You'll be—yes—giggly at how truly grim this really is. It's embarrassing watching the ego-addled Ben Affleck straining to show us what a stud he is for pulling J-Lo. The block Jenny's from is clearly made of wood, for her acting is equally dire in a would-be comic thriller from Martin Brest, who even calls in Pacino and Walken for cameos. To no avail.
DIRECTED BY Bernardo Bertolucci
STARRING Michael Pitt, Eva Green, Louis Garrel
Opens February 6, Cert 18, 115 mins
Film buffs have never looked less sexy than they do in Bertolucci's curiously distant rendering of Paris in May 1968. True, the film buffs in question spend most of their time lounging naked, playing psycho-sexual mind games and rutting feverishly. And yes, all three stars (Pitt, Garrel and, in particular, Green) are undeniably easy on the eye—something Bertolucci is at pains to stress with lots of salivating camera lingering on flesh.
Conceived as a black Woodstock in '72, an act of healing seven years after LA's Watts district had been all but burned down in race riots to the chanting of "burn, baby, burn", Wattstax was also, in truth, a masterful idea for a showcase of all the Stax acts of the time. Still, hell of a concert—112,000 people watched seven hours of Isaac Hayes, The Staple Singers, The Bar-Kays, Rufus Thomas etc, and a legend was born.
