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La bête (2023)
Three interesting films blended into one boring one
This is the first time that I 've found myself wondering "What on earth is going on???" not once but several times during a movie. For the life of me, I cannot understand those critics who give it a 5* rating. Admittedly I'm not one to drool over 146 minutes of Lea Seydoux's snub-nosed beauty and found her bland presence difficult to enjoy. And if George Mackay recovers from this serious misstep on his cinematic cv, then he has an agent worth his weight in gold.
I have not seen any of Bonello's previous films, so have come into this film cold. I did note the celebrated type of director that he is associated with - Nolan, Lynch, Cronenberg and Scott to name the most quoted - but the lack of one quality definitely sets him apart from them and that is "lack of coherence". I'm all for a film needing to demand a degree of forbearance from the audience but for the audience to know the importance of dates and events shown by the film - a flooded Paris, a California menaced by earthquakes and a serial misogynist killer (that in particular could result in a lot of misplaced guesswork !!) and then to cap it with a projection into the future where the only striking feature is a night-black mud bath that is used in the process of "cleansing the body totally of it's DNA characteristics", it really is asking a lot.
Maybe the film has value as a warning of how uncontrolled A. I. might cause humanity to become mindless drones but then the "masters of the universe "of Silicon Valley have more than got us halfway there. So perhaps Kubrick's "2001" and Gilliam's "Brazil" are more relevant cinematic touchstones here. As for checking whether Henry James's "The Beast in the Jungle" has relevance here, that's not for me. I'd rather spend a day watching paint dry.
Saltburn (2023)
Derivative and a tremendous waste of acting talents.
It is a mistake to only compare this film with "The Talented Mr Ripley", when the obvious source is "Kind Hearts and Coronets" starring Dennis Price and a tour-de-force from that acting genius, Alec Guinness. Murdering your way to the top of an aristocratic family in the way that Emerald Fennell has constructed it, is very twenty-first century because of the ending but it does not make snese. And that is the problem for me. The reviewing of previous events from a different perspective implies a cynicism and motive that does not fit the main character. So when it is presented, astute members of the audience are not going to view it as a twist but are more likely to think "Hang on a minute, what about when....???" So whose fault is that? Scriptwriter and director are the immediate culprits and here they are the one and only Emerald Fennell. Her Oscar for the "Promising Young Woman" may have been justified. I don't think she's going to get anything for this one unless the "Razzies" are stuck for choice.
Just a note about Barry Keoghan and his performance . I wish I was a fly on the wall when his agent convinced him to a) be stark-naked and pretend to "screw" through the freshly-dug grave of a main character to highlight his obssession with said character and b) pretend to lick the porcelain floor of the bath where that obssession has just masturbated, ("Saw" franchise please take note, if you want to push the boundaries of revulsion, check if Fennell is doing anything). As for Keoghan's agent.praise indeed because he must be the model for "Entourage's" Ari Gold !!
Cocaine Bear (2023)
The spirit of Roger Corman and Joe Dante lives on in Elizabeth Banks !!
If your Saturday night trip to the movies with your loved or "soon-to-be-loved one" and you enjoy popcorn and Pepsi, rather than caviar and champagne, then this the perfect film to clutch one another to.
There are shocks, laughs, gore, blood-letting galore, cute baby bears, a seriously anti-human bear, lots of cocaine, father-son conflict, single mum sexual frustration, wise-ass, know-all kids, Margot Martindale having fun and last, but not least, that late, great scene-stealer, Ray Liotta, showing that he will leave a gap in the Hollywood firmament that will be hard to fill.
Rarely in recent months has a film title so concisely captured a film concept. A budget-conscious producer might have reined in the spending on CGI effects but there are enough close-ups of the bloodied, slobbering jaws and drugged-crazed eyes of the title creature for you to believe in the effects of cocaine on an ursine psyche and forget that the ensuing mayhem is taking place on the other side of the silver screen.
So read the "1/10" and "0" reviews if you must but, if you want something to watch and file away under "guilty pleasure", give this a go and prepare yourself for the sequel - "Cocaine Shark !!!!!".
Women Talking (2022)
Women Talking... women talking... women talking...women talking...zzzzz
At the end, my first reaction was what a waste of talent both in front of and behind the camera and on the paper that the dialogue was written on.
