It's a bizarrely complex week this year with a massive 14 new non-fiction narrative releases not to mention the re-release of Vincenti Minelli's excellent inside Hollywood expose The Bad and the Beautiful and the highly praised Bob Marley documentary from Oscar winner Kevin MacDonald which is getting most film of the week recommendations. This platoon of cinematic offerings oddly doesn't have a clear front runner in either terms of critical reception or box office clout, in the former case there's plenty of decent looking pictures that seem utterly watchable but nothing looks like a must see art-house selection. I'm going to see (Yes, for the first time in 5 weeks) an adaptation of a satirical novel that appears to have lost it's edge in translation, but I'm skewing European in the weekly recommendation and am going for Austrian coming of age movie Breathing as the Runs like a Gay film of the week.
Box office wise I have no idea which film to back, so whilst I consider the options lets have a look back at last weekend. I claim no pride in having correctly guessed the rise of Battleship, with a £2m lead against it's nearest rivals. I expect Peter Berg's board-game adaptation will continue to lead the box office charts, but the battle for the top new release will be between Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and Lockout. My £8 is going to the former so I suspect that the romance between Ewan MacGregor and Emily Blunt will just about win out.
Breathing
Just about sticking it's head out in front of the pack is this Austrian picture (side note Austria seems to be having a mini filmic renaissance as this is the second RLAGFOTW from the central European nation this year) directed by Counterfeiters star Karl Markovics and starring Thomas Schubert as a child offender readjusting to life outside, his new job as an undertaker and the guilt and responsibility he still feels.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●●○○○○○
Read on for frank sexuality, fly casting and a misleading named revenge thriller, as well as the round-up of all of this weeks releases and their trailers.
Elegant slow-paced trailer there that appears to encapsulate the feel of Markovics' debut.
Elles
Juliette Binoche is the magazine journalist working for French 'Elle' assigned to investigate the rise of middle class working girls (Elles) using the oldest profession to fund their University education. The article, and the close relationship founded with one of her subjects, awakens long repressed sapphic desires. Note even the trailer doesn't hold back in the imagery.
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Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
Paul Torday's epistolic novel is part political satire - a watered down Iannucci - and part treatise on the power of faith. This big screen adaptation with heavyweight Brit cast list including Ewan MacGregor, Emily Blunt and Kristin Scott Thomas appears to focus on the love story angle, but I'm still drawn by the unique premise.
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Skoonheid
The breakout picture at this years London LGBT film festival is this South African expose of Afrikaaner brutality in Apartheid with Roeline Daneel struggling with internalised homophobia and becoming obsessed with the son of a family friend. The title translates into Beauty.
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Fury
Called The Samaritan in the States I expect the name change is in part to capitalise on the publicity for Samuel L. Jackson's little know Nick Fury character who you may know appears in a tiny independent fil coming out next weekend. Tom Wilkinson also stars as the mark in this twisty turner grifter flick.
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Hollywoo
I'm not sure if this French trailer looks funny or not, mainly because it isn't subtitled and the release is so limited I can't be bothered to find a better version, but the concept of a dubbing artist trying to meet the "A"-lister she provides a French voice for is quite a cute premise and Jemel Debbouze has been good value in the past.
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Lockout
Guy Pearce takes the wisecracking anti-hero role in this thriller inspired by an original idea from Luc Besson or maybe hundreds of B-movies to which it obviously holds a debt, films like Escape from New York, with the key concept of a one man mission to rescue the President's daughter from a high security prison. In space. Some shonky special effects in the trailer though.
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Vicky Donor
Somewhat odd looking Bollywood comedy about a serial sperm donor and his later attempts to romance. I expect the hundreds of children he's fathered on behalf of others complicate matters but not so much to spoil the chance of a happy ending.
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11-11-11
Darren Lynn Bouseman's (of the Saw films) cheap looking horror stumbled into US multiplexes (just 17 of them) last November and barely managed $30k, here in the UK without the benefit of the appropriate release date and with only a single showing it's not going to do even close to those paltry figures.
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Divide
I've watched the first few seconds of this apocalyptic thriller several times and I have to say I'm a touch confused but apparently you can outrun an nuclear blast. Obviously the survivors will then turn on each other and the living will envy the dead. It's all derivative crap with allegedly Michael Biehn's best ever performance.
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Gone
More psycho killers in this US thriller starring Amanda Seyfried in her attempts to prove she can open a film as an escaped kidnappee convinced her sister has also been abducted in order to be horribly murdered. Lots of screaming, untrusting cops and running around in creepily lit woods at night. P.S. she can't this grossed only $9m in the States in January.
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Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy
I had thought this latest adaptation of Irvine Welsh's Scottish drug scene came out last year to unenthusiastic reviews but no. It's come out this year to equally unimpressed ratings. The problem being that however much work is put into a project like this it's always going to suffer from comparisons to Danny Boyle's Trainspotting. Still it's good to see former Hobbit Billy Boyd is still employable.
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Transit
What a difference 8 years makes. Do you remember when Jim Caviezel defied all expectations and box office prognostications with The Passion of the Christ but now it's all virtaully direct to video thrillers like this nonsense involving a security truck heist, mixed bags and marital tensions coming to the fore. Mind you at least his career is going better than Mel Gibson.
