No surprises in the end at the Oscars: the form book was followed almost religiously. The King’s Speech walked away with four gongs, with Colin Firth getting the award he should have won a year ago.
In total, the Oscar statuettes were shared by eight films, with Inception matching the King’s quartet – although all in technical categories.
Natalie Portman secured her Oscar, as did Christian Bale and Melissa Leo for their supporting roles in The Fighter. Indeed The Fighter’s success is the first Supporting Actor/Actress double since Hannah and Her Sisters 25 years ago – and the 8th time that double has been done.
The Social Network only secured three gongs in the end, only one of which was major (Aaron Sorkin’s adapted screenplay) – and director David Fincher went away empty-handed.
TS3 and Alice both secured a pair, the former being the inevitable winner of Best Animated Film.
The only major surprise was Best Foreign Film going to Denmark’s In A Better World.
All that remains now for King’s Speech is get to number one at the US box office next weekend, but that looks impossible against Johnny Depp’s Rango and The Adjustment Bureau on wide releases.
Oscars 2011: the winners
The King’s Speech: Best Film/Best Director for Tom Hooper/Best Actor for Colin Firth/Best Original Screenplay
Black Swan: Best Actress for Natalie Portman
The Social Network: Best Adapted Screenplay/Best Score/Best Editing
The Fighter: Best Supporting Actor for Christian Bale/Best Supporting Actress for Melissa Leo
Toy Story 3: Best Animated Film/Best Song
Inception: Best Cinematography/Best Sound Mixing/Best Sound Editing/Best Visual Effects
Alice In Wonderland: Best Art Direction/Best Costumes
In A Better World: Best Foreign Film
Monday 28 February 2011
Sunday 27 February 2011
Cinematic sensations: when film-going goes right
Having discussed the worst things that can happen to you while in your local fleapit, now I’m going to look at the best things that can happen when going to the cinema.
The film you can’t stop talking about
There is nothing quite like leaving the cinema talking about the film you’ve just seen, debating its qualities and its meanings with friends, jumping in the car and driving to the curry house still talking about the film, get to the restaurant, sit down, peruse the menu, order, eat and drink and still be talking about the film.
The most recent examples were Inception and Black Swan, and before that There Will Be Blood: all three generated hours of debate. Sign of a good movie, that.
The film you were dragged to see and unexpectedly fell in love with
It’s no secret that The Shawshank Redemption and Field Of Dreams are two of my favourite films. However, it’s less well known that I was dragged to both movies by Dunkini: neither film was on my radar at the time.
If I recall correctly, we saw Field Of Dreams after its main release had run with a showing at the NFT; and we encountered Shawshank at the Odeon Covent Garden (or Shaftesbury Avenue as it was then). Both sunk their hooks into me swiftly – and permanently.
I owe Dunkini a lot, but I owe him big for those two!
When you get the joke before everyone else
First example: in the second Austin Powers movie, Dr Evil plans to build a laser on the moon; he refers to it as a ‘project’ and that the laser is being built by ‘Alan Parsons’; he reveals that he calls it ‘The Alan Parsons Project’. I laughed like a drain at the sheer insanity of having a prog rock gag in a film, and not only that but one referencing Alan Parsons. That’s sheer bloody genius! Nobody else got it though…
Second example: the lead-up (complete with bouzouki score) to the three-way orgy of violence that effectively concludes Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels (before the extended epilogue). Even as the lead-up started I was giggling, Guy Ritchie’s plot for the next 15 minutes of screen time already mapped out in my brain.
When a crowd laughs/screams in unison
A bloody good comedy with a full house is hard to beat, but is trumped by a classy horror movie that provokes screams and then laughs.
The most recent exponent of the latter was The Orphanage. I saw it at the Odeon Covent Garden with Rodling: the crowd were on edge from the start – and crucially everyone jumped and screamed in unison.
After each collective scream, there was a collective laugh as everyone’s psychological pressure valve kicked in.
And, miracle of miracles, we and the rest of the audience missed nothing: it was almost as if the director knew how audiences would react, and edited the film to allow the audience to relax after their screams and not miss any of the story.
Geek crowds on first nights
Geek crowds can only make a movie – they can’t break it. They bring an extra frison to a screening. The incredible numbing expectation while waiting for Phantom Menace at the Odeon Leicester Square on its opening night was only made bearable by the geek audience: we were surrounded by Vaders, Skywalkers, etc, and light sabres were brandished with abandon. If only the film had lived up to such lofty expectations!
The geek crowds at first nights of Marvel movies are simply the best: desperately spotting every gag and reference, and waiting for the inevitable Stan Lee cameo. Good-humoured, well-behaved bunch every time.
Strange serendipitous coincidences
Sometimes the stars align and focus on you, bringing you a great film and some surprise element in your life that in some way relates to the film you’ve just seen.
My example of this was seeing Last Orders at the London Film Festival. After the screening, I emerged blinking into the light, still trying to recover my composure – I didn’t expect the film’s dissection of male friendships to leave me in a big blubbery mess, but it did. I’m standing outside Odeon West End, focusing on my breathing, pulling myself back up and into an appropriate state of mind, only for a text message to arrive from my best friend. While the content of the message was ‘just’ blokey banter about West Wing and the use of Brothers In Arms, the underscore of the message (the unspoken simpatico male friends have) simply rammed home the film’s point home – and I was a blubbery mess again!
