The Kids Are All Right

2010. Dir: Lisa Cholodenko. Starring: Julianne Moore, Annette Bening, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson. ●●●●○



I wasn't planning on reviewing Lisa Cholodenko's 2010 dramedy given that I missed it at cinemas and only got hold of copy this year (making it ineligible for my own best of consideration) however I have been shamed into doing it by Tom at Reinvention following some other posts. I'm still reluctant though, so instead of a normal considered review (not that I usually consider my reviews) I'm going to rewatch The Kids Are All Right and just type whatever comes into my head whilst watching. Should be interesting. For the record I really enjoyed the relationship building the first time around, all of the performances and the writing worked for me, so it thoroughly deserves the four blobs score above, even if I wasn't blown away. So follow the jump to read up on my utterly random scribblings.



Sunday 12 June, Noon. Just started the film.

I don't like the font from the opening credits.

Effective build up of the differing neurosis of Josh Hutcherson and Mia Wasikowska, and how they relate to their parents. The early dinner sequence was nicely handled and showed a great reflection of family life.

The gay porno segment seems like it's pushing for a cheap laugh.

Nice cut to Mark Ruffalo from the Pacific Cryo Bank file, he's seriously chilled from the moment we first see him.

The locations work really well, each of the properties reflecting the characters that live there. Ruffalo puts foot in mouth again, nicely low-key comic performance. The awkwardness of the first meeting is handled exceptionally well, with expectations affecting the bonding process appropriately.

All the nice conversations get twisted so easily reflecting life, snarky off-handed comments that get taken the wrong way. More gay porn - I can see why they are using it dramatically but it seems like a short cut.

Moore and Bening work very well as a couple. Love the way they work out about the contact with the sperm donor.

More uncomfortable scenes of people eating, with silent judging going on. The how we met story is cute and comic and delightfully likely. Over the course of the movie the relationship between Moore and Bening is developing well, even before anything actually happens, as an audience we're learning more in every scene.

Nature vs. Nurture debate, as relating to kids expressions, would be more interesting if it were looked at in more detail. Seems to have been dropped from the rest of the movie.

Bening keeps pushing everyone away, possibly because she's afraid of losing everyone anyway, is she asking for the consequences. Suddenly aware my thoughts are related to foreknowledge of what's about to happen.

SPOILERS FROM HERE ON IN

Is the attraction between Moore and Ruffalo based on a latent physical need. What does it say about Moore's sexuality, and the nature of same-sex relationships (I'm not saying I have a problem with the possibility but it's hard to imagine Cholodenko wasn't aware of the consequences of the choice).

Isn't is a massive step from being a tool to wanting to piss on a dog? Not sure I buy that logic.

Ruffalo's making me laugh again.

Interesting juxtaposition between the girls talking about sex vibes at the organic cafe and the adults arguing about Paul as an influence in an up-market restaurant. Paul's driving a wedge between all the relationships.

The way Moore treats her Mexican lackey seems inconsistent, I suppose to prove the effect the affair is having on her judgment, but more so than you would expect.

Bening just outlined her plan to go to Ruffalo's for dinner. Expectation and pride in her eyes. Superb performance.

Break up between Ruffalo and Yaya DaCosta tough and measured. She knocks it out of the park in a minor role.

Bening can't sing, but it's a brave go that works in context to the action. Moore's reactions are priceless. Bening's working it out, not sure I like the camera and sound work, seems a little showy and doesn't fit with the naturalism of the rest of the movie. That said it gives her a chance to shine, playing the micro-expressions.

Teary argument cliched but appropriate. Why were the kids outside the door, none of the fight sounded loud or confrontational. The consequences and game playing the family members are doing to try and find their allies is hilarious.

Wasikowska doles out some home truths, dramatically useful but pushed, many shorter scenes seem odd like the snippet of conversation were just shoved in in order to add momentum to the plot.

I feel sorry for Ruffalo, his character is in effect the only one to lose out from the arch of the story. Moore gets the beats in her big speech perfectly.

Indeterminable final 10 minutes of the film as Wasikowska goes to college all to make the point that family is good and essential to your well being and you will miss them when you're not with them, even when it's hard work.

1.40 pm. It's over. The music is naff. I'm off for a run. Hopefully you've enjoyed my points, even if you don't always agree with them.

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The Razor's Edge

1946. Dir: Edmund Goulding. Starring: Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter and Clifton Webb. ●●○○○



I had hoped to have seen Sugar, or even Everlasting Moments during the weekend, neither however have made it to the West Midlands so I was forced to randomly select a movie. Eventually picking this train wreck. The plot revolves around Tyrone Power, a Pilot from the First World War, who was saved by a friend. His shell shock at this event is such that he needs to leave the Mid-West with his fancy friends and socialite fiancee, electing to find himself in the artist quarters of Paris, the coal mines of Poland and the lower Himalayas.



When he returns his ex, who has since married falls in love with him again and then plans to control him and keep him for herself.

It's not that I dislike melodrama, some directors like Douglas Sirk or Leo McCarey could have made a decent three hanky picture from the source, however Goulding just isn't strong enough to bring the piece from the rather flat script and dull characterisation.

Power tries hard, in a somewhat thankless role of the man who finds himself and them becomes alomst annoyingly good. Gene Tierney (as the fiancee Isabel) simply resprises her Leave Her to Heaven role from the previous year, but she isn't given the room to develop the character. During at least two scenes other characters have to tell her (and us) her motivations. Surely that wasn't in W. Somerset Maugham's novel.

Clifton Webb is delightful, mind. His fussy unmarried uncle, clearly a homosexual even if it's not stated, is an incredible comic foil to the heaviness of the rest of the plot. It earned him his second (of three) Oscar nod.

