Stan's Film Blog

The Artist and The Help: ready for Oscar

2012-01-30T12:21:00.000-08:00

The Artist and The Help gained seemingly unstoppable Oscar momentum at the weekend: The Artist triumphed at the Directors’ Guild of America Awards, while sharing the spotlight with The Help at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Artist director Michael Hasanavicius beat Woody Allen, David Fincher, Martin Scorsese and Alexander Payne to win the DGA trophy, cementing his position as favourite to win the Best Director Oscar.

His lead actor, Jean Dujardin won Best Actor at the SAG Awards, beating George Clooney. Only four SAG Best Actors have not secured the Best Actor Oscar, the last being Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote in 2005.

With The Artist already having secured the PGA’s vote, it is now the absolute favourite for the Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor Oscars.

Christopher Plummer continued his unbeaten run, taking the Best Supporting Actor SAG for his role in Beginners. If he fails to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, I’ll eat someone’s hat.

The Help’s Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer locked out the female SAG honours, as well as being part of the ensemble that secured the SAG best cast award. As pointed out by The Hollywood Reporter, The Help has tied with Chicago and American Beauty for most wins at the SAGs, but while the latter pair swept to Oscar glory, The Help will need to be happy with being favourite for the two female Oscars.

Why? As the Reporter points out, no film that has not been nominated for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Editing has gone on to win Best Film. But the thing in The Help’s favour is that it is by some distance the most commercially successful of all this year’s ‘proper’ Oscar nominees – ie it’s more likely Academy voters have seen The Help than any other film in contention. Nevertheless, I still don’t think that’s enough.

The next major awards ceremony is the BAFTAs on 12 February with the Oscars another fortnight later.

Review: War Horse

2012-01-26T13:01:00.000-08:00

Let's get this straight from the start: the Tintin/War Horse double does not repeat Steven Spielberg's 1993/1994 double whammy of Jurassic Park and Schindler's List (the former enormo box office and the latter Oscar kudos).

Tintin is occasionally inspired yet sometimes leaden; embraced wholeheartedly by the French and the Belgians, the boy detective has met with critical support but the commercial cold shoulder from many territories, proving that even Spielberg's and Peter Jackson's names can't convince audiences to take a punt on a character they've never heard of.

War Horse has not crossed over in the US - undoubtedly the lack of awards nominations and wins has hampered it, especially as it positively screams 'Im an Oscar contender!'

The film has of course performed much better in the UK: straight in at number one two weekends ago with £4m, and then it held on to the top spot last weekend with only a small drop. This performance is clearly aided by the play's success in the UK, although without awards success, it will be intriguing to see if the film can maintain its box office momentum over the next fortnight.

As with elsewhere in the world, UK critical response has been varied: laudatory to mediocre paints the picture well enough. The combination of Spielberg and a well-loved text/play generates high expectations for many, me included.

And I can report that there are moments of rare cinematic brilliance on show, but also some misjudgements the logic behind which are hard to fathom.

Spielberg decides to go for the emotional jugular from the very beginning: this is absolutely intended to be an old-fashioned four-hankie weepie as the titular equine hero bears witness not only to mankind's compassion but also its continued brutality. Fortunately the compassion just about outweighs the brutality - but only just.

Did I need the four hankies? God, yes! Our hero's first triumph brings a huge lump to the throat; the scene in no man's land leaves you grieving for the generation that fell in the fields across Europe (while throwing in one moment of mordant wit that nearly broke me); and the finale competes with The Return Of The King for the most endings pregnant with emotion (even as I write this, there's a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye from just recalling those scenes).

The WWI battle scenes are not in the Private Ryan territory as this is a family film (this is the first time that Spielberg has tackled the Great War), and I’m bound to compare his trench scenes with Kubrick’s Paths Of Glory (and Stanley’s are better).

From a massive European cast, Tom Hiddleston takes my man of the match trophy for his performance as Captain Nicholls. Peter Mullan and Emily Watson also deserve mentions in dispatches.

Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski delivers some incredible images, but is also guilty of over-egging, and at one or two points the lighting is just appalling.

John Williams almost inevitably lays the score on a bit thick in places.

At its best, War Horse soars and is a 10, but elsewhere it’s disappointing, almost as if Spielberg and his team were rushed (and they weren’t), and thus my score must reflect this.
Score: 8/10

Oscar nominations 2012

2012-01-24T12:54:00.000-08:00

Oscar has gone crazy! It’s official! The headlines may reveal that Hugo leads The Artist by 11 nominations to 10, but the real story is the omissions and surprise nods.

The highlights among the former are:
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy not nominated for Best Film.
• Neither Tilda Swinton (We Need To Talk About Kevin) nor Charlize Theron (Young Adult) for Best Actress.
• Ryan Gosling (The Ides Of March and Drive), Michael Fassbender (the actor of the year, but especially for Shame) and Leonardo diCaprio (for Clint’s J Edgar) not making the Best Actor list.
• None of the cast of Carnage being recognised.
• Neither Vanessa Redgrave (Coriolanus), Carey Mulligan (Shame and Drive), nor Shailene Woodley (The Descendants) making the Supporting Actress shortlist.
• Albert Brooks, widely rewarded for his performance in Drive, not making the Supporting Actor list.
• Neither Cars 2 nor Tintin making the cut for Animated Film.
• Neither Senna nor Scorsese’s George Harrison study making the cut of for the Documentary category.

Among the surprises are:
• The poorly reviewed Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close making the Best Film and Best Supporting Actor (for Max von Sydow) lists.
• The Tree Of Life being recognised for Film, Director and Cinematography.
• Rooney Mara (rightly) getting a nom for Dragon Tattoo.
• Demian Bichir getting on the Best Actor list.
• Nick Nolte making the cut on Supporting Actor for Warrior (this is probably the most leftfield nom this year).
• Both Margin Call and A Separation being nominated for Original Screenplay.
• A Cat In Paris and Chico & Rita getting on the Animated shortlist.

And what of 2011’s most commercially successful films? The Harry Potter finale picked up three craft/tech noms; ditto Transformers 3.

If we assume that the only Oscars that persuade people to see a (English-speaking) film are the major ones (Film, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, and Adapted Screenplay), then the field looks like this:
• Albert Nobbs: 2
• The Artist: 5
• Beginners: 1
• A Better Life: 1
• Bridesmaids: 2
• The Descendants: 4
• Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close: 2
• The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: 2
• The Help: 4
• Hugo: 3
• Margin Call: 1
• Midnight In Paris: 3
• Moneyball: 3
• My Week With Marilyn: 2
• A Separation: 1
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: 2
• The Tree Of Life: 2
• War Horse: 1
• Warrior: 1
Now that’s more representative the state of play! It’s The Artists versus The Descendants.

OK, money on the table time: of the top 10 categories, who will win each?
Animated Film: Rango

Foreign Film: A Separation

Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants

Original Screenplay: Midnight In Paris

Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help

Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Actress: this is a three-way fight between Viola Davis, Meryl Streep and Michelle Williams; each has factors in their favour – Davis’s character suffered in the most commercially successful ‘serious’ Oscar nominee, Streep’s performance is freshest in the mind, and Williams delivered probably the best performance as a Hollywood star; I’m going with Williams.

Actor: this is a showdown between Clooney and Dujardin; the former is an old school star while the latter is someone pretending to be an old school star; the latter leaps off the screen, the former slowburns; the former has a Supporting Actor Oscar at home for Syriana and two Best Actor noms to his name, the latter is a new face; I think Hollywood will reward its own, so step up George.

Director: if it’s The Artist’s night, Hazanavicius will take this, but in bringing ‘art’ to 3D, Scorsese must be considered his most serious rival; the outcome could depend on momentum – something Hugo hasn’t got, so it’s Michael Hazanavicius.

Film: the big one is a battle royale between The Descendants and The Artist; as with the previous category, The Artist is the one with the momentum; I’m so confident of my prediction here that I will buy a drink for all my work colleagues if the following film doesn’t win: The Artist.

2012-01-22T14:28:00.000-08:00

The Artist continued its march to seeming Oscar glory this weekend as it walked off with the Producers’ Guild of America’s big award: its producer Thomas Langmann won the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures.

The Artist beat the following:
Bridemaids
The Descendants
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
The Help
Hugo
The Ides Of March
Midnight In Paris
Moneyball
War Horse

As well as scooping the PGA’s top prize, The Artist’s weekend box office nearly doubled over the previous weekend to $2.4m, giving it a running total of $12.1m. With the Oscar noms due on Tuesday, the film’s momentum is surely set to increase.

While his War Horse failed to convince, Steven Spielberg, with Kathleen Kennedy and Peter Jackson secured the Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures for their other adaptation, Tintin. It has struggled at the US box office (just $72.3m to date and running out of steam; $278.8m banked in the rest of the world) due to Tintin being an unknown property, however awards success may help to keep it on the boil for a few more weeks.

For the record, Tintin beat: Cars 2; Kung Fu Panda 2; Puss In Boots; and Rango.

Review: Shame

2012-01-19T13:50:00.000-08:00

Shame: where to start with this one? Let’s start with the obvious: Michael Fassbender in the title role of a sexaholic is simply astonishing. He delivers one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen: he is completely taken over by the character. Whatever awards he does win – and given the strong nature of the film’s content, he may struggle for wins – he will absolutely deserve. The film hinges entirely upon Fassbender’s intensity – I can’t think of another actor who could carry this role.

The film is unsettling and bleak in its observation of Brandon, a well-off New Yorker who works, eats, sleeps and sates his considerable sexual appetite with shocking regularity. That appetite is never sated with the same woman twice, and as Brandon descends into his own sexual hell, it becomes clear anything goes.

The film’s numerous sex scenes are in no way erotic – and rightly so as we are effectively watching a man drink himself to death through sex. The look on his face at his climax in the tragic threesome trumps Cronenberg’s entire portfolio and is the very definition of sex as self-loathing.

Unfortunately, to discuss Brandon any further is to reveal key plot points. Needless to say, my friend Rod and I discussed the film for a full hour after the lights came back on.

The film is marked out not only by Fassbender’s astonishing performance, but also excellent camera work from Sean Bobbit (who worked with director/co-writer Steve McQueen on Hunger), notably that long single takes are favoured throughout. One of the most uncomfortable scenes of the entire film is the slow performance of New York, New York by Brandon’s lounge bar singer sister Sissy (played perfectly by Carey Mulligan): virtually nothing happens, and yet everything happens.

Brandon’s and Sissy’s behaviour and character traits carry heavy hints of childhood abuse (among other horrors), but almost frustratingly the film never reveals the source of their broken lives.

The film is bookended by scenes on the subway as Brandon stares intently at a young woman, focusing on his prey. At the start, his confidence and unrelenting lasciviousness are startling, but at the close, his confusion hints of either a journey to redemption or a swift descent back into hell – neither he nor we know how he will react.

I’m not sure McQueen succeeds in creating his stated desire: a film that makes us talk about sex addiction because it’s the elephant in the room. I don’t see Brandon as an Everyman – his traits are not mankind’s writ large. Nor does the film debate the sexualisation of civilisation as it is openly focussed on sex addiction only – although clearly there is a causal link between the former and the latter.

Whatever, Shame is a raw, vital work that demands to be seen.
Score: 8/10

Baftas 2012: neither fish nor fowl

2012-01-19T12:59:00.000-08:00

The 2012 BAFTA nominations are all over the shop: slaving to convention and going off the beaten track at the same time.

