Considering the date there's a surprisingly few releases this week. What's the date I hear you ask? It's the first weekend of the school summer holidays - the traffic forecasters are predicting hell on Earth on the motorways that roughly head toward the beach so what better way to spend the evening than going to the cinema. For the kiddies there's Potter week 2 or a sub-standard Pixar, but if I had to choose - and of course I do - I'd pick, as film of the week, gay dad romance Beginners.
Beginners
I'm probably not as keen on this quirky relationship drama as I'm making out, but I hear Christopher Plummers performance as an Octogenarian coming out for the first time is exquisite and MacGregor and Laurent make a lovely couple so I'll give it a try.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●●●○○○○
Big Picture
If you fancy a thriller this week your only option is this French effort starring Romain Duris as a lawyer who kills his wife's lover in a fit of rage (I thought that was fine in France) then runs away to start a new life. Catherine Deneuve also stars.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●●○○○○○
Cars 2
After last years critical and commercial super success with Toy Story 3 it can probably be said that Pixar are coasting with the return to the merchandise friendly automobile franchise. Oddly this is also an example of stunt casting with Owen Wilson and Larry the Cable Guy joined by Michael Caine, Vanessa Redgrave (as the Queen) and Lewis Hamilton. Or you could watch the German Grand Prix on Sunday!
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●●○○○○○
Horrible Bosses
So so looking comedy that will probably play well to fans of the central conceit - it's OK to slaughter your boss if they're despicable human beings. Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston and Colin Farrell gleefully ham it up as the worst practitioners of management skills with Jamie Foxx as hit man Motherf**ker Jones - probably the best joke in the movie.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●○○○○○○
Singham
Our lone Bollywood release this week is hard to get a handle on the plot, other than it's a Hindi action drama and appears to have been in post production for years (I'm sure I've seen that title before). Good early buzz on IMDb.
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Break my Fall
Very low budget British LGBT interest indie, following a young Lesbian couple as they negotiate their hedonistic lifestyle (they appear to be in a band) ans decide what it is they really want out of their relationship. Heavily influenced by the mumblecore movement.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●○○○○○○○○
Violent Kind
Tired looking yokels gone crazy US horror with the usual cut-out characters being scared witless and panicking in uninventive ways. Don't worry this is getting the tiniest of releases.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●○○○○○○○○
Friday, 22 July 2011
Starting Over Again (Out this week - 22/07/11)
Friday, 8 April 2011
Bird in Paradise (Out this week - 08/04/11)
It certainly isn't a classic week, with the box office clash between 2 animated behemoths, neither of which are in any way aimed at me, and a selection of horror, low-rent sci-fi and Bollywood entries packing them in. Personally I doubt I'll be bothering with the cinema this weekend - far too busy - however because it's tradition the film of the week will be Rio.
Rio
It's unlikely to turn many heads or to be remembered as we draw to the years close, but this colourful CGI creation could provide adequate laughs for the small ones. Jesse Eisenberg is a nervy Maccaw unable to fly, Anne Hathaway the only female of the same sub-species - sounds like justification for arranged marriages. The supporting cast includes Jamie Foxx.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●●○○○○○
Silent House
Haunted house picture from Uruguay, supposedly based on a true story, and filmed in one continuous take. I would question from the trailer whether the title is accurate, as the house in question seems to be harbouring a vast amount of noise.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●○○○○○○
Mars needs Moms
The Robert Zemeckis produced mo-cap 3D comedy which may end up being most predominantly remember for crashing at the US box office bring down Zemeckis' plan to remake Yellow Submarine and providing the tipping point for the collapse of 3D predominance. Joan Cusack is the Mom the Martians want.
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Rubber
Inventive horror which gives sentient life to an abandoned car tyre out for revenge. Oddly I saw a similar short several years ago which had a romance storyline and I do wonder if these are related? I also wonder if the surreal starting point can be maintained for over 20 minutes?
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●○○○○○○○
Thank You
Moralistic romantic Hindi comedy about a group of lads serial womanizing behind their wives backs ho suddenly get a dose of reality from the independent women. I expect the pathos and laughs will be evenly dolled out and that everyone will be happy when the credits roll.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●○○○○○○○
Tomorrow, When the War Began
Aussie invasion movie, with a group of teens returning from a camping/wild drinking party to find their neighbourhood turned into a guerilla-type war zone and they form a resistance army to protect the home town. Probably not realistic in the slightest, apparently this is the first in an intended trilogy.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●○○○○○○○
Vanaam
Tamil remake of Vedam - no I hadn't heard of it either - which follows five different narratives until they merge into one terrifying climax. The trailer implies plenty of action, and lots of characters crying.