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Elfie Hopkins
And finally the worst looking movie since last months Act of Valor is this British comic horror staring Jaime Winstone as the sleuthing titular teenager who discovers her neighbours are cannibals. Daddy Ray cameos as the local gun toting butcher.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●○○○○○○○○○
Showing posts with label Tom Wilkinson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tom Wilkinson. Show all posts
Saturday, 21 April 2012
In, two, three, out, two three (Out this week - 20/04/12)
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
2011. Dir: John Madden. Starring: Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel, Tom Wilkinson and Maggie Smith. ●●●○○
I can highly recommend watching the trailer for John Madden's The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, it's a delightful piece of advertising with a distinctive palette, easily definable characters and the odd laugh out loud line delivery. Unfortunately I cannot recommend the movie as a whole which somehow drags that trailer over two hours without further developing the characters, providing tension or even giving the audience many more laughs.
In the pre-credits sequences we are introduced to the great and good of British acting talent through a series of short vignettes designed to develop an understanding of back-story and hint at the personalities. There's everything from Judi Dench as the resilient widow to Tom Wilkinson's down-to-earth judge stopping off at Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton as a bickering pair of retirees choosing how to spend their later years with reduced incomes. One by one they are seduced by the tempting offer of the best exotic marigold hotel, a palce converted into a residential home for senior citizens looking for adventure and not quite requiring care.
As our dysfunctional septet make their journey to Jaipur, mixing for the first time on the plane out you rather hope their stories will intertwine, however oddly right until the end it feels like separate tales. Even as one pair find a common cause whilst another share the beginnings of an illicit romance there's never a feeling of cohesion within the group. Each day the characters go off alone to face or hide away from the world, each night they return to the culinary challenges placed on them by the hotel's love starved owner Dev Patel.
This literary convention of presenting a collection of characters all of whom must have an arc in which to travel probably works very well in Deborah Moggach's novel but I find it irritating beyond belief. In two hours it's simply too much to ask from an audience to make them care about so many personalities, so their storylines either feel irrelevant or hopelessly shortened. It's not helped by most of cast who seem content to take the money and run. Judi Dench reprises her "As Time Goes By" performance only with less one liners, whilst Tom Wilkinson reveals a secret he's kept hidden, tearing away at his soul for over 30 years, with all the gravitas of someone admitting to eating marmite with a spoon.
Maggie Smith does the best she can with an underwritten role, effectively playing a threatened working class racist bigot at the beginning and a entrepreneur with purpose at the end; it's not her fault that the scene where she undergo's her transformation makes no sense. Does she really embrace Indian culture just because an untouchable lets her rant about her life in service? By the way how old is she?
Only Celia Imrie as a glamorous granny looking for husband number 4 and Dev's over the tops pride inject any life into the film, and the scene they share just past the halfway mark is a moment of delightful farce. And no, I'm not going to tell you what happens, other than it involves a chain of misunderstanding starting with the wrong people getting in bed together.
I suppose one of the reasons that scene shines is because there were laughs to be had that hadn't already been shown in the trailer. Make no mistakes this isn't a comedy, it's a series of life lessons with comedic elements, and I rather believe that amping up the comedy may have helped the film. There were moments in the trailer that made me chortle out loud, but stretched out across the running time it felt awfully thin, just the odd joke at the expense of the more extreme characters surrounded by the self-satisfied blog posts of Judi's silver surfer. When she tapped out "With so many old people together it was inevitable one of us would die..." I nearly screamed at the screen in disgust. The average age of the 7 actors is barely 65 and none of them - bar Maggie Smith and her plot developing broken hip - look remotely like age is slowing them down, even the character that does die simply slips away during an afternoon slumber once their storyline has been resolved. It's nothing like the pain and torment and inherent boredom most of us will experience in old age.
There's not even much given to the Indian actors either. Sure Patel along with his girlfriend and mother, played by Tena Desae and Lillete Dubey respectively, have a soap opera level storyline along the lines of following your heart over tradition and family expectations, but aside from them no other Indian gets a look in. There's even two moments when Dench and Wilkinson refer to long conversations they have had independently with a husband and wife whose connection to the group has rocked their relationship to it's core, yet all we hear is a precis from the mouths of our middle class heroes.
All this sounds like I'm ragging on the film, but to be honest I did like it when I was watching. It was nice, the location work was fabulous, as Wilkinson says in the trailer "[I see the] light, colours, smiles. All life is here.", and he's right India is stunning, if nothing else this is a brilliant tourist video for the sub-continent.
I can't say I recommend it. But if you're seeing it for free don't say no. And do try out the trailer.
Thursday, 6 October 2011
The Debt
2010. Dir: John Madden. Starring: Helen Mirren, Jessica Chastain, Sam Worthington, Martin Csokas and Tom Wilkinson. ●●●○○
Who would have thought I would spend a weekend watching two incredibly diverse films but find that both of them have deep parallels to another film I saw earlier in the year. In the case of The Debt thematically it couldn't be further from it's predecessor but if I say one of the similarities is rising star Jessica Chastain then you'll know I'm subconsciously drawn to Tree of Life, but the similarities don't end with the casting because as with Malick's free-associated meanderings there is a great movie hidden within a silly one. Only in the case of John Madden's latest it's centre is much less great and the wrapping infinitely sillier.
