24FPS had a great 2010, and if all continues to go to plan then it's only going to get more exciting in 2011. I'll be trying to bring you more reviews than ever before, with two projects running throughout the year. First off I'll be playing catch up; I've got hundreds of films on DVD and VHS that I've never got around to watching, and I'm going to try and watch one of those every day of 2011. Even more exciting, I think, is my other big project for the year, called SILENCE IS GOLDEN? Every week of 2011 I'll be watching and reviewing two silent movies, in an effort to educate myself on early cinema.
I'll also continue (and finish) counting down the 24FPS Top 100, sorry it's taken so long.
In order to keep bringing you coverage of what is new and exciting in cinema I'm hoping to attend a lot of Festivals this year, leading up to the year's centrepiece; LFF. Hopefully I'll have news on at least a couple for you in the coming weeks. With increased Festival presence I'm hoping that I'll also be able to bring you more interviews with actors, directors and other people from the film world.
Outside 24FPS I'm very busy, writing content for and editing the Film section at WWW.MULTIMEDIAMOUTH.COM. Over there you'll likely find a handful of exclusive reviews, alongside my WHY HAVEN'T YOU SEEN...? series on obscure films and a lot of other exclusive content by me and other writers. You should also soon be able to see and hear me there via planned podcast and vodcast series. I hope I'll also continue to be a relatively regular presence with Marcey, Bede and others on SUPERPODCAST.
It's looking like a busy year. I hope you guys will enjoy it as much as I suspect I will.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Bloggers Top 50 of 2010
Last week I got an email from Saam over at FADED GLAMOUR, asking me to contribute my Top 10 theatrical releases of 2010 for his poll of online critics. You can see the full list HERE at FADED GLAMOUR. Thanks to Saam for asking me to parrticipate.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
2010 in Review: Part 5 - The 10 Best Films of 2010
And so we’re there, the top of the tree. Here are the ten best new films I saw this year. Many of them you won’t have yet had the chance to see, I hope you get that chance, and if some distributor won’t release these films for you to see, hunt them down. Trust me, it’ll be worth your while.
10: MEEK’S CUTOFF
DIR: Kelly Reichardt
Reichardt's third movie retains the spare style that has defined her career so far, but works on a much bigger canvas. It's the possibly true, possibly apocryphal story of three families crossing the vast deserts of 1840's Wyoming, and heading west, whose guide - one Joseph Meek - appears to have got them lost. Reichardt and DP Chris Blauvelt give MEEK'S CUTOFF the feel of a Terence Malick film. Blauvelt appears to be using only natural light, and he uses it strikingly, producing, even in darkness, stunning and artistic imagery. For her part Reichardt makes the landscape as much a character as the people who are lost in it, in fact she makes it the closest thing the film has to a consistent antagonist.
This is minimalist cinema, even in the most action heavy section (in which, in quick succession, a wagon rolls down a ravine and there is a mexican standoff) the film is very quiet, and conflict and character are defined through the use of space. Happily Reichardt has a great cast, all of whom are able to say a lot with only a little dialogue, and just on a personal note I'm always happy to see the exceptional Scottish actress Shirley Henderson, even in a small role as she has here. As a western, MEEK'S CUTOFF is unusual. It has many of the expected elements (pioneers coming unstuck on the trail, conflict between native and immigrant Americans, the aforementioned mexican standoff) but it uses all of them in an unusual way in what becomes a tale of man's thwarting by nature (in one of the film's finest, and most beautifully shot, scenes the parched group find a vast expanse of water, which they discover that they can't drink).
This film marks Kelly Reichardt out as a filmmaker with an individual and compelling voice, who is doing interesting and different things with even an iconic genre. It will be interesting to see where she turns next.
9: BLUEBEARD
DIR: Catherine Breillat
My history with Catherine Breillat's films was, prior to seeing this one and her sadly somewhat less impressive but equally visually arresting follow up; SLEEPING BEAUTY, both limited and uninspiring of confidence. I'd sat through and hated hated her bludgeoningly pretentious ROMANCE and I don't think I even finished FAT GIRL, but this film really is a total change of style and focus for her and it seems that, by mellowing and putting the focus on telling a story rather than trying to impart an arty message she's at last found her strength as a filmmaker.
As befits a film based on a classic fairytale (and related by an eight year old girl reading aloud to her younger sister), BLUEBEARD looks like a gorgeously illustrated storybook come to life. Breillat makes a conscious effort to tell the story in as few separate images as possible; often presenting scenes as intricately detailed tableaux, giving the whole film a crisp beauty. There is a certain stylisation in the performances, which, again suits both the source and the manner of the telling of this story, but Lola Creton is exceptional as the 14 year old who marries the enormous, ugly, Bluebeard, legendary for murdering his young brides. This is the one place where BLUEBEARD ties into Breillat's other film, as it carries on her fascination with on the cusp of childhood and adulthood. Creton straddles this divide brilliantly; she's convincing as both naive waif and as scheming wife.
What really allows BLUEBEARD to stand out though is the imagery, which is intricate but also precise, and fills what is in many ways a rather direct telling of the story with with beautiful, and occasionally baffling (such as the glimpse of the narrating girl within the story she's telling) images. I'd never have guessed that Catherine Breillat had a film this interesting, this beautiful and this easily watchable in her, but I'm really pleased I took a chance on it.
8: WHAT I LOVE THE MOST
DIR: Delfina Castagnino
Some of the longest lasting, and most interesting, arguments I've had about movies in 2010 have been about this film (in fact one such argument was how I met my MultiMediaMouth colleague Eoin). I'll admit that it's not for everyone, that its long static scenes, most of which simply record what are rather mundane, everyday, conversations may seem banal and boring to some viewers. Not for me. I found myself completely engaged by Delfina Castagnino's film, which explores a friendship between two young women with great insight and sensitivity, and without succumbing to melodrama.
A former editor, it's interesting to see how Castagnino almost never cuts her scenes, there are likely fewer than 20 cuts in the whole 73 minutes that WHAT I LOVE THE MOST runs, and fewer than five within individual scenes (all of those predicated on action). By forcing us to dwell in each moment of the film, Castagnino puts our focus on the girls, and on the way they interact with each other, the few other people around them, and the space they are inhabiting. It also helps that her images are beautiful; this isn't just somebody plonking the camera down in the first place she thinks of, and then letting it roll, there's an artist's eye at work.
The acting is exceptional, with Maria Villar and Pilar Gamboa, who improvised all their dialogue from short scene synopses written by Castagnino, giving completely natural and unaffected performances. Never is the film better than in its 13 minute centrepiece in which Villar sits on a car with a guy she's met at a party, and they just talk, verbally dancing around each other, flirting a little bit. It's a completely familiar scene, one that every audience member has been on one side of, and the film is packed with scenes like this. Not much happens, but I was never bored, never less than taken with the imagery, and I warmed to both the characters. I can't wait to see what Castagnino does next.
7: LE REFUGE
DIR: Francois Ozon
Francois Ozon is one of cinema's few legitimate geniuses, and LE REFUGE is his best film in some time (which is saying more than a little). Always a brilliant director of women here he casts Isabelle Carre as a drug addict named Mousse who discovers that she's pregnant just after she has lost her boyfriend to an overdose that also put her in a coma. The film was born out of Ozon's apparently long held desire to make a film with a leading character who was pregnant, and to have a genuinely pregnant actress play her. The timing really couldn't have worked better, because Isabelle Carre, surely one of France's best actresses, was in the right condition at the right moment.
Under Ozon's typically sensitive, but also typically exposing, direction Carre does perhaps her best work yet. Mousse is far more complex than your regular pregnant or your regular junkie character, and neither the script nor Carre's performance indulge in any of the innumerable cliches of the depiction of either character type. Carre makes Mousse' ambivalence about her condition sad and moving, and does some truly brilliant work without dialogue; a simple step away from a boy she dances with at a club, just as he puts his hands on her belly, or the way she runs her hands across her bump in the bath, these things say as much as ten minutes of dialogue could have.
There's much more to love than Carre's performance though. Newcomer Louis-Ronan Choisy gives an excellent performance as the brother of Mousse' deceased boyfriend, and wrote the film's lovely score and Ozon's visuals are as brilliant as ever; harsh and cold in the early scenes when Mousse is living in a dirty flat, getting by between fixes, then dreamlike when she escapes to the coast to kick drugs and go through her pregnancy. LE REFUGE is yet another distinctive and brilliant statement from the most consistently interesting director working.
6: ARMADILLO
DIR: Janus Metz
For my money, ARMADILLO is likely to go down as the definitive film about the war in Afghanistan. Director Janus Metz follows a group of young Danish recruits to the eponymous base, and out on assignment during their tour, which takes them to the front lines on a regular basis. What's really notable and commendable about ARMADILLO are the pains it takes to be even handed; this is by no means a recruiting film for the danish army, nor is it an indictment of what the coalition are engaged in in Afghanistan. Instead what Janus Metz and his skeleton crew (one operator, one sound man) have produced is an illuminating close up view of the experience of war.
The soldiers are fairly portrayed, they are neither saints nor bloodthirsty, unthinking, machines, in fact most of them come across as very normal young men; some a little naive, others very smart, all dedicated to what they do. Whatever your politics, it's hard not to respect them, especially when you see the combat scenes. Metz doesn't bring the first gunshot forward in the narrative, and at a certain point both the recruits and the audience will be impatiently awaiting some action, but when it comes it's still a shock. The combat is visceral and terrifying. One of my younger brother's defenses of 3D cinema is that it puts you in the moment - he says he ducked when, in the Jonas Brothers concert film, a plectrum flew towards him - well, ARMADILLO may be in 2D, but I defy you not to be caught up in the thick of the combat scenes as you hear the pop of bullets all around you, and not to be fearful when the sound stops, and you're not sure if another burst is coming. For sheer nailbiting intensity, nothing comes close.
ARMADILLO is more than a good film, it's an insightful and important one, one that challenges perceptions of the current Afghan conflict from all sides and one that brings home the realities of it, and of the experience of the people engaged in it, in a harder hitting way than ever before.
