Your Sister's Sister ****

Lynn Shelton’s new film about relationships, both sibling and romantic, is a very sweet and funny three-hander between the lovely Emily Blunt, the equally lovely but cynical and kind of spiky Rosemarie DeWitt, and the endearing emotional mess that is Mark Duplass.

Iris (Blunt) sends her best friend Jack (Duplass) to stay at her family’s remote cabin after an outburst at a memorial party shows he is still struggling to come to terms with his brother’s death a year on.  The idea is for him to cycle there, spend some time in solitude away from distractions, think about his life, and come back a slightly saner man.  When he arrives at the cabin however he finds Iris’s sister Hannah (DeWitt) there for a similar reason, having just split up from her girlfriend of seven years.   Tequila is drunk, lesbianism is temporarily rescinded, and they sleep together.  Iris shows up the next day, unaware of the drunken shenanigans, she reveals to her sister that she is secretly in love with Jack, and over the next few days their entwined relationships get a little knotty.

The strength of this film lies in the first rate performances from all three actors (aside from the first scene they are the only people in the film).  Blunt and DeWitt manage to pull off that complicated sisterly relationship, balancing closeness with a never acknowledged undermining of each other that anyone with siblings will recognise.  The awkwardness between Duplass and DeWitt is also completely convincing and never feels contrived.  All three characters are witty, and endearingly ‘damaged’, but the film manages never to stray into the self-absorption of bad hipster movie territory.

A great scene comes near the end of the film that subtly captures the tone of the whole.  Jack is trying to destroy his bike – he throws it to the ground repeatedly but it barely bends.  It’s simultaneously sad and funny because he’s trying to take his despair out on this bicycle, but his grand dramatic gesture falls flat.  It’s emotionally moving, about dealing with death, and life, but it’s low-key and funny and somehow realistic.  Not many people have a cabin in the beautiful wilderness that they can escape to when life gets too difficult, but everyone has had that moment of frustration when they’ve tried to smash a wall and all they’ve achieved is a throbbing toe.  

The Well Digger's Daughter ***

Daniel Auteuil, of Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources fame, makes his directorial debut in the rather gentle, rather old-fashioned, but really rather sweet The Well-Digger’s Daughter. Astrid Bergès-Frisbey (who you may recognise despite the lack of mermaid tail from Pirates of the Caribbean 4, but don’t hold that against her) is the daughter in question, Patricia, a beautiful 18 year old who was brought up in Paris and has a repressed yearning for the finer things in life. Her father (Auteuil) thinks that he will be able to keep his beloved daughter close if she marries his good-hearted workmate and friend Felipe. She however only has eyes for the rich general store owner’s son Jacques, who is in the Air Force. Faced with the choice between a middle-aged well digger and a dashing pilot with a motorbike it‘s hardly a tough decision.

Alas we are in pre-war France, and after Patricia succumbs to Jacques’ charms he is immediately sent to the front line. Jacques unknowingly leaves Patricia pregnant; her father is appalled that she has lost her honour, Jacques’ parents are appalled that he would get involved with a girl from a poor family, and some mild parent vs. child, honour vs. love drama ensues.

Its mild drama is reminiscent of Downton Abbey and Sunday tea-times, where there’s never really any risk of danger. Its nostalgic charms therefore won’t appeal to everyone. If the idea of a boy falling in love with a girl as he carries her over a river because there is no bridge and she can’t manage to untie her shoelaces just makes you want to throw the couple, or yourself, in a river, then perhaps avoid this one.

If however you’re not averse to a bit of sentimentality then there are some fine sun-drenched performances to enjoy here. Don’t be so grumpy - sugar‘s good for you every once in a while.

Original review here

Twelve for 2012: The Sequel

What do you do when the story's finished but there's more to say?  Wait an appropriate amount of time then make a sequel!  And if the thing you have to say happens to actually be incredibly similar to what you said in the first place, but with louder bangs, then all the better, right?
There are of course many good sequels that aren't just cynical ploys to make more money with no regard for Art (capital A Art, not just drawing and stuff).  Where would we be without The Godfather 2?  The Back to the Futures?  The Toy Stories?  This blog post?  Maybe there is Art in the following list.  Or quality at least.  Maybe.  Fast and Furious 5 ended up being one of Time Magazine's top films of 2011, after all, and who would have expected that this time last year?

Here's twelve sequels set to come out in 2012:

1. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance - February

Nicholas Cage returns as the excellently named Johnny Blaze in Ghost Rider 2.  He's a sort of flamey skeleton biker.  The first film had quite poor reviews, and and it's up against a lot of comic book superhero competition in 2012, as discussed in the last blog post.  But the trailer has lots of loud bangs, and that is what we the viewing public like, isn't it?