I was hoping that this would be a fresh take on the subject of women as victims of male violence, particularly as a form of Western religious belief that was as close to the disciplinarian, misogynistic, strictness of Islam was the background (what a film that would have made for the level of controversy it would have provoked !!!). But no, that did not happen and another opportunity to say something relevant to life today was squandered.
Instead, we have two-dimensional, textbook examples of women-types that have been around since Eve offered the apple. And for good measure, everyone's favourite. LGBTIQ+ cipher, the ubiquitous Ben Wishaw appearing as "Everyman" (!!!!!).
It is hard to believe that the male elders of even such a strict, religious sect would, knowingly, allow such a heinous level of violence to be perpetrated on the "breeding" element of their sect, which could inflict physical damage on the next generation of believers. If it is based on an actual incident, why no relevant, cinematic epilogue? Is Polley too focussed on the anti-male view to allow any scope for rebuttal ? Maybe that is a sign of the times ?
Cow (2021)
Triumph for the non-meat eaters.
This is a biased film. Unlike most films with a shock ending that are meant to be a realistic portrayal of a person/animal/event, this film does not give us the why behind it and it's consequences. So you wonder at the actions of the farmer/owner of the cow, After all Luma(the cow) is a decent milk and calf producer and it is a nonsense to have him kill her for NO reason. But Arnold just shows us the dead body and that's it !? I would have liked to know the "why" and the"what happens next?" Is this the start of the cow's journey to end up as a Sunday joint?
There's no doubt a dairy cow's life is hard but it isn't a pet, in spite of what the tender-hearted think, it is a commodity. Watch the French film "Petit Paysan" and see what could happen if a farmer can't make hard decisions. Combine the two together and you see that being a dairy farmer is an expensive,pragmatic and sometimes brutal, business. Unfortunately, humanity wants milk and plant-based substitutes are a costly alternative that cannot be afforded by a majority of it.
So what does Arnold do - highlights that this cow's life is set against the background of modernity-I wondered at the inclusion of so MANY shots of passenger jets flying overhead. And what better way to gain emotional support for the cow than by so MANY lingering shots looking deep into its soulful eyes that try to make the viewer ascribe human emotions to the cow when it is probably thinking "Isn't it meal time yet??" or "I wish that bull would stop messing about so I could get some sleep !!" if it is thinking at all.
Less emotion and more realism when you do your next film Arnold, - rumoured to be "Pig". Let's see if it improves on "Prime Cut" !!
Petite maman (2021)
72 minutes
Is it because it is in French with subtitles?
Is it because Sciamma had some film left over from "Portrait of a Lady on Fire"?
Is it because she is a fashion designer who photographs well in publicity shots?
Is it because ,as a female film director, it shows that you don't have to be Bergman to do "arthouse"?
Is it because this film was made during the Covid pandemic that the paying audience should applaud it's creation?
If the film's ensuing celebrity is down to any of the above then , as a viewer, you've every right to feel short-changed. Personally, I don't think it will stand the test of time as a film about children dealing with adult themes as such memorable works like "Our Mother's House", "La Guerre des Boutons", "Whistle Down The Wind" and "The Devil's Backbone. For me it did not work either as a magical fairy tale or contemporary ghost story. Having bits of both genres does not make a satisfying whole. Or maybe it's because I prefer what Kathryn Bigelow or Patty Jenkins can do with the medium. I don't think I'll be in the queue for Sciamma's take on "Sgt Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos".
Tenet (2020)
Good director, rubbish writer - Christopher Nolan, the complete package.
Two and a half hours that I will never recover. It is good to know that Nolan keeps the Stuntman Guild going, as his action scenes show a man to whom CGI is a last resort rather than a first. But what does it all mean ????
Before he joins the pantheon of legendary action film directors of Ford and Hawks and their modern-day heir-apparents - McTiernan, Hill, Mendes, McQuarrie, Miller and Wheatley - he is going to have to give up his function as a writer to someone who can write a comprehensible story with succinct dialogue and also hire a sound engineer to whom the word "clarity" actually has meaning.
Whatever you do, don't give this film a second viewing in the hope of gaining a better understanding of it. It will just inflate the box office figures and give Nolan a reputation as a "big" filmmaker that he simply does not deserve. The biggest conundrum about him is that Hollywood still throws big money at him to make films.