5: NOTHING’S ALL BAD
DIR: Mikkel Munch-Fals
This debut from a Danish filmmaker who used to be a critic was the great surprise of the London Film Festival 2010. It follows four initially disparate characters, drawing them together as the film runs on, and culminating by uniting them in one the year's most impactful final scenes.
The great strength of NOTHING'S ALL BAD is in its performances. The entire cast is exceptional, with each of the four leads failing to strike a false note between them. Henrik Prip is notable for making his initially loathsome character Anders (a convicted sex offender with a propensity for exposing himself to women) ultimately sympathetic, as is Bodil Jørgensen, whose newly widowed Ingeborg is a wonderful study of a woman completely at a loss as to how to interact with the world without her husband. That said, there just aren't enough superlatives for Mille Lehfeldt's performance. It's so difficult to write about what's so great about this film, because anything I say might give away the intricacies of the connections at work, and those are best discovered just as Mikkel Munch-Fals' script slowly layers them in. What it recalled, for me, was MAGNOLIA, except that this film lacks the tendency that that one had to melodrama. NOTHING'S ALL BAD is a much more down to earth film; the emotion is searingly believeable, the characters realistically flawed and the whole thing lands like a punch to the gut. I've seen it listed on Lovefilm already, so though it doesn't have a confirmed date it seems likely that there is a UK release in this film's future. Seek it out.
4: KICK ASS
DIR: Matthew Vaughn
I like to go to the cinema and be encouraged to think. I like to go to the cinema and be challenged, but I also like to go to the cinema and simply have fun, and in terms of pure fun, few films in the last five years have delivered so solidly as KICK ASS. It's safe to say that I went in not expecting much; one more heavily hyped, geek endorsed, movie to be let down by... ah well, I'll probably get a fun review out of it. Happily I got a great deal more than that. Right from the off I was taken in by the gleeful irreverence of the movie and by its immense sense of fun.
Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn's screenplay was written more or less in tandem with Mark Millar's comic, and it seems to have benefited from the close collaboration, capturing the tone of Millar's work better than Timur Beckmambetov's WANTED ever manged (or perhaps even aspired to). It's not the most thematically rich film, but the characters are well drawn within their comic book parameters, and the performances all hit the mark be it Aaron Johnson's convincingly dweeby Dave 'Kick Ass' Lizewski, Mark Strong in his now default villain role or the film heisting double act of Nicolas Cage and Chloe Moretz as father and daughter crime fighters Big Daddy and Hit Girl. It's with those characters that Goldman and Vaughn's writing is sharpest, be it Hit Girl's witheringly critical discussions with Kick Ass or the odd, but actually oddly affecting, relationship between father and daughter, first seen in a training sequence in which Mindy (Hit Girl) is shot in the chest by her father as part of her training (she's wearing a vest).
It was also refreshing to see a comic book film treat violence as something that is painful, and has serious consequences. The action scenes walk a fine line; the choreography is often cartoony (and, it must be said, awesomely cool) but this isn't Tom and Jerry; people bleed, bones break, people die. I can analyse it all you like. I can break it down as a comment on the superhero movie, I can discuss it as a subversive example of the genre it is commenting on, but I won't, because that's not why it's here. The plain truth about KICK ASS, the reason that it makes this list, is that I quite simply hadn't enjoyed watching a new film so much in years, and isn't that ultimately what we're always looking for?
3: THE SOCIAL NETWORK
DIR: David Fincher
I wasn't going to see THE SOCIAL NETWORK, and frankly usually when I look at a film and decide that I don't need to see it it's a solid decision (I refer you to the case of AVATAR, which I suffered purely because you guys demanded it). Plenty of things suggested that I wasn't going to get anything out of this movie. First of all I'd hated director David Fincher's snooze inducing last; THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, and then there was the fact that I'm one of the approximately seven twentysomethings in the Western world who isn't on Facebook, because I just don't get the appeal of it, at all. Then I saw the trailer.
The thing is, THE SOCIAL NETWORK isn't really about Facebook, in the same way that screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's TV series The West Wing wasn't actually about politics. Facebook is the world in which this story is set, but it's about Mark Zuckerberg (brilliantly played by Jesse Eisenberg, finally delivering on the promise he showed in ROGER DODGER) and why he created what he created. In typical Hollywood fashion the basic tale is true, but many of the specifics are not. Who cares? You don't hire Aaron Sorkin to transcribe the way people actually talk, you hire him so that the characters end up sounding how we'd all like to sound, and here he delivers in spades. The dialogue all has the familiar ring of its writers hand, but crucially Sorkin also manages to give each character their own voice, all while piling up a selection of the year's greatest lines in quick succession.
It's not entirely Sorkin's show though. Fincher pulls back a bit, not stamping his directorial presence on this film so hard as on his others, and this lighter touch is evident in the performances and in the camera style, both of which feel less formal and heavy than they did in Button. It's also well worth mentioning the contributions of composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, whose mix of piano themes and foreboding electronics give the film a distinctive sound. THE SOCIAL NETWORK is likely to figure heavily in the upcoming awards season, hopefully it will end up with honours for more than just Sorkin. It's not just a good film either, THE SOCIAL NETWORK will likely become one of the defining films for this current tech savvy generation.
2: TOY STORY 3
DIR:Lee Unkrich
Most sequels are just the same film again, repackaged with a 2 or a 3 on the end. The Toy Story films are not most sequels. Watching TOY STORY 3 was, for me, like being reunited with old friends, and I cried at the end because I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be seeing them again. I can't quite say I grew up with Woody and Buzz (I was 15 when the first film came out), but the Toy Story films mean a lot to me, and seeing the trilogy capped off in such a satisfying and such an emotional way was an unalloyed joy.
One of the stupidest things said about movies, certainly this year if not in the medium's history, was Armond White's accusation that TOY STORY 3 was little more than a long form advert. The great irony of that statement is that this is one of the most layered, one of the richest, films of 2010. TOY STORY 3 is about many things; it's about friendship, it's about aging and retirement, most significantly for me it's about our relationship to the stuff of our lives, our emotional connection to even the things we've left behind, and that's why it got to me so deeply.
This isn't to say that TOY STORY 3 is an arty meditation on these themes, rather they are expertly weaved into a film that is both hilariously funny (with highlights including Michael Keaton's performance as Ken, and the sequence in which Buzz gets reset into Spanish mode) and extremely exciting (see, among others, the spectacular incinerator sequence). In another year jam packed with action films, not a one managed to engage us in the action as much, to make it seem so important, as TOY STORY 3 did.
Though the technology has moved on immensely in 15 years, and the world inhabited by Woody, Buzz and the gang looks better than ever, the look cleaves close to that of the first two films, but that doesn't mean that Lee Unkrich and his crew rest on their laurels, every scene boasts such a wealth of detail that multiple viewings are pretty well a requirement, and more than ever this film feels like it takes place in a recognisable reality. Okay, so 3D adds nothing, but it's also not a big enough distraction (being all but flawlessly implemented) that it takes nothing away from the film either. Some will argue for the Lord of the Rings film, others for the original Star Wars Movies, others still for Indiana Jones, but for my money, thanks to this brilliant film, the Toy Story series has to go down as the finest trilogy in film history.
1: LOURDES
DIR: Jessica Hausner
I became fascinated by the prospect of seeing LOURDES when I heard that, at its Venice Film Festival premiere, Jessica Hausner's film about a young woman (Sylvie Testud) who goes to Lourdes and experiences what may be a miraculous healing won both a Catholic and a secular prize.
I liked the film a lot when I first saw it, and gave it a very positive review, but it was only on my second viewing that it really hit me just how special this film is. First of all it is achingly beautiful. Hausner used to work for Michael Haneke, and you can see that in this film. Much of it unfolds in very long static takes but, like Haneke, Hausner shuns obvious images. Often she'll have Sylvie Testud well off centre, though she's always the focus of the film and of almost every frame Lourdes itself is also a character, and it is often allowed to dwarf Testud's Christine. The images are all beautifully composed, with Hausner finding visually arresting patterns in even the most mundane things (the film opens with a shot of Christine's tour group arriving to breakfast, and even this is comelling).
Along with this understated, but spectacular, look LOURDES benefits immensely from its leading performance. Sylvie Testud is never going to become a huge star, her beauty is too far from traditional for that, but she's a quietly spectacular, chameleonic, character actress. She's utterly convincing as Christine, embracing and rising to the physical challenges of the role, which restrict her movement and thus the tools she's got to play the many complex emotions of this character. Testud's skill is that she can communicate a huge amount with just a tiny change of expression. The half smile she gives whenever a handsome male helper (Bruno Todeschini) shows an interest in her is particularly effective, communicating everything to the audience, but still allowing Christine to credibly keep her emotions close to the chest.
Jessica Hausner exhibits similar restraint as writer and director. There's no melodramatic moment for Christine to either bemoan her disability or celebrate her cure. Much more affecting than any hypothetical scene like that is the one in which Christine wakes up the morning after the 'miracle' and for a long heart in mouth moment we don't know whether she's going to be able to move. LOURDES deals in moments like that brilliantly, and cleverly ends on an ambiguous one rather than wrapping the story up in a neat bow.
LOURDES is an endlessly fascinating film whatever your beliefs, and it will inspire much debate. I urge you to go out and buy the DVD so that you can engage friends and family in a great film and a fascinating conversation.
10: MEEK’S CUTOFF
DIR: Kelly Reichardt
This is minimalist cinema, even in the most action heavy section (in which, in quick succession, a wagon rolls down a ravine and there is a mexican standoff) the film is very quiet, and conflict and character are defined through the use of space. Happily Reichardt has a great cast, all of whom are able to say a lot with only a little dialogue, and just on a personal note I'm always happy to see the exceptional Scottish actress Shirley Henderson, even in a small role as she has here. As a western, MEEK'S CUTOFF is unusual. It has many of the expected elements (pioneers coming unstuck on the trail, conflict between native and immigrant Americans, the aforementioned mexican standoff) but it uses all of them in an unusual way in what becomes a tale of man's thwarting by nature (in one of the film's finest, and most beautifully shot, scenes the parched group find a vast expanse of water, which they discover that they can't drink).