Technically the film is merely perfunctory, even the set design (you have slums, mansions and mountain ranges) fails to impress. And the score typifies the excess of the period, and was probably a rush job from the usually reliable Alfred Newman.

The fault of the piece has to lie with writer Lamar Trotti, his previous experiences in Ford Westerns and quirky comedies meant he couldn't summon together the necessary emotional weight to fully adapt the more emotive scenes.

All in all I wish I had gone out to Leeds.

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There Will Be Blood

2007. Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Ciarán Hinds, Kevin J O'Connor and Dillon Freasier ●●●●●



With no sign of Everlasting Moments at cinemas in Birmingham I randomly chose PT Anderson's There Will Be Blood to review. It seems incredibly now, just 18 months later, that this film and No Country for Old Men became locked in a titanic battle for the 2007 Best Picture Oscar. In the end the Coen film took the prize, but in my opinion, the better film missed out.



The film, very loosely based on Upton Sinclair's Oil, concerns the decay of the soul of Daniel Plainview (Day-Lewis), an oilman whose avarice overtakes all his other thoughts. The story follows him from mining silver alone to ending his life alone and bitter in his mansion via the adoption of a son of a deceased worker and a major struggle with a small church and it's charismatic preacher (Dano).

Of course a film which revolves around a single character requires a solid performance, which Day-Lewis delivers in spades. It's absolutely electrifying, you just can't keep your eyes off him. Every line is said with such vigour and certainty it's as if it's a documentary. Towards the end there is a tendency to waver on the line of cartoonish caricature, but thankfully Day-Lewis never crosses it.

Dano is effective as the young man of God, especially in the two key scenes he shares with Day-Lewis (the baptism and the bowling alley), but in his quieter moments he looks a little lost (the blessing of the new mine). Dillon Freasier and Russell Harvard both do fine work as the yound and adult versions of H.W. Plainview, Daniel's adopted son, I hope to see both of them build on these performances in the future, although there's nothing so far.

The cinematography by Robert Elswitt is excellent, the way natural light plays across the characters in different ways, the sun streaming through the church windows, the framing of the oilmen is beautiful and often moving. I was also struck by the movement of the camera, Anderson and Elswitt almost never let it be still, especially in the mid-shots when it often pans forward and back moving you towards or away from the action. It's a technique that often goes with the multi-character films Anderson made his name with but here it's equally effective.

Finally the score is beautiful, Johnny Greenwood's (adiohead) original pieces are compelling and the use of Brahms is overpowering.

This film is a masterpiece, if you haven't already seen it I urge you to rectify that as soon as possible.

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Little Big Man

1970. Dir: Arthur Penn. Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, Chief Dan George, Martin Balsam and Jeff Corey. ●●○○○



In the 60's and 70's the Western was breathing it's final laboured gasps, and so in a desperate attempt to turn the tide the comedy western was born. Sometimes it worked (Blazing Saddles, True Grit) but often it did not. Little Big Man is a noble failure in the history of cinema.

Ostensibly it's the life story of 120 year old Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman) who was raised by Native Americans and fought with General Custer, add to this brushes with the church, 2 marriages, selling snake oil and a brief career as a gunslinger. Naturally all this is allegorical, the central conflict being not only an indictment of the US policy towards Native Americans but also a thinnly veiled attack on the Vietnam conflict.



Every character and chapter of the story is hiding some deeper truth about the state of Modern America, from faux mysticism to the failure of big business and the emptiness of the hawkish right wing rhetoric from the White House.

There is nothing wrong with allegorical movie making, however the broad nature of the satire (no element of society is left out) and the feeble comedy work against the motice of the film. And believe me the comedy really is dire. Hoffman's whiney, in-on-the-joke narration is off-putting enough but Faye Dunaway's lavicious ministers wife pantomiming her way through bathing Hoffman wouldn't be funny enough to go in a Carry-On movie.

There are elements to enjoy. Chief Dan George is suitably stoic as Hoffman's adoptive grandfather and the make up effects in the bookending segments are very impressive.

Overall though it's a mess, with the message being unforgiveable lost.

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Sahara

1943. Dir: Zoltan Korda. Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Bruce Bennett, J. Carroll Naish, Llyod Bridges and Rex Ingram. ●●○○○

Good news! I'm not talking about the godawful 2005 film with Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz, but the mediocre 1943 film with Humphrey Bogart.

I suppose it's not this films fault that it's just a slice or propaganda with cardboard characters and unrealistic plotting, it certainly isn't the first piece of propaganda to exploit the 20th century's most inclusive artform: cinema. However as much as I prefer his politics Zoltan Korda is neither Eisenstein or Riefenstahl. Instead he pits a ragtag group of Allied soldiers with one US tank escaping from Tobruk against a battalian of thirsty Nazis.



It doesn't take a genius to work out that Bogart will hold out, and that most of the other characters are doomed. There's even a direct correlation in this film to the amount of home life you have to the speed with which you'll be killed - a fiance waiting for you (doubt you'll make it to the battle), beautiful children (shot in the back), no family at all (I'm all right Jack). What's more there's plenty of opportunity for the disparate team to share war stories and make impassioned speeches about the importance of freedom.

Even the Italian prisoner (Naish acting his little heart out and getting an Oscar nod for his trouble) gets the oppotunity to say how he doesn't understand fascism and knows Il Duce is just a flash in the pan. Needless to say the Nazi prisoner is neither sympathetic or courageous.

Saying that there are elements to like in this film. The set and art direction are top notch with painted dunes to increase the shadows. The tank is almost a character of it's own thanks to some interesting scripting and inventive soundwork.

