72 films seen in 2011 (one less than my record posted in 1993 and 2010); 65 qualify for judging in the Golden Stans 2011 (I saw seven films twice). It was a strange year with no obvious favourite for the big gong (as there was in 2010, 2009 and 2008).
There were obvious favourites for the least desired gong: the Cone of Shame, my award for the worst movie of the year. The contenders were unfortunately numerous: Zack Snyder’s masturbatory Sucker Punch, Fernando Meirelles’ 360, Green Lantern, Damsels In Distress, and Joe Swanberg’s double-bill of Uncle Kent and Silver Bullets. But for sheer mind-numbing tedium and pretension, The Loneliest Planet takes the biscuit. In my review, I offered this insight into the film’s epic failure to engage: “When the incident comes that effectively drives what passes for a plot, I was already begging for the film to end… [The film’s lead characters] are just middle class hippies shatting their ennui on a beautiful landscape. Avoid this crap!”
I gave it a score of 0/10. The Loneliest Planet: wear the Cone of Shame with pride!
Moving on to the good stuff, the Golden Stan for Best Score goes to David Wingo for his Clint Mansell-esque stirring soundtrack to Take Shelter, narrowly edging out Alexandre Desplat’s classy work on The Ides of March. Sticking with music, there’s a new Golden Stan here: Best Use of Music. That goes to The Fighter – its use of some classic rock standards aids the film and complements its narrative thrust rather than distracting the viewer from the story and the images.
The field for the Golden Stan for Best Cinematography reads like a DoP who’s who: Barry Ackroyd for Coriolanus; Phedon Papamichael for The Ides Of March; Robert Richardson for Hugo; Jeff Cronenweth for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; Roger Deakins for True Grit; and Hoyte van Hoytema for both The Fighter and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Deakins’ work his well up to his usual standard: it’s hard to think of anyone else who could have shot True Grit so well. However, for the sheer variety of skills on display, the award goes to van Hoytema: fluid, loose, improvised and colourful on The Fighter, and restrained, colour-drained, darkness and shadows in Tinker, Tailor.
The Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Screenplay awards took only a few minutes’ consideration. Rory Stewart Kinnear’s and Lynne Ramsay’s transfer to the screen of We Need To Talk About Kevin creates a dream-like narrative that is wholly cinematic, while John Michael Donagh’s original script for The Guard is darkly funny, staggeringly offensive and tragic, and conjures a starring role, so ripe with depth that Sergeant Gerry Boyle jumps off the page and onto the screen.
So, on to the acting categories, and before Best Supporting Actress, I must announce another new award: the Golden Stan for Best Cameo. For sheer emotional resonance, confidence and bloody surprise, the award goes to Aidan Quinn for his tour de force punch to my guts in Sarah’s Key. His three short scenes lift the entire film into another realm.
OK, here are the nominees for Best Supporting Actress:
• Amy Adams/The Fighter
• Jessica Chastain/The Tree Of Life, Coriolanus, Take Shelter
• Jodie Foster/Carnage
• Melissa Leo/The Fighter
• Vanessa Redgrave/Coriolanus
• Shailene Woodley/The Descendants
Amy Adams reacted brilliantly to being cast against type in The Fighter; Jessica Chastain, arguably 2011’s break-out star, had the worried but supportive wife role cornered; Jodie Foster was relaxed about playing comedy and allowing her character’s weaknesses and hypocrises to be so brutally exposed by her co-stars’ characters in Carnage; Melissa Leo was just a little too convincing as a pure white trash mother in The Fighter; and Shailene Woodley, as one of George Clooney’s daughters in The Descendants, has the presence of a seasoned pro. But the award goes to Vanessa Redgrave: she totally owns the role of Coriolanus’s mother and displays a comprehensive understanding of the text and her role within it – pure class.
The shortlist for Best Supporting Actor is:
• Christian Bale/The Fighter
• Tom Hiddleston/Thor
• Matthew McConnaughey/Bernie
• Ezra Miller/We Need To Talk About Kevin
• John C Reilly/ We Need To Talk About Kevin, Carnage, Terri
• Christoph Waltz/Carnage
Waltz and Reilly are great in Carnage, chewing the scenery with aplomb opposite Jodie Foster; Reilly also hones his honest, well-meaning loser schtick in both Terri and Kevin.
Ezra Miller is compelling as Kevin; he brings this new great screen villain to vivid life without ever tipping the audience the wink that he knows he’s playing the devil.
McConnaughey revealed new depths and real comedic skills in Bernie; it’s clear now that he’s not an action hero nor a rom-com lead – he’s a character actor in a leading man’s body.
Tom Hiddleston, who just lost out to Michael Fassbender for my best comic-based villain of 2011 for his incarnation of the god of mischief Loki, was inspired casting. You never could read his motives, and as the film goes on and Loki twists, and twists and twists again, I was left wondering if even Loki knew why he did what he did.
Finally, there is Christian Bale as Dicky Eklund in The Fighter. Bale has many detractors, but for bringing the damaged mind, body and soul of such a fruit-loop to the screen with such conviction, the Golden Stan is his.
Next, it’s Best Actress, and the nominees are:
• Rebecca Hall/The Awakening
• Rooney Mara/The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
• Andrea Risborough/Resistance
• Hailee Steinfeld/True Grit
• Tilda Swinton/We Need To Talk About Kevin
• Michelle Williams/My Week With Marilyn
The six characters inhabited by these actresses have, on the face of it, little in common, but the performances are all from the top drawer and make the characters, as different as they are, completely convincing.
Rooney Mara’s reading of Lisbeth Salander in David Fincher’s Dragon Tattoo is valid and ever-so-slightly different to Noomi Rapace’s in the original.
Michelle Williams absolutely becomes Marilyn Monroe: you forget you’re watching an actress pretending to be Norma Jean pretending to be Monroe pretending to be the showgirl.
Rebecca Hall brings intelligence and emotional frailty to her central role in The Awakening, and should really be recognised by BAFTA.
Fellow Brit Andrea Risborough keeps conflicting emotions (the yearning for her husband’s return, and her revulsion at her lust for the Nazi officer who’s yearning for her) tightly under control, just visible, bubbling beneath the surface.
Hailee Steinfeld chewed the scenery, spat out the witty banter and held her own against a stellar cast of experienced male co-stars in True Grit.
But ultimately the award goes to Tilda Swinton for her uncompromising performance in Kevin. Her Eva is put through the mill by her devilish son, but Swinton is brave enough to accept that Eva must be partly responsible for his out-turn.
Now, it’s Best Actor. I started with a longlist running to 13 names, but they can’t all make the (still not very short) shortlist, so with heavy heart and apologies to those that didn’t make the cut, here it is:
• Alberto Ammann/Cell 211
• George Clooney/The Descendants
• Michael Fassbender/X-Men: First Class, A Dangerous Method
• Brendan Gleeson/The Guard
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt/50/50
• Ryan Gosling/Drive, The Ides Of March
• Gary Oldman/Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
• Michael Shannon/Take Shelter
Alberto Ammann was great in the prison riot thriller; his approach and his presence suggest an ability to crossover from international arthouse to wider acceptance.
Clooney pulls out all the stops as the grieving father in what may well be his most realistic, naturalistic role and performance.
Michael Fassbender is surely not only the best actor working today, but also one of the most hard-working. The level of conviction and sheer bloody menace he brought to Magneto brushed aside the memory of McKellan, his predecessor in the role, while there was a wild-eyed wonder in his Carl Jung as he falls for his patient while falling out with his mentor, Freud.
Brendan Gleeson stepped up a gear from In Bruges (if that’s possible) to The Guard; he filled the role out, but never over-payed it, while drawing the audience into his enormous grasp.
JGL, hot off Inception and prior to Batman 3, delivered one of the surprise performances of the year in 50/50. He turns a potentially unlikeable character into someone you can’t help but root for as he comes to terms with and starts to fight his cancer.
Ryan Gosling went mainstream, at least in terms of media acceptance of his talent. His iconic driver was as far away from his detailed Democrat campaign manager as was possible, but he succeeded in both.
Gary Oldman turned down the flash in Tinker, Tailor, and continued the minimalist yet human approach favoured for his on-going role as Commissioner Gordon in the Batman films. He succeeds in his attempt to not repeat Alec Guinness beat for beat, and now finds himself no longer the enfant terrible and Hollywood émigré but rather the returning hero. He may not win the Oscar, but surely BAFTA awaits?
Michael Shannon’s ability to conjure fear, paranoia, despair and unflinching belief in the unbelievable was core to Take Shelter’s success.
So, I’m left with a tough three-way fight between Clooney, Oldman and Shannon. For his ability to merge into the shadows and to suggest so much with so little, the award goes to Gary Oldman.
On to the penultimate award: Best Director. The shortlist looks like this:
• Tomas Alfredson/Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
• George Clooney/The Ides Of March
• The Coens/True Grit
• Daniel Mozon/Cell 211
• Jeff Nichols/Take Shelter
• Alexander Payne/The Descendants
• David O Russell/The Fighter
• Martin Scorsese/Hugo
No apologies for such a long shortlist: there is just so much great work to recognise. Scorsese showed what can be achieved when a true auteur uses 3D; Russell invigorated his boxing movie, ensuring it escaped the shadow of Rocky; Payne’s delicate touch was in evidence throughout the Descendants; Mozon reinvented the male-bonding prison movie; the Coens delivered probably the most rounded film of their career; Clooney re-iterated the need for America to get wise, and avoided the potential for Ides to be worthy but dull and lifeless; and Alfredson confirmed his potential first showcased by Let The Right One In with his detailed and downbeat take on the spy drama.
But the award must go to Jeff Nichols for Take Shelter: he created a film that fairly skewered me to my seat.
And finally, it’s the big one: the Golden Stan for Best Film. Here’s the alphabetical list of the films that made me happy to sit in a cinema for two hours:
• 50/50: the best cancer comedy ever? Pitch perfect performances. Only just missed out on a 10/10 score.
• Cell 211: alongside Ralph Fiennes’ Coriolanus, the Spanish prison riot male-bonding thriller was the most muscular film of the year. See it before Hollywood remakes it!
• The Descendants: funny and sad, sad and funny – another midlife crisis masterpiece from Alexander Payne.
• The Fighter: second time around, I was still on the edge of my seat as Mickey Ward goes for the world championship. Charismatic and invigorating.
• Hugo: Scorsese’s best film since Goodfellas, and his film with the most heart. A joy to watch.
• The Ides Of March: more righteous liberalism from Clooney – the only mainstream director with the guts to tackle overtly political themes.
• Little White Lies: two-thirds comedy, one-third tragedy – the French film that truly travelled successfully outside its own borders and culture.
• Nobody Else But You: the better Marilyn Monroe of the year. A great example that the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. Endlessly enjoyable. Here’s hoping it gets a proper release in the UK in 2012.
• Take Shelter: gripping, frightening, and moving – nu-scifi has arrived!
• Thor: the best comic book movie of the year. Thrilling, funny, romantic and full of awe. Not far short of brilliant.
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: I still can’t work out how Smiley solves the mystery, but sometimes it’s about the journey, not the destination.
• True Grit: the Coens’ most straight-forward movie – and all the better for it. The sort of film that cinemas were made for, this is old-fashioned entertainment.
So which film gets the nod? True Grit was massively entertaining, while The Fighter was unlucky to come up against The King’s Speech and Black Swan at the Oscars – in other years it might have deservedly walked away with the big one. Little White Lies caught me by surprise and left me drained of tears at the end through so much laughing and crying.
But the film that jumped up on me out of nowhere and cast a spell over me, put me through the wringer and had me cheering on its hero as the climactic finale approached was Take Shelter. For putting me on the edge of my seat for two hours, Take Shelter is the winner.
That’s it for 2011; bring on 2012!
Thursday, 29 December 2011
Thursday, 22 December 2011
Review: A Dangerous Method
David Cronenberg’s latest, A Dangerous Method, is not an absolute cracker, but it nevertheless generated plenty of debate in the aftermath.On the face of it this story of the tensions between Carl Jung, his patient Sabina Spielrein, and his mentor/rival Sigmund Freud seems to fit perfectly within Cronenberg’s psycho-sexual oeuvre, but the great director approaches it with uncharacteristic restraint.
While nominally a three-hander, Viggo Mortensen’s Freud is a supporting role (and just as well as he seems ill at ease with the part): it is Michael Fassbender’s Jung and Keira Knightley’s Sabina who are front and centre. Fassbender is predictably brilliant, adding further evidence for my claim that he is the best actor in the world right now, as he struggles with admiration and then disgust for Freud, and his desire for Sabina.
Reaction to Knightley’s performance could go either way among professional critics: for the record, I can’t help but feel that Naomi Watts would have been better at the role (certainly its darker sexual aspects), but there’s no doubt that Knightley leaves nothing on the table – she’s convincingly mad, emotionally, physically and psychologically crippled by the social mores of the day, but – and it is a significant but – whether through her choice or Cronenberg’s direction, there is no blood and thunder when she is finally able to give herself over to her darkest desires. I was convinced that if anyone could uncover a dark sexuality within Knightley, then Cronenberg would be the man to do it, but unfortunately this is not the case.
The film looks great, with nice period detail and locations, but I can’t help but feel it needs some of the psycho-sexual fairy dust that Patrick Marber sprinkled on his adaptation of Strindberg’s Miss Julie in order to achieve greatness.
Score: 7/10 (subject to confirmation from second viewing)
2012 film preview
As 2011 rapidly draws to a close, it's time to look forward to what the movie-going prospects are in 2012. January and February are full of Oscar contenders, the superheroes come early (Avengers on 27 April - I've already booked that day off), and then the end of the year sees the return of two mega-franchises - Bond and Tolkein.
January
The Iron Lady
Meryl Streep is Maggie. Oscar ahoy?
War Horse
Spielberg adapts the beloved stage play of the same name. Hankies at the ready.
Shame
Michael Fassbender’s tour de force performance as a sex addict is the main draw. Saw the trailer recently and I am desperate to see this.
Margin Call
David Mamet-esque morality tale of a corporate whistleblower and the impact on Wall Street of his actions.
Coriolanus
Ralph Fiennes in front of and behind the camera for this muscular Shakespeare adaptation.
Haywire
Steven Soderbergh’s latest is a female-led actioner.
J Edgar
Indifferently reviewed Clint biopic of Mr Hoover (played by di Caprio).
The Descendants
George Clooney and Alexander ‘Sideways’ Payne go for Oscar glory.
February
Carnage
Polanski's stagey four-hander about squabbling adults. Very funny.
The Muppets
The big movie for the half-term. Reviews have been strong.
A Dangerous Method
Cronenberg tackles Freud v Jung. Keira gets spanked...
Young Adult
Jason Reitman follows up Up In The Air with this tale of 30-something Charlize Theron who acts like a vengeful teenager. The script is by Diablo 'Juno' Cody.
March
Hansel And Gretel
Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton play the fairy tale duo.
Mirror Mirror
The first Snow White movie of the year, directed by Tarsem Singh.
We Bought A Zoo
The new Cameron Crowe.
The Pirates
Aardman does stop motion… with pirates!
April
Titanic 3D
Cameron throws 3D at his other megahit.
The Avengers
Cap, Thor, Iron Man & co vs Loki and the Skrulls. I’ve only been waiting 35 years for this film…
May
Dark Shadows
The new Tim Burton.
Men In Black III
Cue a hit single for Will Smith.
June
Prometheus
Ridley Scott’s prequel to Alien features Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron and Patrick Wilson.