This film marks Kelly Reichardt out as a filmmaker with an individual and compelling voice, who is doing interesting and different things with even an iconic genre. It will be interesting to see where she turns next.
9: BLUEBEARD
DIR: Catherine Breillat
As befits a film based on a classic fairytale (and related by an eight year old girl reading aloud to her younger sister), BLUEBEARD looks like a gorgeously illustrated storybook come to life. Breillat makes a conscious effort to tell the story in as few separate images as possible; often presenting scenes as intricately detailed tableaux, giving the whole film a crisp beauty. There is a certain stylisation in the performances, which, again suits both the source and the manner of the telling of this story, but Lola Creton is exceptional as the 14 year old who marries the enormous, ugly, Bluebeard, legendary for murdering his young brides. This is the one place where BLUEBEARD ties into Breillat's other film, as it carries on her fascination with on the cusp of childhood and adulthood. Creton straddles this divide brilliantly; she's convincing as both naive waif and as scheming wife.
What really allows BLUEBEARD to stand out though is the imagery, which is intricate but also precise, and fills what is in many ways a rather direct telling of the story with with beautiful, and occasionally baffling (such as the glimpse of the narrating girl within the story she's telling) images. I'd never have guessed that Catherine Breillat had a film this interesting, this beautiful and this easily watchable in her, but I'm really pleased I took a chance on it.
8: WHAT I LOVE THE MOST
DIR: Delfina Castagnino
A former editor, it's interesting to see how Castagnino almost never cuts her scenes, there are likely fewer than 20 cuts in the whole 73 minutes that WHAT I LOVE THE MOST runs, and fewer than five within individual scenes (all of those predicated on action). By forcing us to dwell in each moment of the film, Castagnino puts our focus on the girls, and on the way they interact with each other, the few other people around them, and the space they are inhabiting. It also helps that her images are beautiful; this isn't just somebody plonking the camera down in the first place she thinks of, and then letting it roll, there's an artist's eye at work.
The acting is exceptional, with Maria Villar and Pilar Gamboa, who improvised all their dialogue from short scene synopses written by Castagnino, giving completely natural and unaffected performances. Never is the film better than in its 13 minute centrepiece in which Villar sits on a car with a guy she's met at a party, and they just talk, verbally dancing around each other, flirting a little bit. It's a completely familiar scene, one that every audience member has been on one side of, and the film is packed with scenes like this. Not much happens, but I was never bored, never less than taken with the imagery, and I warmed to both the characters. I can't wait to see what Castagnino does next.
7: LE REFUGE
DIR: Francois Ozon
Under Ozon's typically sensitive, but also typically exposing, direction Carre does perhaps her best work yet. Mousse is far more complex than your regular pregnant or your regular junkie character, and neither the script nor Carre's performance indulge in any of the innumerable cliches of the depiction of either character type. Carre makes Mousse' ambivalence about her condition sad and moving, and does some truly brilliant work without dialogue; a simple step away from a boy she dances with at a club, just as he puts his hands on her belly, or the way she runs her hands across her bump in the bath, these things say as much as ten minutes of dialogue could have.
There's much more to love than Carre's performance though. Newcomer Louis-Ronan Choisy gives an excellent performance as the brother of Mousse' deceased boyfriend, and wrote the film's lovely score and Ozon's visuals are as brilliant as ever; harsh and cold in the early scenes when Mousse is living in a dirty flat, getting by between fixes, then dreamlike when she escapes to the coast to kick drugs and go through her pregnancy. LE REFUGE is yet another distinctive and brilliant statement from the most consistently interesting director working.
6: ARMADILLO
DIR: Janus Metz
The soldiers are fairly portrayed, they are neither saints nor bloodthirsty, unthinking, machines, in fact most of them come across as very normal young men; some a little naive, others very smart, all dedicated to what they do. Whatever your politics, it's hard not to respect them, especially when you see the combat scenes. Metz doesn't bring the first gunshot forward in the narrative, and at a certain point both the recruits and the audience will be impatiently awaiting some action, but when it comes it's still a shock. The combat is visceral and terrifying. One of my younger brother's defenses of 3D cinema is that it puts you in the moment - he says he ducked when, in the Jonas Brothers concert film, a plectrum flew towards him - well, ARMADILLO may be in 2D, but I defy you not to be caught up in the thick of the combat scenes as you hear the pop of bullets all around you, and not to be fearful when the sound stops, and you're not sure if another burst is coming. For sheer nailbiting intensity, nothing comes close.
ARMADILLO is more than a good film, it's an insightful and important one, one that challenges perceptions of the current Afghan conflict from all sides and one that brings home the realities of it, and of the experience of the people engaged in it, in a harder hitting way than ever before.
5: NOTHING’S ALL BAD
DIR: Mikkel Munch-Fals
The great strength of NOTHING'S ALL BAD is in its performances. The entire cast is exceptional, with each of the four leads failing to strike a false note between them. Henrik Prip is notable for making his initially loathsome character Anders (a convicted sex offender with a propensity for exposing himself to women) ultimately sympathetic, as is Bodil Jørgensen, whose newly widowed Ingeborg is a wonderful study of a woman completely at a loss as to how to interact with the world without her husband. That said, there just aren't enough superlatives for Mille Lehfeldt's performance. It's so difficult to write about what's so great about this film, because anything I say might give away the intricacies of the connections at work, and those are best discovered just as Mikkel Munch-Fals' script slowly layers them in. What it recalled, for me, was MAGNOLIA, except that this film lacks the tendency that that one had to melodrama. NOTHING'S ALL BAD is a much more down to earth film; the emotion is searingly believeable, the characters realistically flawed and the whole thing lands like a punch to the gut. I've seen it listed on Lovefilm already, so though it doesn't have a confirmed date it seems likely that there is a UK release in this film's future. Seek it out.
4: KICK ASS
DIR: Matthew Vaughn
Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn's screenplay was written more or less in tandem with Mark Millar's comic, and it seems to have benefited from the close collaboration, capturing the tone of Millar's work better than Timur Beckmambetov's WANTED ever manged (or perhaps even aspired to). It's not the most thematically rich film, but the characters are well drawn within their comic book parameters, and the performances all hit the mark be it Aaron Johnson's convincingly dweeby Dave 'Kick Ass' Lizewski, Mark Strong in his now default villain role or the film heisting double act of Nicolas Cage and Chloe Moretz as father and daughter crime fighters Big Daddy and Hit Girl. It's with those characters that Goldman and Vaughn's writing is sharpest, be it Hit Girl's witheringly critical discussions with Kick Ass or the odd, but actually oddly affecting, relationship between father and daughter, first seen in a training sequence in which Mindy (Hit Girl) is shot in the chest by her father as part of her training (she's wearing a vest).
It was also refreshing to see a comic book film treat violence as something that is painful, and has serious consequences. The action scenes walk a fine line; the choreography is often cartoony (and, it must be said, awesomely cool) but this isn't Tom and Jerry; people bleed, bones break, people die. I can analyse it all you like. I can break it down as a comment on the superhero movie, I can discuss it as a subversive example of the genre it is commenting on, but I won't, because that's not why it's here. The plain truth about KICK ASS, the reason that it makes this list, is that I quite simply hadn't enjoyed watching a new film so much in years, and isn't that ultimately what we're always looking for?
3: THE SOCIAL NETWORK
DIR: David Fincher
The thing is, THE SOCIAL NETWORK isn't really about Facebook, in the same way that screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's TV series The West Wing wasn't actually about politics. Facebook is the world in which this story is set, but it's about Mark Zuckerberg (brilliantly played by Jesse Eisenberg, finally delivering on the promise he showed in ROGER DODGER) and why he created what he created. In typical Hollywood fashion the basic tale is true, but many of the specifics are not. Who cares? You don't hire Aaron Sorkin to transcribe the way people actually talk, you hire him so that the characters end up sounding how we'd all like to sound, and here he delivers in spades. The dialogue all has the familiar ring of its writers hand, but crucially Sorkin also manages to give each character their own voice, all while piling up a selection of the year's greatest lines in quick succession.
It's not entirely Sorkin's show though. Fincher pulls back a bit, not stamping his directorial presence on this film so hard as on his others, and this lighter touch is evident in the performances and in the camera style, both of which feel less formal and heavy than they did in Button. It's also well worth mentioning the contributions of composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, whose mix of piano themes and foreboding electronics give the film a distinctive sound. THE SOCIAL NETWORK is likely to figure heavily in the upcoming awards season, hopefully it will end up with honours for more than just Sorkin. It's not just a good film either, THE SOCIAL NETWORK will likely become one of the defining films for this current tech savvy generation.
2: TOY STORY 3
DIR:Lee Unkrich
One of the stupidest things said about movies, certainly this year if not in the medium's history, was Armond White's accusation that TOY STORY 3 was little more than a long form advert. The great irony of that statement is that this is one of the most layered, one of the richest, films of 2010. TOY STORY 3 is about many things; it's about friendship, it's about aging and retirement, most significantly for me it's about our relationship to the stuff of our lives, our emotional connection to even the things we've left behind, and that's why it got to me so deeply.
This isn't to say that TOY STORY 3 is an arty meditation on these themes, rather they are expertly weaved into a film that is both hilariously funny (with highlights including Michael Keaton's performance as Ken, and the sequence in which Buzz gets reset into Spanish mode) and extremely exciting (see, among others, the spectacular incinerator sequence). In another year jam packed with action films, not a one managed to engage us in the action as much, to make it seem so important, as TOY STORY 3 did.
Though the technology has moved on immensely in 15 years, and the world inhabited by Woody, Buzz and the gang looks better than ever, the look cleaves close to that of the first two films, but that doesn't mean that Lee Unkrich and his crew rest on their laurels, every scene boasts such a wealth of detail that multiple viewings are pretty well a requirement, and more than ever this film feels like it takes place in a recognisable reality. Okay, so 3D adds nothing, but it's also not a big enough distraction (being all but flawlessly implemented) that it takes nothing away from the film either. Some will argue for the Lord of the Rings film, others for the original Star Wars Movies, others still for Indiana Jones, but for my money, thanks to this brilliant film, the Toy Story series has to go down as the finest trilogy in film history.
