Saturday, February 27, 2010

Review Post 66: The Crazies [2010] / Crazy Heart

THE CRAZIES
DIR: Breck Eisner
CAST: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell,
Joe Anderson, Danielle Panabaker



I haven’t seen George A. Romero’s original version of The Crazies (the third of his films, to date, to get an official remake following the first two entries in his Dead series), so I can’t compare Breck Eisner’s unfussily efficient remake to its source, perhaps that’s a good thing though, because it forces me to look at The Crazies purely on its own limited merits.

To give Eisner (son of longtime Disney head Michael) his due, he does pull out several effective moments; a scarily atmospheric shot here (such as that of a woman dwarfed by a running combine harvester, or a garden fork being dragged along the floor), a thrilling scare sequence there (a car wash scene is pretty unnerving, and beautifully paced) and even a genuinely creepy downbeat ending that runs against the established Hollywood grain, but for each of these directorial hits there are half a dozen misses.

The biggest is simply that Eisner never stamps any identity on this film; any one of the directors who have been tasked to churn out the endless amount of horror remakes that Hollywood has been producing over the past five years could have made The Crazies. It’s a shiny, glossy, and ultimately rather soulless film, even Eisner’s best shots don’t feel like they could only belong to this story, or this filmmaker, it’s all just there.

Most of the other problems with this film begin not with the direction but with the screenplay by Scott Kosar and Ray Wright. There is a gaping hole at the centre of this film where its characters ought to be. The Crazies has no characters, just shells that walk around talking occasionally. Radha Mitchell suffers most, she’s a capable actress, but here she’s reduced to merely looking pretty (which she does well) and waiting to be saved. I hope she bought something nice with her wages. Her character is a doctor, and pregnant, but neither of these things has any real purpose in the film; instead the sense is that the character needed a job and the screenwriters’ dart happened to hit the card saying Doctor.

Timothy Olyphant has just as little to do, despite being the lead as Mitchell’s small town sheriff husband, who, along with his wife, his deputy (Anderson) and his wife’s teenage receptionist (Panabaker) attempts to escape when a mysterious disease outbreak results in their small town being wiped off the map by the Government. However, Olyphant is effective, giving a charismatic, Bill Paxton-ish, performance that suggests that if his character had anything resembling a personality he might prove a solid actor. In support, British actor Joe Anderson does a creditable American accent, and gives a decent performance despite a one note character, but Danielle Panabaker all but vanishes into the background, giving a performance that is as much a non-entity as her character.

It is, perhaps, churlish, to complain about lapses of logic in what is, in essence and feel if not in fact, a zombie movie, but there are holes here that one could drive a truck through. The most glaring are to do with the infection, and how it spreads (hmmm, might this have been a good use of the doctor character, do you think?) We’re never really sure how it spreads, how infectious it is, and the incubation period, though defined late in the day, seems motivated by dramatic requirements. The glaring error would seem to be that, at one point, Olyphant is clearly exposed to infected blood, essentially pouring it into a cut on his body, a fact that goes curiously unacknowledged (even by the DOCTOR).

The perfunctory screenplay, the mixed performances, the unimaginative and resolutely adequate direction, the fact that nobody has any character to speak of, these are all problems, but they are all amplified by the fact that The Crazies is just no fun. In fact it’s dull, a tedious collection of workaday horror clichés that never knit together into a satisfying story. There are no stakes here, because we don’t care about the ciphers at the centre of the film, and more than once, even during some of the film’s more action packed moments, I felt myself begin to nod off. Three or four effective moments, and a couple of better than deserved performances are all well and good, but they can’t lift The Crazies beyond being future bargain bin fodder for the most undiscerning horror fans.


CRAZY HEART
DIR: Scott Cooper
CAST: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal,
Robert Duvall, Colin Farrell



I was always likely to like Crazy Heart, after all, it features three things of which I’m extremely fond; Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal and great music. In many ways Crazy Heart is, as a film, much as its main character; alcoholic, washed up country singer Bad Blake (Bridges) is as a person. It’s a little baggy, carrying some extra weight, it’s rough around the edges and sometimes a little caustic and it does some hopelessly cliché things along the way. However, it also possesses passion and a great deal of charm, which provide just enough smooth to take the rough with.

Jeff Bridges is nominated for an Oscar for the fifth time for his work here, and he’s going to win. It’s not an undeserved honour, and yet, this isn’t his best work. As Bad Blake, Bridges is brilliant; he really sucks us into this guy and makes him likeable against all the odds. He’s perhaps especially good in the scenes with Maggie Gyllenhaal’s single mother Jean and her four-year-old son Buddy. In these scenes we see Blake come to life, and perhaps for a moment we see the man who lies behind that alcoholic fug he’s spent most his life in. The only thing is that, occasionally, usually when Blake is at his most inebriated, Bridges’ performance smacks of effort. Just every now and then Blake goes away and is replaced by Jeff Bridges giving a really good performance. It’s strong work, but not quite as complete a creation as, say, The Dude.

Certainly Bridges is one of the things that lifts Crazy Heart out of the ordinary, which is where the rather hackneyed and signposted screenplay by director Scott Cooper would otherwise have landed it. The writing is strictly by the numbers redemptive stuff, it’s fine as far as it goes, and the dialogue is nicely written, but we’ve seen this movie a hundred times before (though it’s usually a biopic).

Maggie Gyllenhaal is one of the warmest and most enjoyable actresses out there at the moment, but what’s striking is how organic her work is. There’s none of the forced perkiness that can mark the performances of some actresses who are striving for warmth, and there also seems to be a total lack of vanity. She’s absolutely convincing as a single mother trying to hold her life together, and do it with good humour. She’s also got good chemistry with Bridges, which allows them to get over the implausibility of this sweet, attractive, woman in her early 30’s taking up with the alcoholic, slightly overweight and almost three decades older Blake.

