‘Flight’ is the latest film from Robert Zemeckis (‘Back to the Future’ 85, ‘Forrest Gump’ 94, ‘Beowulf’) and it’s a very good piece to come back with after a few years break from filmmaking, seeing both writer John Gatins and leading man Denzel Washington up for Academy Awards. The story was inspired by the real life tragedy of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, and revolves around pilot Whip Whitaker, played by Washington, having to come to terms with his alcohol and drug dependency. His performance and the story are both compelling, but one of the supporting characters we are introduced to seems to get over their own struggle with addiction remarkably easily, though it could be argued the contrast with Whitaker is what allows this to happen.
Zemeckis is also guilty of the curious misuse of The Rolling Stones in the film (or more correctly, their music) as they are at one point seemingly put at odds with the general tone of the rest of the film. Overall though, this deserves the praise it has received, and puts Denzel right up there in the Oscars race, which shouldn’t detract from the good acting support from Don Cheadle, Bruce Greenwood, Kelly Reilly, and John Goodman. Don’t watch before you go on holiday – though if you really want to scare yourself see 2011’s ‘The Grey’.
Vacuous, in love with itself, and dull as hell. This film tells the story of how American president Franklin D. Roosevelt misused his powers to have his way with various women, essentially abusing them in the process. The music, sounding like what would be expected at the end of a ‘Star Trek : The Next Generation’ episode mixed with repetitive T-Mobile esq. plinkety plonk, and the general tone suggest that this is all fine and dandy, and that if you’re the American president, and especially if you are being played by Bill Murray, then you can do whatever you like. The girls in the row behind me at the cinema were so bored they started making out with each other in a not so subtle fashion, it would be interesting to know if they were gay before they went in or not. The constant reference, with a singular exception, to the United Kingdom as England is also not only completely unacceptable, but utterly disrespectful to the men and women from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who would go on to give their lives defending their country and the liberties of others during the Second World War. Unforgivable.
‘Zero Dark Thirty’ tells the story of how American intelligence operatives tracked down Osama Bin Laden hiding in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011. Or does it? As it deals with the shadowy world of intelligence, we will never quite know unless the official documents are made public (which in Britain happens thirty years after the fact, as per the ‘Thirty Years Rule’). The film is from director Kathryn Bigelow (the first female winner of the best director Oscar for 2008’s ‘The Hurt Locker’) and writer Mark Boal. Originally, the pair had been working on a project surrounding the Battle of Tora Bora in Afghanistan in 2001, which had been a previous military attempt to capture Bin Laden, but when they heard the news of the Abbottabad raid they decided to shelve that project but still use their intelligence contacts and information to form the basis of ‘Zero Dark Thirty’, perhaps sensing they had a foot in the door advantage over anyone else thinking to do the inevitable and dramatise the event on film.
The exact nature of the real intelligence they had access to, and its accuracy, is still a very hot topic of debate in America, with the filmmakers to undergo yet more investigations by the government as confirmed this month and with the Republicans during the last presidential campaign claiming that they breached security protocols and put the intelligence services at risk. Even more contentious is the film’s depiction of the use of torture on suspected terrorist prisoners and the fact that it could be argued that real necessary intel was garnered this way, and indeed whether or not the movie actually promotes torture.
However, this misses the real question. Is it accurate? If the torture and what came from it is entirely true to actual events, then the filmmakers have done their job. If those events are knowingly fictionalised and yet are presented to us as fact, then they have some very serious questions to answer. This is the only point that really matters, but to touch on the debate very slightly, despite the fact some information does get obtained from torture which eventually leads to closing in on the target, it takes the better part of a decade to do so, it’s not exactly displayed as the most effective or efficient method of gathering information by the film, all moral questions aside.