Snow White And The Huntsman
Kristen Stewart moves on from vampires to a sword-wielding Snow White.
Rock of Ages
The musical becomes a film, complete with Tom Cruise.
Jack The Giant Killer
Bryan Singer continues the year of the fairy tale.
July
The Amazing Spider-Man
Nuff said!
The Dark Knight Rises
Batman meets his Bane. I see Anne Hathaway as Catwoman: result!
August
The Bourne Legacy
Matt Damon is out, but Jeremy Renner is in.
Brave
The new Pixar. Nuff said?
Total Recall
A remake that is supposedly closer to the Philip K Dick novel.
September
Gambit
The new Coens with Cameron Diaz, Alan Rickman and Colin Firth.
Dredd
He is the LAW.
The Sweeney
No, really, it’s been remade…
October
Argo
Ben Affleck stars in and directs the true story of how the CIA extracted hostages from Iran in 1979.
Taken 2
Last time they took his daughter, now they’ve taken him. Liam Neeson’s surprise box office hit returns.
Skyfall
You know the name. You know the number.
November
Gangster Squad
Zombieland director goes all LA Confidential with Sean Penn and Josh Brolin.
December
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
BRING IT ON!
Django Unchained
Tarantino’s latest, a western with Sacha Baron Cohen, di Caprio and Joseph-Gordon-Levitt.
January
The Iron Lady
Meryl Streep is Maggie. Oscar ahoy?
War Horse
Spielberg adapts the beloved stage play of the same name. Hankies at the ready.
Shame
Michael Fassbender’s tour de force performance as a sex addict is the main draw. Saw the trailer recently and I am desperate to see this.
Margin Call
David Mamet-esque morality tale of a corporate whistleblower and the impact on Wall Street of his actions.
Coriolanus
Ralph Fiennes in front of and behind the camera for this muscular Shakespeare adaptation.
Haywire
Steven Soderbergh’s latest is a female-led actioner.
J Edgar
Indifferently reviewed Clint biopic of Mr Hoover (played by di Caprio).
The Descendants
George Clooney and Alexander ‘Sideways’ Payne go for Oscar glory.
February
Carnage
Polanski's stagey four-hander about squabbling adults. Very funny.
The Muppets
The big movie for the half-term. Reviews have been strong.
A Dangerous Method
Cronenberg tackles Freud v Jung. Keira gets spanked...
Young Adult
Jason Reitman follows up Up In The Air with this tale of 30-something Charlize Theron who acts like a vengeful teenager. The script is by Diablo 'Juno' Cody.
March
Hansel And Gretel
Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton play the fairy tale duo.
Mirror Mirror
The first Snow White movie of the year, directed by Tarsem Singh.
We Bought A Zoo
The new Cameron Crowe.
The Pirates
Aardman does stop motion… with pirates!
April
Titanic 3D
Cameron throws 3D at his other megahit.
The Avengers
Cap, Thor, Iron Man & co vs Loki and the Skrulls. I’ve only been waiting 35 years for this film…
May
Dark Shadows
The new Tim Burton.
Men In Black III
Cue a hit single for Will Smith.
June
Prometheus
Ridley Scott’s prequel to Alien features Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron and Patrick Wilson.
Snow White And The Huntsman
Kristen Stewart moves on from vampires to a sword-wielding Snow White.
Rock of Ages
The musical becomes a film, complete with Tom Cruise.
Jack The Giant Killer
Bryan Singer continues the year of the fairy tale.
July
The Amazing Spider-Man
Nuff said!
The Dark Knight Rises
Batman meets his Bane. I see Anne Hathaway as Catwoman: result!
August
The Bourne Legacy
Matt Damon is out, but Jeremy Renner is in.
Brave
The new Pixar. Nuff said?
Total Recall
A remake that is supposedly closer to the Philip K Dick novel.
September
Gambit
The new Coens with Cameron Diaz, Alan Rickman and Colin Firth.
Dredd
He is the LAW.
The Sweeney
No, really, it’s been remade…
October
Argo
Ben Affleck stars in and directs the true story of how the CIA extracted hostages from Iran in 1979.
Taken 2
Last time they took his daughter, now they’ve taken him. Liam Neeson’s surprise box office hit returns.
Skyfall
You know the name. You know the number.
November
Gangster Squad
Zombieland director goes all LA Confidential with Sean Penn and Josh Brolin.
December
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
BRING IT ON!
Django Unchained
Tarantino’s latest, a western with Sacha Baron Cohen, di Caprio and Joseph-Gordon-Levitt.
Review: Carnage
I never thought I would laugh intentionally at a Roman Polanski film, but Carnage is the film that has made the improbable real. Laceratingly funny, Carnage’s raison d’etre is the outstanding performances from three-quarters of its four-strong cast that positively demand awards recognition. John C Reilly and Jodie Foster invite Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet round to discuss a playground altercation between the two couples’ boys. The tension between the two couples is obvious from the start, but swiftly the film lays bear the internal rivalries within each marriage and highlights the eternal battle of the sexes.
While the four characters have been created to generate maximum friction, they are fully developed across the film’s short running time (just 80 minutes), ensuring their behaviour (for the most part) is utterly believable.
Jodie Foster rants and raves with aplomb, Reilly deftly plays out his passive/aggressive role, while Waltz imbues his lawyer with an intelligent yet childish streak of evil. The only false note is la Winslet: she’s one of my favourite actresses, but I’m never convinced by her American accent, plus seeing her, always a strong female lead, as the unequal half in her marriage is jarring. Having said that, Winslet generates probably the film’s biggest gut-wrenching laugh…
As the four squabble and fight, the insults and insights become sharper, funnier and more painful, the hypocrisies of the bourgeois and petit-bourgeois well and truly skewered. As the verbal punches fly faster and with increasing intensity, it becomes like a tagteam boxing match.
However, the script, adapted from a play, never truly escapes its origins and nor does it rise to Mamet-esque or LaBute-esque levels of black comedy – but then again not much does!
Score: 7.5/10
Review: The Descendants
The Descendants is another funny yet painful look at the male mid-life crisis from Alexander ‘Sideways’ Payne, buoyed by awards-worthy performances from a strong, indie-friendly cast, led by George Clooney.Clooney is Matt King, a wealthy lawyer in Hawaii, who must cope with his wife’s coma and be the father he’s never been to his two daughters (both played with aplomb by Shailene Woodley – watch out for her in the future - and Amara Miller), while handling the most important decision he will ever make.
With pressure bearing down, and family truths revealing themselves, Clooney’s King is by turns angry, happy, disgusted and comforted as he deals with his troubled daughters, the in-laws (led by a scene-stealing Robert Forster) and business stakeholders (cue Beau Bridges).
The film skips lightly along never over-playing the humour, the drama nor the tragedy: the laughs are genuine and perfectly timed, the heartaches are razor-sharp and leave lasting cuts. Clooney, long the master of the insular everyman, delivers yet another fine performance, marked out by subtle facial reactions that speak of more hurt and remorse than any dialogue could possibly convey.
Much of what makes the film work is the life-like nature of the characters: nobody is that funny, good, evil, sad, etc – they are all composed unequally of those facets. And thus some Hollywood clichés and schmaltz are entirely avoided – and clearly the film is all the better for that.
I saw this twice – and it certainly more than withstood a second watch. Don’t wait for it to appear on DVD: see it at the cinema with a crowd; you won’t regret it. And you'll come away with a few new swearwords too!
Score: 8/10
Review: Coriolanus
Coriolanus is Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut; it's a muscular adaptation of one of Shakey’s least likeable works – and is timely to say the least. Awards noms, both for the strong cast and the exceptional technical credits, will undoubtedly follow.Fiennes is predictably excellent in the war-mongering title role, backed by mother from hell Vanessa Redgrave (surely a Best Supporting Actress Oscar will be winging its way to her), Brian Cox as the slimey Menenius and a surprisingly strong Gerard Butler as Aufidius, foe of the Roman people.
Set in modern times, complete with 24/7 newsflash inserts and filmed in shell-shocked Serbia, the film’s portrayal of the eternal battle between soldiers and politicians carries considerable resonance. The devastation inflicted on the landscape is likewise wrought on the souls of the soldiers - great Coriolanus is no exception, any heart he once might have had apparently eviscerated by lifetime of combat.
Fiennes is not only in command of his performance and the script, but also of the entire production. The film is never less than cinematic, buoyed by Barry ‘Hurt Locker’ Ackroyd being the DoP.
I must confess to not enjoying Coriolanus when compelled to read it at school, but I really got to grips with the text this time round. Thanks Ralph!
Score: 8.5/10
Sunday, 18 December 2011
Golden Globes 2012: Tinker Tailor snubbed
The Golden Globe noms for 2012 pretty much went as expected – The Artist leads the field with six noms ahead of The Descendants and The Help on five apiece – but Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy picked up precisely zero noms – and that’s a real shock.
Presumably the US distributors will now be working very hard to regain awards momentum and try to secure the Oscar noms that the film clearly deserves.
There were other shocks: only one nom for Clint’s J Edgar; just two noms for Spielberg’s War Horse and Fincher’s Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; Clooney’s Ides of March being recognised with four noms; Woody Allen securing four nods for Midnight In Paris; and only the actresses in Polanski’s Carnage being recognised.
Worthy of note: Clooney nominated for actor and director in two different films; Ryan Gosling nominated twice for Best Actor (for Crazy, Stupid, Love and Ides of March); Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet nominated for their roles in Carnage, with the latter actress also shortlisted in the TV movie section for Mildred Pearce.
At this stage, I’d put money on The Artist winning Best Film, but all the other categories are open… with one exception: I think Christopher Plummer, for his role in Beginners, will take the Supporting Actor Globe and every Supporting Actor gong going (he’s already won six and is up for another seven), including the Oscar (he’s never won before and only has one nomination to his name, garnered at the age of 80!).
The Artist: 6 - Film, Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, Screenplay, Score
Descendents: 5 - Film, Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, Screenplay
The Help: 5 - Film, Actress, Supping Actress x 2, Song
Ides of March: 4 - Film, Actor, Director, Screenplay
Midnight in Paris: 4 - Film, Actor, Director, Screenplay
Moneyball: 4 - Film, Actor, Supporting Actor, Screenplay
Albert Nobbs: 3 - Actress, Supporting Actress, Song
Hugo: 3 - Film, Director, Score
My Week With Marilyn: 3 - Film, Actress, Supporting Actor
50/50: 2 - Film, Actor
Bridesmaids: 2 - Film, Actress
Carnage: 2 - Actress x 2
A Dangerous Method: Supporting Actor
Beginners: Supporting Actor
Crazy, Stupid, Love: Actor
Drive: Supporting Actor
The Guard: Actor
Young Adult: Actress
Presumably the US distributors will now be working very hard to regain awards momentum and try to secure the Oscar noms that the film clearly deserves.
There were other shocks: only one nom for Clint’s J Edgar; just two noms for Spielberg’s War Horse and Fincher’s Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; Clooney’s Ides of March being recognised with four noms; Woody Allen securing four nods for Midnight In Paris; and only the actresses in Polanski’s Carnage being recognised.
Worthy of note: Clooney nominated for actor and director in two different films; Ryan Gosling nominated twice for Best Actor (for Crazy, Stupid, Love and Ides of March); Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet nominated for their roles in Carnage, with the latter actress also shortlisted in the TV movie section for Mildred Pearce.
At this stage, I’d put money on The Artist winning Best Film, but all the other categories are open… with one exception: I think Christopher Plummer, for his role in Beginners, will take the Supporting Actor Globe and every Supporting Actor gong going (he’s already won six and is up for another seven), including the Oscar (he’s never won before and only has one nomination to his name, garnered at the age of 80!).
The Artist: 6 - Film, Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, Screenplay, Score
Descendents: 5 - Film, Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, Screenplay
The Help: 5 - Film, Actress, Supping Actress x 2, Song
Ides of March: 4 - Film, Actor, Director, Screenplay
Midnight in Paris: 4 - Film, Actor, Director, Screenplay
Moneyball: 4 - Film, Actor, Supporting Actor, Screenplay
Albert Nobbs: 3 - Actress, Supporting Actress, Song
Hugo: 3 - Film, Director, Score
My Week With Marilyn: 3 - Film, Actress, Supporting Actor
50/50: 2 - Film, Actor
Bridesmaids: 2 - Film, Actress
Carnage: 2 - Actress x 2
A Dangerous Method: Supporting Actor
Beginners: Supporting Actor
Crazy, Stupid, Love: Actor
Drive: Supporting Actor
The Guard: Actor
Young Adult: Actress
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Awards season countdown
It's nearly the end of the year, so it's time for Hollywood silly season: that's right, it's awards time!
The big guns begin on 15 December with the announcement of the Golden Globe nominations, but some awards have already been made.
While it’s too early to pinpoint a clear favourite for any of the key Oscars, the main contenders are becoming clearer. All indicators suggest two films celebrating an earlier, more innocent age of cinema will be front and centre: The Artist and Hugo. The former (black and white, silent, and technically French) charmed Cannes in the spring, and has now won over the New York critics (best film and director), and the Boston critics (best film). Expect to see the film, its director and its two stars figure everywhere over the next 10 weeks.
Martin Scorsese’s Hugo is a 3D film thoroughly worthy of Oscar glory – and the legendary director’s best work since Goodfellas. The Boston critics crowned Scorsese best director, while he was runner-up among the LA critics. Expect to see the film nominated as well as the director, plus considerable potential for Ben Kinsgsley and all the lead crew for technical/craft awards.
Alexander Payne’s The Descendants will be in there pitching for Film, Director, Actor (for George Clooney), Writer and possibly supporting actress. From the New York critics, it has already secured the screenplay prize; and from the LA critics, best film.
With several key ‘worthy’ films still be seen – Spielberg’s War Horse and Daldry’s Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close to name just two – there’s plenty of room for both mainstream successes and art-house darlings to gain recognition: Brad Pitt’s Moneyball, female-led racial drama The Help, and Bridesmaids are among the former, and Take Shelter and We Need To Talk About Kevin are among the latter.
There follows the list of likely contenders in the four key categories and then the awards season timetable:
Film:
The Artist
The Help
Hugo
Moneyball
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
War Horse
Director:
Tomas Alfredson, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Terrence Malick, Tree of Life
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Steven Spielberg, War Horse
Actor:
Michael Fassbender, Shame
George Clooney, The Descendants
Demian Bichir, A Better Life
Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
Michael Shannon, Take Shelter
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Ryan Gosling, The Ides Of March
Actress:
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn
Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia
Jodie Foster, Carnage
Tilda Swinton, We Need To Talk About Kevin
Charlize Theron, Young Adult
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis, The Help
Awards timetable
15 December - Golden Globe noms
6 January – BAFTA longlist
10 January – National Board of Review Awards
15 January – Golden Globes
17 January – BAFTA noms
21 January – PGA
24 January – Oscar noms
29 January – DGA and SAG
12 February – BAFTAs
19 February – WGA
26 February - Oscars
The big guns begin on 15 December with the announcement of the Golden Globe nominations, but some awards have already been made.
While it’s too early to pinpoint a clear favourite for any of the key Oscars, the main contenders are becoming clearer. All indicators suggest two films celebrating an earlier, more innocent age of cinema will be front and centre: The Artist and Hugo. The former (black and white, silent, and technically French) charmed Cannes in the spring, and has now won over the New York critics (best film and director), and the Boston critics (best film). Expect to see the film, its director and its two stars figure everywhere over the next 10 weeks.