It's just a shame none of this compensates for the sluggish direction and that feeling that we've seen it all before.

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Monster

2003. Dir: Patty Jenkins. Starring: Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern, Lee Tergesen and Annie Corley. ●●●○○

I think we can all agree that Charlize Theron is one of the most beautiful women on the planet, and that Aileen Wuornos the Daytone Beach prostitute - whose life story forms the basis for Monster - is not. Yet somewhere along the line it was felt best that Cahrlize take the role and gain 30lbs in order to play it correctly.

That sort of dedication to a role, or to unlikely casting, is commendable. However I am forced to ask why they did it? Sure Charlize is a good actress, and having her deglamming probably sold extra tickets and maybe without that the oscar wouldn't have been won, but surely there are some chunky blond actresses that could have equally taken the role.



I will confess it does make me slightly angry when this sort of thing happens. As a character actor myself (OK, not hugely celebrated now but there's still time) I can recognise this is the sort of role where someone previously unnoticed can breakout. Charlize was already making the big bucks, the prestige performance feels like it's be stolen from someone else.

This is not to say I wasn't moved by the performance - it is very good. The tale of a Floridean serial-killing, lesbian, street walker is fascinating and Theron hits all the rights notes of desperation, self pity and seething anger. So much so that you almost start cheering her on as she murders each of her victims, although that's a function of the screenplay more than the performance.

We see 4 murders. The first (which really is the first kill) is essentially self defence, Wournos is beaten and raped but manages to shoot her captor before he kills her, but each of the subsequent kills seem less and less rational (is he a peadophile, why is there a gun in the car, did this guy just want to offer help?). By ordering the murders in this way we are able to appreciate how Wuornos spirals out of control.

For me the stand out performance is by Cristina Ricci. The Selby character, girlfriend of Wuornos, has to be by turns infatuated, childish, self absorbed and frightened. Ricci shows her range, but also makes it clear that this is the same person, it's a totally organic performance with elements of her personality showing through in all scenes.

The production design is grungy enough and top marks for the make-up department.

Ultimately it's worth seeing this film, an interesting addition to the real life serial killer genre, without it becoming exploitation, but there are too little great elements to really recommend it.

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Into the Wild

2007. Dir: Sean Penn. Starring: Emile Hirsch, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Catherine Keener and Vince Vaughn. ●●●●●

I won't be going to the cinema again until after my holiday so it's a number of random film reviews until then. First up was this smart and inventive biopic about the 21 year old Christopher McCandless (Hirsch) who gave away his college fund and led a life on the road, eventually escaping to the wilds in Alaska.

The film intercuts between 2 or 3 different time periods. The first, or last chronologically, is based around Chris' life in the wild, living in the Magic Bus (an abandoned vehicle in the Alaskan wilderness) and being completely self-sufficent. The second strand, which forms the largest proportion of the film, follows the previous 2 years as Chris leaves his parents and travels America, the third is the narration and flashbacks as witnessed by his sister Carine (Jena Malone). During those 2 years of wandering the earth, Chris encounters a number of other people who he alternatively learns from, and helps.



As with all films based on true events the structure, or at least the history, are already there. If this were an original narrative would director Penn have let it end the way it did, would the unresolved ties with the strings of encounters have been tied up, would Chris ever have understood the importance of family and love.

Instead we are forced to see how nature first entices McCandless then turns on him as thoroughly as his father used to beat his mother.

The performances across the board are incredible. Hirsch is captivating and utterly believable as the rich kid who's wise beyond his years, although Catherine Keener and Brian Dierker are the ones who will stay with me as a hippie couple coming to terms with their own sense of loss and showing Chris what love truly is. The film also features career highs from Vince Vaughn and Hal Holbrook.

The screenplay is a shade too literate, everyone is able to keep up with Chris' intellectualism and always say exactly what's on their mind, but this is a product of the road movie and keeps the plot moving.

The directorial choices of Penn are faultless from the structuring of the storylines to the occasion decision to break the fourth wall. And the use of Eddie Vedder's folk music soundtrack is inspired.

Of course I wanted to shout at McCandless, tell him not to go to Alaska, tell him to fall in love, have his heart broken, share life with as many people as possible. But then I can't, he has to learn his lessons himself, in the same way we all do and perhaps the greatest lesson McCandless learns is the one in writes in the margins of his Tolstoy novels: "Happiness only real when shared."

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Requiem for a Dream

2000. Dir: Darren Aronofsky. Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans and Christopher McDonald. ●●●●●

How do you begin to review a film like Requiem for a Dream, the seminal drugs movie from Darren Aronofsky? Do you talk about it's intense fluid screenplay, the lead quartets superb performances or the energetic editing?

Let's start by describing the bare bones of the plot. It follows four characters as they move from Summer, when they are optimistic about their chances and futures, toward the Winter when everything has gone horribly wrong. Each of these characters - Harry (Leto), his mother (Burstyn), his girlfriend (Connelly) and his best mate/business partner (Wayans) - downfall can be attributed to their addictions to narcotics. Indeed it's probably true to say their addiction is borne on the desperation to achieve their long terms goals, be it weight loss or opening a boutique.



Yet the film is so much more than this. Because of the structure we begin by seeing the crack and weed the characters take as enhancing their lives. Through the have of the highs Harry is able to rationally decide his future, to plan and assess what actions need to be taken in the long term. He also has an awareness of the dangers of the drugs themselves and how they will turn him, at various points in the film he tries to prevent the others from taking a hit, but in each time he fails. Of course then plans are built on a house of cards, and once one card goes the whole thing swiftly falls apart.

