Tag Archives: Drama

About Time  (2013)    10/100

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Rating :   10/100                                                                     123 Min        12A

Garbage. Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) discovers he can travel back in time to any point that he has previously experienced thanks to the time travelling gene he has inherited from his father (Bill Nighy), and so he decides to spend the majority of the film, and indeed his life, using it to get laid with Mary (Rachel McAdams – continuing her sexual perversion for time travelling lovers, after 2009’s ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’). Actually Mary turns out to be quite easy, so it isn’t especially difficult for him and most of the film is padded out with very obvious time travelling gags as it meanders along with writer/director Richard Curtis’ upper middle class spoiled London centric characters who scarcely have any real problems to deal with, other than worrying about how to fall in love in the politest way possible and which swanky restaurant to go to. According to Curtis, the law profession that Tim chooses is entirely dominated by men – which century is he living in? And of course Tim never seems to think about using his powers to help out the people he defends in court, or indeed for doing anything especially interesting whatsoever.

Meanwhile Mary, being gainfully employed as an editor reading books for a living, which she loves, for some reason hates theatre, which makes absolutely no sense, but she is passionate about her idol Kate Moss. Kate Moss? What exactly has she ever done except stand around in her underwear posing and snorting mountains of cocaine, unless it’s dating a ‘rockstar’ so repugnant that even the press eventually got bored of him? Of course she’s in the script because Curtis has admitted his own salivary predilection for Moss. Then he gives McAdams an audience silencer of a line – whilst she’s stripping off her clothes to get information from Tim about the wedding and, upon reaching the threshold of her knickers, she asks where the honeymoon is to be, to which he suggests Scotland, her response is “I’m not taking my pants off for Scotland!”. No problem – come up north and we’ll take them off for you lass. I can only assume this references some kind of Jungian archetypal fear of the sexual prowess of the Scots. In response I think it should henceforth be every red blooded Scotsman’s duty to try and get into Rachel McAdams’ pants, although really we’d prefer Curtis had put the line in Notting Hill and we could chase Julia Roberts. Still, not sure I’d kick Rachel McAdams out of bed. Give her a good kick her up the arse, maybe…

Toward the end of the film we find motifs of death and loss and whiffs of emotional essence begin to drift into the story, and here it is more successful, but it is beyond redemption by this point. Tim’s airhead but easy to love sister (played by Lydia Wilson) is at one point taken back in time to demonstrate the man she had entered into a destructive relationship with was in fact no good, as thus now not meeting her at a party he instead simply hits on a different girl. What?! So he’s a ‘bad guy’ because he hits on girls at parties when he’s single? As if members of both sexes don’t attend parties all over the world precisely because they hope they will meet someone there, plus the girl he talks to doesn’t exactly seem upset at the attention he gives her. Is the assumption that this man is some sort of unstoppable demonic sexual force that all girls have no choice about submitting to?

This also completely ignores the enormity of the double standards that are applied throughout the story – Tim changes something which means he misses what would have been his first meeting with Mary, who instead shacks up with someone she meets AT A PARTY – someone she doesn’t know before hand and is quite clearly shown to be a creepy idiot. Tim, realising his mistake, then finds out exactly the right thing to say to Mary to impress her by repeating history again and again and again. This is somehow not intensely wrong on every level. Eventually, his lies should be unravelled and the fact their relationship is based on nothing at all unearthed, but of course it never is as he can alter everything, spending many lifetimes over perfecting his space time continuum rape of Mary, purely because he finds her hot, not really based on her personality in any meaningful way. Given the speed Mary also jumps into the sack with him, I guess she wasn’t really that fussy anyway.

Then there’s the babies – Tim cannot travel once he has created a child without altering the precise sperm and egg that met (if he goes back beyond conception that is), thus creating a different child. Somehow he corrects this error the first time he makes it and gets his young daughter back (she briefly becomes a young boy), also a little absent minded of his father not to mention this drawback, but later on when his third child is about to be born he decides to go back once again because clearly annihilating that unborn but fully formed child is fine so long as he hasn’t actually seen its face – who’ll know the difference, right?

Disgusting.