2. StreetDance 2 - March
StreetDance 3D was the first film in this franchise.  Who knows what will happen if they make another sequel.  StreetDance 33D?  StreetDance 3D2, featuring a breakdancing C3PO?

3. Wrath of the Titans - March

The first instalment was not exactly critically acclaimed.  But this one has Rosamund Pike looking utterly beautiful and waving a sword about, so must be better.

4. Scary Movie 5 - April (probably.  UK not yet confirmed)
Yes, this franchise is still going.  Now that is scary.

5. Men in Black III - May

It's got roman numerals or the cubed symbol instead of the number 3.  It's got Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords.  It's got something good to live up to with the original Men in Black.  It's got potential.  Men in Black II seems to have been wiped from my memory with the little MIB stick thing, which is possibly a good thing.

6. Ice Age: Continental Drift - July

Not the best animated films by any means, but you have to have a heart of stone not to be charmed by the trailer for the fourth Ice Age.

7. G.I. Joe: Retaliation - August
It's got Dwayne 'No Longer The Rock' Johnson in it.  That man makes a good action movie.

8. Step Up 4 - August
I wonder at what point they start stepping down.

9. The Expendables 2 - August
Apparently the script was too sweary for Chuck Norris so he's demanded it be toned down in order for it to get a PG13 rating in the US (so probably a 12A in the UK).  Good old fashioned violent fun for all the family.  Why not take your granny along, as she won't be offended by the language now.

10. Resident Evil: Retribution - September
Resident Evil 6.  It seems no one ever gets bored of girls and guns.

11. Taken 2 - October
To be involved in one kidnap, Mr Neeson, may be regarded as a misfortune.  To be involved in two looks like carelessness.

12. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted - October

Hmm, the Ice Age trailer is better.

I'll have to add an extra one since there are so many.  A sequel to the sequels, if you will.  OR, the thing that makes this Twelve for 2012: The Sequel have a louder bang, in that there are 13 things in my list rather than 12.  It's bigger, and therefore better.

13. Nativity 2: The Second Coming - December
The first Nativity film, with Martin Freeman, did not belong in the cinema.  As a Christmas special on TV it was quite charming (my mum thought it was hilarious), but I would really have resented paying to see it.  Is this what David Cameron has in mind when he talks about expanding the British film industry?

Big explosion finale.  No one will notice that we've used it already.

The Lion King 3D *****/*

The Lion King was one of the first films I saw at the cinema.  I loved it then, and I still love it now.  The Lion King 3D was to be the first 3D film I saw at the cinema.  I thought this lent the experience a pleasing unity (only if it had been Hook, my actual first film at the cinema, could it have been more perfect).  I hadn't really heard anything positive about 3D, which is why I hadn't been before, but you can't write something off without trying it first, can you?

So, along I skipped to the cinema.  I got my 3D glasses.  The oracle of the internet, yahoo!answers, had told me that it was fine to wear them over normal glasses.  This was not true - I had to hold them on so they didn't fall off my nose - but I could cope with that for the sake of an exciting enhanced Lion King experience.

But I did not get an exciting enhanced Lion King experience.  As the film opened on the scenes of the Serenghetti, accompanied by the glorious strains of Circle of Life, as the small children around me gasped with delight, I could only look around in confusion, peer over my multiple glasses to see the blurry screen, and realise with crushing disappointment that I am one of the 2-12% of the population who can't see 3D.

Algernon Charles Swinburne wrote:

If the golden-crested wren
Were a nightingale---why, then,
Something seen and heard of men
Might be half as sweet as when
Laughs a child of seven. 


Well Algernon that is all well and good, but when the child of seven is laughing and you can't see what they're pleased about it's not sweet.  It's just depressing, to be honest.  Stupid children.

I had to keep the ridiculous glasses on because otherwise I was just watching a blurry screen half the time.  So basically I watching a film in the dark whilst wearing sunglasses.  Only for a film as wonderful as The Lion King could I have stayed for the whole thing.

So I don't think I'll be going to see any more 3D films.  And I'll just have to hope that 3D isn't the future, and that it instead goes the way of those magic eye pictures that were so popular in the 90s that I couldn't see either.  What do you mean, look through the image?  Stupid magic eye seers.

I still love The Lion King though, and it was rather special to see it on the big screen again.  And yes I did still cry when Mufasa's big liony face appeared in the sky, even though his nose wasn't sticking out at me and I had too many pairs of glasses on.  Hakuna matata.

