Search This Blog

Wednesday 24 October 2012

London Film Festival: the best part 2


So, here’s the second half of my London Film Festival 2012 top 10.

This Wirral-based policier features a star turn from Paul Bettany and marks an impressive follow-up to The Awakening for director Nick Murphy.
This dark, moodily-lit drama is styled as a fable, musing on masculinity and morality: Murphy’s Joe Fairburn is hard-nosed and hard-drinking detective who wants the big cases; he works with his brother, in the same team that their now Alzheimer’s-ridden father used to run.
Still scarred from failing to catch the child-killer in a previous case, he is very keen to nail the killer this time round and preferably ASAP.
Through a combination of rumours, Chinese whispers, assumptions and his own need to dispense justice and absolve himself of his lingering guilt, he takes matters into his own hands in a moment of anger.
The film then charts his descent as the horror of his mistake comes home to roost.
Support is top notch from Stephen Graham (as Bettany’s brother), Brian Cox (as Bettany’s father), and Mark Strong as the only detective on the team who uses his brain rather his brawn to solve a case.
The film looks fabulous: indeed the clarity of presentation was absolutely stunning. The choice of locations and production design emphasise the story’s fable-like qualities.
Strong stuff and certainly not a happy film, but one I’m happy to endorse. I cant wait for the next Nick Murphy feature.
Score: 8/10
No release set yet.
  
I do not recall the last time a film gripped me as much as End Of Watch. Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena star as two police officers charged with patrolling the meanest streets of LA. We gatecrash their world: the film kicks off with a car chase and shoot-out witnessed by their in-car camera. It is FULL ON!
Director David Ayers (he wrote Training Day) uses a number of different POVs to tell his story, heightening the story’s sensory impact: in-car POV, surveillance cameras, personal cameras, etc. However, he doesn’t follow this through to shoot the entire film from real POVs and does fall back on third person narration positioning shots.
The film moves at an almost breathless pace from case to case, but always makes time for Gyllenhaal’s and Pena’s in-car chats, building the audience’s rapport and empathy with the heroes. The performances are so good that one can only assume that the two are great friends in real life: they are quite possibly the best buddy team since Newman and Redford.
The rapport the two have with each other and the increasing empathy we feel for them only serves to heighten the tension as their derring dos drive them into ever more treacherous waters: you’re never quite sure where the next gunshot will come from.
There are a few time-outs from the action for parties and marriages, but they simply make us more concerned for our heroes as they face the final, visceral shoot-out.
The conclusion is unexpected, as is the formal conclusion.
Stay for the end titles as there is a final clip of the heroes chatting that adds further context to the conclusion.
Score: 9/10
Opens 23 November.
  
This was quite possibly the most charming film of the festival. The very great Frank Langella plays a cat burgular in his later years, suffering from memory loss. His son, concerned about his father’s condition but living too far away to offer close and constant care, invests in a healthcare robot to look after him.
Naturally, Langella doesn’t take kindly to the robot being thrust upon him but after a few awkward steps a relationship slowly builds between the two – to such an extent that the robot and Frank become quite the professional pair.
How Susan Sarandon’s librarian and a local developer work into the script is best left to you to find out.
While clearly riffing on The Odd Couple with its gentle comedy of opposites, the film reflects not only on old age and loneliness, but also on the advance of technology and how easy it is to get left behind.
The film’s UK release date suggests that the distributors are hopeful of multiple awards noms for Langella; for what it’s worth, Frank will be in the running for the Golden Stans.
Score: 8.5/10
Opens 8 March 2013.

Think you’re a movie geek? Think again! How much do you think you know about Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining? What is it a metaphor for: the massacre of the American Indians or the holocaust or a heavy hint that the moon landing was faked by Kubrick with funding from the US government?
According to The Shining experts in this scintillating documentary, it’s all of the above and more.
Director Rodney Asher visualises their theories by using clips from both The Shining and other films by Kubrick in a witty and inventive way.
Some of the theories are quite bizarre, but Asher does not judge the validity of the theories nor their authors: he simply offers them up to the audience and invites us to judge for ourselves.
The Shining reappears in UK cinemas in time for Halloween in the full US cut never seen before on UK screens. 
Score: 8/10
Opens 26 November.

This year’s blub-fest, Song For Marion could be 2013’s Exotic Best Marigold Hotel and its key participants are primed for BAFTA noms.
If you’ve read my blog before, you’ll know that I have a deep-seated fear of ill health and mental frailty brought on by old age, so this story of terminally-ill Vanessa Redgrave, her singing classes and her embittered husband Terence Stamp’s opposition to those classes skewered me very early on.
Treading on territory previously essayed by Brassed Off and The Full Monty, Song For Marion’s plot is 99% predictable, but this film is all about how it gets to where it’s going, not the destination itself. The raw sentiment is not as mushy as it could be, the laughs are as good as you could hope for, and the tragedy and the triumph are played out with commendable restraint.
Redgrave and Stamp will be front and centre at the BAFTAs. They bring considerable gravitas to the film, while the key supporting cast of Gemma Arterton (the seemingly unrelentingly positive singing instructor) and Christopher Eccleston (as Redgrave and Stamp’s son) are splendid too.
This is not great art: it is quite simply a traditional crowd pleaser and one of those rare opportunities to bask in the glow of Mr Stamp. Don’t wait for the DVD; see it at the cinema.
Score: 8/10
Opens 8 February 2013.

The first half of my top 10 included Argo, Compliance, Kiss Of The Damned, Seven Psychopaths and Sightseers.