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints  (2013)    59/100

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Rating :   59/100                                                                       96 Min        15

A film that has its moments, but overall feels largely pointless, not to mention derivative of the work of Terrence Malick. Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara play Bob and Ruth respectively – young lovers involved in a gang of thieves that we don’t really learn too much about, as very early on the police put an end to their career of choice by sending Bob to jail and leaving a now pregnant Ruth in the care of their adopted father Skerritt (Keith Carradine). Years further on, one of the local sheriffs, played by Ben Foster (who normally plays a total creep, and here looks completely out of his element, and frankly unbelievable, trying to be the ‘nice guy’), decides he rather fancies his chances of looking after Ruth and her young girl, which just so happens to coincide with the jail break of a certain ardent and desperate young father …

Overall the entire film feels like it’s trying too hard to be ‘arty’ and heavy with ‘depth’, and it reminds The Red Dragon a lot of ‘To The Wonder’ – there we seen Olga Kurylenko frolic in the fields with the sun low in the sky behind her, here we see Rooney Mara frolic in the fields with the sun low in the sky behind her. The music and the way it’s used feels similar, and although there is a lot more dialogue here, it still retains attempts at wanky poetry – especially issuing forth from Bob, and Affleck rarely convinces in any scene here. Indeed, one in particular is downright annoying as he delivers some vain rambling monologue in front of the mirror whilst chewing on something, slurring his words and talking in an unnatural affected way, ironically perhaps an attempt at ‘realism’. Given Casey’s brother, Ben Affleck, also starred in ‘To The Wonder’, these things do not seem like coincidence at all. Mara and Carradine are good, but with the pretentious title heralding a particularly hollow drama, it was wishful thinking indeed for director David Lowery if he thought this would touch base with such outlaw classics as ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ (67) and ‘Badlands’ (73) – the latter of which was also directed by Malick. Coincidence?

Any Day Now  (2012)    69/100

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Rating :   69/100                                                                       97 Min        15

Touted as Alan Cumming’s best performance to date, a statement I would not disagree with, this tells the true story of an American homosexual couple’s fight in the 1970s to win custody over a child with Down syndrome from his drug addicted, and neglectful to the point of criminality, mother. Cumming (who, incidentally, grow up around Carnoustie in Scotland – the same home town as Ian McDiarmid, a.k.a. the emperor in the Star Wars franchise {episodes I, II, III & VI}, a character that in light of the new films currently lined up may or may not have survived the events of ‘The Return of the Jedi’ 84) plays Rudy Donatello, the more flamboyant and outspoken of the two, whose occupation at the opening of the film is as a miming drag queen in a gay nightclub, whilst his partner Paul Fliger, played by Garret Dillahunt, is a district attorney.

It’s a tough, and yet important story, highlighting human prejudice and the failings of the legal system in America designed to safeguard vulnerable minors. Despite its worthiness, however, I would be lying if I said I found it easy to become especially emotionally involved with the film. It is perhaps due to the story spending too much time focusing on the adults and the ramifications of their sexual orientation, rather than the experiences of the child, Marco (played here by Isaac Leyva), which is where the connection with the audience should be centred. It’s still a good film though, and Cumming gets the opportunity to show us he can sing as well as act (the title comes from a line in the song ‘I Shall be Released’ by Bob Dylan).

Interestingly, Cumming and fellow actor Brian Cox (who is from Dundee, just west of Carnoustie) were two of the speakers at the launch of the ‘Yes campaign’ for Scottish independence, a launch that took place at Cineworld in Edinburgh and seen politics nod very heavily to the powerful influence of cinema. Indeed, analysts are predicting the ‘Braveheart generation’ to play a key role in deciding the vote in 2014 – that is, the people who were growing up when the film was released in 1995. Ah humans, bless them. I remember the olden days of independence and the comings and goings of the English, the French, the Vikings, the Scots, the Picts, the Romans, the Celts, the Africans … everyone who came to Scotland eventually fell in love with the land and were welcomed by the natives. Or we killed them. One of the two.