The big news is that BAFTA has backed Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy to the tune of 11 noms, just behind The Artist with 12. And these are the two that will be slugging it out for the big victory on the night.

The ultra-violent Drive has secured an unfathomable four noms.

Other unpleasant shocks: Coriolanus gets just one nom; Midnight In Paris gains one nom only; War Horse has only secured technical recognition; and Arthur Christmas will surely use home advantage over Spielberg's other film, Tintin, in the Animated Film category; Ryan Gosling is not recognised for Ides Of March (nor for Drive), but supporting co-star Philip Seymour Hoffman is.

From his four mentions on the longlist, George Clooney gets ‘only’ two on the shortlist: Best Actor for The Descendants and Best Adapted Screenplay for The Ides Of March.

Others with multiple longlist appearances also fared less well come the shortlist: DoP Phedon Papamichael not recognised for The Descendants nor The Ides Of March; and Alexandre Desplat’s scores for Ides and Harry Potter are ignored.

Back to those that made the cut: of the five nominees for Best Film, only two are on release; and of the five Best British Film nominees, two are already on DVD.

Conversion from longlist to shortlist
My Week With Marilyn: 16 to six
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: 16 to 11
The Iron Lady: 14 to four
The Artist: 13 to 12
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: 13 to two
Midnight In Paris: 13 to one
War Horse: 13 to five
The Help: 12 to five
Hugo: 12 to nine
Drive: 11 to four
The Ides Of March: 11 to two
Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 2: 11 to four

Golden Globes 2012: bang on trend

2012-01-16T13:11:00.000-08:00

Surprise, surprise: there were no surprises at the Golden Globes 2012! Well, OK, may be there was one: Meryl Streep securing the Best Actress (Drama) for The Iron Lady. I really thought Viola Davis in The Help was a slam dunk for that award, but there you go.

The Artist emerged the biggest winner with three awards including Best Film and Best Actor in the Comedy or Musical category, plus the Globe for Original Score. It ended Sunday in the US with a running total of $8.8m at the US box office and £1.9m in the UK , and with BAFTA noms on Tuesday and the Oscar noms in a week’s time, the silent, black and white French wonder now has huge earning potential before it.

Next up was The Descendants: Best Film (Drama) and Best Actor (Drama) for George Clooney (his third Globe). This ended Sunday with $47.1m; it should see a small surge for the next few weekends. These wins also arrive just ahead of its UK launch.

No other film secured more than one win.

Along with Streep, several other old-timers did well: Christopher Plummer, Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese to name all three.

The winners
The Artist: Best Film (Comedy or Musical); Best Actor (Comedy or Musical) – Jean Dujardin; and Original Score
The Descendants: Best Film (Drama); and Best Actor (Drama) – George Clooney
The Iron Lady: Best Actress (Drama) – Meryl Streep
Hugo: Best Director – Martin Scorsese
My Week With Marilyn: Best Actress (Comedy or Musical) – Michelle Williams
Beginners: Best Supporting Actor – Christopher Plummer
The Help: Best Supporting Actress – Octavia Spencer
Midnight In Paris: Best Screenplay
A Separation: Best Foreign Film
The Adventures of Tintin: Best Animated Film
W.E: Best Original Song

DGA Awards 2012

2012-01-09T15:16:00.000-08:00

Directing movies: it’s an old man’s game! The Directors Guild of America has revealed its shortlist for 2012: and young directors are not welcome!

The line-up looks like this:
• Woody Allen for Midnight In Paris; his fifth DGA nom, and first since 1989. He won for Annie Hall.
• David Fincher for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; his third DGA nom.
• Michael Hazanavicius for The Artist.
• Alexander Payne for The Descendants; his second DGA nom.
• Martin Scorsese for Hugo; his ninth DGA nom; won for The Departed (pur-lease!); was awarded the DGA’s lifetime achievement award in 2003.

Fincher is something of a surprise here, although given that Spielberg has probably let himself down with the Tintin/War Horse double bill and that Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’s Tomas Alfredson has yet to cross-over with Americans, this may be an example of the Guild realising that the modern American equivalent of Hitchcock remains unrecognised by the body that should be celebrating his work.

I still can’t see Oscar going for Fincher’s anal rape special though!

However, as has been pointed out many times before, the DGA award is a clear an indicator of Oscar success: only six times since 1948 has the DGA winner not gone on to win the Best Director Oscar. For the record, those six occasions are:
• 1968: Anthony Harvey won the DGA for The Lion in Winter while Carol Reed took home the Oscar for Oliver!
• 1972: Francis Ford Coppola won the DGA for The Godfather while the Oscar went to Bob Fosse for Cabaret.
• 1985: Steven Spielberg received his first DGA for The Color Purple, but the Oscar went to Sydney Pollack for Out of Africa.
• 1995: Ron Howard won the DGA for Apollo 13 while Oscar voters selected Mel Gibson for Braveheart.
• 2000: Ang Lee won the DGA for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, while Steven Soderbergh won the Oscar for Traffic.
• 2002: Rob Marshall won the DGA for Chicago while Roman Polanski received the Oscar for The Pianist.

Awards season: the crunch

2012-01-09T13:51:00.000-08:00

So now we hit the nub of awards season: the National Board Review, followed by the Golden Globes, and then less than 48 hours later the BAFTA noms. Ahead of the Golden Globes, and with a fortnight until the Oscar noms, here’s a look at the box office performance of the leading contenders.

Why does this matter? Well, it’s been many years since some wise soul coined the phrase: “Hollywood loves a winner.” Tree Of Life: great art in many ways, but a snowball’s in hell chance of seeing any action at the Oscars.

So here are the main contenders:

• The Artist: $7.1m… and counting – it’s only playing on 172 screens in the US; still much to play for.
• The Descendants: $43.9m; already waning, but awards would see the distributor add more screens in a flash.
• The Help: $169m; the breakout hit of the year in the US – but dead everywhere else – has long-finished its theatrical run, but both Silence of the Lambs and Hurt Locker proved that a film already on video/DVD can win the Oscar.
• The Ides Of March: $40.9m; liberal critiques of politics don’t sell, but we love them anyway! Substantial re-release likely if it garners Globe wins/Oscar noms.
• Midnight In Paris: $56.4m; by far Woody Allen’s most successful movie in donkey’s years; may be too light too figure much at Oscar, but could yet charm the Globes.
• Moneyball: $75.3m; pretty much spent at the box office, both in the US and the rest of the world – US sports don’t travel well; it will be intriguing to see the impact of a Brad Pitt Best Actor victory at the Globes.
• Hugo: $52.6m – where did it all go wrong? Scorsese’s best film since Goodfellas! 3D as art rather than commerce! Universally loved! With a budget north of $150m, this is a shocker: just $64.5m worldwide. And yet that utter abortion that Scorsese finally won the Oscar for – The Departed – grossed $289.9m. Go effing figure…
• My Week With Marilyn: $10.5m; pretty much spent unless Michelle Williams beings home the Oscar.
• 50/50: $35m; brilliant movie and deserved winner of the best cancer comedy award – if only that was a real award! Still a contender in the Original Screenplay awards: Hollywood loves a cancer survivor!
• Bridesmaids: $169.1m banked and already on DVD. I can’t see Oscar or Globes going for it.
• War Horse: $56.9m; struggling a little with some laudatory reviews and some less than complimentary ones too.
• The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: $76.9m. What do you know? The Americans do like double anal rape at Christmas! Fincher’s continued flirtation with mainstream success (Benjamin Button and Social Network) continues, but surely this is just a hollow thriller with no awards attraction? Isn’t it?
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: $10.1m. This just went wide in the US last weekend, pulling in $5.5m. Lack of Globes attention will affect it, but BAFTAs and Oscars will help. Could yet be the surprise of the awards season… Or the film most wronged!

BAFTA 2012: the long list

2012-01-07T09:06:00.000-08:00

My Week With Marilyn and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy lead the BAFTA race at this very early stage with 16 nominations apiece, ahead of The Iron Lady on 14, and The Artist, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Midnight In Paris, and War Horse on 13.

However, as ever, the real news is who and what didn’t make the cut. Potentially the biggest shock is Vanessa Redgrave not being recognised for her role in Coriolanus: she’s already won the Golden Stan for Best Supporting Actress, but now there’s no chance of repeating that success at BAFTA.

Similarly, while her lead, Ralph Fiennes, was noted for his acting as the titular warmonger, he was not for his direction (and neither was DoP Barry Ackroyd).

The Tree of Life was noted only for its cinematography, while Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia received no recognition whatsoever.

There was no mention for Rebecca Hall and her outstanding turn in The Awakening, nor for anyone involved in The Deep Blue Sea (one of the best-reviewed films of the year, and in Rachel Weisz an obvious contender for Best Actress). Weisz's Deep Blue co-star Tom Hiddleston received no recognition for any of his performances (Thor, Archipelogo, and War Horse).

The two males in Carnage (John C Reilly and Christoph Waltz) went unmentioned while their female colleagues (Kate Winslet and Jodie Foster) made the cut.

Michael Fassbender was ‘only’ mentioned for his lead role in Shame – his other lead roles were ignored. And it is a similar story for Jessica Chastain: just one mention for The Help.

George Clooney is mentioned four times: Best Actor for The Descendants, and Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for The Ides Of March.

Clooney’s Ides co-star Ryan Gosling is mentioned for both Ides and Drive. His Drive co-star Carey Mulligan is recognised for Drive and Shame.

Martin Scorsese has two films in contention for honours: Hugo (12 mentions) and his George Harrison biography is up for Best Documentary. Same story for Steven Spielberg: he’s got War Horse and Tintin (in the running for Best Animated Film).

Another two-timer is Phedon Papamichael: his cinematography is recognised on both The Descendants and The Ides Of March. Alexandre Desplat’s scores in Ides and Harry Potter are also mentioned.

The best-performing films
My Week With Marilyn - 16
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - 16
The Iron Lady – 14
The Artist - 13
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - 13
Midnight In Paris - 13
War Horse – 13
The Help - 12
Hugo – 12
Drive – 11
The Ides Of March – 11
Harry Potter Deathly Hallows – Part 2 – 11

The main categories
The Artist 
The Descendants 
Drive 
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 
The Help 
Hugo 
The Ides of March 
The Iron Lady 
Midnight in Paris 
Moneyball 
My Week with Marilyn 
Senna 
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 
War Horse 
We Need to Talk About Kevin

Best Actor
Antonio Banderas - The Skin I Live In 
Brad Pitt – Moneyball
Brendan Gleeson - The Guard 
Daniel Craig - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 
Eddie Redmayne - My Week with Marilyn 
Gary Oldman - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
George Clooney - The Descendants 
Jean Dujardin - The Artist 
Leonardo DiCaprio - J. Edgar 
Michael Fassbender - Shame 
Owen Wilson - Midnight in Paris 
Peter Mullan - Tyrannosaur 
Ralph Fiennes - Coriolanus 
Ryan Gosling - Drive 
Ryan Gosling - The Ides of March

Best Actress
Bérénice Bejo - The Artist 
Carey Mulligan - Shame 
Charlize Theron - Young Adult 
Emma Stone - The Help 
Helen Mirren - The Debt 
Jodie Foster - Carnage 
Kate Winslet - Carnage 
Kristen Wiig - Bridesmaids 
Meryl Streep - The Iron Lady 
Mia Wasikowska - Jane Eyre 
Michelle Williams - My Week with Marilyn 
Olivia Colman - Tyrannosaur 
Rooney Mara - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 
Tilda Swinton - We Need to Talk About Kevin 
Viola Davis - The Help

Best Supporting Actor
Alan Rickman - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 
Albert Brooks - Drive 
Ben Kingsley - Hugo 
Benedict Cumberbatch - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 
Christopher Plummer – Beginners 
Colin Firth - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 
Eddie Marsan - Tyrannosaur 
Ezra Miller - We Need to Talk About Kevin 
George Clooney - The Ides of March 
Jim Broadbent - The Iron Lady 
John Hurt - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 
Jonah Hill – Moneyball 
Kenneth Branagh - My Week with Marilyn 
Paul Giamatti - The Ides of March 
Philip Seymour Hoffman - The Ides of March

Best Supporting Actress
Alexandra Roach - The Iron Lady 
Bryce Dallas Howard - The Help 
Carey Mulligan - Drive 
Emily Watson - War Horse 
Evan Rachel Wood - The Ides of March 
Jessica Chastain - The Help 
Judi Dench - My Week with Marilyn 
Kathy Bates - Midnight in Paris 
Kathy Burke - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 
Marion Cotillard - Midnight in Paris 
Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids 
Octavia Spencer - The Help 
Olivia Colman - The Iron Lady 
Shailene Woodley - The Descendants 
Zoe Wanamaker - My Week with Marilyn

2012 films preview: part 2

2012-01-05T13:49:00.000-08:00

In no particular order, here are some the quality event films that may appear towards the end of 2012 with a view to Oscar glory come early 2013.