Tuesday 23 October 2012

London Film Festival 2012: the best part 1


I saw 26 films at the recent London Film Festival and 10 new films really stood out. For whatever reason, there were fewer big films and more small films: that’s not necessarily a criticism, but certainly an all-too-clear observation.
There follows the first half of my 10 favourite new films that premiered at the festival. The entire top 10 are linked by a strong personal vision from the director about what the film should be and by delicious fusions of genres.

Cracking entertainment from Ben Affleck: this should finally lay to waste his lost years of Hollywood star vacuous vanity.
This true story of how the CIA got six Americans out of Tehran during the Iranian revolution is dramatic, gripping and funny. As time counts down to the Iranians realising that the six embassy staff escaped before their embassy was seized, the CIA is left with nothing but bad ideas to get the six out. The best bad idea is for CIA agent Tony Mendez (Affleck in full stoic Eastwood mode) to set up a fake sci-fi movie and then land in Tehran on a location scout and while there generate fake movie identities for the six.
The script keeps the fate of the six clearly front and centre even as Affleck’s Mendez strives to set up his space opera with a known producer with hilarious results courtesy of special effects guru John Goodman and producer Alan Arkin (“If I’m going to make a fake movie, it’s going to be a fake hit!”).
The final countdown, as Affleck and the six race to get out of Iran, is utterly gripping, and drew all-too audible reactions from the mesmerized audience.
Everything about Argo is top quality, including top work from cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and composer Alexandre Desplat.
The question for Argo is: what legacy will it leave? A new generation of geek t-shirts focusing on the fictional space opera? Awards glory for Affleck and his crew? Certainly it reminds us all that Affleck has moved on and is a talent to watch.
Score: 9/10
Opens 7 November.

Compelling and shocking, this based-on-a-true-story indie will detonate like a flash bomb among the chattering classes.
Streamlined and lean, Compliance goes for the jugular and absolutely will not let go as the bizarre story escalates into surprises that are ever-more surprising than the last surprise twist.
In brief, we are introduced to Ann Dowd’s fast food joint manager. One Friday evening she receives a call from a man identifying himself as a police officer stating that a member of her counter staff has stolen a customer’s purse; he asks her to take the counter-girl to one side and question her for him… and so the nightmare starts.
Dunkini and I were left dumbstruck and slack-jawed by what ensues: it’s completely unbelievable – but the script is absolutely true.
The unknown leading players are simply superb, all suffering greatly at the hands of the script’s twists and turns.
This is one of those films that you can not have an opinion about unless you see it.
Score: 9/10
No UK release set yet.

With echoes of Black Swan as well as modern vampire greats (Anne Rice’s operatic Interview With The Vampire and the sex and gritty reality of Trueblood), this stylish and stylised gothic romantic tragedy surfs the wave of vampire popularity with panache and a ‘harder’ approach.
Boy (Milo Ventimiglia from Heroes) meets beautiful woman in bar (Josephine de la Baume); beautiful woman plays hard to get because she’s a ‘good’ vampire (she doesn’t feed on humans); nevertheless they fall for each other, she turns him and then her wildchild sister (Roxane Mesquida strongly echoing Mila Kunis’s turn in Black Swan) arrives to stir things up.
Chaos, madness and death ensue – but which sister has chosen the right path for eternal living?
Compellingly shot, Kiss does attempt to have its cake and eat it – and for the most part succeeds. Written and directed by Xan Cassavetes (yes, John’s daughter making her feature film directorial debut), the film is notable for its focus on women and its largely successful attempt to envelope the audience within a vampire’s heightened senses.
It’s as hardcore as Trueblood but with a more erotic edge (some reviewer somewhere will describe this as combining Twilight with 50 Shades of Grey, but not me!) and it certainly adds at least one new idea to vampire physiology that goes counter to Anne Rice’s take.
Score: 9/10
No UK release date set

How do you follow up In Bruges? That was writer-director Martin McDonagh’s task and he offers this ambitious gem in response.
It’s not as funny and shocking as In Bruges, but it stretches him and the audience. Colin Farrell is the alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter suffering writer’s bloc while working on his latest script, Seven Psychopaths, which he wants to be about peace not violence. His best friend is Sam Rockwell, who desperately wants his friend to overcome  his bloc – preferably by getting Rockwell to help him.
Rockwell earns a crust through dogknaping from the rich; his partner in crime is Christopher Walken. When they dogknap the shih tzu belonging to Woody Harrelson’s mob boss, only chaos and widespread murder can ensue. Oh, and this being a McDonagh script, there’s plenty of quality profanity and non-PC gags.
All four actors are well within their comfort zones, but sink their teeth into McDonagh’s dialogue with gusto.
Highly recommended.
Score: 8.5/10
Opens 7 December.

Wickedly and blackly funny, splendidly violent and gory: Sightseers made me laugh like a drain. Fresh from the buzz generated by his previous effort, Kill List, director Ben Wheatley delivers a cult crowd pleaser that could, with the right marketing, cross over into Hot Fuzz levels of success.
Written by its stars, Alice Lowe and Steve Oram, the film focuses on two strange souls Tina and Chris, now three months into their relationship, who go on a caravanning holiday, stopping off at various British tourist spots.
A fatal early encounter with a holiday-maker with less than perfect manners reveals Chris’s inner demons. When Tina realises that her man is a serial killer, she must make the choice: leave the only man who’s ever taken any interest in her or join in his hobby…
This is a cross between Bonnie and Clyde, The Trip and Nuts In May. I heartily recommend it to anyone with a strong stomach!
Score: 9/10
Opens 30 November.