Basking in the discovery of a new sensation
Sometimes you watch a film and you realise that one of the new performers or someone on the technical side is a genius and will blossom further – and you become convinced that you’ll have to watch every film they make.
I offer this example: Scarlett Johansson. Having forgotten her Oscar-nominated role in the Horse Whisperer and not having seen anything else she did while growing up, her appearance in Lost In Translation blew me away. OK, seeing those buttocks on the big screen certainly created an impression, but so did everything else about her.
I saw Lost at the London Film Festival, and Scarlett was present before the film, and she seemed a genuinely nice person, not at all the budding Hollywood starlet, all fags and self-absorption. A few days later I saw her again at the premiere of Girl With A Pearl Earring, and again Scarlett was present. As she left the screening, she spotted an old friend in the auditorium – she screamed, through her hands up in the air, and ran, as best she could given the ridiculously figure-hugging dress she was wearing, towards her friend, they embraced and chatted, and then Scarlett left so the film could start.
The combination of her on-screen performance and power and the way she came across in reality left me completely smitten and convinced that here was a future star. Of course, she never delivered on that early promise and I have no idea if she’s still a nice person, but the impact had been made.
The hush that descends on an audience after a monumentally moving film
Three movie endings spring to mind: Schindler’s List, Bobby and Black Book. I distinctly remember seeing Schindler’s on the first Saturday night at the Empire Leicester Square (back in the days before it was a multiplex). The film appeared to end, but then came the colour epilogue with the real Schindler Jews: cue the audible choking of tears, followed by reverent silence. The film ends, the entire audience shuffles out, not knowing what to say. The reverent silence continues all the way to the Tube and all the way home…
Black Book and Bobby produced the same effect: Verhoeven’s Black Book because it was the Dutch Schindler’s, unearthing a dark period of its nation’s history, a history no longer taught at school so great is the shame – I saw it the day after its UK premiere at the London Film Festival and the audience was predominantly retired Dutch; and Bobby’s conclusion – the death of RFK and its impact on the hotel staff and guests, ‘scored’ to arguably his greatest speech – is unexpectedly moving, and like Black Book, I saw it the day after its UK premiere at the London Film Festival, this time with lots of retired Americans. In both cases, there was a mixture of silence and sobbing, both as the conclusions played out and the house lights came up.
And then there’s the plain sobbing! There was the woman next to us who lost it eight minutes into Up and simply couldn’t recover her composure. She apologised to my companion and I after the film, but no apology was required: it’s a desperately moving film.
Another sobber is the moment in Grace Is Gone when John Cusack relents and finally tells his daughters the awful truth about their mother’s death. Cleverly the director ignores the dialogue and simply lets Clint Eastwood’s piano lament utterly destroy the audience as the camera slowly pulls back from the characters. People were uncontrollably sobbing. Terrific stuff!
When you forget it’s a movie
The combination of darkness, the big screen, and the surround sound system can lull you into the very fabric of the film you’re watching: you cease to be aware that you’re watching a movie, you feel like you’re in it.
Perhaps my greatest example of this is The Return of the King, when Aragorn delivers his ‘not this day’ pre-battle speech: I was ready to pick up my imaginary sword and run from my seat towards the screen to the join the battle and do my bit to save Middle Earth.
The thrill of your loftiest expectations being met
I was shaking with anticipation as we sat in Odeon Leicester Square, waiting for X-Men 2 to start. The first film had been great, full of small character touches, and an inspired performance by Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine. Something the first film lacked, however, was Wolverine in full berserker mode, claws out, full of merciless rage; would X2 deliver that moment?
Would it? Of course it did – and with such aplomb! Wolverine’s first kill sees him pin a Weapon X trooper to the fridge, both sets of claws driven almost orgasmically through his chest. A further seven troopers get cut up by Wolverine before he escapes the mansion, the young mutants he’s with not sure whether they’d be safer with the invading troops or the berserker.
I sat through that entire scene, fists clenched, barely able to stop myself from standing up and shouting a celebratory “Come on!”
There are so many other things that make cinema-going great. What can you think of?
The film you can’t stop talking about
There is nothing quite like leaving the cinema talking about the film you’ve just seen, debating its qualities and its meanings with friends, jumping in the car and driving to the curry house still talking about the film, get to the restaurant, sit down, peruse the menu, order, eat and drink and still be talking about the film.
The most recent examples were Inception and Black Swan, and before that There Will Be Blood: all three generated hours of debate. Sign of a good movie, that.
The film you were dragged to see and unexpectedly fell in love with
It’s no secret that The Shawshank Redemption and Field Of Dreams are two of my favourite films. However, it’s less well known that I was dragged to both movies by Dunkini: neither film was on my radar at the time.
If I recall correctly, we saw Field Of Dreams after its main release had run with a showing at the NFT; and we encountered Shawshank at the Odeon Covent Garden (or Shaftesbury Avenue as it was then). Both sunk their hooks into me swiftly – and permanently.
I owe Dunkini a lot, but I owe him big for those two!
When you get the joke before everyone else
First example: in the second Austin Powers movie, Dr Evil plans to build a laser on the moon; he refers to it as a ‘project’ and that the laser is being built by ‘Alan Parsons’; he reveals that he calls it ‘The Alan Parsons Project’. I laughed like a drain at the sheer insanity of having a prog rock gag in a film, and not only that but one referencing Alan Parsons. That’s sheer bloody genius! Nobody else got it though…
Second example: the lead-up (complete with bouzouki score) to the three-way orgy of violence that effectively concludes Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels (before the extended epilogue). Even as the lead-up started I was giggling, Guy Ritchie’s plot for the next 15 minutes of screen time already mapped out in my brain.