The Way Way Back  (2013)    81/100

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Rating :   81/100                        Treasure Chest                      103 Min        12A

The trailer for this did not deliver an especially mouth watering premise – a young boy growing up isn’t understood by his parents and he is forced to turn to the fast cracking comedy schtick of Sam Rockwell to find both a friend and a vague sort of father figure. A film like this gets released on a fairly regular basis, and there was little to suggest this was anything other than a standard and predictable coming of age drama, nor were my immediate sympathies with the protagonist who seemed to be a movie version of a troubled teenager, sporting relatively perfect hair and skin – one can’t help but think a British/realistic version would feature some poor young acne ridden soul with pulsating pustules of pus obscuring his vision and his face turning an explosive vermillion whenever a girl so much as looks in his direction. Magically, the film had genuine moments where I’d be surprised if there existed a single person sitting in the auditorium without a smile on their face, or indeed who didn’t feel the same level of empathy with the characters during their more negative travails, and this achievement alone garnered the movie peals of genuine applause come the end.

Liam James plays the central character of Duncan, who is dragged to Cape Cod (the large Massachusetts peninsula that juts out eastward into the Atlantic) in order to spend some ‘quality’ time with his mother, stepfather and stepsister. All hope is not lost though, as he discovers the impossibly cute girl next door Susanna, played by AnnaSophia Robb (‘Bridge to Terabithia’ 07), who prefers reading books and the pleasure of her own company to that of the more shallow girls in town. The adults do a fantastic job of being conceited twats to Duncan, who is shown to be quiet, shy and unsure of himself but by no means weak as he elects to cycle a pink bike around town of his own accord, which in itself takes a certain measure of courage, and then under his own steam he finds himself a job at the local aqua park – an occupation he keeps secret from his family who are preoccupied with themselves and their own internal drama.

Toni Collette, Steve Carell, Allison Janney, Rob Corddry and Amanda Peet play the adults Duncan is surrounded by at home, whilst Maya Rudolph and Sam Rockwell appear as his co-workers and friends. Janney and Rockwell’s characters are often used in much the same way by the narrative for quick fire comic relief, which does work but is a tad overdone, but other than that this is a well acted, great little film. I’m tempted to draw parallels with last year’s indie hit ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ as another movie where everything combined really well together, but will this one find its way to the Oscars ..? It’s also the directorial debut of Nat Faxon, pictured at the far left above, and Jim Rash, who plays the ‘determined to leave his job’ Lewis at the aqua park. An impressive first time behind the camera from the veteran actors, who also co-wrote the screenplay and each share a best adapted screenplay Oscar with Alexander Payne for 2011’s ‘The Descendants’.

Careful not to confuse the title with Peter Weir’s 2010 film ‘The Way Back’, nor indeed Emilio Esteves’ ‘The Way’ from the same year.

Pain & Gain  (2013)    74/100

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Rating :   74/100                                                                     129 Min        15

Michael Bay brings his adrenaline fuelled style of filmmaking to somewhat new and uncharted territory for the director, with this ‘based on a true story’ (published in 1999 as a series of articles in the ‘Miami New Times’) crime drama. Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson and Anthony Mackie are all weight lifters working in the Sun Gym in California who decide, largely at the instigation of Wahlberg’s ringleader Daniel Lugo, to kidnap a local entrepreneur and try to extort all of his money and belongings from him. The three are each the very epitome of the term ‘meathead’ and what ensues is a classic crime caper, with the three leads delivering entirely believable and often amusing performances. Bay still hasn’t quite mastered the craft of truncating his movies so that they run at a reasonable length, but this was still a lot of fun from start to finish, and marks another great turn by Johnson, ranking alongside his appearance in ‘Southland Tales’ (06) and as the lead in ‘Faster’ (10). The characters have been made a lot more palatable than their real life counterparts, and in reality the gang was a lot bigger than just three people, but the story in general follows real life events.