1: LOURDES
DIR: Jessica Hausner
I liked the film a lot when I first saw it, and gave it a very positive review, but it was only on my second viewing that it really hit me just how special this film is. First of all it is achingly beautiful. Hausner used to work for Michael Haneke, and you can see that in this film. Much of it unfolds in very long static takes but, like Haneke, Hausner shuns obvious images. Often she'll have Sylvie Testud well off centre, though she's always the focus of the film and of almost every frame Lourdes itself is also a character, and it is often allowed to dwarf Testud's Christine. The images are all beautifully composed, with Hausner finding visually arresting patterns in even the most mundane things (the film opens with a shot of Christine's tour group arriving to breakfast, and even this is comelling).
Along with this understated, but spectacular, look LOURDES benefits immensely from its leading performance. Sylvie Testud is never going to become a huge star, her beauty is too far from traditional for that, but she's a quietly spectacular, chameleonic, character actress. She's utterly convincing as Christine, embracing and rising to the physical challenges of the role, which restrict her movement and thus the tools she's got to play the many complex emotions of this character. Testud's skill is that she can communicate a huge amount with just a tiny change of expression. The half smile she gives whenever a handsome male helper (Bruno Todeschini) shows an interest in her is particularly effective, communicating everything to the audience, but still allowing Christine to credibly keep her emotions close to the chest.
Jessica Hausner exhibits similar restraint as writer and director. There's no melodramatic moment for Christine to either bemoan her disability or celebrate her cure. Much more affecting than any hypothetical scene like that is the one in which Christine wakes up the morning after the 'miracle' and for a long heart in mouth moment we don't know whether she's going to be able to move. LOURDES deals in moments like that brilliantly, and cleverly ends on an ambiguous one rather than wrapping the story up in a neat bow.
LOURDES is an endlessly fascinating film whatever your beliefs, and it will inspire much debate. I urge you to go out and buy the DVD so that you can engage friends and family in a great film and a fascinating conversation.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Big Girls Don’t Cry
La Da Da Da
The smell of your skin lingers on me now
You’re prolly on your flight back to your home town
I need some shelter of my own protection baby
To be with myself and center,
clarity, peace, serenity
[Chorus:]
I hope you know, I hope you know,
that this has nothing to do with you
It’s personal, myself and I,
we’ve got some straightening out to do
And I’m gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket,
but I’ve got to get a move on with my life
It’s time to be, a big girl now,
and big girls don’t cry
Don’t cry (x3)
The path that I’m walking, I must go alone
I must take the baby steps ’til I’m full grown, full grown
Fairytales don’t always have a happy ending, do they?
And I foreseek the dark ahead if I stay
[Chorus]
Like the little school mate in the school yard,
we’ll play jacks and uno cards
I’ll be your best friend and you’ll be mine, Valentine
Yes you can hold my hand if you want to,
’cause I want to hold yours too
We’ll be playmates and lovers and share our, secret worlds
But it’s time for me to go home
It’s getting late, dark outside
I need to be with myself and center,
clarity, peace, serenity
[Chorus]
Don’t cry (x3)
La Da Da Da Da
Fergie - Big Girls Don’t Cry
Friday, December 24, 2010
2010 in Review: Part 4 - The 10 Worst Films of 2010
So here it is, the low point. On the whole 2010 was no worse than any other year at the movies, but at times it really managed to test my patience, and my love of cinema, to its very limits. As usual the lazy ‘efforts’ of the Hollywood mainstream dominate this list, but there are representatives of the British and Australian industries as well.
10: CLASH OF THE TITANS '3D'
DIR: Louis Leterrier
It's barely in 3D, and no titans clash. Somebody should sue for false advertising. Louis Leterrier graced this list in 2008 with THE INCREDIBLE HULK and CLASH OF THE TITANS is just as bad; it's an unispired rehash of the well remembered (if not especially good) 1980 film, and boasts yet another teaky leading performance from cinema's woodenest new star Sam Worthington (owner of the amazing globetrotting accent, which can be unconvincingly Australian, American and English, all in the same sentence).
At the cinema 3D rendered this film nigh unwatchable' casting a pointless grey murk over the (decent) cinematography, on DVD it may be prettier crap, but it's still crap.
9: WILD TARGET
DIR: Jonathan Lynn
If you're going to attempt farce you had better make sure that you're movie is hilariously funny, because otherwise it's liable to end up shrill and annoying. Guess where this remake of a 1987 French film falls.
Watching it is like watching the cast and crew get down on their knees and, for 90 minutes, beg you to laugh; unfunny, beneath both them and you, and faintly embarrassing. While Daniel Radcliffe seems to want to stretch himself as an actor, Rupert Grint is content to mug his way through this shonky screenplay, doing broad comedy with the grace of a tapdancing elephant. Sitcom director Jonathan Lynn clearly hasn't advanced as a stylist since Yes Minister, and his funny bone appears to have been surgically removed.
8: BOOGIE WOOGIE
DIR: Duncan Ward
The one good thing about BOOGIE WOOGIE is pictured above; at 40 Heather Graham still looks magnificent, and so do her breasts. Sadly the rest of this film is a grindingly unfunny, hideously acted, 'satire' about the art world.
Gillan Anderson, usually a reliable actress, gives a real howler of a performance as a stupid, stuck up woman who married a rich man (Stellan Skargaard) largely for his ability to buy art. Alan Cumming is at his outrageously camp worst as an unknown artist. However, the worst contribution (and, oh boy, choosing is tough) comes from Danny Huston, who gives his character the most annoying giggle in cinema, which he proceeds to wheel out after EVERY LAST LINE.
Perhaps if you're one of the six people who is in on the joke, BOOGIE WOOGIE is a laugh riot. For the rest of us though...
7: SKYLINE
DIR: The Brothers Strause
It's always nice to see independent filmmakers try to play Hollywood at their own game, but amazingly The Brothers Strause (and I'm just going to leave the stunning pretentiousness of that credit to speak for itself) have managed to come up with something so witless that it makes even Hollywood's stupidest efforts seem like the work of Mensa board members. The special effects aren't terrible, but like everything else they are incredibly derivative of other, considerably better films.
What's really broken here is the writing, and the godawful acting from a cast of newcomers and overreaching TV stars (the shovel faced Eric Balfour gives a performance wooden enough to be mistaken for a tree). The tedium is the killer, for most of the film's running time characters watch an alien invasion happen outside, it's like watching people watch a shitty sci-fi movie. This would perhaps be impressively meta if the brothers Strause had done it on purpose, but I doubt they did.
6: ARCHIPELAGO
DIR: Joanna Hogg
Upper middle class twats on holiday: The Movie. I didn't just hate ARCHIPELAGO as a film (though from the insufferable screenplay to Joanna Hogg's total inability to make a shot that looks good, thanks to the drab use of natural lighting, to the often histrionic performances, I sure as hell hated it as a film), I hated the characters. Not just disliked - HATED - wanted to punch each and every one of them in their smug, self-regarding, entitled faces. I'd leave a party or cross a street to avoid these people (especially the horrendous harpy of a daughter) so being stuck in a dark room with them for 100 minutes was like having my nails pulled out with rusty pliers.
There's not a moment of insight, not a moment of wit, not a moment of intelligence, not a moment I wasn't cross.
5: SAMSON & DELILAH
DIR: Warwick Thornton
Until you have seen SAMSON AND DELILAH, you do not know boredom. This is an Australian film about two teenagers who run away together. Samson spends all his time sniffing gasoline, and Delilah... pretty much does nothing. They never exchange a single word. In this beautiful looking film, Warwick Thornton almost manages to turn bludgeoning tedium into some sort of zen artform (especially in regard to the single refrain that Samson's brother and his band play ENDLESSLY for about a third of the film). His dedication to having absolutely nothing happen is almost impressive when Delilah is kidnapped, she doesn't bother to scream, and after a few minutes she turns up, battered, but says not one word about what happened.
We're actually supposed to root for these characters to have a relationship, to feel some sort of connection between them, which is completely laughable, both because Delilah spends the early part of the film avoiding Samson and because THEY NEVER FUCKING SPEAK. It's like watching paint dry. Only slower.
4: THE EXPENDABLES
DIR: Sylvester Stallone
Was ever a film more aptly titled? Sylvester Stallone's big 80's style action blowout was the dampest of squibs, hobbled by an awful screenplay, leads who can barely talk (Stallone and Dolph Lundgren, grunting at one another in scene after scene) and some of the worst editing I've ever seen in a major release.
Dear God, the editing. It was as if Stallone had had the film cut by having the cast fire machine guns at the footage and then had the random bits of film pulled out a skip and spliced together by blindfolded twelve year olds, using only their feet. This rendered the film utterly pointless, because the action scenes were so badly cut that at one point I thought Jet Li was fighting, and it turned out to be Randy Coture. Stallone wanted to make a throwback, and he did, but he forgot that as well as being stupid, loud and violent, the 80's action movies people loved were fun (and at least a little coherent).
3: DEATH AT A FUNERAL
DIR: Neil LaBute
What the holy hell happened to Neil LaBute? This guy made the caustic masterpiece IN THE COMPANY OF MEN, and underrated films like YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS, NURSE BETTY and THE SHAPE OF THINGS. Seriously, did aliens come in the night and suck out all his talent and self respect? That's the only way to explain the fact that he's lowered himself to this; a grindingly, punishingly unfunny remake of an already grindingly, punishingly unfunny British film, which is only three years old.
This horrendous film revolves around people screeching at each other at a funeral. Punchlines, if such a thing ever troubled the script, are largely drowned out by shrieking. One scene consists entirely of Danny Glover and Tracy Morgan screaming as 'hilariously' Morgan gets his hand stuck under a toilet seat, and Glover shits in it. This is perhaps the most apt metaphor for the film as a whole, it's as if you held out your hand to LaBute, expecting to be handed a witty, caustic, comedy replete with quotable dialogue and instead of that he's just clenched and handed over the results.
