Golden Stans 2010

Films seen in 2010: 73 (matching my all-time record recorded in 1993). Films qualifying for the Golden Stans 2010: 65 (I saw Iron Man 2, Toy Story 3 and Inception twice, and saw five old films). With that many films competing, inevitably there’s a lot of good work.

But first, I shall start with the Cone of Shame: my award for the worst movie of the year. I was tempted to throw it at Catherine Breillat’s flawed Bluebeard or the shocking disappointment that was Robin Hood, but neither have the wasted ‘ambition’ of The Tourist nor the arrogance of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Biutiful. The Tourist is stacked to the rafters with real talent in front of and behind the camera, but in combination they completely misfire: you’ve got to get up pretty early to cock up the teaming of Depp and Jolie, but that’s precisely what is achieved. And Inarritu really needs to get over himself pretty damn quickly or nobody will be prepared to finance his over-bearing films. I can’t split Biutiful and The Tourist, so they each get a Cone of Shame to wear with 'pride'.

Moving on to the good stuff, the Golden Stan for Best Original Score goes to Randy Newman for Toy Story 3, if only for the score’s impact as the toys head towards the inferno and their apparent death. I should also mention (as ever) Clint Mansell, Darren Aronofsky’s composer of choice: not only is his adaptation of Swan Lake appropriately stirring and ‘heavy’, but also his own compositions add to the film’s rich experience.

My award for Best Cinematography goes to a hands down winner. There was some great work this year, notably from Martin Ruhe on The American, Matthew Libatique on Black Swan (and Iron Man 2), and Eduard Grau on A Single Man, but the outstanding winner has to be Javier Aguirresarobe for The Road. In my review of the latter, I said: “Javier Aguirresarobe’s cinematography (both the colours, the compositions, and the choice of lenses) is astounding - this backed by brilliant production design mean what’s left of the world is horribly real. Many of its images burn into the brain, there to stay.”

The Golden Stan for Best Adapted Screenplay goes without a moment’s hesitation to William Finkelstein for his reworking of Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant as Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call – New Orleans. However, he needs to share the award with director Werner Herzog, whose stamp is very clearly all over the movie. Their re-rendering of the story of a bent cop finding redemption is significantly better than the original while retaining its sheer madness.

The Golden Stan for Best Original Screenplay is a toughie: it’s Toy Story 3 v Black Swan v The King’s Speech (which although containing some adaptation is mostly original). For sheer balls, the award goes to Michael Arndt’s screenplay from the story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich for TS3. Definitely not a kids film!

So, on to the acting categories, and first it’s Best Supporting Actress. The nominees are:
• Helena Bonham Carter/The King’s Speech
• Lucy Gordon/Gainsbourg
• Barbara Hershey/Black Swan
• Julianne Moore/A Single Man
• Mary-Louise Parker/RED
• Soledad Villamil/The Secret In Their Eyes
It’s easy to forget how good HBC can be: the warmth and gravitas she conveys in The King’s Speech is ample reminder of her abilities. Also delivering a reminder was Barbara Hershey, botched nip n tuck and all, as the mother from hell, living vicariously through her daughter.
We’re used to knock-out performances from Julianne Moore: her fading fag-hag is another from the top drawer (and counteracts her by-the-numbers turn in The Kids Are All Right).
Mary-Louise Parker caught my eye (in every way!) in RED, her career kookiness working a treat here, stealing scenes from under the noses of Willis, Freeman, Mirren and Malkovich.
It’s easy to lose sight of Soledad Villamil in The Secret In Their Eyes, just as the hero does, but she takes a difficult role and really conjures a distinct human character out of it.
But the winner, and only the second posthumous winner of a Golden Stan, is Lucy Gordon for what should have been a career-making turn as Jane Birkin in Gainsbourg. She completely holds the attention, even against Eric Elmosnino as Serge himself, but there are hints in her performance of whatever troubled her enough to take her life at the age of 28. A great loss.

Next is Best Supporting Actor. The nominees are:
• Tom Hardy/Inception
• Jude Law/Sherlock Holmes
• Pablo Rago/The Secret In Their Eyes
• Sam Rockwell/Iron Man 2
• Mark Ruffalo/The Kids Are All Right
• Geoffrey Rush/The King’s Speech
Tom Hardy stole Inception from under the entire cast’s noses, and now finds himself as a Chris Nolan regular with a big role in Bats 3.
Jude Law was a surprise in Sherlock Holmes: he’s always better playing a foil than being the protagonist – his put-upon Watson is a joy to watch.
Another actor who seems to fare better as a supporting player is Mark Ruffalo, his rogueish charm deployed to brilliant tragi-comic effect – even though his character is unjustly treated by the ridiculous script.
Making the most of an indifferent script was Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer: quite possibly the finest comedic comic book villain on screen since Gene Hackman in Superman. It’s bad enough that you’ve got to share screentime with Downey, Cheadle, Rourke and Paltrow, but when you’ve got to play a gutless fop too you could be excused for backing away: instead, Rockwell takes it on the chin.
Making the most of an astonishing script and having to face up to Colin Firth is Geoffrey Rush. Assured throughout, Rush gets to revel in both his comedic and dramatic skills.
But the winner is Pablo Rago: the journey of suffering his widower goes on is truly something to behold, made all the more poignant by the final reveal. Superb stuff.

Next is the award for Best Actress. The nominees are:
• Annette Bening/The Kids Are All Right
• Jennifer Lawrence/Winter’s Bone
• Isild Le Besco/Deep In The Woods
• Chloe Grace Moretz/Kick-Ass, and Let Me In
• Natalie Portman/Brothers, and Black Swan
• Emma Stone/Easy A
• Tilda Swinton/I Am Love
• Michelle Williams/Blue Valentine
There are a number of new faces here. Let’s start with Chloe Grace Moretz, who absolutely embodies Hit-Girl in Kick-Ass and has a fine stab at the vampyr in Let Me In: is she the new Jodie Foster or Natalie Portman?
Emma Stone almost stole Zombieland in 2009, and, in 2010, Easy A was her introduction to the A-list: let’s hope she’s not the new Lindsay Lohan or Alicia Silverstone – do a great high-school comedy and then disappear into tabloid-led career oblivion. It will be intriguing to see how she fares as Gwen Stacey in the Spidey reboot: for my money she would make a better MJ (I would happily take a second mortgage to see her say to Pete: “Face it tiger, you just hit the jackpot.”).
Jennifer Lawrence made a huge splash with her searing performance in Winter’s Bone and should be a contender at every event during awards season.
Also excelling in difficult, challenging, grim roles were Michelle Williams and Isild Le Besco: the darker parts of the psyche is where these actresses work best.
Tilda Swinton is predictably brilliant as the wayward matriach in I Am Love, although the film left me a little cold.
Annette Bening is Hollywood royalty and delivers a 'less is more' lesson to Julianne Moore in The Kids Are All Right. Oscar might yet favour her over everyone else.
But I’m favouring Natalie Portman for her poles apart roles in Brothers and Black Swan. She suffers with grace, and always there’s that fragility, but in both roles she displayed a previously undiscovered power and indeed eroticism. Black Swan may be the role that comes to define her. The challenge for Portman now, if she chooses to accept it, is to plot her comeback from early award wins and pregnancy better than Gwyneth did…

OK, now it’s Actor. Here are the nominees:
• Yvan Attal/Rapt
• Nicolas Cage/Kick-Ass, and Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call – New Orleans
• George Clooney/The American
• Ricardo Darin/The Secret In Their Eyes
• Romain Duris/Heartbreaker
• Eric Elmosnino/Gainsbourg
• Will Ferrell/Everything Must Go
• Colin Firth/The King’s Speech, and A Single Man
• Edgar Ramirez/Carlos
• Andy Serkis/Sex & Drugs & Rock n Roll
I make no apologies for there being 10 actors on this list not very shortlist. Let’s deal with some of the less obvious choices from less seen films first. Romain Duris gave a comedic masterclass in Heartbreaker, while countryman Yvan Attal showed great control as the kidnap victim in Rapt. Another Frenchman Eric Elmosnino was riveting as Serge Gainsbourg.
Staying with the Johnny Foreigners, Edgar Ramirez was astonishing as Carlos, completely owning the role and commanding the audience’s attention, and Ricardo Darin might just be the Argentine George Clooney, conjuring so many different moods all in minor keys in The Secret In Their Eyes.
The boy Clooney added another conflicted man to his collection, while Nic Cage went mental in the best possible way in both Kick-Ass and Bad Lieutenant.
Will Ferrell delivered the goods in his best dramatic role, underplaying at the right moments.
Andy Serkis raged and soared as Ian Dury – a performance that should define him as much as Gollum.
Finally, Colin Firth delivered two career-best performances in A Single Man and The King’s Speech. In the first, he was reflective, mournful and suicidal, while in the latter he successfully overcomes carrying the weight of a nation and the weight of a disappointed father’s expectations; both roles could easily have been served by a typical Brit performance, but Firth brings extra dimensions and unexpected layers of humanity to both roles. If an award had to be made for greatest living Englishman, Firth would have to be on the shortlist.
But the award here is the Golden Stan for Best Actor, so arise Colin Firth.