It works because we identify with Harry so much - we want and believe he will succeed. When fate takes it's course we're screaming at him to just walk away from it all, however as with all tragic heroes his character flaw is such that he cannot walk away, but instead buries himself deeper into the quagmire of the situation.

I has so far concentrated on Leto's layered performance, however all of the leads are magnificent. Wayans shows heights he's never hit, or even seemingly tried for, since. Burstyn's role as the TV addict, who gets hooked on diet pills is an incredibly uninhibated performance. And talkign about inhabitions Connelly loses all of hers, and in retrospect won her Oscar for this - not for the saccharine Beautiful Mind inscribed on the statuette.

Aronofsky shows himself as a master of the cinema as he orchestrates the entwinning stories. Although he is expertly aided by Jay Rabinowitz (Affliction, I'm not There) on Editing duties. And of course that haunting, fearsome origainl score by Clint Mansell (performed by the Kronos String Quartet) - it's music so descriptive and powerful it's since become a staple for trailers.

There are flaws in the piece - Wayan's relationship with his mother isn't given the treatment it fully deserves, some of sara Goldfarbs hallucinations seem to be powered more by the need to shock rather than to support the storyline. However this remains the best film to ever capture how drugs will suck you in with good times before spitting you out in the bad.

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Richard III

1955. Dir: Laurence Olivier. Starring: Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Claire Bloom and Alec Clunes. ●●○○○

In the 1940's Laurence Oliver directed and starred in two of the most successful Shakespearean adapatations of all time; Henry V was a rousing call to arms against the tyrannies of Nazi Germany, Hamlet replayed the Dane's tragedy through the prism of Film Noir. Olivier was suitably feted for his work, an oscar winning performance in Hamlet and nominated for the direction. The problem was Olivier quite liked this praise and 6 years later with his film career going nowhere he once again turned to the bard for inspiration, essentially turning the camera on his remarkable stage performance of Richard III.

No-one seems to have reminded Olivier that film is a different medium to the stage, so his performance, whilst technically good, plays to the back row. Furthermore he invests no time in allowing the audience to make up their mind about his motices, simply playing Richard as bad to the bone.

Others actors fare even less well - Cedric Hardwicke hams his way through the role of King Edward lifting him arm in the direction he's walking like a Russian Opera. Claire Bloom's chances of displaying a strong, politic Queen Anne are destroyed as her part is cut to the bone. Only the magnificent John Gielgud, Olivier's most notable Shakespearean rival, seems to understand film. He takes the thankless role of Clarence and play it with such subtlety and gentleness you'd think he was sticking two fingers up at Olivier for casting him.


For those of you who don't know Richard III plots the life of the dastardly last King of the Plantagenents as he schemes and murders his way from number 4 in line to the throne to King and then his downfall at the Battle of Bosworth. As history it's a steaming pile of Tudor propaganda. It's unlikely that Richard was deformed and his empire building techniques were childsplay when compared to some of his forebears.

We won't chastise Shakespeare for his history lesson though, after all it's not his plots that are remembered but his speeches and characters. For an actor it's a joy to play Richard, humpback and all. If there isn't the moral complexity of the more traditional tragic villains (such as MacBeth or Iago) this sort of pantomimic bastard has it's compensations and there are some beautiful passages such as "Look how my ring encompasseth thy finger. Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart. Wear both of them, for both of them are thine."

It's easy to understand why Olivier chose this play to adapt, and even if he was only aiming for a record of his extraordinary performance this doesn't excuse the poor example of film-making that surrounds it.

He half-heartedly uses shadows in a similar way they were used in Hamlet, but unlike Hamlet where it worked because everyone plots against each other and lurks from scene to scene here it just feels forced with no connection to narrative. I have covered the issue of performances all over the place, but when you see a stage turn on film surely the most self-obsessed actor-director would call foul.

The sets are obviously fake, in a distracting way, and the decision to shoot the battle in Spain is frankly bizarre:

←La Mancha



Bosworth →

They don't even vaguely look alike!

I can't even, 3 days down the line, think of anything good to say baout the costumes or the score. It's terrible that a small thing like a grand-standing performance has wiped everything else from my mind.

I can only hope if you're passing the video store and see this on sale you pince yourself and buy Hamlet instead.

By the way this is the first time I've managed to link reviews by the casts - click on Ralph Richardson to read the review on Long Day's Journey into Night, or John Gielgud for Gandhi. Eventually I expect this will happen a lot.

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Six Degrees of Separation

1993. Dir: Fred Schepisi. Starring: Stockard Channing, Will Smith, Donald Sutherland, Ian McKellen and Mary Beth Hurt. ●●●●○

A tiny lack of funds has meant I had to skip the cinema, and great Kate, at the weekend and watch a DVD instead, randomly selecting Schepisi's 1993 con movie.

I see you may be confused by that categorisation, but in essence Six Degrees follows a con from the point of view of the mark. The film is told in a semi-flashback style, each development of the story being framed by chat at weddings, dinner parties and gallery openings narrated by sophiticated Manhattanites Ouisa and Flan Kitteridge (Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland). On a seemingly ordinary Saturday night, whilst closing a business deal with Ian McKellen's Suuff eerfrikern accent when Paul (Will Smith) bursts into their apartment bleeding from his stomach.



He then claims to be a) a friend of their kids' from Harvard and b) the son of Sidney Poitier. These both turn out to be gibberish, but he manages to get a clean shirt, a bed for the night and $50. In return he makes dinner, entertains them with incisive, but in retrospect rather dry conversation, and brings a boy from the streets back to the house for some illicit rumpy pumpy.

I won't give any more of the plot away, as it successive twist is both generally satisfying to watch and logical, but ultimately the lives of the Kitteridges and Paul continue to mingle as they find out more about him.