The film see-saws between a modern day (or mid 90's at least) Israel and 1960's East Berlin, between a trio of retired Mossad agents (Mirren, Wilkinson and Ciaran Hinds) reminiscing and basking in the glory their younger selves (Chastain, Csokas and Worthington respectively) earned kidnapping the notorious Surgeon of Buckenwald, a nazi war criminal who comes across as a amalgamation of Eichmann and Josef Mengele (as played by Gregory Peck).
The Berlin scenes are very well handled, throwing us back to muscular espionage thrillers of the past, with cut wires and stolen cars each part of the plan to smuggle Vogel (Jesper Christiansen) and his captors across the border seems so precise in it's planning that the failure of the original mission and the days the three spend, cramped together enduring the verbal onslaught of their captured socio-path, more observant and insidious than the agents could have imagined. Chastain proves her mettle as an actress here, utterly captivating as the naive but steely Rachel, watch her haunted expression outside her gynaecological visits to Vogel and you can see why her star has risen so quickly.
There are some interesting plot developments in this section, Csokas ebbing of humanity Worthington's survivors guilt and the love triangle that develops between them even identifying the conflicted soul of Vogel but alas these all lead to nothing much as the film seems anxious to return to the present. Even the second act twist, the debt of the title came as an anticlimax as we'd virtually heard the details in Mirren and Wilkinson's meaty encounters.
You see after the mission Chastain and Csokas marry and have a child who later writes a book about their exploits, keeping them in the public eye long after they should have slipped into footnote lore, so when the threat of the extent of the mission failure looks set to go public they must take action to hide the truth. Between unnecessary dialogue and Mirren prancing around like a female, sexagenarian Bourne the plot disappears into a mess of it's own making so by the time the credits role instead of the indelible image of Chastain holding back her tears you've got old people wrestling. It's undignified.
Madden is as pedestrian a director as always, able to hold a scene but adding nothing that isn't in Matthew Vaugh, Jane Goldman and Peter Straughn's script.
It's probably worth waiting to see this one on TV, and even then I'd probably change channels about 15 minutes before the end. Might be worth chasing down the Israeli original Ha-Hov though.
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
The Conspirator
2010. Dir: Robert Redford. Starring: James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Evan Rachel Wood, Danny Huston and Tom Wilkinson. ●●○○○
The trouble with watching films that posit a political statement that you support is that whislt the euphoria of a high quality finished article is heightened so to is abject disappointment of poorly made movie making. Sadly The Conspirator falls squarely in the later camp, for it's liberal pleading for social justice and the rule of law the inadequacies of the movie itself somewhat negate the impact of the message.
The film opens, utterly pointlessly, on the field of battle - or at least the aftermath due to budgetary constraints - with James McAvoy's serious Lt. Frederick Aitken trying to keep the horribly injured Justin Long alive by telling him an inappropriate joke. Fortunately we never hear the end as medics arrive first to cart off McAvoy but he persuades them to tend to his friend first. I suppose the point of the scene is to introduce McAvoy's self-sacrificing nature and to reinforce the bravery of the man, even to highlight his stubborness. It pretty much fails on all counts as personally I never felt McAvoy's life was in danger, as horrific as his injury may appear there's little sense of sacrifice in the scene.
This scene is important though as those qualities are repeated and reflected in McAvoy's journey through the rest of the film, and it feels equally false in context of the legal battle to save Robin Wright's Mary Surratt the mother of the Lincoln assassination support team that got away. Yes, McAvoy loses membership of his officers club, his haughty girlfriend (Alexis Bledel) and finds his sholastic legal reputation tarnished but none of that seems like a great loss and he friends seem to be prepared to stick by him at all costs. Part of this issue is McAvoy - he seems uncomforatble in the role and fails to convince as a patriotic and torn soldier forced to defend a woman he clearly imagines as guilty.
The vast majority of the running time is given over to McAvoy's defence of the case, from the early days as a paralegal to Tom Wilkinson's Southern born senator (who knows he cannot win the case due to the perception of his loyalties during the civil war and eventually manouvres McAvoy into taking the case alone) to the final summation of the case where McAvoy rails against the clearly biased military court procedure with no jury organised and orchestrated by prosecution counsellor Danny Huston - tiptoeing malevavently around the court like an oiled spider.
Robin Wright gives a great performance as the proud Southern matriach, unapologetic for her thoughts and beliefs and stubbornly refusing to save her victimisation (the film unequivocably indicates her likely innocence) by selling out her absentee son. Stoical, even in the shadows of the gallows, Wright is able to bring layers to the character that simply aren't there in the script a tilt of the head or a flicker of cheeks making up for the lack of anything for her to do. Equally under-represented with the screenplay is Evan Rachel Wood as her daughter Anna, although she too tries her best dodging the over obvious symbolism in the set decoration.
Whenever we leave those two ladies the pace of the film suffers though, McAvoy's priviledged circle pontificate self-righteously but come across as boorish or irrelevant. Robert Redford, directing James D. Solomon's script, seems unable to coax any sense of reality form the supporting cast of Army officers and Kevin Kline's bespectacled Edwin Stanton, gleefully pushing over the rule of law in order to give the public the sense of retribution they desire is given no sense of character depth.
Redford has yet to make an interesting movie, essentially the best of his films have been well staged insightful scripts, and that workmanlike style is shown up in all it's inadequate slendour given the meandering, preachy script.