When a crowd laughs/screams in unison
A bloody good comedy with a full house is hard to beat, but is trumped by a classy horror movie that provokes screams and then laughs.
The most recent exponent of the latter was The Orphanage. I saw it at the Odeon Covent Garden with Rodling: the crowd were on edge from the start – and crucially everyone jumped and screamed in unison.
After each collective scream, there was a collective laugh as everyone’s psychological pressure valve kicked in.
And, miracle of miracles, we and the rest of the audience missed nothing: it was almost as if the director knew how audiences would react, and edited the film to allow the audience to relax after their screams and not miss any of the story.
Geek crowds on first nights
Geek crowds can only make a movie – they can’t break it. They bring an extra frison to a screening. The incredible numbing expectation while waiting for Phantom Menace at the Odeon Leicester Square on its opening night was only made bearable by the geek audience: we were surrounded by Vaders, Skywalkers, etc, and light sabres were brandished with abandon. If only the film had lived up to such lofty expectations!
The geek crowds at first nights of Marvel movies are simply the best: desperately spotting every gag and reference, and waiting for the inevitable Stan Lee cameo. Good-humoured, well-behaved bunch every time.
Strange serendipitous coincidences
Sometimes the stars align and focus on you, bringing you a great film and some surprise element in your life that in some way relates to the film you’ve just seen.
My example of this was seeing Last Orders at the London Film Festival. After the screening, I emerged blinking into the light, still trying to recover my composure – I didn’t expect the film’s dissection of male friendships to leave me in a big blubbery mess, but it did. I’m standing outside Odeon West End, focusing on my breathing, pulling myself back up and into an appropriate state of mind, only for a text message to arrive from my best friend. While the content of the message was ‘just’ blokey banter about West Wing and the use of Brothers In Arms, the underscore of the message (the unspoken simpatico male friends have) simply rammed home the film’s point home – and I was a blubbery mess again!
Basking in the discovery of a new sensation
Sometimes you watch a film and you realise that one of the new performers or someone on the technical side is a genius and will blossom further – and you become convinced that you’ll have to watch every film they make.
I offer this example: Scarlett Johansson. Having forgotten her Oscar-nominated role in the Horse Whisperer and not having seen anything else she did while growing up, her appearance in Lost In Translation blew me away. OK, seeing those buttocks on the big screen certainly created an impression, but so did everything else about her.
I saw Lost at the London Film Festival, and Scarlett was present before the film, and she seemed a genuinely nice person, not at all the budding Hollywood starlet, all fags and self-absorption. A few days later I saw her again at the premiere of Girl With A Pearl Earring, and again Scarlett was present. As she left the screening, she spotted an old friend in the auditorium – she screamed, through her hands up in the air, and ran, as best she could given the ridiculously figure-hugging dress she was wearing, towards her friend, they embraced and chatted, and then Scarlett left so the film could start.
The combination of her on-screen performance and power and the way she came across in reality left me completely smitten and convinced that here was a future star. Of course, she never delivered on that early promise and I have no idea if she’s still a nice person, but the impact had been made.
The hush that descends on an audience after a monumentally moving film
Three movie endings spring to mind: Schindler’s List, Bobby and Black Book. I distinctly remember seeing Schindler’s on the first Saturday night at the Empire Leicester Square (back in the days before it was a multiplex). The film appeared to end, but then came the colour epilogue with the real Schindler Jews: cue the audible choking of tears, followed by reverent silence. The film ends, the entire audience shuffles out, not knowing what to say. The reverent silence continues all the way to the Tube and all the way home…
Black Book and Bobby produced the same effect: Verhoeven’s Black Book because it was the Dutch Schindler’s, unearthing a dark period of its nation’s history, a history no longer taught at school so great is the shame – I saw it the day after its UK premiere at the London Film Festival and the audience was predominantly retired Dutch; and Bobby’s conclusion – the death of RFK and its impact on the hotel staff and guests, ‘scored’ to arguably his greatest speech – is unexpectedly moving, and like Black Book, I saw it the day after its UK premiere at the London Film Festival, this time with lots of retired Americans. In both cases, there was a mixture of silence and sobbing, both as the conclusions played out and the house lights came up.
And then there’s the plain sobbing! There was the woman next to us who lost it eight minutes into Up and simply couldn’t recover her composure. She apologised to my companion and I after the film, but no apology was required: it’s a desperately moving film.
Another sobber is the moment in Grace Is Gone when John Cusack relents and finally tells his daughters the awful truth about their mother’s death. Cleverly the director ignores the dialogue and simply lets Clint Eastwood’s piano lament utterly destroy the audience as the camera slowly pulls back from the characters. People were uncontrollably sobbing. Terrific stuff!
When you forget it’s a movie
The combination of darkness, the big screen, and the surround sound system can lull you into the very fabric of the film you’re watching: you cease to be aware that you’re watching a movie, you feel like you’re in it.
Perhaps my greatest example of this is The Return of the King, when Aragorn delivers his ‘not this day’ pre-battle speech: I was ready to pick up my imaginary sword and run from my seat towards the screen to the join the battle and do my bit to save Middle Earth.