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Roommate
Or Single White Female for the college crowd, only not as inventive or interesting. This house share horror someone topped the US charts for a week earlier in the year, but do not expect similar returns in to UK, it's actually been screened to critics hear and they're making their opinions heard.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●○○○○○○○○
Monday, 13 December 2010
Jamie Foxx
Happy Birthday to
Jamie Foxx
43 today
Foxx has always struck as an actor who believes the hype about himself. Don't get me wron - he is very good and resists the easy route in performances - bu sometimes a touch of humility may be nice.
Saturday, 6 November 2010
How Time Passes (Out this week - 05/11/10)
Happy Diwali (apologies for the delay), for those of you celebrating the festival of light and anyone Bollywood curious you do have a fine selection however there isn't really a competition for this weeks most anticipated film, every time Mike Leigh makes another picture it's an event. That said I believe the Robert Downey Jr. comedy vehicle will take the box office championship - personally I'd rather steam clean the cinema seats than watch that! Film of the week is Another Year.
Another Year
Following a normal happy middle class couple (played by Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen) over the course of one year, and a number of Sunday lunches, Leigh's latest looks at the varyiong fortunes of their friends and relatives. Lesley Manville and Imelda Stanton are among the supporting cast.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●●●●●●○
Chikku Bukku
The first of the Bollywood offerings is a little hard to track down, no IMDB listing as yet, and the details on pearl and dean are pretty vague. We do know it's a love story and stars Preeta Roa, sister of Amrita Rao, in her film debut.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●○○○○○○○○
Due Date
It's not a remake of Plane, Trains and Automobiles, really it isn't. It just looks and feels like a leaner meaner version with Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis taking the Martin and Candy roles. I expect they fall a long way short. Jamie Foxx and Juliette Lewis take supporting roles.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●●○○○○○
Fit
Well meaning Brit film about homophobia in schools. The trailer makes it seem like a filmed TIE performance. I want to support it, but what can you do?
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Golmaal 3
Not only am I not interested in this Bollywood sequel but I would go as far as complaining about the promotion of this film which claims it's the first threequel from India. The marketing team blatantly ignoring Satyajit Ray's Apu trilogy. Boo.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●○○○○○○○○
Let Me In
Superior looking US horror remake (as in superior for remakes, not superior than the original) based on the award winning Swedish vampire film. Chloe Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee play the pre-teen protagonists (bearing in mind one of them may be older than he/she appears) but it's Richard Jenkins who's getting the lions share of acting plaudits.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●●●○○○○
Mammoth
Lukas Moodysson's English language debut takes the template of Babel and looks at three interconnected storylines from across the globe. Gael Garcia Bernal and Michelle Williams are the middle class New Yorkers at the heart of the plot.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●○○○○○○
Red and White
Indonesian cinema looks at the pivotal period of postwar history where they fought for indepedence from the Dutch colonialists. It's an interesting stor which probably deserves to be told, but the cliches look to come thick and fast in this stodgy movie.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●○○○○○○○○
Uthama Puthiran
Finally we have another Eastern Import with few background details, other than it's a Tamil remake of the Teluga hit Ready.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●○○○○○○○○
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Valentine's Day
2010. Dir: Garry Marshall. Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, Julia Roberts, Jessica Biel and Jamie Foxx. ●○○○○
I'm thinking perhaps the rating is a little harsh. Valentine's Day, for all it's many faults, did not make me angry. I did not consider asking for my money back, nor was I shouting at the screen at the iniquity of it. Unlike one film I went to see this year I was not seething afterwards. However it is a really bad movie - utterly inedt - to call it amateur would be an insult to amateur productions.
Let me explain: Valentine's Day follows an inderterminable group of LA'ers as they make their way through the romantic entanglements during the feast of St. Valentine. Naturally, as is always the case with large cast dramas, they all interlink on at least a superficial level (sometimes the level of co-incidence is unbearable) and they all have different feelings or experiences that relate to love. When taken as a whole we, as an audience, are meant to better understand the meaning and consequences of that four letter word. This movie ultimately wants to be an American Love, Actually and at this it fails spectacularly.
If you read on, please not this review has many many spoilers...
Why? Well I re-watched Richard Curtis' film to try and understand why one is charning, if lightweight, and the other is charmless. Here are the reasons I can find:
1. Passage of time. Whereas Love Actually (herein referred to as LA) takes place over a month Valentine's Day (VD, chuckle chuckle) crams the entire process within approximately 18 hours. Characters therefore have no time to consider things and grow, relationships don't develop they just happen. For instance Ashton Kutcher proposes to girlfriend Jessica Alba before breakfast, but they've split by the end of the working day. On hearing his wife has had an affair Hector Elizondo is so cut up it takes all of three hours to forgive her.