Melancholia ***

With Melancholia as a title, and Lars Von Trier as a director, it’s pretty clear that this isn’t going to be a light-hearted romp of a film. It’s an examination of depression and anxiety; it questions the existence of God, and whether there is any good in the world. And it also happens to be a disaster movie in which a massive planet called Melancholia is on its way to destroy the Earth. It is a relief that Bruce Willis isn’t in it really, otherwise would anyone even be able to tell the difference between this and Armageddon? 

The film is split into two parts, one for Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and the other for Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg). In part one, Justine sabotages her own wedding reception at the beautiful home of Claire and her husband (an excellent, and rather different from Jack Bauer, Kiefer Sutherland) in a self-destructive spiral into depression. The feeling of foreboding as the family bickers and we watch everything gradually unravel is superbly managed. In the second part, we see the sisters’ reactions to the looming disaster, as the planet Melancholia comes ever closer. Justine, whose own melancholia has already overcome her, accepts her fate calmly. Claire is terrified.

The strange thing was that I felt the tension of impending doom much more strongly in the ruined wedding day part than in the destruction of the earth part. By the end I just wanted the planet to hurry up and send everyone on their miserable way. The performances were all remarkable, but the difficulty with watching a film populated by emotionally detached people is that I became emotionally detached myself.

Artistically it is a beautiful film. The slow motion opening sequence is stunning, as Justine and Claire feature in a set of images illustrating their melancholia to come – Claire tries to walk but sinks into the ground; Justine floats down a river in her wedding dress; the planet Melancholia slowly travels towards Earth, all to Wagnerian accompaniment. These scenes were moving. However, two and a bit hours later I, like Justine, was looking forward to the release of eternal blackness. Though in my case it was the credits, rather than death, that I was yearning for.


Original review here

Warrior ***'

Warrior.  Grr.  It's manly.  It's tough.  It features a Tom Hardy so beefy his shoulders have shoulders.  But how will it fare in the ring against what is widely regarded (by me) as the best sports film ever made: Cool Runnings?  GO TO WAR!

Round 1: The Sport.  Bobsleigh vs Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)
Cool Runnings and Warrior are both about sport.  As sports films go, this is a good start.  But, even better, they are both about slightly obscure sport.  I don't care about football, or boxing, or baseball (apart from that one with Madonna.  And Field of Dreams, of course).  But bobsleigh - that's exciting.  It's a bit exotic and glamorous, in a lycra-clad sort of way.  And mixed martial arts?  That's even more exciting and mysterious.  Who's heard of mixed martial arts?  Oh, except for the fact that it is also known as cage fighting.  (I searched for cage fighting on wikipedia and got redirected to the MMA page, so it must be true).  And cage fighting makes me think of Alex Reid, ex-husband of Jordan, and it therefore rapidly loses its mysterious charm.

Round 1 to Cool Runnings.

Round 2: The Coach.  John Candy vs Nick Nolte
Every sports film worth its stripes needs a down and out coach who is offered a second chance at glory.  Cool Runnings has Irv Blitzer (John Candy), a disgraced former bobsledding gold medallist (this thought alone has to be worth extra points) who gets approached by the Jamaican bobsleigh team to coach them to victory at the Olympics.

Warrior has Paddy Conlon (Nick Nolte), a disgraced former fighting coach who is approached by his estranged son, beefy Tom Hardy, to train him up for Sparta, the big MMA competition.  He's also an alcoholic.  He's also also the father of the other fighter we care about as well.  Ooh, juicy.

I just can't call it between them.  Round 2 has to be a draw.

Round 3: We're Gonna Need a Montage

All present and correct in both films.

Round 3 is a draw.

Round 4: Unlikely success of the underdog
Cool Runnings has the Jamaican bobsleigh team.  I think that's all we need to know.

Warrior has beefy Tom Hardy's brother, Brendan.  He's a school teacher.  He doesn't belong here.  He's just in it for the money so his family don't lose their home.  How can he possibly make it through round 1?  Trouble is, we know from the trailer that he gets to the final, so that he and his brother can sort out all their family problems by punching each other to near-unconsciousness.  So when Brendan meets Russian man mountain Koba, who we are told he can't possibly beat, it's not that much of a surprise when he does.

And Cool Runnings has the Jamaican bobsleigh team.  Round 4 to Cool Runnings

Round 5: The Pep Talk


Cool Runnings: "I see pride.  I see power.  I see a bad ass mother who won't take no crap off nobody."

YES.  Inspirational.  I try to use it as my own personal mantra when I'm not so overwhelmed by doubt that I forget how to form words.

Warrior: "You can do this"

Oh.  Um.  Quiet determination has its place as well I suppose...