The film walks, successfully, a curious line – keeping us both emotionally distant but involved in the beginning, and slowly reeling us in until cold barrenness finally gives way with the emotion of the main character in the final scene, and quite emotively so after almost three hours of harsh reality. It doesn’t take much more than a simple nod in the right direction for us to invest throughout, as the subject matter is so familiar to everyone. We largely see events through the perspective of female CIA agent Maya, played by Jessica Chastain, a fictional agent but one reportedly based on a real person. Up for an Oscar for the role, she convinces throughout, as do all the supports, though the one scene when the film very consciously tries to ramp up the tension was way too obvious and could have been done much more effectively.
For some real pathos, the cinema I watched this in made a special effort, which was good to see, for a severely disabled man, requiring a machine to breathe, to watch the screening. It was impossible not to consider that he himself may have been involved in the conflict. Provided this is an accurate depiction of real events, it becomes an extremely important film to see as it is an effective and debate provoking reminder of both the capacity for bloodshed in the world, and the difficulties of modern civilisations trying to keep that bloodshed at bay without unduly causing more. Timely with Britain’s announcement over the last couple of days that she is to send troops into Mali: is it part of a larger sensible strategy, or an ego and hopeful ratings boost for one of the most unpopular Prime Ministers the country has ever had (perhaps just as Margaret Thatcher’s public appeal soared with the tides of war {who’s son ran an arms company incidentally})?
Zero dark thirty refers to the military term for half past midnight, and, although I don’t think it’s mentioned in the film, the Abbottabad operation was code-named Operation Neptune Spear, for those of you who like to know mission names. For another film, one which largely flew under the radar, that deals with similar themes of torture and national security see ‘Unthinkable’ (2010) with Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Sheen.
A film about one of the most iconic of Americans, directed by Steven Spielberg, and starring Daniel Day-Lewis, kind of had Academy Award nominations written all over it from its very inception (although, originally, Liam Neeson was due to take on the lead role). Happily, it deserves all twelve of the ones it has received for next month’s ceremony. Day-Lewis plays the man himself of course, sixteenth president of the United States Mr Abraham Lincoln, and the entirety of the film is focused on the last few months of the American Civil War and the politics surrounding Lincoln’s attempt to have the thirteenth amendment (concerned with anti-slavery) officially written into the constitution. As such, there is almost no fighting in the film, instead we are treated to an intricate courtroom drama and character portrayal of the president, and if you are unfamiliar with the exact history of the moment this will certainly put it into an enlightening context.
And who better to play Lincoln than Daniel Day-Lewis. The Red Dragon considers him to be unquestionably the finest actor of his generation, who’s fanatical devotion to method acting each role is legendary, famously living off the land in the forest before shooting ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ (92) and flitting between Italian and English with cast and crew on ‘Nine’ (09 – he actually worked as a shoemaker for a while in Italy, for 2002’s ‘Gangs of New York’ Scorsese and DiCaprio reputedly had to track him down and go visit him personally there to persuade him to take part in the film). In an interview Gary Oldman once remarked, upon someone suggesting that everyone has a couple of bad movies, ‘hmm, I’m not aware of Daniel Day-Lewis ever having done any!’.
Here, he completely embodies the character once again with an entirely convincing accent and set of mannerisms to boot, aided by some wonderful cosmetics. He really is something special to watch, and my only, slight, criticism would be that the last ten minutes or so could have perhaps been a little more enigmatic, and it does seem unlikely that Lincoln’s advisers would be quite as surprised as they are by his machinations, but rather they are so in the film in order to make him seem all the more grand. It could be this is consistent with the source material – Doris Kearns Goodwin’s ‘Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln’ published in 2005. In any case, this is Day-Lewis’s fifth best actor nomination at the Academy Awards and if he wins, and he certainly deserves to, then he will make history as the only male actor to ever have won more than two Oscars for lead roles.