Now, the penultimate award: Best Director. The nominees are:
• Darren Aronofsky/Black Swan
• Juan Jose Campanella/The Secret In Their Eyes
• Anton Corbijn/The American
• David Fincher/The Social Network
• Tom Ford/A Single Man
• Werner Herzog/Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call – New Orleans
• Tom Hooper/The King’s Speech
• Christopher Nolan/Inception
• Lee Unkrich/Toy Story 3
• Matthew Vaughn/Kick-Ass
Again, the shortlist is not short: there’s so much great work to recognise. There are distinct auteurs in the traditional sense on the list: Aronofsky delivers his best vision yet with Black Swan; Herzog takes Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant and makes it his own (complete with his own madness: you gotta love the iguanas!); Nolan justified Warners’ faith in him with the most talked-about film ending of the year; and Fincher confirmed the maturity he displayed on Button (with the exception of the one, hokey stunt shot).
Ford and Corbijn brought a great visual sense to their works, although the former was guilty of over-egging as I reviewed at the time.
Hooper and Vaughn should be celebrated as British directors displaying terrific range; indeed the latter may just be our most versatile mainstream director (delete the mainstream from that phrase and you must settle on Michael Winterbottom).
And Unkrich and Campanella serve their stories first admirably.
But the outstanding winner for conjuring an unforgettable film has to be Darren Aronofsky, collecting his second win in this category. Black Swan simply defines the term auteur: there is no part of the film that does not bear the stamp of Aronofsky.

Finally, the big one: Best Film. There were so many great films in 2010 that completely held my attention, that made me happy to be in the cinema. In alphabetical order, here they are:
• A Single Man: eye-watering visuals and Colin Firth’s performance.
• Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call – New Orleans: Herzog takes another auteur’s film and creates his own vision; defies description!
• Carlos: vast, sprawling terrorist chic; falls short of its ambition ultimately, but it demands to be seen.
• Everything Must Go: a lighter companion piece to Up In The Air, another reflection on the impact of the recession.
• Exit Through The Gift Shop: immensely enjoyable fraud!
• Heartbreaker: probably already being remade by a Hollywood studio, the French show how rom-com should be done.
• Inception: Nolan’s big risk paid off big time for Warners and captured the imagination of audience’s worldwide; in a sense, old school film-making – it all starts with a really strong idea.
• Iron Man 2: oh, it had its issues, but there were so many individual elements that I enjoyed. Bring on Thor, Cap and the Avengers!
• Kick-Ass: the best superhero movie of 2010 by some distance. Next for Vaughn: X-Men First Class…
• The American: I really liked the grounded, 70s feel of this excellent thriller. Surely the George Clooney weekender can’t be far off…
• The King’s Speech: Colin Firth again; only one film made me blub more than this (TS3, natch); at a time when the UK is in the doldrums, a more fitting example of not accepting failure, indeed a rallying cry, is hard to think of.
• The Secret In Their Eyes: its impact is unexpected given the potential for the script to have been executed in a run of the mill fashion; sometimes a cast and crew can create chemistry that is greater than the sum of its (already excellent) parts.
• The Social Network: massively enjoyable, but undoubtedly a little over-reviewed; a massive indictment of what will happen to humanity if we leave inter-personal communication to those who can’t communicate.
But the two films that took me to other worlds, that were genuinely immersive, experiential cinema, that made me squirm in my seat (for completely different reasons) were, of course, TS3 and Black Swan.

I’ve already debated at length their merits, and so far they’ve both won two Golden Stans. They are both genuinely brilliant films made with love, care and intelligence. Having to choose one to receive the Best Film award and let the other walk away with nothing leaves me uncomfortable, but a singular winner there must be.
It would be easy to be swayed by the melancholy and joy that is shot through TS3, but in the end the sheer artistic vision and execution of Black Swan gives the lesbian ballerina psycho-chiller the Golden Stan for Best Film.

Bring on 2011!

2011 film preview

So, 2010 is nearly at an end, and thus it is time to look forward to 2011. Here are just some of the cinematic delights to look forward to and quite probably some filmic horrors to avoid.

7 January
The King’s Speech
Outstanding! Awards ahoy for Colin Firth. A must see.

127 Hours
Danny Boyle’s follow-up to Slumdog.

The Next Three Days
The new Paul Haggis.

14 January
Green Hornet
Seth Rogen is the Green Hornet… Will anyone care?

Conviction
Hilary Swank’s latest Oscar bait…

21 January
Black Swan
Amazing: see it or die having lived a worthless life!

Morning Glory
The lovely Rachel McAdam stars with Harrison Ford doing comedy.

The Dilemma
Ron Howard directs Vince Vaughn and Winona Ryder.

28 January
Biutiful
The latest Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Poorly reviewed by me.

Hereafter
Clint Eastwood’s first foray into fantasy/chiller territory. Matt Damon stars.

Barney’s Version
A curmudgeonly Paul Giamatti is the reason to see this.

4 February
The Fighter
David O Russell’s Golden Globe-nominated boxing movie. Great reviews everywhere.

Rabbit Hole
Nicole Kidman’s latest Oscar bait…

Brighton Rock
A remake of a classic.

11 February
True Grit
The Coens remake a classic.

Never Let Me Go
Austere fantasy Brit-flick with the best of young Britain: Keira, Andrew Garfield and Carey Mulligan.

No Strings Attached
This year’s Valentine’s movie. I only mention it because of Natalie Portman’s 'appearance' in the poster art to the left…

The Beaver
Jodie Foster directs Mel Gibson as an emotionally crippled high flyer in business who finds that he can only communicate via a beaver glove puppet.

18 February
Paul
The new Simon Pegg/Nick Frost.

25 February
The Rite
This appears to be Anthony Hopkins doing the Exorcist.

4 March
The Adjustment Bureau
Third month of the year, third Matt Damon film after Hereafter and True Grit. It's a Philip K Dick adaptation.

Fair Game
Based on a true story. Doug Liman directs Naomi Watts and Sean Penn in this anti-US espionage thriller.

11 March
Source Code
The new Duncan ‘Moon’ Jones.

18 March
The Eagle
Kevin ‘Touching The Void’ Macdonald does swords and sandals epic in the Roman army.

25 March
Sucker Punch
Zack Snyder’s latest slice of pseudo-B-movie horror.

World Invasion: Battle LA
When aliens attack LA… Cue big effects.

15 April
Red Riding Hood
Catherine ‘Twilight’ Hardwicke directs the fairy tale with Amanda Seyfried in the lead – lucky wolf!

29 April
Thor
The trailer looks fantastic. Natalie Portman’s third film of the year. Will Branagh deliver?

18 May
Pirates 4
Depp, but no Orlando or Keira.

27 May
The Hangover II
I didn’t think the original was all that, but it was a huge success, so here’s the sequel.

2 June
X-Men: First Class
The Kick-Ass team bring us the origin of the X-Men. It should be good.

17 June
Green Lantern
Can DC do for the Green Lantern what Marvel did for Iron Man? As the third superhero movie of the year and given the unconvincing trailer, I have my doubts.

29 June
Transformers 3
Yawn…

15 July
Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows Part 2
The end at last for Mr Potter.

22 July
Captain America
Please, please, please let it be brilliant.

3 August
The Smurfs
Where are they coming from?

12 August
Cowboys & Aliens
Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford are the cowboys…

9 September
War Horse
The Oscar campaign starts here: Spielberg does the award-winning play.

16 September
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Gary Oldman is Smiley.

7 October
Real Steel
Bizarre sci-fi boxing fable in which Hugh Jackman is the coach to a robot boxer: WTF?

21 October
Contagion
The new Steve Soderbergh.

26 October
Tintin
Spielberg and friends deliver motion-capture animation adaptation of the beloved comics.

28 October
The Woman In Black
Daniel Radcliffe stars in this classic adaptation.

Straw Dogs
A remake of Sam Peckinpah’s classic. Intriguing intellectually; could be utterly shit in the execution though.

18 November
Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1
The penultimate part of the bloodless, sexless vampire saga.

1 December
Dredd
Karl Urban is The Law.

16 December
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
Tom Cruise’s latest attempt to star in a genuine hit. Brad Bird directs. Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner co-star.

Sherlock Holmes 2
A welcome sequel to Guy Ritchie’s interpretation of the Great Detective.

26 December
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
David Fincher directs the US remake of the international best seller. What can this master director bring to this nasty tale?

Movies for the three days of Christmas

So, Steve has set me a challenge entitled Yuletide films. My mission should I choose to accept it is to come up with a list of three films, one each to be screened on xmas eve, xmas day and Boxing Day.

Here’s Steve’s criteria for each of the three films:
• Xmas eve: should have a feel good quality with a dollop of goodwill to all men
• Xmas day: a Saturday morning pictures feel, epic in length, monsters, heroes, all the trimmings
• Boxing day: with the new year upon us, a time to reflect and look to the future.