ROUND 5, AND VICTORY, TO COOL RUNNINGS (because an MMA title fight has five rounds, and we want to do this authentically don't we?  Otherwise what is the point of this slightly laboured fight metaphor?)

But a quick pep talk in the corner for Warrior, while it catches its breath and has some water and an orange segment.  In most sports films, we follow one competitor, root for them all the way, and hope that they will win in the final.  But in Warrior our sympathies are pretty evenly split between the two finalists, and it is much more interesting than the average sports film for it.  Yes, it's been bashed about a bit by Cool Runnings, but come on, it's held its own.  There's no shame in coming second to perfection.

Beautiful Lies (De vrais mensonges ) ***

If you’re looking for a bit of mindless escape for a couple of hours, you can do much worse than Beautiful Lies. You can probably do quite a lot better too, but in terms of undemanding, frothy rom-coms, this one doesn’t fare too badly.

Audrey Tautou plays Emilie, a salon owner, who receives an anonymous love letter. In order to cheer up her mother, who is still struggling to get over the breakdown of her marriage a couple of years ago, Emilie secretly forwards the letter on to her. The audience know, but Emilie does not, that the letter is from Jean, the salon handyman. Wacky circumstances result in Emilie eventually paying Jean to take out the mother, and love triangle ‘hilarity’ ensues.

Regarding said love triangle hilarity, I did have some issues with a mother and daughter being romantically involved with the same man, and at times the light hearted tone sat strangely with the manipulative actions of Emilie, but maybe this is just my uptight Englishness ruining the French fun.

There are plenty of laughs to be had, despite the reservations, and Audrey Tautou manages to bring charm to a pretty unsympathetic character. Saying that, I could probably watch her watch paint dry and find her delightful.

Go expecting Amelie and you will be sorely disappointed. This doesn’t have a fraction of the warmth and heart of that film. But if you seek amusing, beautiful-looking distraction, and perhaps inspiration for a holiday on the Cote d'Azur, then this will do the job. Don’t expect to remember it ten minutes after the end of the credits though.


Original review here

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 ****'

After ten years, and a staggering one thousand one hundred and seventy eight minutes worth of film, it all ends. Harry Potter climaxes with the exciting, scary, emotional, and ultimately very satisfying final instalment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. The long winded title is the only thing that drags. 

We pick up immediately where we left off in the last film, with Harry, Ron, and Hermione searching for horcruxes (the vessels in which Lord Voldemort has placed bits of his soul in order to evade death). If you haven’t seen the other films, this is absolutely not the place to start. I have read the books, and seen all the previous films, and I still felt slightly lost at the beginning. 

After the first ten or so minutes of calm there is barely time to catch breath, let alone to try and remember what happened in the last film. Details are perhaps unimportant, (is it possible to say that after over 19 hours of film?!) as everything so far has been leading up to the final battle between Harry and Voldemort; between good and evil. 

The battle scenes at the end are on a par with any you would find in a war film, as our three heroes run across the rubble of Hogwarts, passing both enemies and comrades falling, great balls of flame, and the odd club-wielding giant and enormous spider just to remind us that it’s the smell of magic, not napalm, that we love in the morning. 

Director David Yates has made a beautiful film, cinematographically. He may have made a children’s action film, but that does not mean that he didn’t bother artistically. At the very beginning there is a shot of Professor Snape (played by the mesmerisingly wonderful Alan Rickman) in silhouette in a doorway; it only lasts a few seconds, but I found it remarkably moving. It is simple things like this, as well as the jaw-dropping action sequences, that have made the Harry Potter films since Yates took over such a pleasure to watch. 

All things pass. Questionable child actors become pretty decent (though still completely overshadowed by the likes of Maggie Smith and Ralph Fiennes) grown up actors. Chubby Neville the loser from the early films becomes a Henry V style speech-delivering, sword-wielding champion. Ron becomes a romantic hero (though he is still the only one allowed to swear, it’s OK, he hasn’t changed that much). Everything ends. Even highly successful film franchises. I’m quite sad to see this one go though.


Original post here

Love Like Poison ****

We learn many lessons as we move from childhood to adulthood, about love, and sex, and guilt, and death. But we’ll come to that later. Another, perhaps less soaring, but nonetheless important, lesson we learn is: don’t judge a book by its cover - or a film by its title. Love Like Poison, about a 14 year old girl coming to terms with her parents’ break up and her own emerging sexuality in the lead up to her Confirmation, sounds a bit like it’s going to be a post-Twilight melodramatic angst-fest. It is not.