In a smaller part, as a protégé who has now overtaken Blake, Colin Farrell does some nicely understated work, and reveals an unexpectedly strong singing voice. The music, by T Bone Burnett, is the heart and soul of this film, and if it had fallen flat it would have taken the whole movie with it. At one point Blake observes of songs “that’s how it is with the good ones, you feel like you know them, even if you don’t”. That’s sentiment that applies to all of this film’s songs. Bad’s music is stirring, and brilliantly performed by Bridges, whose voice may not have widest range, but is full of expression, in which you can hear the last twenty years of Bad’s life inform his performances.

Without Bridges, without Gyllenhaal and without its songs, Crazy Heart would be a deeply ordinary movie, and in some ways it remains so, but there is enough of quality here to overcome the overfamiliarity of the writing and to make the film well worth recommending as a whole.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Next Week: The new 24FPS

I haven't posted much this week because I've been working on some new articles to give the site more regular content and, hopefully, encourage a few guest contributors. In addition to all the regular review posts (which, in the next seven days will cover The Crazies, Crazy Heart, The Headless Woman and Father of My Children (with a report on a Q and A with director Mia Hansen Love)) this is what the weekly schedule will look like here at 24FPS.

Monday: The Week in Movies
A chronological write up of mini-reviews for everything I've seen in the past week that hasn't had a full length review.

Tuesday: They Made Tom Watch
My Brother's thoughts on something he's had to test screen at the cinema he works at.

Wednesday: BBFC Report [fortnightly] / Special Feature / DAY OFF
The fortnightly BBFC (and possibly MPAA, if I can find a good source for info) report will bring you all the certification and censorship news you need. You'll also find a new Cinematters at least one Wednesday a month, with perhaps the odd special feature thrown in.

Thursday: Spotlight
A new series focusing on some of cinema's lesser known or under appreciated talents.

Friday: Five...
A list feature. You're welcome to suggest topics or write your own list on any subject you can think of.

Saturday: Reviews / DAY OFF
I usualy go to the movies on Friday, so Saturday will be the main review day, other reviews will be dotted throughout the week, as I see movies.

Sunday: Why Haven't You Seen...?
The long in the planning return of the feature that reccommends those movies that, for whatever reason, you may well have missed.


Also, please note that there is now (under the 'Navigate 24FPS' tab at the top of the sidebar) a FULL archive of my reviews for the site. 2010 release reviews are still accessible from the sidebar, but the rest are available in the alphabetised archive.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

They Made Tom Watch... 7



Director: The Something Brothers

What’s it about?
Vampires are the prevalent species in the world, and the humans are dying out. With them goes the food supply.

Vampire-with-a-conscience Ethan Hawke is trying to find a synthetic blood recipe to solve the crisis, while not drinking human blood. He finds some humans and joins them, for some reason, and then gets into various scrapes looking for a cure…
Ethan Hawke’s brother is after them, and eventually, via a holocaust metaphor, the goodies win. Don’t ask me how or why, because I didn’t care.

What did I think of it?
I thought that it was shit.

It was another case of a good concept being ruined by terrible execution. Not only didn’t it look very good, it was marred by THE WORST PERFORMANCES EVER. Sam Niell! Willem Defoe! Bad performances!

I can only assume that the directors were actually, literally, bananas sitting on chairs. They actually, somehow, retard the actors ability. Part of this of course is down to the exceptionally shitting awful script. I would repeat some choice lines here, but I don’t want to. Go see it if you don’t believe me.

But of course you shouldn’t see it. Because it’s shit.

Who is it for?
I honestly don’t know.

What is it like?
The Matrix meets Underworld, seen through the eyes of bananapeople.

Good Stuff: Increased profile for bananas. Tasty, but can’t direct films for shit.

Bad Stuff: See above

Monday, February 22, 2010

Yella revisited

Having looked again at Yella, thanks to the BBC Iplayer, I found that my opinion of the film hadn't changed one iota, so much so that, rather than write a new review, I've dug through my archives and found the review I wrote at the time, which I can absolutely stand by.


Yella
DIR: Christian Petzold
CAST: Nina Hoss, Devid Streisow,
Burghart Klaussner



In the largely dreadful, po-faced, Atomised there was one bright spot, an excellent, flighty, performance by Nina Hoss as the mother of the main characters. It was Hoss’ presence that sold me on this strange arthouse thriller. There are two threads to the story Yella (Hoss) is being stalked by her ex husband (Schonneman), while at the same time finding a new job, and perhaps a new romance, with a lawyer (Streisow) who is staying at the same hotel as her.

The big problem is that these threads never really come together to form any sort of cohesive whole and so what you end up with is two separate movies, neither of which really feels complete. It can be quite plodding too, with a lot of the (brief) running time taken up by business meetings about company takeovers. There are flashes of inspiration; a dynamic scene between Yella and her husband in the car and a truly scary culmination of that storyline in particular but all too often seeds are sown but never paid off. Whatever good work is done story wise is, sadly, undone late in the day by a twist so head-slappingly obvious that I had dismissed it when, 45 minutes previously, I had figured it out because it would amount to a giant fuck you to the audience.

There’s a catch though. Nina Hoss, again, completely outclasses the film. Her icy performance is 180 degrees from the one she gave in Atomised and again suggests that she is an actress of estimable abilities. The other performances are also decent but those too pale against Hoss’ leading turn. If only we could now see this talented woman in a film worthy of her, that would be great.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

BAFTA Liveblog

NOTE - As promised, this post has now been cleaned up and improved. I've added pictures and video from the ceremony, cleaned up spellings, and reformatted the post so it's a bit easier and more fun to read. Hope you enjoyed the liveblog, and will join me for the Oscar liveblog in a fortnight's time.