For the record, Steve’s choices are respectively:
• Amelie
• Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
• Gattaca

So, after some thought, here’s my choice if I was doing it this year (in a year’s time my choice may well be different…):
• Xmas eve: Dean Spanley – funny and very moving; great character actors (Peter O’Toole, Sam Neill and Bryan Brown); the damaging effects of war and the transmigration of the soul all dealt with a light touch that belies the intelligence of those executing this modern classic. Best line: “Giving women the vote is like giving a cow a gun: it’s against nature.” Defies description and expectation.

• Xmas day: Superman The Movie & Superman II – the definitive super hero movie. Yes, that’s right the two should be treated as one. Simply the best characterisation of Clark/Superman ever in the body of Christopher Reeve, the greatest Lois Lane, plus great villains in Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor and Terrence Stamp’s General Zod, and all round great support. Truly the hero’s journey as it was meant to be told. Plus one of the top three most stirring soundtracks (clearly the other two are Star Wars and Indy Jones) ever. Comedy, tragedy, drama and rampant heroism combined in one heady mixture.

• Boxing day: Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind – intelligent, funny, heart-breaking, challenging with career-best performances from Jim Carrey and the comely Kate Winslet. This never ceases to astound. Of course, it’s about love: the beginning of, the middle of and the end of, and then its possible rebirth. Its also a reminder of the power of memory, and how our past can dictate our future - but only if we let it.

Golden Globe 2010 nominations

The film critics of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have got awards season rolling with a selection of Golden Globe-nominated films that is both expected and surprising.

Not unexpectedly, The King's Speech leads the field with 7 noms: a 100% strike rate. Its three principal cast members - Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and HBC - all receive noms as does the director, Tom Hooper. Next up, and still going with form, is The Social Network on 6 noms.

However, next comes the first (good) surprise: David O Russell's The Fighter has also nabbed 6 noms, including those for all three principal cast members.

A clutch of releases have grabbed 4: Black Swan; Inception; and The Kids Are All Right.

Other nice surprises include: RED justly getting a nod; the performances of Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine getting recognition; Emma Stone being nominated for her potentially career-making turn in Easy A; and Jeremy Renner being noted for his role in The Town.

But, good god, the mind-numbing shocks are plentiful: let's start with the international embarrassment that is The Tourist - it's got 3 noms for Best Film, Actor (for Johnny Depp's off-kilter act) and Actress (Angelina Jolie in quite possibly her worst ever performance by some considerable magnitude). Hello????? And to add insult to injury, Depp picks up a second nom for Alice In Wonderland (also recognised for Best Film). WTF????

Matching its flop status, Burlesque garners just 3 noms - and a pair of them are for songs. And perhaps a little surprising is that 127 Hours didn't get a nod for Best Film.

Predicting winners is not easy at this early stage, but it's hard to see Toy Story 3, Colin Firth and Annette Bening being beaten in their respective categories. And the HFPA critics may be more open to Black Swan than Academy members...

Best Motion Picture - Drama
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The King's Speech
The Social Network

Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Alice in Wonderland
Burlesque
The Kids Are All Right
Red
The Tourist

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama
Jesse Eisenberg for The Social Network
Colin Firth for The King's Speech
James Franco for 127 Hours
Ryan Gosling for Blue Valentine
Mark Wahlberg for The Fighter

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama
Halle Berry for Frankie and Alice
Nicole Kidman for Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence for Winter's Bone
Natalie Portman for Black Swan
Michelle Williams for Blue Valentine

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Johnny Depp for The Tourist
Johnny Depp for Alice in Wonderland
Paul Giamatti for Barney's Version
Jake Gyllenhaal for Love and Other Drugs
Kevin Spacey for Casino Jack

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right
Anne Hathaway for Love and Other Drugs
Angelina Jolie for The Tourist
Julianne Moore for The Kids Are All Right
Emma Stone for Easy A

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Christian Bale for The Fighter
Michael Douglas for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Andrew Garfield for The Social Network
Jeremy Renner for The Town
Geoffrey Rush for The King's Speech

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Amy Adams for The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter for The King's Speech
Mila Kunis for Black Swan
Melissa Leo for The Fighter
Jacki Weaver for Animal Kingdom

Best Director
Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan
David Fincher for The Social Network
Tom Hooper for The King's Speech
Christopher Nolan for Inception
David O. Russell for The Fighter

Best Screenplay
127 Hours
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
The Social Network

Best Animated Film
Despicable Me
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Tangled
Toy Story 3

Best Foreign Language Film
Biutiful (Mexico/Spain)
The Concert (France)
The Edge (Russia)
I Am Love (Italy)
In a Better World (Denmark)

Black Swan -v- Toy Story 3

With only a handful of films to see until the end of the year, it is highly unlikely that anything will come close to matching my two favourite films of the year: Toy Story 3 and Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan.

Without prejudicing the outcome of the Golden Stans, it is clear that those two films are head and shoulders above the rest – I gave both 10 out of 10. So, how on earth am I going to decide which is the best film of the year?

A colleague suggested the following scenario to isolate the winner:
• If you had to watch one of the two every day for the rest of your life, which would it be? In effect, which one would stand up to be repeated viewing?
He also suggested the following scenario to isolate the loser:
• Which one could you live with never seeing again?

Black Swan’s body horror elements would count against it for repeated viewing (I really don’t need to see Natalie Portman removing a toe nail in gory detail ever again), but the sheer depth of intelligence and craft infused in all aspects of the film’s creation and execution mean repeated viewing would always provide fresh insight.

Although, thinking about it, Black Swan takes you so deep into a fractured mind that repeated viewing would mean the viewer’s own psyche would begin to ape that of Natalie Portman’s ballerina… And that’s not healthy!

Toy Story 3 would, I believe, repay repeated viewing, what with the Pixar boys and girls embedding so many gags and character insights deep within the virtual sets. Certainly, there’s more humour in TS3 than Black Swan, which would make watching it every day for the rest of my life less of an endurance test than watching Black Swan. But where the ballet chiller has body horror and shocks that can be hard to stomach, TS3 actually ties my entire body, stomach included, in knots: the emotional weight pulls you under; could I really watch the toys going to the incinerator again, even though I know the outcome?
And, frankly, if compelled to watch TS3 every day, I’d need a companion to hug me afterwards and dry my tears, each and every time.

So that still leaves the two films at honours even…

Both are equally brave. TS3 could so easily killed off the franchise: it has the courage of its convictions, reminding us early on how hideously cruel life can be and how that cruelty can come from unexpected quarters, whether intentionally or not. It looks like a kids film, but really it’s a film for adults, especially those no longer in the first flush of youth; it’s a countdown to retirement, it places the heroes and the audience in death’s waiting room.

Aronofsky, The Wrestler having just reignited his career after the perceived epic failure of The Fountain, flirted with career suicide again by opting for Black Swan as his next project. A chiller about a neurotic ballerina, with strong lesbian overtones, body horror scenes, and quite possibly the most disturbed mother since Norman Bates’s does not, on the face of it, sound like a critics’ darling – and yet that is precisely what it has become. The film could so easily have collapsed under its own weight, yet the thoroughness of Aronofsky’s approach elevates the film beyond its source material’s potential for shlock treatment.

Although, if you want disturbed, what about the monkey in TS3? Now that is shocking!

Ultimately, both TS3 and Black Swan follow the line that great art should challenge the audience rather than comfort them.

If Black Swan has a problem, it’s that it is a trifle one-sided: as interesting as the other characters are (and as good as the actors are who play them), its focus is entirely on Natalie Portman’s uptight, fucked up ballerina. In contrast, TS3 benefits from a fully fleshed-out cast of a dozen or more…

Where does this leave me? I just don’t know, I still can’t decide. The Golden Stans will be announced on 31 December, so I’d better get my skates on…

London Film Festival and me

So, here’s the list of every film I’ve seen at the London Film Festival since 1993. With the 2016 Festival completed, I have seen 421 films.

Only once I have managed the holy trinity of the opening night and closing night galas and the surprise film (in 1999). However, I have seen the surprise (highlighted in bold) eight times.