Martin Scorsese’s Hugo is a 3D film thoroughly worthy of Oscar glory – and the legendary director’s best work since Goodfellas. The Boston critics crowned Scorsese best director, while he was runner-up among the LA critics. Expect to see the film nominated as well as the director, plus considerable potential for Ben Kinsgsley and all the lead crew for technical/craft awards.
Alexander Payne’s The Descendants will be in there pitching for Film, Director, Actor (for George Clooney), Writer and possibly supporting actress. From the New York critics, it has already secured the screenplay prize; and from the LA critics, best film.
With several key ‘worthy’ films still be seen – Spielberg’s War Horse and Daldry’s Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close to name just two – there’s plenty of room for both mainstream successes and art-house darlings to gain recognition: Brad Pitt’s Moneyball, female-led racial drama The Help, and Bridesmaids are among the former, and Take Shelter and We Need To Talk About Kevin are among the latter.
There follows the list of likely contenders in the four key categories and then the awards season timetable:
Film:
The Artist
The Help
Hugo
Moneyball
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
War Horse
Director:
Tomas Alfredson, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Terrence Malick, Tree of Life
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Steven Spielberg, War Horse
Actor:
Michael Fassbender, Shame
George Clooney, The Descendants
Demian Bichir, A Better Life
Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
Michael Shannon, Take Shelter
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Ryan Gosling, The Ides Of March
Actress:
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn
Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia
Jodie Foster, Carnage
Tilda Swinton, We Need To Talk About Kevin
Charlize Theron, Young Adult
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis, The Help
Awards timetable
15 December - Golden Globe noms
6 January – BAFTA longlist
10 January – National Board of Review Awards
15 January – Golden Globes
17 January – BAFTA noms
21 January – PGA
24 January – Oscar noms
29 January – DGA and SAG
12 February – BAFTAs
19 February – WGA
26 February - Oscars
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Best of the Fest 2011
So, what was the best of the London Film Festival 2011? Of the 28 different films I saw, which should you see at the cinema?
Well, I’ve kept the list short, and it’s in order of their general release dates (thanks to IMDb.com, but subject to acts of dog, etc).
We Need To Talk About Kevin: on release now; 7.5/10
The Ides Of March: on release now; 8/10
The Awakening: opens 11 November; 7.5/10
50/50: on release 25 November; 9/10
Take Shelter: opens 25 November; 9/10
Coriolanus: on release 20 January 2012; 8.5/10
The Descendants: opens 27 January 2012; 8/10
Carnage : opens 3 February 2012; 7.5/10
A Dangerous Method: opens 10 February 2012; 7/10
Chicken With Plums: no release date scheduled yet; 7.5/10
Nobody Else But You: no release date scheduled yet; 8.5/10
Roll on LFF 2012!
Well, I’ve kept the list short, and it’s in order of their general release dates (thanks to IMDb.com, but subject to acts of dog, etc).
We Need To Talk About Kevin: on release now; 7.5/10
The Ides Of March: on release now; 8/10
The Awakening: opens 11 November; 7.5/10
50/50: on release 25 November; 9/10
Take Shelter: opens 25 November; 9/10
Coriolanus: on release 20 January 2012; 8.5/10
The Descendants: opens 27 January 2012; 8/10
Carnage : opens 3 February 2012; 7.5/10
A Dangerous Method: opens 10 February 2012; 7/10
Chicken With Plums: no release date scheduled yet; 7.5/10
Nobody Else But You: no release date scheduled yet; 8.5/10
Roll on LFF 2012!
LFF 2011: Anonymous, The Awakening, and This Must Be The Place
Anonymous
Director Roland Emmerich is best known for the likes of Independence Day, the Day After Tomorrow, and 2012, so it comes as something of a shock to see him knocking out this Shakespearean thriller.
Working from Jon Orloff’s slightly crazy script, the film focuses on the authorship question surrounding Shakespeare’s work. Now, every schoolboy knows the basic rumour – Shakespeare was a hack whose work was improved (especially the tragedies) by the likes of Marlowe – but here Orloff runs amok, giving us a Jack The Ripper-style mystery with the central Macguffin going all the way to the Queen.
The script may or may not be utter nonsense in terms of its accuracy, but that doesn’t hold the cast back, especially its lead, Rhys Ifans, who turns in quite the best performance of his career. Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson, and David Thewlis lend solid gold support.
Where Shakespeare In Love presented a Hollywood Elizabethan London, Emmerich miraculously conjures a gritty evocation of the capital without resorting to buckets of shit being thrown from windows (every member of the cast has dirty fingers); the production design is spot on, and the cinematography from Anna Foerster is good as anything you’d expect from a mid-90s BBC costume drama, working with the limited light provided by sunlight through windows and candlelight.
If nothing else, this is a ripping yarn that every kid should be compelled to watch because Shakespeare and his time is brought to life with such vibrance, and it highlights the importance and the power of great art.
Score: 7/10
The Awakening
This classy British super natural chiller highlights Rebecca Hall’s credentials as a leading actress (a BAFTA nom will surely be her reward) and heralds the arrival of great British director in the shape of debutant Nick Murphy.
Post-WW I, Hall is a ghost-hunter/ghost-debunker called in by a boys’ school to solve the riddle of the recent death of one of its pupils. His death seems linked to a death that happened many years before, and the school is rife with rumours/sightings of a ghost. Hall’s Florence Cathcart is a thoroughly modern woman, educated and emancipated, yet haunted by her own demons. And thus as she strives to solve the mystery at the school, so she must unravel the riddle of her own life.
The tension builds throughout, and there are chills and shocks aplenty – Sneezy next to me spent much of the film hiding behind her scarf. However, Murphy and co-writer Stephen Volk are not as successful at achieving the emotional highs that would help lift this more than commendable effort into the territory owned by The Sixth Sense and The Others. Indeed, the precision evident throughout the film is cast aside in the final act as the story and characters’ journeys unravel somewhat.
The work of cinematographer Eduard Grau (who shot A Single Man) certainly helps Murhpy realise his cinematic ambitions in full (there’s no hint of his TV background here), bringing great compositions and use of light and darkness to the fore.
Score: 7.5/10
This Must Be The Place
And thus my 2011 London Film Festival concluded with a whimper rather than a bang. Sean Penn’s presence in the lead was the hook, but it’s not enough.
Penn plays a washed-up, retired rock star (part Robert Smith from the Cure, part Michael Jackson) living in Dublin, who returns to the States on family business, bent on discovery, redemption and revenge.
The early scenes in Dublin are amusing enough, but, as soon as Penn’s Stateside roadtrip begins, the film loses its drive and its charm. Supporting perfrmances and cameos from Frances McDormand, Judd Hirsch, Harry Dean Stanton, and David Byrne add lustre, but little else.
For such arty whimsy, the film is far too long (and loses a point as a result). This is really for hardcore Penn fans only.
Score: 4/10
Director Roland Emmerich is best known for the likes of Independence Day, the Day After Tomorrow, and 2012, so it comes as something of a shock to see him knocking out this Shakespearean thriller.
Working from Jon Orloff’s slightly crazy script, the film focuses on the authorship question surrounding Shakespeare’s work. Now, every schoolboy knows the basic rumour – Shakespeare was a hack whose work was improved (especially the tragedies) by the likes of Marlowe – but here Orloff runs amok, giving us a Jack The Ripper-style mystery with the central Macguffin going all the way to the Queen.
The script may or may not be utter nonsense in terms of its accuracy, but that doesn’t hold the cast back, especially its lead, Rhys Ifans, who turns in quite the best performance of his career. Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson, and David Thewlis lend solid gold support.
Where Shakespeare In Love presented a Hollywood Elizabethan London, Emmerich miraculously conjures a gritty evocation of the capital without resorting to buckets of shit being thrown from windows (every member of the cast has dirty fingers); the production design is spot on, and the cinematography from Anna Foerster is good as anything you’d expect from a mid-90s BBC costume drama, working with the limited light provided by sunlight through windows and candlelight.
If nothing else, this is a ripping yarn that every kid should be compelled to watch because Shakespeare and his time is brought to life with such vibrance, and it highlights the importance and the power of great art.
Score: 7/10
The Awakening
This classy British super natural chiller highlights Rebecca Hall’s credentials as a leading actress (a BAFTA nom will surely be her reward) and heralds the arrival of great British director in the shape of debutant Nick Murphy.
Post-WW I, Hall is a ghost-hunter/ghost-debunker called in by a boys’ school to solve the riddle of the recent death of one of its pupils. His death seems linked to a death that happened many years before, and the school is rife with rumours/sightings of a ghost. Hall’s Florence Cathcart is a thoroughly modern woman, educated and emancipated, yet haunted by her own demons. And thus as she strives to solve the mystery at the school, so she must unravel the riddle of her own life.
The tension builds throughout, and there are chills and shocks aplenty – Sneezy next to me spent much of the film hiding behind her scarf. However, Murphy and co-writer Stephen Volk are not as successful at achieving the emotional highs that would help lift this more than commendable effort into the territory owned by The Sixth Sense and The Others. Indeed, the precision evident throughout the film is cast aside in the final act as the story and characters’ journeys unravel somewhat.
The work of cinematographer Eduard Grau (who shot A Single Man) certainly helps Murhpy realise his cinematic ambitions in full (there’s no hint of his TV background here), bringing great compositions and use of light and darkness to the fore.
Score: 7.5/10
This Must Be The Place
And thus my 2011 London Film Festival concluded with a whimper rather than a bang. Sean Penn’s presence in the lead was the hook, but it’s not enough.
Penn plays a washed-up, retired rock star (part Robert Smith from the Cure, part Michael Jackson) living in Dublin, who returns to the States on family business, bent on discovery, redemption and revenge.
The early scenes in Dublin are amusing enough, but, as soon as Penn’s Stateside roadtrip begins, the film loses its drive and its charm. Supporting perfrmances and cameos from Frances McDormand, Judd Hirsch, Harry Dean Stanton, and David Byrne add lustre, but little else.
For such arty whimsy, the film is far too long (and loses a point as a result). This is really for hardcore Penn fans only.
Score: 4/10
LFF 2011: Uncle Kent, Silver Bullets, and A Dangerous Method
Uncle Kent and Silver Bullets
So a double-bill of the most recent works from twenty-something/thirty-something mumblecore god Joe Swanberg greeted me on the penultimate day of my stint at the LFF – and what a waste of mine and Dunkini’s time and money.
At the end, we were actually speechless – we barely uttered a word for half an hour as we struggled to comprehend how these ‘films’ (are they films as anyone would define that term?) got programmed at the festival.
The less said about these low-fi ruminations on relationships and movie-making, the better…
Score: 1/10 and 2/10 respectively
A Dangerous Method
After three failures (the two Swanbergs and the previous night’s surprise film), we were desperate for a cracker, and while David Cronenberg’s latest is not an absolute cracker, it nevertheless generated plenty of debate in the aftermath.
On the face of it this story of the tensions between Carl Jung, his patient Sabina Spielrein, and his mentor/rival Sigmund Freud seems to fit perfectly within Cronenberg’s psycho-sexual oeuvre, but the great director approaches it with uncharacteristic restraint.
While nominally a three-hander, Viggo Mortensen’s Freud is a supporting role (and just as well as he seems ill at ease with the part): it is Michael Fassbender’s Jung and Keira Knightley’s Sabina who are front and centre. Fassbender is predictably brilliant, adding further evidence for my claim that he is the best actor in the world right now, as he struggles with admiration and then disgust for Freud, and his desire for Sabina.
Reaction to Knightley’s performance could go either way among professional critics: for the record, I can’t help but feel that Naomi Watts would have been better at the role (certainly its darker sexual aspects), but there’s no doubt that Knightley leaves nothing on the table – she’s convincingly mad, emotionally, physically and psychologically crippled by the social mores of the day, but – and it is a significant but – whether through her choice or Cronenberg’s direction, there is no blood and thunder when she is finally able to give herself over to her darkest desires. I was convinced that if anyone could uncover a dark sexuality within Knightley, then Cronenberg would be the man to do it, but unfortunately this is not the case.
The film looks great, with nice period detail and locations, but I can’t help but feel it needs some of the psycho-sexual fairy dust that Patrick Marber sprinkled on his adaptation of Strindberg’s Miss Julie in order to achieve greatness.
Score: 7/10 (subject to confirmation from second viewing)
So a double-bill of the most recent works from twenty-something/thirty-something mumblecore god Joe Swanberg greeted me on the penultimate day of my stint at the LFF – and what a waste of mine and Dunkini’s time and money.
At the end, we were actually speechless – we barely uttered a word for half an hour as we struggled to comprehend how these ‘films’ (are they films as anyone would define that term?) got programmed at the festival.
The less said about these low-fi ruminations on relationships and movie-making, the better…
Score: 1/10 and 2/10 respectively
A Dangerous Method
After three failures (the two Swanbergs and the previous night’s surprise film), we were desperate for a cracker, and while David Cronenberg’s latest is not an absolute cracker, it nevertheless generated plenty of debate in the aftermath.
On the face of it this story of the tensions between Carl Jung, his patient Sabina Spielrein, and his mentor/rival Sigmund Freud seems to fit perfectly within Cronenberg’s psycho-sexual oeuvre, but the great director approaches it with uncharacteristic restraint.
While nominally a three-hander, Viggo Mortensen’s Freud is a supporting role (and just as well as he seems ill at ease with the part): it is Michael Fassbender’s Jung and Keira Knightley’s Sabina who are front and centre. Fassbender is predictably brilliant, adding further evidence for my claim that he is the best actor in the world right now, as he struggles with admiration and then disgust for Freud, and his desire for Sabina.
Reaction to Knightley’s performance could go either way among professional critics: for the record, I can’t help but feel that Naomi Watts would have been better at the role (certainly its darker sexual aspects), but there’s no doubt that Knightley leaves nothing on the table – she’s convincingly mad, emotionally, physically and psychologically crippled by the social mores of the day, but – and it is a significant but – whether through her choice or Cronenberg’s direction, there is no blood and thunder when she is finally able to give herself over to her darkest desires. I was convinced that if anyone could uncover a dark sexuality within Knightley, then Cronenberg would be the man to do it, but unfortunately this is not the case.
The film looks great, with nice period detail and locations, but I can’t help but feel it needs some of the psycho-sexual fairy dust that Patrick Marber sprinkled on his adaptation of Strindberg’s Miss Julie in order to achieve greatness.
Score: 7/10 (subject to confirmation from second viewing)
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
LFF 2011: Take Shelter, The Monk and Damsels In Distress
Take Shelter
Gripping, chilling, moving, and frequently astonishingly powerful: Take Shelter was the film that caught LFF-goers unawares. With hints of both early Spielberg and Shyamalan, this second film by writer/director Jeff Nichols has been gathering momentum all year since picking up two awards at Cannes.
In brief, the film’s hero, played with compelling conviction by Michael Shannon, is a simple family man in a nowheresville in the heartland of the US who suffers from visions of an apocalyptic storm.
The intensity of the storm and its impact increases with each night’s vision, and each morning the damage inflicted on him in the dream has a half-life in his waking world.
Inevitably the intensity of the visions, the disturbed sleep and his worry about his mother’s medical history now blossoming anew within his brain drive him into paranoia and madness.
Initially, his wife (played impeccably by actress of the year Jessica Chastain) and best friend are supportive, but soon his erratic behaviour puts those relationships in jeopardy.
Ultimately he has to make a choice to be consumed by his visions and lose everything or suffer medium-term sacrifices to ensure he can work his way back to a normal life.