And remember this review is from someone who wanted to like the film. I would argue for the fundamental rights of habeous corpus for all. The continued injustice of Guantanamo Bay (and you could argue the foreign policies of extraordinary rendition, military tribunal and indefinate incarceration without charge are the real subjects of this film) is a cancer in the US constition, it blights the best intentions of the early signatories and the principles of justice must be applied to even those accused of the most heinous crimes. So just imagine what the the backers and apologists of the war on terror will make of this film.
We on the left deserve so much better.
Wednesday, 19 January 2011
The Green Hornet
2011. Dir: Michel Gondry. Starring: Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Cameron Diaz, Christoph Waltz and Tom Wilkinson. ●●●○○
Is the lure of a large budget just too much for some of cinemas most idiosyncratic directors? Do these often visionary and talented helmers think they will be the one to tame the studio system and allow their ideas shine? How else can you explain Michel Gondry signing for The Green Hornet, the latest in a long line of comic book style superheroes brought to the big screen? Gondry's done what he could with the material, but it's still a mishmash of styles and themes with an inescapable feeling the writers, director and producer all had different ideas of what the final product should be like.
The hornet started life as a radio series in the 1930's, moved into theatres as a supporting serial for a while before finding it's ideal location in 1960's TV where it is mostly remembered for introducing the world to Bruce Lee as the enigmatic chauffeur/martial arts expert Kato. On it's way to the screen this version of the story has had as many amendments and personnel changes with directors, stars and villains bailing at every opportunity.
Britt Reid (Seth Rogen, looking almost sexy now he's lost a bit of weight) is the lounging Lothario son of media mogul Tom Wilkinson with whom there is a complex father-son relationship. No sooner than can you say expositionary scenes Wilkinson is lying dead on the veranda and Rogen most take over the family business. Through a chucklesome and clever drunken prank Rogen and Jay Chou (playing Kato) end up being identified (largely by his glamorous secretary Cameron Diaz) as a pair of small time gangsters with the ultimate aim of muscling in on Christoph Waltz's criminal empire.
As the whole appears to be three different films tacked together I'm going to try and break this review into those separate slices:
The Script by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg is in the same vein by the work they've done together in the past on Superbad and Pineapple Express with it's fair share of homoeroticism and un-PC banter between the fighting duo. The one-upmanship and petty jealousies that form the backbone of their relationship make perfect sense in respect to their respective childhoods and the nature of their employer/employee background. Unfortunately the further away from this bond the less competent the writing, Diaz's Lenore Case is little more than a receptacle for T&A comments and her comic potential is utterly wasted and characters like Edward James Olmos's sub editor and David Harbour's DA are simply there to advance the plot.
The Direction by Gondry is recognisable, with delightful touches like Kato time, the garage kissing and the moment where Rogen works it all out that recall the practical effects and quirky style we've come to see from him. The opening scene also nicely sets up the different ways Rogen and Wilkinson view the world and wholey explains what will happen later in the movie. On the other hand we're not in the Gallic helmer comfort zone, some of the fight scenes are frantic and poorly lit with key mobsters just disappearing in the dark - I'm still not sure what the final fate of Waltz's Chudnofsky. There is also a strange disconnect between scenes, with rarely a flow from one section to another - you could easily walk out to get a coke and come back and not need to know what happened in between.
The Studio probably bear the biggest brunt for the failures of the film, so far we have a flawed but fun action flick with adequate central performances from Rogen, Chou and Waltz (reprising his Inglorious Basterds schtick but with more self doubt) and then it's gets spoiled with a shoddy and unnecessary 3D conversion which has the bizarre consequence of making the special effects look cheaper. When flaming lumps of building are coming towards you they oddly look less real than when they're not.
Overall I would say this is one third a good film, one third OK and one third unforgivable. Watch it for the first two, and enjoy the good parts.
Sunday, 16 January 2011
20 for 2011: 13 - The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
The retirement home beckons with The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel at 13.
Sensing a gap in the market Dr Ravi Kapoor, a South London casualty consultant, enlists his cousin Sonny (played by Dev Patel) to open a Mumbai based Old People home for his more complicated patients. When those patients include Maggie Smith (picture with Dev above), Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson and Bill Nighy you just know there'll be sparks flying and some serious fish out of water gags.
It's going to be tough to balance the tone for this, is it a comedy or will we mainly be learning lessons about the fragility of life? If I were to guess which of the films in the top 20 is most likely to be delayed until 2012 I would probably choose this one. Sorry.
Friday, 29 October 2010
What is Family (Out this week - 29/10/10)
Soft release week with only 6 new titles hitting screens over the weekend, and oddly only two (maybe three) are horror movies even though Hallowe'en is upon us. I fully expect one of the scarier options to take the box office champ status but the film of the week has to be Lisa Cholodenko's modern family drama The Kids are All Right.