Despite the dialogue heavy nature of the movie I enjoyed it just as much, perhaps even more so, the second time around. The cast is enormous, perhaps a little distractingly so as it’s easy to spend time thinking ‘hmm, what is that actor’s name again…’ but they unanimously do a great job. In particular Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens, a combative, long time proponent of slavery abolition, and Sally Fields as Mary Todd Lincoln, both of whom are up for awards themselves, and also Lee Pace and Peter McRobbie playing the Democratic opposition. The set design looks rich and authentic, and is aided by Spielberg’s decision to film a lot of scenes with bright light streaming in from the exterior, much like Ridley Scott did with ‘Blade Runner’ (82), which helps to give everything the sense of a sort of schoolboy nostalgia, something that feels well suited for one of the most iconic and oft mentioned personages, not to mention lasting legacies, of the nineteenth century.
Fascinating and well made, this is one of Spielberg’s finest.
Tarantino’s latest gets a lot right but, unusually for the director, it also gets a lot wrong. Here he tackles the western genre and has said he wanted it to fit into the spaghetti western style but in an American way. Whilst imagining a western done in the style of Quentin Tarantino delivers exactly what we see here, there is also an element of style being prioritised over story; particularly in the length of the film, which starts off very strongly, but soon begins to drag. The Red Dragon is a fan of westerns, but if you ask anyone who doesn’t like them one of the commonest complaints is that they find them boring and tedious, and asides from some over the top gory violence ‘Django Unchained’ isn’t going to do much to change that view for many.
The story follows that of freed slave Django (Jamie Foxx) as he and bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) travel the pre-Civil War American Deep South, ultimately in search of Django’s still enslaved wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). There are a lot of nice touches, including a lot of jokes at the expense of racist plantation owners, but at one point Django makes an extremely dubious out of character decision, and it’s purely to set up events in the rest of the film. Indeed, anyone familiar with ‘Inglorious Basterds’ (09), which was a fantastic movie, will recognise several nods in its direction, but also very strong similarities with the way tension was created in that film and then released.
With that knowledge everything plays out with an inevitable unoriginality, and it does indeed become quite tedious, to an almost childish degree, with even some of the music jarring badly with the narrative – something for which Tarantino is famous for normally getting completely spot on. Even things like having one of the slave owners suggest that all black people are genetically programmed to be submissive and that Django, being different, is one in ten thousand, and then much later on having the ‘hero’ Django saying something along the lines of ‘you were right about one thing, I am one in ten thousand’, well it kind of has a lot of negative connotations with it, though this is possibly more down to carelessness than anything else. Christoph Watlz and Samuel L. Jackson (in a masterfully Machiavellian role) give the strongest performances.
Upon the release of the film, Tarantino has had to face a bit of a grilling from journalists over its content, and over the very hot debate at the moment surrounding whether or not movie violence has a direct link to several gun related massacres in the States and elsewhere. In the following interview with Krishnan Guru-Murthy, the strain of that is perhaps beginning to tell….
The Red Dragon feels a little cheated by this film. The ending delivers a strong emotional punch, one that was felt throughout the audience and had a few in tears. The rest of the film, however, does not do a good job, especially when it tries to be humorous as it does too often and with too little effect. It tells the true story of poet Mark O’Brien, played by John Hawkes, who can move only his head and must spend most of each day in an ‘iron lung’ in order to stay alive, though he can still feel sensation throughout his entire body. He begins ‘sessions’ with a sex therapist, played by Helen Hunt, to explore that which has always been denied to him, and the film follows his sexual awakening and the emotional consequences that follow.
The performances are good, but perhaps the film’s biggest problem is a lack of connection with the main character. Sarcastic humour has too much of an emphasis from the start and it never really comes off well, creating the lack of a feeling of reality and seriousness from the onset, although for the character being upbeat is certainly to be applauded. Similarly, the transition from what is supposed to be a lot of comedy into more serious characterisation and emotional connection also seems loose and ungrounded. A shame because it is a good story. Hunt is up for an academy award for her performance and although it is perhaps merited, The Red Dragon has on occasion mooted a possible correlation between the bravery of actresses baring all onscreen and Oscar nominations.
Interestingly, if the connection between the characters seems a little unlikely, have a look at this recent scientific article on the possible side effects of male sperm on the female reproductive system.