Nicholls, with the help of some astonishing special effects work, great cinematography, and a stirring Clint Mansell-esque score, grasps the audience in his hands and takes you into the hero’s nightmare. The visions had me gripping my chair even as I jumped out of it, and in at least one case the vision was too much and I had to close my eyes rather than face the expected (but not delivered) outcome.
This is no frightfest though: Nichols cleverly ramps down the shocks once he’s got you in his grips – after the first few visions, your imagination takes over and you assume the worse, allowing the director to concentrate his focus on the hero’s psychological and emotional journey.
If there’s any justice, Nichols, Shannon and the film itself will be strewn with awards nominations that will allow this small film ($5m budget, says IMDb) to break out and to be seen by the huge audience it thoroughly deserves to enthral.
Miss it at your peril.
Score: 9/10
The Monk
Director Dominik Moll made his name with Harry, He’s Here To Help and Lemming, and now’s he’s back with this adaptation of key early Gothic horror story, The Monk.
It’s an atmospheric, occasionally chilling critique of the moral constrictions of Catholicism, with Vincent Cassel as the titular monk Ambrosio, who falls from the highest state of piety to being prey for the devil.
Cassel is utterly convincing as usual, but for the first time in his career plays a completely restricted character, with no freedom of expression, movement or emotion. Even as he falls from grace, Cassel’s monk can’t break free from his shackles.
However, this adaptation, while rigorous in its execution, seems to leave several threads hanging come its conclusion, while the score is a little too predictable.
Ultimately this is a European arthouse take on a Hammer horror.
Score: 6.5/10
Damsels In Distress
Well this was the surprise movie – and unfortunately for me it was a bit of a dud.
I was seriously disappointed by this, and my score reflects not the intentions or hard work of any of those involved in the production of the film, nor the decision of festival director Sandra Hebron to screen it; no, my score reflects the fact that I just didn’t ‘get’ it.
The only way to describe it is, in the words of Dunkini, the ‘anti-Heathers’. New girl starts at college, and is embraced by a clique of doo-gooding simpletons. Delivery of dialogue is intentionally flat, while the cast do their best to breathe life into characters that are deliberately drawn without it.
There are some funny moments, not least the anal sex gag, but other than that the film totally failed to engage me.
Score: 2/10
Gripping, chilling, moving, and frequently astonishingly powerful: Take Shelter was the film that caught LFF-goers unawares. With hints of both early Spielberg and Shyamalan, this second film by writer/director Jeff Nichols has been gathering momentum all year since picking up two awards at Cannes.
In brief, the film’s hero, played with compelling conviction by Michael Shannon, is a simple family man in a nowheresville in the heartland of the US who suffers from visions of an apocalyptic storm.
The intensity of the storm and its impact increases with each night’s vision, and each morning the damage inflicted on him in the dream has a half-life in his waking world.
Inevitably the intensity of the visions, the disturbed sleep and his worry about his mother’s medical history now blossoming anew within his brain drive him into paranoia and madness.
Initially, his wife (played impeccably by actress of the year Jessica Chastain) and best friend are supportive, but soon his erratic behaviour puts those relationships in jeopardy.
Ultimately he has to make a choice to be consumed by his visions and lose everything or suffer medium-term sacrifices to ensure he can work his way back to a normal life.
Nicholls, with the help of some astonishing special effects work, great cinematography, and a stirring Clint Mansell-esque score, grasps the audience in his hands and takes you into the hero’s nightmare. The visions had me gripping my chair even as I jumped out of it, and in at least one case the vision was too much and I had to close my eyes rather than face the expected (but not delivered) outcome.
This is no frightfest though: Nichols cleverly ramps down the shocks once he’s got you in his grips – after the first few visions, your imagination takes over and you assume the worse, allowing the director to concentrate his focus on the hero’s psychological and emotional journey.
If there’s any justice, Nichols, Shannon and the film itself will be strewn with awards nominations that will allow this small film ($5m budget, says IMDb) to break out and to be seen by the huge audience it thoroughly deserves to enthral.
Miss it at your peril.
Score: 9/10
The Monk
Director Dominik Moll made his name with Harry, He’s Here To Help and Lemming, and now’s he’s back with this adaptation of key early Gothic horror story, The Monk.
It’s an atmospheric, occasionally chilling critique of the moral constrictions of Catholicism, with Vincent Cassel as the titular monk Ambrosio, who falls from the highest state of piety to being prey for the devil.
Cassel is utterly convincing as usual, but for the first time in his career plays a completely restricted character, with no freedom of expression, movement or emotion. Even as he falls from grace, Cassel’s monk can’t break free from his shackles.
However, this adaptation, while rigorous in its execution, seems to leave several threads hanging come its conclusion, while the score is a little too predictable.
Ultimately this is a European arthouse take on a Hammer horror.
Score: 6.5/10
Damsels In Distress
Well this was the surprise movie – and unfortunately for me it was a bit of a dud.
I was seriously disappointed by this, and my score reflects not the intentions or hard work of any of those involved in the production of the film, nor the decision of festival director Sandra Hebron to screen it; no, my score reflects the fact that I just didn’t ‘get’ it.
The only way to describe it is, in the words of Dunkini, the ‘anti-Heathers’. New girl starts at college, and is embraced by a clique of doo-gooding simpletons. Delivery of dialogue is intentionally flat, while the cast do their best to breathe life into characters that are deliberately drawn without it.
There are some funny moments, not least the anal sex gag, but other than that the film totally failed to engage me.
Score: 2/10
LFF 2011: Ides of March, Carnage, and Bernie
The Ides of March
Top quality, if a little cold, political drama from George Clooney, this time directing while taking a key supporting role.
As the title suggests, there are strong Shakespearean overtones in the film’s story of Ryan Gosling’s Stephen Myers, the deputy campaign manager for Clooney’s Democrat would-be presidential candidate: he is the idealist in the cesspool of political campaigning – does he fight clean and face failure, or do the means justify the ends? Dirty or not, does he even have the guts and the nous for the fight? Can he square his morality with his own ambition?
Gosling is in award-winning form, visibly ageing through the film, becoming wiser with each slap in the face as he confronts his direct boss Philip Seymour Hoffman, his rival Paul Giamatti, his lover Evan Rachel Wood, and his newspaper contact Marisa Tomei. This supporting cast is as brilliant as ever.
The technical credits are off the chart too: the great score from Alexandre ‘King’s Speech’ Desplat, and lovely cinematography from Phedon Papamichael (who shot The Descendants) should meet with awards recognition too.
Overall the film has a very 70s, post-Watergate feel, its depth of character study, realism and cool detachment being reminiscent of Lumet or Pakula. Nevertheless, the film is nothing less than timely and current, and yet another feather in Clooney’s bulging cap.
Score: 8/10
Carnage
I never thought I would laugh intentionally at a Roman Polanski film, but Carnage is the film that has made the improbable real.
Laceratingly funny, Carnage’s raison d’etre is the outstanding performances from three-quarters of its four-strong cast that positively demand awards recognition.
John C Reilly and Jodie Foster invite Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet round to discuss a playground altercation between the two couples’ boys. The tension between the two couples is obvious from the start, but swiftly the film lays bear the internal rivalries within each marriage and highlights the eternal battle of the sexes.
While the four characters have been created to generate maximum friction, they are fully developed across the film’s short running time (just 80 minutes), ensuring their behaviour (for the most part) is utterly believable.
Jodie Foster rants and raves with aplomb, Reilly deftly plays out his passive/aggressive role, while Waltz imbues his lawyer with an intelligent yet childish streak of evil. The only false note is la Winslet: she’s one of my favourite actresses, but I’m never convinced by her American accent, plus seeing her, always a strong female lead, as the unequal half in her marriage is jarring. Having said that, Winslet generates probably the film’s biggest gut-wrenching laugh…
As the four squabble and fight, the insults and insights become sharper, funnier and more painful, the hypocrisies of the bourgeois and petit-bourgeois well and truly skewered. As the verbal punches fly faster and with increasing intensity, it becomes like a tagteam boxing match.
However, the script, adapted from a play, never truly escapes its origins and nor does it rise to Mamet-esque or LaBute-esque levels of black comedy – but then again not much does!
Score: 7.5/10
Bernie
This is the latest, slightly disappointing curio from director Richard Linklater, working with his School of Rock cohort Jack Black. It’s based on the true story of a funeral director, unanimously loved in his adopted Texas town of Carthage, who murders the wealthy humourless widow (Shirely MacLaine) whom he has befriended.
The film does successfully combine biopic elements with documentary-style talking heads, mixing actors and real people. However, Black is front and centre – and his schtick here doesn’t quite work – while MacLaine replays a role she has played too many times before.
On the bright side, Matthew McConaughey reveals a previously hidden talent for character comedy as the DA out to take Black’s Bernie down – and on the evidence presented here should be fighting for Paul Giamatti- and Sam Rockwell-type roles rather than action-adventure and romcom leads.
But the stand-out character in this film is not an actor, it’s one of the locals, who dispatches his wisdom and opinions with perfect comic timing.
Score: 6.5 /10
Top quality, if a little cold, political drama from George Clooney, this time directing while taking a key supporting role.
As the title suggests, there are strong Shakespearean overtones in the film’s story of Ryan Gosling’s Stephen Myers, the deputy campaign manager for Clooney’s Democrat would-be presidential candidate: he is the idealist in the cesspool of political campaigning – does he fight clean and face failure, or do the means justify the ends? Dirty or not, does he even have the guts and the nous for the fight? Can he square his morality with his own ambition?
Gosling is in award-winning form, visibly ageing through the film, becoming wiser with each slap in the face as he confronts his direct boss Philip Seymour Hoffman, his rival Paul Giamatti, his lover Evan Rachel Wood, and his newspaper contact Marisa Tomei. This supporting cast is as brilliant as ever.
The technical credits are off the chart too: the great score from Alexandre ‘King’s Speech’ Desplat, and lovely cinematography from Phedon Papamichael (who shot The Descendants) should meet with awards recognition too.
Overall the film has a very 70s, post-Watergate feel, its depth of character study, realism and cool detachment being reminiscent of Lumet or Pakula. Nevertheless, the film is nothing less than timely and current, and yet another feather in Clooney’s bulging cap.
Score: 8/10
Carnage
I never thought I would laugh intentionally at a Roman Polanski film, but Carnage is the film that has made the improbable real.
Laceratingly funny, Carnage’s raison d’etre is the outstanding performances from three-quarters of its four-strong cast that positively demand awards recognition.
John C Reilly and Jodie Foster invite Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet round to discuss a playground altercation between the two couples’ boys. The tension between the two couples is obvious from the start, but swiftly the film lays bear the internal rivalries within each marriage and highlights the eternal battle of the sexes.
While the four characters have been created to generate maximum friction, they are fully developed across the film’s short running time (just 80 minutes), ensuring their behaviour (for the most part) is utterly believable.
Jodie Foster rants and raves with aplomb, Reilly deftly plays out his passive/aggressive role, while Waltz imbues his lawyer with an intelligent yet childish streak of evil. The only false note is la Winslet: she’s one of my favourite actresses, but I’m never convinced by her American accent, plus seeing her, always a strong female lead, as the unequal half in her marriage is jarring. Having said that, Winslet generates probably the film’s biggest gut-wrenching laugh…
As the four squabble and fight, the insults and insights become sharper, funnier and more painful, the hypocrisies of the bourgeois and petit-bourgeois well and truly skewered. As the verbal punches fly faster and with increasing intensity, it becomes like a tagteam boxing match.
However, the script, adapted from a play, never truly escapes its origins and nor does it rise to Mamet-esque or LaBute-esque levels of black comedy – but then again not much does!
Score: 7.5/10
Bernie
This is the latest, slightly disappointing curio from director Richard Linklater, working with his School of Rock cohort Jack Black. It’s based on the true story of a funeral director, unanimously loved in his adopted Texas town of Carthage, who murders the wealthy humourless widow (Shirely MacLaine) whom he has befriended.
The film does successfully combine biopic elements with documentary-style talking heads, mixing actors and real people. However, Black is front and centre – and his schtick here doesn’t quite work – while MacLaine replays a role she has played too many times before.
On the bright side, Matthew McConaughey reveals a previously hidden talent for character comedy as the DA out to take Black’s Bernie down – and on the evidence presented here should be fighting for Paul Giamatti- and Sam Rockwell-type roles rather than action-adventure and romcom leads.
But the stand-out character in this film is not an actor, it’s one of the locals, who dispatches his wisdom and opinions with perfect comic timing.
Score: 6.5 /10
LFF 2011: Terri, Bullets, and The Descendants
Terri
This is worth seeing for John C Reilly’s supporting performance as a school headmaster (quite probably) exorcising his own demons by trying to help the good-hearted fuck up kids at his school.
Reilly’s Mr Fitzgerald is introduced us as we watch the misadventures of the titular Terri, a tall, overweight teenager, who has become insular and withdrawn following years of teasing and bullying. Living alone with his medicated uncle in a cottage in the woods, Terri is singled out by the headmaster as a pupil needing special help and encouragement.
The film follows the John Hughes high school format, with the outsider making their journey to acceptance, but gently subverts it.
Terri is charmingly played by newcomer Jacob Wysocki, while director Azazel Jacobs maintains the melancholy beautifully throughout.
Score: 6.5/10
Let The Bullets Fly
Too long and trying to hard, but still strangely enjoyable: that’s my thoughts on this mad Chinese-Hong Kong eastern Western from director/star Jiang Wen.
Wen is a bandit who connives his way into being declared mayor of Goose Town, where he intends to make his fortune through taxation and bribes. But he hasn’t accounted for the local godfather, played for laughs by Chow Yun-Fat.
With manic gunplay, and a touch of wu-fu, the bandit and his gang repeatedly face off against the godfather and his gang – and ‘repeatedly’ is the key word here, as the plot keeps twisting, generating more and more battles.
Mood shifts are frequent and they jar: Wen lends enormous gravitas to his role as the noble bandit, but this sits ill with Yun-Fat’s constant manic mugging; we are expected to mourn gang members who we have been barely sketched out in comic tones, and so it goes on.
Some set pieces are brilliantly executed, while others are pedestrian or let down by poor effects.
If this had been cut to 90 minutes, its foibles might be forgiven. If nothing else, I want to check out Wen’s back catalogue – he has real screen presence.
Score: 6/10
The Descendants
Alexander ‘Sideways’ Payne delivers another funny yet painful look at the male mid-life crisis, buoyed by awards-worthy performances from a strong, indie-friendly cast, led by George Clooney.
Clooney is Matt King, a wealthy lawyer in Hawaii, who must cope with his wife’s coma and be the father he’s never been to his two daughters (both played with aplomb by Shailene Woodley – watch out for her in the future - and Amara Miller), while handling the most important decision he will ever make.
With pressure bearing down, and family truths revealing themselves, Clooney’s King is by turns angry, happy, disgusted and comforted as he deals with his troubled daughters, the in-laws (led by a scene-stealing Robert Forster) and business stakeholders (cue Beau Bridges).
The film skips lightly along never over-playing the humour, the drama nor the tragedy: the laughs are genuine and perfectly timed, the heartaches are razor-sharp and leave lasting cuts. Clooney, long the master of the insular everyman, delivers yet another fine performance, marked out by subtle facial reactions that speak of more hurt and remorse than any dialogue could possibly convey.
Much of what makes the film work is the life-like nature of the characters: nobody is that funny, good, evil, sad, etc – they are all composed unequally of those facets. And thus some Hollywood clichés and schmaltz are entirely avoided – and clearly the film is all the better for that.
I saw this twice – and it certainly more than withstood a second watch. Don’t wait for it to appear on DVD: see it at the cinema with a crowd; you won’t regret it. And you'll come away with a few new swearwords too!