Channing is terrific, as she slowly realises this is not just an after dinner anecdote but a real person that they casually discuss. Her character alone seems to realise that Paul has actually gained very little from them in his trick, aside from giving them fresh perspective on how they view themselves. Sutherland also nails his character but the journey is less dramtic.

The weaker link is definitely Smith, making his transition from Fresh Prince to movie stardom. He's scenes with the Kitteridges are fine with just the right amount of confidence, but he loses his nerve in other places. Especially in the scene with Trent Conway (Anthony Michael Hall), Paul's flamboyant sometime lover. It's an odd scene as Trent is going all doolally over Paul, but when they kiss (an oddly chaste kiss) even the extreme angle of the shot does not hide the gap between their faces and the dubbed "mwoah".

John Guare adapted the film from his 1990 stageplay, which in turn is based on a true incident of a serial con artist pretending to be the son of Sidney Poitier, and whilst knowing that gives the film an aura of truth there are still some jarring elements. It seems hard to believe that all the characters fall for Paul's story; and the ending is a trite forced but these are forgiveable issues.

Judianna Makovsky also needs congratulating on finding a stunning array of suits and dresses that make Stockard Channing appear like a supermodel - she's a new name to me, although she has a fascinating CV, including the upcoming Cirque du Freak which should be a nice stretch for her talents.

By the way, for those of you who don't spend your free time playing six degrees of Kevin Bacon, here is Ouisa helpfully explaining the concept: "I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find it extremely comforting that we're so close. I also find it like Chinese water torture, that we're so close because you have to find the right six people to make the right connection... I am bound, you are bound, to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people."

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What's Love Got to Do With It

1993. Dir: Brian Gibson. Starring: Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne, Jenifer Lewis, Terrence Riggins and Vanessa Bell Calloway. ●●●●○

As I mentioned in my last biopic review it is difficult to seperate our thoughts about an individual from the film about them. Admittedly this is slightly easier with Tina Turner, she's a fantastic performer but let's face it she isn't Gandhi. In What's Love got to Do With It there is a struggle to seperate the Tina of the music and the Tina of the best-selling autobiography on whcih the film is based.

After a brief intro where Tina is abandoned by her mother the film follows the rise and fall of the abusive relationship between Tina and Ike Turner, played by Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne respectively.



The film makes harrowing viewing. From early on the nature of Ike Turner is revealed in his cavalier attitude to his ex's attempted suicide and cheap wedding to Tina. This escalates into fist fights and one particulary tough to watch rape scene.

Both actors manage extremely well in these scenes, which must have been tough and harrowing to film.

I was especially impressed by Fishburne, whose explosive violence was often followed by moments of either immense alpha-male behaviour or pitiful whining. His cries, early in the film, that everyone leaves him are shockingly believeable both as a cry for help and as a hook to keep Tina locked into the cycle of abuse.

The camerawork and editing are professional but nothing to write home about, but the set direction and costumes are marvellous. We get a real sense of the times as they move from the 60's through to the late 70's.

Where the movie fails though it's the "westernisation" of the abusive couple. Tina is given no persoanlity flaws at all - a perfect angel throughout seemingly incapable of any unprovoked negative act other than pride in her voice. On the other hand Ike is always portrayed in a negative light, even the tough way he deals with his group (surely a necessity in show business) is only made light of. Most of the other characters are either tacitly complicit with Ike's behaviour, see Zelma Bullock, or seemingly ignorant to the situation like the rest of the band.

I don't want to sound like I'm defending Ike. He most certainly was a vicious bully. And there can never be an excuse for domestic abuse on this scale. But maybe if the screenplay went some way to recognise Ike's skills then it may have got that fifth star.

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Gandhi

1982. Dir: Richard Attenborough. Starring: Ben Kingsley, Candice Bergen, Edward Fox, John Giegud and Trevor Howard. ●●●●○

Gandhi was the first of my two biopics this weekend. By curious coincidence just this week Richard Attenborough has been admitting that he robbed ET for the 1982 Best picture Oscar. Whilst it's refreshing to hear this view from the victor it must be remembered that Gandhi is a superb picture, even if it was overpraised at the time.


The film is bookended by the assassination and funeral for Gandhi, so for those people watching the film with little knowledge of the Mahatma that sight of tens of thousands of extras lining the streets for the funeral gives some idea of the popularity of the man.

We then flashback to Gandhi in South Africa, a fresh faced Cambridge scholared lawyer seemingly seeing institutionalised racism for the first time in his life. Seemingly from this incident Gandhi launches a campign to bring equal rights to Indian migrants.

Then following sucesses in South Africa (and not without adversity) Gandhi returns to India where he gives moral authority and significant influence to the Congress Parties campaign for home rule. His policy of passive resistance (by not complying with unjust laws however by not resorting to violence) as well as his scholarly attitude makes him enemies with the authorities as well as within the Congress party itself.

It is clear that Attenborough has a profound respect for Gandhi. Every scene confirms the qualities the Mahatma had, his profound beliefs in equality, his humility and his unqenchable thrist for peace. The film comes across as a beautiful portrait of this great man.

We must seperate the film from the subject, though. I think we can all agree that the Mahatma changed the world and showed us a new, better way to struggle against oppression, what we cannot agree on is that this sort of hero worship makes good entertainment.

Ben Kingsley does a fine job of protraying Gandhi, but there is little conflict within the character - he has little to do other than become more and more saintly. Indeed it's only in the first third of the movie, in South Africa, that Ben's performance is worthwhile. As he progresses from a shy public speaker to a man capable of starting a revolution you can see changes in every scene.

