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I’ve never rated Russel Crowe. I thought Gladiator was over the top, and that put me off him. However, when visiting an art exhibition of a friend’s work inspired by terrorism, I was struck by a quotation that was on one of the pieces of work:

“Man is capable of as much atrocity as he has imagination”

I asked where the quote had come from, and I was told it was from “A Beautiful Mind”, and was recommended to watch it.

The film is not what I expected. Even after reading the back of the DVD case, and reading the WikiPedia entry for John Forbes Nash, of which this film is a biopic, I still was not prepared for the film.

I knew the film was about schizophrenia, and about Nash’s decline and subsequent recovery to win the Nobel prize, but it is the way director Ron Howard tells his journey that makes the film, and deservedly wins his Oscar for best director.

Wheras most films with a twist in them save the big twist for the end, this one reveals the twist in the middle, and does it in such a dramatic and powerful way that it leaves the audience as confused as Nash possibly was. It is easy to patronise people in films, particularly those with disabilities or illnesses, but Howard manages to draw the audience in to Nash’s plight, as opposed to siding with the other characters in the film that think Nash is mad. You don’t see Nash shouting at people who aren’t there, but you experience his delusions with him, and the way the twist is revealed, the audience, like Nash wonder what is real and what is imagined.

As I said at the start of my review, I’ve never liked Russel Crowe, his reputation somewhat preceeds him. However, in this he portrays a man struggling with his illness incredibly well. You are drawn into his suffering, and he is able to show behind the eyes lies a very intelligent person. While Crowe may look more like a quarterback than a mathematician (particularly in Nash’s early life), he injects a subtlety into the performance that makes it seem as if he is almost underplaying the role. Unlike the machismo of Gladiator, Crowe does not stand out from the crowd, and you actually see the character rather than Russel Crowe.

This has heightened my interest in seeing Crowe’s newest biopic, Cinderella Man, but I think it will be hard to top this.

Now, all I have to do is to stop thinking of Richie Cunningham whenever I see a Ron Howard movie.

There are some albums that define a time in your life. The albums that you constantly listen to, or hear at parties in a particular period. The one that defined my first year of college was Jagged Little Pill, by Alanis Morissette.

Never reaching the same heights with her work since, Jagged Little Pill was new, dangerous, agressive. In a time dominated by “grunge” and Nirvana, here was a girl who could play guitar with the best of them. Not only that, she wasn’t afraid of speaking her mind with some very agressive and provocative lyrics for the time.

Jagged Little Pill featured guest musicians including Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea and Dave Kushner (now with Velvet Revolver), and never left my CD player for months.

2005 is the 10th Anniversary of this seminal album, and it has been completely re-recorded as an “Acoustic” album.

I’m not a big fan of re-producing albums, Bon Jovi attempted it, and ended up with an awful recording. I was half laughing and half crying at “This Left Feels Right”.

Sometimes “re-imagining” songs works. To go back to Bon Jovi for a second, whenever they play their first hit “Runaway” live now, it tends to be an acoustic version, which is much slower, and more thought-provoking as a result. So does re-imagining Jagged Little Pill work?

Well, yes and no. There is nothing outstanding on this album. The songs are pretty much the same. This is not the drastic remixing that we have seen by other artists. The songs that were slower on the original hardly feel touched, such as “Mary Jane”. A good song in its own right, and still very listenable.

The angrier songs simply do not work. The passion and anger in “You Oughta Know” seems diluted, and the song is weaker as a result. Radio-favourite “Ironic” is simply a toned down version of the original, with a subtle lyric change. While amusing, and a nod to fans of the original that time and social attitudes have moved on a bit, it simply doesn’t rhyme and seems forced. It might work well live, but on the record, it seems a bit silly.

Far and away the best track is the “Hidden” track - “Your House”. I never liked the original, which was simply Morissette unaccompanied on vocals, this now feautres piano, and is all the better for it.

Morrissette has never acheived the same success in the UK as she had with Jagged Little Pill, and this album could be seen as a deliberate cash-in. However, it does have its merits, but mainly as a companion album to the original. One for saturday night, the other for Sunday Morning.

Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill : Acoustic