Lincoln
Spielberg directs the story of the 16th US president’s victory in the Civil War. The cast includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jared Harris, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones, and Jackie Earl Haley.

The Great Gatsby
Baz Luhrmann’s version of the F Scott Fitzgerald classic. The two leads? Di Caprio and, my god she looks the part, Carey Mulligan.

Untitled
Kathryn Bigelow follows up her Oscar winner with this tale of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. The cast includes Rooney Mara, Idris Elba, Tom Hardy and Guy Pearce.

The Silver Linings Playbook
One of a pair of David ‘The Fighter’ O Russell’s films expected in 2012. A former teacher is released from a mental institution and must get his life back on track. Cast includes Bradley Cooper, Julia Stiles, Robert De Niro, and Jennifer Lawrence.

Nailed
The other David O Russell. Jessica Biel is a waitress who gets a nail lodged in her head, causing strange behaviour; Jake Gyllenhaal is the clueless senator who takes up her cause.

The Master
PT Anderson finally follows up There Will Be Blood with this look at evangelism. Philip Seymour Hoffman is the cult leader, Amy Adams is his daughter, and Joaquin Phoenix the drifter who becomes involved with them.

And here are some curios coming from the Brits:

Anna Karenina
Joe ‘Atonement’ Wright does Tolstoy with Knightley, Jude Law, Emily Watson, Kelly Macdonald, and Aaron Johnson. Stoppard did the script.

Byzantium
Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan are a mother and daughter vampire couple, directed by Neil Jordan. Producer Stephen Woolley has described the film as “close to The Company of Wolves”, according to Screen International.

Great Expectations
Mike Newell’s adaptation arrives with HBC as Miss Havisham and Ralph Fiennes as Magwitch. Cue BATFA noms?

Lay The Favourite
Vegas-set comedy-drama in which Rebecca Hall is a waitress-turned-uber gambler. Bruce Willis, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Vince Vaughn also star.

Les Miserables
How do you follow up The King’s Speech? With Les Mis of course! Tom Hooper directs Hugh Jackman, HBC, Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe and Sacha Baron Cohen.

Seven Psychopaths
Martin ‘In Bruges’ McDonagh brings together Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Abbie Cornish and Christopher Walken in a tale of gangster’s stolen dog.

Review: The Artist

2012-01-04T13:46:00.000-08:00

The Artist is black and white, French and silent. And filmed in an ancient ratio. And it is utterly, utterly, utterly brilliant. Indeed it is more lovely than Scorsese’s Hugo and richly deserves every single award it will pick up over the next two months.

By now you should know the story, but just in case you don’t, Jean Dujardin plays Hollywood silent movie star George Valentin who falls from grace as the talkies arrive, while his would-be protégé and lover Peppy Miller (played by Berenice Bejo) becomes the new out-loud star.

The story’s universal elements (pride before the fall, the fall itself, and the slow path to redemption and renewal via newfound, true love) certainly help the modern ear and eye to cope with the loss of dialogue and foley sound. For most of the film, the only sound is the score – and thank god it’s perfectly pitched, supporting mood and enhancing emotion without over-dramatising or being intrusive and pointless. When foley sound and dialogue comes (very cleverly in plot terms), it almost jars.

The photography is sumptuous, basking in almost bleached-out whites in the Californian sun-dappled studio lots. The scene in which Valentin discovers the truth about Miller’s obsession is a lesson in camera angles and editing – not only should it be enough to secure the Best Film Editing Oscar, but it should also be taught in film school.

Indeed, many critics have already noted that the film is a lesson in film-making and film production, not just to the in-the-know viewer, but also the film industry itself.

The film’s representation of old-school film stars, and indeed the very performances of Dujardin and Bejo, are a reminder of how few real movie stars there are these days: actors who can light up the screen and command your attention. And The Artist’s two stars do just that: their respective first appearances blew my new year cobwebs away.

Director Michael Hazanavicius has complete command of his screenplay, and really plays to the strengths both of his regular principal cast and his Hollywood imports John Goodman, James Cromwell and Penelope Ann Miller.

I have completely fallen in love with The Artist. For the final 20 minutes, I was in tears of joy, but was so engrossed I didn’t reach for my hankie. I really can’t recommend this highly enough. Put aside any fears of the lack of sound: this silence is golden.

Score: 9.5/10 (a 10 is pending a second viewing…)

2011 box office review

2012-01-04T12:46:00.000-08:00

Harry Potter, the Transformers and the Pirates may have continued their domination of the worldwide box office in 2011, raking in $1bn or more each, but in the UK surprise home-grown hits were the real story. Clearly, I am referring to The King’s Speech, The Inbetweeners Movie and Arthur Christmas.

The multiple BAFTA and Oscar winner spent three weeks at Number One in January and remained on the chart for most of the first half of the year, pulling in an astonishing £45.3m. It displayed Avatar-esque legs: in weekends two, three and four, its grosses were higher than its wide opening weekend.

To put The King’s Speech’s success into context, it’s worth noting that the penultimate instalment of Harry Potter pulled in £52.5m, while Inception took £35.2m (both in 2010): so the stammering Colin Firth was in stellar company. Ultimately the film went on to take $275m internationally and $138.8m in the US. Its success clearly soaked over into the marketing campaign for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (like King’s Speech, the key demographic is older): the spy thriller reeled in £14.1m in the UK, thanks in no small part to the presence of the Oscar-winning Firth.

The second British surprise was The Inbetweeners at £45m. It spent four weeks at Number One, having generated the third highest opening weekend of the year (behind Harry Potter and Breaking Dawn Part 1, and ahead of Pirates and the Transformers). Comedy doesn’t travel well, so while it matched The King’s Speech in the UK, it won’t get anywhere near the latter’s numbers elsewhere.

The third British surprise was Aardman’s Arthur Christmas, which led a charmed existence throughout the winter in counterpoint to its predecessor Flushed Away, which pulled in ‘just’ £11.2m in the winter of 2006/07. Initially, things didn’t look good: it opened to excellent reviews but found itself pulling in just £2.1m on its opening weekend, but then that most precious of commodities – good worth of mouth – kicked in. Weekend two was higher, weekend three higher still; finally on weekend four it got to the top, and then began what looked to be gradual decline through weekends five and six, before jumping back up to secure the top spot over the two-day Christmas weekend. As 2011 ended, Arthur had delivered £20.5m for Aardman, thereby defeating other Christmas kid pics Puss In Boots and Alvin and the Chipmunks 3, and all but matching the other Brit comedy hit of the year, Johnny English Reborn, which pulled in £20.6m.

The rest of the UK
Of course, Harry Potter finished on top with a magic £73m (although still not as good as Toy Story 3, 2010’s chart-topper on £73.4m). The fourth Pirates instalment was big, but performed below par. It was ahead of the Hangover sequel, which pulled in 50% more than the original.

Confirming the series’ position as the fourth biggest franchise in the world right now, Breaking Dawn just beat its predecessor; ditto Transformers 3. Aside from the British surprises, the big shock in the top 10 was Bridesmaids – another cross-over success, raking in £22.3m. The chart is rounded out by the classy Planet of the Apes sequel.

In the first half of the year, 3D films accounted for 18% (£90m) of the total UK box office, according to the BFI. Once the data is available, I suspect the second half will show a much greater share for 3D, thanks to the summer’s event films.

Turning to the international market, we find more surprises as a number of films appear that either didn’t perform as well as expected in the UK and the US or were simply squeezed out by intense local competition in the UK. Falling into either of those categories are the following: Kung Fu Panda 2; The Smurfs; Fast Five; Cars 2; and Rio.

International
Jack Black’s Panda sequel under-performed in both the UK and the US (especially in comparison with the original), but it took in $80m more than its predecessor in the rest of the world, and $30m more worldwide.

The Smurfs performed well enough in the UK and the US, but didn’t catch fire. However, internationally, they delivered nearly $420m – more than enough to propel the little blue people onto the top 10 worldwide list.

Fast Five out-performed all its predecessors, taking in $200m-plus in the US, and $400m-plus internationally. Presumably Fast Six has been given the green light…

In not crossing the $200m barrier in the US, Pixar’s Cars 2 failed to match its originator’s performance. However, internationally the story was different, as the sequel hit top gear and pulled in 60% more than the original.

Rio also under-performed in the US and the UK, but nevertheless drew in $300m-plus internationally, winging its way to nearly $500m and just beating the Apes prequel to 10th place worldwide.

In the US, the Hangover sequel failed to match the original’s take, but improved its international take by nearly 70% to $327m. Thor was not only the best-reviewed super hero movie of 2011, but also the most successful ($181m in the US, plus $266m internationally). Captain America trailed in second in that competition, its $176.6m US haul matching the Apes prequel.

Biggest unexpected flop of the year? Happy Feet Two, which has so far generated just $120m worldwide. It had a budget of circa $130m, according to IMDb. Its predecessor hauled in $384m four years ago (without the additional income of premium pricing for 3D performances). Ooops…

Late arrivals
Some end of year films came too late to make an impression on these lists, notably Mission: Impossible 4 ($386.9m worldwide, having only opened on 21 December; could end up north of $500m) and Sherlock Holmes 2 (£242.9m worldwide, having opened on 16 December; should come close to $400m). Some films opened in the final quarter that struggled against expectations: Puss In Boots – $430.7m worldwide is probably a little disappointing for Dreamworks; and Tintin – huge in France and Belgium ($40m-plus and $9.1m respectively), surprisingly dismissed in the UK with ‘just’ £16.1m and expectedly ignored in the US whereby Spielberg stablemate War Horse will give the boy detective a bloody nose, culminating in ‘just’ $311.9m worldwide from $130m budget).

