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Stranger From Venus

July 28th, 2010 | Author: emotornado

Property Developers Paralimni Cyprus

Stranger From Venus Not there yet – Ralph W. Burgess – Franklin, GA
The title of this si-fi is good and you would expect more of the movie. It had almost no action, the story line was weak and it could have been a lot better. The acting was poor and I the movie was disapointing for a si-fi lover.
Image Entertainment: Tonight, first contact will be made! A beautifully-crafted tale of a superior being from Venus who has the power of life and death at his touch. Academy Award-winning actress Patricia Neal’s glowing and sensitive performance as a woman caught up in the biggest event in history is complemented by Helmut Dantine’s powerful, moving portrayal as the Stranger. Suggested by events in the sci-fi classic “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” this film is a touching, humanizing and haunting story of “first contact” with a peaceful and advanced intelligence from another planet coming to Earth with an ultimatum and out-of-this-world powers to back it up. Providing further evidence that 1951′s The Day the Earth Stood Still had an immediate and lasting influence, this quiet little gem from 1954 spins off from the earlier film’s trendsetting premise, and features a fine role for that classic’s costar, Patricia Neal. With those similarities accounted for, it’s only fair to assess Stranger from Venus on its own terms. Fashioned more like a respectable B-movie melodrama than a sci-fi thriller, it offers only a few seconds of cheesy special effects (in the form of an ultra-low-budget flying saucer), and instead emphasizes mature dialogue and competent acting to deliver the time-honored theme that humankind has a lot to learn on the intergalactic scale of civilized behavior.

Helmut Dantine plays the title role–a dapper gent from Venus who arrives in a rural English town, possessing awesome powers (and a brain packed with the entirety of human knowledge), and intending only to inform the military powers-that-be of the dangers of atomic weaponry. With her trademark empathy, Neal plays a local American who understands, accepts, and quietly falls in love with the nameless alien. There must be tragedy, of course, and when the military hawks prevent the Venusian’s rendezvous with his mother ship, the cost is regrettably high. (As we’ve learned earlier, centuries-old Venusians merely vanish when they expire.) By this time, however, the requisite wisdom has been expressed, human foolishness has been exposed and humbled by alien superpowers, and Stranger from Venus ends on a quiet note of melancholy optimism. Unfolding with thoughtfulness and filmmaking economy, this is an obscure genre entry that devoted fans are encouraged to discover. –Jeff Shannon
Stranger From Venus

Venus

July 14th, 2010 | Author: emotornado

Venus Not the movie I thought it was…and what I got was a pleasant surprise – Andy Orrock – Dallas, TX
Sad to say I’d been avoiding this fine movie – I kept bumping it down the queue because I thought it was quite something else. The trailer I had seen focused on O’Toole’s Peeping Tom in Art Class act (a fine piece of physical comedy). One could easily think it was the tale of a rather lecherous old man and uncomfortable, unrequited love.

The actual movie is quite different – a nuanced, well-acted and thoughtful look at a wonderful relationship that develops between O’Toole’s Maurice and Jodie Whittaker’s Jessie, grand-niece of Maurice’s best mate, Ian (a delightful, hilarious Leslie Phillips). Maurice passes along his knowledge and life experience to Jessie. He takes her to her first play – they sit up close and listen to street-wise, shocking language from the actors. You can see in Jessie’s face she’s agog and fascinated. What Jessie, in turn, has for Maurice is vitality, spunk and energy to burn.

Writer Hanif Kureishi also penned the classic My Beautiful Laundrette as well as the underrated The Mother, featuring a very un-Bond-like Daniel Craig. Venus’ director Roger Mitchell helmed ‘The Mother’ as well. The Mitchell/Kureishi partnership guarantees a quality product.

I’m thrilled to see in IMDB that Kureishi is doing the screenplay for the brilliant novel, The White Tiger: A Novel (Man Booker Prize). Now that’s something I’ll pay top-dollar to see. I can’t wait, Hanif!
Venus: Academy Award® nominee Peter O’Toole (2006 Best Actor) leads a powerful cast to deliver a charming and poignant portrayal of Maurice, an aging veteran actor who becomes absolutely taken with Jessie – the grandniece of his closest friend. When Maurice tries to soften the petulant and provincial young girl with the benefit of his wisdom and London culture, their give-and-take surprises both Maurice and Jessie as they discover what they don’t know about themselves. Featuring brilliant performances from a superb supporting cast, VENUS is a witty and wise celebration of how the greatest lessons in life can come from the most unlikely places. Peter O’Toole adds another Great One to his list of indelible performances: as Maurice, a frail but defiantly horny London actor in his sunset, O’Toole lays bare his weathered face and sophisticated soul for a marvelous portrait of mortality. Maurice, who mostly hangs out counting pills and parsing obituaries with his fellow old-trouper Ian (Leslie Phillips), is roused to play Pygmalion one final time… not on stage, but in life, as Ian’s gauche, callow niece (Jodie Whittaker) comes to live with her uncle. It would be very easy to turn this set-up into a heartwarming drama, but screenwriter Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette) has never been one to warm hearts. Unless it’s on his own terms. As Maurice takes his Venus under his frail wing and imparts a few old-school instructions to this junk-culture lass, Kureishi and director Roger Michell hit just the right notes of clumsiness, grace, and regret. Everybody’s good in the film; Jodie Whittaker does nicely by the task of creating a rather ordinary young woman, and Vanessa Redgrave turns up as Maurice’s patient, long-suffering ex (about whom there is nothing ordinary). But it’s O’Toole’s show, and the grand old actor gives a performance without a hint of grandness, except where it might fit. When he sighs a valedictory, “There really isn’t anything else,” you know a life’s experiences and mistakes are distilled in the wisdom. –Robert Horton
Venus

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