I've illustrated this with a still of Zoe Saldana as some small recompense for again alerting you to the fact of this film's existence. You are now free to again pretend it never happened, I'm going to.
2: THE BOUNTY HUNTER
DIR: Andy Tennant
Watching THE BOUNTY HUNTER was water torture for my sanity. Each horrible joke, each predictable plot turn, each awful piece of acting and each time I was reminded of a better movie, and wanted to yell: "Why can't we be watching MIDNIGHT RUN?" taking the place of the steady drip, drip, drip, making it feel as though this awful, awful movie was slowly burrowing itself into my head.
If you never saw MIDNIGHT RUN it's a great comic road movie with Robert DeNiro as a bounty hunter taking Charles Grodin back to answer his parole. Now imagine that, but with Gerard Butler as DeNiro and Jennifer Aniston as Grodin, and here's the genius twist... they used to be married. Died inside yet? Gosh, what do you think happens in this movie? Could they possibly start out fighting like cat and dog, then does one of them trick the other by flirting with them, but totally unexpectedly tie them to the bed, oh and do they end up back together, despite clearly hating each other's guts? You bet your fucking arse they do, because Andy Tennant has the imagination of a brain dead gibbon.
It looks as uninspired as it plays, and the performances by Butler and Aniston are mind-bendingly awful. It is, overall, the kind of romantic comedy that could cause you to stop believing in love, and indeed in mainstream cinema.
1: A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
DIR: Samuel Bayer
This is the worst Nightmare on Elm Street film. To appreciate the gravity of that statement you really have to have seen (well, survived without clawing your eyes from their sockets while screaming for mercy and beseeching the director to tell you what exactly you did to her and her family) FREDDY'S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE, which is almost certainly one of the worst films of the 1990's. So, this film is worse than that one; than the one where Freddy dresses up as the wicked witch of the west. So, yes, we're talking about a very special sort of awful here.
Music video director Samuel Bayer (who did the irritatingly ubiquitous, and in no way good, video for Smells Like Teen Spirit) makes a truly shocking debut. Oh the pictures are pretty enough, but those are not in any way personal, conforming rigidly to the look that every Michael Bay produced horror remake since the abysmal THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE has followed, right down to the sickly green tint which seems to now be the universal colour signifier for 'shitty horror remake'. What you can blame Bayer for is twofold; first he, along with the producers, signed off the fundamentally broken document I assume they called a screenplay on set and secondly, and perhaps more damningly, Bayer directed the cast.
Dear Holy Christ on a bicycle, these performances are awful. Rooney Mara (next to be seen as Lisbeth Salander in another remake the world doesn't need) gives one of the most inexpressive performances I've ever seen. She has the air of a glove puppet being operated by a paraplegic, setting her face in a determinedly vacant repose that only ever suggests one thought... "Line?" That's not to say that Mara is even notably bad among this cast, all the younger actors (all 24 playing 17) are absolutely appalling (Mara's chemistry with Kyle Gallner being especially laughable), but she's playing Nancy, here reduced from the spunky heroine of the original to a useless husk of a character with more eye makeup than braincells.
Freddy is the most dispiriting thing though; not so wisecracking his way through the movie with dialogue composed entirely of non-sequiters and performed by Jackie Earle Haley as WATCHMEN's Rorschach after a night spent gargling gravel.
It's not scary, it's not clever, it's not fun, it's appallingly made (with some effects worse than those in the original) it makes less than no sense. It's essentially like watching Samuel Bayer dance on Wes Craven's grave, and he hasn't even had the common fucking decency to wait until Craven's dead.
10: CLASH OF THE TITANS '3D'
DIR: Louis Leterrier
At the cinema 3D rendered this film nigh unwatchable' casting a pointless grey murk over the (decent) cinematography, on DVD it may be prettier crap, but it's still crap.
9: WILD TARGET
DIR: Jonathan Lynn
Watching it is like watching the cast and crew get down on their knees and, for 90 minutes, beg you to laugh; unfunny, beneath both them and you, and faintly embarrassing. While Daniel Radcliffe seems to want to stretch himself as an actor, Rupert Grint is content to mug his way through this shonky screenplay, doing broad comedy with the grace of a tapdancing elephant. Sitcom director Jonathan Lynn clearly hasn't advanced as a stylist since Yes Minister, and his funny bone appears to have been surgically removed.
8: BOOGIE WOOGIE
DIR: Duncan Ward
Gillan Anderson, usually a reliable actress, gives a real howler of a performance as a stupid, stuck up woman who married a rich man (Stellan Skargaard) largely for his ability to buy art. Alan Cumming is at his outrageously camp worst as an unknown artist. However, the worst contribution (and, oh boy, choosing is tough) comes from Danny Huston, who gives his character the most annoying giggle in cinema, which he proceeds to wheel out after EVERY LAST LINE.
Perhaps if you're one of the six people who is in on the joke, BOOGIE WOOGIE is a laugh riot. For the rest of us though...
7: SKYLINE
DIR: The Brothers Strause
What's really broken here is the writing, and the godawful acting from a cast of newcomers and overreaching TV stars (the shovel faced Eric Balfour gives a performance wooden enough to be mistaken for a tree). The tedium is the killer, for most of the film's running time characters watch an alien invasion happen outside, it's like watching people watch a shitty sci-fi movie. This would perhaps be impressively meta if the brothers Strause had done it on purpose, but I doubt they did.
6: ARCHIPELAGO
DIR: Joanna Hogg
There's not a moment of insight, not a moment of wit, not a moment of intelligence, not a moment I wasn't cross.
5: SAMSON & DELILAH
DIR: Warwick Thornton
We're actually supposed to root for these characters to have a relationship, to feel some sort of connection between them, which is completely laughable, both because Delilah spends the early part of the film avoiding Samson and because THEY NEVER FUCKING SPEAK. It's like watching paint dry. Only slower.
4: THE EXPENDABLES
DIR: Sylvester Stallone
Dear God, the editing. It was as if Stallone had had the film cut by having the cast fire machine guns at the footage and then had the random bits of film pulled out a skip and spliced together by blindfolded twelve year olds, using only their feet. This rendered the film utterly pointless, because the action scenes were so badly cut that at one point I thought Jet Li was fighting, and it turned out to be Randy Coture. Stallone wanted to make a throwback, and he did, but he forgot that as well as being stupid, loud and violent, the 80's action movies people loved were fun (and at least a little coherent).
3: DEATH AT A FUNERAL
DIR: Neil LaBute
This horrendous film revolves around people screeching at each other at a funeral. Punchlines, if such a thing ever troubled the script, are largely drowned out by shrieking. One scene consists entirely of Danny Glover and Tracy Morgan screaming as 'hilariously' Morgan gets his hand stuck under a toilet seat, and Glover shits in it. This is perhaps the most apt metaphor for the film as a whole, it's as if you held out your hand to LaBute, expecting to be handed a witty, caustic, comedy replete with quotable dialogue and instead of that he's just clenched and handed over the results.
I've illustrated this with a still of Zoe Saldana as some small recompense for again alerting you to the fact of this film's existence. You are now free to again pretend it never happened, I'm going to.
2: THE BOUNTY HUNTER
DIR: Andy Tennant
If you never saw MIDNIGHT RUN it's a great comic road movie with Robert DeNiro as a bounty hunter taking Charles Grodin back to answer his parole. Now imagine that, but with Gerard Butler as DeNiro and Jennifer Aniston as Grodin, and here's the genius twist... they used to be married. Died inside yet? Gosh, what do you think happens in this movie? Could they possibly start out fighting like cat and dog, then does one of them trick the other by flirting with them, but totally unexpectedly tie them to the bed, oh and do they end up back together, despite clearly hating each other's guts? You bet your fucking arse they do, because Andy Tennant has the imagination of a brain dead gibbon.
It looks as uninspired as it plays, and the performances by Butler and Aniston are mind-bendingly awful. It is, overall, the kind of romantic comedy that could cause you to stop believing in love, and indeed in mainstream cinema.
1: A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
DIR: Samuel Bayer
Music video director Samuel Bayer (who did the irritatingly ubiquitous, and in no way good, video for Smells Like Teen Spirit) makes a truly shocking debut. Oh the pictures are pretty enough, but those are not in any way personal, conforming rigidly to the look that every Michael Bay produced horror remake since the abysmal THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE has followed, right down to the sickly green tint which seems to now be the universal colour signifier for 'shitty horror remake'. What you can blame Bayer for is twofold; first he, along with the producers, signed off the fundamentally broken document I assume they called a screenplay on set and secondly, and perhaps more damningly, Bayer directed the cast.
Dear Holy Christ on a bicycle, these performances are awful. Rooney Mara (next to be seen as Lisbeth Salander in another remake the world doesn't need) gives one of the most inexpressive performances I've ever seen. She has the air of a glove puppet being operated by a paraplegic, setting her face in a determinedly vacant repose that only ever suggests one thought... "Line?" That's not to say that Mara is even notably bad among this cast, all the younger actors (all 24 playing 17) are absolutely appalling (Mara's chemistry with Kyle Gallner being especially laughable), but she's playing Nancy, here reduced from the spunky heroine of the original to a useless husk of a character with more eye makeup than braincells.
Freddy is the most dispiriting thing though; not so wisecracking his way through the movie with dialogue composed entirely of non-sequiters and performed by Jackie Earle Haley as WATCHMEN's Rorschach after a night spent gargling gravel.
It's not scary, it's not clever, it's not fun, it's appallingly made (with some effects worse than those in the original) it makes less than no sense. It's essentially like watching Samuel Bayer dance on Wes Craven's grave, and he hasn't even had the common fucking decency to wait until Craven's dead.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Superpodcast Episode 51
It seems that Marcey just can't get rid of me. Barely a week after the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE commentary I'm back on Superpodcast, and this time Marcey and I talk TRON, TRON: LEGACY,3D and other topics. Listen out for our discussion of Michael Sheen's performance in TRON: LEGACY.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
2010 in Review: Part 3 - The 24FPS Awards
NOTE: This post contains one use of very strong language.