UK box office
Harry Potter 8 £73m
The King’s Speech £45.3m
The Inbetweeners Movie £45m
Pirates 4 £32.9m
The Hangover Part II £32.7m
Breaking Dawn 1 £30.4m
Transformers 3 £27.8m
Bridesmaids £22.3m
The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes £21m
Johnny English Reborn £20.6m
Arthur Christmas £20.5m

International box office
HP8 $947.1m
Pirates 4 $800.9m
Transformers 3 $765m
Kung Fu Panda 2 $496.5m
The Smurfs $419.9m
Fast Five $416.3m
Breaking Dawn 1 $410m
Cars 2 $362.5m
Rio $342.5m
The Hangover Part II £327m

US box office
HP8 $381m
Transformers 3 $352.4m
Breaking Dawn 1 $276.1m
The Hangover Part II $254.5m
Pirates 4 $241m
Fast Five $209.8m
Cars 2 $191.5m
Thor $181m
The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes $176.7m
Captain America $176.7m

Worldwide box office
HP8 $1.3bn
Transformers 3 $1.1bn
Pirates 4 $1bn
Breaking Dawn 1 $686.1m
Kung Fu Panda 2 $661.7m
Fast Five $628.1m
The Hangover Part II £581.5m
The Smurfs $555.3m
Cars 2 $553.9m
Rio $486.1m

Sources: Screendaily.com; Box Office Guru; UK Film Council; and Box Office Mojo

Golden Stans 2011

2011-12-29T15:04:00.000-08:00

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!

Review: A Dangerous Method

2011-12-22T07:57:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-22T07:47:00.000-08:00

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.

Review: Carnage

2011-12-22T07:42:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-22T07:28:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-22T07:23:00.000-08:00

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

Golden Globes 2012: Tinker Tailor snubbed

2011-12-18T04:17:00.001-08:00

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

Awards season countdown

2011-12-14T12:53:00.000-08:00

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

Best of the Fest 2011

2011-10-30T14:01:00.000-07:00

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!

LFF 2011: Anonymous, The Awakening, and This Must Be The Place

2011-10-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

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

LFF 2011: Uncle Kent, Silver Bullets, and A Dangerous Method

2011-10-30T10:31:00.000-07:00

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)

LFF 2011: Take Shelter, The Monk and Damsels In Distress

2011-10-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

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

LFF 2011: Ides of March, Carnage, and Bernie

2011-10-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

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

LFF 2011: Terri, Bullets, and The Descendants

2011-10-25T10:03:00.000-07:00

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

LFF 2011: Superheroes, and Chicken With Plums

2011-10-21T08:29:00.000-07:00

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

LFF 2011: Kevin, and Snowtown

2011-10-19T02:11:00.001-07:00

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

LFF 2011: Coriolanus, Dark Horse, and Nobody Else But You

2011-10-18T12:58:00.000-07:00

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

LFF 2011: Restless, Loneliest Planet, and Wreckers

2011-10-18T12:05:00.000-07:00

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

LFF 2011: 50/50, 360, and Rampart

2011-10-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

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

Review: Super 8

2011-08-13T08:54:00.001-07:00

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

Review: The Tree of Life

2011-08-04T13:01:00.000-07:00

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

Thor v X-Men v Green Lantern v Captain America

2011-07-30T11:40:00.000-07:00

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

Reviews: The Big Picture, The Princess of Montpensier, and Cell 211

2011-07-27T13:22:00.000-07:00

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

Comic book movies that need to be made

2011-04-24T05:14:00.001-07:00

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?

Source Code v Little White Lies v Sucker Punch

2011-04-22T09:34:00.000-07:00

Long time, no blog. Work and ill health have got in the way of me getting to the movies, but both have alleviated of late, so here are my thoughts of my most recent filmic conquests:

Source Code
Duncan ‘Moon’ Jones second film is another sci-fi twister. As with his debut, the definition of the reality in which the hero exists is in a constant state of flux. Leaning heavily on both Groundhog Day and 12 Monkeys for its concept, the story of Jake Gyllenhaal’s soldier’s attempt to discover the identity of the perpetrator of a terrorist bomb attack on a packed commuter train grips throughout, aided by a top drawer performance from the star (who saves the best to last).
Gyllenhaal’s mission presents him with moral quandries, both enforced by his superiors and the laws of science.
The film has some flaws, not least its triple conclusions, Clint Mansell being unavailable to craft the score and Jones’s decision to drive the film’s point home at the last. A leaner, colder-hearted approach might have worked better overall.
But the scene in which Gyllenhaal telephones his father is a choker, competing for impact with Stander’s phonecall to his father in Stander.
But what stands out is Jones’s ability to create a sense of unease, of reality being our unsteady, ever-shifting master. More please!
Score: 7.5/10

Little White Lies
Perusing the listings for some classy entertainment, Guillaume Canet’s Little White Lies seemed to fit the bill. His last film, international hit thriller Tell No One, means he has form, and highlighted his typically French obsession for Hitchcockesque intrigue and chills.
While Hitch’s thrills and chills are absent from his latest effort, the detached observation of other people’s foibles and failures is all-too apparent as he mercilessly dissects the bourgeois lifestyle of the menagerie of friends and hangers on that gather for their traditional summer holiday.
Rather than have their rituals and relationships pressurised and probed by an interloper, the story instead hinges on the absence of a key character – with him unable to join them on holiday, their lives begin to unravel.
And they do so with great humour. Now French humour is not known for its ability to travel, but the first two-thirds of this film is deeply funny, occasionally drifting into the WTF territory – the characters are that mad.
The final third of the movie moves into the more expected dramatic and tragic. If the ending is a little pat, it nevertheless reinforces the irony that the only way the characters can learn to value life is through death.
Don’t be fooled by the posters, this is not a film focusing solely on the divine Marion Cotillard (good as she is): the large ensemble cast gets almost equal screentime, but the stand-out performance comes from Francois Cluzet (the star of Tell No One). Expect him to figure in the Golden Stans.
The film is long, but simply breezes by such is the grip it exerts: you just never know what’s going to happen next.
I laughed and I cried: what more can I say?
Score: 8.5/10

Sucker Punch
What planet does Zack Snyder live on? That’s the question I was left asking myself after Sucker Punch.
Sucker Punch follows hot on the heels of mega-flop Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, and Watchmen and 300, its main selling point being hot young women wearing little while shooting guns and wielding swords.
And on that basis it pretty much delivers its masturbatory fantasy… but on any other level it clearly is utter tripe. “Don’t write a cheque with your mouth that you can’t cash with your ass,” is one of the better lines barked by Scott Glenn (who presumably took the role so he could hang out with some hotties…), while Jon Hamm’s appearance drew collective gasps of astonishment (the world is his oyster after Mad Men, and he chooses to be in this nonsense: WTF?!).
What about the story, you ask. Fuck the story: in Snyder’s head, the film didn’t need one because it’s got HOT CHCICKS WITH GUNS…
What about the hot chicks, you then ask. Emily Browning, as Baby Doll (no, really), is 23 going on 16 (there’s something deeply wrong here), while Jena Malone, as Rocket, comes across as the new Meg Ryan (and that’s not necessarily a bad thing). Abbie Cornish, as the strangely statuesque Sweet Pea, takes the few acting honours available, clearly choosing to rise above Synder’s debasing view of womanhood and salvage something for herself.
The only glimmer of hope offered by the film is the astonishing prologue, which competes effectively with Up for condensing the film’s set-up into a brief, near-silent, shocking montage: just may be Snyder has some talent after all.
He’d better have because his next flick is the Chris Nolan-produced reboot of Superman… and the big blue boyscout deserves so much better than what Snyder has on display here.
Score: 2/10

Oscars 2011: King’s Speech reigns supreme

2011-02-27T22:30:00.000-08:00

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

Cinematic sensations: when film-going goes right

2011-02-27T04:07:00.000-08:00

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?

Oscars 2011: predictions

2011-02-26T11:18:00.000-08:00

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.

Review: True Grit

2011-02-20T03:45:00.000-08:00

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

King's Speech beats Avatar!

2011-02-19T14:40:00.000-08:00

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!

Cinematic calamities: the worst things that can happen in a flea pit

2011-02-19T08:46:00.000-08:00

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.

Review: Never Let Me Go

2011-02-13T14:47:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-13T14:09:00.000-08:00

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

King's Speech: more success

2011-02-09T12:03:00.000-08:00

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?

Inception and Social Network get the writers' vote

2011-02-06T03:19:00.000-08:00

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.

Review: The Fighter

2011-02-06T03:02:00.000-08:00

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

The King's Speech: another huge weekend

2011-01-30T23:50:00.000-08:00

The awards momentum is really with The King's Speech now: this weekend it got both the directors' and actors' nods.

The Directors Guild of America named Tom Hooper its director of the year, while the Screen Actors Guild gave Colin Firth its Best Actor gong, while the film's entire cast was given the best cast award.

Natalie Portman for Black Swan (so far unbeaten in any awards), and Christian Bale and Melissa Leo in their supporting roles in The Fighter picked up the other SAG awards.

Crucially, neither The Social Network nor True Grit got anything out of this weekend, while The King's Speech strengthened its position in the run-up the Oscars. And it posted its highest weekend box office take in the US so far: $11m, leading to a total of $72m. It will pass the $100m barrier, and given its performance in the UK so far (somewhere north of £22m) and Australia ($15m after five weeks), a further $100m from the rest of the world should be possible.

Sky's all-time best of British

2011-01-29T10:44:00.000-08:00

The Italian Job: best British film of all time, at least according to a Sky survey of British moviegoers. Not at exactly surprising, is it? It topped the survey with 15.1% of the votes, more than double the share of the movie in second place, Life Of Brian with 7.4%.

Half the top ten is filled by massively popular hits released since 1994: The Full Monty; Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince; Bridget Jones’s Diary; Four Weddings And A Funeral; Love Actually; and Trainspotting.

Early 80s serial award-winners Chariots of Fire and Gandhi make their expected appearances too, as does Brief Encounter. It’s pleasing to note The Wicker Man in 10th.

However, where the hell is Lawrence of Arabia?
Get Carter?
Even though I don’t enjoy his films that much, what about the works of Ken Loach? And what about James Bond, who has almost single-handedly propped up the UK production industry for the past 30 years?
Bridge Over The River Kwai?
A Matter Of Life And Death?
The Ealing comedies?
The early Hitchcocks?

The list actors is equally baffling: Anthony Hopkins beats Olivier, ahead of Michael Caine and curiously David Jason (surely best known for his TV work over the past 35 years?). However, on the aged 50 and under list, Colin Firth emerges top, just ahead of Ewan McGregor (sorry, when did he last ‘act’?).

The list of actresses makes a bit more sense: Judi Dench takes an easy victory from Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith. Almost inevitably Keira Knightley tops the aged 50 and under list, beating Kate Beckinsale.

The top 10 British directors is dominated by Brits who are best known for their work in the US: Hitchcock on top, followed by Ridley Scott. Christopher Nolan and Paul Greengrass also make the list. A curious factoid emerges: just one of the top 10 directors, Danny Boyle, has a film in the top 10 list…

The King's Speech: the success story continues

2011-01-26T13:15:00.000-08:00

The King's Speech absolutely will not stop until it's an uber-hit at home!

Weekend one: £3.5m from 398 screens.
Weekend two: £4.4m from 428 screens.
Weekend three: £4.2m from 502 screens.

Its total so far in the UK: a staggering £18.3m after 17 days. That means it's already overtaken Little Fockers, Dawn Treader and Gulliver's Travels. A £30m haul is a question of when not if; how far beyond that it can go will be down to BAFTA and Oscar glory.

The weekend of 21-23 January, it beat Black Swan, which brought in a handy £2.7m from 356 screens - Fox taking an equally ballsy move as The King's distributors by opening the lesbian ballerina psycho-chiller wide.