Rohini Hattangadi gives a far more measured performance as Kasturba Gandhi, showing the pride, devotion and frustration that she feels for her husband.

Most of the rest of the cast simply drift in and out of the action with one note performances, including a veritable who's who of British talent, although Roshan Seth is superb as Nehru. The low point of this parade is Alyque Padamsee as Jinnah; I don't know whether to blame him of Attenborough but the founder of Pakistan comes across like a silent movie villain - stiff and unbending in both his manner and his dealing with other characters. I kept expecting him to twirl the corner of his moustache and let out a pantomime laugh.

The technical side of this production is faultless. There isn't a still in the 3 hour running time that is less than perfectly composed, thanks to wardrobe and et teams. The cinematography by Ronnie Taylor and Billy Williams is suitably epic in a manner that befits the subject.

Overall this is a brave attempt to portray one of the greatest men who ever lived, but it's obvious respect for it's subject neuters the final product.

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Random Film reviews

Over the weekend I sat down and watched a couple of movies randomly selected from the collection. The first one was due for last weekend but what with going to London and seeing Death Defying Acts I didn't get a chance to watch until this weekend.

I'm not going to spoil it by mentioning what they are (not until the first review pops up tomorrow) but what I'm going to do is give some brief thoughts on the genre that happens to connect these two randomly selected films. The much-maligned BIOPIC.

The biopic has been around as long as cinema, with many early features seeking inspiration from monarchs and world leaders. Although it wasn't long before those lofty targets were shifted to greats in their field including science (the 30's saw an enormous number of invention movies, giving rise to the old joke about Don Ameche inventing the telephone) and entertainment.



This led to the delightfully meta moment in Jolson Sings Again where Larry Parks, playing Al Jolson, meets Larry Parks, playing Larry Parks, to discuss making a biopic about Al Jolson.

The output of biopics has been steadily increasing since the 40's, with the subjects no longer confined to the great and good but are as likely to focus on serial killers, drug dealers and corporate whistle blowers. (And for each of these subjects there's an easily identifiable well made film to go with them.)

It's no surprise that biopics do reasonable box office - it's like receiving gossip over the fence on a gigantic scale. This may also explain why, in this age of celebrity culture, the subjects lifestyles are becoming more lurid and recent. In fact the subjects are often so well known the actors are merely impersonating the parts and not creating the role in a way you would with a character purely from the page. And critics and audiences are lapping this up.

It's been 10 years since none of the acting oscars have gone to a biopic (11 if you count Shakespeare in Love as having real people), and over the last 6 years five leading actresses and four lead actors have been impersonations. I'm not saying these these performances weren't good - in many cases they were deserving - but in just as many cases the mere fact of the closeness of the performance to how we remember the person was sufficient to get the awards.

I'm as culpable as the next man: W., The Argentine, Valkyrie are all on my radar. I hope though that I can see the performances for what they are and not as mere impersonations.

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Pieces of April

2003. Dir: Peter Hedges. Starring: Katie Holmes, Patricia Clarkson, Derek Luke, Sean Hayes and Oliver Platt. ●●●○○

Pieces of April has a relatively simple premise. April Burns (Holmes) prepares a thanksgiving meal for her family and things don't go entirely to plan. There are comic situations arising from April's broken oven, and pitch balck performances from the family from hell on their way to see her.

Indeed as a comedy it works, there are a lot of laughs to be had watching April trying to prepare the food or in Joy's (Clarkson) asides. When she asks her daughter to stop singing you really don't know whether to laugh or to want to give her a slap.



One of the main problems with the film is that very few of the characters come across as sympathetic or rounded. Only Oliver Platt delivers anything beyond a braod caricature as he tries to keep the family together.

Indeed some of the supporting characters seem to be completely irredeemable - yes, Sean Hayes we're looking at your bizarre performance, and Alison Pill as April's sister is given nothing positive to say in the entire film. Also I find it extremely difficult to believe that Aprils knows as little as she does about cooking - her appaling attempts to peel an onion are one thing but surely no-one would be stupid enough to attempt to mash uncooked potatoes for as long as she keeps it up.

Even the set decoration doesn't make much sense - the claustrophobia and student kitsch appeal of the main apartment work well, but the other apartments almost appear to be in different areas of the city, with vastly different sized flats. I just can't imagine that the Sean Hayes character would spend that much money on a new oven and yet stay in that block.

Tami Reiker's handheld camerawork gives a nice lo-fi feel to the proceedings and Laura Cunningham's costumes and the hair an make-up team make each character feel more lived in than some of the performances do.

Overall I would say Pieces of April is a pleasant little comedy with unpleasant characters. Fairly enjoyable fluff but not enough to go out a buy it.

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Leaving Las Vegas

1995. Dir: Mike Figgis. Starring: Nicolas Cage, Elisabeth Shue, Julian Sands, Richard Lewis and Steven Weber. ●●●●○

Leaving Las Vegas is not a film for the light hearted. It contains very frank and explicit scenes of alcoholism and prostition, without the Hollywood sugar coating. For those who are able to make it through the tough exterior they will find a glorious film inside.


The plot can be summarised in one matchbox sized sentence: Drunk moves to Las Vegas to die and meets tart with a heart. Indeed when you boil it down there isn't much more to the story than that.

Nicolas Cage, as Ben Sanderson, is an alcoholic in Hollywood who, on losing his job, decides to end his life by drinking himself to death in Las Vegas, the city where the bars never close. Elisabeth Shue is Sera the prostitute who's pimp, Julian Sands, is just letting her go (partly due to his paranoia and partly to protect her from the Russian mafia out to get him). Ben and Sera meet up and an unusual and close bond is formed between them. A bond that exists on one proviso, that Sear allows Ben to drink and Ben does not attack Sera's way of life.

