![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
>popcorn by luna-id >reviewed by matthew lyon >date:
4 apr 2003 >tired
already? go home then |
|||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
I've never seen Oliver Stone's 'Natural Born Killers'. All I know about it is that after my brother saw it he shaved his head and took up rugby, and that it sparked off a major debate about the responsibilities of the media in portraying violence, and that it bears an uncanny resemblance to Ben Elton's POPCORN. Director Bruce Delamitri is up for an Oscar for one of his extremely violent films in which a guy called Chop Chop does as his name suggests, but with style, a la Tarantino. Bruce wins, and returns home to celebrate with wannabe actress Brooke Lee, unaware that his biggest fans, white trash spree-killing psychos Wayne and Scout Hudson are awaiting him with a small arsenal of firearms and an unexpected proposition: he and his family get to remain alive if he admits that the murders they have committed are his fault. But Bruce doesn't want to take the blame any more than they do. Writer Ben Elton, is a very clever man. Indeed I've often thought when watching his work - for example, his stand-up comedy on British TV or his sitcoms like 'Blackadder' or 'The Young Ones' - that he is considerably more clever than he is funny or talented, although he is undeniably both of these things also. I saw this again in Elton's drawing of his lead character, Wayne Hudson, semi-inbred trailer trash with a penchant for slasher flicks, both viewing and enacting. The problem was that Elton just couldn't resist smattering Wayne's speech, which is generally as hillbilly hick as you can get, with bons mots insults that sounded like Edmund Blackadder at his most urbanely vitriolic: I recall particularly the phrase "you Gucci-wrapped bag of bones". But Hudson was far closer to a Baldrick than a Blackadder and, funny and clever as these lines were, they did rather undermine the character Elton was drawing. |
||
>>'While POPCORN's fluff was fun, more fire would have been fabulous.' |
Debra Stych in the role of Scout, Hudson's "best girl" was lucky not to face any such scripting inconsistencies and acquitted herself beautifully, giving her role a real sense of life. If Jerry Springer had an illegitimate daughter, Stych could play her in the biopic; and although I can see how Scout could well have appeared two-dimensional in the hands of a lesser actor, Stych was able to bring out everything present in the writing, producing a character I can best describe as an improbably stupid, innocently brutal ingénue. |
|
Sebastian Zeng's set was notable for its ability to suggest different locations. With a little help from Yo Shao Ann's lights, it implied, without quite transforming into, a cinema screen, a Hollywood mansion, an Oscar podium, etc. It did, however, seem to have lost out to the costumes in the play's budgeting process, and when Wayne and Scout commented on the opulence of Delamitri's mansion, I wondered if they'd ever seen an episode of 'Homes of the Rich and Famous'. But it was certainly practical, and director Samantha Scott-Blackhall used it intelligently, exploiting its height when necessary, and succeeding particularly well in keeping the focus on the important action even when the stage was crowded. If there was one thing I wanted more of, it was anger. Elton is a very angry performer in his stand-up comedy, and much of the play - especially its obsession with culpability - reminded me of this. Which is not to say that the production was sedate - far from it - but I sometimes wondered what would happen if you took the comedy away: would the play's message stand on its own. Possibly it would, but not on two firm feet. So while POPCORN's fluff was fun, more fire would have been fabulous. |