1993:
The Accompanist
The Wrong Trousers
The Tin Line, The Cross and The Curve
Short Cuts
Twenty Bucks
Silent Tongue

1995:
Dangerous Minds
Smoke
Dead Presidents
In The Bleak Mid-Winter
Clockers

1996:
American Buffalo
Bound
She’s The One
Sleepers
Crimetime
The Long Kiss Goodnight

1997:
Afterglow
Mojo
Mimic
Affliction
Regeneration
Metroland
Shooting Stars
The Winner
The James Gang
Stiff Upper Lips

1998:
The Mighty
B Monkey
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
Victory
Playing God
Rounders
Final Cut
Gods & Monsters
The Opposite Of Sex
Two Girls And A guy

1999:
Opening night: Ride With The Devil
The Bridge
Girl On The Bridge
Happy Texas
Summer Of Sam
Legend Of 1900
The Insider
Onegin
The Criminal
Tube Tales
The Straight Story
Hurlyburly
Simpatico
Closing night: American Beauty

2000:
Shadow Of The Vampire
Sade
Animal Factory
Requiem For A Dream
The Big Kahuna
Prime Gig
The Yards
The Dish
Way Of The Gun
American Nightmare
Verbal Assault
Cecil B Demented
About Adam
Small Time Crooks
Beautiful Creatures
Trixie
Weight Of Water
The Exorcist: The Director’s Cut

2001:
The Piano Teacher
The Cat’s Meow
The Pornographer
Pollock
Last Orders
And Your Mother Too
Bank
Dark Blue World
Lakeboat
Bandits
Mulholland Drive
The Warrior
The Emperor’s New Clothes
Apocalypse Now Redux
Sex And Lucia
IVANSXTC
Birthday Girl

2002:
Opening night: Dirty Pretty Things
Leo
Every Stewardess Goes To Heaven
The Quiet American
The Magdalene Sisters
Bowling For Columbine
Antwone Fisher
Rabbit-Proof Fence
Four Feathers
My Mother’s Smile
The Kid Stays in The Picture
Full Frontal
The Pianist
8 Mile
The Dancer Upstairs
Lundi Matin
Punch Drunk Love
The Other Side Of The Bed
Far From Heaven
Welcome To Collinwood

2003:
Opening night: In The Cut
Seabiscuit
The Human Stain
Touching The Void
Strayed
Lost In Translation
Girl With A Pearl Earring
I’m Not Scared
21 Grams
The Shape Of Things
A Mighty Wind
School Of Rock
Perfect Strangers
The Dreamers
It’s All About Love
Grand Theft Parsons

2004:
We Don’t Live Here Anymore
Garden State
Bad Santa
Osmosis
Tarnation
Hotel
Napoleon Dynamite
Stander
Maria Full Of Grace
2046
Paths Of Glory
The Woodsman
Sideways
Melinda And Melinda
DEBS
Closing night: I Heart Huckabees

2005:
Elizabethtown
Election
L’Enfer
The Matador
Separate Lies
Bubble
Burnt Out
Tapas
The Proposition
Les Revenants
Walk The Line
The King
Hidden
Mirrormask
Mrs Henderson Presents
Keane
Lower City
Closing night: Good Night, And Good Luck

2006:
The Singer
Born And Bred
The Missing Star
A Soap
Black Book
The Caiman
Little Children
Shortbus
As The Shadow
Bobby
Half Nelson
For Your Consideration
Fast Food Nation
Dr Strangelove
Buenos Aires 1977
Lola
Hollywoodland

2007:
Opening night: Eastern Promises
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
Lions For Lambs
I Always Wanted To Be A Gangster
Sicko
Things We Lost In The Fire
Into The Wild
Rescue Dawn
Grace Is Gone
Son Of Rambow
Talk To Me
Mataharis
Savage Grace
No Country For Old Men
Mister Lonely
I’m Not There
The Savages
Chaotic Anna
Far North
Juno
Reservation Road

2008:
Dean Spanley
The Other Man
Frost/Nixon
Religulous
The Class
A Perfect Day
A Christmas Tale
Warlords
Anvil! The Story Of Anvil
Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
Broken Lines
W
Frozen River
Waltz With Bashir
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Not Quite Hollywood
Genova
Hamlet 2
The Wrestler
Che Part 1
Gonzo
The Baader Meinhof Complex
The Brothers Bloom
Revanche
Che Part 2
Synecdoche, New York
Closing night: Slumdog Millionaire

2009:
The Men Who Stare At Goats
Cold Souls
Micmacs
The Double Hour
44-Inch Chest
Bellamy
Up In The Air
Balibo
London River
Kicks
Valhalla Rising
American: The Bill Hicks Story
Chloe
A Grand Day Out
Don’t Worry About Me
The Disappearance Of Alice Creed
Air Doll
The Traveller
Vincere
The Informant!
Regrets
Taking Woodstock
Lebanon
Giulia Doesn’t Date At Night

2010:
Carlos Parts One, Two & Three
Blue Valentine
Home By Christmas
Everything Must Go
The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople
Cold Weather
The American
Womb
The King’s Speech
Submarine
Sensation
Lemmy
Deep In The Woods
Black Swan
How I Ended This Summer
Puzzle
The Kids Are All Right
Copacabana
Biutiful

2011:
50/50
360
Rampart
Restless
The Loneliest Planet
Wreckers
Coriolanus
Dark Horse
Nobody Else But You
Snowtown
We Need To Talk About Kevin
Superheroes
Chicken With Plums
Terri
Let The Bullets Fly
The Descendants
The Ides Of March
Carnage
Bernie
Take Shelter
The Descendants
The Monk
Damsels In Distress
Uncle Kent
Silver Bullets
A Dangerous Method
Anonymous
The Awakening
This Must Be The Place

2012:
Blood
Spike Island
Robot And Frank
A Fish
For No Good Reason
Grassroots
End Of Watch
Room 237
Beware Of Mr Baker
Rust And Bone
In The House
I, Anna
Dead Europe
A Liar's Autobiography
Everybody Has A Plan
Argo
Hyde Park On Hudson
Compliance
The Late Great Graham Chapman
Jeffrey Dahmer
Seven Psychopaths
Song For Marion
Lawrence Of Arabia
Sightseers
Celeste And Jesse Forever
Kiss Of The Damned

2013:
Adore
Doll & Em
Mystery Road
Nebraska
Gravity
The Congress
Jodorowsky's Dune
All Cheerleaders Die
The Double
Under The Skin
The Zero Theorem
11.6
Jeune et Jolie
All Is Lost
Labor Day
Night Moves
Philomena
Don Jon
Parkland
Inside Llewyn Davis
1
Weekend Of A Champion
12 Years A Slave
The Invisible Woman

2014:
The Imitation Game
Monsters: Dark Continent
Men, Women & Children
In Darkness We Fall
French Riviera
The Drop
The New Girlfriend
Queen And Country
The Mule
Rosewater
Zero Motivation
The Keeping Room
The Salvation
A Second Chance
Whiplash
Love Is Strange
Serena
The Green Prince
Son Of A Gun
The Face Of An Angel
The White-haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom
The Silent Storm
A Little Chaos

2015:
Grandma
21 Nights With Pattie
Trumbo
Land Of Mine
High-Rise
A Bigger Splash
The Program
Bone Tomahawk
Elstree 1976
My Nazi Legacy
Very Big Shot
Black Mass
11 Minutes
The Assassin
The Lobster
The Lady In The Van
Carol
Desierto
Youth
Steve McQueen & Le Mans
Victoria
Schneider vs Bax
Ruben Guthrie
Guilty
Truth
Remember

2016:
The Tower
La La Land
Frantz
Private Property
Manchester By The Sea
Mindhorn
Bleed For This
Scribe
Christine
Arrival
Elle
Lovesong
Goldstone
Fury Of A Patient Man
Planetarium
Porto
The Reunion
Their Finest
The Autopsy Of Jane Doe
Brimstone
The Ghoul
Nocturnal Animals
Don't Think Twice
Dog Eat Dog
Prevenge
Trespass Against Us
Free Fire

Best of the festival part 3

How I Ended This Summer
This is a Russian examination of the impact of cabin fever on two scientists working in the Arctic Circle.

With nothing but themselves, the howling wind and a hungry polar bear for company, veteran Sergei and summer-jobbing Pavel oh-so gradually descend into madness. No good can come of the secrets Pavel is keeping from Sergei and inevitably violence erupts.

The emotions of Sergei and Pavel, and indeed the approach of director Alexei Popopgrebsky, are as cold as their surroundings. This is an almost tortuously slow two-hander that nevertheless is possessed of its own power.

Worth checking it out if it appears on TV and you’ve got two hours to kill. No need to seek it out at the cinema though.
Score: 6/10

Puzzle
This low key Argentine drama seemed to lose a lot in translation.

It focuses on a traditional Argentine mousewife, Maria and her journey to independence (well, of sorts). As the film opens, we see her working her socks off, catering at her own birthday party. It swiftly emerges that she’s obsessed with puzzles – an obsession that is barely tolerated by her husband.

She slowly begins to liberate herself from her shackles by answering an ad from a puzzle-solving champion seeking a partner to enter the next national tournament. Inevitably, this sparks further unexpected changes in her life.

Occasionally interesting, but Maria’s journey fails to hold attention.
Score: 4/10

The Kids Are All Right
Over-hyped and over here! This comedy-drama arrives with a strong wind behind it, but don’t be fooled: this is simply enjoyable, nothing more and nothing less.

Uptight Annette Bening and free spirit Julianne Moore are the apparently perfect lesbian couple, each having used the same sperm donor to get pregnant a few years apart: they have the perfect sports-loving son and diligent daughter. Their idyll is thrown into chaos when the children decide to meet their ‘father’ – whom Moore falls for.

The chaos Mark Ruffalo creates changes the children and their mothers, gradually revealing the seething resentment below the surface in any long-lasting relationship. Consequences are both funny and dramatic.

But don’t believe the hype: it is not hilariously funny, nor is it a tear-jerker – it is simply funny and touching.

Ruffalo and Moore are predictably excellent, but Bening is the star: it’s so long since I’ve seen her on screen that I had forgotten just how good she can be.

However, I’ve docked a point from the film’s score for some of its clichéd touches and also for its final treatment of Ruffalo (which seems entirely unfair).
Score: 6.5/10

Copacabana
Shock, horror, hold the front page, etc: Isabelle Huppert does comedy! France’s darkest actress has a lighter side!