8:30 - Half an hour to go. This ought to be an interesting experiment. I've got predictions ready in all categories except for the short films, now I've got to get my other preparations... VERY large mug of strong, sweet, tea. Brewing as we speak. Snacks... hmmm... need snacks. Comfy chair. In place. Beeper to censor inevitable swearing, oh, right, I don't have one, so consider yourselves warned. Tomorrow morning I'll edit this post, clean up spelling and things and add some pics and video where possible, but for now you'll have to excuse any errors as I'll be typing as fast as my limited skills allow.

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9:00 - Here we go then.
9:00 - Oh bollocks, Wossy's hosting
9:02 - Red carpet's rather starry. Audrey Tautou is the epitome of cute, and Anna Kendrick looks great too.

9:03 - Coming to you from James Cameron's shed. Wossy's jokes are flopping.
9:05 - Pattinson gets a name check, and two very poor gags.
9:06 - Wossy's having to explain his jokes now, damn, that's sad.
9:07 - Big applause for Up, good thing too.
9:08 - A Tiger Woods joke, ooh, daring. Does get a laugh though.
9:10 - Oh, why is Revenge of the Fallen in the montage?

9:11 - Outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer
Prediction: Moon
The former Zowie Bowie will take something home, this seems the logical choice.
9:12 - big applause for Moon nomination.
9:13 - Winner: Duncan Jones for Moon. I'm 1/1.
9:14 - Oh god, first tears of the evening. Is this on a delay? That speech felt cut.

9:15 - Special Visual Effects
Prediction: Avatar
Duh!
9:16 - Winner: Avatar. 2/2.
9:18 - Nice speeches, and it's great that the tech guys don't get cut off by BAFTA as they do by AMPAS.

9:20 - Why do we always have EPK's for the Best Pic nominees, won't a clip do it?

9:21 - Best Supporting Actor
Prediction: Christoph Waltz
And the train keeps on rolling for Waltz.
9:22 - Oh, Anna Kendrick's yummy. Also, nice that Christian McKay gets a nod. Even though he won't win.
9:24 - Winner: Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds. 3/3. He seems genuinely moved "That's supported actor". Classy man. Also, awesome beard sir.

9:26 - Costume Design
Prediction: Either the one about a fashion designer (Coco Before Chanel) or the one by a fashion designer (A Single Man).
9:28 - 3/4. It's The Young Victoria.
9:29 - Fumbled speech there, unless the tribute to a deceased colleague was meant to be "Annie is replaceable". Oops.

9:31 - EPK for An Education. Why isn't Rosamund Pike nominated for Supporting?

9:32 - Makeup and Hair
Prediction: Coco Before Chanel
A wild guess really.
9:32 - Matthew Goode's as wooden a sight reader as he is an actor.
9:33 - 3/5. Young Victoria again.

9:35 - Best Supporting Actress
Prediction: Mo’Nique
Probably too forceful a performance to ignore, unless Anne Marie Duff sneaks in, as she did at the Evening Standard awards. I'd like to be wrong. Anna Kendrick please.
9:36 - Matt Dillon doesn't age.
9:38 - Winner: Mo'Nique for Precious 4/6. Lee Daniels collecting for her.

9:39 - Outstanding British Film
Prediction: A tough call. I’ll roll the dice on MY favourite; Fish Tank. Presented by 'dame in waiting' Rupert Everett, a rare good line there from Ross.
9:42 - 5/7. YEEEEESSSSS. Fish Tank, that's something you don't see at the fucking Oscars.
9:43 - Andrea Arnold had an odd dream last night, slightly odd speech, but I'll forgive her because she's so damn talented.
9:45 - Odd ream, for odd dream. That's a BAD spelling error, it's corrected now.

9:46 - why no laugh, that's a good screenwriter gag

9:47 - Original Screenplay
Prediction: Inglourious Basterds.I think this will be Tarantino’s booby prize, tonight and in a fortnight.
9:49 - 5/8. The Hurt Locker wins. That puts it right in there for Picture.
9:50 - Is there a more beautiful 58 year old woman than Kathryn Bigelow?

9:51 - Aside: Rebecca Hall looks like my stepsister. No, I won't introduce you

9:53 - Production Design
Prediction: The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus
Weird and beautiful films are what this category is made for.
5/9. Avatar wins. Tech sweep time.

9:57 - Orange Rising Star Award [PUBLIC VOTE]
Prediction: Kristen Stewart
Twihards will win this. I voted for Carey Mulligan.
9:58 - FUCK, those puns hurt.
10:00 - Winner: Kristen Stewart 6/10. Wish I'd been wrong there.

10:02 - Adapted Screenplay
Prediction: In the Loop
A lot of warmth out there for this one, and the writing was clearly the outstanding element.
10:05 - 6/11. Up in the Air wins. I suck at this predictions game.

10:07 - In Memoriam.
10:10 - Choked up now, too many people on that list.

10:11 - Animated film
Prediction: Up
With nothing in second
10:12 - Winner: Up. 7/12. GOOD.
10:13 - Sweet speech; not overwhelmed, but a nice tribute to his family.

10:14 - Film Not in the English Language
Prediction: I think it’s likely to be a razor thin margin between The White Ribbon and A Prophet, I hope it’s Haneke, but my head says Audiard. GREAT category this year.
10:16 - Seems to be more applause in this category than any so far.
10:17 - 8/13. A Prophet wins. I still think Haneke's being repeatedly robbed.
10:18 - Funny speech by Audiard, if stuck up, making sure nobody else speaks and thanking only himself. Cock. He should at least have thanked Tahar Rahim.