2. Thematic consistency. At the beginning of LA it sets up the airport arrival gate as a place to see love, then ends by showing that. In VD there doesn't really seem to be any flow. Events just happen at random. The only difference between the beginning and the end is that the scenes are shorter and the cuts quicker.
3. Demographics. I'm not so concerning about the ethnicity of the protagonists, as LA was virtually all white too (and this could have been easily fixed) but I did notice how beautiful everyone was. Essentially if you're not thin, silky haired and young you're doomed to spend VD alone. Where were the people like us? With a few extra inches on the waist and a few more grey hairs that we once had? I know Hollywood is always obsessed with beautiful people but when they're being paraded one after another it gets too much.
4. Unhappy endings. There shouldn't be many, but in a multi-character drama some stories will end badly. In LA Laura Linney and Andrew Lincoln do not get to experience a fulfilling and complete love. VD doesn't dare to give any major characters anything other than the type of happiness they want. Nobody really ends up alone (except for Patrick Dempsey's cheating doctor but he does deserve it for being a love cheat). This is dramtically uninteresting.
5. Set your jokes up. All of the jokes in VD are one line zingers (and nearly all of them appear in the trailer). Lines like "Young Love, full of promise full of hope ignorant of reality" are OK but it's nothing compared to the set up and then pay-off of Kris Marshall stateside holiday or even the goofball pidgeon Portuguese that Colin Firth launches into in LA. By slowly developing towards a punchline then the jokes will be funnier and we will remember them better - trust me.
6. Make it for adults. Why make a film about love and sex and make it PG-13? Why why why. It limits the jokes and the situations. If a scenario is meant to appeal to adults make a film for adults to enjoy and not one for kids.
7. Believeability. If you're going to have a situation that doesn't seem very likely make it completely off the wall (such as a Prime Minister caught kissing at a school nativity or a faded rock star having a Christmas number 1). Don't have a florist which appears to employ over 15 people (I've been to lots of florists and I've never seen one with mre than 3 staff) - and on that why were there Nuns buying flowers on VD? I would also like to object about the Football stars coming out, but more on that later*.
I could go on.
There were some minor elements I enjoyed. Jessica Biel is a surprisingly nice comic actress and I hope she gets a decent film to show that off in (was Nailed ever completed?) and Hector Elizondo stood out for me (his reaction to Emma Roberts annoucement is priceless).
The flowers were also generally gorgeous and well chosen to go with the giver and the given, so thanks to whoever sourced those.
In spite of not hating the film with so much wrong with it all I can do is give Valentine's Day, a well deserved 1 out of 5 rating.
*Please see next post.
Thursday, 12 November 2009
The Soloist
2009. Dir: Joe Wright. Starring: Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey Jr., Catherine Keener, Tom Hollander and Lisa Gay Hamilton. ●●○○○
After a couple of false starts - one cancelled night out and a trip to see Dorian Gray - I managed to persuade the rest of the cast to see The Soloist. With the benefit of hindsight I wish I hadn't bothered. It's not that it's a bad film, not really really bad, indeed there is much to commend it. More than that it's deeply disappointing, the combination of talent should havr combined to a much greater whole than witnessed here.
The film charts the relationship between Steve Lopez - columnist for the L.A. Times - and Nathaniel Ayers former Julliard prodigy now homeless and, possibly, pyschizophrenic played by Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx respectively. In the main the film plays from Lopez's perspective as he builds the story from a chance encounter during lunch break and realises that the adoration he inspires in Ayers is a front for deeper personal and societal problems. It is Lopez's story in that he is the character we follow home to his raccoon infestation and failed marriage. Occasionally we get extended flashbacks to Ayer's youth or bizarre glimpses into his subconcious.
Strangely this concept felt like the best way of adapting this story - tellingly Lopez is a columnist not a journalist - he is his own story. This distances Foxx's character to such an extent that we feel short changed on his performance and when Wright looks at his mental processes creatively (such as an extended light display during a concert rehearsal) it seems like only half the story; like the creative team didn't have the courage to finish what they started.
This confused tone is symptomatic of the issues I had with this movie. Both Donwey Jr. and Foxx are clearly putting in terrific performances but their either too smug or held at arms length to such an extent that I felt nothing for them.
Technically the film was merely proficient, but I would like to commend Jacqueline Durrand's costuming (Atonement, Vera Drake), especially for Foxx's variety of idiosyncratic regalia which must have been both a nightmare to organise, as well as being a pleasureable challenge.
Ultimately less than the sum of it's parts my overall impression was that all concerned could and should do so much better.
