The Cliff Edge

In praise of Coffee Crisp, the great Canadian candy bar

The best candy bar in the world is (tragically) not available in the U.K.

Whenever I am in Canada, the one thing I always make sure to bring back to the U.K. is a bunch of candy bars called Coffee Crisp, which is not available here. It’s no surprise that I am not alone in this.

The brilliant humorist Bruce McCall is one of several Canadian ex-patriots asked by the New Yorker to describe what they miss most about their homeland. With typical wit, McCall gets it exactly right. This is how his piece begins:

The gourmets say there isn’t a native Canadian food worth remembering after you’ve left the country. The gourmets have never bitten into a Coffee Crisp.

A Coffee Crisp tastes like Canada to anybody who grew up gnawing on that confection, a memorably crisp blend of coffee cream, cookie wafers and milk chocolate as wholesome and satisfying as the Canadian national anthem.

It was a square-edged rectangle, like a brick, wrapped in a yellow-going-to-gold paper that seemed to elevate its value above all rival confections. It was unlike other chocolate bars.

Read McCall’s full paean to Coffee Crisp

Vivid Ronald Harwood plays explore artists’ conscience

Michael Pennington and David Horovitch in ‘Taking Sides’ at the Duchess thru Aug. 29

By Ray Bennett

LONDON — British playwright Ronald Harwood’s 1995 play “Taking Sides” and his latest, “Collaboration,” presented in tandem at the Duchess Theatre in London’s West End, each deal with people trapped in the quagmire of Nazi Germany and challenge viewers to wonder, “What would you have done?”

Both productions are directed with great skill by Philip Franks and star the same accomplished players with Michael Pennington and David Horovitch excellently portraying very different antagonists from one play to the next.

The plays can be viewed separately but seeing the productions as a double bill reinforces Harwood’s trenchant examination of one the tragedies of that time and the predicament into which artists in particular were thrust.

Read my full review in The Hollywood Reporter and more about the productions

Johnny Depp became a fan of Dillinger on Public Enemies

Marion Cotillard and Johnny Depp in Public Enemies, opening July 1

This preview appeared in the May issue of Cue Entertainment where there wasn’t room to mention that the music in “Public Enemies” is by the great Oscar-winning composer Elliot Goldenthal (”Frida”), who also scored Michael Mann’s 1995 crime picture “Heat”.

By Ray Bennett

“How often,” asks Johnny Depp, “do you get to stand on the running board of a 1932 Buick blasting a 50-round clip from Tommy Gun?” The answer, of course, was while filming director Michael Mann’s latest gangster saga “Public Enemies”, due July 1 from Universal.

Depp plays John Dillinger, the most notorious of the many glamorised American hoodlums of the 1930s in a screen version of “Barbarians at the Gate” author Bryan Burrough’s 2005 book “Public Enemies: American’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI”.

That very busy British actor Christian Bale plays celebrated G-Man Melvin Purvis, who was challenged to bring in Dillinger by J. Edgar Hoover (a bulky Billy Crudup) to further his ambitions to set up the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Year One opens the book on biblical gags

Michael Cera and Jack Black in ‘Year One,’ which opens in the UK today

This preview of “Year One” appeared in the April edition of Cue Entertainment

By Ray Bennett

Jack Black explains his new film like this: “ ‘Year One’ is a biblical comedy. It’s about the Old Testament. I’m just a dude wandering through biblical times. I’m not a famous character that you would have heard of before. Me and Michael Cera are just sort of wandering through, and you get to see all these old stories from the Torah, told through agnostic sort of eyes.”

It’s worth noting that “Year One”, due from Sony Pictures on June 25, is co-written and directed by Harold Ramis, who was responsible for the evergreen Bill Murray comedy “Groundhog Day”. The other writers are Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky from the US TV version of “The Office”.

Read the rest of this entry »

Magic and mischief in Ron Base’s novel, The Strange

By Ray Bennett

Few writers know Hollywood better than my friend Ron Base. As a reporter, film critic, magazine writer, screenwriter and novelist, he has explored the magic of the movies in many ways.

But Base knows his history too and his new novel, “The Strange,” published by West End Books, combines the mystery and marvel of grand cinematic adventures with a taste for the glamour and mystique of 19th century Vienna, London and most especially Paris.

Like the best storytellers, Base in “The Strange” leads you to somewhere you thought you knew, in this case Paris, and reveals it to be even more magical and enchanting than you could possibly have imagined.