According to Box Office Mojo, The King's Speech stands at $108m worldwide, including $59m already from the US.

Oscars 2011: analysis

2011-01-26T12:45:00.000-08:00

Oscar nominations 2011: safe, yet still capable of surprise. That's my simple conclusion.

Almost inevitably The King's Speech leads the field with 12 noms; however, next up is not The Social Network - it's True Grit with 10 nods. The facebook movie finds itself in joint third place, throwing werewolves at Inception. The Fighter and 127 Hours both outscore Black Swan to boot (seven and six nods respectively versus just five): clearly the elderly members of the Academy have not warmed to the lesbian ballerina psycho-chiller.

Surprises? Nolan not nominated for Best Director, nor Danny Boyle for 127 Hours. Ryan Gosling not mentioned for Blue Valentine (probably because his character is so unlikeable), although his co-star Michelle Williams does make the cut. Having been missed by BAFTA, Jennifer Lawrence gets her first nom for Winter's Bone, as does her supporting co-star John Hawkes. Jeremy Renner's turn in The Town gets its just reward.

At this stage, it's hard to see beyond the stammering monarch. The facebook movie is probably too cold for the Academy, while it's not that long ago that the Coens swept the board. So, predictions in detail:
• The King's Speech takes Film, Director and Actor
• Natalie Portman just holds off Annette Bening for Best Actress
• Geoffrey Rush and Christian Bale slugging it out for Best Supporting Actor
• It's been a while since a kid won an Oscar, so step forward Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit

Oscars noms 2011

Best Picture
“Black Swan”
“The Fighter”
“Inception”
“The Kids Are All Right”
“The King's Speech”
“127 Hours”
“The Social Network”
“Toy Story 3”
“True Grit”
“Winter's Bone"

Best Director
“Black Swan” Darren Aronofsky
“The Fighter” David O. Russell
“The King's Speech” Tom Hooper
“The Social Network” David Fincher
“True Grit” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

Best Actor
Javier Bardem in “Biutiful”
Jeff Bridges in “True Grit”
Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network”
Colin Firth in “The King's Speech”
James Franco in “127 Hours”

Best Actress
Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right”
Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole”
Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter's Bone”
Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”
Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine”

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale in “The Fighter”
John Hawkes in “Winter's Bone”
Jeremy Renner in “The Town”
Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right”
Geoffrey Rush in “The King's Speech”

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams in “The Fighter”
Helena Bonham Carter in “The King's Speech”
Melissa Leo in “The Fighter”
Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”
Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom”

Animated Feature Film
“How to Train Your Dragon”
“The Illusionist”
“Toy Story 3”

Writing (Original Screenplay)
“Another Year” Written by Mike Leigh
“The Fighter” Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson;  Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
“Inception” Written by Christopher Nolan
“The Kids Are All Right” Written by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
“The King's Speech” Screenplay by David Seidler

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
“127 Hours” Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
“The Social Network” Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
“Toy Story 3” Screenplay by Michael Arndt; Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
“True Grit” Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
“Winter's Bone” Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini

Cinematography
“Black Swan” Matthew Libatique
“Inception” Wally Pfister
“The King's Speech” Danny Cohen
“The Social Network” Jeff Cronenweth
“True Grit” Roger Deakins

Hathaway is Catwoman = genius

2011-01-23T13:36:00.000-08:00

Anne Hathaway is Catwoman/Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises. Holy sweet moma! As if there weren't enough reasons to see Bats 3, Chris Nolan pulls off the casting coup of the decade.

The very thought of la Hathaway in that outfit sends me into delirium. A pity I've got to wait until 2012 to see her in the flesh...

While comic book heroines have always had more going on than impossible figures and ridiculous costumes, it is hard to separate the defined character from the physique. You wouldn't cast a skinny actor as Captain America, just as you wouldn't cast Kathy Bates as Wonder Woman.

When fanboys debate comic book movie casting choices, inevitably much of the debate is around looks: does any given actress look like the character they are portraying? However, as with the casting of Heath Ledger as the Joker, we know Nolan casts primarily on talent. With Hathaway, it's a win-win: she's got the talent, and, by golly, she's got the figure.

This year sees Mad Men's January Jones donning Emma Frost's, er, outfit for X-Men: First Class. Again, great casting: she can certainly carry herself with Frost's arrogance and carry off that outfit as her appearance at the Golden Globes clearly proved.

2012 also sees Emma Stone (left) as Gwen Stacey (although with red hair, she should be MJ), Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow in the Avengers, and two mystery girls: a new Lois Lane for the Superman reboot, and a new Bond girl.

The King's Speech: the producers' favourite

2011-01-23T10:06:00.000-08:00

The King’s Speech v The Social Network: game on! Having won at the National Board of Review and at the Golden Globes, the Facebook movie has been generating Oscar momentum, but this weekend the Producers Guild of America stuck their oar in and saluted The King’s Speech instead.

This is the first time the stammering king has beaten the network during awards season. 14 of the previous 21 PGA winners have gone on to grab the Best Film Oscar.

Given The King’s Speech ever-escalating box office ($58m already banked in the US, $100m must be a lock) while The Social Network is already being advertised on DVD, the stammering king appears to be building momentum at just the right time ahead of the Oscar noms being announced.

It almost goes without saying that Toy Story 3 was awarded the Best Animated Film Award by the PGA

The King’s Speech: a bona fide hit

2011-01-18T13:39:00.000-08:00

The distributors’ of BAFTA’s favourite film, The King’s Speech, have more confidence than the King that their film portrays.

Weekend one on 398 screens: £3.5m and the number one spot.
Weekend two on 428 screens: £4.4m and the number one spot again, for a £10.8m running total.

According to my records, the last few films to open at number one and then increase the following weekend’s take are: Slumdog Millionaire, The Fellowship of the Rings, er, Antz, Seven and Jumanji.

That’s a ballsy move to open such a high quality, awards-worthy movie, with no box office stars involved in front or behind the camera, on so many screens. It’s simply not been the done thing since Lawrence Of Arabia inadvertently set the release template for awards movies. Even with the outstanding reviews the film had generated at its festival screenings during the autumn and winter of 2010, I would not have had the cojones of the distributors: more power to their elbows, etc.

With a Globe already in the bag for Colin Firth, and surely a BAFTA award and an Oscar still to come for him alone, this very British film (stately paced, gentle humour, elegant wordplay, understated emotions, and a rousing finale) is set to be the breakout hit of 2011.

It should be settling on the £20m mark (ie qualify for the end of year top 10 box office championship) by the end of its fourth weekend, with at least another month still to play. Its clear target is to beat Slumdog Millionaire’s £31.2m haul.

Every now and again a genuinely great film proves popular with the people: and that this film has so chimed with a wide audience restores my faith in the British public.

BAFTA 2011: sense and insensibility

2011-01-18T13:02:00.000-08:00

The King’s Speech: 14 BAFTA nominations from 15 longlist noms. The Social Network: 6 noms from 13 longlist noms. As ever, BAFTA goes its own way: in the wake of the Golden Globes, that ceremony’s big winner, the Facebook movie, is not friends with BAFTA.

The King’s Speech enters the BAFTAs as the outstanding favourite for the Best Film and Best Actor, propelled by its status as a genuine box-office hit (already just weekends into its run its overtaken expensive summer action fodder like The A-Team), beloved by the people and the critics alike. And at this stage, Best Supporting Actress is clearly a battle royale between HBC and Lesley Manville in Another Year.

The Facebook movie is headed by Black Swan (12 from 15), Inception (nine from 14), and 127 Hours and True Grit (with eight each, from eight in the latter’s case). More controversial than The Social Network’s relative failure are the following shock lock-outs and surprising omissions:
• The Coens are not nominated for Best Director for True Grit
• Danny Boyle is nominated for Best Director for 127 Hours, but the film is only up for Best British Film
• Never Let Me Go has no noms
• The Fighter – only three noms from 12 and Golden Globe winner Melissa Leo falling at the first handle
• Made In Dagenham – only four from 14
• Jennifer Lawrence – no nom for Winter’s Bone
• Neither Ryan Gosling nor Michelle Williams, the outstanding stars of Blue Valentine, are shortlisted
• Tilda Swinton ignored for I Am Love
• Nicole Kidman ignored for Rabbit Hole
• Jeremy Renner passed by for The Town, but his deceased partner in crime Pete Postlethwaite does pass muster
• The Town – 11 mentions on the longlist, just one on the shortlist

The good surprises are few:
• Gareth Edwards, the writer/director of Monsters, shortlisted for Outstanding Debut
• Noomi Rapace, Best Actress for her Dragon Tattoo
• Miranda Richardson, Best Supporting Actress for Made In Dagenham

The winners will be revealed on 13 February.

The key categories in full are:

BEST FILM 
BLACK SWAN
INCEPTION  
THE KING’S SPEECH  
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
TRUE GRIT

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM 
127 HOURS
ANOTHER YEAR
FOUR LIONS
THE KING’S SPEECH
MADE IN DAGENHAM

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER 
THE ARBOR Clio Barnard (Director), Tracy O’Riordan (Producer) 
EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP Banksy (Director), Jaimie D’Cruz (Producer) 
FOUR LIONS Chris Morris (Director/Writer) 
MONSTERS Gareth Edwards (Director/Writer) 
SKELETONS Nick Whitfield (Director/Writer)

DIRECTOR 
127 HOURS Danny Boyle 
BLACK SWAN Darren Aronofsky 
INCEPTION Christopher Nolan 
THE KING’S SPEECH Tom Hooper 
THE SOCIAL NETWORK David Fincher

LEADING ACTOR 
JAVIER BARDEM Biutiful 
JEFF BRIDGES True Grit 
JESSE EISENBERG The Social Network 
COLIN FIRTH The King’s Speech 
JAMES FRANCO 127 Hours

LEADING ACTRESS 
ANNETTE BENING The Kids Are All Right 
JULIANNE MOORE The Kids Are All Right 
NATALIE PORTMAN Black Swan 
NOOMI RAPACE The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 
HAILEE STEINFELD True Grit

SUPPORTING ACTOR 
CHRISTIAN BALE The Fighter 
ANDREW GARFIELD The Social Network 
PETE POSTLETHWAITE The Town 
MARK RUFFALO The Kids Are All Right 
GEOFFREY RUSH The King’s Speech

SUPPORTING ACTRESS 
AMY ADAMS The Fighter 
HELENA BONHAM CARTER The King’s Speech 
BARBARA HERSHEY Black Swan 
LESLEY MANVILLE Another Year 
MIRANDA RICHARDSON Made in Dagenham

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY 
BLACK SWAN  
THE FIGHTER  
INCEPTION
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
THE KING’S SPEECH

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY 
127 HOURS
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
TOY STORY 3  
TRUE GRIT

ANIMATED FILM 
DESPICABLE ME
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON
TOY STORY 3

Golden Globes 2011: the winners are

2011-01-16T12:38:00.000-08:00

The Golden Globes hearts facebook: The Social Network has won four Globes - Film, Director, Screenplay and Score.

There were very few shocks this year. Colin Firth, Natalie Portman, Paul Giamatti and Annette Benning predictably walked away with the top acting honours, while Christian Bale and Melissa Leo cemented their positions ahead of the Oscars in winning for their performances in The Fighter.

TS3 of course won Best Animated Film.