Thinsg do not go completely to play. Suffice to say the ending is pretty tragic, however the acceptance and forgiveness that the odd couple display towards each up to that point is very touching.

In my last random review (Long days Journey into Night) nearly all of the cast had to display various levels of drunkeness and drug taking. Here Cage does not merely portray the effects of having a drink, but also the long term physiological changes. He sweats, vomits and shakes in almost every scene - his behaviour is erratic and uncontrolled and he shows huge swings in confidence and understanding of his situation. It's a masterful performance which rightly earned Cage the Best Actor Oscar.

Shue does not has the tics and traits of alcoholism to hide behind, yet in my mind she gives a superior performance. Deep in her eyes you can see her shifting perceptions of Ben, Yuri and her clients, and you can really understand when and why she asks Ben to see a doctor and the hurt she feels when he betrays her.

Figgis and cinematographer Declan Quinn do a fine job of the look and feel of the film, shooting in 16mm, generally with long takes and a moving camera. As a result the film has a spontaneous and documentary feel to it.

The main issue I would say that the film has is the misogynism apparent in the script, and it's something that reoccurs in most of Figgis's work. It is not enough that Sera is gang-raped, but it has to be an anal rape scene, and all of the supporting female roles are either sexual objects or shrews.

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Long Day's Journey into Night

1962. Dir: Sidney Lumet. Starring: Katherine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, Dean Stockwell and Jeanne Barr. ●●●○○

Written by Eugene O'Neill in the 1940's, this semi-autobiographical play was first released and produced following his death in 1953. The play was a huge hit and it often regarded as his finest work - praise indeed for the writer of The Iceman Cometh.

The plot, or what there is of one, follows the Tyrone's over the course of the day as they fight and pick at each other and turn to their own habits and rituals for comfort.

There are some additional issues for a transfer from stage to screen tat you don't have with other films, especially when the action all takes place in a single set. In some adaptations there will be additional characters, in other the action moves to different locations. In Night Sidney Lumet merely opens up the house - we see the garden and the dining room, but other than that it's purely as the play is presented.


It's a brave decision, and I think the right one. The spare room and the Doctor's office are described almost as other worlds so it would have been a let down to actually see them. On the other hand this decision makes the film feel very stagey. There's even one device at the end where the camera pans out to reveal the set as a faraway stage. This whole staginess makes the film more boring than it has any right to be.

If Boris Kaufman (cinematographer of such masterpieces as On the Waterfront and 12 Angry Men) had been given more rein to have fun like the point when the camera follows Katherine Hepburn around as she circles the room then the whole film would be improved. Perhaps if the set was interesting this could have helped, but, as Hepburn's character repeats many times it's not a home and it certainly gives no clues to indicate the places is lived in and enjoyed.

All the performances hit the right notes. Katherine Hepburn milks the slow descent into morphine induced madness but only in keeping with the charcter and Ralph Richardson makes a superb hammy miser in a performance that may just be a touch close to home. Making a huge impression as the youngest son with Consumption, and the character that stands in for Eugene himself, is Dean Stockwell.

Stockwell had been a child actor who was now graduating to adult parts, and his performance here is superb as his watches the rest of his family get drunk or high and desperately try to avoid talking about what's really wrong with themselves by blaming everyone else around them. It's certainly a wonder why Stockwell didn't get more film work, looking at his CV it seems TV was a greater calling so a potential matinee idol was lost there.

To conclude I would say that the dialoigue is riveting, the performances good and the haunting piano score of Andre Previn effectively evocative, but Long Day's Journey into Night fails to escape from it's stage past and the overall package is less than the sum of it's parts.

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Giant

1956. Dir: George Stevens. Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Carroll Baker and Jane Withers. ●●○○○



Giant is the sort of sprawling epic that they just don't make any more. Only they do make them like this, except they make it cheaper with less well known stars and put it on television 3 times a week. That's right; if it looks like soap, sounds like soap and feels like soap it must be soap.



The action opens in Dr. Lynnton's northern estate where Jordan Benedict (Hudson) is buying a horse. The horse is a favourite of Lynnton's daughter Leslie (Taylor) and it soon becomes clear that Benedict won't be returning to Texas alone. Once the action shifts to the Raela ranch we are introduced to Bendict's sister Luz (Mercedes McCambridge) and employee Jett Rink (Dean).

Characters come, go and die, inherit, get rich, have children (who grow up marry and have their own children), and pretty soon 3 hours of your life have gone.

The film isn't short of good ingredients, though.

It's themes of gender and racial equality are important to make but Dennis Hopper's leaden speeches aren't enough and the promise of Taylor leading female emancipation in the partriachical Texas society is never exploited. Liz Taylor is luminous (even if her wardrobe is unflattering). McCambridge gives a pitch perfect performance, although this too is wasted because every tiem she speaks the camera cuts to an extreme close up or she appears somewhere way off centre.

The best elements of the film come and go quickly - James Dean striking oil (bizarrely cut with a party at Reala), McCambridge riding the new stallion in silhouette, the interior of Reala until the Benedict's start striking oil.

The bad points are much more prevalent: In the later stages of the film Dean and Hudson stop acting and let their make-up do all the work as their characters age and the script lurches from one melodramtic speech to another. Generally the entire production seems ham fisted and amateurish.

Bizarrely this film was nominated for 10 oscars, winning one for George Stevens' direction, and is regularly voted as one of the best films of all time. I can only hope they have been wacthing another film.

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Sunset Blvd.

1950. Dir: Billy Wilder. Starring: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson and Fred Clark. ●●●●●

Now here's a random film that will test my mettle as a reviewer.