A tremendous rendition of the stage musical that achieved that rarest of things in the cinema – a rapturous round of applause, a perhaps even more impressive feat given the viewing in question was a matinée. A lot of the music has been echoing with increasing vigour around the scaly skull of The Red Dragon since that viewing and, with no sign of this abating any time soon, I feel somewhat mysteriously compelled to go and invest further in the onscreen majesty of the ensemble cast.
It opens boldly, in France 1815 with the imprisoned Jean ValJean (Hugh Jackman) and his fellow members of a chain gang hauling a huge ship in to dock, all under the watchful eye of Javert (Russel Crowe). These two begin as the protagonists: one a desperate and unjustly punished man looking to begin again, the other a relentless hunter serving a law that is above questioning. They mirror divides in French society at the time, and the story fleshes out around the conflict between the two of them and, eventually, the other characters that come into their lives – leading ultimately to a youthful band of would-be revolutionaries and the fates that befall them in their struggle to uphold the ideals of liberty.
It is, of course, the film adaptation of the enormously popular and successful stage show first shown in Paris in 1980, with music from Claude-Michel Schönberg, itself based on Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel of the same name. Schonberg composed an entirely new song for the film, ‘Suddenly’, and the whole shoot was done with live performances from the cast rather than lip synching to a pre-recording, which no doubt adds to the fresh and emotional feel of the film and is extremely rare in a made for cinema musical, a decision which has been unanimously praised by the cast.
The quality of the singing is high generally, with Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway (who plays Fantine, a young mother out of luck, rather like all of the characters which can be somewhat inferred from the title) both garnering themselves Oscar nods for their performances. Just as she did with ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, Hathaway proves her detractors wrong by becoming one of the best things about the film, indeed the movie is now a hot contender to take the best film Oscar in February just as she is to take best supporting actress. The role sees her real hair cut off during one scene, and scenes with actresses having their hair removed are generally pretty memorable for the raw emotion they evoke (Natalie Portman in ‘V for Vendetta’ 05, as another example).
Russel Crowe might surprise a few given the overwhelmingly negative reception of his singing, as although he doesn’t have the range of some of the others, and I think at least twice in the film doesn’t reach, nor carry very well, the note he’s going for, and it is noticeable, he uses the range he does have to good effect, and it matches his character perfectly. After all, most of the cast, including Jackman, have their comically off moments, but the whole film gels together nicely, and is it really necessary to have your rugged, bloodhound lawman singing perfectly like an angelic canary? Before appearing in TV and film, he began his performing career on the stage in musicals such as ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ and ‘Blood Brothers’, even fronting his own band ‘Russ Le Roq’, and here he gives a solid, commanding performance, so good on director Tom Hooper and co. for not casting someone who may have demoted Javert to the detestable, and yet popular, realms of a dilettante boy band/X factor contestant, although casting someone who had played the role successfully onstage would probably have been a better idea.
Some of the actors from the West End production, though, have happily made it into the film, one of the most impressive of whom is Samantha Barks, who plays Eponine the daughter of local crooks, and not only has a wonderful singing voice, and is drop-dead gorgeous, but appears to be able to act too. Also worthy of note is Aaron Tveit playing Enjolras, friend and comrade in arms to love interest Marius, played by Eddie Redmayne. Tveit seems to be a very natural singer, and would have been much better cast as Marius as, although Redmayne’s singing is pretty skilful, he at times looks like he’s going to explode with the effort it exacts from him, compared to the completely relaxed Tveit beside him.
This leads to the film’s biggest downfall, Redmayne himself, who was entirely the wrong person for the role athough he definitely puts his whole heart into it, and the introduction of the love story arc between Marius and Cosette. There is a large presumption on the part of the narrative, in that Marius and Cosette glimpse one another briefly on the street and instantly fall head over heels for each other, and we are expected to invest in this relationship as the light of hope in an otherwise bleak and ‘miserable’ landscape. We don’t, of course, as it’s nonsense. It needed one, or a few more scenes outwith the normal musical to make it more believable onscreen and perhaps to dramatise a little more of the politics going on; eg. Marius is brought to his lowest point, whether through despair or violence in his fight against the oppressive state, whereupon, as if heaven sent, Cosette appears to help him out, and she should physically do something not just bat her eyelashes at him, and thus, spirit rekindled and perhaps life saved, when he now fights he fights for her. Something along those lines.