10:21 - Director
Prediction: Kathryn Bigelow
Another continuing sweep on its way to an Oscar triumph.
10:24 - Winner: Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker. 9/14.
10:25 - Nice, no long list of names, nothing too political, but hitting a pro-peace, and pro-troops note.

10:26 - Best Actor
Prediction: Colin Firth
Jeff Bridges name is already on the Oscar, but Firth is probably going to be in second place there, and with the affection he generates here I think he might sneak this one.
10:28 Winner: Colin Firth for A Single Man. 10/15. A well deserved win for a great performance in a film that doesn't quite earn it.
10:29 - "I'd like to thank the fridge guy". Very funny speech from a classy and underrated actor.

10:31 - Best Actress
Prediction: Carey Mulligan
THE new British star of the year, and since she won’t win the public voted rising star award this will likely be how her brilliant performance in An Education will be rewarded.
Rourke's presenting. Someone's gonna get molested.
10:32 - "Slow it down". "Aplum?" Oh, that was FUN.
10:34 - Winner: Carey Mulligan for An Education. 11/16. Great performance, though I'm not sure Saoirse Ronan wasn't better.
10:35 - She seems genuinely shocked, but she shouldn't be. "Hi", cute.

10:36 - Best Film
Prediction: An Education
I just don’t see the British academy drinking the blue kool aid.
10:38 - The Hurt Locker. The Best Picture Oscar just became interesting.

10:39 - Final total: 11/17. Not terrible, but not good.

10:40 - Fellowship. To Vanessa Redgrave. Sad to hear that Richard Attenborough is unwell. Why the hell is Prince William becoming president of BAFTA. What the Christ does he have to do with movies?

10:42 - There will soon be tears, Natasha Richardson, who died last March, was Redgrave's daughter.
10:44 - I'm going to let Uma Thurman read her autocue, I need a pee.
10:55 - Not the speech I expected. Strong feeling, some sentiment, but always light and, thank God, never hijacked by politics. Very dignified.


So, what did we learn?
1: I suck at predictions.
2: Jonathan Ross needs either better writers or replacing.
3: I think I need some practice at this liveblogging thing.
4: The BAFTAS > The Oscars.

TONIGHT: BAFTA Liveblog



I've never tried this before, but as someone who is generally quite scathing of awards ceremonies (though, it has to be said, I like the BAFTA's more than most of them) I thought that it might be interesting to do a liveblog for the culmination of the British awards season, which is live tonight at 9PM (UK time). Hopefully I'll be able to strike a bit of a different tone to the other livebloggers out there, who tend to be rather more reverent. If this goes well, and if I can find it to watch online, I'll repeat the exercise for the Oscars in a couple of weeks.

So, tune in for a 24FPS firrst; the BAFTA Liveblog, tonight at 9PM. See you then.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Watch Nina Hoss



I've frequently mentioned my admiration for the German actress Nina Hoss (most recently in my review of her latest film, Anonyma). It's my feeling that she's probably, along with the likes of Isabelle Huppert and Jennifer Jason Leigh, one of the four or five best actresses working. Well, now you can, entirely free of charge and totally legally, judge for yourselves.

The BBC Iplayer currently has her film Yella available to watch online. It's a film I didn't like, despite being stunned by Hoss' performance, when I first saw it, but it's been nagging at me, and for a while I've been wanting to see it again and check whether I underrated it. In answer to that I'll have a review in the next couple of days.

Whatever the film as a whole is like, whether or not I like it this time, I can unreservedly recommend that, sometime before next Thursday, you check it out on the Iplayer, because Nina Hoss is just that good, and the film is just 84 minutes long anyway. Drop me a line in the comments and let me know what you thought. Click on the title above, or just click here to watch Yella.

Enjoy.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Read this



When we had our first CD-ROM computers in the mid 90's my parents got me a movie encyclopedia called Cinemania, and it was there that I first read Roger Ebert's reviews. Like all the really great critics, it doesn't matter whether or not you agree with Ebert, his words are just a pleasure to read. He's been very ill over the last seven years, but he's still turning out criticism at a rate that makes most other critics look like slackers, and it's still brilliantly written.

I was linked to thes Vanity Fair profile of Ebert this morning, and wanted to post it here for you to read because it's a beautiful piece of writing; funny, moving and fascinating, and it gives a real insight into a great critic, one whose writing and love of movies inspires me every day.

CLICK HERE

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Review Post 65: Youth in Revolt / Ponyo / Anonyma

YOUTH IN REVOLT
DIR: Miguel Arteta
CAST: Michael Cera, Portia Doubleday



Typecasting, it is sometimes said, is casting. It’s something that a lot of stars embrace because, hey, its work. This certainly seems to be the case with Michael Cera, who first came to notice in the TV show Arrested Development, and seems to have spent his entire, short, film career so far playing the exact same dweeby character. Youth in Revolt, on the surface, seems to offer Cera a chance to stretch his acting muscles a little bit, but in doing so it demonstrates that he has little to stretch.

Cera plays Nick Twisp, a dweeby 16-year-old virgin who lives with his mother (Jean Smart) and a rotating cast of her boyfriends, when the latest boyfriend Jerry (Zach Galifianakis) has to escape some vengeful sailors, who want to beat him up for selling them a faulty car, Nick goes with his mother and Jerry to a campsite where Jerry has a mobile home. While there Nick meets and falls head over heels for Sheeni Saunders (Doubleday), they begin a relationship and when Nick has to leave they hatch a plan involving Nick being bad, so he can get thrown out of his Mother’s house, and come to live nearer Sheeni.
To help him do this Nick creates a Jean Paul Belmondo inspired alter-ego; Francois Dillinger.