After the first half hour I gave up trying to make sense of the plot - a better example of "gobbledygook" in modern cinema I've yet to find. Tell a lie, "Inception" runs it a close second. There are spies, a threat of global destruction, a damsel in distress, that tired cliché of a Russian oligarch villain, some action sequences where you can see the join between "heart-stopping" location shooting and "green screen" safety and a finale where something needs to be switched off before the clock reaches "0:00" and lots of body-armoured extras shooting at one another, where you can't tell the good guys from the bad.
And it's loud !!! Not something down to the cinema's sound system as I was assured by my local's management. There is a genuine thrilling sequence in the middle of the film that involves BIG trucks that is on a par with the stunt work in "Mad Max: Fury Road" but your mind has been thoroughly boggled by that time and afterwards the wait for the end is interminable.
Let's hope that Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli resist any temptation to hire him to make a "Bond". If "Tenet" was a calling card, I'm sure they would rip it up !!
The Assistant (2019)
Not what it says on the tin, or in this case the trailer.
Right off the bat, let me say I'm one of those Silver Age retirees who has done his bit , in my case in the world of retailing, and now is able to luxuriate in having the time to "DO WHAT I WANT AND WHENEVER I WANT TO DO IT". Filling time is my main objective in life, so when I saw the trailer for this film, I thought that I might be seeing an "up-to-date" version of "The Conversation", a fondly-remembered classic film of paranoia from 1974.
Not so - and all the better for it. It makes such a change to see a film that treats the intelligence of its' audience with respect and does not use excessive noise, on-screen graphics, cast members breaking the "fourth wall" and talking directly to the audience and all the other devices directors use who treat their audience as a bunch of dimwits.
Thankfully, Kitty Green knows how to use silence to make painful points and she has found a superb conduit in Julia Garner's face and body language to show how damaging it is for a young person with ambitious dreams to take that first step on the employment ladder.
Much has been made of the film's setting in the "film" business and that the main character is female - associations with the "Weinstein business" have been bandied about by various reviewers - but there are anecdotes out there that this toxicity is out there in other industries - retailing, advertising, "media", - and affects males as well. Predators are not exclusively male. I think it is a sad reflection on our society that the young are so viscerally exploited, even to the extent of not paying them and selling them the dubious notion that they are "gaining experience at a significant cost to the company" when, in fact, the truth is a "dogsbody" is needed for the menial tasks and paying them would impact the bottom line.
Garner plays one of these "exploited" brilliantly. She is well-educated but accepts that to get her "dream" job she has to start at the bottom.The only time when her ambition breaks through the carapace she has had to adopt in order to deal with the banality of her job is when she is asked by the HR Manager, where she wants to be in" 5,10 years time" and you can see the light still burning in her eyes. What a performance - here is a star in the making.
I've not given the film a 10* simply because I was not convinced by her decision-making in the section dealing with her meeting with the HR manager played by Matthew Macfadyen. Some critics have said that his performance is indicative of a "turn a blind eye" to a situation where a sexual predator is lining up their next victim and Human Resources does nothing about it. I am sure that many representatives of that profession would respond that the episode perfectly encapsulates the difficulties they face when having to deal with accusations where the accuser cannot offer substance to the allegations they are making. Personally, I thought that Garner's character was exhibiting a preemptive strike against a rival for her role in the office who was taken on because of her "innocence" and "attractiveness",(or,possibly, Kitty Green holds a grudge against the people of Boysie, Idaho).Maybe this is the first example of her putting into practice what working there has taught her.
And if there is an award out there for the best "voice" performance of the year, then that should go to, reportedly, Jay O. Saunders, because he manages to imbue the off-screen presence of "The Boss" with such menace that it is no surprise that "fear" is the management skill in action here, not "constructive criticism".
Little Joe (2019)
Watch the trailer - it's cheaper than watching the movie and a lot better!!
And the trailer was soooo promising !!! The colour palette was so different and I was looking forward to this critically,star-making turn by Emily Beecham. Thought-provoking sci-fi films so thin on the ground these days. Ended up crushed by disappointment. Does Hausner think that the current movie audience has never seen "Little Shop of Horrors","Invasion of the Body Snatchers (any version)","Village of the Damned (any version)","Day of the Triffids(any version)". Pushing it as an arthouse movie will not hide how derivative it is. Saw it at HOME,Manchester with a reasonably wide ranging age group (no teens and under though) - lots of laughter indicates even as arthouse sci-fi the film fails miserably.