Score: 8/10
This is worth seeing for John C Reilly’s supporting performance as a school headmaster (quite probably) exorcising his own demons by trying to help the good-hearted fuck up kids at his school.
Reilly’s Mr Fitzgerald is introduced us as we watch the misadventures of the titular Terri, a tall, overweight teenager, who has become insular and withdrawn following years of teasing and bullying. Living alone with his medicated uncle in a cottage in the woods, Terri is singled out by the headmaster as a pupil needing special help and encouragement.
The film follows the John Hughes high school format, with the outsider making their journey to acceptance, but gently subverts it.
Terri is charmingly played by newcomer Jacob Wysocki, while director Azazel Jacobs maintains the melancholy beautifully throughout.
Score: 6.5/10
Let The Bullets Fly
Too long and trying to hard, but still strangely enjoyable: that’s my thoughts on this mad Chinese-Hong Kong eastern Western from director/star Jiang Wen.
Wen is a bandit who connives his way into being declared mayor of Goose Town, where he intends to make his fortune through taxation and bribes. But he hasn’t accounted for the local godfather, played for laughs by Chow Yun-Fat.
With manic gunplay, and a touch of wu-fu, the bandit and his gang repeatedly face off against the godfather and his gang – and ‘repeatedly’ is the key word here, as the plot keeps twisting, generating more and more battles.
Mood shifts are frequent and they jar: Wen lends enormous gravitas to his role as the noble bandit, but this sits ill with Yun-Fat’s constant manic mugging; we are expected to mourn gang members who we have been barely sketched out in comic tones, and so it goes on.
Some set pieces are brilliantly executed, while others are pedestrian or let down by poor effects.
If this had been cut to 90 minutes, its foibles might be forgiven. If nothing else, I want to check out Wen’s back catalogue – he has real screen presence.
Score: 6/10
The Descendants
Alexander ‘Sideways’ Payne delivers another funny yet painful look at the male mid-life crisis, buoyed by awards-worthy performances from a strong, indie-friendly cast, led by George Clooney.
Clooney is Matt King, a wealthy lawyer in Hawaii, who must cope with his wife’s coma and be the father he’s never been to his two daughters (both played with aplomb by Shailene Woodley – watch out for her in the future - and Amara Miller), while handling the most important decision he will ever make.
With pressure bearing down, and family truths revealing themselves, Clooney’s King is by turns angry, happy, disgusted and comforted as he deals with his troubled daughters, the in-laws (led by a scene-stealing Robert Forster) and business stakeholders (cue Beau Bridges).
The film skips lightly along never over-playing the humour, the drama nor the tragedy: the laughs are genuine and perfectly timed, the heartaches are razor-sharp and leave lasting cuts. Clooney, long the master of the insular everyman, delivers yet another fine performance, marked out by subtle facial reactions that speak of more hurt and remorse than any dialogue could possibly convey.
Much of what makes the film work is the life-like nature of the characters: nobody is that funny, good, evil, sad, etc – they are all composed unequally of those facets. And thus some Hollywood clichés and schmaltz are entirely avoided – and clearly the film is all the better for that.
I saw this twice – and it certainly more than withstood a second watch. Don’t wait for it to appear on DVD: see it at the cinema with a crowd; you won’t regret it. And you'll come away with a few new swearwords too!
Score: 8/10
Friday, 21 October 2011
LFF 2011: Superheroes, and Chicken With Plums
Superheroes
Surprise, surprise, superheroes do exist. They don’t have any powers, but they do wear costumes, they do have funny names and they do good deeds.
This timely documentary talks to and spends time with your average Joe American who for one reason or another decides they should ape Superman, Spider-Man, etc. We meet Mr Extreme in San Diego, Master Legend in Orlando, Thanatos in Canada, and the New York Initiative: they discuss their origins, the reasons for their actions and the camera follows them on nightly patrols.
Director Mike Barnett originally started research on more than 1,000 real life superheroes before concentrating on this handful, and they are an interesting bunch, their origins strangely similar to well-known heroes, their language and their thought processes ripped straight from the comic strip page.
A bunch of losers? May be, but they’re doing good deeds in the community for no reward.
The film is objective, offering no insight of its own, only the insight from the heroes themselves. The final scene, as thousands of fanboys descend on San Diego’s convention centre for the annual geekfest that is Comic-Con, while the real-life heroes from across the USA team up to help the homeless just a mile away from that convention centre, says more than the film achieves in its previous 80 minutes.
Score: 6.5/10
Chicken With Plums
This heart-breaking film from the mind of Marjane Satrapi will inevitably – and unfairly – be compared with the adaptation of her graphic novel Persepolis. Where the latter combined winning animation and social history, the former is a beautifully acted part-animation/part-live action fable.
Leading the cast is Mathieu Amalric as Nasser Ali a temperamental violinist in Tehran in the late 50s, a brilliant Maria de Medeiros his long-suffering wife. The film charts, across the eight days that lead to his death, the reasons for his failed marriage, his failed career and his deathwish.
Never less than charming, this eloquent, melancholy tale has a Tim Burton-esque edge to it – the humour is both black and slickly sweet, leavened with pain. The climax to the film delivers a firm kick to the gut that should wring tears from even the stoniest heart.
Score: 7.5/10
Surprise, surprise, superheroes do exist. They don’t have any powers, but they do wear costumes, they do have funny names and they do good deeds.
This timely documentary talks to and spends time with your average Joe American who for one reason or another decides they should ape Superman, Spider-Man, etc. We meet Mr Extreme in San Diego, Master Legend in Orlando, Thanatos in Canada, and the New York Initiative: they discuss their origins, the reasons for their actions and the camera follows them on nightly patrols.
Director Mike Barnett originally started research on more than 1,000 real life superheroes before concentrating on this handful, and they are an interesting bunch, their origins strangely similar to well-known heroes, their language and their thought processes ripped straight from the comic strip page.
A bunch of losers? May be, but they’re doing good deeds in the community for no reward.
The film is objective, offering no insight of its own, only the insight from the heroes themselves. The final scene, as thousands of fanboys descend on San Diego’s convention centre for the annual geekfest that is Comic-Con, while the real-life heroes from across the USA team up to help the homeless just a mile away from that convention centre, says more than the film achieves in its previous 80 minutes.
Score: 6.5/10
Chicken With Plums
This heart-breaking film from the mind of Marjane Satrapi will inevitably – and unfairly – be compared with the adaptation of her graphic novel Persepolis. Where the latter combined winning animation and social history, the former is a beautifully acted part-animation/part-live action fable.
Leading the cast is Mathieu Amalric as Nasser Ali a temperamental violinist in Tehran in the late 50s, a brilliant Maria de Medeiros his long-suffering wife. The film charts, across the eight days that lead to his death, the reasons for his failed marriage, his failed career and his deathwish.
Never less than charming, this eloquent, melancholy tale has a Tim Burton-esque edge to it – the humour is both black and slickly sweet, leavened with pain. The climax to the film delivers a firm kick to the gut that should wring tears from even the stoniest heart.
Score: 7.5/10
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
LFF 2011: Kevin, and Snowtown
Snowtown
This grim, bleak, horrific Aussie film recreates in almost merciless detail the motivations and actions of a real-life serial killer and his entourage in a small town.
Like Wreckers, this film revels in revealing the dark underbelly at the heart of any small community: everyone has secrets – and some are more disturbing than others.
All the actors, especially the two leads, put themselves through the ringer, and the film is well directed by Justin Kurzel, but unless you have a keen interest in serial killers (and don’t mistake this for a police procedural – it isn’t), then I would strongly advise avoiding it.
The film has points to make about the powers that be not caring about what the working class do to each other, and about absolute power corrupting absolutely, and it may serve as something of a wake-up call to Australia, warning of what’s going on in its far-flung communities, but the film is definitely not entertainment.
Score: 3/10
We Need To Talk About Kevin
We do, don’t we? So, let’s get the first thing out of the way: the film features no letter-writing, so fans of the book your first question is answered. What it does feature is a gently cross-cut, elliptical, dream-like narrative, reminiscent of a more audience-friendly David Lynch.
Some key plot beats from the book have necessarily been exorcised, but not having read the book, this made no impact on my viewing – nor should it on anybody’s for this adaptation truly stands on its own.
Second thing, yes, Tilda Swinton is stunning in the lead (awards season should be good to her); she completely immerses herself in the role and its meaning – that some women though capable of bearing children are not capable of rearing them; indeed does her own ambivalence towards maternity affect Kevin as he gestates in her womb?
Of course she’s not helped by an absent, absurdly positive husband, nor the authorities who fail to diagnose Kevin’s never-diagnosed-in-the-film condition.
And really, what chance does she stand against such a well-formed sociopath? Ezra Miller is astounding as Kevin, conjuring the quite the most horrific mother’s son since Anthony Perkins’ Norman Bates. The question for Miller is how to ensure this film does not become a millstone around his neck.
Kevin is much cleverer than everyone around him, and finds it both easy and enjoyable to manipulate the emotions of those around him – and he revels in confusing people as well by switching his obvious emotional responses on and off.
While Swinton’s Eva is thoroughly life-like, Kevin, although depicted brilliantly by Miller, is just a little too serial killer fiction for a film so wedded to the real. He’s a little too Hannibal Lecter.
Lynne Ramsay directs the film with panache (any of the rough edges of her early career entirely absent here), ably supported by Atonement DoP Seamus McGarvey and editor Joe Bini (the pair’s careers in documentaries help give this film its realistic edge).
This is brilliant stuff, although right now I’m not sure if ever want to see it again!
People thinking of having children should be compelled to watch this; women already pregnant or who have recently given birth should avoid the film at all costs.
Score: 7.5/10
This grim, bleak, horrific Aussie film recreates in almost merciless detail the motivations and actions of a real-life serial killer and his entourage in a small town.
Like Wreckers, this film revels in revealing the dark underbelly at the heart of any small community: everyone has secrets – and some are more disturbing than others.
All the actors, especially the two leads, put themselves through the ringer, and the film is well directed by Justin Kurzel, but unless you have a keen interest in serial killers (and don’t mistake this for a police procedural – it isn’t), then I would strongly advise avoiding it.
The film has points to make about the powers that be not caring about what the working class do to each other, and about absolute power corrupting absolutely, and it may serve as something of a wake-up call to Australia, warning of what’s going on in its far-flung communities, but the film is definitely not entertainment.
Score: 3/10
We Need To Talk About Kevin
We do, don’t we? So, let’s get the first thing out of the way: the film features no letter-writing, so fans of the book your first question is answered. What it does feature is a gently cross-cut, elliptical, dream-like narrative, reminiscent of a more audience-friendly David Lynch.
Some key plot beats from the book have necessarily been exorcised, but not having read the book, this made no impact on my viewing – nor should it on anybody’s for this adaptation truly stands on its own.
Second thing, yes, Tilda Swinton is stunning in the lead (awards season should be good to her); she completely immerses herself in the role and its meaning – that some women though capable of bearing children are not capable of rearing them; indeed does her own ambivalence towards maternity affect Kevin as he gestates in her womb?
Of course she’s not helped by an absent, absurdly positive husband, nor the authorities who fail to diagnose Kevin’s never-diagnosed-in-the-film condition.
And really, what chance does she stand against such a well-formed sociopath? Ezra Miller is astounding as Kevin, conjuring the quite the most horrific mother’s son since Anthony Perkins’ Norman Bates. The question for Miller is how to ensure this film does not become a millstone around his neck.
Kevin is much cleverer than everyone around him, and finds it both easy and enjoyable to manipulate the emotions of those around him – and he revels in confusing people as well by switching his obvious emotional responses on and off.
While Swinton’s Eva is thoroughly life-like, Kevin, although depicted brilliantly by Miller, is just a little too serial killer fiction for a film so wedded to the real. He’s a little too Hannibal Lecter.
Lynne Ramsay directs the film with panache (any of the rough edges of her early career entirely absent here), ably supported by Atonement DoP Seamus McGarvey and editor Joe Bini (the pair’s careers in documentaries help give this film its realistic edge).
This is brilliant stuff, although right now I’m not sure if ever want to see it again!
People thinking of having children should be compelled to watch this; women already pregnant or who have recently given birth should avoid the film at all costs.
Score: 7.5/10
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
LFF 2011: Coriolanus, Dark Horse, and Nobody Else But You
Coriolanus
Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut is a muscular adaptation of one of Shakey’s least likeable works – and is timely to say the least. Awards noms, both for the strong cast and the exceptional technical credits, will undoubtedly follow.
Fiennes is predictably excellent in the war-mongering title role, backed by mother from hell Vanessa Redgrave (surely a Best Supporting Actress Oscar will be winging its way to her), Brian Cox as the slimey Menenius and a surprisingly strong Gerard Butler as Aufidius, foe of the Roman people.
Set in modern times, complete with 24/7 newsflash inserts and filmed in shell-shocked Serbia, the film’s portrayal of the eternal battle between soldiers and politicians carries considerable resonance. The devastation inflicted on the landscape is likewise wrought on the souls of the soldiers - great Coriolanus is no exception, any heart he once might have had apparently eviscerated by lifetime of combat.
Fiennes is not only in command of his performance and the script, but also of the entire production. The film is never less than cinematic, buoyed by Barry ‘Hurt Locker’ Ackroyd being the DoP.
I must confess to not enjoying Coriolanus when compelled to read it at school, but I really got to grips with the text this time round. Thanks Ralph!
(No doubt my appreciation of this was aided and abetted by a Mexican breakfast at The Diner!)
Score: 8.5/10
Dark Horse
The latest from Todd Solonz is undoubtedly the ‘what the fuck?!’ film of the festival, its crazy impact heightened by screening with Italian subtitles (WTF?!).
Jordan Gelber is the 30-something who’s never grown up – he works for his dad’s real estate company, lives with his parents, his bedroom is full of toys… His normality is turned upside down by meeting the heavily medicated Selma Blair, also living with her parents.
Before too long this arch fantasist has declared his love for the distant and disbelieving Blair - and then things really start to go wrong…
Very funny (especially office secretary Donna Murphy) and occasionally painful.
Score: 7/10
Meal break: with much time to kill, we headed to Pix again for some cracking tapas, with me attacking a cracking white rioja. We then moved to Curzon Soho for Konditor & Cook desserts!
Nobody Else But You
Touched by the spirit of Bill Forsyth, this character comedy/murder mystery is a winner in my book.
Set in the frozen snowscape of a Nowheresville town in Alpine France, our downbeat hero, hack policier writer Jean-Paul Rouve, up against the deadline to deliver his next book, stumbles upon the death of a local girl.
Taking light-hearted pot-shots at current thriller successes (our hero suggests a new Nordic pseudonym!), the film follows our hero’s encounters with the locals, each with secrets, as he attempts to solve the mystery of the Marilyn Monroe-like life and murder of Candice Lecouer (Sophie Quintin effectively channelling Norma Jean).
He is helped by a young policeman, whose motives are not entirely clear.
Like the films of Bill Forsyth, the comedy here is gentle and unforced, but no character is there simply to provide laughs.
All this is backed by great music and sumptuous cinematography. Oh, and a skinny goth girl with a thing for older writers…
A film I would happily watch time and time again.
Score: 8.5/10
Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut is a muscular adaptation of one of Shakey’s least likeable works – and is timely to say the least. Awards noms, both for the strong cast and the exceptional technical credits, will undoubtedly follow.