It’s a tale of cunning and deception with intrigue, high adventure and vivid characters including a future King of England and the man who built the Eiffel Tower with a plot as tasty and satisfying as dinner at the Ritz.

Read the rest of this entry »

James Nesbitt shines in BBC’s Iraq drama, Occupation

James Nesbitt plays a veteran soldier whose experience in Iraq draws him back

By Ray Bennett

James Nesbitt has come a long way since he first attracted notice in ITV’s “Cold Feet” in 1987 and he shows that he’s become a fine actor in “Occupation,” a three-part drama about British soldiers in Iraq that runs on three consecutive nights on BBC1 starting tonight at 9 o’clock.

Produced by Kudos (“Spooks,” “Life On Mars”), written by Peter Bowker (“Blackbool”) and directed by Nick Murphy (“Heroes and Villains,” “Primeval”), it’s the tale of three men whose terrible experience in an incident in Basra in 2003 marks them each in separate ways.

Stephen Graham (“Snatch” and soon to appear as Baby Face Nelson with Johnny Depp as Dillinger in Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies”), Warren Brown (“Grownups”) and Nesbitt (“Jekyll,” “Murphy’s Law”) play the soldiers.

The first episode was screened at BAFTA a week or so ago and it was both atmospheric and involving. It’s a change of pace for Nesbitt but he plays the role of a seasoned military man with great assurance.

Read the rest of this entry »

New Transformers is loud and colorful but not very bright

Megan Fox and Shia LeBeouf in ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’

By Ray Bennett

LONDON — Designed to give devoted fans of the 2007 “Transformers,” which grossed more than $700 million worldwide, more of the same, Michael Bay’s sequel “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is a nonstop whirl of flying, battling and crashing machinery.

Characters and comedy are in short supply in a plot that’s basically an Indiana Jones-style search for a buried treasure, in this case a 1,000-year-old matrix that will give life back to Optimus Prime, one of the alien robots who is on the side of humans in their fight against the evil Decepticons who are out to destroy them.

With Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox back as the leads and massive battles involving ships, planes, tanks, rockets and industrial level shape-changing machines, the film will make another huge dent in the global boxoffice.

Read my full review in The Hollywood Reporter

Helen Mirren disappointing in ineffectual Phedre

Helen Mirren as Phedre at the National Theatre thru Aug. 27 Photo: Catherine Ashmore

By Ray Bennett

LONDON — The National Theatre’s production of Jean Racine’s tragedy “Phedre,” in a version by British poet Ted Hughes, is so full of “woe is me” lamentations that when John Shrapnel as Theramene begins his round-the-houses description of heroic Hippolytus’ death at sea, you want to ask, “Is this a long story?”

Sadly, it is. Shrapnel does a good job, roaring and panting, but Hughes crams so much information into the speech with deadening phrases empty of poetry that the torrent of words loses meaning and sounds more like waves crashing on the shore.

But you don’t want to know about that. You want to hear about Helen Mirren, who stars as Phedre and is making her first stage appearance in six years, during which time she won an Oscar for “The Queen.”

Unfortunately, she is ill-served by the text and Nicholas Hytner’s direction, and she doesn’t come to grips with the subtler elements of her obsession with stepson Hippolytus, played handsomely by Dominic Cooper (”The History Boys”).

Read my full review in The Hollywood Reporter and more about Phedre

Robots return in Michael Bay’s Transformers sequel

‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ has its UK premier tonight and opens Friday

This preview appeared in the April edition of Cue Entertainment

By Ray Bennett

Michael Bay’s fantasy action adventure “Transformers” grossed more than $700 million worldwide in 2007 and so it’s no surprise that there’s a sequel. “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is due from Paramount on June 19 and there’s a third one in the works.

The devilish robots that can disguise themselves as many mechanical things including 18-wheelers, Humvees and jet planes are back for another CGI spectacle. Also back are stars Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox along with Hugo Weaving as the voice of Megatron and John Turturro as Agent Simmons.

Read the rest of this entry »

Looking for Eric is a result for Ken Loach

Eric Cantona toots his own horn hilariously for Steve Evets in ‘Looking For Eric’

Ken Loach’s very funny “Looking For Eric” opens in the United Kingdom today. You don’t need to be a Manchester United fan to enjoy its mix of football fantasy, urban angst and great gags. See my earlier post on The Cliff Edge with my review from Cannes, and here’s more about Looking For Eric