The acting is robotic and shows a lack of control from Hausner. What a waste of Ben Wishaw, Kerry Fox and the great Lindsey Duncan. I do hope that Beecham gets better roles. She might have won Best Actress at Cannes in 2019 but that says more about that jury than it does about her acting skills. It says something when the best performance is by a plant!! I'm surprised that the script got past the read-through stage.
Who thought that the music - sorry, soundscape,- made up of a mixture of Kabuki music and the "playing" of primitive instruments would add to the tone of the movie? Must be because Teiji Ito is a friend of the producers and was at a loose end and didn't need to be paid.If he did get paid, I await his next project with true dread !!
In the end we've got a 105 minute-long Kenzo "Flower" advert with an irritating soundtrack and laughable dialogue. In their shoes,I'd be looking for compensation for the damage it will do to their brand !!
Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020)
Leave real-life at the door and just go with the flow !!
This film just goes to show that Gotham City is one helluva' town. What a great start to a potential franchise !! Action-packed,full of crazy stunt work,as colourful as the comic book pages that these characters have sprung from - this is the crazy movie that should have been the flip side to Wonder Woman. Margot Robbie,the producer,shows she has the chops once more to put together a crowd-pleaser. Margot Robbie,the actress, shows yet another side to her talents - she's done serious, now she can do comic edginess. Could she ever play a comedy role? Her timing here and the way she breaks through the fourth wall implies that that step is not too far away.
As for the director/writer team of Cathy Yan and Christina Hodgson,Yan shows that for a second film she is a capable director of action and Hodson shows that she is well-tuned into the fantastical DC universe - her work on "Bumblebee" showed she could bring to life cartoon characters into a modern setting.
As for the cast, Robbie is good,Smollett surprisingly so, Winstead's part is a little underwritten for an actress of her pedigree,Cass is an interesting newcomer with an ability to hold her own amidst her elders,Perez can do little with a stereotype role of a capable female detective disdained by her male colleagues. It is the villains that are the let down here. If Messina's Victor Zsasz had been the main villain and McGregor's Sionis his sidekick, then the balance between the goodies and the baddies would have been a bit more horizontal. As it is, the audience doesn't get the truly psychotic showdown that the film is gasping for. Still, if there is a next film, then, maybe, Robbie, the producer,will address this and the film will get 9* from me.
One last thing, I'm assuming that Weta Digital was responsible for creating the Hyena. If not,and he/she is for real, then Robbie needs to sign he/she up right now !!!
Gisaengchung (2019)
Why the adulation?
To beat Scorsese,Mendes,Tarantino and Philips AND to beat The Irishman,Once upon a time...,1917, et al - I really was expecting this to be something special. I saw it with an afternoon audience who were mostly in their "twilight" years and the majority of comments at the end expressed puzzlement that this was the best picture of 2019. Lack of laughter during the performance implied that the film missed its' mark as a comedy. Perhaps its' role as a satirical social commentary of the gulf between the poor and the rich in South Korea might have been hitting targets but surely that would only be appreciated by a minority audience.
Personally, I felt that Ho had been given a box set of Ealing comedies made by the likes of Alexander Mackendrick, Charles Crichton, Robert Hamer and Henry Cornelius and simply transferred the tone to a South Korean environment. Of course the influence of Hollywood's "wild man", Quentin Tarantino,had to appear in order to appeal to a modern audience and of course it is there in the second half. I can only imagine that nowadays, the voters at Cannes and the Academy are made up of people too young to remember films such as "Kind Hearts and Coronets","Whisky Galore","The Lavender Hill Mob" and "Hue and Cry". Otherwise they would have realised that what is being exhibited is not "new" and different but is a retread of old classics.
I've watched ho's "The Host" and "Snowpiercer" and can't help but feel that he has potential but is not the maestro some,usually sensible, film critics claim. For one thing he needs to tighten up the pace of his storylines and keep to a central theme without going off at a tangent. There is also a whiff of patronisation here which implies that everyone in the "industry" were surprised that a South Korean could come up with a global hit. The moneymen are surely thinking that this is not a breakout hit for Ho but a breakin hit into a lucrative South East Asian market. Would it be the same hit if it had not been awarded "Best Picture"? I doubt it very much.
The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019)
Iannucci,"the Master of Political Correctness Gone Mad" strikes !!