You may have noticed that I hate the Hollywood award season, largely for its blinkered backslapping of its own generally inferior product and people over the more deserving films and filmmakers who get ignored. So here’s my attempt to redress the balance with the third annual 24FPS film awards.
Nominees are in alphabetical order by film title or, when people rather than films are nominated, by Surname. I’m not going to restrict myself to five nominees this year. I’ve seen a LOT of films, and so I don’t have to leave deserved nods out each category will have up to 10 nominees.
BEST PICTURE
See The 10 best films of 2010 [coming soon]
BEST DIRECTOR
Catherine Breillat: BLUEBEARD
David Fincher: THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Jessica Hausner: LOURDES
Janus Metz: ARMADILLO
Chris Morris: FOUR LIONS
Mikkel Munch-Fals: NOTHING’S ALL BAD
Francois Ozon: LE REFUGE
Kelly Reichardt: MEEK’S CUTOFF
Lee Unkrich: TOY STORY 3
Matthew Vaughn: KICK ASS
I believe this is the first time I've ever recognised a documentary director (Janus Metz) in my nominations, and his genuinely perilous work is among the standouts in this very strong group. Also worth mentioning is Catherine Breillat, whose BLUEBEARD is a real change of pace for her and one of the most achingly visually beautiful films of the year.
Winner: Jessica Hausner
Hausner's style is clearly heavily influenced by her mentor; Michael Haneke, but with LOURDES she struck out with a distinct style of her own, expressing more through subtle and inventive camera choices than with words. She also draws an exceptional performance from Sylvie Testud
BEST ACTOR
Casey Affleck: THE KILLER INSIDE ME
Riz Ahmed: FOUR LIONS
Jesse Eisenberg: THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Patrick Fabian: THE LAST EXORCISM
Colin Firth: A SINGLE MAN
James Franco: 127 HOURS / HOWL
John Hawkes: WINTER’S BONE
Johannes Krisch: REVANCHE
Louis-Ronan Choisy: LE REFUGE
Ben Stiller: GREENBERG
Though I loathed both the film and the character, I can't deny that Ben Stiller's performance in GREENBERG is exceptional, and serves notice that he's worth watching as a dramatic actor. James Franco pulled out two remarkable performances as real people and consistently underrated serial 'That Guy' John Hawkes made what might have been a cliche character complex and compelling in WINTER'S BONE.
Winner: Colin Firth
This wasn't a tough choice. Colin Firth has, since shedding his pretty boy image of old, really come into his own as an actor in the past few years and though I ultimately didn't warm to the film as a whole, his central performance in A SINGLE MAN has really stuck with me. Firth finds rich depths of emotion, but never overplays, as a man embarking on the last day of his life, but it's in a flashback, receiving news of his partner's death, that he's best; speaking volumes with just a few subtle motions.
BEST ACTRESS
Clara Augarde: LOVE LIKE POISON
Ashley Bell: THE LAST EXORCISM
Isabelle Carre: LE REFUGE
Claire Danes: TEMPLE GRANDIN
Irene DeAngelis: DARK LOVE
Nina Hoss: ANONYMA: A WOMAN IN BERLIN
Isabelle Huppert: COPACABANA / SPECIAL TREATMENT /
VILLA AMALIA / WHITE MATERIAL
Jennifer Lawrence: WINTER’S BONE
Mille Lehfeldt: NOTHING’S ALL BAD
Sylvie Testud: LOURDES
This always seems to be the hardest category for me to settle on, and this year's vintage is no exception. Isabelle Huppert, as ever, needs mentioning; two general releases and two festival films this year, she's totally different and absolutely outstanding in each. Claire Danes was the big surprise, delivering, in TEMPLE GRANDIN a performance better than any I expected she had in her. My favourite actresses all delivered; Nina Hoss, Sylvie Testud and Isabelle Carre were all as good as I've come to expect, and there were strong newcomers too. A great year in this category.
Winner: Mille Lehfeldt
I'd never heard of Mille Lehfeldt before sitting down to watch NOTHING'S ALL BAD, and her performance as cancer victim Anna; trying to convince herself that even without one of her breasts she can still be attractive, and sexual, just tore my heart out. She doesn't have much dialogue, but there's such a lot said behind her eyes and in simple gestures. It's a brilliantly underplayed performance in a role that could easily have been histrionic.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Nicolas Cage: KICK ASS
Ralph Fiennes: CEMETERY JUNCTION
Zach Galifianakis: IT'S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY
Andrew Garfield: NEVER LET ME GO / THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Rhys Ifans: GREENBERG
Nigel Lindsay: FOUR LIONS
Dominic Rains: THE TAQWACORES
Wesley Snipes: BROOKLYN'S FINEST
Nicolas Cage's performance in KICK ASS was, to be fair, something of an audience splitter, but I loved the absurdity of his Adam West impression, and the idea that to become Big Daddy, his character would need to sond like someone he identifies as a superhero. Andrew Garfield, who I hadn't warmed to previously, proved that with good material he's an interesting and versatile young actor, and in one of the most charismatic performances of the year Dominic Rains stole THE TAQWACORES.
Winner: Nigel Lindsay
However, my winner was always Nigel Lindsay, whose magnificently splenetic, irretrievably stupid, aspirant suicide bomber was perhaps the funniest part of the year's funniest film. Of course he had the magnificent dialogue to work with, but it's the constant boiling rage that he has as Barry which really makes the performance so very funny.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Dale Dickey: WINTER’S BONE
Elle Fanning: SOMEWHERE
Rebecca Hall: PLEASE GIVE
Anna Kendrick: UP IN THE AIR
Sophie Lowe: BEAUTIFUL KATE
Chloe Grace Moretz: KICK ASS
Irina Potapenko: REVANCHE
Emily Watson: CEMETERY JUNCTION
Olivia Williams: THE GHOST
I'm baffled by the acclaim for Polanski's snoozefest THE GHOST, but Olivia Williams' performance stuck out like a diamond in a pile of coal. In fact several of these nominees stood out in otherwise unexceptional movies; Rebbecca Hall, Sophie Lowe, Elle Fanning, and Anna Kendrick all did work far better than their films really earned, and Fanning was so good that I very nearly picked her as the winner here, but...
Winner: Chloe Grace Moretz
"Okay you cunts, let's see what you can do now". I think that line pretty well ended any and all real debate in this category. Chloe Moretz stormed KICK ASS, creating an instant icon in Hit Girl, her cult status more assured every time she spoke. But it's not just cool dialogue, she draws two distinct, developed and engaging characters; Hit Girl and Mindy and proves in the process that she's a real talent to watch (oh, and she did most of those amazing stunts).
BEST NEWCOMER
Ashley Bell: THE LAST EXORCISM
Lola Creton: BLUEBEARD
Irene DeAngelis: DARK LOVE
Kerrie Hayes: KICKS
Sophie Lowe: BEAUTIFUL KATE
Kayvan Novak: FOUR LIONS
Dominic Rains: THE TAQWACORES
Noomi Rapace: THE MILLENNIUM TRILOGY
Louis Ronan-Choisy: LE REFUGE
The above are all names to watch in the future. I wished desperatley that THE LAST EXORCISM hadn't had that stupid, stupid ending, which so let down such a lot of good work, especially by Ashley Bell and I was just blown away by Irene DeAngelis sensitive performance in DARK LOVE, but again, there's one very clear winner here.
Winner: Noomi Rapace
Whatever the shortcomings of the second and third part of the Millennium trilogy (and they were increasingly many) Noomi Rapace was not one of them. Her Lisbeth Salander seemed to have stepped out of Stieg Larsson's book, but she also brought solid grounding to what was often a fanciful role. You can't quite believe the book's Lisbeth exists, but Rapace' charismatic performance is so vivid and so well drawn that you completely buy into it. Apart from her acting skills, Rapace simply has a quality about her; whenever she's on screen, whatever else is going on, she's what you're watching. That's what will make her a big star.
BEST ENSEMBLE
FOUR LIONS
MEEK’S CUTOFF
MEMORY LANE
NOTHING’S ALL BAD
SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
TOY STORY 3
WINTER’S BONE
Winner: Four Lions
I've singled out Riz Ahmed, Nigel Lindsay and Kayvan Novak, each in a different categoy, but FOUR LIONS really comes together because of the way the performers play off one another, especially among the main group of plotters. It's also worth noting that there are many supporting performances (right down to the actors playing tiny roles as Police snipers) that deserve recognition, chiefly Preeya Kalidas slightly underused, but excellent, performance as Ahmed's supportive wife. This is a perfect example of a cast coming together and being better as a whole than as individuals.
BEST SCREENPLAY
Ricky Gervais / Stephen Merchant: CEMETERY JUNCTION
Jesse Armstrong / Sam Bain / Chris Morris: FOUR LIONS
Jane Goldman / Matthew Vaughn: KICK ASS
Jessica Hausner: LOURDES
Mikkel Munch-Fals: NOTHING’S ALL BAD
Aaron Sorkin: THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Jac Schaeffer: TiMER
Michael Arndt: TOY STORY 3
Comedy gets a rough ride at awards time, largely because I think a lot of people, and award bodies, assume that the jokes are just made up on the spot, so I'm pleased to see so many outstanding comedy scripts this year. TOY STORY 3's mix of humour and heart came close to the win, but this was another easy pick...