For one thing, it’s French. Forgive my wild generalisation and stereotyping, but the French are better at talking about sex than us. Here, 14 year old Anna’s nascent sexuality isn’t presented as something controversial or shocking, nor is it sentimentalised. There is no clear divide between childhood innocence and adult experience. The adults are just as confused as Anna is. Her mother is falling apart after the breakdown of her marriage; the priest who tries to offer support is struggling with his faith as a result of his feelings for Anna’s mother. The one thing I struggled with was Anna’s relationship with her dying grandfather. In one scene she is giving him a bed bath and he gets an erection. He tells her he feels handsome and she promptly runs off. There are a couple of scenes like this, and maybe it is done to purposely unsettle the audience. If this is the case then it hit the mark with me.

The film brilliantly captures the awkwardness and insecurity that are not solely confined to adolescence, and subtly weaves together the complexities of love, guilt, and religion, without ever being judgemental. A beautiful quiet mix of melancholy and hope. Much like life itself.


Original review here

The Lodger (1927) ****

My local cinema (the most excellent Phoenix Picturehouse) has an Alfred Hitchcock season this week.  This pleases me.  I like Alfred Hitchcock films.  I can tell someone that Alfred Hitchcock is one of my favourite directors, sound reasonably intelligent, and not be lying.  So having the opportunity to see The Lodger, Hitchcock's first film, was pretty exciting.  Plus it would give me a new talking point in the 'What do you know about Hitchcock?' conversation.  I have never had this conversation but, you know, it's always good to be ready, should the opportunity arise.

The film is loosely based on the Jack the Ripper killings, with Ivor Novello (who I'm sure will be rooting for MY KZ, UR BF to win Best Song Musically and Lyrically at this year's Ivors) playing the titular lodger who may or may not have a penchant for killing golden-haired girls.

It's really interesting to see hints of Hitchcock to come: interesting camera angles, bits with staircases... hmm I think maybe it's a good job I have never had the Hitchcock conversation.  I seem to have run out of things to say already.

The main thing that I will take from the experience is how very weird it is to sit in a cinema when there is no sound.  This wasn't just a silent film in the normal sense, with some tinkly piano accompaniment.  This was literally silent.  For 80 minutes.  I could hear the guy next to me breathing.  I could hear my stomach rumbling (in my defence it was a lunchtime showing).  I could hear my chair squeaking, and what was, I think, the cinema manager having a telephone conversation in the next room with a chap called Michael.

It's remarkable how much will power it required to sit in a silent darkened room for over an hour and keep my eyes open, even though I had huge respect for the moving pictures in front of me.  I don't know whether I should be ashamed to admit that, or whether in actual fact very few people would now watch a silent film for pure entertainment's sake, without thinking 'I'm a bit bored, but this is really good fodder for the "Have you seen any silent films?" conversation so I'll try and concentrate'.  (Obviously I haven't had this conversation either.  But I'm ready now.  Oh yes).  I'm really glad I saw The Lodger, of course.  But I'm even more glad that Hitchcock met Bernard Herrmann.

Source Code ****

Source Code is an extremely engaging, entertaining, and ultimately surprisingly moving sci-fi thriller. To try and write a summary of it, however, takes all the fun out of it. Breaking it into its constituent parts makes it sound preposterous: Jake Gyllenhaal wakes up on a train in another man’s body; his reflection is not his own. Eight minutes later the train explodes and he wakes up in a mysterious pod, where he learns that by the power of the American army and quantum physics he is going to live those same eight minutes over and over again until he finds the man that bombed his train, thereby rescuing Chicago from another bomb that will happen later that day. This all happens in about the first ten minutes of the film.

The remarkable thing is that - despite sounding like Speed meets Groundhog Day - none of the above seems ridiculous at the time. (Though Speedhog Day  is an amazing idea for a film, no?  And there's merchandise available already).  Duncan Jones directs Source Code with the lightest of touches, with a massive debt owed to master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock. The title sequence really reminded me of North by Northwest somehow, and the tension is wound as tightly as possible as we, along with Jake Gyllenhaal’s character, slowly unravel just what is going on.

This is much more than a genre movie, however. Yes, it's a sci-fi thriller - but, as with the very best sci-fi, it is so much more too. It is a philosophical exploration of the idea of fate, and about making choices; it’s a contemplation of what it truly means to be alive; and it’s a love story.

Source Code is sci-fi as Alfred Hitchcock would have made it - with a little bit of Keanu Reeves thrown in, just for fun.


PS. Tenuously linked pop quiz, hot shot: How great is the Speed trailer?*  

Initial review here.


*The answer is that the Speed trailer is very great.  Though it does basically show the entire film.

Killing By The Power of The Thigh: A Study

Once in a while, a film comes along and it stays with you long after the credits have rolled.  Gandhi.  Schindler's List.  That Al Gore film about climate change that I haven't seen but I'm sure is the kind of thing I'm talking about.