One of the constant ongoing mysteries of modern cinema is how Armando Iannucci manages to attract top quality actors to appear in his rubbish films and television programmes. I have to admit straight away that I was never a fan of the profanities of "The Thick of It",fell asleep during "The Death of Stalin" and am an ardent fan of the works of Dickens. So I was never going to give Iannucci an easy ride on his "take" of "David Copperfield" but surely I cannot be the only one to see this film and think it ma travesty of the original source.
"David Copperfield" was never meant to be a funny book. It was meant to be a clear depiction of life amongst the lower classes during the time that Dickens wrote. The characters were not caricatures but real people. Iannucci has come along and divided the characters quite clearly on racial lines - the bad and the mad are white and the good are not. Spurious justification that "this was how it really was" is laughable.
Do not go and see this film if like Dickens. Do not go and see this film if you are expecting a comedy. Do go and see this film if you are a blinkered supporter of "political correctness at ll costs". You'll be the only ones in the cinema laughing.
A Hidden Life (2019)
What happened to the Terence Malick who made "Badlands" and "Days of Heaven"?
Malick's latest takes 173 minutes to tell a 90 minute story. With sledgehammer tactics he tells the story of an Austrian farmer who refused to give an oath of allegiance to Hitler during the Second World War and the consequences of the act of principle.
It looks brilliant and you can easily believe the farming life lead by the two main characters and the conflict caused by the farmer's stand not just between him and his wife but also against the community around him who,pragmatically,adopt Nazism in order to get on with their lives.
But the over-use of the "fish-eye" lens and the excessive mobile camerawork really makes the camera a character in the storytelling and that really is distracting. And the constant voiceovers depicting conversations between husband and wife when the one is incarcerated and the other is truly lumbered with trying to run a hill farm with rapidly diminishing livestock and three young girls chosen for their unchanging, angelic, good looks and not their ability to help the mother in the most trying of circumstances.
The film purports to tell a true story. What I found amazing was that husband and wife could exchange letters with exceptional regularity given that they were in a most brutal war and secondly, that the Nazis are here depicted as a tolerant bunch who allowed this "good" man to last as long as he did without "disappearing".
Oh, and in the final section you might need to have a smattering of German as someone forgot to add subtitles in the key trial scene.
Joker (2019)
THE Joker and more !!!
Joaquin Phoenix is a shoe-in for Best Actor at next year's Oscars unless Daniel Day Lewis comes out of retirement and does something truly extraordinary. This film will bridge the gap between comic book geeks and serious cineastes because of his performance and the direction of Todd Philips. Never has Gotham looked so exhausted as it does here. No surprise that it is Joker's breeding ground. Helpless and hopeless, no wonder that he turns against the "haves".
The Joker has proved an iconic role. Just as we talk about Olivier's Henry V or Karloff's Monster or Chaney's Lenny, in the future we will be looking at Phoenix and saying "yes,it's his defining role". His speech, his body shape, his eyes - all come together to chill you to the bone. Yet there is poignancy there and inevitability and anarchy. The best film of 2019 with nothing to beat it unless Abrams pulls something out of the hat with "The Rise of Skywalker".
The Informer (2019)
Good,tight,old-fashioned thriller.
Great, absorbing thriller with good guys, bad guys and guys somewhere in the middle. Sicario 2 was the last one that I enjoyed as much as this. It was like reading an Elmore Leonard story but without the humour. I understand that the UK did a good job of standing in for New York. What a surprise because it did feel like the Big Apple. I liked the flow of the film. You did not always follow what was going on - I'm still not sure of the role played by the drugs in the tulips - but the scenes did not linger. The film was a little open-ended. If the make The Informer 2, I would buy a ticket for it.
Summer of Rockets (2019)
Once more BBC conned out of shed loads of money by Poliakoff.
When will the BBC learn to not indulge Poliakoff in his fantasies. Actors of quality make the most of dialogue of sub-Coward quality in a 6-hour production that,at best, creates a Mr Bean adventure as if it written by Ian Fleming.
Serious money has been thrown at this supposed recreation of life in London in the late 1950s tacked onto some serious delusions about his family being tied up with the spying game. It feels like Poliakoff has asked Wikipedia what happened in 1958 and then picked the juiciest bits and stuck them together in the presentation to the bods at the BBC, who saw a host of potential awards and then gave him a blank cheque .
I always seem to fall for the flannel that accompanies one of his "works" as the public relations drive to advertise it can be major. But now I have come to realise that there is a direct link between the size of the advertising campaign and the size of the "turkey" created. With "Summer of Rockets", there was not a big enough oven.