Best Motion Picture - Drama
The Social Network

Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
The Kids Are All Right

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama
Colin Firth for The King's Speech

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama
Natalie Portman for Black Swan

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Paul Giamatti for Barney's Version

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Christian Bale for The Fighter

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Melissa Leo for The Fighter

Best Director
David Fincher for The Social Network

Best Screenplay
The Social Network

Best Animated Film
Toy Story 3

Best Foreign Language Film
In a Better World (Denmark)

Best Original Score
The Social Network

National Board of Review 2010 Awards

2011-01-12T12:56:00.001-08:00

The National Board of Review has set the hares running ahead of the Golden Globes by announcing its winners - and The Social Network has emerged the victor with four major wins.

Going with the grain, Of Gods and Men picked up the foreign film award, while TS3 took the animated trophy. But there are surprises: Lesley Manville winning for her turn in Another Year; Jackie Weaver winning for her turn in Animal Kingdom; and Chris Sparling grabbing the original screenplay trophy for Buried.

Best Film 
The Social Network  

Best Foreign Language Film 
Of Gods and Men

Best Actor 
Jesse Eisenberg/The Social Network  

Best Actress
 Lesley Manville/Another Year  

Best Supporting Actor 
Christian Bale/The Fighter  

Best Supporting Actress
 Jacki Weaver/Animal Kingdom  

Best Ensemble Cast 
The Town  

Breakthrough Performance
 Jennifer Lawrence/Winter's Bone
  
Best Director
 David Fincher/The Social Network  

Best Adapted Screenplay 
Aaron Sorkin/The Social Network

Best Original Screenplay 
Chris Sparling/Buried  

Best Animated Feature 
Toy Story 3

Bond will be back

2011-01-12T12:10:00.000-08:00

James Bond is back for his 23rd instalment - and this time he's bringing Sam Mendes!

Work on Bond 23 was suspended in April 2010, following MGM's financial woes. But now with Spyglass Entertainment at the helm of MGM, the third film starring Daniel Craig has got the greenlight and will be released on 9 November 2012.

So, who's Spyglass? Well, they brought you quality hits like The Sixth Sense, The Insider and JJ Abrams' Star Trek reboot.
Sam Mendes is, of course, the Oscar-winning director of American Beauty. This is a bold move: he's not known for action (although he handled Road To Perdition more than well enough), and, since his divorce, it's unlikely we'll see Kate Winslet as a Bond girl (although I can dream...). Whether he can handle a fast-paced script is open to question, and no 'arty' director has convinced as a Bond man (Marc Forster and Quantum of Solace anyone?).

And the script remains in the hands of Purvis & Wade and John 'Gladiator' Logan: another cause for concern. And who will perform the theme tune? Please make it Muse!!!!

Bond being back in 2012 means that year is pretty much geek heaven: The Avengers; Star Trek 2; the Spider-Man reboot; Christopher Nolan's Batman finale; the first part of The Hobbit; and the reboot of Superman...

2011: the art film preview

2011-01-11T14:17:00.001-08:00

Every year upon reading my film preview for the year ahead, James A bemoans the fact that high quality art films by major directors rarely have clearly set release dates well in advance like blockbusters do.

In an attempt to brighten James’s day, here’s a list of some of the more artistic and intriguing major titles that will no doubt spark debate and potentially feature in awards lists at the end of 2011.

The Skin I Live In: the new Almodovar – and importantly his first with Antonio Banderas since Tie Me Up!

The Grandmasters: Won Kar Wai’s biopic of Ip Man, Bruce Lee’s trainer; Tony Leung is Ip, while Zhang Zhiyi co-stars.

A Dangerous Method: Cronenberg directs Viggo Mortensen as Freud, Michael Fassbender as Jung, and Keira Knightley as the controversial Sabina. The script is adapted from Christopher ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ Hampton’s play. I can’t wait!

Chicken With Plums: following the success of Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi goes live action with this tale of her musician uncle.

The Impossible: a drama focusing on the impact of the 2004 tsunami, starring Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor, directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, who directed The Orphanage.

Coriolanus: Shakespeare adaptation not by Ken Branagh – instead step forward Ralph Fiennes for his directorial debut. Fiennes has taken a contemporary spin on the great warmonger.

Hanna: Joe Wright’s follow-up to The Soloist and Atonement; Saoirse Ronan stars as a teenage assassin; Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana co-star.

Melancholia: the new Lars von Trier; this is a “psychological disaster move which begins with the end of the world”.

The Deep Blue Sea: the new Terence Davies – an adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s play.

One Day: after the huge critical success of An Education, director Lone Scherfig returns with the adaptation of David Nicholls’ romantic/dramatic novel; Jim Sturgess and Anne Hathaway star.

The Iron Lady: the team that brought you Mamma Mia! on screen, now bring you a biopic of Maggie Thatcher. Meryl Streep is Thatch; Jim Broadbent is Dennis…

Release dates are very sketchy, so keep watching the skies.

Directors name their 2010 favourites

2011-01-10T09:56:00.000-08:00

The Directors Guild of America has announced its nominations for Best Director. They are:
Darren Aronofsky/Black Swan
David Fincher/The Social Network
Tom Hooper/The King's Speech
Christopher Nolan/Inception
David O Russell/The Fighter

For Nolan, that's his third nom, while Fincher grabs only his second nom (surely some mistake?!). Understandably, Russell and Hooper are first-time nominees, but so also, unexplicably, is Aronofsky...

The winner will be revealed on 29 January. Only six times since 1948 has the DGA winner not gone on to win the Best Director Oscar. For the record, those six occasions are:
• 1968: Anthony Harvey won the DGA for The Lion in Winter while Carol Reed took home the Oscar for Oliver!
• 1972: Francis Ford Coppola won the DGA for The Godfather while the Oscar went to Bob Fosse for Cabaret.
• 1985: Steven Spielberg received his first DGA for The Color Purple, but the Oscar went to Sydney Pollack for Out of Africa.
• 1995: Ron Howard won the DGA for Apollo 13 while Oscar voters selected Mel Gibson for Braveheart.
• 2000: Ang Lee won the DGA for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, while Steven Soderbergh won the Oscar for Traffic.
• 2002: Rob Marshall won the DGA for Chicago while Roman Polanski received the Oscar for The Pianist.

Review: 127 Hours v The Way Back

2011-01-10T09:36:00.000-08:00

Two survival movies based on fact, two directors, two very different approaches: ladies and gentlemen, tonight on Movie Death Match Special, it’s Danny Boyle’s post-Slumdog one-armed special, 127 Hours, up against Peter Weir’s ensemble piece,The Way Back, his first effort since Master & Commander seven years ago.

Boyle went from famine to feast with Slumdog: Sunshine, though generally well received, had flopped and Slumdog went into its first festival screening without a distributor; six months later, the film had garnered eight Oscars and hauled in $362m at the worldwide box office. So, no pressure for Boyle on his follow-up then!

Let’s deal with the positives: James Franco is great, oscillating through every known human emotion (including one I was not expecting him to experience) as he remains trapped on his own in a canyon fissure; his gradual descent into madness and his climb back out again to self-realisation and eventually physical freedom is played out as a series of vignettes.

When the big moment comes and he cuts the arm off, I was as tense as I have ever been watching a film; the bone-breaking sound effects and the chainsaw buzz employed when he makes the final cut had me wanting to rip my own head off – it’s strong stuff. But crucially, I think Boyle has been true to his aim and neither underplayed nor overplayed that scene.

AH Rahman’s score is perfect too.

The negatives? Well, as with Slumdog, Boyle takes a somewhat shallow script and throws every weapon in his considerable directorial arsenal at it – too such an extent that it overpowers the script and almost Franco’s performance to boot. Filmed from perpetually crazy angles (I await the day Boyle shoots on the horizontal for the hell of it) and crazy places (Franco drinks from his water bottle – we view from inside the bottom of the bottle), the visuals and the editing are simply too much. And we fairly hurtle through the story as well.

Boyle’s not about to drop off my radar like Inarritu (Alejandro, you are not a brand!), although this Hitchcock for the MTV generation needs to chill a little and take a more thoughtful approach and serve the script in future.

Peter Weir is the absolute antithesis of Boyle: the script must be served, and any chutzpah of his own is used to sparingly to amplify the story and the characters. The Way Back tells the apparently true story of the 4,000km trek to India by a number of Siberian gulag escapees in WWII.

As with 127 Hours, we know the outcome even as the film starts, so the enjoyment (if that’s the right word) is in the journey. And what a strange journey it is.

Such a long trek through every dangerous terrain you can think of could easily be over-dramatised, every step being a flirtation with fate; instead Weir chooses, almost perversely, to under-dramatise the events, taking a low key approach to his shooting and the characterisation.

In the latter he is aided by an excellent, international ensemble cast, most notably Ed Harris and Jim Sturgess. Harris excels in the film’s key moment, when the motley crew stop for a rest by a stream and the young runaway, who has joined them, without bidding washes Harris’s feet; the stoic Harris’s initial shock at such human kindness collapses into despair and relief as he realises its been so long since he could allow such an act into his life: he tells Sturgess, on his first day in the gulag, that "kindness can kill you". It’s a deeply moving moment, again under-played, but Weir cuts away almost too quickly to the next scene.

The runaway (Saoirse Ronan of Atonement fame) helps to realise the unspoken bond between the escapees, and give it voice – an essential move if they are to survive.

The gang don’t all get along all the time, but their enemy (if there can be said to be one in this film) is nature – she absolutely will not stop, etc.

The film clocks in at 133 minutes, but that’s not enough time to avoid the film becoming episodic: there’s so much story to tell, but so little time to tell it – the scenes aren’t necessarily rushed, but they are necessarily short.

Ultimately, The Way Back has a slowburn effect, and, I suspect, will age better than 127 Hours. So a narrow victory to Weir (aided by the wallop of the film's coda - something 127 Hours lacks), then. In conclusion, I can only wonder how each film would have turned out if the directors had swapped jobs…
127 Hours: 7.5/10
The Way Back: 8/10

BAFTA 2011: longlists revealed

2011-01-07T14:09:00.000-08:00

BAFTA has released the longlists for most of its key categories – and Black Swan and The King’s Speech lead the way with 15 nominations each.

On 14 nominations are: Inception and Made In Dagenham. Next up is The Social Network with 13 mentions. And then on 12 noms, there is a slew: Alice In Wonderland; The Fighter; The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; Shutter Island; and the Coens’ True Grit.

Apart from Dagenham and Dragon Tattoo doing so well, the other surprise is the performance of The Town: 11 noms with Ben Affleck making both the director and leading actor longlists.

Dagenham’s success is in part due to five members of the cast making the list. Black Swan matches that number, while King’s, Fighter and Town have four members of their casts bathed in early glory (including in the latter case the late Pete Postlethwaite).

Leonardo DiCaprio, Gemma Arterton, Rosamund Pike, Andrew Garfield and Rosamund Pike are all longlisted twice. Toy Story 3 is longlisted for both Film and Animated Film.

Surprises? No Werner Herzog and Nic Cage for Bad Lieutenant, no Chloe Grace Moretz for Kick-Ass, no Emma Stone for Easy A, no Gainsbourg, etc. And Shutter Island and Alice garnering so many noms!

There’s no longlist for British Film, and meanwhile the shortlist for Foreign Film has been announced: Biutiful; The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo;  I Am Love;  Of Gods And Men;  and The Secret In Their Eyes.

The winners will be announced on 13 February.

Below are the main categories.