Burke and Hare
In spite of having a stellar cast of British comedic talent, led by Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis and Tom Wilkinson, John Landis' horror comedy about the eponymous serial killers suppling the medical trade with cadavers looks awfully short on laughs.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●○○○○○○○
The Hunter
Iranian cinema continues with it's mini renaissance with this revenge drama set against the Tehran riots of 2009. When a devoted father (and part-time hunter) loses his wife and daughter in a gun battle he turns against all police in a quest for vengeance.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●○○○○○○○
Involuntary
Swedish hyperlink drama which involves drunk teens on a night out, firework lighting pensioners and a coach driver who refuses to leave a layby until someone admits to damaging the upholstery. Bizarre and mesmerising - not sure what it is leading up to.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●○○○○○○○
The Kids are All Right
Somewhat ambiguous title (all right, not alright) indicates what sort of family drama about the children of a lesbian couple (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) who contact their sperm donating father (Mark Ruffalo). Superb performances all round and almost certain t pick up some acting nominations come Oscar time.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●●●●○○○
Saw VII 3D
And the Saw series continues with Jigsaw creating ever more bizarre methods for killing not quite innocent civilians. I still haven't watched any of these but I'm giving this a 4 blob rating as it promises to be the last.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●○○○○○○
Spiderhole
Brit horror that takes the old cliche of teenagers breaking into an abandoned house only to find a malevolent presence inside. Noe of the cast appear even slightly likeable so the killer is welcome to them.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●○○○○○○○○
And in the excitement of last week I missed the following three films - none of which come close to challenging the film of the week.
Cehennam 3D
Turkey gets an early entry in the 3D horror sub-genre with this gorefest. Probably a little less scary than most Turkish comedies.
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Hisss
Jennifer Lynch (daughter of David) has made another frightful mess with this US/Bollywood collaboration about a high priestess able to commune with serpents and
change her form. Seemingly partly inspired by the Sigourney Weaver Orange ad.
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Jhootha Hi Sahi
Bollywood romance mainly set in a London bookshop. Has had some positive notices, even if it has nothing close to originality.
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Saturday, 9 October 2010
Is Greed Good (Out this week - 08/10/10)
Surprisingly quiet week with just 7 films jostling it out for the top spot. It's highly likely that the return of Gordon Gekko will take the lead, even though it's far from the best reviewed of the releases and there is plenty of counter programming going on. My film of the week is actually reflecting the box office though and remains Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Crook: It's good to be Bad
From the producers and director of Raaz: The mystery continues comes another colon using Bollywood drama, this time about a crime spree in Australia and it's racism hating anti-hero.
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Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud
It's crunch time for Zac Efron in this sappy and dull looking drama. Will he be able to get over the death of his brother in a car accident? Will he join the "sailor girl" in her round the world trip? Will the target teen audiences actually show up? Will they know that the adul actors Kim Basinger and Ray Liotta used to do much better films? So many questions...
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Jackboots on Whitehall
Odd looking mix of Team America, Inglourious Basterds and the Carry On series with puppet nazi's invading a model London leading to a resistance army led by plucky Ewan MacGregor having to fight back. Tom Wilkinson co-stars.
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Life as we Know it
Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel go on a disaterous date then find out they have joint custody of their best friends child. Of course they fall in love, of course they learn the hard way about parenthood. Of course this looks like a colossal waste of money.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●○○○○○○○
Mr. Nice
The true story of welsh pot smuggler Howard Marks is brought to the screen in this light hearted and knowing picture based on the protagonists bestselling memoirs. Rhys Ifans (in reality a close friend of Marks) plays the titular anti-hero and Chloe Sevigny his long-suffering wife.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●○○○○○○
A Town Called Panic
Oddly the best reviewed movie this week is this surreal animation from Belgium with a plastic Cowboy and Indian investigating the mystery behind their stolen walls. From the makes of the Cravendale adverts.
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Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Oliver Stone is back with Michael Douglas reprising his iconic Oscar winning role. I've already seen the film - review coming on Wednesday - and whilst it may not live up to the hype you can't deny we've all been waiting for this sequel for a long time.
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Wednesday, 5 May 2010
The Ghost
2010. Dir: Roman Polanski. Starring: Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, Olivia Williams and Tom Wilkinson. ●●●●○
One of the curses of a well rounded education and a small exposure to the works of Sigmund Freud is that I tend to over analyse myself. To that end, whilst on one hand I have the perfectly practical reasoning that weekly reviews have been reinstated because the backlog has been dealt with, I think we can all see the subconscious in action as I review Roman Polanski's The Ghost, a critique on the failures of New Labour, especially in relation to foreign policy and anti-terrorism measures, in the week of a general election.
I mention this not only as an insult into the workings of my own mind, but also as a parallel example of how events in he real world can affect artistic decisions. Much too has been made of Polanski's house arrest and how his current situation may have affected the editing of his latest film.
Indeed there are several occasions in the narrative that may be Roman crying out about the mess of the situation. In venom in Kim Cattrall's aide to the former Prime Minister as she spits out "The pack are on the move" in relation to the press. Or Peirce Brosnan's Adam Lang and Ewan McGregor's unnamed ghost writer enforced imprisonment in the Martha's Vineyard mansion that holds most of the action. Of course both of these incident's are lifted directly from Richard Harris' superb source novel but the style and emphasis of these moments - rather then the content - is pure Polanski.
The story is a typical conspiracy thriller. McGregor's anonymous antagonist is surprisingly selected to re-write the ex-British Prime Minster's memoirs following the untimely death of his previous Ghost Writer. He flies to America, entrenching himself with Adam Lang and his wife (Brosnan and Williams) just in time for the European courts to begin proceedings against him for war crimes relating to having knowledge of, and allowing, rendition of terror suspects in order to face torture - it's lucky that America doesn't recognise the International War Crimes Commission, isn't it? Whilst there, with the aid of a couple of university photos, a party membership card and a couple of trips around the island McGregor begins to suspect that Lang may have some very dark secrets and that perhaps his predecessor's death wasn't so accidental.