Fleabag (2016)
Why on earth has a second series of this comedy(????) been commissioned?!?!?!
From reading the reviews I can see that this series really does divide its audience. Up front I'll say that I did not like it at all. Admittedly I'm a 65-year old man who was interested in a character that was being touted by the BBC as an icon for the young, modern,woman,who has a granddaughter of a similar age to Fleabag and was seeking an insight into what she might be facing in this modern world of ours.
Surely,I can't be the only one who thinks that this self-absorbed,predatory,sex-obsessed,foul-mouthed,deluded,backstabbing,kleptomaniac cannot possibly be that icon. Any woman with a modicum of intelligence, feminist or not, would run a mile from associating with such a person.
As for the men in the show, from blood relatives to the casual flings, these all come out of any script-writing schools' "Male Stereotypes 1.01". Bill Paterson, what on earth are you doing in this trainwreck !!!!
Surprisingly the only character I admired was "Godmother", played by Olivia Coleman. Initially I thought that here was a quality actress following in the footsteps of Sir Laurence Olivier in his later years - remember "The Betsy" anyone?-, slumming it just for the pay cheque. But the steel she gradually revealed through the first five episodes that came out, full force, in the final episode, showed that her role was desperately needed to provide someone as a counterpoint to Fleabag. This was a character who was focussed in what she wanted and how she was going to get it and,quite frankly,never was charm used as such a scary weapon of war. You might not like her but you definitely had to respect her. Just imagine what she would be like as Margo Channing...
I would dearly love to know what sort of viewing figures this show got on the digital BBC3 to a)warrant a second commission and b) get a transfer to the BBC1 main channel. If this is what passes for comedy nowadays, I'm going to go back to watching my "Fawlty Towers" DVD.
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
What a load of tosh
Less than a week into the new year and we have a prime candidate already for the worst film of the year. Inarritu has shown that his view of creating a production for the theatre is so hackneyed it is a rival for Mel Brook's "The Producers" but without the laughs. Here, as the director, he is self-indulgently showing off his abilities to the audience - watch me use time-lapse photography instead of cutting to move the time of the action along; see how I have learnt how to move my actors around the set from my regular viewing of the"live" episodes of "Coronation Street"; aren't I clever in the way I track my camera from the outside of a building into the inside via a balustrade and a window; what about the way I position my camera within the confines of a dressing room so that you don't see it recording what's going on inside - all this trickery highlights his inability tell a story in a way that involves the audience. I was looking forward to seeing Michael Keaton show his acting chops in a role that he was born to play - washed-up TV star trying to make a comeback into celebrity and the acting game in general but flirting with madness whilst trying to do so but his "Birdman" alter-ego kept getting in the way at the behest of his director. But his was not the only talent that was wasted. The rest of the cast were similarly handed caricature-driven roles that they could do nothing new with - Edward Norton playing a "prima donna"actor brought in to bolster the box- office appeal of the play and who has his own ideas on how to play his role; Naomi Watts playing an actress given her first role in a Broadway show and being crippled by nervousness to the extent that she is sick prior to the opening night performance; Andrea Riseborough as Keaton's new girlfriend possibly impregnated by him and not sure how to deal with this; Zach Galifianikis as the producer only worried about the money and the show's success; Emma Stone as Keaton's ex-drug addict daughter trying to keep Keaton and herself stable as Keaton goes off the rails - is there anything new here? I don't think so. The only reason I give this film one star is because of a short scene between Keaton as actor and Lindsay Duncan as Broadway theatre critic were she attacks him as a Hollywood invader of the "High Art" of Broadway and he attacks her for just being a labeller of theatrical types. This scene happens towards the end of the film and sadly comes too late to save it from its crassness. What a film it would have been if this had been the theme running through it. "The Sweet Smell of Success", "Topsy-Turvy" and even "The Producers" need not worry about their reputations for examining the theatre and the folk that work within and outside it. They are classics. This film is decidedly not.
12 Years a Slave (2013)
Best Film Ever.....Hmmmm.