Copacabana is effectively a French spin on the Ab Fab set-up: Babou, the immature, wild child mother, and Esme, the mature, uptight daughter (played by Huppert’s real daughter Lolita Chammah).

After one particularly painful fall-out between the two, Babou takes a job trying to sell timeshare apartments to tourists in bracing Ostend. Almost in spite of herself, she begins to succeed – but that can’t last for long… Nevertheless, a happy ending is fashioned.

Enjoyable but really for Huppert watchers only.
Score: 6/10

Biutiful
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu: I’m calling you out! With each film, this director gets worse! Look at his downward spiral: Amores Peros, 21 Grams, Babel, and now Biutiful.

It would appear that the combination of the very best talent in front of and behind the camera is obscuring this very clear case of the emporer’s new clothes.

Let’s deal with the positives: this tale of a petty criminal having to deal with grievous issues not only in his ‘professional’ and love lives but also with his health is carried by the brooding presence of Javier Bardem (the world’s greatest actor since de Niro turned to comedy?) – you cannot take your eyes off him; Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography is predictably excellent; and the view of Barcelona’s rancid underbelly is refreshing as Vicky Cristina Barcelona’s picture postcard view was clichéd and embarrassing.

Let’s deal with the negatives: Inarritu is co-writer and director as thus the script and the film’s structural weaknesses lie with him. The ‘spiritual’ element he brings to bear falls entirely limp, while his attempt at conjuring a grand, modern tragedy is dashed on the rocks of his own pretension and his need to pile so many concepts into one film.

But at least he’s learnt to tell a story in sequence… for what it’s worth!

Watch it for Bardem if you must, but do not be fooled: this is not great art.
My suggestion to Inarritu is simple: just concentrate on directing and let someone else come up with the idea and the script.
Score: 4/10

Review: Black Swan

Without a doubt, Black Swan is not only the best film of the 2010 London Film Festival, but possibly the best film I have seen at any LFF since my first in 1993.

Black Swan is a psychological chiller directed with control and panache by Darren Aronofsky. It features a career-best performance from Natalie Portman that demands an Oscar, arresting visuals, precise editing, exacting sound, and a stirring score (both adapted and original by Aronofsky’s soundtrack artist of choice, Clint Mansell). It is the very essence of cinema; all the crucial elements of film are shown off to their maximum effect, creating a piece that is never less than utterly compelling – you forget you are watching a film in a cinema; it is a transformative, immersive experience.

The film charts the progress of a young ballerina, Nina (Portman), as she strives to attain perfection – in order to satisfy herself and her domineering mother (a really rather scary Barbara Hershey). Picked for the part of the White Queen in Swan Lake, she and her artistic director Vincent Cassel have concerns about her ability to unleash her dark side in order to convincingly play the Black Swan.

Under pressure from herself, her mother, her artistic director and the other ballerinas, Nina’s psyche begins to disintegrate. Both she and we the audience struggle to discern her dreams and nightmares from reality. But as her psyche collapses, so her dark side emerges, apparently egged on in an ever decreasing circle by her confused relationship with fellow ballerina, possible rival and lover Lily (Mila Kunis).

Lily is all that Nina isn’t: confident, avowedly sexual, a risk-taker, possessed of greater freedom of artistic expression while dancing. Lily is the polar opposite of Nina: black to white. Is Lily the Black Swan? Is Lily just a projection of Nina’s desire, Fight Club-style?

Just as the film’s plot structure explicitly mirrors the plot of Swan Lake, so mirrors are a key feature of the film’s visual style, Nina gazing at her own reflection as a swan would at its own image in the water.

As with his previous effort, The Wrestler, Aronofsky focuses on the damage the art of ballet inflicts on both body and soul. Portman, naturally petite and slim, has perfected the ballerina’s ridiculous physique: slimmer still, but all muscle. Aronofsky then details unsparingly the corruption of her body: broken toe nails (that need to be removed – all too graphically, you have been warned), cracked bones, strained muscles, etc. In this unrelenting examination of her body and the associated body horror (I can’t recall a film that has caused me to look away from the screen so many times), Aronofsky’s approach strongly evokes the psycho-sexual analyses of dark cinemas three greatest artists: Cronenberg, Polanski and Lynch.

Indeed, the way in which Aronofsky and Portman conjure eroticism and horror within frames of each other is pure Cronenberg and Lynch. The masturbation scene ends unexpectedly with a primal shock, while the Nina/Lily seduction scene (who’s seducing who?) is possessed of a charge that knocks Atom Egoyan’s lesbian stalker drama Chloe into a cocked hat.

As much as all the supporting cast are excellent, this is Portman’s movie. I cannot think of any other actress that could have summoned the performance that Portman does. In a sense, what she does with Nina is what Heath Ledger did with The Joker in The Dark Knight.

You don’t have to like ballet to enjoy Black Swan, but you’ll need a strong stomach to watch it. It will scare you (you’re never more than 60 seconds away from a shock), but it will move you too.

Don’t wait for the DVD: Black Swan demands to be seen on the best cinema screen you can find.
Score: 10/10

Best of the festival part 2

The King's Speech
Consumate populist film-making lifted to another level by an Oscar-worthy and possibly career-best performance from Colin Firth.

Director Tom Hooper follows up his portrayal of Cloughie in The Damned United with this moving, stirring tale of a man rising to his destiny, overcoming his stammer, and finding friendship (the key issue in focus in The Damned United).

Firth is Prince Albert, the Duke of York, crippled by an appalling stammer that makes the public speaking part of his job intolerably painful for him and any audience. As his father's health falters and his brother's adbication crisis looms, so the duke is persuaded to have one last attempt at speech therapy, this time putting his voice in the hands of Geoffrey Rush's controversial therapist, Lionel Logue.

It's a matter of historical record that Logue's approach worked, so the enjoyment in the film is the journey. And what enjoyment: the burgeoning friendship between Logue and the Duke, the underplayed banter between the two, the splendid support from the rest of the cast (notably Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Gambon and Guy Pearce), and the crisp direction from Hooper.

There are a few hokey, painting royalty biopic by numbers scenes, and the post-modern approach to some scenes and dialogue may be a little too knowing, but they don't detract from the film's impact.

Ultimately, the reason to see this is Firth (and Rush) - this should land him the Best Actor Oscar he should have won this year for A Single Man. As with Tom Ford's directorial debut, Firth's performance is all about the unspoken that's revealed by his face. A superb performance. A superb film that adds to cinema's rare analysis of male friendships.
Score: 9/10

Submarine
This is the first film directed by IT Crowd star Richard Ayoade. It’s a mostly heartwarming, occasionally curious, frequently laugh out loud funny coming of age story, adapted from the novel by Joe Dunthorne.

Oliver Tate is a 15-year old boy, anxious to win over the girl of his dreams, his classmate Jordana; he’s also anxious to help his parents through the rough patch they’re in and to ensure his mum (a delightful Sally Hawkins) doesn’t have an affair with an old flame (a scene-stealing Paddy Considine) who has moved in next door.

Ayoade directs with beginner’s verve, pulling stunts and failing to observe unwritten rules with abandon.

The two young leads – Craig Roberts and Yasmin Paige – are outstanding. Oliver’s attempt to seduce Jordana is possibly the most toe-curlingly embarrassing scene of the year.

However, everyone in the film is ‘unconventional’ as is the storytelling – and this deviation from the norm may put some off.
Score: 7.5/10

Sensation
This Irish farming sex comedy walks a very thin line – and just pulls it off.
Domhall Gleeson plays Donal, a sex-starved farmer’s son. The death of his father prompts him to meet a call-girl, Kim (Luanne Gordon), who wants to run her own ‘agency’.

Together, with the funds from the sale of the farm, the two become partners, both in romance and business – or are they? The leads’ true motivations are never entirely clear, and there are many bumps along the way for the pair.

Ultimately this plays like a more realistic, downbeat Risky Business. The two leads are great throughout, but their characters have considerably more depth than Tom Cruise’s and Rebecca de Mornay’s in that 80s classic. Indeed, there are many points in the film where the leads become unlikeable. The film delights in the machinations of a call girl setting up her own agency, but also has Kim reveal that having spent too long servicing clients’ desires means she is unable to reach orgasm with a boyfriend.

Patrick Ryan, who looks like Colin Farrell’s fat brother, is great as Donal’s slob of a mate Karl, always ready with a disgusting line to pop any pretension/apprehension on Donal’s part.
Score: 7.5/10

Lemmy
This documentary is neither fish nor fowl: it’s neither an authoritative history of the great man nor an insightful dissection of his character and psyche.
The filmmakers purport that this doc should be accessible to anyone, but, if you have no concept of Lemmy, Hawkwind, Motorhead and the world of heavy metal, this will be entirely lost on you.

The filmmakers spent three years filming Lemmy going about his life: playing computer games, drinking with Billy Bob Thornton, gambling in his local bar, touring with Motorhead, recording his soon to be released solo album, and discussing all the nick-nacks he’s collected (including that controversial mountain of Nazi memorabilia).