Best Film 
127 Hours 
Another Year 
Black Swan 
The Fighter 
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo 
Inception 
The Kids Are All Right 
The King’s Speech 
Made In Dagenham 
Shutter Island 
The Social Network 
The Town 
Toy Story 3 
True Grit 
Winter’s Bone

Director 
127 Hours  
Alice In Wonderland 
Another Year 
Black Swan 
The Fighter 
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo 
Inception  
The Kids Are All Right 
The King’s Speech 
Made In Dagenham 
Shutter Island 
The Social Network 
The Town 
Toy Story 3 
True Grit

Leading Actor  
Aaron Eckhart/Rabbit Hole 
Ben Affleck/The Town 
Colin Firth/The King’s Speech
James Franco/127 Hours
Javier Bardem/Biutiful 
Jeff Bridges/True Grit  
Jesse Eisenberg/The Social Network
Jim Broadbent/Another Year 
Johnny Depp/Alice In Wonderland 
Leonardo DiCaprio/Inception 
Leonardo DiCaprio/Shutter Island 
Mark Wahlberg/The Fighter 
Paul Giamatti/Barney’s Version 
Robert Duvall/Get Low 
Ryan Gosling/Blue Valentine

Leading Actress 
Andrea Riseborough/Brighton Rock 
Annette Bening/The Kids Are All Right
Carey Mulligan/Never Let Me Go
Gemma Arterton/The Disappearance Of Alice Creed 
Gemma Arterton/Tamara Drewe 
Hailee Steinfeld/True Grit 
Jennifer Lawrence/Winter’s Bone 
Julianne Moore/The Kids Are All Right
Michelle Williams/Blue Valentine
Natalie Portman/Black Swan
Nicole Kidman/Rabbit Hole 
Noomi Rapace/The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo 
Rosamund Pike/Barney’s Version 
Sally Hawkins/Made In Dagenham 
Tilda Swinton/I Am Love

Supporting Actor  
Andrew Garfield/The Social Network
Andrew Garfield/Never Let Me Go 
Ben Kingsley/Shutter Island 
Bill Murray/Get Low 
Bob Hoskins/Made In Dagenham
Christian Bale/The Fighter
Dustin Hoffman/Barney’s Version 
Geoffrey Rush/The King’s Speech
Guy Pearce/The King’s Speech 
Jeremy Renner/The Town 
Justin Timberlake/The Social Network 
Mark Ruffalo/The Kids Are All Right  
Matt Damon/True Grit 
Pete Postlethwaite/The Town 
Vincent Cassel/Black Swan

Supporting Actress  
Amy Adams/The Fighter
Barbara Hershey/Black Swan
Ellen Page/Inception 
Geraldine James/Made In Dagenham 
Helena Bonham Carter/The King’s Speech 
Helena Bonham Carter/Alice In Wonderland 
Lesley Manville/Another Year
Marion Cotillard/Inception 
Melissa Leo/The Fighter 
Mila Kunis/Black Swan 
Miranda Richardson/Made In Dagenham
Olivia Williams/The Ghost 
Rebecca Hall/The Town 
Rosamund Pike/Made In Dagenham 
Winona Ryder/Black Swan

Original Screenplay 
Another Year 
Biutiful 
Black Swan 
Blue Valentine 
The Disappearance Of Alice Creed 
The Fighter 
Four Lions 
Get Low 
Hereafter 
I Am Love 
Inception
The Kids Are All Right 
The King’s Speech
Made In Dagenham 
Of Gods and Men

Adapted Screenplay 
127 Hours
Alice In Wonderland 
Barney’s Version 
Brighton Rock 
Despicable Me 
The Ghost 
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo 
Never Let Me Go 
Rabbit Hole 
Shutter Island 
The Social Network
The Town 
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone

Animated Film
Chico & Rita 
Despicable Me
How To Train Your Dragon  
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3

Movie producers/writers name their favourites

2011-01-05T12:11:00.000-08:00

The Producers Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America have both announced their favourite films of 2010.

The producers' long list for the Darryl F Zanuck Award looks like this:
• 127 Hours
• Black Swan
• Inception
• The Fighter
• The Kids Are All Right
• The King’s Speech
• The Social Network
• The Town
• Toy Story 3
• True Grit

The producers' shortlist for animated films looks like this:
• Despicable Me
• How To Train You Dragon
• Toy Story 3

Yes, that's right TS3 is nominated in both categories. Notable omissions include Peter Weir's The Way Back, arguably one of the more difficult quality, awards-worthy movies to produce. And it's intriguing that the only directors to be named as producers
are: Danny Boyle, Chris Nolan and the Coens.

Meanwhile, the WGA is courting controversy by only acknowledging productions that are Guild signatories or those that filmed under agreement with an international WGA affiliate, so The King's Speech (demonstrably one of the best scripts of 2010) does not qualify. Here's the WGA's nominees for original screenplay:
• Black Swan
• The Fighter
• Inception
• The Kids Are All Right
• Please Give

The WGA's nominees for adapted screenplay are:
• 127 Hours
• I Love You Phillip Morris
• The Social Network
• The Town
• True Grit

The PGA will announce its winners on 22 January, while the WGA winners will be declared on 5 February.

Review: Love & Other Drugs

2011-01-03T14:03:00.000-08:00

A curio by any other name, Love & Other Drugs is something of a departure for writer/director Ed Zwick. His love of the epic spills over into this would-be anti-rom-com come pharma industry critique. The film's structure is determined by rom-com genre rules but then he layers on top anti-capitalist moralising, disease of the week, farce and bromance.

The tonal shifts are frequent - and frequently jarring. And, let's be frank, this is cheese.

And yet the two leads, Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal have a genuinely believable chemistry and a level of realistic casual intimacy that lifts the film beyond the cheese and Zwick's misjudgments (lose the 'emotive' score please - the actors are that good so let them carry the scene!). Fo example, Gyllenhaal's failure to, er, rise to the occasion, their reactions to this shock, and Hathaway's subsequent coaxing of him is a first in a Hollywood film: the scene is comedic, tragic, dramatic and redemptive and flawlessly showcases the characters' psyches. Much has been made of Hathaway's nudity, but don't be misled: this is not Hollywood's princess going hardcore, more a refreshing case of casual nudity that new lovers are comfortable with (there's little of the 'let's shag each other's brains out and then I'll climb out of bed with the duvet covering me' nonsense). Nor do the sex scenes break new ground: we're not talking Brando and the butter here; there's only a hint of anything other than missionary; and while world cinema is increasingly pushing the boundaries of cinematic sex by making it as realistic as possible, Zwick falls back on soft focus/slow motion overly choreographed shame-induced pretence with one or two notable exceptions - the opening moments of the entirely lust-driven first tryst; and her orgasm the first time they 'make love'. Zwick is clearly not comfortable with approaching the levels that David Lynch, David Cronenberg and Julio Medem attain in eroticism and using sex as key part of character development.

The leads' Golden Globe noms are entirely justified: Gyllenhaal is by turns all charm and emotionally constipated; Hathaway, especially after Rachel Getting Married, is the go-to-gal for young women who live for the moment/are consumed by self-loathing. Her performance doesn't rely on Hoffman/de Niro-esque disease of the week tics.

It will be intriguing to see the deleted scenes on the DVD: the much talked about post-orgasmic stretch Hathaway enjoys would have added further understanding of her character's condition.

I don't deny the film had added impact for me because Hathaway's character is reminiscent of so many of my exes in all their glory.

I took a chance on this and it was worth it. If you’re expecting a cheesy rom-com, you’ll be challenged and disappointed. If you're a hardcore Hathaway fan, this is a must. If you’re intrigued by a bunch of mainstream talent misfiring on a would-be counter culture experimental subversion of mainstream norms, it is worth a shot. But I can't help feeling there is a more interesting, more challenging film to be found on the DVD; if there isn't, Zwick is just plain guilty of not trying hard enough. There is something to be said for a committed breakdown of mainstream movie norms, but here Zwick is just not committed enough.
Score: 6.5/10

Box office review 2010

2011-01-03T02:22:00.000-08:00

Avatar was, not unexpectedly, the most successful film at the worldwide box office in 2010, raking in nearly $2bn. Its influence was massive: it’s no coincidence that the second and third biggest films, Toy Story 3 and Alice In Wonderland, were the featured 3D trailers screened before Avatar in most cinemas in the world. How else do you explain Alice pulling in $1bn???

In the UK, Avatar’s monstrous success was not enough to hold off TS3 – a whopping £73.4m for the kids film that made men cry. Although Avatar did take another near £30m at the end of 2009, meaning it is the most successful film at the UK box office ever.

Shortly before Xmas, the boy wizard overtook Alice, which may sound good, but it’s clear that Potter fatigue is setting in: HP7 has not yet reached the levels of HP6.
Inception showed tremendous legs, powering ahead of Shrek 4.

The third Twilight movie was 10% than the previous instalment, significantly ahead of the World Cup counter-programming success of the year: SATC 2, which while falling short of the $26m of the original two years before, dragged hordes of women to the cinema while the men watched football. Iron Man 2 and Clash of the Titans round out the UK top 10.

Tony Stark maintained his US focus, coming in fourth at the domestic box office, but crucially didn’t beat the $318m haul of his first instalment. The Twilight saga continued to grow, while Inception showed great legs in the US too. HP 7 disappointed and bodes relative ill for the final final instalment of the franchise.

Despicable Me performed notably well in the US, having been released in the summer holidays rather than the autumn and winter for the rest of the worldwide (although that release strategy was necessary to avoid the TS3 steamroller); it only just missed the UK top 10.

Shrek 4 only just beat How To Train Your Dragon; the latter emerged as the year’s most surprising hit (and most surprisingly well reviewed too).

The international market produced few surprises: Avatar, then Alice and TS3. HP 7 ranked fourth, ahead of Inception. The unwelcome Shrek 4 still crossed the $500m barrier, while Eclipse only just, er, eclipsed New Moon’s take of $391m. Clash of the Titans was one of the big hits to skew heavily towards the international market (ie it didn't perform as well as it should in the US) with 67% of its take coming from the rest of the world. Iron Man 2 was fully 20% more successful than its predecessor. Despicable Me rounded out the top 10.

Overall, the top three films in the world – and many of the other big hits – were powered by the premium ticket prices charged for 3D and/or IMAX screenings. Since Avatar, producers of event movies have been wrestling with the conundrum of 3D, especially those that were already in production while Avatar was on release and realising those big numbers: complete the production in 2D and then transfer to 3D, or continue the 2D production, but shoot some scenes in 3D, or stick with 2D? Chris Nolan, who used IMAX to such dramatic effect in Dark Knight, has already declared that Bats 3 will be 2D IMAX, but not 3D; meanwhile, Thor – shot in 2D – will be presented in 3D…

UK
Toy Story 3 £73.4m
Avatar £66.5m
Harry Potter 7 £48m
Alice In Wonderland £42.2m
Inception £35.2m
Shrek 4 £31.1m
Twilight: Eclipse £29.3m
Sex And The City 2 £21.6m
Iron Man 2 £20.9m
The Clash of the Titans £20.1m

US
Avatar $454.7m
Toy Story 3 $415m
Alice In Wonderland $334.2m
Iron Man 2 $312.1m
Twilight: Eclipse $300.5m
Inception $292.5m
Harry Potter 7 $280.1m
Despicable Me $251.2m
Shrek 4 $238.4m
How To Train Your Dragon $217.6m

International
Avatar $1495.7m
Alice In Wonderland $690.2m
Toy Story 3 $649.2m
Harry Potter 7 $610m
Inception $531m
Shrek 4 $503.5m
Twilight: Eclipse $394m
The Clash of the Titans $330m
Iron Man 2 $311m
Despicable Me $290m

Worldwide
Avatar $1947.4m
Toy Story 3 $1064.2m
Alice In Wonderland $1024.2m
Harry Potter 7 $890.1m
Inception $823.5m
Shrek 4 $741.9m
Twilight: Eclipse $694.5m
Iron Man 2 $623.1m
Despicable Me $540.8m
How To Train Your Dragon $495.1m

Golden Stans 2010

2010-12-30T14:02:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bring on 2011!