I'm always sceptical of films which arrive on my local multiplex screen with a massive reputation for quality. Is it orchestrated by the film's marketing department in order to get bums on seats? After all we are talking masters in the field of media manipulation, aren't we? So cautiously I approached this film. Having watched "The Railway Man" earlier in the week, I was prepared for another "hard watch". What I was not expecting was to be put through an emotional mangle that left me pretending I had something stuck in my eye that need a good few minutes of "tearing up" before I could leave the cinema - and I was not the only man doing this. I have never had it brought home to me so forcefully what the concept of slavery in the USA of the 1850's was about. How white folk treated black folk as chattel was an ethereal idea for me often coloured by films such as "Gone with the Wind". Steve McQueen's film confronted you with the brutality of it by showing you the viewer what it entailed unflinchingly. To do this he has gathered a technical team and a group of actors and committed them to being at the top of their game in order to show the cinema-going world what slavery is, so that the next time you see a newspaper headline that talks of "human trafficking" you are aware that slavery has not completely gone away and still needs to be stamped out and its' perpetrators brought to summary justice. What would a modern equivalent be? Emily Watson criminally drugged up on a night out and then enduring a "taming" process in order to end up in a middle-eastern harem. Fanciful thinking? There are too many stories in the press of girls from Eastern Europe and China enduring this shameful activity for you to realise that slavery has not gone away.
But what about the film and the performances in it? I always thought of Chiwetel Ejiofar as the jobbing black actor with the unpronounceable name whose portfolio of performances made him hard to pigeon-hole but here I think I have seen an actor make full use of his natural equipment i.e. body, speech and, most tellingly, eyes, to create a performance that has seared itself into my memory. His is a complex portrayal of a man wrenched from the comfort of his environment and forced to see and endure man's inhumanity to man. How he shows us what it means to be changed from a "man" to a "thing" deserves all the accolades he gets. As for the rest of the cast, it would have been easy to make them into "types" - the "good" slave-owner, the "evil" slave-owner, the "evil" slave-owner's wife, the beautiful slave-girl, the brutal overseer etc.. McQueen certainly does not do that here. With John Ridley, he has given the actors a chance to invest themselves into making a "living" document that really made me feel as if I was there. We all know that Cumberbatch, Dano, Fassbender, Giamatti and Paulson are pros and have added another excellent role to their respective c.v.s. The major discovery here is Lupita Nyong'o. We see her initially dancing in a free-spirited way that obviously attracts the lust of her owner and the hatred of the owner's wife and then we see her being broken. You would have to be made of stone not to shed tears at seeing the way this is done. Her "Patsey" will live long in anyone's memory and if justice were to be done then her performance will receive the highest awards. Watch out for her - she is a star.
As for the technical team, John Ridley wrote the right words, Sean Babbit is getting ready to step into the shoes of Sven Nykvist, Joe Walker's editing helped to make the unwatchable watchable and finally talking about the totally unexpected, Hans Zimmer, yes, HANS ZIMMER, wrote the music. So "Best Film Ever" - no. But sooo close... Now when I watch the "slap" scene in the film "In the Heat of the Night" I will truly understand what was going on and why it was such a shock. Thank you for that Mr McQueen.
Only God Forgives (2013)
Slow, Slow, Quick, Quick,Slow
Who would have thought that this year there could be a worse film than Springbreakers and yet here it is. I had not seen "Drive" or any other films on which Refn's reputation rests so came to this film cold. Within ten minutes I was trying hard to resist the temptation to yawn. Within twenty, that urge was becoming a need to leave the cinema, like several others who had lost patience with the film,in the hope that I might get a chance to catch something more worthwhile of my entrance fee at the multiplex. What's wrong with this film - where to start? Everything leads to Refn. Slow,sorry,snail pace, stomach-turning violence, impenetrable red colour palate of the cinematography, deafening "modern" soundtrack, criminal mis-direction of quality actors - all come down to him. It is his poor use of the actors that I find most problematic. Ryan Gosling has proved his acting talent - "Blue Valentine" is an exceptional tour de force - and here he is a blank. If that is intended then it is down to Refn. The fact that the film comes alive whenever Kristin Scott Thomas is on screen must be down to her ability to rise above the banality of Refn's direction. I kept thinking of the similarity of Refn's current career to that of Michael Cimino and hope that this is not his "Heaven's Gate". For those people who want to see a proper "existential" film noir, catch Walter Hill's "The Driver". It can be done.
Stuck in Love (2012)
A family of writers with "life and love" problems etc..
