Reviews

Films

His Girl Friday

Directed by Howard Hawks, starring Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell

It might take a few viewings to actually figure out what the manic characters in His Girl Friday are actually saying to each other. In an attempt to imitate (and perhaps even over-exaggerate) the frenzied environment of a newsroom, director Howard Hawks had his cast deliver their lines at breakneck speed making many of the quips almost inaudible on first listen. In most comedies this would serve as a distinct disadvantage but here the pace only makes the movie more engrossing.

When we first meet newspaper reporter Hildegaard "Hildy" Johnson (Rosalind Russell), she has had it with the stressful life of the press and decides to confront her gruff editor and ex-husband, Walter Burns (Cary Grant), to tell him that she is marrying insurance broker Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy) and settling down. Having to think on his feet to keep his best journalist at his paper, the crafty Burns concocts a plan to have his ex-wife quickly cover the case of a man who will be hanged in 24 hours.

Russell is pitch perfect as the feisty "Hildy", who faces a choice between starting a family and continuing her career. In the stage play on which this film is based, the original part of the reporter was played by a man but making the lead a woman for the movie allowed Hawks to turn his comedy into a battle of the sexes. Still, amid all of the chaos it is Grant that steals the show; his Walter Burns is a bona fide ratbag who does not soften even by the film's end. Ben Davey

Men in Black

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, starring Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones

You got to hand it to Tommy Lee Jones. He manages to play his Agent K from this science fiction romp with a straight face in every scene he appears, even though we are well aware that he, and every member of the film's crew, knows just how silly their movie is.

Many of the gags in Men in Black are delivered deadpan which adds to its tremendous appeal - this is a blockbuster that, despite its staggering special effects and monumental budget, refuses to take itself seriously.

After being recruited to the weird and wonderful world of a secret organization whose job it is to monitor extraterrestrial life in the United States, Agent J (Will Smith) joins his new partner K in pursuit of a miscreant alien bug that wants to kick off an intergalactic war. The bug, who inhabits the body of a redneck farmer (Vincent D'Onofrio) seeks a power source known as the Galaxy, which is being kept on Earth by other aliens. And if J and K do not stop the bug from succeeding, it means the destruction of our planet.

Directed with astounding visual flair by Barry Sonnenfeld, Men in Black boasts a team of effects artists including monster-making icon Rick Baker and Industrial Light and Magic. From the agents' dapper black suits to the gothic kitsch and hyper-modernity of the set design, it all looks a trillion bucks. But it is the droll script by Ed Solomon that is the production's most impressive feature. And thankfully, the casting director had the foresight to envision the peerless Mr Jones in the most important role. BD

(China Daily 07/31/2007 page20)