2011 film preview

2010-12-27T10:37:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

The Next Three Days
The new Paul Haggis.

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

Conviction
Hilary Swank’s latest Oscar bait…

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

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

The Dilemma
Ron Howard directs Vince Vaughn and Winona Ryder.

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

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

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

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

Rabbit Hole
Nicole Kidman’s latest Oscar bait…

Brighton Rock
A remake of a classic.

11 February
True Grit
The Coens remake a classic.

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

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

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

18 February
Paul
The new Simon Pegg/Nick Frost.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

29 June
Transformers 3
Yawn…

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

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

3 August
The Smurfs
Where are they coming from?

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

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

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

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

21 October
Contagion
The new Steve Soderbergh.

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

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

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

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

1 December
Dredd
Karl Urban is The Law.

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

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

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

Movies for the three days of Christmas

2010-12-18T10:04:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

Golden Globe 2010 nominations

2010-12-15T11:45:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Black Swan -v- Toy Story 3

2010-12-06T10:54:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

So that still leaves the two films at honours even…

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

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

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

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

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

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

London Film Festival and me

2010-10-28T10:46:00.000-07:00

So, here’s the list of every film I’ve seen at the London Film Festival since 1993. With the 2011 Festival completed, I have seen 295 films.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best of the festival part 3

2010-10-27T14:29:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Review: Black Swan

2010-10-27T14:26:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best of the festival part 2

2010-10-27T06:14:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best of the festival part 1

2010-10-20T09:41:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

London Film Festival 2010 preview

2010-10-20T09:32:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

The guilty secret weekender

2010-09-13T12:51:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My summer of film

2010-07-27T13:31:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What's in a movie name?

2010-05-23T06:39:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

Review: Agora

2010-05-19T11:39:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Review: Iron Man 2

2010-05-03T08:39:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Summer 2012: I can't wait!

2010-05-01T00:25:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

Waiting for Bond

2010-04-20T11:45:00.000-07:00

The next arch villain will have a long time to wait before uttering the phrase: "Come in Mr Bond." Given MGM's severe financial woes, Bond's owners and producers have had to put production of Bond 23 on an indefinite hold.

EON is the production company that owns the rights to make the Bond films, but the distribution contract is with MGM - and MGM is in Stromberg's elevator, the floor splitting apart and one very hungry shark beneath!

But, as is tradition, Bond will return: the two Daniel Craig movies combined made $1.2bn worldwide, so if MGM fails, another distribution deal will be struck - almost certainly with Sony, which has been keen to get its hands on Bond for generations.

Craig's third installment as Bond was expected in 2011 or 2012, which at four years would be the joint second-longest break between Bond films (shared with the gap between Die Another Day and Casino Royale - 2002 to 2006). The longest break is the six years between the end of Timothy Dalton in Licence To Kill in 1989 and the start of Pierce Brosnan in Goldeneye in 1995.

Looking back, you can understand why Sean Connery got burned out/bored by Bond so quickly: Dr No was released in 1962 and his fourth, Thunderball (if I recall correctly, the most successful Bond film at the box office once corrected for inflation), arrived in 1965. He had two years off before being lured back to Twice and then walked away only to return in 1971 with Diamonds.

Roger Moore appeared in his first two in the space of two years (ditto Tim Dalton) before a three-year gap allowed Spy to flourish in 1977. Thereafter, there was a Bond film every two years up to and including Dalton's farewell in 89.

Brosnan delivered one every two years from 1995 to 1999, and then there was a three-year hiatus until DAD. And the rest is recent history.

Given that EON will now have an enforced lay-off, I hope they take the time to select a top writer and a top director (Ridley Scott please!!!) to correct the mistakes of Quantum and give Daniel Craig a fitting finale.

Finale? That's right! Given the delay, he'll be too old for a fourth installment, so a new Bond will be needed - and I offer the obvious choice for the job: Michael Fassbender.

May v June v July

2010-04-19T12:25:00.002-07:00

Which is the bigger month for cinema-going? In the US, July probably nudges May, but June is a big loser every two years in Europe because of the European Cup and the World Cup tournaments, so distributors load their bases in the months either side - and this year is one of those occasions.

In the UK, May opens with Iron Man 2, looking to beat the $581.6m haul of the original two years ago. That gets a shot at a second week at number one before Robin Hood opens on 14 May. One week later Disney unleashes the new Pirates - The Prince Of Persia. And finally May concludes with SATC 2.

This year, June sees no major releases whatsoever...

July hits the ground running with a double whammy of Shrek 4 and the Cruise/Diaz vehicle Knight And Day, followed by the third part of the Twilight saga, and then Christopher Nolan's Inception (surely that will be this year's greatest headfuck). The final two weeks see the arrival of box office behemoth Toy Story 3 (will it have a shot at Avatar's records?), followed by the A-Team and the remake of the Karate Kid on the final Friday of the month.

I've put those that I want to see in bold...
Meanwhile, my 'to see' list to the end of May looks like this:
• The Ghost
• Cemetry Juction
• Whip It
• Erasing David
• Iron Man 2
• I Am Love
• Four Lions
• Centurion
• Dogtooth
• Robin Hood
• The Losers
• The Special Relationship

2010-04-19T12:25:00.001-07:00

The French love Disney

2010-04-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

The French, for all their justified concern about US culture destroying their own, love America: film noir, the films of Hitchcock, the songs of Bob Dylan - and they realised how great Clint Eastwood is long before the rest of the world did (one-third of Invictus's international box office came from France). They also love Walt Disney...

No, really. Last month's Screen International features a focus on France; this lists the top 20 most popular films of all time in France. Crucially, the measurement is admissions rather than box office take. First place is probably not that shocking, but check out the number of classic Disneys on the list.

1. Titanic (1998) - 20.6m
2. Welcome To The Sticks (2008) - 20.4m
3. Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At (1966) - 17.3m
4. Gone With The Wind (1950) - 16.7m
5. Once Upon A Time In The West (1969) - 14.9m
6. The Jungle Book (1968) - 14.7m
7. 101 Dalmations (1961) - 14.6m
8. Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra (2002) - 14.4m
9. The 10 Commandments (1958) - 14.2m
10. Avatar (2009) - 14.1m
11. Ben Hur (1960) - 13.9m
12. The Visitors (1993) - 13.7m
13. The Bridge Over The River Kwai (1957) - 13.5m
14. Cinderella (1950) - 13.2m
15. The Little World Of Do Camillo (1952) - 12.8m
16. The Arisocats (1971) - 12.6m
17. The Longest Day (1962) - 11.9m
18. The Sucker (1956) - 11.7m
19. Lady And The Tramp (1955) - 11.2m
20. Bambi (1947) - 10.7m

My favourite films

2010-03-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

I’m frequently asked to list my favourite films – and my standard answer is that the list changes according to my mood.

But broadly there are several movies I’m always in the mood for. In no particular order, the movies that will always make my top 10 list are:

The Shawshank Redemption: tremendous in so many ways – great direction, acting, dialogue, characters; almost unique in its study of true male friendships (sorry Shane Black, your Lethal Weapon buddy/buddy scripts don’t count); and a towering testament to the power of human will. And, of course, one of the rare examples of preview-screening-enforced changes making the film better. The final whispered line (“I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.”) followed by that beautiful pull back as we see the two heroes embrace leaves me a gibbering wreck every time.

Paths of Glory: one of two Stanley Kubrick movies that I cannot live without. This Marxist critique of war (the enemy is not the other side but your own top brass who are sending you to war) is timeless, highlighting not only the horrors of war, but also the horrors man is capable of. It tells the true story of French top brass ordering their artillery to shell their own troops after those troops failed to leave their trench and run headlong into German fire with little hope of success and none of surviving the ordeal; ultimately three men are selected to face a firing squad pour encourage les autres. Their captain is played with liberal zeal by Kirk Douglas, who delivers his best performance ever. The superb kangaroo jury courtroom scene was the inspiration for Blackadder’s court martial for the death of Speckled Jim. The recent remastered print makes this film more powerful than ever.

Dr Strangelove: the other Kubrick I can’t live without. Reasoning that nuclear apocalypse was just too serious to contemplate in a drama, Kubrick spun this holocaust warning as a black comedy – when you’re laughing, your guards are down and therefore you’re more likely to receive the movie’s message. The film is perhaps most famous for Peter Sellars’ performance, taking on three very different roles. It’s simply perfect.

Casablanca: an obvious choice maybe, but what are you gonna do? My love for this knows no bounds.

When Harry Met Sally: one of the best scripts ever written, unforgettably performed by its leading players. It’s even worked as a seduction movie for me!

Infernal Affairs: the HK police v triad thriller that was butchered by Scorsese when he remade it as the bloated, pointless Departed. The original showcases brain and brawn. It’s written and directed with clinical precision, but also allows all the key characters (cops and triad members alike) plenty of room to breathe. The two leads – Tony Leung and Andy Lau – are screen gods in Asia, and the film is certainly helped by their detailed and charismatic turns. A stone-cold classic.

Outlaw Josey Wales: the Clint movie that would have won a truckload of Oscars in the mid-70s, but for prominent critic Pauline Kael’s sustained campaign against it. Choc full of great lines and great character actors. An important pre-cursor to Unforgiven and Gran Torino.

Out of Sight: until Up In The Air, this was Clooney’s greatest performance, combining his trademark rogue-ish charm with an emotional honesty he so rarely reveals. Directed with intense style by Steven Soderbergh, and scored perfectly by David Holmes, this is a constant pleasure. The cast is so well cast, it hurts. And then there’s the chemistry between Clooney and Jennifer Lopez – surely one of the top five screen couples – with the sparks bursting forth from the screen.

There are plenty more of course: the first two Aliens; the first two Terminators; all my favourite comic book movies (there is nothing better than Wolverine going berserker when the X-Mansion is invaded in X-Men 2); Star Wars 4-6 (which of course counts as one movie); Indy 1-3 (again, one movie!); Lord of the Rings (although a trilogy, that’s one film too!); a whole slew of Hitchcock’s movies and his most accomplished modern acolyte, David Fincher; a fistful of Clints; Shyamalan’s first two efforts (Sixth Sense and Unbreakable); some recent European cinema (Downfall, The Lives Of Others, etc); Schindler’s and Ryan from Spielberg; Field of Dreams; the collected work of Pixar; and of course some Bonds…

But I must make special mention of Un Coeur En Hiver, a French film I saw on 29 May 1992 – and although a friend bought me the DVD as a birthday present a few years back, I have never seen it since. The emotional detachment of the lead character shocked many critics, but not me. At the time, Daniel Auteuil’s outlook probably matched my own, and the film resonated with me strongly. That resonance has diminished with time as I have grown, but the power the film exerted over me back then lingers on. That the film also introduced me to Emmanuelle Beart (proof, surely, that God exists) is also worthy of note!

And that would lead on to my favourite screen goddesses, but that’s another blog for another day.