Fed up with the blockbusters that have swamped my local multiplex, I was looking for something a bit more serious and thoughtful and decided to give this a go. Not knowing much about its history I was struggling initially with the concept of a family of writers - father, teenage son and daughter in her late teens/early twenties - who were successful enough to own a fabulous house on a secluded seashore. Then there was the hackneyed plot device of father being a writer with writer's block caused by his wife leaving him and marrying a gym club owner and him stalking her to see if the new marriage was successful or not - couple of comic moments there that made me smile - but I was still going to give it a chance. Then there was the teenage son, a disciple of Stephen King, wanting to write stories of a similar nature but lacking experience of the world which his father advises him to go out and get. This involves a "damaged" fellow student who is, of course, stunningly attractive. Then there's the daughter, who can't be more than 20/22 who has just had a book published, which turns out to be the second book that she has written. As you might have guessed I was straining to hold in my disbelief. I won't describe any further characters or events because you the viewer will say that you've seen this in other films. And that's the problem with this film. The characters and situations have been seen before in countless films and the question to ask is does this film do this any differently? But in spite of this I found myself warming to the film and wanting things to turn out right for everyone. You get to be my age - 60 this year - and you hope that there is still room for this type of film to be made, where skyscrapers are not toppled by alien invaders, where mythic warriors fight do not fight dragons etc... I admired the writing and directorial talent of Josh Boone and the acting skills of both established actors like Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Connelly, who are never less than excellent and a new generation of actors - take a bow, Lily Collins, Nat Wolff, Logan Lerman and Liana Liberato - whose future careers you hope will develop the talent they show here. A special word for the cinematographer, Tim Orr, who gives a subtle washed out tone to the film that underscores the troubled waters that the characters are trying to navigate. All in all a satisfying way to spend a couple of hours at what my generation called "the movies".
The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)
Derek Cianfrance- the heir to John Sayles.
I'd heard so much about this film that I was fully prepared for crushing disappointment. I'd watched "Blue Valentine" and wondered if Derek Cianfrance was a one-shot wonder. So the film started and would it be 140 minutes of missed opportunities. First shot, Ryan Gosling's perfect "abs". Soon after Eva Mendes's nipples completely unfettered - where was this film going? And yet... I'd recently watched John Sayles's "Lone Star" and was struck by many themes that they had in common - sins of the fathers having an impact on the sons, doing the "right thing" even when under pressure. This was a similar picture of small town life that was not as doom-laden as the stories of Cornell Woolrich or Jim Thompson. Unlike other films that I had viewed that purported to show a slice of real Americana - the rubbish "Spring Breakers" still brings on nightmares - these people were just simply trying to play the hand Fate had dealt them the best they could.
140 minutes just flashed by. The story enfolded me and did not let me go until the credits came up. I have despaired that texture, coherence and storytelling skills are absent from the current crop of American filmmakers but Derek Cianfrance as director and co-writer is to be treasured and nurtured. His actor-management skills are superb and bring out the best in his players the way Mike Leigh does with his. Not only that, his control of the photography and choice of music shows a talent that is beginning to hit its stride. All the actors contribute as an ensemble. The headliners - Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper and Eva Mendes - show that their talent continues to grow. Rose Byrne in an all-too-brief appearance plays an effective supporting role. Even the old warhorses Harris Yulin, Ray Liotta and Bruce Greenwood show what skillful actors they are during their fleeting time on screen. And as someone to watch for the future, watch out for Dane DeHaan - a young man with major potential. Choice of music is important throughout the film. Check out the scene where Gosling watches his son being baptised in church. I was not the only one shedding a tear in the audience. Finally, major credit to all the members of the makeup department. The talent it took to thoroughly de-glamourise a hot babe like Mendes - it is Oscar-worthy !!
Trance (2013)
Ace Film
Two films to see, a tossed coin came down tails and "Spring Breakers" was the choice. The gods definitely hated me - how on earth did this terrible film get financial backing???? Then got a chance to see Trance.So refreshing to see a film that made its audience think. Danny Boyle has not quite topped his opening Olympic Ceremony but if Brazil needs someone to make the World Cup memorable then this Radcliffe-lad is the MAN!!!. Trance twists and turns like a constipated rattlesnake. Is it as great as Memento? Not quite but the imagery is startling, the music is wonderful and the performances - who thought Jaime McEvoy could play such a role, Rosario Dawson the next Linda Fiorentino? and Vincent Cassel gets better and better - were brilliant. I wish my flipped coin had come down heads.