The thrill of your loftiest expectations being met
I was shaking with anticipation as we sat in Odeon Leicester Square, waiting for X-Men 2 to start. The first film had been great, full of small character touches, and an inspired performance by Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine. Something the first film lacked, however, was Wolverine in full berserker mode, claws out, full of merciless rage; would X2 deliver that moment?
Would it? Of course it did – and with such aplomb! Wolverine’s first kill sees him pin a Weapon X trooper to the fridge, both sets of claws driven almost orgasmically through his chest. A further seven troopers get cut up by Wolverine before he escapes the mansion, the young mutants he’s with not sure whether they’d be safer with the invading troops or the berserker.
I sat through that entire scene, fists clenched, barely able to stop myself from standing up and shouting a celebratory “Come on!”
There are so many other things that make cinema-going great. What can you think of?
Saturday 26 February 2011
Oscars 2011: predictions
OK, it’s 30 or so hours until the Oscars are revealed, and thus I offer my predictions in the main categories.
The King’s Speech: Best Film, and Best Actor for Colin Firth (thus securing the award he should have won for A Single Man), and Best Supporting Actor for Geoffrey Rush
The Social Network: Best Director for David Fincher, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Aaron Sorkin
Black Swan: Best Actress for Natalie Portman
Inception: Best Original Screenplay
True Grit: Best Supporting Actress for Hailee Steinfeld, and Best Cinematography for Roger Deakins
Toy Story 3: Best Animated Film
Of course, I could be well off, but I don’t expect King’s Speech to sweep the boards. With $237.5m banked already (from a $15m production, although the ad spend is not known at this stage, but clearly well north of what the film cost to make), the question remains how far King’s Speech can go. Surely the UK audience is sated (the film should cross the £40m barrier this weekend)? Oscar wins could add another $40m in the US to its running total of $107m.
But in key non-English-speaking territories, the film has not yet quite caught fire, and the Oscars could really help there.
The King’s Speech: Best Film, and Best Actor for Colin Firth (thus securing the award he should have won for A Single Man), and Best Supporting Actor for Geoffrey Rush
The Social Network: Best Director for David Fincher, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Aaron Sorkin
Black Swan: Best Actress for Natalie Portman
Inception: Best Original Screenplay
True Grit: Best Supporting Actress for Hailee Steinfeld, and Best Cinematography for Roger Deakins
Toy Story 3: Best Animated Film
Of course, I could be well off, but I don’t expect King’s Speech to sweep the boards. With $237.5m banked already (from a $15m production, although the ad spend is not known at this stage, but clearly well north of what the film cost to make), the question remains how far King’s Speech can go. Surely the UK audience is sated (the film should cross the £40m barrier this weekend)? Oscar wins could add another $40m in the US to its running total of $107m.
But in key non-English-speaking territories, the film has not yet quite caught fire, and the Oscars could really help there.
Sunday 20 February 2011
Review: True Grit
True Grit is outstanding entertainment from the Coen brothers, and features as breathtaking a screen debut as I can recall.Let me state at the outset that I have neither read the novel nor (cue drum roll) seen the John Wayne film of 1969 – I’m afraid I just don’t like John Wayne. However, some desk research does confirm that the Coens’ take on the story of 14-year old Mattie Ross hiring US Marshall Rooster Cogburn to avenge her father’s death is much closer to the novel than Wayne’s Oscar winner.
Indeed the Coens’ focus is not on Rooster but on Mattie, and in this the decision to cast newcomer Hailee Steinfeld is a masterstroke. She completely holds her own against Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin and Barry Pepper; the verbal one-upmanship that Mattie deploys – delivered with gusto by Steinfeld – in the conversations with everyone she meets would scare off Stephen Fry.
However, any aversion to Mattie’s precociousness is swiftly offset by the pointless bravado and utter inability of any man in the film to do anything well: good or evil (and the film makes clear that none of the male characters are without sin, and that even bad guys can do the right thing once in a while), none of them have the intelligence, bravery, will power, and moral fortitude of Mattie. Nevertheless, the endless cycle of violence begetting violence, and the notion that revenge does not equal redemption are evidenced throughout.
Which might make this version of True Grit sound more than a little preachy – and it most certainly is not. It is frequently laugh out loud funny; the violence (when it comes) is violent and visceral – and not always telegraphed, although when it is, the tension is palpable.
There are a number of scenes of pure movie magic, aided and abetted of course by Roger Deakins’ ever-gorgeous cinematography. Two that particularly stood out for me were the almost elegiac opening and Rooster’s flight across the plains to save Mattie.
All the male actors perform well enough: Damon deploys his light comedic touch, while Bridges walks a fine line between curmudgeon and drunken madness. Brolin and Pepper have very little screen time, but the latter does especially well with his small role.
Just as Zodiac, Benjamin Button and Social Network served notice that David Fincher had grown up, so True Grit reveals that the Coens can make a straight movie – those of you that did not get Burn After Reading, for instance, have nothing to fear here. Mattie’s story carries themes that the Coens have returned to time and again, but for possibly the first time in their careers, they serve the characters and the story first, and their own obsessions second.
Ultimately I’m not sure it’s truly worthy of all the awards it’s been nominated for, but it is certainly more than worthy of your time and money.
Score: 8.5/10
Saturday 19 February 2011
King's Speech beats Avatar!