There is a strange inconsistency in the format of the thriller aspects of the plot. Some clues are given undue attention - the casting of Eli Wallach as a lonely islander seems very odd until you realise he has something very important to say. On the other hand the set-up for the clue in the BMW (product placement aplenty in this film) is superb. The conspiracy itself is also massively flawed, as Robert Pugh former Foreign Minister states in the trailer "Name one decision Lang made in ten years as Prime Minister that wasn't in the interests of the U.S.A." which implicitly indicates it was deliberate not because Lang was weak or misguided.
The two stand-outs in the cast were Brosnan and Williams, both of whom gave fully engaging and dimensional performances. Brosnan in particular should be congratulated for not taking the easy option and impersonating Blair (even though Harris has admitted the character is based on him). The rest of the cast are pretty forgettable, McGregor and Cattrall can't seem to decide what accent their going for and Tom Wilkinson and Timothy Hutton are utterly wasted as Lang's former University colleague and lawyer respectively.
Talking about Harris' novel there are a couple of tweaks towards the end which are diffent. I'm not too keen about the airport scene which in the book has much more to say about Lang's desire to go down in history (there's a moment when he appears to know...). The coda, where the final twist is announced, is far more satisfying dramatically - if a little cheesy - and few could argue that the last shot is the most effective we've seen this year.
Polanski directs the action well, with a palpable tension in the air, aided by the coldness and greyness of the landscape. As with many of his films architecture is vital in sustaining mood, and the presence of the main location is as foreboding and clinical as any prison. So we return to his current lodgings, and the question of whether his art is affected.
Undoutably it is. As undoutably as my review has been timed by my super-ego. Yesterday in British courts six former Guantanamo Bay detainees overturned a ruling that allowed government use of secret evidence to defend itself against a damages claim. Their argument that their illegal detention and torture at Guantanamo was sanctioned, or at least acknowledged, by senior Government Ministers. That's a New Labour Government, a party steeped in socialist values that has eroded civil liberties faster than at any time since the English Civil War, that has widened the gap betwen the rich and the poor and made it harder to bridge that divide, that has created the largest budget deficit in UK history, that has failed to regulate the financial services sector some 2 years after it took us into a recession, that took us into an illegal war and may even have been complicit in toturing innocent men. New Labour has failed. It is indeed time for a change.
Friday, 15 January 2010
Out this week (15/01/10)
There is a film I want to see this week, it's the one I will recommend, but other than that you have to wonder what's going on with the scheduling. Usually in January we are struggling to find the time to see decent films, but this week is a disaster. There are three other studio releases, none of which look remotely palatable - let alone like they're a decent watch. So, if you like a bit of Clooney then Up in the Air is the film for you, otherwise stay at home.
Aayirathil Oruvan
This Tamil movie is helpfully described as a scientific thriller. The trailer, gives more away, as we see 2 archaeologists (Karthik Shivakumar and Reema Sen) investigate the bizarre stone circles on a remote island, only to awaken evil spirits, and deeply annoy the locals. Looks derivative but could be worth a watch.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●○○○○○○○○
All about Steve
If Sandra Bullock could go back 2 years and choose one project to ditch from her schedule for 2010 it would be this odd stalker "comedy". It's neither the massively popular rom-com nor the massively popular true life tome that may just win her an Oscar nom. It's the other one, the one with Bradley Cooper and Thomas Haden Church, the one that's best avoided.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●○○○○○○○
The Book of Eli
The end of the world is nigh. Last week we had Viggo showing us how humanity would be stretched to breaking point. This week Denzel shows us we can fight back. I doubt neither film has a good ending, but at least The Road may have some believable characters.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●○○○○○○○
Chance pe Dance
Love story about an out-of-work dancer who with his potential sweetheart helps forge a group of disillusioned schoolchidren into an award winning dance troupe.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●○○○○○○○
44 inch Chest
Starring a veritable who's who's of middle aged British hardmen (Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, Tom Wilkinson and John Hurt among them) this is a not quite sequel to Sexy Beast from the same writing team of Louis Mellis and David Scinto. Ray's sexy wife run off with a waiter so they kidnap him in revenge. Unfortunately that's where the plan ends and the film starts.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●○○○○○○○
OSS117: Lost in Rio
Second movie in the french version of Austin Powers, this time he's sent to find a missing professor in Rio (natch). Likeable enough looking comic capers, but nothing to write home about. Jean Dujardin takes the lead role.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●○○○○○○○
Still Walking
Hirokazu Koreeda's film, based on his own novella, follows a doctor and his wife as they return to his childhood home, visit his parents and reminisce on the anniversary of his brother's death. Poignant Japanese drama which received raves at last years Toronto festival.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●○○○○○○
Up in the Air
Jason Reitman hits the zeitgeist by invoking the spectre of the current financial crisis and the continuous drive to compartmentalize our lives. Getting Clooney to play a warped version of himself is also a major coup.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●●●●●●○
Friday, 8 January 2010
20 for 2010 - The Ghost
Straight in at number 10 (appropriately for a movie about the British Prime Minister) is The Ghost.
Richard Harris' pageturner about the former PM's memoirs, and the naive ghost writer he hires to write them was an immediate best seller on both sides of the Atlantic, mainly because the politician in question so closely mimics Tony Blair in his behaviour and manner that it's hard to believe Blair didn't sue.