Playing both sides of this character; the nerdy Nick and the cooler bad boy Francois, should have allowed Cera to prove, at last, that he can do more than be ‘that high pitched kid from Juno’. Instead it achieves the exact opposite effect, Cera appears utterly incapable of doing anything new on screen. In fact, Francois is so unconvincing a character that he undermines the film. He may say a few harsher things than Nick might, but he does it in the exact same uncertain tones as Nick, you’re never really convinced that this rather ineffectual ‘rebel’ would get Nick to do anything more radical than playing something a little more abrasive than Frank Sinatra.

Despite this, and several more problems (such as a screenplay that is very bitty, and provides much dialogue that fails to sound even remotely like words a real person might say), there’s one thing that proves the saving grace of Youth in Revolt, catapulting it over its many weaker elements. It’s funny, consistently, often extremely, funny. The dialogue does much more with the contrast between Nick and Francois than Cera is able to, take this moment when they are trying to seduce Sheeni as an example:
Francois: I'm gonna wrap your legs around my head and wear you like the crown that you are.
Nick: If that's OK with you.
There are also a lot of capable comic performances here; Cera, despite having a range that barely stretches beyond arm’s length, is a strong comedian, with great comic instincts and timing and the adult cast match him beat for beat with Galifianakis, Ray Liotta and Fred Willard (who gets several laughs just by lying still), being especially reliable sources of mirth.

The romance between Nick/Francois and Sheeni isn’t brilliantly drawn, largely because, beyond being very pretty, there’s not really much to Sheeni Saunders, and given the attachment that Nick forms to her she really ought to have a bit more personality, it’s not really Portia Doubleday’s fault, she does her best with what she’s got here and is pretty and watchable, it’s just that she’s got rather a thin character. The film is also sometimes hamstrung by the fact that it feels heavily cut. Characters drift in and out of the film at more or less random intervals, leaving the film feeling, at times, more like a series of sketches. I’d usually pick bigger holes in a film with as many problems as this one has, but the fact is, for all its faults, I laughed long, hard and often during Youth in Revolt, and that makes it a rare beast among American comedies at the moment (all the more so since it is seldom reliant on cruelty or gross out jokes for its humour). This is by no means one of the great comedies, but it is a fun way to spend 90 minutes.


崖の上のポニョ
[PONYO]
DIR: Hayao Miyazaki
VOICES: Frankie Jonas, Noah Cyrus, Liam Neeson,
Tina Fey, Cate Blanchett



I haven’t really warmed to Hayao Miyazaki’s work, and while I liked this film rather more than the others I’d seen (Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away), there are still things about it that just… rub me the wrong way. It’s worth saying, right up front, that I saw this film in its English dubbed version (something I would only ever do for an animated film).

Ponyo leans quite heavily on what seem to be Miyazaki’s obsessions, namely the relationship of people to their planet and the other creatures living on it. The film tells the story of five year old Sosuke (Jonas), who lives with his Mother Lisa (Fey) on a cliff top house. One day Sosuke finds a goldfish, which he adopts as a pet and names Ponyo (Cyrus). He loses Ponyo by the end of the day, but a bond has formed and Ponyo, after drinking her father’s (Neeson) magical elixir, uses her magic powers to make herself look human, so that she can find Sosuke, an act which causes a raging storm and threatens to throw off the delicate balance of nature.

Ponyo is often a very charming film. Miyazaki’s screenplay captures childhood extremely well, with Sosuke seeming plausible as a five year old, but never becoming irritating in the way that very young kids sometimes can. The fantasy elements of the film are beautifully realised, with Miyazaki creating as magical an undersea world as Disney did in The Little Mermaid; the film that inspired Ponyo in the first place. Kids really ought to love this film, because they’ll get swept up in the world and in the friendship between Ponyo and Sosuke. I found the dub an easy watch, the English dialogue is cleverly written to match the animation and the performances are largely good, with Frankie Jonas a decent lead, Tina Fey making Sosuke’s mother Lisa an interesting and sympathetic character and Cate Blanchett perfectly cast as a goddess of the sea. On the downside, Noah Cyrus voice is high pitched and hard on the ears (it doesn’t help that half of her dialogues is either “Ponyo” or “Sosuke”) and Liam Neeson gives a fine performance, but his voice just doesn’t fit witth his character design at all.

The animation is beautiful, but, and this is something that I’ve felt in all I’ve seen of Miyazaki’s work, I’m just not especially fond of the rather basic, cartoony, drawing style. It’s a matter of personal taste rather than the drawings being bad, but it just doesn’t work for me in the same way that the beautiful work in Satoshi Kon’s films does. The only other major problem with the film for me was that, at times, Miyazaki’s environmental themes resulted in the script turning into an after school special, and talking down to the kids with a lesson, rather than simply telling the story.

All in all, Ponyo is clearly a good film, and Miyazaki clearly a good filmmaker, I just don’t think the director or his films are really for me.


ANONYMA - EINE FRAU IM BERLIN
[ANONYMA - A WOMAN IN BERLIN]
DIR: Max Farberbock
CAST: Nina Hoss, Yevgeni Sidikhin



Given that Julia Roberts, who has never been anyone but Julia Roberts on screen, is described as an actress, it seems a little unfair to use the same word to describe what Nina Hoss does. I think we need a new job description here… shapeshifter, changeling, illusionist, possessed. Nina Hoss doesn’t act her characters, she becomes them, she is swallowed whole by them, I’ve got no idea what she’s like in real life and her films, given that she’s so totally different in each of the four I’ve seen her in, appear to hold no clues. I know only this; she is clearly supernaturally gifted.

