants something sparkly and new every weekend." Don't we all, dear.