Winner: Aaron Sorkin
Aaron Sorkin doesn't really write realistic dialogue, but what's really refreshing about his work is his love of language. He strikes me as a less sweary David Mamet; his dialogue is stylised, but it sounds right coming from the characters he creates. THE SOCIAL NETWORK could easily have been filled with boring acres of exposition, but Sorkin makes the words so compelling that the film (which is really just a series of board meetings) becomes totally riveting.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Chris Blauvelt: MEEK’S CUTOFF
Enrique Chediak / Anthony Dod Mantle: 127 HOURS
Vilko Filac: BLUEBEARD
Eduard Grau: A SINGLE MAN / KICKS / BURIED
Martin Gschlacht: LOURDES / REVANCHE
Yorick Le Saux: I AM LOVE
Michael McDonough: WINTER'S BONE
Mathias Raaflaub: LE REFUGE
Winner: Eduard Grau
Eduard Grau is just 30, and yet this year he's had three films released, each of which looks totally different and each of which staggeringly beautiful. He helped Lindy Heymann render Liverpool as an imposing, but beautiful, urban wasteland for KICKS. He and Tom Ford captured a clean lined, sleek, 60's style for A SINGLE MAN and he helped make Ryan Reynolds in a box visually compelling in BURIED. For my money, Grau is already one of the best cinematographers around, and just think how long he's got to grow.
BEST MUSIC [score or song]
CRAZY HEART
I AM LOVE: Sore by John Adams
LOURDES
LOVE LIKE POISON
THE LOVELY BONES: Use of Song to the Siren by This Mortal Coil
THE SOCIAL NETWORK: Score by Trent Reznor / Atticus Ross
TRON LEGACY: Score by Daft Punk
For me, most of the time, when I notice a soundtrack it's because it is annoying me (that's even true, som of the time. of I AM LOVE, but you can't deny how well the music fits the tone of the movie, and that's why it's here), but these are the musical scores and moments that really stuck out for me this year.
Winner: Daft Punk
A score that totally exceeds the film. Daft Punk's mix of sweeping strings and pounding, pulsating, electro is the most exciting and engaging thing about TRON: LEGACY.
BEST POSTER
BURIED / THE CRAZIES / I AM LOVE
IN OUR NAME / KICK ASS / THE KILLER INSIDE ME
THE LAST EXORCISM / A SERBIAN FILM / THE WOLFMAN
Winner: Kick Ass
Pretty much anything involving Hit Girl was a beneficiary of her instant icon status, but there's more to this than her inherent coolness. The design is a great satire of a wartime poster, but more than that, every little detail is done with such care and such wit, and it suits the irreverent tone of the film down to the ground.
You may have noticed that I hate the Hollywood award season, largely for its blinkered backslapping of its own generally inferior product and people over the more deserving films and filmmakers who get ignored. So here’s my attempt to redress the balance with the third annual 24FPS film awards.
Nominees are in alphabetical order by film title or, when people rather than films are nominated, by Surname. I’m not going to restrict myself to five nominees this year. I’ve seen a LOT of films, and so I don’t have to leave deserved nods out each category will have up to 10 nominees.
BEST PICTURE
See The 10 best films of 2010 [coming soon]
BEST DIRECTOR
Catherine Breillat: BLUEBEARD
David Fincher: THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Jessica Hausner: LOURDES
Janus Metz: ARMADILLO
Chris Morris: FOUR LIONS
Mikkel Munch-Fals: NOTHING’S ALL BAD
Francois Ozon: LE REFUGE
Kelly Reichardt: MEEK’S CUTOFF
Lee Unkrich: TOY STORY 3
Matthew Vaughn: KICK ASS
I believe this is the first time I've ever recognised a documentary director (Janus Metz) in my nominations, and his genuinely perilous work is among the standouts in this very strong group. Also worth mentioning is Catherine Breillat, whose BLUEBEARD is a real change of pace for her and one of the most achingly visually beautiful films of the year.
Winner: Jessica Hausner
BEST ACTOR
Casey Affleck: THE KILLER INSIDE ME
Riz Ahmed: FOUR LIONS
Jesse Eisenberg: THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Patrick Fabian: THE LAST EXORCISM
Colin Firth: A SINGLE MAN
James Franco: 127 HOURS / HOWL
John Hawkes: WINTER’S BONE
Johannes Krisch: REVANCHE
Louis-Ronan Choisy: LE REFUGE
Ben Stiller: GREENBERG
Though I loathed both the film and the character, I can't deny that Ben Stiller's performance in GREENBERG is exceptional, and serves notice that he's worth watching as a dramatic actor. James Franco pulled out two remarkable performances as real people and consistently underrated serial 'That Guy' John Hawkes made what might have been a cliche character complex and compelling in WINTER'S BONE.
Winner: Colin Firth
BEST ACTRESS
Clara Augarde: LOVE LIKE POISON
Ashley Bell: THE LAST EXORCISM
Isabelle Carre: LE REFUGE
Claire Danes: TEMPLE GRANDIN
Irene DeAngelis: DARK LOVE
Nina Hoss: ANONYMA: A WOMAN IN BERLIN
Isabelle Huppert: COPACABANA / SPECIAL TREATMENT /
VILLA AMALIA / WHITE MATERIAL
Jennifer Lawrence: WINTER’S BONE
Mille Lehfeldt: NOTHING’S ALL BAD
Sylvie Testud: LOURDES
This always seems to be the hardest category for me to settle on, and this year's vintage is no exception. Isabelle Huppert, as ever, needs mentioning; two general releases and two festival films this year, she's totally different and absolutely outstanding in each. Claire Danes was the big surprise, delivering, in TEMPLE GRANDIN a performance better than any I expected she had in her. My favourite actresses all delivered; Nina Hoss, Sylvie Testud and Isabelle Carre were all as good as I've come to expect, and there were strong newcomers too. A great year in this category.
Winner: Mille Lehfeldt
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Nicolas Cage: KICK ASS
Ralph Fiennes: CEMETERY JUNCTION
Zach Galifianakis: IT'S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY
Andrew Garfield: NEVER LET ME GO / THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Rhys Ifans: GREENBERG
Nigel Lindsay: FOUR LIONS
Dominic Rains: THE TAQWACORES
Wesley Snipes: BROOKLYN'S FINEST
Nicolas Cage's performance in KICK ASS was, to be fair, something of an audience splitter, but I loved the absurdity of his Adam West impression, and the idea that to become Big Daddy, his character would need to sond like someone he identifies as a superhero. Andrew Garfield, who I hadn't warmed to previously, proved that with good material he's an interesting and versatile young actor, and in one of the most charismatic performances of the year Dominic Rains stole THE TAQWACORES.
Winner: Nigel Lindsay
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Dale Dickey: WINTER’S BONE
Elle Fanning: SOMEWHERE
Rebecca Hall: PLEASE GIVE
Anna Kendrick: UP IN THE AIR
Sophie Lowe: BEAUTIFUL KATE
Chloe Grace Moretz: KICK ASS
Irina Potapenko: REVANCHE
Emily Watson: CEMETERY JUNCTION
Olivia Williams: THE GHOST
I'm baffled by the acclaim for Polanski's snoozefest THE GHOST, but Olivia Williams' performance stuck out like a diamond in a pile of coal. In fact several of these nominees stood out in otherwise unexceptional movies; Rebbecca Hall, Sophie Lowe, Elle Fanning, and Anna Kendrick all did work far better than their films really earned, and Fanning was so good that I very nearly picked her as the winner here, but...
Winner: Chloe Grace Moretz
BEST NEWCOMER
Ashley Bell: THE LAST EXORCISM
Lola Creton: BLUEBEARD
Irene DeAngelis: DARK LOVE
Kerrie Hayes: KICKS
Sophie Lowe: BEAUTIFUL KATE
Kayvan Novak: FOUR LIONS
Dominic Rains: THE TAQWACORES
Noomi Rapace: THE MILLENNIUM TRILOGY
Louis Ronan-Choisy: LE REFUGE
The above are all names to watch in the future. I wished desperatley that THE LAST EXORCISM hadn't had that stupid, stupid ending, which so let down such a lot of good work, especially by Ashley Bell and I was just blown away by Irene DeAngelis sensitive performance in DARK LOVE, but again, there's one very clear winner here.
Winner: Noomi Rapace
BEST ENSEMBLE
FOUR LIONS
MEEK’S CUTOFF
MEMORY LANE
NOTHING’S ALL BAD
SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
TOY STORY 3
WINTER’S BONE
Winner: Four Lions
BEST SCREENPLAY
Ricky Gervais / Stephen Merchant: CEMETERY JUNCTION
Jesse Armstrong / Sam Bain / Chris Morris: FOUR LIONS
Jane Goldman / Matthew Vaughn: KICK ASS
Jessica Hausner: LOURDES
Mikkel Munch-Fals: NOTHING’S ALL BAD
Aaron Sorkin: THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Jac Schaeffer: TiMER
Michael Arndt: TOY STORY 3
Comedy gets a rough ride at awards time, largely because I think a lot of people, and award bodies, assume that the jokes are just made up on the spot, so I'm pleased to see so many outstanding comedy scripts this year. TOY STORY 3's mix of humour and heart came close to the win, but this was another easy pick...
Winner: Aaron Sorkin
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Chris Blauvelt: MEEK’S CUTOFF
Enrique Chediak / Anthony Dod Mantle: 127 HOURS
Vilko Filac: BLUEBEARD
Eduard Grau: A SINGLE MAN / KICKS / BURIED
Martin Gschlacht: LOURDES / REVANCHE
Yorick Le Saux: I AM LOVE
Michael McDonough: WINTER'S BONE
Mathias Raaflaub: LE REFUGE
Winner: Eduard Grau
BEST MUSIC [score or song]
CRAZY HEART
I AM LOVE: Sore by John Adams
LOURDES
LOVE LIKE POISON
THE LOVELY BONES: Use of Song to the Siren by This Mortal Coil
THE SOCIAL NETWORK: Score by Trent Reznor / Atticus Ross
TRON LEGACY: Score by Daft Punk
For me, most of the time, when I notice a soundtrack it's because it is annoying me (that's even true, som of the time. of I AM LOVE, but you can't deny how well the music fits the tone of the movie, and that's why it's here), but these are the musical scores and moments that really stuck out for me this year.
Winner: Daft Punk
A score that totally exceeds the film. Daft Punk's mix of sweeping strings and pounding, pulsating, electro is the most exciting and engaging thing about TRON: LEGACY.