So much for the Avatar effect! Welcome to the King’s Speech effect!
After the first seven weekends of 2010, Avatar had hauled in £50.1m from the UK box office (of course that’s in addition to £26.9m it had already grabbed in the final weeks of 2009).
Avatar, with its long running time, dominated screens throughout the UK, effectively starving many other films of the oxygen of screen space.
Surely the first seven weeks of 2011 can’t be as massive for the box office? Enormo box office films like Avatar come but once in a generation – the year in which they are released can never be compared with the years before it or after such is the distortion effect.
In fact, not only is 2011 as good as 2010, it’s better:
• After the first seven weekends of 2010, the top weekly combined hauls of the top 15 films was £102m.
• After the first seven weekends of 2011, the top weekly combined hauls of the top 15 films was £107.2m – 5% better than 2010.
Even if you take out the first weekends out of the equation (the first weekend of 2011 featured a seven-day take for Gulliver’s Travels!), the numbers look like this:
• 2010: £86.1m
• 2011: £89.6m – 4% better than 2011
And rather than one film consuming everything in its path (Avatar), 2011 is typified by a number of quality, awards-laden movies performing well beyond their distributors’ greatest expectations:
• The King’s Speech - £33.7m
• Black Swan - £12.7m
• The Fighter – £4m
• True Grit - £1.8m
Those four films’ combined total box office so far (remember True Grit’s figure represents its opening weekend and that the BAFTAs were announced as that weekend concluded, so those awards’ impact will not been seen until this weekend’s figures are confirmed) is £52.4m – 4.5% better than Avatar in the same period a year ago.
I need hardly point out that each of those four films is considerably more than 4.5% better to watch than James Cameron’s Smurf movie!
After the first seven weekends of 2010, Avatar had hauled in £50.1m from the UK box office (of course that’s in addition to £26.9m it had already grabbed in the final weeks of 2009).
Avatar, with its long running time, dominated screens throughout the UK, effectively starving many other films of the oxygen of screen space.
Surely the first seven weeks of 2011 can’t be as massive for the box office? Enormo box office films like Avatar come but once in a generation – the year in which they are released can never be compared with the years before it or after such is the distortion effect.
In fact, not only is 2011 as good as 2010, it’s better:
• After the first seven weekends of 2010, the top weekly combined hauls of the top 15 films was £102m.
• After the first seven weekends of 2011, the top weekly combined hauls of the top 15 films was £107.2m – 5% better than 2010.
Even if you take out the first weekends out of the equation (the first weekend of 2011 featured a seven-day take for Gulliver’s Travels!), the numbers look like this:
• 2010: £86.1m
• 2011: £89.6m – 4% better than 2011
And rather than one film consuming everything in its path (Avatar), 2011 is typified by a number of quality, awards-laden movies performing well beyond their distributors’ greatest expectations:
• The King’s Speech - £33.7m
• Black Swan - £12.7m
• The Fighter – £4m
• True Grit - £1.8m
Those four films’ combined total box office so far (remember True Grit’s figure represents its opening weekend and that the BAFTAs were announced as that weekend concluded, so those awards’ impact will not been seen until this weekend’s figures are confirmed) is £52.4m – 4.5% better than Avatar in the same period a year ago.
I need hardly point out that each of those four films is considerably more than 4.5% better to watch than James Cameron’s Smurf movie!
Cinematic calamities: the worst things that can happen in a flea pit
Going to the movies should be an unforgettable experience. It certainly was when I was a kid: every trip was full of wonder and awe, whether in the suburbs of south London, the West End or the length and breadth of the country.
In the past 10 years, movie-going has still been an experience for me, but the wonder and awe is frequently matched by disgust.
With due thanks to Stevie G for his suggestion of this blog post, here is my list of the top 10 things that have gone wrong, the cinematic calamities if you will, that have soured my enjoyment of movies.
I might follow this post soon with one about the best things to happen to me in a cinema.
Talkers
This really is a development of the past 20 years. The occasional snatched whisper to your cinematic companion is fine during a film – recalling everything you did during the day or last night is very definitely off the agenda. If you can’t sit quietly, get the hell out of my cinema!
Perhaps idiots would talk less in cinemas if they knew they would have to wait a year – rather than three months – for that film to become available on DVD.
Texters
Turn that effing phone off before I stick it down your mouth, you inconsiderate ****!
Callers
Worse than talkers and texters is that special person who not only leaves their phone on, but also, when the phone rings, answers it and proceeds to have a conversation…
That means you, ****face, at the Odeon Leicester Square during Gran Torino on 27 February 2009.
If I owned and operated a cinema, I’d hire a sniper to take out any patron who committed this, the greatest sin of all.
Wrong reaction
There’s nothing worse than a film that you’re completely down with, it’s got you in it’s grip, the tension is mounting, the tragedy that has been playing out for the past 90 minutes comes to its wretched conclusion – and some Neanderthal laughs (when you’re ready to cry) and completely destroys the moment, shatters the illusion. Git!
Poor projection
Films presented too high or too low on the screen or indeed in the wrong ratio, the volume too loud or too quiet: poor projection is everywhere. Especially at the multiplex in London’s Trocadero: I haven’t been there for years after six consecutive films I saw there were poorly projected.