These sections are interspersed with both his peers (Hawkwind and Motorhead members alike) and those musicians who claim to have been inspired by Lemmy talking about him.

Lemmy is more approachable, less suspicious of the camera, than he appears in the film of the making of Ace of Spades. But the question remains after two hours: what have we learnt about Lemmy, and what, if anything, has he revealed about himself? The answer is: not a lot. A more fascinating, rigorous dissection of Lemmy is still required.
Score: 7/10

Deep In The Woods
Fearless performances from its two leads drive this psychological drama set in the rural France in the 1860s. Newcomer Nahuel Perez Biscayart is the near feral loner who is taken in by doctor’s daughter Isild le Besco’s father.

This act of kindness is almost immediately soiled by the loner apparently casting a spell over le Besco, she totally at his will even as she is conscious that she does not want to submit to his whims.

Effectively he kidnaps her, at which point the film becomes a race against time: will the authorities catch up with them before he has so entirely subjugated her that he no longer needs his magic to control her? Will she, in fact, turn tables on him?

The two leads are compelling screen presences – you can’t ignore them nor avert your gaze no matter how depraved their relationship becomes. More than Biscayart, Le Besco is astonishing: she may just be the new Isabelle Huppert – almost incapable of taking on a role that doesn’t push her to the darkest psychological places and seemingly comfortable with her body being used in all manner of ways.

However, this is a slow film, and has an air of nastiness about that it drives the viewer away. This came across to me as nothing more than a French period remake of Brimstone & Treacle.
Score: 5/10

Best of the festival part 1

Carlos
That’s Carlos the Jackal to you and me, one of the most notorious terrorists of the previous century.
Coming in at 5.5 hours, this is not a single movie, but a TV series that comprises three feature length parts. And it’s great ‘entertainment’.

Parts one and two are absolutely cracking, galloping along at a rate of knots that still leaves room for character development. We see the ‘birth’ of Carlos – the adopted nom de guerre and personality of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez – and follow his early years closely – almost too closely because you begin to cheer for him, as he moves from one terrorist atrocity to another.

As with so many other filmed fictions of gangsters/terrorists (Mesrine for example), the final part is not as strong as what came earlier – the bloated, paranoid petit bourgeois is revealed as Carlos drops off the media’s and security agencies’ radars. In the end, he’s as hollow as the next man.

Edgar Ramirez is simply astonishing in the lead role, speaking half a dozen languages with ease, capturing the insane charm that was supposedly typical of the man, and nailing Carlos’s physical changes without resorting to CGI.

This could easily be seen as a companion piece to the Baader Meinhof Complex, although it is not quite as strong and as satisfactory an experience as that German faction.
Score: 8/10

Blue Valentine
This US indie relationship drama is lifted from its emotional trauma by two searing performances from its attractive leads: Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams.

The film charts – in cross-cut, almost Memento-style fashion – the end and the beginning of the pair’s relationship. The beginning is, not unexpectedly, a more beguiling experience, the sparks flying as the two meet for the first time. The more challenging experience (for the viewer and the performers) is the end of the relationship: Gosling’s Dean has turned from passionate dreamer and romantic into an alcoholic and a waster, while Williams’ Cindy has disintegrated from the perfect girl next door to a bitter, loveless shell.

Both actors are at the top of the game, but it’s Williams who makes more an impact – I’ve never seen a duff performance from her, although it must be said that she is drawn to darker material than most actresses.

Definitely not a date movie! Or a post-break up movie!
Score: 6.5/10

Home By Christmas
This documentary about the memories of a New Zealand WWII veteran fails to scale the heights I expected.

Director Gaylene Preston made audio recordings of a series of interviews she conducted with her late father, Ed, shortly before he died in the early 90s. In those interviews, he discussed for the first time his war experiences – for the first time.
For it appears there is a skeleton in the national closet: nobody in NZ talks about the war, it’s a dark secret that doesn’t get discussed.

Actor Tony Barry brings Preston’s father’s monologues to life, the interviews recreated on screen.

From what we see on screen, Ed is a natural born story teller – and therein lies the film’s weakness: we never know whether what he is recalling is the whole truth, part-truth or a complete lie. The real story is not in what he says, but what he doesn’t.

That’s not to say the film isn’t affecting – it is, but not enormously so. But that reinforces the fact that it’s a daughter’s film about her own father, a man she clearly admired anyway.

A further, fuller, more objective investigation is required if this scar on the Kiwi national conscience is to be addressed.
Score: 6.5/10

Everything Must Go
This drama-comedy/comedy-drama (delete as appropriate) about an alcoholic salesman who loses his job and wife on the same day is anchored by an outstanding performance from Will Ferrell.

Locked out of his own home, all his possessions strewn across the front lawn, Ferrell’s Nick decides to live outside. Suspicious neighbours rightly assume the worst even as he lies to them, and ultimately he is forced to conduct a yard sale and sell off his possessions (apparently it’s illegal to live on your front lawn in Arizona!).

In the sale, he is abetted by a thoughtful neighbour (played by Rebecca Hall) and an innocent child, both of whom also aid him in his journey back to life.

Frequently very funny, and touching too, this is immensely enjoyable adult movie-making. It’s likely to be compared favourably to Up In The Air, although it’s not in the latter’s league: its slightly more contrived storyline means it falls short of the George Clooney-starrer.

Nevertheless, Ferrell’s Nick is one of cinema’s great losers who finds he can make his way back to being a winner.
Score: 8/10

The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople
Great documentary charting the all-too short life and times of Mott The Hoople.

The band members themselves tell the story of how they met, scaled up rock’s ladder to the summit, only to fall into oblivion after a very short time at the summit.

The film reinforces the band’s roots, and gives ample scope for revealing the true characters beneath all the rock n roll excess.

There’s some great live footage from throughout their brief career (this film reminds the audience of what a classy guitarist Mick Ralphs is and that Ian Hunter is among the top five rock singers this country has ever produced), but the film fails to take the time to chart what happened to the various band members in the intervening years until their belated reunion in 2009.
Score: 7.5/10

Cold Weather
This US indie is occasionally inspired, yet all-too-frequently beset by writer-director Aaron Katz’s amateurish student aesthetic.

This gentle character comedy focuses on Doug, a college drop-out with a passion for Sherlock Holmes and forensic science.
The set up is slow, but once the McGuffin is established, Doug sets up his own Scooby Gang (fellow factory worker Carlos, and his sister) to solve the mystery.

Each of the lead actors quietly impress, but it’s Trieste Kelly Dunn as Doug’s sister who does so the most – a greater career beckons than she has achieved so far, methinks.

The film has many genuinely funning WTF scenes – but against these must be weighed the many pretentious WTF scenes that serve no purpose in terms of plot or character progression, hence the score below.
Score: 6.5/10

The American
Anton Corbijn follows up Control with this fantastic thriller, in which George Clooney delivers another finely nuanced performance as a man at war with his past, clawing desperately at a dream of a brighter future.

The film opens almost Bond-style in the sense that we meet Clooney’s Jack Clarke and his girlfriend enjoying each other’s company and the scenery in their snowbound chalet in Sweden, only for their reverie to be cut short by sniper fire.

But Clarke is no Bond – he’s a working assassin and gunsmith, not a super hero. Forced into going on the run, he holes up in Castel del Monte in Italy, posing as a photographer.

With his regular but sinister broker offering him more work, Clarke’s would-be vacation is cut short as it becomes apparent the trouble he thought he’d left behind in Sweden has found him in autumnal Abruzzo.

Indeed, trouble won’t leave him alone: whether it’s the happy hooker from the next village, or his new client (a devastatingly beautiful assassin), or the shadowy figure watching him by night, or the local priest trying to get under his skin, Clarke’s abilities and conscience are beset on all sides.

Does he love the hooker? Can he trust the client? Is he paranoid? Does he want to confess? He must answer all these questions if he is to survive to see the future he desires.

Just as outstanding as Clooney’s conflicted Clarke is Corbijn’s assured and stylish direction. Almost every shot is beautifully composed and lit (especially the night shoots through the winding, rising and falling streets of Castel del Monte), no doubt helped by DoP Martin Ruhe (who lensed Control for Corbijn).

There are echoes of Day of the Jackal and other fine, grounded thrillers of the 70s throughout, although thankfully Corbijn’s direction and Rowan Joffe’s adaptation of Martin Booth’s source novel avoid the pitfalls of the Euro-pudding actioner.
Score: 9/10

Womb
This is a slow, morally questionable, small scale sci-fi investigation into the impact of human cloning.

Set on an unidentified barren, windswept coast, we watch a boy and girl meet; they get along like a house on fire; girl moves away; girl comes back 12 years later in the shape of Eva Green and reignites her relationship with the boy, now in the shape of Matt ‘Dr Who’ Smith.

All too seen, he dies. She can’t handle his loss, so has him cloned. This is achieved by her giving birth to her former lover.
The film then charts the psychological minefield the pair inhabit as the baby grows into a boy, and then into a man (Matt Smith again).