The set design suffers slightly here too, as the film leads towards a fight on the streets of Paris the stage is set for a bloody climax and yet it looks just like that – a stage. From the grandeur and vision shown so far, we suddenly feel like we are in a theatre watching the stage production. Although they use the set well for what it is, I wonder if a further injection of artistic largesse would not have gone amiss, though the street set with the purpose built elephant that opens and closes the final act is perfect.
The young rebels do a very good job, especially so for young Daniel Huttlestone playing Gavroche, but when it comes to Redmaynne, well, the camera doesn’t exactly love him in this, but my goodness does it try to. I’ve seen the movie three times now, and each time I am determined to try and change my mind about his performance, and each time I get a little further in before I finally can’t take anymore. It is perhaps the occasion or inexperience showing, but he is massively not helped here by Hooper, who favours having the camera close to his cast throughout but with Redmayne he practically has the lens strapped to his face throughout several scenes. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and unless you have a particular hankering for Redmayne flesh you may find yourself being forced to avert your eyes, especially if you are sitting near the front of the auditorium.
This could, and should, have been an absolute powerhouse of a movie. As it is, it’s still very good. Make sure you sit in the sweet spot in the cinema for the best of the sound system (especially important for this film, as is the quality of the system the cinema screen is using {it sometimes varies between screens}) and be aware it’s one of those films where everyone will have a different opinion about performances and casting choices, especially so with Tom Hooper’s style of fairly up-close and personal filming, whereby if you’re not taken with one of the cast you’re about to get a fairly severe eyeful of them for the better part of three hours. It will be a major upset if Anne Hathaway doesn’t win for best supporting actress at the Oscars – victory isn’t quite so assured for Jackman. With powerful music that will bury itself deep into your grey matter, this is, in general, a superbly stylish and heartfelt interpretation that will rekindle fond memories for fans, and deservedly make some new ones along the way.
“I’d never been on a film like this where we were doing something that had never been done before, there’s so much expectation, and a hell of a lot of fear, that really bonds people. We had nine weeks of rehearsals so by the first day of shooting we all knew each other really well, and it was the closest I’ve ever had to the feeling of the theatre, and the ensemble you get with the theatre, in a film experience. We were very together.” Hugh Jackman on shooting ‘Les Misrables’ taken from an interview with ‘Facebook Chat’
The clip below shows how some of the cast warmed up before shooting – look out for the rather unique (and cute) technique from Samantha Barks…
Juan Antonio Bayona’s second film after the hugely successful ‘The Orphanage’ (07) focuses on the true story of one family facing the full brunt of the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. The real hotel and pool that the family were playing around when the waves hit were used for filming, with the ground floor residences rebuilt just for the shoot. It gives a very memorable impression of the terror and brutality of the event – not just of the initial impact and the subsequent powerful waves but also of the underwater, deadly collisions with all sorts of debris. In conveying this, and the general scope of the disaster within the confines of their geographical area, the film is very successful, just as it is in displaying a troubling sense of realism in the injuries incurred and the sicknesses that followed them.
However, rather than telling a gritty and accurate tale, ‘The Impossible’ has gone for a slightly more Hollywood style of story, despite the fact it’s a Spanish film. It is very much a case of ‘if this were in the movies, this would happen’, and even though we’re witnessing an interpretation of real events it’s filmed in such a way that it seems a little contrived and thus a little off given the tremendous death toll the tsunami took. Nor is there any mention of the geopolitical real life issues surrounding the catastrophe, such as the universal lack of any kind of warning for the poor souls that died during the event.