One of the most recent howlers I experienced was Fish Tank in 2009 at the Renoir (part of the usually excellent Curzon group). The ads and trailers sailed past, and the film began – although it wasn’t the film me and the rest of the audience had paid too see, it was a cosy Italian family drama rather than an incendiary slice of east London realism. Thankfully, after three minutes, someone somewhere realised their mistake.
And the worse form of poor projection? Projecting a foreign film too low, such that the English-speaking audience can’t see the bleedin’ subtitles…
My friend hates the movie
You take a chance on a movie: sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. In the latter case, you may still find positives, indeed you may still find some real pleasure, but all that is lost if you become aware that your film friend is very definitely not enjoying it.
Latecomers
While I have on occasion been a late arrival at the cinema, the time has surely come for us to revert to the theatre-style rules Hitchcock insisted on for screenings of Psycho: no one allowed in after the film has started.
Weak bladders
If you’ve got a weak or small bladder, go to the loo before the film starts, not while it’s on, you fool!
If you know you won’t survive a movie that’s more than 2 hours long, then watch it at home on DVD when you can have as many comfort breaks required without destroying everyone else’s enjoyment of the film as you fight your way out of the row and then back in again.
Losing your girlfriend
99.9% of the time, the darkness in cinemas is just right, but every once in a while it can cause an issue.
One such issue befell me, or rather I should say that it befell an ex-girlfriend. We were in the local multiplex, halfway through a film that had attracted very few other patrons. The GF in question suffered with a small bladder, so she had to dash to the loo. Off she dashed. She was mercifully brief, returning swiftly to the all-encompassing darkness of the auditorium, and sat down three rows ahead of me next to a guy who wasn’t me. With a somewhat hysterical shriek, she realised her error and looked around the cinema to see me laughing like a drain, knowing she would be pant-wettingly embarrassed.
Cheese sauce
Why anyone needs nachos covered in a strangely yellow ‘cheese sauce’, I do not know. If that’s cheese sauce, I’m a banana.
I swear my nostrils crawl back inside my skull upon their first sniff of the ‘cheese sauce’. Eat nachos in a cinema if you must, but don’t put me off my game with your malodorous dip!
Let me know if any of this chimes with you.
In the past 10 years, movie-going has still been an experience for me, but the wonder and awe is frequently matched by disgust.
With due thanks to Stevie G for his suggestion of this blog post, here is my list of the top 10 things that have gone wrong, the cinematic calamities if you will, that have soured my enjoyment of movies.
I might follow this post soon with one about the best things to happen to me in a cinema.
Talkers
This really is a development of the past 20 years. The occasional snatched whisper to your cinematic companion is fine during a film – recalling everything you did during the day or last night is very definitely off the agenda. If you can’t sit quietly, get the hell out of my cinema!
Perhaps idiots would talk less in cinemas if they knew they would have to wait a year – rather than three months – for that film to become available on DVD.
Texters
Turn that effing phone off before I stick it down your mouth, you inconsiderate ****!
Callers
Worse than talkers and texters is that special person who not only leaves their phone on, but also, when the phone rings, answers it and proceeds to have a conversation…
That means you, ****face, at the Odeon Leicester Square during Gran Torino on 27 February 2009.
If I owned and operated a cinema, I’d hire a sniper to take out any patron who committed this, the greatest sin of all.
Wrong reaction
There’s nothing worse than a film that you’re completely down with, it’s got you in it’s grip, the tension is mounting, the tragedy that has been playing out for the past 90 minutes comes to its wretched conclusion – and some Neanderthal laughs (when you’re ready to cry) and completely destroys the moment, shatters the illusion. Git!
Poor projection
Films presented too high or too low on the screen or indeed in the wrong ratio, the volume too loud or too quiet: poor projection is everywhere. Especially at the multiplex in London’s Trocadero: I haven’t been there for years after six consecutive films I saw there were poorly projected.
One of the most recent howlers I experienced was Fish Tank in 2009 at the Renoir (part of the usually excellent Curzon group). The ads and trailers sailed past, and the film began – although it wasn’t the film me and the rest of the audience had paid too see, it was a cosy Italian family drama rather than an incendiary slice of east London realism. Thankfully, after three minutes, someone somewhere realised their mistake.
And the worse form of poor projection? Projecting a foreign film too low, such that the English-speaking audience can’t see the bleedin’ subtitles…
My friend hates the movie
You take a chance on a movie: sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. In the latter case, you may still find positives, indeed you may still find some real pleasure, but all that is lost if you become aware that your film friend is very definitely not enjoying it.
Latecomers
While I have on occasion been a late arrival at the cinema, the time has surely come for us to revert to the theatre-style rules Hitchcock insisted on for screenings of Psycho: no one allowed in after the film has started.
Weak bladders
If you’ve got a weak or small bladder, go to the loo before the film starts, not while it’s on, you fool!
If you know you won’t survive a movie that’s more than 2 hours long, then watch it at home on DVD when you can have as many comfort breaks required without destroying everyone else’s enjoyment of the film as you fight your way out of the row and then back in again.
Losing your girlfriend
99.9% of the time, the darkness in cinemas is just right, but every once in a while it can cause an issue.
One such issue befell me, or rather I should say that it befell an ex-girlfriend. We were in the local multiplex, halfway through a film that had attracted very few other patrons. The GF in question suffered with a small bladder, so she had to dash to the loo. Off she dashed. She was mercifully brief, returning swiftly to the all-encompassing darkness of the auditorium, and sat down three rows ahead of me next to a guy who wasn’t me. With a somewhat hysterical shriek, she realised her error and looked around the cinema to see me laughing like a drain, knowing she would be pant-wettingly embarrassed.