Anonyma is set right at the end of World War II, in a Berlin just liberated by the red army. It’s based on a book, first published in 1959, and received with such vitriol that the author said it should never be published again until after her death, documenting the almost systematic raping of Berlin women by the Russians. It’s a tough story, told unblinkingly, but never with gratuitous detail, by director Max Farberbock. Instead of the visceral nastiness that could have been part and parcel of telling this story the film focuses on the reaction of Hoss’ nameless character and that of the friends she is haring an apartment with to the way their supposed protectors are now victimising them. The key phrase in the film is "Wie oft?" (how often), which is frequently repeated when the various women in the story meet, almost in the way that one might use any casual greeting, but the meaning behind it, though never stated, is clear and hideous. Among the women in the apartment where much of the film takes place the reactions range from terror, even suicide, to the more mercenary approach taken by Hoss’ character, as she writes in her diary: “I will decide who gets me”.

This is a part of the war that I knew nothing about, and which hasn’t been addressed on film before. It’s an uncomfortable watch in many ways, first because of the subject matter, which is hideous, but also because it doesn’t really work the way a regular war movie works. We are used to having the good guys and the bad guys in a war movie, and the Nazis, by definition, are the bad guys. Here nobody is without a stain on their character. The rank and file members of the red army are generally shown as bored young men, raping women almost as a way to pass the time after the are stopped from storming the Reichstag. The officers (notably Sidikhin as an officer that Hoss latches on to as a way to protect herself) are less violent, but just as corrupt, extracting sex from women in return for protection from their men, and the women themselves are convinced Nazi sympathisers. At some level every person in this movie is worthy of hating, but you do develop sympathy with the women, because what happens to them is so horrifying, and so protracted. It’s brave of Farberbock to take this tack, not to whitewash the women and thus make it easy for us as an audience. He doesn’t give us a panto villain to boo and hiss at, and the film is all the better for it.

The performers all acquit themselves well, with Sidikhin giving a convincing performance in both Russian and English (this is also true of Hoss, who has much Russian dialogue) and the excellent Juliane Kohler appearing like a ray of sunshine in a brief supporting role which leads to probably the nearest thing to a truly light scene in this dark, heavy, picture. Good as everyone is though, they are all acted off the screen by Nina Hoss. This isn’t to say that she’s some hammy scene hog, quite the opposite. Hoss embodies Anonyma’s quiet strength, her fervent resolve, her attempts to retain some measure of her dignity, It’s a performance of great, but often unexpressed, power. Hoss always lets us see what’s going on under the surface in small, subtle ways, ways we don’t believe the other characters would see. It is an extraordinary piece of acting, the only thing connecting it to anything else I’ve seen her do being her unmistakable face; beautiful despite being composed almost exclusively of straight lines and sharp angles.

Max Farberbock creates a believable atmosphere of a war torn Berlin. Everything around the characters is broken, rubble and bodies lie everywhere and even parts of the house in which the characters live are no longer there. The action scenes are few and far between, which is fine, because this film isn’t about the war outside the apartment, but those that are there are brilliantly done; short, sharp and shocking, and filled with exactly the casual brutality you might expect from battle hardened men who were never really supposed to be soldiers. The only real problem with the film is one of its pacing. Anonyma does move slowly, and at 131 minutes it feels rather long at times, and there are some easy cuts to be made to the midsection of the film, which does hammer home the same points several times. The other pacing issue is to do with the timeline, which feels unclear. Apparently the film takes place over barely two weeks, and yet it could well be years from the feel of it.

These, though, are small problems with what is, overwhelmingly, a brilliant film. As with everything I’ve seen her in, Nina Hoss is worth the price of admission for this film all by herself, but she’s far from the only good thing about this difficult, hard hitting, but often stunning film.


Note: The DVD of Anonyma comes out in the UK on March 1st, under the (nonsensical) title “The Downfall of Berlin - Anonyma” It’s inexpensive (just £9) on Play, but also happens to have some of the worst and most unrepresentative DVD art I’ve ever seen. It’s a horrible botch job for a fine film.

They Made Tom Watch 6



Genre: Umm… uh….

What’s it about?
Umm…

Well… there’s this box. And…

Uhh…

Some things happen… That’s about it really. I think.

What did I think of it?
Hmm…

Uhh…

Well…

I…

Hmm…

Umm…

I don’t really know…

Who is it for?
Uhh…

What is it like?
Umm…

Good Stuff: Well…

Bad Stuff: Hmm…

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Review Post 64: A Single Man / Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief / The Wolfman

A SINGLE MAN
DIR: Tom Ford
CAST: Colin Firth, Nicholas Hoult, Julianne Moore



A Single Man presents an interesting critical problem, because what initially seems one of its great strengths actually becomes one of its most glaring weaknesses. Debuting director Tom Ford has previously been a fashion designer, and this is unmistakably a film by a fashion designer. A Single Man is almost excruciatingly beautiful; every frame is composed to within an inch of its life. Even when Colin Firth is seen sitting on the toilet the world around him is perfectly designed, with clean lines dividing up the screen and giving what is usually a purely functional space an undeniable visual splendour. A key flashback is rendered in crisp black and white, reminiscent of a Bruce Weber photograph, or an aftershave advert and the film’s use of colour is both gorgeous and assured (if, and we’ll get to this in a moment, also massively over literal). This beauty (at times you can almost hear the film sigh as one gorgeous image is replaced by the next) also extends to the casting; there is not a single person in this film who isn’t fabulously beautiful.

The problem with all of this beauty is that it feels deeply artificial, and calls extraordinary attention to itself, making this film feel not like an experience but like going to an exhibition. We’re not sharing in the grief of Colin Firth’s George as he goes through what he intends to make his final day on Earth, determining to kill himself because he’s still unable to et over the death, eight months previously, of his partner Jim (Matthew Goode) so much as we are being given a guided tour of an artistic representation of that grief. It feels stuffy, and just failed to connect with me at an emotional level because the way the film is shot is so minutely designed that it keeps you at arms length from the story.