And once in a while, a scene in a film comes along that stays with you long after another scene has come, and then a couple more, and then the credits have rolled.  You think about it for days afterwards.  You wonder if other films have similar scenes, and if so you want to see them, and see them now.  For me, this was that scene:

(Sorry this clip of the profound and moving Lethal Weapon is a bit long.  I personally think it's worth it, but if you don't have a whole 3 minutes 40 seconds to waste, I've chopped it straight to the good bit here).

Maybe it's because it was made in the days when Mel Gibson was cool, before his, shall we say, 'difficulties' and 'other difficulties' with the police began.  Maybe it's because the clip gives us a good look at Gary Busey's remarkable teeth (here is a facebook page dedicated to them.  This discovery has brightened my day.  Even more than the reflection of the sun glinting off Gary's teeth undoubtedly would).  But as should be obvious, the real reason this clip is so amazing is because Mel Gibson nearly KILLS SOMEONE WITH HIS THIGHS.

Killing by the thigh.  A tactic I hope to use if I ever get beaten up in the rain.  I am tempted to start jiu jitsu lessons so that I can learn (this is never going to happen).  If you want some not very sexy thrills, search for scissor hold on youtube.  Shudder.

Scissor holds tend to be done by the ladies.  I can't imagine why.  A notable example is in Goldeneye, where Famke Janssen, playing Xenia Onatopp (hmm), attacks with her thighs rather a lot.  There's a bit too much heavy breathing for me to post a link to the obvious scenes without feeling like a pervert, but here is a clip near the end where she attempts some not quite so pornographic thigh killing, and Piers Brosnan gets to say something 'hilarious' at the end.

There are occasional examples of men killing women by the power of the thigh.  This one is from the classic film Anaconda:

There is so much to love in this.  Jon Voigt's excellent unidentifiable accent.  His words of wisdom.  His face. The majestic leap to thigh killing glory.  And the way he says 'baby bird' at the end, which very much makes me hope he was thinking of this during the squeezing.

The best film that I have discovered from my investigations however, is Double Impact starring Jean Claude Van Damme.  There is a scissor hold in it, but this becomes very dull news when you learn that he plays a set of twins separated at birth, and fights himself.  Killing by the power of the thigh is very exciting, but Jean Claude Van Damme fighting Jean Claude Van Damme?  Why can I not buy this on amazon?

The Tempest *'

The Tempest. Most of us know at least the basic story: Duke Prospero is usurped, he and his daughter get exiled from his kingdom and end up on an island; twelve years later he conjures a tempest and his enemies end up on the same island; revenge plots and personal growth ensue.

Shakespeare has been done a million times, so if there is a new film version it must be for a reason, right? They must be bringing something modern and exciting to it, right? If I were a film executive, what could I bring to a film of The Tempest that would fit in with the twenty-first century? Make Prospero a woman, Prospera. That will get us some press.

And what do the kids like? CGI! CGI is a gift to a director wanting to portray a character like Ariel, an androgynous spirit of the air. So, we’ll get the lovely Ben Whishaw, make him a little bit see through, give him some breasts for half of the film, and have him run about in the sky. And then, since that’s just a bit too subtle and we want to remind everybody how clever this computer imagery business is, when Prospera is doing her magic we’ll get some of the naffest looking graphics possible, and put Whishaw’s face on a frog, or create some dogs that are even less convincing than the awful monkeys from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and whoosh them out of the end of Prospera’s staff. And then we’ll chuck some songs in, because I don’t think the audience will have cringed enough yet.

There is some good: the Shakespeare bits, obviously. The speeches are delivered beautifully, as one would expect from the likes of Helen Mirren, Tom Conti, and Alfred Molina. Russell Brand does a good impression of Russell Brand. Miranda and Ferdinand are very pretty, though a bit wet. The costumes are pleasingly zippy…

When zippy costumes are one of the best things about a film, I think you know you’re not watching a classic. Our revels now are ended? Thank goodness. I think I’d rather have not gone to the party

Original review here

I Am Number Four trailers

There I was, minding my own business and watching something on channel4.com/4od -

-I must interrupt myself already.  If we are to get on, I fear I must be truthful, however shameful it might be.  If you trust me enough to read my blog, I should trust you enough to admit my secrets.  I was watching, and enjoying, How I Met Your Mother.  I'm sorry.  I quite like the undemanding Friends-but-with-added-mild-swearing-and-sexual-references vibe it's got going on.  But, back to it-

I was watching 4od, when two teaser trailers came on, back to back.  They were for the same film, but very cleverly edited to clearly appeal to two distinct audiences.  Something I imagine I wouldn't have noticed, had I not watched one straight after the other.  Surely that was not part of the marketing strategy?  Anyway, the film is I Am Number Four, but what is it about?