Sunset Blvd. is about as iconic as a film can get. The story of an ageing film star and her liaison with a on-the-make screenwriter is as indelible in everyone's minds as it was groundbreaking at the time. Who hasn't spoken to the mirror at one point or another: "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up."

Let's try to breakdown why this film has such an appeal and what factors have made it such a success.

The first reason for it's success was the uniqueness of the story. The narrator gives the end of the story away in the first five minutes. We know a man is dead, we know a movie star is involved, we know we're about to see a big story with a big ending. Yet we don't know enough to spoil the film, we don't yet know the identity of the killer or the victim.

From this magnificent opening sequence we flashback 6 months to Joe Gillis (Holden) avoiding the repo men and desperately trying to sell a script. Holden is great at this sort of loveable rogue part: dryly humourous, quick witted and with a hint of self absorbsion. It's to Holden's credit that as the film goes on we always remain on his side, even as his character is reveaed to be more and more of a heel.

In his attempts to secure his car from repossession Gillis hides in what appears to be an abandoned mansion. Only it's not abandoned - it houses silent movie goddess Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), her creepy butler Max (Erich von Stroheim) and a dead chimpanzee. Gillis soon finds himself moving in as an editor for Norma's screenplay of Salome.

Kudos to the art direction and decoration team because this mansion is a character unto itself. Opulent yet decrepit. Instantly showing what Norma once was and what she has become. As the story develops the house becomes more glorious, reflecting Desmond's renewed vigour and optimism.

It has to work hard though to keep up with Swanson. She is magnificent, playing a grotesquely caricutured version of old movie stars, possible even playing an version of what she could have become. This was her first film in 9 years, and her biggest hit since she was in silent movies. And she seems to know it. Norma Desmond is not just a monster, she's a fragile caring woman as well. Swanson is able to show all these layers, even as the characters sanity slips away.

It's not all about the cast, though. The real reason for the success is the script. Billy Wilder (and co-writer Charles Brackett) were to have many more successes, although not together, and here they were both at the top of their game. Every line is pure gold, and usually endlessly quotable.

Sunset Blvd. changed cinema. It created the career of William Holden (for years he played a variation of Joe Gillis), it gave Billy Wilder much more freedom to pick his projects. It's framing technique was revolutionary, imitated by American Beuty amog other. By turning its eye on the seedy side of Hollywood it influenced others like The Bad and Beautiful and Singin in the Rain. It's influence camn also be felt in any film with stars fighting against the passage of time like Whatever happened to Baby Jane and Sweet Bird of Youth. In fact Tennessee Williams' output could probably only be produced after this gigolo and an older woman had had their tryst.

Overall there are few films that are as exciting and vibrant as Sunset Blvd. Watch it as soon as you can.

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Indochine

1992. Dir: Regis Wargnier. Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Vincent Perez, Linh Dam Pham, Jean Yanne and Dominique Blanc. ●●●●○

Each week in this blog I will be offering a film review. If I'm sufficiently excitied about a new release I'll see that and review it. Other weeks I will simply randomly draw a film from my collection to review.

This afternoon I made that selection and my heart sank. It's not that Indochine is a bad film. It's just that this first selection will say a hug amount about me more than the film, and I've picked a long, sedate french language film. However to select another film would be cheating so here goes.

Indochine - the French name for their territory in SE Asia now Vietnam - opens during a funeral procession. Camille (Linh Dam Pham) has lost her parents, Eliane (Catherine Deneuve) her closest friends. Eliane has inherited thier estate, expanding her sizeable rubber plantation and has adopted their child. When Camille has grown Eliane enters a short but passionate affair with Jean-Baptiste (Vincent Perez), a French naval officer. Camille also falls in love with Jean-Baptiste after he saves her life. To protect her daughter Eliane pulls some strings to have Jean-Baptiste transferred from Saigon. All this comes out in a decadent party to celebrate Camille's graduation.

This would be enough of a film in itself but we're only about one third through and therein lies the major problem with Indochine. It is very very long, 2hours 40 according to the sleeve notes. It's never boring mind although the pace is occasionally glacial. There is just so much plot and story to get in it would be difficult to isolate anywhere it could be sped up or even where some judicious cutting may help.

The performances from Catherine Deneuve and Linh Dam Pham are absolutely superb, but it's the technical elements of this film that really carry it. From that opening funeral you made fully aware of a gorgeous score by Patrick Doyle, Pierre-Yves Gayraud and Gabriella Pescucci's superb costumes and Francois Catonne's precise cinematography. Catonne's art is especially keen when shooting water, in all it's forms.

In fact water is regularly used to signify the emotions of Eliane or Jean-Baptiste, this is underlined in an early auction scene where they bid against each other for a french landscape. For Eliane it's just a painting - she keeps her feelings buttoned up - for the more expressive Jean-Baptiste it's a coast he remembers almost ebing alive. And so Eliane is often surrounded by stagnant or still waters - the mist around the rubber trees, ceremonial ponds the day before Camille's engagement, Lake Geneva at the end. For Jean-Baptiste the water is always flowing; an outpour as he chases Eliane's car, the waterfall where he baptises his son, the sweat on his face after a nightmare.

Whilst we're talking about him sweating I have to point out that whilst we see other characters semi-naked or acting provocatively Jean-Baptiste is the only character who appears to be sexualised. Vincent Perez is mighty gorgeous though and it's difficult not to sexualise him.

Finally this film probaly gives a better understanding of Vietnam, and the conflict, than any American film. Showing as it does the background to the creation of Vietnam, the terrible acts of violence that had been imposed on the Vietnamese people, just the inhabitants of a colony. It's no wonder they fought so hard to keep their independence later.

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