The thing I found most irksome (and which most clearly demonstrates Ford’s status as a first time filmmaker) was A Single Man’s use of colour. For the most part George’s world is grey and drab, drained of colour by the loss of Jim, but as he goes through this last day he sees things and encounters people that, literally, brighten up his world. In these moments colour suffuses the film, almost to the point of over saturation at times. It’s not a bad idea to begin with, but as the film goes on it becomes clear that this is Ford’s only stylistic idea, and it became very wearing, to the point that I was counting in the moments at which the colour was going to fade up and down, and, having understood the point Ford was making the first time he made it, I began to feel like he was battering me about the head with this stunningly obvious metaphor.

I can’t deny that A Single Man is a well made and well realised film though, and to give Ford his proper dues he does draw an exceptional leading performance from Colin Firth, whose work has been improving at a steady pace as Mr Darcy has begun to go away and he’s started to settle into middle age (he’s 50 this year). Firth is wonderful as a man eaten away, hollowed out by grief at the loss of the man he loved. There are moments in the film that are so raw you can almost feel the sting of them for him (as when he’s told that his partner’s funeral is ‘for family only’ or when his old friend (Moore) says that she wishes that they could have had ‘a real relationship’, instead of what she sees as a sixteen year dalliance). What’s so good about Firth here is that he doesn’t make those moments into the cynical, scenery chomping, Oscar grabs that they could be (ironically this is perhaps one reason he won’t win). Firth does small, detailed, highly nuanced work here, and manages to give us a really rounded and sympathetic portrait of George, helping keep us involved in a film that can often seem standoffish.


The same, sadly, can’t be said of Julianne Moore, whose ten minute turn as George’s old friend Charly, who has been abandoned by both her husband and her son and now spends her days completely smashed thanks to Tanqueray gin, is one of her least impressive. The English accent (which she’s had mixed results with in the past) is note perfect, but her performance is just HUGE, theatrical and false. I’ve seldom seen this fine actress give a performance that seemed more like a performance, so forced, so on the surface, it’s a shame, because she had been coming back to form lately.

All the players bar Firth are really little more than walk on parts. Nicholas Hoult, who I’ve often found wooden in the past, does well as one of George’s students, who is clearly attracted to the handsome older man, but the likes of Matthew Goode (as Jim) and Jon Kortajarena (as a handsome hustler George encounters and shares a cigarette with) are clearly cast for their exceptional handsomeness rather than their acting talents. In a tiny role as the daughter of the family next door 11 year old Ryan Simpkins again demonstrates what a compelling young talent she is.

A Single Man was a rather frustrating watch for me. I could appreciate its technical qualities and I was bowled over by Colin Firth’s excellent leading performance (which is, it should be said, worth the price of admission by itself), but it just didn’t work. There’s a preciousness about the film that kept it from really engaging emotionally, a cold, overtly and overly designed feel that always held me at a distance from what should have been a moving story. At the end of the day, for me, this film was something of a curate’s egg; ornate and beautiful, but ultimately not holding very much within that gorgeous setting.


PERCY JACKSON AND THE LIGHTNING THIEF
DIR: Chris Columbus
CAST: Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson,
Alexandra Daddario, Catherine Keener



There are many, many reasons that I love the criticism of Mark Kermode, but his review of this film (in which he came up with several alternative Harry Potter rip off titles) is one of the best I’ve heard for a while. Certainly I’d be more interested in seeing his Benjamin Sniddlegrass and the Cauldron of Penguins than I am in any return visit to the world of Percy Jackson.

Chris Columbus’ presumed franchise starter is serviceable. The effects are largely decent, the performances are functional, the story ticks off the set pieces with ruthless efficiency and everything’s wrapped up nicely in just under two hours, but serviceable and efficient is all it is. Like Columbus’ two entries in the Harry Potter series this is magic free, by the numbers cinema, it does just enough to keep the audience awake, but the second it ends the film evaporates, leaving absolutely no lasting impression aside from a vague wondering of where those last two hours went. It’s like watching the results of a survey filled in by 12-year-old boys. The film serves up an adolescent hero (Lerman), who has magical powers thrust upon him (he’s the son of Greek God Poseidon (Kevin McKidd) and a human woman (played by the ever wonderful Catherine Keener, who made me wish this film was about how she and Poseidon had the snot nosed little turd in the first place), then goes off to magic school (well, magic camp) which is run by a long haired, heavily bearded, headteacher (Pierce Brosnan as a centaur, looking like he’s about three seconds away from taking a razor to his wrists) and where he has a wisecracking male sidekick (Brandon T. Jackson) and a female friend (Alexandra Daddario) who is both very pretty and much better at magic and fighting than he is. Is any of this ringing a bell?

So, Percy’s Mum is kidnapped by Hades (Steve Coogan, of all people) who wants to trade her for Zeus’ (Sean Bean) lightning bolt, which he believes Percy has stolen, and which Zeus wants returned, or there’s going to be a war, and this leads to a series of set pieces which bring mythical creatures from Greek legends (Medusa (Uma Thurman), the Hydra, etc etc) into the real world. It’s all very silly, and never for a single moment is it truly engaging or exciting. Logan Lerman, who impressed as Christian Bale’s son in 3:10 to Yuma, and is tipped to be the new Spider-Man reads his lines well enough, but he’s decidedly uncharismatic, and there’s little to root for because Percy just seems like total drip. Brandon T. Jackson is nails on a blackboard irritating as Percy’s Satyr protector, whose every not so wisecrack lands with a resounding thud, the echoes of which are heard rumbling through the cinema and Alexandra Daddario, in marked contrast to Emma Watson, whose lively performances were a highlight of even Columbus’ Harry Potter films, is little more than a pretty void for the girls in the audience to identify with.