Trailer #1:

Wow, it's a boy's film, it's fire, it's fighting, it's samurai sword leg chopping, it's about walking away from explosions and escaping death.  It's high octane thrills, who even cares if there's a story anyway?  But wait...

Trailer #2:

It's the girl from Glee!  It's Adele in the background!  He's a mysterious hunk who can ride water skis and do back flips off waterfalls!  He reminds me of Edward Cullen from Twilight but oh, he doesn't have the twinkly skin, what a shame.  But he does have magical glowy hands!  Squeal!

So what have we learned?  I Am Number Four looks like flashy big budget nonsense with a hint of romance, so who will be able to resist?  Well, me, I expect.  But this is coming from a How I Met Your Mother fan, so who would respect my opinion anyway?

Doris (Valentine's) Day

Valentine's Day.  A day for eating heart-shaped chocolates.  A day for receiving flowers.  A day for being cooked a romantic feast by your loved one and drinking too much fizzy wine and singing I Got You Babe at each other.  (Oh Tim and Emily, you crazy American shiny-toothed fake laughing kids).  A day for returning to the blog and writing about Doris Day romantic comedies because, erm, not because I've got some spare time on my hands this evening.  No, I'm just more of a Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves fan when it comes to Cher.  Especially when she looks like this.  Crikey.

I've seen Lover Come Back, with Doris Day and Rock Hudson, and That Touch of Mink, with Doris and Cary Grant.  These are films very much of the 60s.  Some would say dated, I would say, well, yes, dated, but in a very heart-warming way.  In That Touch of Mink, Cary Grant wants to sleep with Doris Day, whilst she wants to marry him first.  That is basically the entire plot.  If it were made today, there is no way that Cary Grant's character could seem anything but sleazy, and Doris Day's would just seem prudish and slightly insane (she does want to marry him after about five minutes of knowing him.  Yes it is Cary Grant, inspiration of some rather excellent youtube tributes, but even so, this seems a bit hasty).  But somehow, both are completely charming.

Lover Come Back is also utterly ridiculous, and utterly lovely.  In this one Rock Hudson and Doris Day are both advertising executives, competing over an account.  There's a bit of mistaken identity, Rock Hudson being a loveable playboy, Doris Day being Doris Day, and some truly spectacular hats:

I love Doris Day.  I would always choose her over romantic meals like this.  (Unless my date looked like Cary Grant or Rock Hudson, in which case only a fool would say no to free cheese).

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

Of Gods and Men *****

Of Gods and Men opens in a monastery in Algeria in the 1990s, with a small group of French monks quietly and methodically going to prayer. Everything is symmetrical, orderly, and peaceful. They live in harmony with the Muslim villagers, selling honey at the market and running a medical centre. This harmony, however, is about to be broken. 

Their serene balance is disturbed by a group of violent fundamentalists, who are now looking for medical supplies as some of their members have been injured fighting. The head of the monastery stands up to them, but they know that they will be back. The monks must decide whether to stay, and almost certainly be killed, or to leave, and abandon the people who rely on them so much. When talking to the villagers one of the monks compares the brotherhood to birds on a branch, unsure whether or not they are about to fly away. A woman replies that the monks are actually the branch, and it is the villagers who are the birds. Without the monks they have nothing to stand on. 

The film, frankly, is remarkable. The power of emotion it inspires is something I have rarely experienced in the cinema. A particularly effecting scene occurs towards the end of the film, when the monks have their ‘Last Supper’. There is no dialogue, it is just a group of men eating, while Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake plays in the background. The camera pans round each of their faces, and we see every line, every flicker of fear, of happiness, and of faith, in themselves and in their God. 

This is not the kind of film to just pop to in order to while away a couple of hours. You feel every single one of its 122 minutes. Normally I would say that a film feeling long is a bad sign, but that is simply not the case here. The pace is slow, and the scenes are long, but it is somehow fitting that a film like this leaves time within it for contemplation. 

Of Gods and Men will stay with you for a long time after you leave the cinema. And you may take a while to leave. I had to sit until the end of the credits to gather myself, as did a lot of the audience. Astonishing, beautiful, captivating, devastating; I could go through the alphabet. But I won’t, don’t worry.


Original review here.


PS Just to clarify, I did not see this Of Gods and Men.  Though I'm sure the above review would apply to that, too.