The Oedipal overtones are strong, and yet the writer-director Benedek Fliegauf contrives a happy ending (well, of sorts).
Eva Green suffers impeccably, and like so many beautiful foreign actresses before her seems hellbent on wallowing in the darker parts of the human psyche. Matt Smith, cast in the film before he secured Who, seems ill at ease with the role and its demands.

A curio best avoided, I’m afraid.
Score: 5/10

London Film Festival 2010 preview

So, this year’s London Film Festival is my 17th in 18 years. Between 1993 and 2009, I saw 245 films at the festival…which is close to 429 hours (or nearly 18 days!) sat staring at moving images on a screen.

The breakdown by year looks like this:
• 1993 – 6
• 1994 – 0
• 1995 – 5
• 1996 – 6
• 1997 – 10
• 1998 – 10
• 1999 – 14
• 2000 – 18
• 2001 – 17
• 2002 – 20
• 2003 - 16
• 2004 – 16
• 2005 – 18
• 2006 – 17
• 2007 – 21
• 2008 – 27
• 2007 – 24

Combine the running total with the 21 I expect to see this year and I reach 266, meaning I should reach the 300 mark during the 2012 festival. I can’t wait!

The guilty secret weekender

So, the film gang ushered in September with the guilty secret weekender. The objective? For each of the six-strong gang to present their cinematic guilty secret – that film you love that you know you just shouldn’t.
Having decided on a running order, each film was scored for its quality and, more importantly, for its guilt by the gang.

First off was our host, Emsy with Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the Kevin Costner romp that was the springboard for that Bryan Adams song. Several of the gang were seeing this for the first time – and were genuinely surprised by the cameo appearance in the film’s epilogue. It’s easy to knock the film (the spectacularly ropey accents from the Americans for starters), but Kevin Reynolds directs with verve, and Alan Rickman mercilessly chews the scenery. Indeed, compare it with this year’s Ridley Scott/Russell Crowe effort and there’s no doubt that the 1991 offering is, by some distance, the better film.
Quality score: 40/50 (everyone gave it an eight)
Guilt: 32/50 (the highest score was a seven, while the lowest was a five)

Next up was Rodling’s choice: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. I hadn’t seen this Sergio Leone piece for about 20 years, so it was a wonderful surprise to enjoy it again. It is a minor masterpiece: the combination of casting, story, cinematography, score and direction is a compelling concoction.
Quality score: 43/50
Guilt score: 14/50 (the highest was a five from Emsy, while I awarded it the lowest score: a zero)

Dunkini took us to the halfway point with 80s hit, Big. While it comes from a cheesy genre and its fashions show their age now, the film is a popular classic, and aligns firmly with Dunkini’s love of the Capra-esque. Tom Hanks delivers one of his top five performances as the boy inside a man’s body, ably abetted by a note-perfect script and supporting cast. The relationship between Hanks and his grown-up girlfriend drew gasps of horror (a grown woman seducing a 13-year old boy), but I remain in love with this film.
Quality score: 40/50 (sevens and eights from everybody, except me: I gave it a 10)
Guilt score: 29/50 (mostly eights, while I gave it a big, fat zero)

Jonny took us to midnight with George Hamilton’s late 70s, er, classic, Love At First Bite. Despite the fact that he hadn’t seen it for 20 years, Jonny remembered every line of this Airplane-style comedy in which Dracula and his ever-faithful servant Renfield are forced to decamp to New York on the hunt for the new love of the count’s life. The film is by no means a topline production, with perhaps the biggest laugh generated by the clearly visible wire from which Drac’s bat-form was dangling. The film did not perform well with the judges…
Quality score: 13/50
Guilt score: 48/50 (only two of the gang failed to award tens)

The Classy One kicked off Sunday with 80s people’s favourite, The Karate Kid. The simplicity of the film, with its Rocky-esque overtones, makes it easy to dismiss – but that sheer lack of guile is its secret weapon. The fashions have dated horribly, Ralph Maccio looks terribly young (especially alongside the, er, fully-developed Elisabeth Shue – who was nevertheless younger than Maccio), but it’s a classic tale told with honesty. The ‘villains’ are a bit pantomime, although their violence is anything but, ensuring there’s no doubt who to cheer for come the (somewhat abrupt) finale.
Quality score: 32/50 (all sixes and sevens)
Guilt score: 31/50 (nothing lower than a five; nothing higher than a seven)

And finally, it fell to this blogger to round off the weekend with Clueless… I saw it for the first time five or so years ago on TV and thoroughly enjoyed it. As a hardcore Buffy The Vampire Slayer fanatic, it’s hard to not to view Clueless as one of the paths (along with the X-Men) that led Joss Whedon to his finest creation. Alicia Silverstone is the nominal star in this loosely disguised adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, but it’s the supporting cast that do it for me, especially Dan Hedaya as her tough but doting father. The film breezes past easily – almost too fast in fact: I would have made more screentime out of the will they/won’t they conclusion. And, is if to highlight a change in movie-making style, hardly any part of the film is without soundtrack – unlike Karate Kid, 10 years its senior, which uses music sparingly.
Quality score: 29/50 (varying from a four to a seven)
Guilt score: 45/50 (a ten, plus eights and nines)

Thus, the quality league table looks like this:
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – 43
Big – 40
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves – 40
The Karate Kid – 32
Clueless – 29
Love At First Bite – 13

The guilt league table looks like this:
Love At First Bite – 48
Clueless – 45
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves – 32
The Karate Kid – 31
Big – 29
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – 14

In total, the six films scored 217 out of 300 for quality, and 199 for guilt. However, if you factor out The Good…, those figures become 164 and 185 respectively, with guilt thus outweighing quality as we expected before the first opening credits rolled.

Here are everyone’s total scores (total scores minus The Good… are in brackets; Rodling’s score is unaffected as we were not allowed to vote for our own films):
Emsy: quality – 28 (21); guilt – 39 (34)
Rodling: quality – 32 (32); guilt – 35 (35)
Dunkini: quality – 33 (24); guilt – 37 (34)
Jonny: quality – 35 (26); guilt – 28 (26)
The Classy One: quality – 34 (25); guilt – 35 (31)
Me: quality – 37 (28); guilt – 22 (22)

So, probably not a surprise that I gave the highest quality score and the lowest guilt score!

My summer of film

So, long time, no blog! What better way to redress than the film blog equivalent of the school essay of what you did on your holidays?

Here's mine: Inception followed by Went The Day Well?, Bluebeard, Heartbreaker, Rapt, and Toy Story 3.

Inception: I was thoroughly engrossed by Chris Nolan's latest, which fuses the questions of identity and reality that dominate Memento, Insomnia and The Prestige with the more operatic action-oriented bent of his Batman films. DiCaprio still isn't brilliant, but at least he's better than he was in Shutter Island! Great visuals, sound, score and editing, coupled with a real doozy of a final scene (the audience reaction was stunning - everyone cried out 'No!').
Score: 8.5/10

Went The Day Well?: a beautifully shot Brit-flick from 1942, focusing on German troops masquerading as British troops in a English village. Adapted from a Graham Greene, this still exerts a curious power as the villagers fight back against the Nazi menace among them. Their lesson, that splendid isolation had truly ended, is painfully learnt.

Bluebeard: the new Catherine Breillat. Don't bother!
Score: 3/10

Heartbreaker: light and breezy French romcom that looks as good as any Hollywood variant. Vanessa Paradis is not much more than set dressing; ultimately the film is a vehicle for Romain Duris and justifiably so. The hell he puts himself through to 'accidentally' win her heart is truly something to behold - a man having to pretend he likes Dirty Dancing, for example! Bound to be remade for Matthew McCoaughey and Kate Hudson...
Score: 6.5/10

Rapt: cracking thriller in which Yvan Attal's multi-millionaire industrialist is kidnapped. And just as he thinks his life can't get any worse, the French press finds out about all the bad things in his life... Occasionally brilliant, but this ultimately falls short of its initial promise.
Score: 8/10

Toy Story 3: this really is a kids' film for adults. Quite frankly, I was a gibbering wreck for much of the film. This is really a film about getting old, retiring, of no longer being of any use to society and having to face death. Oh the gags and the brilliant characterisation is still there from the first two films, but an additional layer of pathos and tragedy is all too evident. There's one scene so strong that I can barely talk about it even days after seeing the film. Top bloody notch stuff. One day Pixar will make a bad film - but not yet, not yet!
Score: 10/10

What's in a movie name?

Film titles – like humour – don’t travel well. Local distributors have a long history of renaming films to suit their market. For example, the June issue of Word lists a dozen or so, my two favourite translations being Alien and Jaws: known as The Eighth Passenger in Yugoslavia, and The Teeth of the Sea in France, respectively.

Two other choice examples are: Please Don’t Touch The Old Women (The Producers in Italy) and Just Send Him To University Unqualified (Risky Business in China).

Japan offers some classics: Icy Smile (Basic Instinct) and Shooting Towards Tomorrow (Butch and Sundance).