Fiennes is predictably excellent in the war-mongering title role, backed by mother from hell Vanessa Redgrave (surely a Best Supporting Actress Oscar will be winging its way to her), Brian Cox as the slimey Menenius and a surprisingly strong Gerard Butler as Aufidius, foe of the Roman people.
Set in modern times, complete with 24/7 newsflash inserts and filmed in shell-shocked Serbia, the film’s portrayal of the eternal battle between soldiers and politicians carries considerable resonance. The devastation inflicted on the landscape is likewise wrought on the souls of the soldiers - great Coriolanus is no exception, any heart he once might have had apparently eviscerated by lifetime of combat.
Fiennes is not only in command of his performance and the script, but also of the entire production. The film is never less than cinematic, buoyed by Barry ‘Hurt Locker’ Ackroyd being the DoP.
I must confess to not enjoying Coriolanus when compelled to read it at school, but I really got to grips with the text this time round. Thanks Ralph!
(No doubt my appreciation of this was aided and abetted by a Mexican breakfast at The Diner!)
Score: 8.5/10
Dark Horse
The latest from Todd Solonz is undoubtedly the ‘what the fuck?!’ film of the festival, its crazy impact heightened by screening with Italian subtitles (WTF?!).
Jordan Gelber is the 30-something who’s never grown up – he works for his dad’s real estate company, lives with his parents, his bedroom is full of toys… His normality is turned upside down by meeting the heavily medicated Selma Blair, also living with her parents.
Before too long this arch fantasist has declared his love for the distant and disbelieving Blair - and then things really start to go wrong…
Very funny (especially office secretary Donna Murphy) and occasionally painful.
Score: 7/10
Meal break: with much time to kill, we headed to Pix again for some cracking tapas, with me attacking a cracking white rioja. We then moved to Curzon Soho for Konditor & Cook desserts!
Nobody Else But You
Touched by the spirit of Bill Forsyth, this character comedy/murder mystery is a winner in my book.
Set in the frozen snowscape of a Nowheresville town in Alpine France, our downbeat hero, hack policier writer Jean-Paul Rouve, up against the deadline to deliver his next book, stumbles upon the death of a local girl.
Taking light-hearted pot-shots at current thriller successes (our hero suggests a new Nordic pseudonym!), the film follows our hero’s encounters with the locals, each with secrets, as he attempts to solve the mystery of the Marilyn Monroe-like life and murder of Candice Lecouer (Sophie Quintin effectively channelling Norma Jean).
He is helped by a young policeman, whose motives are not entirely clear.
Like the films of Bill Forsyth, the comedy here is gentle and unforced, but no character is there simply to provide laughs.
All this is backed by great music and sumptuous cinematography. Oh, and a skinny goth girl with a thing for older writers…
A film I would happily watch time and time again.
Score: 8.5/10
LFF 2011: Restless, Loneliest Planet, and Wreckers
Restless
Restless, like 50/50, could so easily have been a tweenie disease of the week melodrama; thankfully, this Tim Burton-esque fairytale is offbeat, rarely delivers the expected and boasts strong performances from its two tweenie leads – Henry Hopper (son of Denis) and Mia Wasikowska.
Hopper is marked by death (in the family), while Wasikowska is marked for death (she’s got terminal cancer). The plot beats are not dissimilar to 50/50, but in this it is the friend of the patient who goes on the journey (rather than vice-versa in 50/50).
Director Gus Van Sant occasionally strays too far into indie twee, but saves his best punch for last.
Score: 6.5/10
Meal break: possibly my view of the film was informed by the consumption of pepper squid at Yo Sushi beforehand!
The Loneliest Planet
Gael Garcia Bernal is the big draw for this pretentious tosh. Langorously paced with long takes and with little dialogue, this is an exercise in dislocation.
Bernal and his girlfriend are trekking in Georgia’s Caucasus mountains and over the course of the very best part of two hours very little happens.
We see them trekking in close up, we see them trekking in long shots where they are just dots on the landscape, we watch them trek from one side of the screen to the other…
Yawn…
When the incident comes that effectively drives what passes for a plot, I was already begging for the film to end…
They’re just middle class hippies shatting their ennui on a beautiful landscape.
Avoid this crap!
Score: 0/10
Meal break: in search of some meaning, we headed towards the Punjab curryhouse at the top of Covent Garden, but instead ended up at Pix tapas bar. What a find! Mahou beer (they were out of Estrella), and top quality, proper, fresh San Sebastien-style tapas
Wreckers
By contrast, this British film of relationships set against a lonely landscape was immensely more enjoyable. With hints of Pinter and Shane Meadows, and with the ghost of Straw Dogs hovering in the background, this analysis of village life and of the dangers of returning home to right wrongs long buried beneath physical and psychological scars is compelling stuff – all the more so as it’s based on truth.
Told largely from the POV of Claire Foy’s newly wed, the story focuses on her impression of her and her husband (the brilliant Benedict Cumberbatch) returning to the village in which he grew up.
When his war-damaged brother appears unexpectedly, we know the newlyweds home will never be the same again.
The simmering passions, both for and against people, bubble up – and the unlikely twists and turns of the script are met with realistic reactions and consequences.
Score: 6.5/10
Restless, like 50/50, could so easily have been a tweenie disease of the week melodrama; thankfully, this Tim Burton-esque fairytale is offbeat, rarely delivers the expected and boasts strong performances from its two tweenie leads – Henry Hopper (son of Denis) and Mia Wasikowska.
Hopper is marked by death (in the family), while Wasikowska is marked for death (she’s got terminal cancer). The plot beats are not dissimilar to 50/50, but in this it is the friend of the patient who goes on the journey (rather than vice-versa in 50/50).
Director Gus Van Sant occasionally strays too far into indie twee, but saves his best punch for last.
Score: 6.5/10
Meal break: possibly my view of the film was informed by the consumption of pepper squid at Yo Sushi beforehand!
The Loneliest Planet
Gael Garcia Bernal is the big draw for this pretentious tosh. Langorously paced with long takes and with little dialogue, this is an exercise in dislocation.
Bernal and his girlfriend are trekking in Georgia’s Caucasus mountains and over the course of the very best part of two hours very little happens.
We see them trekking in close up, we see them trekking in long shots where they are just dots on the landscape, we watch them trek from one side of the screen to the other…
Yawn…
When the incident comes that effectively drives what passes for a plot, I was already begging for the film to end…
They’re just middle class hippies shatting their ennui on a beautiful landscape.
Avoid this crap!
Score: 0/10
Meal break: in search of some meaning, we headed towards the Punjab curryhouse at the top of Covent Garden, but instead ended up at Pix tapas bar. What a find! Mahou beer (they were out of Estrella), and top quality, proper, fresh San Sebastien-style tapas
Wreckers
By contrast, this British film of relationships set against a lonely landscape was immensely more enjoyable. With hints of Pinter and Shane Meadows, and with the ghost of Straw Dogs hovering in the background, this analysis of village life and of the dangers of returning home to right wrongs long buried beneath physical and psychological scars is compelling stuff – all the more so as it’s based on truth.
Told largely from the POV of Claire Foy’s newly wed, the story focuses on her impression of her and her husband (the brilliant Benedict Cumberbatch) returning to the village in which he grew up.
When his war-damaged brother appears unexpectedly, we know the newlyweds home will never be the same again.
The simmering passions, both for and against people, bubble up – and the unlikely twists and turns of the script are met with realistic reactions and consequences.
Score: 6.5/10
LFF 2011: 50/50, 360, and Rampart
50/50
What a cracking opening to my 2011 London Film Festival: 50/50 made me laugh and cry – and both at the same time more than once.
This could so easily have a disease of the week melodrama, but instead it reaches unexpected heights of poignancy and reality without ever being grim and depressing nor falling between stools the way Love And Other Drugs does.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is on top form as the anal do-goody 33-year-old who suddenly finds himself diagnosed with an unpronounceable cancer. The comedy and the drama then unfold as he, his best friend (Seth Rogen), his mother (Anjelica Huston), his girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), and his counsellor (the wonderful Anna Kendrick channelling some her schtick from Up In The Air) come to grips with the reality of his condition.
Directed with a commendably light touch by Jonathan Levine, the film may seem too American indie twee at the start, but as it gets under the skin of its main characters, so something greater emerges.
The relationship between the two friends is the underscore of the movie – so much is left unsaid by the pair, even at the death, but a chance discovery reveals the true depth of their bond.
A Golden Globe nom awaits Gordon-Levitt, and possibly Kendrick and Rogen.
Quite simply, this is great entertainment.
Score: 9/10
360
Is Fernando ‘City of God’ Meirelles’ the new Minghella or even worse the new Inarritu?
This is a self-indulgent, self-obsessed, meaningless work – just like the later output of Minghella and Innaritu.
Technically the film is great, with one or two good performances – most notably Anthony Hopkins who steals the movie and will probably garner some awards heat.
But otherwise it is a hollow exercise not deserving of your pennies. The more I think about, the more disappointed I am.
Score: 3/10
Meal break: after a beer at the Blue Posts, it was time to hit Ganton Street and The Diner - arguably the best burger bar in town. Wolf down a bacon cheeseburger with Diner fries (love those spices), aided by a bottle or two of Coopers ale and some great music, and I'm ready for the third film of the day...
Rampart
Woody Harrelson is on fire, full of rage and loathing, in this take on late 90s LAPD corruption. Some major awards recognition is likely.
Harrelson’s Officer Brown is a career cop after surviving Vietnam and is king of all he surveys – local bums and LAPD raw recruits quake in his wake.
The film charts his descent in paranoia and yet more rage as he is caught on film beating a man, Rodney King-style.
Unhappy at work, unhappy at home, and unable to score the blood money he needs to get by on, Brown is very much an Abel Ferrara character as the pressure on him mounts, although there is no redemption for him at all.
The entire production is well-thought out, and the high contrast cinematography presents us with an LA we rarely see on screen.
Gripping throughout, but no joyride.
Score: 7/10
What a cracking opening to my 2011 London Film Festival: 50/50 made me laugh and cry – and both at the same time more than once.
This could so easily have a disease of the week melodrama, but instead it reaches unexpected heights of poignancy and reality without ever being grim and depressing nor falling between stools the way Love And Other Drugs does.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is on top form as the anal do-goody 33-year-old who suddenly finds himself diagnosed with an unpronounceable cancer. The comedy and the drama then unfold as he, his best friend (Seth Rogen), his mother (Anjelica Huston), his girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), and his counsellor (the wonderful Anna Kendrick channelling some her schtick from Up In The Air) come to grips with the reality of his condition.
Directed with a commendably light touch by Jonathan Levine, the film may seem too American indie twee at the start, but as it gets under the skin of its main characters, so something greater emerges.
The relationship between the two friends is the underscore of the movie – so much is left unsaid by the pair, even at the death, but a chance discovery reveals the true depth of their bond.
A Golden Globe nom awaits Gordon-Levitt, and possibly Kendrick and Rogen.
Quite simply, this is great entertainment.
Score: 9/10
360
Is Fernando ‘City of God’ Meirelles’ the new Minghella or even worse the new Inarritu?
This is a self-indulgent, self-obsessed, meaningless work – just like the later output of Minghella and Innaritu.
Technically the film is great, with one or two good performances – most notably Anthony Hopkins who steals the movie and will probably garner some awards heat.
But otherwise it is a hollow exercise not deserving of your pennies. The more I think about, the more disappointed I am.
Score: 3/10
Meal break: after a beer at the Blue Posts, it was time to hit Ganton Street and The Diner - arguably the best burger bar in town. Wolf down a bacon cheeseburger with Diner fries (love those spices), aided by a bottle or two of Coopers ale and some great music, and I'm ready for the third film of the day...
Rampart
Woody Harrelson is on fire, full of rage and loathing, in this take on late 90s LAPD corruption. Some major awards recognition is likely.
Harrelson’s Officer Brown is a career cop after surviving Vietnam and is king of all he surveys – local bums and LAPD raw recruits quake in his wake.
The film charts his descent in paranoia and yet more rage as he is caught on film beating a man, Rodney King-style.
Unhappy at work, unhappy at home, and unable to score the blood money he needs to get by on, Brown is very much an Abel Ferrara character as the pressure on him mounts, although there is no redemption for him at all.
The entire production is well-thought out, and the high contrast cinematography presents us with an LA we rarely see on screen.
Gripping throughout, but no joyride.
Score: 7/10
Saturday, 13 August 2011
Review: Super 8
This is super entertainment, showcasing traditional values – both social and production/story – and highlighting JJ Abrams as one of the best mainstream directors in Hollywood today.
Super 8, while co-produced by Steven Spielberg, is very much Abrams’ film: he’s the co-producer, writer and director. His very clear intention here was to produce a sci-fi movie worthy of his master – and that he does with considerable aplomb.
The set-up is simple, combining key beats from Close Encounters and ET (but not slavishly so): kids in sleepy town in 1979 make home movie on a Super 8 camera; while doing so they witness a horrific train crash (better than The Fugitive), which unleashes some sort of beastie upon the kids’ town; the military arrive to do the clean up, conspiracy theories mount as the town goes to hell in a handcart; and it falls to the kids to save the day.
The kids are great: each of them is perfectly cast and portrayed (the two leads especially so: Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning); and their group dynamic is realistic, touching and funny. The film doesn’t talk down to them – they aren’t children, they’re small adults (a very Spielberg touch that).
Abrams keeps the story moving at just the right pace with no hamfisted jumps from scene to scene: no scene outstays its welcome nor passes by too fast.
The action/disaster sequences are brilliantly staged without being overdone. Cinematographer Larry Fong (last seen on Sucker Punch!, Watchmen and 300), working with Abrams for the first time since the award-winning pilot episode of Lost, is a significant contributor to these scenes, ensuring the audience is always on the edge of its seats. The night-time scenes are particularly finely shot, complete with Abrams’ love of lens flare.
Thankfully, among all the Spielberg homage, Michael Giacchino’s score doesn’t ape John Williams’ classic ET score.
There’s a wide-eyed innocence to Super 8 (much like the summer’s other best geek movie, Thor), which stood as a beautiful and timely counterpoint to the social unrest gripping the country outside the cinema.
If you’re a 70s kid, you’ll enjoy this massively entertaining just that bit more.
Score: 8.5/10
Thursday, 4 August 2011
Review: The Tree of Life
Hitchcock said the three key ingredients required to make a film are: “A good script; a good script; and a good script.” And while that is true, what sets cinema apart from well-crafted TV is the dark of the auditorium, the big screen and the sound, simply the capacity for film to be ‘cinematic’.Terrence Malick’s The Tree Of Life is no doubt just that – it is the essence of pure cinema – but the writer-director has never shown any interest in Hitchcockian entertainment values.
Indeed, the viewer’s shell-shocked experience of the film adds to the many juxtapositions that the film conjures through its notional story and masochistic, ambitious execution.
The film runs for two hours and 18 minutes – nothing wrong in a long run time as long you’re enthralled – and, be warned, it proceeds at a stately pace.
That nominal story of Sean Penn reminiscing about his borderline abusive father, played with some aplomb by Brad Pitt, and his family is eeked out with exacting yet numbing precision.
I have to say that I really didn’t connect with any of the characters, as well played as they were. And I think that stems from the fact that, as I get older, I can’t stand characters, no matter how well fleshed out, that are simply there to serve as cyphers or allegorical devices.
And now we get to the meat of the film. The Tree Of Life is not a film about a man remembering his near-abusive father: ultimately the film strives to address the grandest issues ever to face mankind, indeed Mother Earth herself.