Lovelace  (2013)    74/100

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Rating :   74/100                                                                       93 Min        18

A well shot and acted film that is both interesting and at times disturbing. It follows the true story of Linda Boreman, aka Linda Lovelace, who starred in one of the highest grossing and famous porn films of all time, ‘Deep Throat’ (72), and then all but disappeared from the public eye, only to publish a book many years later detailing the abuse she suffered from her then husband Chuck Traynor, whom she alleges forced her into making the film. The movie plays with different viewpoints, and is brought to life by Amanda Seyfried in the title role, Sharon Stone and Robert Partrick as her devoutly Catholic parents, Peter Sarsgaard as Chuck, and with Hank Azaria, Juno Temple and Chris Noth in support (and James Franco briefly as Hugh Hefner). It’s an uncompromising role for chick flick stalwart Seyfried who does a fantastic job and, ironically, I’d probably rather watch a couple of the scenes from this again than any from the entirety of ‘Deep Throat’ …

What Maisie Knew  (2012)    73/100

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Rating :   73/100                                                                       99 Min        15

Emotional tearjerker based on the Henry James novel of the same name, focusing on the breakdown of a marriage and the effects for the young innocent girl, Maisie, caught in the middle of it. Julianne Moore and Steve Coogan play the self absorbed parents who’s priorities primarily lie with their careers, that of an ageing rock star for Moore, and a travelling arts dealer for Coogan, and although initially the mother comes off as by far the worse of the two, by the end of the film you will pretty much hate the pair of them.

Enter two young adults in the life of the child, one her regular and somewhat traditional ‘hot babysitter’ played by Scottish newcomer Joanna Vanderham, and the other a handsome male boy toy for the mother in the shape of Alexander Skarsgård, both of whom fall in love with Maisie but are also caught in the venomous crossfire of the separation. The film is well shot and well acted throughout, including by young Onata Aprile who plays Miasie, a performance accentuated by the single tear that she sheds after effectively being abandoned by everyone she loves. A great film, and one which thankfully has the kindness and affection of non family members to balance out the lack of care from those who should know better, suggesting that blood isn’t necessarily always thicker than water.

Elysium  (2013)    16/100

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Rating :   16/100                                                                     109 Min        15

Horrible, horrible action film. The title relates to ‘a paradise’, traditionally the place in Greek Mythology that all heroes went to after death, here an Earth orbiting haven for the super rich, wherein everyone lives like kings with all manner of technology that can cure essentially all known disease and even rebuild flesh. It’s the year 2154, and whilst the human elite are drinking champagne and playing croquet in space, everyone still on the surface of Earth exists in extreme poverty, which is where we find our hero, Max (Matt Damon), who had always dreamed of going into utopian orbit himself, but usually finds himself on the wrong side of the law, and is currently desperately sucking up a menial labour intensive job.

It’s from director Neill Blomkamp, and follows on from his successful ‘District 9’ (09) and as there the special effects look tremendous, albeit a little similar to his previous film. The similarities don’t end there though, indeed one could almost extrapolate the basic story from one and insert it into the other with precious little difference between them, and just as ‘District 9’ started off with an interesting concept and then degenerated into a plodding excuse for pointless action, so too does history repeat itself, only with a far less convincing story and acting, as although Damon is fine in the role, the rest of the supporting cast far from have their finest moments.

Except for Sharlto Copley, who plays the central villain and hired goon of the military defence of Elysium and clearly had a lot of fun in the role, but his character is simply too grotesque. One scene sees him threaten a very young girl and her mother and it is not especially justified by the narrative, rather it’s an excuse to bring the childhood sweetheart of Max into the fray, which is not only horrifically lame but the scene is actually pretty disturbing to watch. Combine this with excessive violence, bloodshed, and the continued peril of the mother and daughter via a very basic, contrived, ‘been done a thousand times before’ storyline that is predictable, nonsensical, and features ‘Gladiator’ esque music with flashbacks of Max and the woman of his dreams as children (together with images of tattoos of their names ‘4 ever’), and it not only becomes direly cheesy, but you’re left thinking why? Why make this? The only point seems to be, once again, to blow things up, but it has been done in a depressingly tiresome, and at times disturbing, way.

The Mortal Instruments : City of Bones  (2013)    51/100

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Rating :   51/100                                                                     130 Min        12A

Fantasy fare with vampires, werewolves, demons and pretty girls – I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like this on some level, but it manages to be derivative of pretty much every other popular fantasy universe out there, and the fact that the author of the teenage fantasy book it’s based on, Cassandra Clare, began by writing fan fiction for Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings comes as no surprise at all. The effects are good, but the story and dialogue leave a lot to be desired, especially when it comes to central character Clarissa Fray (Lily Collins mmm) who is more than hopeless as she discovers her ancestry and its place within the fraternity of ‘shadowhunters’ that stalk and kill demons lurking amongst mortals. It starts off well, with Lena Headey (double mmm) playing Clarissa’s mother and guardian, but it’s mostly downhill from there, with too much emphasis on a particularly limp love triangle which apes the Twilight trend of young girls leading multiple men on and causing general carnage around them, and lots of just silly moments, like managing to freeze a bunch of demons and then waiting until they unfroze to kill them, possible just to show off the CGI. Daft. Envisioned as the first in a franchise, also with Jamie Campbell Bower and Robert Sheehan as the male love interests, together with Jared Harris and Jonathan Rhys Meyers in support.