The older child in the family, played by Tom Holland, simply does not convince as someone experiencing the events as reality, rather he comes across as someone enjoying all the action and occasionally in need of a good slap. He is a central character and that together with the general feel of the whole, and the poor choice of title, hollows out the film. The two younger brothers are much more convincing, and both Ewan Mcgregor and Naomi Watts are very good as the parents. Watts is up for an Oscar for her role, perhaps aided by the fact she is terrified of water and yet was plucky enough to take on the challenges of being smashed around by torrents of the stuff. Not, I imagine, the most pleasant shoot she’s ever had.
A visually rich and remarkable tale with more philosophy to it than is immediately apparent. The visuals had to be great for this to really succeed, featuring as it does our young hero Pi (played by Suraj Sharma doing a very good job for his very first acting role) trapped on a lifeboat with a tiger, adrift somewhere in the Pacific ocean. Maybe about two thirds of the story take place on the lifeboat, so there is a certain drag element, and the film could have done with a little more trimming perhaps losing around fifteen-twenty minutes or so. This is made all the more problematic by the fact that we know Pi will survive this ordeal as he himself is retelling it to us, via the acting talent of Bollywood superstar Irrfan Khan.
Despite all this, the mystery over what the movie may be trying to tell us (we are told that it is a tale that will make us believe in God) together with the central performance and the abundance of wonderful cinematography, should be enough to stave off the occasional pang of boredom and bring the audience, mostly awake, to the author and director’s conclusion. Based on the Man Booker price winning novel from Yann Martel, and directed by Oscar winner Ang Lee (he won for 2005’s ‘Brokeback Mountain’), ‘Life of Pi’ has been nominated for several Oscars itself, including best picture, and best director again for Lee. Interestingly, at one point in the story the lifeboat comes ashore on an island which has a wondrous pool that fills with a deadly acid at the onset of night – this may seem fantastical, but there are colourful pools in the Galapagos Islands that are indeed full of acid, whether or not they function as the ones in the story is another matter…..
A curious little number about the relationship between Alfred Hitchcock and one of his leading ladies, Tippi Hedren, perhaps especially so as it comes at the same time as another biopic of the famous director – the aptly titled ‘Hitchcock’. Here, Toby Jones stars as the man himself, looking to cast someone for the now famous role of Melanie Daniels in ‘The Birds’ (63). Enter Sienna Miller as Miss Hedren, a model whom Hitch had seen in a commercial and asked someone to go find ‘The Girl’. He would also use Hedren in his next film ‘Marnie’ (64), which The Red Dragon considers to be one of his very best, ranking alongside ‘Frenzy’ (72) and ‘Vertigo’ (58) – in fact, whenever I think of Hitchcock’s work it isn’t the image of a girl in a shower being brutally stabbed that comes to mind, nor James Stewart being dragged into a whirling vortex, but rather the image of Tippi Hedren walking consciously along a train platform sporting a suggestive bright yellow purse, one which contrasts starkly with the dark shades of grey around her. The story of ‘The Girl’ provides invaluable insight into just why ‘Marnie’ feels so unique, and dangerous; far scarier than ‘The Birds’ or ‘Psycho’ (60).
Alfred Hitchcock’s work is studied in film schools the world over, indeed it has been claimed more so than any other artist in the history of film. Yet, the details of this film are revelatory to say the least, not to mention highly controversial, with several of his previous leading ladies decrying the piece as false. None of those actresses, however, can really speak about the events mentioned here themselves, and the screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes spoke extensively with Tippi Hedren herself (as did Sienna Miller) and several surviving members of Hitchcock’s crew. Indeed, Tippi Hedren has publicly endorsed the film as accurate in its portrayal of events and persons. This fact alone makes it an absolute must see for fans of Alfred Hitchcock and indeed for anyone with an interest in film history.
Both leads are very well cast, and interestingly just as here Toby Jones, an extremely versatile and talented actor, is playing a role for which someone else (Anthony Hopkins in the aforementioned and yet to be released in the UK ‘Hitchcock’) may very well get an Academy Award nod, so too did he play Truman Capote in 2006’s ‘Infamous’, hot on the heels of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Oscar winning 2005 interpretation.