Among the many themes it pontificates on are: mankind’s place in the entire history of the Earth; mankind’s ability to create set against his ability to destroy; the celestial plane versus the mortal plane; the eternal battle between grace and nature (in the sense of habit); mankind’s constructions versus the destructive power of nature (in h sense of the elements); strength versus mercy; and the obsolescence of religion set against mankind’s need for a spiritual aspect to life as life becomes wage-slavery.
Commendable no doubt, but I didn’t pay £12 to be repeatedly smashed over the head, Terrence!
And yet, and yet… There are some astonishing sequences that render the viewer speechless, scenes that simply crush you with the context they force upon your own life. The extended sequence in which Malick recreates the genesis of our planet is as truly astonishing as it is monunmentally trying.
This film is without doubt one of the most beautiful I have ever seen: every single scene is composed with such expertise, so exquisitely lit that you could unspool the film, blow up the stills by a factor of 100, exhibit them in the world’s best gallery and there they would remain, beyond the end of humanity, for whatever that comes after us to marvel at what we, those who destroyed themselves, could achieve.
The visuals are aided and abetted by the frankly amazing special effects by Mike Fink and the godhead of existential space visuals Douglas Trumbull (reinforcing the film’s connection to its spiritual predecessor, 2001), the precise editing, and another outstanding score from Alexandre Desplat (he scored The King’s Speech) that reinforces the film’s overwhelming thematic concerns.
It is clearly rich of me, one of the few people on the planet to rate The Fountain, to celebrate this film for its visual panache, while being grossly offended by its ridiculous pretension, but hey, it’s my blog!
And as my companion, Jonesy, said as we left the cinema: “The dinosaurs? What the fuck?!”
Score: 10/10 for the visuals
-10/10 for the story and its execution
Saturday, 30 July 2011
Thor v X-Men v Green Lantern v Captain America
Four super hero movies in the space of three months, three debuts and one prequel come reboot: how do they measure up?
Well, let’s cut to the chase: Thor, X-Men: First Class, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Green Lantern – that’s my ranking in descending order.
Now let’s drill into the highs and lows. Thor is undoubtedly the best of the four, its combination of director, script (co-authored by two of the guys behind the X-Men screenplay), epic sweep, central cast taking to the roles as if their lives depended on it, a romantic vein and a rich seam of humour lift it into the hallowed realm of the first two Superman, Spider-Man, X-Men and Batman films.
The decision to put Ken Branagh in the director’s chair was as surprising then as we now know it to have been effective. Equally his decision to cast his TV and stage cohort Tom Hiddleston as Loki is utterly vindicated – Thor’s devious half-brother vies with Michael Fassbender’s Eric Lensherr for best super villain of the summer.
It’s odd now to think anyone had any qualms about putting Marvel’s take on the Norse God of Thunder on screen: not withstanding that Cap has only just opened, the hammer wielder has been the most successful of the four films at the worldwide box office, raking in $447m.
Crucial to this success was its heavy reliance on a key text: JMS’s run on Thor, which juxtaposed immortals with nowheresville Americans (bringing the delightfully unforced humour) and really beefed up the tragic father-sons relationship between Odin, Thor and Loki.
The chemistry between all the leads was a joy to behold, especially between Chris Hemsworth as the titular hero and Natalie Portman as Jane Foster. Thor 2 opens on 26 July 2013.
X-Men saw another Brit at the helm: this time Kick-Ass visionary Matthew Vaughn. First time I saw it I was a little underwhelmed, but second time I really got it.
But I remain happily confused as to whether it’s a prequel or a reboot. Indeed it appears it was originally conceived as a prequel, but, once on board, Vaughn and his writer of choice Jane Goldman reworked the script in the light of the success of the Star Trek reboot.
The film has a few issues, not least its episodic structure, but the tension assuredly builds and builds and builds such that even as the story developments that you expect to occur do occur, you are nevertheless surprised and moved.
Just like Thor, the script (distilling nearly 50 years of comic and movie lore) and the final film allows time for the key characters and their motivations to develop, most enjoyably being James McAvoy’s Charles Xavier and Fassbender’s chilling master of magnetism.
Their relationship is the core of the film, but the more complex character is Lensherr, and thus the bad guy steals the acting plaudits from the good guy. Indeed Fassbender is so good, so compelling, he beats Ian McKellan’s turn in the first three X-Men films. Two outstanding scenes in particular are his training session with Charles and his showdown with his nemesis Sebastian Shaw.
Vaughn’s take on the X-Men seems a little influenced by his work on Kick-Ass: the film is one more than one occasion brutal – not all the super heroes make it out of this one alive.
There are probably too many mutants, both young and old: Jennifer Lawrence does predictably well with Mystique, as does Nicholas Hoult as Beast, but the others are just sketches by comparison – January Jones and her character, Emma Frost (perfect physical casting of course), are given little to do. The cameo appearance of a well-known movie mutant is simply gratuitous.
At times the film feels weighed by down by its own pretensions, but overall that weight is carried with honour and to great effect. The film more than comfortably serves its purpose of wiping out the memory of X-Men: The Last Stand, and sets up a whole new universe of mutants that I, for one, welcome.
Captain America, the comic book character, is one of the four key heroes that have dominated my life (the other three being Superman, Spider-Man and Wolverine).
The journey of shy, skinny, unloved, disrespected but intelligent Steve Rogers to muscular, courageous, confident, loved and respected Captain America has always chimed with me the most. When Cap died in the comics four years ago, I was absolutely gutted.
Clearly then my expectations for this film have been high since it was announced.
On the face of it, installing Joe Johnston in the director’s chair, based on the Indy Jones feel he brought to The Rocketeer (way back in 1991, lest we forget) seemed justified: after all, who’d have thought Jon Favreau would do such an outstanding job on Iron Man? Yes, Johnston hadn’t helmed a major production successfully since Jurassic Park 3 in 2001, but if he could recapture the magic touch he displayed on The Rocketeer, then Cap would be well served.
Iron Man had enjoyed perfect casting with the all-but-washed-up Robert Downey Jnr the one and only choice for the role, while the unknown Chris Hemsworth delivered in Thor, so while there have been doubts all along about Chris Evans playing Cap, there seemed sufficient evidence to suggest that no verdict could be ventured until the film was seen.
Well? Chris Evans delivers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying his brilliant; I’m not saying shower him with awards; however, I am saying that in a film that skips along relatively light-footed, Evans surprisingly brings gravitas to the role and to the film. Indeed one of the elements that had me running scared from the trailer was the CGI effects of grafting Evans' head onto a short, skinny actor; in the context of the whole film, this effect absolutely convinces, aided it must be said by Evans' own prowess. He effortlessly conjures the essence of Cap in the bullying sequence ("You don't know when to give up, do you?" chides the bully; "I could do this all day," says skinny Steve, dustbin lid for shield in hand, perfectly recalling the comic origin story) and at boot camp as he uses his brains and bravery to impress Col Phillips and the lovely Agent Carter.
While the film fails to mention the lack of a father in Rogers’ life, the film faintly sketches out his father-son relationship with Abraham Erskine (the ever-reliable Stanley Tucci). Cap’s other guiding lights are served a little better: as disbelieving Army Col. Phillips, Tommy Lee Jones does Tommy Lee Jones as only Tommy Lee Jones can, while the buxom Hayley Atwell gets just enough under the skin of Peggy Carter to have me calling for her return as Sharon Carter (Peggy’s niece) in any future Cap films.
Sebastian Stan essays Bucky Barnes well enough, and the film certainly allows for his return (and we must hope that the next film will make use of Ed Brubaker’s Winter Soldier stories).
Regrettably little room is given to develop his Howling Commandos (sans Nick Fury of course, but complete with DumDum Duggan), but at least James Montgomery Falsworth is not turned into Union Jack, simply remaining a soldier not a super hero.
One of the areas where the film falls down is the villain. When it was announced that Hugo Weaving would play the Red Skull, there was some hope for a well drawn nemesis for the hero. However, I have to report that Weaving’s Skull, while looking appropriately red and scary, does not get close to Hiddleston’s Loki nor Fassbender’s Magneto – the depth of characterisation is simply not there.
There has been much criticism of Iron Man 2 being an extended trailer for The Avengers movie: I think that’s unfair, especially in comparison with this take on Cap, which is book-ended by scenes that explicitly connect this with other Marvel film canon. And the plain truth is that Johnston doesn't recapture the spirit of The Rocketeer, but nevertheless awkwardly pitches the film as a 1940s Saturday morning flick for the kids while allowing Evans to add some heft to Cap.
Furthermore, Johnston layers the film with references to other works, notably scenes from Star Wars and A Matter of Life and Death.
The film turns over at a fair lick (but not too fast) as there is a lot of ground to cover, but it dives headlong from Cap’s first mission to his last with just a montage of missions in between, thus failing to take the time to reveal his impact on the war effort and on his country’s psyche and thus diminishing the sacrifice and meaning of his death and his subsequent (second) rebirth.
So ultimately Cap is no roaring success in the vein of Iron Man or Thor, but it’s certainly no damp squib like Green Lantern.
So finally I turn to Hal Jordan as DC’s Green Lantern. What a waste! Not for the first time, DC has watched enviously as Marvel has scored successes (in this case Iron Man), and then failed to scrutinise the roots of that success and subsequently delivered a poor effort.
There are many great Green Lantern stories I’m sure, but neither the script, nor the cast nor reboot specialist director Martin Campbell (the man who has twice relaunched Bond with Goldeneye and Casino Royale) rise to the occasion.
Ryan Reynolds comes across as a himbo rather than an emotionally damaged flyer making the ultimate hero’s journey – from the evidence of this film, you’d have to say that the Green Lantern’s ability to pick a worthy bearer is well off and needs some refining.
Any sequel, and unbelievably Warners is pushing ahead with one, will need some substantial work to create a franchise that even the comic book geeks will care about.
Best hero:
Hemsworth’s Thor just beats Evans’ Cap
Best villain:
A tie between Hiddleston’s Loki and Fassbender’s Magneto
Best redesign of the hero’s costume:
Thor
Best music:
Henry Jackman’s brilliant score for X-Men
Worldwide box office:
Thor $447m
X-Men: First Class $348m
Green Lantern $147m
Captain America $101m (after just eight days in two territories)
Scores:
Thor 8.5/10
X-Men: First Class 8/10
Green Lantern 4/10
Captain America 6.5/10
Well, let’s cut to the chase: Thor, X-Men: First Class, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Green Lantern – that’s my ranking in descending order.
Now let’s drill into the highs and lows. Thor is undoubtedly the best of the four, its combination of director, script (co-authored by two of the guys behind the X-Men screenplay), epic sweep, central cast taking to the roles as if their lives depended on it, a romantic vein and a rich seam of humour lift it into the hallowed realm of the first two Superman, Spider-Man, X-Men and Batman films.
The decision to put Ken Branagh in the director’s chair was as surprising then as we now know it to have been effective. Equally his decision to cast his TV and stage cohort Tom Hiddleston as Loki is utterly vindicated – Thor’s devious half-brother vies with Michael Fassbender’s Eric Lensherr for best super villain of the summer.
It’s odd now to think anyone had any qualms about putting Marvel’s take on the Norse God of Thunder on screen: not withstanding that Cap has only just opened, the hammer wielder has been the most successful of the four films at the worldwide box office, raking in $447m.
Crucial to this success was its heavy reliance on a key text: JMS’s run on Thor, which juxtaposed immortals with nowheresville Americans (bringing the delightfully unforced humour) and really beefed up the tragic father-sons relationship between Odin, Thor and Loki.
The chemistry between all the leads was a joy to behold, especially between Chris Hemsworth as the titular hero and Natalie Portman as Jane Foster. Thor 2 opens on 26 July 2013.
X-Men saw another Brit at the helm: this time Kick-Ass visionary Matthew Vaughn. First time I saw it I was a little underwhelmed, but second time I really got it.
But I remain happily confused as to whether it’s a prequel or a reboot. Indeed it appears it was originally conceived as a prequel, but, once on board, Vaughn and his writer of choice Jane Goldman reworked the script in the light of the success of the Star Trek reboot.
The film has a few issues, not least its episodic structure, but the tension assuredly builds and builds and builds such that even as the story developments that you expect to occur do occur, you are nevertheless surprised and moved.
Just like Thor, the script (distilling nearly 50 years of comic and movie lore) and the final film allows time for the key characters and their motivations to develop, most enjoyably being James McAvoy’s Charles Xavier and Fassbender’s chilling master of magnetism.
Their relationship is the core of the film, but the more complex character is Lensherr, and thus the bad guy steals the acting plaudits from the good guy. Indeed Fassbender is so good, so compelling, he beats Ian McKellan’s turn in the first three X-Men films. Two outstanding scenes in particular are his training session with Charles and his showdown with his nemesis Sebastian Shaw.
Vaughn’s take on the X-Men seems a little influenced by his work on Kick-Ass: the film is one more than one occasion brutal – not all the super heroes make it out of this one alive.
There are probably too many mutants, both young and old: Jennifer Lawrence does predictably well with Mystique, as does Nicholas Hoult as Beast, but the others are just sketches by comparison – January Jones and her character, Emma Frost (perfect physical casting of course), are given little to do. The cameo appearance of a well-known movie mutant is simply gratuitous.
At times the film feels weighed by down by its own pretensions, but overall that weight is carried with honour and to great effect. The film more than comfortably serves its purpose of wiping out the memory of X-Men: The Last Stand, and sets up a whole new universe of mutants that I, for one, welcome.
Captain America, the comic book character, is one of the four key heroes that have dominated my life (the other three being Superman, Spider-Man and Wolverine).
The journey of shy, skinny, unloved, disrespected but intelligent Steve Rogers to muscular, courageous, confident, loved and respected Captain America has always chimed with me the most. When Cap died in the comics four years ago, I was absolutely gutted.
Clearly then my expectations for this film have been high since it was announced.
On the face of it, installing Joe Johnston in the director’s chair, based on the Indy Jones feel he brought to The Rocketeer (way back in 1991, lest we forget) seemed justified: after all, who’d have thought Jon Favreau would do such an outstanding job on Iron Man? Yes, Johnston hadn’t helmed a major production successfully since Jurassic Park 3 in 2001, but if he could recapture the magic touch he displayed on The Rocketeer, then Cap would be well served.
Iron Man had enjoyed perfect casting with the all-but-washed-up Robert Downey Jnr the one and only choice for the role, while the unknown Chris Hemsworth delivered in Thor, so while there have been doubts all along about Chris Evans playing Cap, there seemed sufficient evidence to suggest that no verdict could be ventured until the film was seen.
Well? Chris Evans delivers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying his brilliant; I’m not saying shower him with awards; however, I am saying that in a film that skips along relatively light-footed, Evans surprisingly brings gravitas to the role and to the film. Indeed one of the elements that had me running scared from the trailer was the CGI effects of grafting Evans' head onto a short, skinny actor; in the context of the whole film, this effect absolutely convinces, aided it must be said by Evans' own prowess. He effortlessly conjures the essence of Cap in the bullying sequence ("You don't know when to give up, do you?" chides the bully; "I could do this all day," says skinny Steve, dustbin lid for shield in hand, perfectly recalling the comic origin story) and at boot camp as he uses his brains and bravery to impress Col Phillips and the lovely Agent Carter.
While the film fails to mention the lack of a father in Rogers’ life, the film faintly sketches out his father-son relationship with Abraham Erskine (the ever-reliable Stanley Tucci). Cap’s other guiding lights are served a little better: as disbelieving Army Col. Phillips, Tommy Lee Jones does Tommy Lee Jones as only Tommy Lee Jones can, while the buxom Hayley Atwell gets just enough under the skin of Peggy Carter to have me calling for her return as Sharon Carter (Peggy’s niece) in any future Cap films.