BEST POSTER
BURIED / THE CRAZIES / I AM LOVE
IN OUR NAME / KICK ASS / THE KILLER INSIDE ME
THE LAST EXORCISM / A SERBIAN FILM / THE WOLFMAN
Winner: Kick Ass
Pretty much anything involving Hit Girl was a beneficiary of her instant icon status, but there's more to this than her inherent coolness. The design is a great satire of a wartime poster, but more than that, every little detail is done with such care and such wit, and it suits the irreverent tone of the film down to the ground.
Monday, December 20, 2010
2010 in Review: Part 2 - The Best of 2010; Runners Up
2010 was a busy year for me, the busiest I’ve ever had in terms of the amount of new films I saw. For all of the following posts I’ve assessed as eligible those films that either showed at UK festivals or in UK cinemas between January 1st and December 18th, which I saw for the first time. For example, though both played at LFF 2009 and I saw DOGTOOTH at that festival, I was only able to see LOURDES on its 2010 cinema release, so DOGTOOTH was eligible for last year’s lists and awards, while LOURDES is eligible this year.
Over the next five days I’ll be revealing my highlights and lowlights of the year. We’ll start with a The runners up lists for the worst and the best films of the year films, then move on to the 24FPS awards for the year and finish up with the bottom and the top 10 of 2010. Enjoy, and Happy Holidays, whatever you’re celebrating.
I love what I do, it really is the best job in the world, but in seeing more than 200 new movies in a year you do get a real insight into just how many bad movies are made (lots). And then there are those moments that keep me going, the screenings I walk into and leave refreshed, my enthusiasm for and love of cinema ignited again by something different and dazzling. The very best films of the year will be covered in my Christmas Eve post, but these ten movies were also among the highlights of the year, and each reminded me exactly why I love going to work. The list is in alphabetical order by title.
127 HOURS
DIR: Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle's follow up to the Oscar winning SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE doesn't sound that promising; a 100 minute film about a man (James Franco as Aron Ralston) who gets his arm trapped under a rock, and is stuck for the titular amount of time, before determining that to avoid dying he must cut off the stricken arm. Remarkably Boyle and Franco make this an extremely cinematic tale, with Boyle's sharp images and pounding, rhythmic cutting making for a film that defies the static nature of its subject. For his part Franco is outstanding as Ralston, again delivering a performance that makes the argument that he's one of the best American actors of his generation. The central self-surgery scene is uncomfortably long and graphic, almost palpably painful, but the rest of the film is by turns thrilling, emotional and funny. A great surprise.
ANONYMA: A WOMAN IN BERLIN [a.k.a.: The Downfall of Berlin: Anonyma]
DIR: Max Farberbock
Whenever I see that a film starring the great German actress Nina Hoss is getting a UK release, I celebrate. This adaptation of an anonymous memoir, penned by a female journalist in the immediate aftermath of World War two documents a seldom discussed aspect of the war; the massive scale of rape that civilization German women were subjected to by the conquering Russian army. Hoss plays the anonymous journalist, giving one of her finest performances to date, and this time the film matches her. The supporting cast is exceptional, with many of the best German actors working; Juliane Kohler, August Diehl, Sandra Huller, Jordis Triebel and many more besides, turning up even in the smallest parts. What really gives ANONYMA punch though is Max Farberbock's unflinching eye, and his willingness to acknowledge both the determination these women had to survive, and the terrible things they had to endure to do so (the phrase "wie oft" (how often) takes on terrible meaning). This is a powerful film, with a brilliant performance at its centre.
LA DANSE: THE PARIS OPERA BALLET
DIR: Frederick Wiseman
Frederick Wiseman is one of the defining voices in documentary cinema. He was 77 when he shot this film (he's now 80) and it's as vital and fascinating as any work he's ever done. Wiseman doesn't impose structure on the way he follows the Paris Opera Ballet through their season, instead he focuses on the punishing, painstaking, effort, on the endless repetition, on the desire to get every moment, every movement, absolutely perfect. The composition of Wiseman's shots is often gorgeous; a shot of an empty hallway as beautiful and as telling as one of a dancer, but where this film really excels is as a study of movement. Forget the overrated BLACK SWAN, this is the ballet movie you have to see.
DARK LOVE
DIR: Antonio Capuano
Antonio Capuano's film is not the love story he thinks it is, but it is an affecting, occasionally brilliant, and spectacularly acted (especially by 19 year old Irene DeAngelis) tale of how one horrendous crime (gang rape, which we never see) affects both the perpetrator and the victim. Capuano's parallel approach makes for a pair of compelling character studies, which become truly fascinating as perpetrator Ciro begins writing to his victim Irene from his juvenile detention. The visuals are beautiful, but it is the unusual story and the compelling performance of Irene DeAngelis, which really make the appropriately titled DARK LOVE an enduringly interesting film.
FOUR LIONS
DIR: CHRIS MORRIS
Chris Morris, one of Britain's foremost satirists, makes the jump from TV to cinema with this risky project; a knockabout comedy about five inept would be suicide bombers. The masterstroke that keeps the film from being offensive is that, while it shows the terrorists as being human, even as decent, sympathetic people, it never lets us forget the gravity of what they are planning, and the film does carry the weight of their aim throughout. The performances are just as finely balanced, with Nigel Lindsay (as British born convert Barry) and Kayvan Novak (as peabrained Waj, whose idea of paradise is not having to queue to go on Alton Towers' Rubber Dinghy Rapids ride) standing out. In an age when things like DUE DATE are stinking up the box office, films this funny and this thoughtful give me hope.
KICKS
DIR: Lindy Heymann
Lindy Heymann's film is, thanks perhaps to young cinematographer Eduard Grau, one of the best looking directorial debuts I can remember seeing. Together Heymann and Grau render Liverpool as a stark, bleak, but also strikingly beautiful urban landscape. However, that's not all KICKS has going for it. Nichola Burley and Kerrie Hayes are both excellent as the two girls who are distraught, to the point of disturbing action, when their favourite footballer confirms he will be leaving Liverpool for Real Madrid. The film goes a little off the rails in its last act, but the images, Hayes' performance in particular and the chilly soundtrack (featuring several tracks by Liverpool electro band Ladytron) are good enough to keep it extremely compelling.
LOVE LIKE POISON
DIR: Katell Quillevere
Katell Quillevere's debut is perhaps the most insightful coming of age movie of 2010. She follows the sexual awakening and burgeoning religious doubts of a 14 year old girl (played by an excellent Clara Augarde). Quillevere doesn't try to treat the subject controversially or over dramatically, instead she keeps LOVE LIKE POISON very grounded and real feeling, refusing to present the religious characters as either saints or devils (though there is some very pointed implicit criticism of Catholic dogma). This is a film that asks many pointed questions, both about religion and about growing up, and doesn't answer many of them, it's also a film that shows Quillevere as a major talent to watch both as an actors director and as a visualist.
SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD
DIR: Edgar Wright
Edgar Wright's third major film is his most audacious yet. In this adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's graphic novel series Wright has allowed his visual imagination to run riot, creating an entirely original collision of 1000 pop culture influences. Michael Cera (once again) plays the same nerd he's played in everything he's ever been in, but otherwise the casting is dead on perfect from Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Scott's (and every nerd's) dream girl to the league of seven evil exes (Brandon Routh is a particular standout). The fight sequences (choreographed with assistance from the Jackie Chan stunt team) are fantastic and the script is hilariously funny. It didn't do as well as it should have at cinemas, but it's a cult sensation in the making.
TABLOID
DIR: Errol Morris
A return to form for Morris after the disappointing STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE, this finds him back on typical territory, presenting a multi-faceted portrait of a truly eccentric woman. The case of the Manacled Mormon apparently gripped the British tabloid press in the 70's, and here Morris gets as close to the full story as he can, largely through an interview with the kidnapper; a deceptively sweet, but clearly delusional woman named Joyce. Joyce is fascinating, and the film's most interesting, scariest and funniest passages all revolve around her telling her story. It's a shame that Morris couldn't speak to her victim (he's alive, but wouldn't be interviewed) but as a portrait of a very singular woman, this is hard to beat.
TiMER
DIR: Jac Schaeffer
THIS is how you do a modern, mainstream romantic comedy. Jac Schaeffer's film takes a simple, offbeat premise (the idea that in the future most people have a device implanted on their wrists that counts down to the day they'll meet their true love. Buffy's Emma Caulfield plays a woman whose TiMER hasn't started counting down, because her 'one' hasn't had one installed yet. This rather thin seeming idea is the framework for an hilarious rom-com. The jokes fly thick and fast, and thanks to star Emma Caulfield's dead on comic timing (honed as Anya on Buffy, just about every one sticks. It's also got the guts to be a little bit different from the other rom-coms out there, so, happily, you won't always know where it's going. I just wish someone would get off their arse and give it a UK release.
Over the next five days I’ll be revealing my highlights and lowlights of the year. We’ll start with a The runners up lists for the worst and the best films of the year films, then move on to the 24FPS awards for the year and finish up with the bottom and the top 10 of 2010. Enjoy, and Happy Holidays, whatever you’re celebrating.
I love what I do, it really is the best job in the world, but in seeing more than 200 new movies in a year you do get a real insight into just how many bad movies are made (lots). And then there are those moments that keep me going, the screenings I walk into and leave refreshed, my enthusiasm for and love of cinema ignited again by something different and dazzling. The very best films of the year will be covered in my Christmas Eve post, but these ten movies were also among the highlights of the year, and each reminded me exactly why I love going to work. The list is in alphabetical order by title.
127 HOURS
DIR: Danny Boyle
ANONYMA: A WOMAN IN BERLIN [a.k.a.: The Downfall of Berlin: Anonyma]
DIR: Max Farberbock
LA DANSE: THE PARIS OPERA BALLET
DIR: Frederick Wiseman
DARK LOVE
DIR: Antonio Capuano
FOUR LIONS
DIR: CHRIS MORRIS
KICKS
DIR: Lindy Heymann
LOVE LIKE POISON
DIR: Katell Quillevere
SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD
DIR: Edgar Wright
TABLOID
DIR: Errol Morris
TiMER
DIR: Jac Schaeffer
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)