Cheese sauce
Why anyone needs nachos covered in a strangely yellow ‘cheese sauce’, I do not know. If that’s cheese sauce, I’m a banana.
I swear my nostrils crawl back inside my skull upon their first sniff of the ‘cheese sauce’. Eat nachos in a cinema if you must, but don’t put me off my game with your malodorous dip!
Let me know if any of this chimes with you.
Sunday 13 February 2011
Review: Never Let Me Go
Never Let Me Go was my pre-Valentine’s Day treat to myself – and I now understand why critics have been so underwhelmed by this sci-fi 'tragic' love story.Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and la Knightley are the trio at the centre of this dull but worthy drama, directed with solemnity by Mark Romanek. The film simply fails to catch light, simply fails to bring its characters to life. In fact, it’s rather like Atonement: beautifully put together, but lacking in substance, and once again the drama hinges on a young girl’s act of jealousy.
The film wants you to feel the yearning and be horrified that when finally the inevitable happiness arrives, it is but fleeting. However, I sat there completely dispassionate – for a film that should cause your emotions to swell, Never Let Me Go singularly fails to engage on an emotional level.
However, the film looks beautiful: the bucolic idyll of the characters’ youth is dappled in summery colours, while their early adulthood is lovingly bathed in autumnal shades, and finally a wintry aspect is present as they reach the ends of their lives.
Also the cast all do well with their mostly unlikeable parts: Knightley’s brittle quality is appropriate for her character, and Garfield – post-Social Network – confirms himself ready to play one of the great losers (namely Peter Parker/Spider-Man), but it’s Mulligan, so astonishing in An Education, who brings to the film what little light and life it musters.
I can’t speak of this film’s value as an adaptation, not having read the source novel, but I can say that a marvellous opportunity has been missed.
Score: 6/10
BAFTA 2011: King’s Speech storms to success
The King’s Speech almost swept the board at the BAFTAs tonight, but the British Academy reserved the right to deliver a few surprises.
The stammering monarch walked away with seven gongs, including both Film awards and recognition for its leading players (Colin Firth’s second leading actor BAFTA on the trot and his 26th award for this film; Geoffrey Rush’s third BAFTA and his second in the supporting actor category - and only his 7th award for this film; and HBC’s first BAFTA – strange as that may seem), and the outstanding script and soundtrack. But director Tom Hooper did not win his fight – he justifiably lost out to David Fincher on The Social Network, although this is still something of a shock.
The facebook movie also scooped the adapted script and editing.
Among a raft of predictable winners (Inception snagging three technical gongs; Portman for Best Actress, TS3 for Animated Film, etc), there was one welcome surprise: Roger Deakins, the cinematographers’ cinematographer, won his third BAFTA in 10 years for his lensing of True Grit.
The shock winner of the night came in the foreign film category, with the gong going to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo… WTF?
BAFTA 2011: the winners
The King’s Speech: Film/British Film/Actor/Supporting Actor/Supporting Actress/Original Screenplay/Score
Inception: Sound/Production Design/Special Visual Effects
The Social Network: Director/Adapted Screenplay/Editing
Black Swan: Actress
True Grit: Cinematography
TS3: Animated Film
Alice: Costume Design
Dragon Tattoo: Foreign Film
The stammering monarch walked away with seven gongs, including both Film awards and recognition for its leading players (Colin Firth’s second leading actor BAFTA on the trot and his 26th award for this film; Geoffrey Rush’s third BAFTA and his second in the supporting actor category - and only his 7th award for this film; and HBC’s first BAFTA – strange as that may seem), and the outstanding script and soundtrack. But director Tom Hooper did not win his fight – he justifiably lost out to David Fincher on The Social Network, although this is still something of a shock.
The facebook movie also scooped the adapted script and editing.
Among a raft of predictable winners (Inception snagging three technical gongs; Portman for Best Actress, TS3 for Animated Film, etc), there was one welcome surprise: Roger Deakins, the cinematographers’ cinematographer, won his third BAFTA in 10 years for his lensing of True Grit.
The shock winner of the night came in the foreign film category, with the gong going to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo… WTF?
BAFTA 2011: the winners
The King’s Speech: Film/British Film/Actor/Supporting Actor/Supporting Actress/Original Screenplay/Score
Inception: Sound/Production Design/Special Visual Effects
The Social Network: Director/Adapted Screenplay/Editing
Black Swan: Actress
True Grit: Cinematography
TS3: Animated Film
Alice: Costume Design
Dragon Tattoo: Foreign Film
Wednesday 9 February 2011
King's Speech: more success
The King's Speech had another bountiful weekend at the box office. While second to Disney's Tangled in its second week, the stammering monarch remained in second, pulling in £2.7m, taking its astonishing running total to £30m.
That means that by the time you read this, The King's Speech will have surpassed Slumdog Millionaire's total of £31.2m: that benchmark is important because Slumdog is the last British winner at the Oscars...
Third at last weekend's box office was The Fighter, opening on an excellent £2.1m, pushing fellow Oscar hopeful Black Swan into fourth on £1.7m (with a cumulative total of £10.6m).