Sebastian Stan essays Bucky Barnes well enough, and the film certainly allows for his return (and we must hope that the next film will make use of Ed Brubaker’s Winter Soldier stories).
Regrettably little room is given to develop his Howling Commandos (sans Nick Fury of course, but complete with DumDum Duggan), but at least James Montgomery Falsworth is not turned into Union Jack, simply remaining a soldier not a super hero.
One of the areas where the film falls down is the villain. When it was announced that Hugo Weaving would play the Red Skull, there was some hope for a well drawn nemesis for the hero. However, I have to report that Weaving’s Skull, while looking appropriately red and scary, does not get close to Hiddleston’s Loki nor Fassbender’s Magneto – the depth of characterisation is simply not there.
There has been much criticism of Iron Man 2 being an extended trailer for The Avengers movie: I think that’s unfair, especially in comparison with this take on Cap, which is book-ended by scenes that explicitly connect this with other Marvel film canon. And the plain truth is that Johnston doesn't recapture the spirit of The Rocketeer, but nevertheless awkwardly pitches the film as a 1940s Saturday morning flick for the kids while allowing Evans to add some heft to Cap.
Furthermore, Johnston layers the film with references to other works, notably scenes from Star Wars and A Matter of Life and Death.
The film turns over at a fair lick (but not too fast) as there is a lot of ground to cover, but it dives headlong from Cap’s first mission to his last with just a montage of missions in between, thus failing to take the time to reveal his impact on the war effort and on his country’s psyche and thus diminishing the sacrifice and meaning of his death and his subsequent (second) rebirth.
So ultimately Cap is no roaring success in the vein of Iron Man or Thor, but it’s certainly no damp squib like Green Lantern.
So finally I turn to Hal Jordan as DC’s Green Lantern. What a waste! Not for the first time, DC has watched enviously as Marvel has scored successes (in this case Iron Man), and then failed to scrutinise the roots of that success and subsequently delivered a poor effort.
There are many great Green Lantern stories I’m sure, but neither the script, nor the cast nor reboot specialist director Martin Campbell (the man who has twice relaunched Bond with Goldeneye and Casino Royale) rise to the occasion.
Ryan Reynolds comes across as a himbo rather than an emotionally damaged flyer making the ultimate hero’s journey – from the evidence of this film, you’d have to say that the Green Lantern’s ability to pick a worthy bearer is well off and needs some refining.
Any sequel, and unbelievably Warners is pushing ahead with one, will need some substantial work to create a franchise that even the comic book geeks will care about.
Best hero:
Hemsworth’s Thor just beats Evans’ Cap
Best villain:
A tie between Hiddleston’s Loki and Fassbender’s Magneto
Best redesign of the hero’s costume:
Thor
Best music:
Henry Jackman’s brilliant score for X-Men
Worldwide box office:
Thor $447m
X-Men: First Class $348m
Green Lantern $147m
Captain America $101m (after just eight days in two territories)
Scores:
Thor 8.5/10
X-Men: First Class 8/10
Green Lantern 4/10
Captain America 6.5/10
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
Reviews: The Big Picture, The Princess of Montpensier, and Cell 211
Lies, lies and yet more lies: that sums up the films I saw recently on a less than summery summer’s day off. The films were: The Big Picture, The Princess of Montpensier, and Cell 211.
The Big Picture
Based on a novel, this film is engrossing as you watch it, even as the lead character conjures only your revulsion. Romain Duris (surely France’s best young actor) is the rich, successful lawyer, driver of a BMW 5 Series, owner of a boat, and husband to a beautiful wife and father to two loving children – cue collapse into midlife ennui, jealousy, and unexpected violence – and the latter’s equally unexpected opportunities. To reveal any more would spoil the story.
Duris absolutely nails his character’s paranoia, and the shifts that his ensuing actions both enforce upon him while opening up new and dreamed-of vistas of opportunity.
I presume the source novel is responsible for the ‘throwing in the kitchen sink’ approach as Duris’s journey becomes ever more implausible.
And yet, and yet… Duris is so convincing that you end up forgiving the script’s ridiculous twists. Needless to say, it’s not until he finally faces death that he can emerge from his lie of life, and face the greatest adventure with renewed vigour.
Score: 7.5/10
The Princess of Montpensier
This Bertrand Travernier costume drama was one I missed at last year’s London Film Festival – and, upon reflection, I don’t regret that decision.
The film is frequently beautiful, and throughout perfectly-well acted, but it hinges on one single conceit that singularly failed to enthral me.
The conceit? That the four male leads (among them the charismatic Gaspard Ulliel, and France’s equivalent of Morgan Freeman, Lambert Wilson) in the film should all fall hopelessly in love/lust/awe of the female lead, played (again perfectly well) by Melanie Thierry as the eponymous princess, just didn’t ring true.
As all my friends know, I am a lover of French actresses – beautiful, brilliant, intelligent, complex, many-flavoured, regularly naked etc – but I’m afraid Melanie Thierry simply fails to convince as the one true love of at least two of the four male leads. While Thierry’s princess lives a lie for much of her on-screen life, so I couldn’t help but feel lied to.
Of course, this being medieval France, all manner of calamities and coincidences bedevil the key five characters. Were it not played as a tragedy, its many overly contrived coincidences mean it could be mistaken for a Shakespearean comedy.
Strictly for Francophiles, I’m afraid.
Score: 5/10
Cell 211
This Spanish prison drama is almost the anti-Shawshank, examining male friendships in group dynamics with ice-cold precision even as tempers run hot.
Alberto Amman (a deadringer for Keanu Reeves) is the ‘innocent’ caught up in a prison riot. How he ends up in this predicament hinges upon a positively Hitchcockian coincidence, but once you get passed that, Amman’s Juan Oliver is one of cinema’s born survivors, adapting to his surroundings and fellow inmates with surprising intelligence and tenancity.
The riot leader is essayed with calm charisma by Luis Tosar, a coiled spring of rage and righteous rage against the uncaring authorities. The relationship between Tosar’s Malamadre and Ammann’s Oliver is the film’s core.
The story makes many twists and turns, which are both contrived yet believable at the same time. The growing tension is founded upon the lies Oliver has told, and how long for and by whom those lies will be believed.
Director Daniel Mozon directs with panache throughout, never flinching from the script’s grittier aspects, but also delivering the emotional beats with much skill.
Some will attempt to compare this with last year’s Un Prophet, but that would be foolish – the only thing they have in common is the prison setting.
Even as I was watching Cell 211, I was thinking: “Hollywood’s going to pick this up and remake it.” I checked on imdb.com and what do you know: there’s a US remake mooted for 2013 with either Ryan Gosling or Ed Norton in the lead role…
This is muscular, bruising ‘entertainment’, and if you can live with the coincidence upon which the script entirely hangs, then be the first to sample world cinema’s new breakout star: Alberto Ammann.
Score: 8/10
The Big Picture
Based on a novel, this film is engrossing as you watch it, even as the lead character conjures only your revulsion. Romain Duris (surely France’s best young actor) is the rich, successful lawyer, driver of a BMW 5 Series, owner of a boat, and husband to a beautiful wife and father to two loving children – cue collapse into midlife ennui, jealousy, and unexpected violence – and the latter’s equally unexpected opportunities. To reveal any more would spoil the story.
Duris absolutely nails his character’s paranoia, and the shifts that his ensuing actions both enforce upon him while opening up new and dreamed-of vistas of opportunity.
I presume the source novel is responsible for the ‘throwing in the kitchen sink’ approach as Duris’s journey becomes ever more implausible.
And yet, and yet… Duris is so convincing that you end up forgiving the script’s ridiculous twists. Needless to say, it’s not until he finally faces death that he can emerge from his lie of life, and face the greatest adventure with renewed vigour.
Score: 7.5/10
The Princess of Montpensier
This Bertrand Travernier costume drama was one I missed at last year’s London Film Festival – and, upon reflection, I don’t regret that decision.
The film is frequently beautiful, and throughout perfectly-well acted, but it hinges on one single conceit that singularly failed to enthral me.
The conceit? That the four male leads (among them the charismatic Gaspard Ulliel, and France’s equivalent of Morgan Freeman, Lambert Wilson) in the film should all fall hopelessly in love/lust/awe of the female lead, played (again perfectly well) by Melanie Thierry as the eponymous princess, just didn’t ring true.
As all my friends know, I am a lover of French actresses – beautiful, brilliant, intelligent, complex, many-flavoured, regularly naked etc – but I’m afraid Melanie Thierry simply fails to convince as the one true love of at least two of the four male leads. While Thierry’s princess lives a lie for much of her on-screen life, so I couldn’t help but feel lied to.
Of course, this being medieval France, all manner of calamities and coincidences bedevil the key five characters. Were it not played as a tragedy, its many overly contrived coincidences mean it could be mistaken for a Shakespearean comedy.
Strictly for Francophiles, I’m afraid.
Score: 5/10
Cell 211
This Spanish prison drama is almost the anti-Shawshank, examining male friendships in group dynamics with ice-cold precision even as tempers run hot.
Alberto Amman (a deadringer for Keanu Reeves) is the ‘innocent’ caught up in a prison riot. How he ends up in this predicament hinges upon a positively Hitchcockian coincidence, but once you get passed that, Amman’s Juan Oliver is one of cinema’s born survivors, adapting to his surroundings and fellow inmates with surprising intelligence and tenancity.
The riot leader is essayed with calm charisma by Luis Tosar, a coiled spring of rage and righteous rage against the uncaring authorities. The relationship between Tosar’s Malamadre and Ammann’s Oliver is the film’s core.
The story makes many twists and turns, which are both contrived yet believable at the same time. The growing tension is founded upon the lies Oliver has told, and how long for and by whom those lies will be believed.
Director Daniel Mozon directs with panache throughout, never flinching from the script’s grittier aspects, but also delivering the emotional beats with much skill.
Some will attempt to compare this with last year’s Un Prophet, but that would be foolish – the only thing they have in common is the prison setting.
Even as I was watching Cell 211, I was thinking: “Hollywood’s going to pick this up and remake it.” I checked on imdb.com and what do you know: there’s a US remake mooted for 2013 with either Ryan Gosling or Ed Norton in the lead role…
This is muscular, bruising ‘entertainment’, and if you can live with the coincidence upon which the script entirely hangs, then be the first to sample world cinema’s new breakout star: Alberto Ammann.
Score: 8/10
Sunday, 24 April 2011
Comic book movies that need to be made
With ecstatic geek reviews flooding in ahead of its launch, the Thor movie proves that any classy director can deliver a cracking comic book film. In the Norse god of thunder’s case, it’s Ken Branagh.
That set me wondering: of the current crop of brilliant directors, who should direct which comic book?
Clint Eastwood
He would need a story with an elegiac quality, a quest for redemption by an all-American hero that could be told at a stately pace, so it has to be Grant Morrison’s All Star Superman, in which the big blue boyscout faces his final mission. It would make a fine companion piece to Gran Torino and Million Dollar Baby. Jon Ham would have to take the lead role, and Christina Hendricks would be the hottest Lois ever. Could Clint persuade Gene Hackman back to play Lex?
The Coens
It would need to be offbeat and violent, therefore it’s Bendis’s run on Daredevil – kooky characters, the hero at the centre of the violence, seeking redemption, and knowing he can never attain it; throw in the Catholic imagery, and you’ve got an Oscar winner.
However, if they’re in their screwball phase, it’s Warren Ellis’s Nextwave: perhaps the most useless superhero team ever put together in the Marvel universe, they’re barely competent and certainly wouldn’t know teamwork if it knocked them into the sun; funny, yet achingly sad.
Darren Aronofsky
Dark, sensual, twisted and epic – that’s what the Black Swan director needs, and there’s no question that Warren Ellis’s mind-bending Planetary, complete with its astonishing visuals, is right up Aaronofsky’s street. Such a pity he walked away from Wolverine.
Ridley Scott
Big, bold, scary, etc and British-skewed, that’s what the Alien director needs, and something that allows him to dabble in production design. There is no greater fit than Warren Ellis’s and Mark Millar’s runs on The Authority, the superheroes who decide they’re going to make the world behave no matter what. There are only two British actresses I can think of with the guts and the balls to play the comic’s heroine Jenny Sparks and they are Katie Jarvis (from Fish Tank) or Carey Mulligan.
David Fincher
Fincher has been growing up of late, but he needs to direct a bad, mad hero, fighting in darkened alleys, dealing with the gritty and the grim: step forward Marvel’s answer to Batman, Moon Knight. Insane, violent, searching for peace of mind, trapped within his own profession, Moonie is the man for Fincher. While he’s played the Punisher, Thomas Jane gets my vote to play Khonshu’s avatar on earth.
PT Anderson
I’m thinking Anderson needs to plug into the headspace he was in with There Will Be Blood, so let there be blood, absolutely lashings of it: he should adapt Mark Millar’s Old Man Logan, the story of a retired Wolverine coerced into snikting those claws one last time in an effort to save his family and redeem his soul. Casting? Harrison Ford perhaps?
That set me wondering: of the current crop of brilliant directors, who should direct which comic book?
Clint EastwoodHe would need a story with an elegiac quality, a quest for redemption by an all-American hero that could be told at a stately pace, so it has to be Grant Morrison’s All Star Superman, in which the big blue boyscout faces his final mission. It would make a fine companion piece to Gran Torino and Million Dollar Baby. Jon Ham would have to take the lead role, and Christina Hendricks would be the hottest Lois ever. Could Clint persuade Gene Hackman back to play Lex?
The Coens
It would need to be offbeat and violent, therefore it’s Bendis’s run on Daredevil – kooky characters, the hero at the centre of the violence, seeking redemption, and knowing he can never attain it; throw in the Catholic imagery, and you’ve got an Oscar winner.
However, if they’re in their screwball phase, it’s Warren Ellis’s Nextwave: perhaps the most useless superhero team ever put together in the Marvel universe, they’re barely competent and certainly wouldn’t know teamwork if it knocked them into the sun; funny, yet achingly sad.
Darren AronofskyDark, sensual, twisted and epic – that’s what the Black Swan director needs, and there’s no question that Warren Ellis’s mind-bending Planetary, complete with its astonishing visuals, is right up Aaronofsky’s street. Such a pity he walked away from Wolverine.
Ridley Scott
Big, bold, scary, etc and British-skewed, that’s what the Alien director needs, and something that allows him to dabble in production design. There is no greater fit than Warren Ellis’s and Mark Millar’s runs on The Authority, the superheroes who decide they’re going to make the world behave no matter what. There are only two British actresses I can think of with the guts and the balls to play the comic’s heroine Jenny Sparks and they are Katie Jarvis (from Fish Tank) or Carey Mulligan.
David Fincher
Fincher has been growing up of late, but he needs to direct a bad, mad hero, fighting in darkened alleys, dealing with the gritty and the grim: step forward Marvel’s answer to Batman, Moon Knight. Insane, violent, searching for peace of mind, trapped within his own profession, Moonie is the man for Fincher. While he’s played the Punisher, Thomas Jane gets my vote to play Khonshu’s avatar on earth.
PT AndersonI’m thinking Anderson needs to plug into the headspace he was in with There Will Be Blood, so let there be blood, absolutely lashings of it: he should adapt Mark Millar’s Old Man Logan, the story of a retired Wolverine coerced into snikting those claws one last time in an effort to save his family and redeem his soul. Casting? Harrison Ford perhaps?
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