My Afternoons with Margueritte ***

My Afternoons with Margueritte is not exactly a film full of high-octane thrills and spills.  But you can probably tell that from the poster: Gerard Depardieu and an old lady sit on a bench, feeding the pigeons.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that the poster is a plot spoiler - sitting on a bench feeding the pigeons probably takes up a good half of the film.  

Depardieu plays Germain, a lovable loser.  He lives in a trailer in his mother’s garden.  He has friends in the village, but they all laugh at him and think he is stupid.  Then he meets Margueritte, an intelligent, highly literate woman in her 90s, and she reads to him, and thus unlocks the door to knowledge, and enlightenment, and self-respect, and respect from others, and all those other clichés that we get from this ‘gosh, isn’t reading good?’ kind of film.

But, despite it winning no prizes for originality, My Afternoons with Margueritte is actually very sweet and touching.  The relationships between Germain and the women in his life - his scary mother who has never shown him any love, his ridiculously pretty, young, vivacious girlfriend (sorry to be shallow but, really?  French women don’t like dungarees, do they?), and of course Margueritte - are all very sensitively and movingly conveyed.  

This is very much Sunday afternoon cinema.  Themes of ageing, of mother/son relationships, of different kinds of love, are covered at a very gentle pace, but it never fails to be charming.  Oh, apart from at the very end where an awful saccharine poem is read over the end credits.  I would advise you to leave before that bit, as the sugar content may send you over the edge.  You’ll get horribly hyperactive on the way home.

[Original review here]

The Social Network ****

How did a man with decidedly ropey social skills manage to create the biggest social website in the world?  So asks The Social Network.  Well, sort of.  The question is there in amongst an examination of ideas (as in: at what stage does an idea become something more concrete, that can be owned and thus monetised, rather than ‘an examination of ideas’ being my impressively vague description of the film)…  I seem to have lost my train of thought.  This is the challenge of being part of the facebook generation - I don’t even have the attention span for music videos.  3 minutes?  No, no, far too long.  I can’t manage to concentrate for the length of a sentence.

I did actually manage to concentrate for the whole of The Social Network, thanks to Aaron Sorkin’s clever script in which everyone is engaging, but no-one comes across especially favourably, and David Fincher’s masterly direction.  His manipulation of depth of field speaks volumes: in scenes of conversation Mark Zuckerberg is often the only object on screen in focus, subtly but pointedly conveying, if not exactly his self-interest, his obvious lack of interest in what anyone else has to say.

This is a remarkable story, remarkably well told.

A couple of points of interest: 

-It has what I consider to be one of the most realistic nightclub scene ever seen on screen.  I really liked the fact I had to strain my ears to hear the conversation over the music.

-The Winklevoss twins are played by the same person, by way of computer wizardry (much like the other technical term, 'computer trickery', but even more cleverer).  I saw the film before I knew this, and didn’t notice at all.  Things have changed since Hayley Mills in The Parent Trap.  Now that’s a good film.  I wonder if Hayley Mills has a facebook page… What was I writing about…?

Back to the Future *****

It's back to the cinema for Back to the Future, to celebrate its 25th anniversary.  I wasn't sure seeing it on the big screen could make me love it any more, but I was wrong!  The collective groan of pleasure when The Power of Love kicked in, as Marty skateboarded holding on to the back of a car, was possibly one of the best moments of my cinema going life.  Perfection.

A Town Called Panic ***'

Don’t judge a book by its cover?  And don’t judge a film by its milk advert.  A new personal code I intend to live by.  I find this advert quite unbelievably annoying, but 70 minutes of a basically identical premise is somehow extremely funny.

It’s Horse’s birthday, and Cowboy and Indian have forgotten to buy him a present.  They decide to build him a barbecue, but don’t have enough bricks so buy some off the internet.  But, zut alors, they accidentally buy 50 million bricks instead of 50.  This leads to a manic adventure taking in the centre of the earth, the North Pole, and the depths of the ocean, with barely time to breathe.

Watching A Town Called Panic feels a bit like watching Postman Pat, or Pingu, on speed.  By the end I was exhausted.  The animation is delightfully crap, and hides what was undoubtedly an enormous amount of hard work.  It’s not quite Adam and Joe Show levels of charming unsophistication, but it doesn’t feel far off.  (Yes, I know that reference is about ten years out of date now, and isn’t really relevant anyway, but I wanted to link this clip in somehow, just because it makes me laugh).

If you like your comedy clever and highbrow, then this film is not really for you.  If, however, you want to escape in silliness for an hour, with the main thought running through your head being ‘this is actually insane’, then I highly recommend.

I would have given this four stars, but took off half because I think you have to be in a very specific mood to enjoy this, otherwise funny could too easily become being-repeatedly-bashed-over-the-head irritating.