The film though has had some even more bizarre press, with director Roman Polanski finishing post production whilst under house arrest for the child sex allegation dating back to the 70's.
Whether the film will survive the stink of the case will remain to be seen, it premiers at the Berlin Film Festival in February and the reviews will be hotly anticipated in only so that can be trashed by everyone else. A good review will be seen as sticking up for the man during these testing times, a bad one will be punishment for the crime. The only way we'll be ale to judge this one is to see it for ourselves.
Pierce Brosnan plays the PM, Olivia Williams his cryptic Cherie-alike wife and Ewan MacGregor will be investigating Brosnan's lifestory in more ways than one.
PS. I've read the novel, and therefore know what happens in it's final shocking chapter, so I'm not putting in any more plot lest I give away the ending.
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
20 for 2010 - The Debt
That's right, we're at number 13 in the countdown of top films to look out for in 2010 and already we've had 3 titles starring Helen Mirren.
The Debt is a remake of the 2007 Isreali drama Ha-Hov which was nominated for 4 Awards for the Isreali Film Academy. The script has been Westernised by Matthew Vaughn and Peter Straughan making it onto the prestigious "Blacklist" before it was picked up for productioon by Miramax.
The story relates how three mossad agents (Sam Worthington, Martin Csokas and Jessica Chastain) round up and assassinate a Nazi War Criminal, only for the same criminal to unmask himself 30 years later. The agents (now grown into Ciaran Hinds, Tom Wilkinson and Helen Mirren respectively) must reunite to discover whether he is who he says he is and how their mission went wrong.
Without reading the script it's fair to say this could go one of two ways. It could be an introspective drama about the desire for vengeance and the way it rots the soul or it could be a gung ho kill the Nazis adventure. Director John Madden is certainly more experienced with the former, so I'll be happy if that's the way it goes.
Curiously, even though principle photography finished over 8 months ago we haven't seen a single still from the production of this film, and the cast have been extraordinarily tight lipped on where it is. You would have though someone might has asked Sam Worthington where it was during the Avatar publicity tour.
Apparently not which is why I would probably gues that this film may just disappear without trace by the end of the year.
Saturday, 2 January 2010
20 for 2010 - The Conspirator
Number 16 on my countdown is Robert Redford's The Conspirator.
Last August, when celebrating Robert Redford's 72nd birthday, I said that I still believe he has another great film in him. Lo and behold, one day later, this project was announced.
Based on the true story of Mary Surratt (Robin Wright Penn) who was the lone female accused of involvement in the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, largely because she owned the boarding house John Wilkes Booth resided in. The film will focus on her reluctant lawyer (Tom Wilkinson) as he slowly uncovers the truth and attempts to save her from the hangman. I'm not sure how James McAvoy's Fredrick Aiken (above) fits into the picture, but I assume he also is convinced of her innocence as he is, ostensibly, the lead.
SPOILERS - It doesn't work, Mary Surratt was the first woman executed by the US federal Government.
This mix of liberalist ideals, courtroom dramas and heady conspiracies is exactly the sort of thing that Redford excels at, imagine Quiz Show with TV replaced by the government desperate to please the calls of a angry public. The supporting cast sports some excellent names too including Danny Huston, Kevin Kline and Evan Rachel Wood.
I'm also hoping this could finally be the project that gets some awards traction for Robin Wright Penn, she has been a well respected actress putting in fine work for years, and this role as a doomed suffering mother in a period biopic should be just down the Academy's street.
With Spielberg's long gestating Lincoln biopic still on hold this is the 19th century story that demands to be heard.
Monday, 28 December 2009
2009 in Review - Best Supporting Actor
Supporting performances are always tought ot choose from. On one hand nearly every performance is there to support the story, but you don't want a piece that could conceivably be called the lead, nor do you want to glorify a cameo (I may be about to do that). Of the 5 performances listed below only one is likely to get an Oscar nod, and I've completed ignored last years selection that could have been eligible (Brolin, Hoffman and Shannon), however all these actors have reached out and grabbed me in their own way. Each of them lifted the overall piece and that, surely, is worth celebrating.
1. Christoph Waltz - Inglorious Basterds. As you know I had big problems with the lack of humanity in this film, but strangely it was the least humane character who lights up the screen. Waltz veers from comic to serious poses often in the same sentence, and shows he can act in 4 different languages - no mean feat.
2. Fred Melamed - A Serious Man. Before Melamed enters we get a vague idea of his character from Larry Gopnik and his wife as they consider the forthcoming divorce, but nothing prepares you for his melodious voice and hurt dog tone. Possibly the worst person you'd want to lose your wife to.
3. Stephen Lang - Public Enemies. Lang is barely in Michael Mann's latest exercise in digital film; he's merely an additional agent called in by Christian Bale, but he carries himself, and speaks in such a way that you know he's seen every crime imaginable and he knows how to catch this criminal.
4. Rayniel Rufino - Sugar. The character is there as a foreshadow to our protagonist. He has moved to the states earlier and his career will dramatically change earlier, but with every decision Rufino makes with the part you can understand it and appreciate where's he's heading to.
5. Tom Wilkinson - Duplicity. This is a bit of a guilty pleasure, and I've probably seen better performances that fail to make this list, but Tom's proper bastard CEO relishes the competition he sets himself. He also is involved in a completely barmy bust up with Paul Giamatti so extra points for that.