That Japanese tradition continues with the Bond movies:
• Dr No = 007 is the killing number
• From Russia With Love = 007 at a critical moment
• Thunderball = Thunderball Fighting
• You Only Live Twice = 007 Dies Twice
• OHMSS = The Queen’s 007
• Live And Let Die = The Dead Slave
• A View To A Kill = The Beautiful Prey

In recent years, thanks to the globalisation of cinema and Western culture, the Bond movies (and most major event movies) rarely have their names changed. But rest assured, even now an oddity can slip through the nets: The Dukes of Hazzard movie was unable to trade o the legacy of its TV origins when it arrived in Spain, and thus the local distributor cut simply and eloquently to the chase: Two Crazy Guys And A Lot Of Curves. Pretty much does what it says on the tin, right?

Review: Agora

An epic film with a one-word name that begins with the letter ‘a’ that everyone should see. Say that phrase on the street, and people will utter ‘Avatar’; I’d rather they utter ‘Agora’.

Not that Agora is a much better film (it’s only marginally better), it’s just that its head and its heart are in the right place.
Directed and co-written by Alejandro Almenabar, a proponent of man’s ability to determine his own destiny, Agora is a sustained attack on religion – and while set in the fourth and fifth centuries, its message remains horrifyingly current.

The film’s narrative focus is on Hypatia, played by Rachel Weisz. Whether you are convinced by the UK’s most kooky actress as her generation’s leading philosopher is really neither here nor there, it’s what Hypatia believed that’s important. While nominally a pagan, the quest that dominated her life was to make sense of life, the universe and everything via her role as head of the Platonic school based at the great library in Alexandria – in modern parlance, she was a scientist.

And what a bad time for her to be a scientist as the great city, one of the unarguable birthplaces of modern civilisation, succumbed to religious tension: the ruling pagans v the jews v the christians.

The siege and subsequent sacking of the library (as depicted in the film) is one of the great crimes of the christian faith – a crime that remains unanswered for. There is still much debate about the events, but one has to accept that the library may well have been sacked several times over the centuries, each time by the followers of a different faith – and each time the collected works of early man’s greatest and most progressive thinkers were damaged and lost.

Almenabar’s pointed approach (not dissimilar to James Cameron on Avatar) paints the Jews as christ-killing merchants, obsessed with maintaining the uneasy status quo they have established with the ruling pagans, and the christians as the mob all too happy to become an army happy to kill in the name of their god. There’s no doubt of where his allegiances lie: with the progressive thinkers of antiquity, leaving behind their beliefs, consumed with the need to understand the world and man’s place in it as the new religions demand punishment for their heresy.

Combined with the sacking of the library, Hypatia’s ultimate fate left me filled with rage against any and all beliefs. Clearly, that’s not Almenabar’s intention. He wants to draw attention to the fact that religious beliefs prevent man from understanding and prevent man from achieving.

Alexandria was a crucible of progressive thought, and the sacking of the library and Hypatia’s fate are held by many scholars as the death of antiquity and the birth of a dark time for humanity, indeed our kind took a step backwards that it took many centuries to recover from. How similar does that sound to where mankind has been for the past 20 years?

Agora’s clear message is that to go forward we must abandon separatist religious beliefs and finally believe in ourselves. Almenabar had me at the metaphorical ‘hello’!

However, the film does have its minus points: a slavish fixation on period detail that draws away from the story, some dodgy casting (although the lack of well-known faces is a benefit), and an overbearing tendency towards grandiose gestures (the celestial pull-backs reminding us – one too many times – of how small we are).

Nevertheless, I’d be much happier if the 300 million people that have seen Avatar (my conservative estimate) saw this instead.
Score: 7/10

Review: Iron Man 2

Tony Stark has been a major player in the Marvel comic universe for the past five years or so, whether as himself or as his alter-ego, Iron Man. He’s one of the most interesting and conflicted characters in Marvel comics, his intelligence and futurist beliefs leading him into morally dubious actions while his libido frequently puts him into the arms of too many women he should not be intimate with – and all the time his history of alcoholism and obsessive/compulsive behaviour lurks menacingly.

Nevertheless, when Marvel Studios (the movie production arm of Marvel) decided to launch itself with Iron Man two years ago, it was a brave move because Iron Man was not, then, a brand with worldwide recognition. But it was a brilliant decision: the first film of the summer, it generated great reviews, repeat business and truly boffo boxoffice.

That film’s success was grounded in strong foundations: a well-updated, perfectly paced screenplay, inspired direction by hitherto lightweight Jon Favreau, and a classy heavyweight cast that really believed in the characters and the material. Frankly, it was the sort of a truly crowd-pleasing summer action flick that it appeared Hollywood had forgotten how to make.

The icing on the cake was the casting of Robert Downey Jnr, revelling in a role he was born to play. His performance was such that it’s impossible to think of anyone who could have done it better.

Thus Iron Man 2 arrives with heavy expectation from the general cinema-going population and this comic geek in particular. And while there is much to enjoy, this sequel fails both to meet that expectation and hit the heights of the original.

Starting with the good stuff, Downey Jnr is still on fine form, grandstanding when he gets the chance, and riddled with neuroses when he’s down. The whiplash dialogue between him and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is a lovely throwback to the His Girl Friday-era, and generates real sparks while at the same time revealing the history between the two.

The humour of the first film is carried over successfully – a combination of genuine humour generated by the story and the characters and also a deliberate attempt to ground the film in reality by demythologising the superhero (the throwaway use of Captain America’s shield is outstanding).

Paltrow clearly enjoys her verbal sparring with Downey Jnr, but comes away with a beefed-up role that somehow gives her less to work with (but boy does she look good?!).

Don Cheadle’s replacement of Terence Howard as Rhodey/War Machine is seamless, while Samuel L Jackson, in two telling scenes, completely owns his role of SHIELD director Nick Fury. Scarlett Johansson gets the film’s stand-out scene: as SHIELD agent Natasha Romanoff (complete with red hair and skin-tight black jumpsuit, but thankfully no cod-Russian accent), she takes down eight men in the time it takes Happy (Favreau, who gives himself more to do in this film, but mostly playing as a humorous foil to the other characters) Hogan to finish off one. This scene is brilliantly conceived, shot and edited, and gets closest to the modern comic book look, and is the only time Natasha is given due prominence – the script fails to make the most of her.

Traditionally, Tony Stark/Iron Man has two types of adversary: rival industrialists that want to take over Stark Industries, and maniacs that want to take down Iron Man. This film has both: Sam Rockwell’s Justin Hammer and Mickey Rourke’s Ivan Vanko/Whiplash respectively. Rockwell is a humourously incompetent multi-billionaire weapons manufacturer and the inverse of Tony Stark: a loser with women, low on charisma, somewhat effete, and the maker of weapons that don’t always work. Rockwell chews the scenery to marvellous effect.

The same can’t be said of Rourke’s Whiplash. In the comics, Whiplash was never a major player, so the decision to use him in the sequel is a strange one. Rourke certainly brings a presence, a gravitas to the role – but is then given little to do.

More than anything, what lets the film down is the script. Its attempt to adapt the Demon In A Bottle story from the late 70s (in which Tony is overcome by his alcoholism and damn near loses everything) and to draw on elements on the recent Stark Disassembled run is brave, especially this early on in the audience’s relationship with the character. I’m not saying it’s the wrong move, but certainly the execution, specifically the pacing, runs like a fault line through the movie. Simply, the film takes a long time to get going, almost as if it were just the first half of a five-hour sequel. Let’s be clear, for a summer action movie, there’s a distinct lack of action.

A third edition of Iron Man is not due until at least 2013 (after The Avengers movie hits screens in 2012). I hope the production team learn their lessons from this one, and return to the sleek and lean approach that helped the first film. And they’re going to need to overcome the film’s outcome for the Tony/Pepper relationship.

But back to Iron Man 2: a score is called for. While it’s nowhere near as successful as the first in terms of pure entertainment, the essentials are still there: Downey still is Stark. It has faults, yes, but it also has successes, and as much as its bravery backfires, I still admire the film’s bravery. And to put it in context, I don’t feel soiled and abused like I did after Quantum of Solace – it’s not that much of a letdown. I’ll be queuing round the block for Tony’s next outing.

Oh, and if you’re a comic geek, you need to stay until the very end to see the post-credits sequence… Nuff said!
Score: 7/10

Summer 2012: I can't wait!

While summer 2010 has only just started in movie terms with the launch of Iron Man 2, it is worth noting that more so than any summer on record, 2012 will be the summer of the geek movie.

It opens with The Avengers (left) on 4 May; current rumours put Joss Whedon in the director's chair. My current plan is to see this in the US if it doesn't open day and date in the US and the UK.

The end of June sees the arrival of the JJ Abrams' second slice of Star Trek, followed just one week later by the rebooted Spider-Man.

And then comes the biggie: Christopher Nolan completes his trilogy of Batman films on 20 July.

Also due in 2012: adaptations of both Halo and World of Warcraft; Terminator 5; Sin City 3; Monsters Inc 2; Edgar Wright's take on The Ant Man, and so on.

Jumping back one year, summer 2011 kicks off with Thor, then Pirates 4, then Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class, followed by Martin Campbell's attempt at bringing DC's Green Lantern to the screen in June. July sees the motherlode with Captain America hitting screens. And somewhere in between all that lot are Transformers 3 and Wolverine 2...