Only God Forgives  (2013)    61/100

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Rating :   61/100                                                                       90 Min        18

Danish writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest film comes exactly two years after his phenomenally successful ‘Drive’, and once again features Ryan Gosling in a central role, together with sharp ultra high resolution digital camera work (specifically, using the Arri Alexa), and more stylised and brutal violence. This is a lot more surrealist than Drive was, with the story set in Thailand and focusing on a pair of American brothers who run a boxing gym as their legitimate business enterprise, with all manner of things going on behind the scenes. When one of them commits a particularly heinous crime, it sets in motion a whirlwind of bloody acts, which also draws their mother, played by Kristin Scott Thomas, reluctantly from the States and into the fray.

It is the backstory of Gosling’s character Julian, one of the brothers, that really anchors the piece, and indeed the entire film could be viewed as the inevitable cosmic consequence of what he has done. Or, perhaps, what his psyche does to itself, as feeding into this, it is not always apparent whether what we are viewing is really happening, or is simply the visualisation of Julian’s thoughts, fears, and desires. With ‘Drive’, I really didn’t see what all the fuss was about, it was essentially a cinematic version of the video game ‘Grand Theft Auto : San Andreas’, and anyone familiar with the game would likely not find anything terribly original in the film. This time around, however, I am a fan of what I think the director was trying to achieve. He has certainly been successful with the stylisation of the local Thai police investigator Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm) who operates throughout like a nihilistic ninja, a personification of consequence enforcing the balance of nature via murder.

Unfortunately, the film does suffer from several over indulgences, and a heavy dose of gratuity when it comes to the violence – some of which is arguably necessary, but, as with several instances in Tarantino’s career (or, worse yet, Eli Roth), there will come moments that have you wonder whether their inclusion has more to do with childish bloodlust rather than story. The beginning suffers the most from that dreaded criticism of art house fare – laughability, as parts, in between the segments of gritty horror that this film depicts, just seem a bit silly. It reminds The Red Dragon of a version of Chekhov’s Three Sisters that he once seen onstage where the actors constantly stopped and stood still for ages in complete silence (this was supposed to be for reflection, but made the piece over three hours long, and when one is a dragon trapped in the centre of the Grand Circle for what seems like an eternity whilst absolutely nothing happens onstage at all, one very quickly gets HUNGRY, a state of being which my insatiable insides decided to announce to THE ENTIRE AUDITORIUM for the duration of the play. My stomach, in fact, became the narrator for Chekhov’s Three Sisters), something similar happens here – this is most definitely not a film to take lots of popcorn, or food in general, into.

These points aside, I am absolutely in love with the cameras they used, which show everything in pristine detail and manage to make what is probably otherwise an average grubby looking street, appear quite beautiful onscreen, a combined success of equipment and the strong and memorable choice of lighting used throughout. The acting is equally sharp, with Kristin Scott Thomas in particular giving a truly powerful and domineering performance, wielding her character with a crackling vehemence, one given extra gravitas and authority by a commanding American accent.

Worthy of note for what it attempts to do, though do be prepared for sanguine and despotic darkness from start to finish and it remains to be seen whether its misgivings will be bumps in the road for Nicolas Winding Refn, or will entrench themselves into stylistic trademarks. It also seems likely that the director may have delved into Thai cinema for research, certainly the feel of the editing and some of the shots used evoke memories of the work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and his Palme d’Or winner ‘Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives’ (10). Just like ‘Drive’ before it, the film is dedicated to the (still living) Chilean-French surrealist director Alejandro Jodorowsky, of whose work ‘El Topo’ (70) is absolutely recommended viewing.