Saturday, 12 December 2009
Tom Wilkinson
Happy Birthday to
Tom Wilkinson
61 today
He certainly isn't the biggest star I will namecheck on the birthdays, however Tom is the most prolific. Currently he has 5 projects on the go for 2010 which I want to see. First up will be The Debt about 3 former Mossad spies finding their past returning to haunt them. If Roman Polanski isn't spending the next couple of years in goal then The Ghost may get a release. We'll also be looking out for The Green Hornet, The Conspirator and the English language remake of After the Wedding.
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Duplicity
2009. Dir: Tony Gilroy. Starring: Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Giamatti and Dan Daily. ●●●○○
2009 has now begun. We, or at least I, have seen the first film among my hotly anticipated titles for the year. The good news is that Duplicity is eminently enjoyable, with zippy direction, an exciting plot and some quality performances. The bad news is that at the end of the year I probably won't remember this film at all.
It's essentially a con-film where we know the lead protangonists (Roberts and Owen) are grifting their prospectively employers (Wilkinson and Giamatti) over a top secret product being developed by the rival pharmaceutical firms. As the film goes one we are forced to question the loyalty between the two them, their bosses and ultimately whether honesty has any place in the relationahips and cut throat society we have today.
The screen play is tight and light, with a final act twist that was both unexpected and brilliant in it's eexecution, safely negating everything we've seen so far as we realise exactly who is playing whom.
The performances are of a general high standard. Wilkinson and Giamatti both give different sides of the same coin of ruthless corporate executives, and both are clearly loving every moment of it. Owen and Roberts continue from Closer with their wonderful chemistry, but also playing the expediency of their entaglement. The supporting players are all fine, with a lovely turn from Carrie Preston (Appletini in the trailer) as a shy girl who throws herself at Clive - not that I can blame her he spent large portions of the film wondering around in a towel and I for one would have thrown myself at him.
The direction was assured, as with Michael Clayton Gilroy shows us he's less interested in the flashy direction than allowing his story to unfold. All technical aspects of the film were good - although I would especially commend the Set Decoration by George DeTitta Jr as every room was as interesting as it was unique.
So I really enjoyed this movie, but to be honest there was little original or insightful to raise it to the next level. Good clean fun, that's great but that's all.
Saturday, 31 January 2009
Valkyrie
2008. Dir: Bryan Singer. Starring: Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson and Carice van Houten. ●●●●○
If you are going to watch Valkyrie I implore you to leave all your baggage at the door. Whatever preconceived notions you may have about the film they will not help your enjoyment in any way. Whatever your thoughts about Mr. Cruise or Mr. Singer or any other people involved in the making of this film they are irrelevant.
Instead you should go into the cinema with a clear mind and a fair capacity to enjoy this "b"-movie thriller and you will enjoy yourselves.
That is is a "b"-movie is perhaps open to interpretation. It's cast list may include the most famous man on the planet and a classy set of british vets but ultimately the film is about the most famous failed assassination attempt in history.
We begin by meeting Colonel Claus von Stauffenburg (Cruise) in North Africa, his battalion being slowly beaten back by the advancing brits. Von Stauffenburg writes in his diary - a fascinating segue from written and spoken German to english - of his lack of faith in the Nazi party and his attempts to recruit other senior officers to help him let high command know the party must be stopped. It's a ridiculous scene, because only a fool would write what he was saying, but it helps to introduce his high moral standards before he's shot to pieces (losing an eye, a hand and 2 other fingers).
We then move to Germany where Major-General Henning von Tresckow (Branagh) is stowing a bomb on the Fuhrer's plane. This fails to go off and some of the conspirators, though not the ones whose faces we know, are summarily rounded up.
Amazingly Satuffenburg is recruited to the staff of General Friedrich Olbricht (Nighy) a key member of the plot, and a new plan is put together.
The rest of the film follows the design, preparation and implementation of the assassination attempt. It's a utterly simple plan - blow up Hitler and use the reserve army to take Berlin and thus control the Reich. Then use the momentum to put a moderate in power and ultimately end the war. The fact that we know the plot failed does little to reduce the tension built up during the film.
That tension is mainly created by the sparse and pointed script from Christopher MacQuarrie and Nathan Alexander, and also aided by an energetic score from John Ottman. Although there is a downside to this; the mood was built up and up throughout the film with never any sense of levity. I know it's a serious topic but every line seemed to be written, or at least performed, as if it were life or death. Thus making it impossible to really get to grips with these brave men.
Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise - but at least he's not doing a bad Tom Cruise impression (see Mission Impossible III). Perhaps he might have appeared to be a better actor if he didn't surround himself by masters. Bill Nighy as his cowardly co-conspirator and Tom Wilkinson as the oily Fromm, waiting to see how the coin will land before calling it, both turn in superb performances which if the film had had an effective campaign may have got some award traction going.
Stylistically the film was nothing special, other than a nice shot of a record, and perhaps this represent a bit of a step back for Singer. That's a shame as I like his sensibilities. His next film on imdb looks to be You want me to Kill him about 2 boys who strike up a friendship on the internet that leads to murderous results. This may be an interesting mix between Heavenly Creatures and Elephant, and it's certainly the sort of film I'd like to See Singer concentrate on.
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