The set pieces are executed well enough. Fights with a Minotaur, Medusa and the Hydra show off competent special effects and are at least intelligibly shot. I can’t say I was ever really bored in Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, I can’t say I disliked it, I certainly can’t say I liked it though. More than almost any recent film Percy Jackson passed by and left me totally unaffected. I nothinged this film. Nothing about it is good or bad, nothing about it is powerfully dull or particularly interesting. It is, essentially, nothing. It is perhaps the most inert film of recent times, so utterly forgettable that I’m only sure I’ve seen it because the ticket stub is still in my back pocket. There are probably worse things you can take an undemanding 9 year old to see this half term, but really, when The Princess and the Frog is out there, why bother with this?


THE WOLFMAN
DIR: Joe Johnston
CAST: Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins,
Emily Blunt, Hugo Weaving



The Wolfman has been, to put it rather mildly, a troubled production, running through director changes, delays, reshoots, more delays and last minute editing. It’s not a great film, but it’s a minor miracle, given the behind the scenes strife, that Joe Johnston’s monster movie isn’t a complete debacle.

The story will be familiar to anyone who has seen the Claude Rains starring classic (which, actually, doesn’t really earn its reputation). Lawrence Talbot (Del Toro) returns to his family home for the first time in many years, only to find that his brother is dead, torn apart by some wild animal. Lawrence promises his brother’s fiancé (Blunt), that he will find out what happened, but while investigating he is attacked by an animal too, and soon Lawrence becomes aware that he’s been afflicted by a terrible curse. What more do you want? It’s a werewolf movie.

When the Wolf is on screen, the Wolfman is quite good fun. Benicio Del Toro is rather ingenious casting, and he’s clearly having a good time behind Rick Baker’s make up (which pays homage to Jack Pierce’s classic work, but updates it convincingly too), but he’s seems bored in his scenes as the human Lawrence, and gives an uncharacteristically flat and lifeless performance. Working with his actors is clearly not Joe Johnston’s strong suit, judging from the variable performances on display here. Anthony Hopkins, playing Del Toro’s father (oh, of course) is shockingly bad. It’s a performance that just screams that he doesn’t give a shit and is in this purely for the money. Hopkins chomps through raw exposition with all the enthusiasm of a man driving to a dental appointment with a toothache, in an accent that takes us on a word by word tour of the British Isles, from Scotland, over to Ireland, back across to Wales, and then into England. Much better are Hugo Weaving, enjoying himself as a Policeman investigating the strange events in the village of Blackmoor and Emily Blunt, whose fine performance actually makes the movie’s otherwise overblown ending play, and even feel a little bit emotional.

The gore scenes are good nasty fun, with this Wolfman getting to indulge in red-wet flesh ripping, rather than just biting someone off screen. It’s here that Johnston and Del Toro do their best work, with the director paying knowing homage to the gothic looks of the classic Universal horror films and Del Toro letting his inner monster fly (though, sadly, the howl isn’t his). Especially entertaining is a scene in which a Freud like psychiatrist displays Del Toro to an audience on the night of the full moon, to demonstrate that Lawrence is merely suffering from a delusion. Guess what happens. The problem is that the film takes a very, very long time to get to the wolf, about half of the film’s 100 minutes are gone before Lawrence is first transformed, and after that it’s still a rather rare occurrence, frankly this film would benefit from a little less ‘man’ and a bit more wolf.

The reshoots show themselves thanks to a rather perfunctory story, which feels both overly leisurely and rushed and to the massive infodumps that the film inflicts on us on a regular basis. It does, just about, fit together, but only in a clunky, slightly unsatisfactory, sort of way. There is fun to be had with The Wolfman, and it’s a minor miracle that its not a great deal worse than it is, but while this is an acceptable way to pass 102 minutes that is really all it is.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

One to Watch: 12/2/10


I've only seen Nina Hoss in three films. Two (Yella and Atomised) I disliked pretty intensely and the other (The Heart is a Dark Forest) made my Top 10 last year. I've heard mixed things about the quality of Anonyma, but even the negative reviews have fallen over themselves to praise Hoss louder than the last guy did. This doesn't surprise me. Nina Hoss is, as far as I can tell, not merely an actress, she's a changeling. I can't recommend highly enough that you take the all too rare chance to see her in a movie when Anonyma is released tomorrow.

More of the world's most beautiful working actresses

I've had a little writer's block the last few days, so in lieu of a new set of reviews (which will be on their way this weekend) here's a sequel to this post, in which I picked 24 of the world's most beautiful working actresses. This list of 26 completes a (very) rough, (very) personal top 50. In order to make this list a little different from the hundreds of others on the net, I've tried to pick some lesser known and underrated actresses, rather than just going with Megan Fox (who would never have made the list anyway, she's repulsive). Enjoy.


This post contains some nudity. If that offends you please read another post. Cheers.

Jennifer Connelly (39)
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Hope Davis (45)
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Julie Delpy (40)
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Vera Farmiga (36)
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Jodie Foster (48)
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Julie Gayet (37)
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Eva Green (29)
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Anne Hathaway (27)
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Milla Jovovich (34)
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Dina Korzun (38)
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Melanie Laurent (26)
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Isild Le Besco (27)
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Jennifer Jason Leigh (48)
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Laura Linney (46)
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Blake Lively (22)
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Alison Lohman (30)
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Julianne Moore (49)
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Ellen Page (22)
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Rosamund Pike (31)
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Natalie Portman (28)
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Maggie Q (30)
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Emmanuelle Seigner (43)
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Audrey Tautou (31)
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Carice Van Houten (33)
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Emma Watson (19)
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Zhang Ziyi (31)
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