Over in the US, The King's Speech posted the lowest drop in the top 10, falling just 30.3% to $7.7m, for a running total of $83.5m. With BAFTAs this weekend and the Oscars not long after that, the question now is how far can the stammering monarch go given that its banked $171.1m already from fewer than 30 territories.
Indeed, the high quality Oscar contenders still on release - King's, Black Swan , The Fighter and True Grit - have collectively $416.6m in the US alone. Worldwide that total rises to $540.7m, and given that the Coens' western and the boxing brothers have barely started their international roll-out, a cool $750m must be on the cards for these adult dramas.
The final big box office conundrum: was The Social Network released too early? Yes it banked $217.9m, but could it have performed better if released during awards season?
That means that by the time you read this, The King's Speech will have surpassed Slumdog Millionaire's total of £31.2m: that benchmark is important because Slumdog is the last British winner at the Oscars...
Third at last weekend's box office was The Fighter, opening on an excellent £2.1m, pushing fellow Oscar hopeful Black Swan into fourth on £1.7m (with a cumulative total of £10.6m).
Over in the US, The King's Speech posted the lowest drop in the top 10, falling just 30.3% to $7.7m, for a running total of $83.5m. With BAFTAs this weekend and the Oscars not long after that, the question now is how far can the stammering monarch go given that its banked $171.1m already from fewer than 30 territories.
Indeed, the high quality Oscar contenders still on release - King's, Black Swan , The Fighter and True Grit - have collectively $416.6m in the US alone. Worldwide that total rises to $540.7m, and given that the Coens' western and the boxing brothers have barely started their international roll-out, a cool $750m must be on the cards for these adult dramas.
The final big box office conundrum: was The Social Network released too early? Yes it banked $217.9m, but could it have performed better if released during awards season?
Sunday 6 February 2011
Inception and Social Network get the writers' vote
Inception and The Social Network walked away from the Writers Guild Awards with the Original and Adapted Screenplay gongs.
Christopher Nolan's triumph for his Inception script is his first award from any guild, having been nominated in both the producers' and the directors' guilds throughout his career. So far, he's won 11 awards for his Inception script.
Aaron Sorkin's victory for the Facebook movie is his 31st award for that script: the Oscar looks a dead cert now.
Christopher Nolan's triumph for his Inception script is his first award from any guild, having been nominated in both the producers' and the directors' guilds throughout his career. So far, he's won 11 awards for his Inception script.
Aaron Sorkin's victory for the Facebook movie is his 31st award for that script: the Oscar looks a dead cert now.
Review: The Fighter
The Fighter, a fact-based boxing drama, is enormously entertaining, stacked full of great performances and moments of directorial chutzpah.It tells the story of on-off boxer Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and his brother Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale). 15 years after knocking down Sugar Ray Leonard (or did he slip?) in the late 70s, Dicky is still the pride of his town, but long-retired from boxing and clearly not the full ticket.
His only way to connect with boxing (and reality) is to be trainer and corner-man for his brother, who’s on a loosing streak. Indeed Micky is surrounded by his massively dysfunctional family: his coven of braying sisters, and Melissa Leo as his domineering mother, who sees Micky purely as a vehicle to keep Dicky close to boxing.
Micky’s conundrum is this: is he better off without his family? It helps if you don’t know the Micky Ward story, because you won’t know what’s coming next; if you do know the Micky Ward story, you might still be surprised by as the film takes a few liberties with the facts for the sake of the drama.
It would be easy, but entirely wrong to compare The Fighter with Rocky: the former has a lot more going on. Director David O Russell lends the film some Scorsese-esque touches, and rather like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas, Mark Wahlberg takes the brave decision of being the ordinary guy at the centre around which the drama and the more camera-hugging characters swirl. Russell plays out the irony that Ward comes across as a relatively unaggressive, almost docile fighter in the ring perhaps because there was so much conflict in his life outside of the ring.
Bale’s performance as the demented Dicky is reminiscent of Nic Cage, and early on, it’s just too much, but by the end, you come to realise that he has succeeded in capturing Dicky’s real-life mania. Nevertheless, I’m not convinced that he deserves all the awards he’s won so far for it.
Melissa Leo, so brilliant in Frozen River a few years ago, almost beats Barbara Hershey in Black Swan for the title of scariest mother: she’s pure trailer trash, emboldened and prejudices reinforced by having made some money down the years.
Succeeding against type is the lovely Amy Adams as Micky’s girlfriend. Known for playing fairly naïve characters, here she’s dressed down, playing something of a failure, who throws a few good punches herself, verbal and physical, in the numerous confrontations between her and Micky’s mother and sisters. The moment when she realises that her management of Micky’s career is no different to his mother’s is as painful a moment in the film.
Ah, yes, the pain: this is a boxing drama, so there must be some boxing scenes, and there are plenty. Russell mostly shoots them as we would see them on TV, but the camera closes in as the stakes get higher. Throughout Russell maintains a realistic, almost downbeat bent, helping to ground the film and the characters in a story that might otherwise appear as pure Hollywood rags to riches, against the odds nonsense.
I found myself unexpectedly caught up in the final fight and its epic conclusion, and the closing bookend (the film ends as it began) returns the film to an even keel with a subtle punch of its own, with the two brothers together, their fractious fraternal relationship and all its wounds seemingly healed, both having escaped Dicky’s shadow that had haunted them both for so long.
Score: 8/10
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