The most obvious and memorable thing about this film, other than it’s rather ridiculous title, which at least forewarns you of the violence you can expect to see, is that the entire film has been desaturated and colourised various shades of blue, a post-production procedure that is used ever more frequently to make work seem more ‘urban’ or gritty, but not usually to quite the excess as can be seen here. It actually works reasonably well in this scenario, and does give a very distinctive feel to the movie, although it also kind of feels like the whole film was shot around a dimly lit swimming pool. It’s a crime thriller that sees determined cop James McAvoy pitted against successful professional criminal Mark Strong in and around London, with support from Andrea Riseborough, Peter Mullan, David Morrissey, and Daniel Mays. The acting and unique look of the film are good enough to make it all right, but there’s little of any real originality or substance here, and it’s not nearly as explosive as the title suggests it might be. If the ushers punched you in the face when you walked into the screening it might be more memorable, an introduction to 4D cinema perhaps…
This is the latest film from director/screenwriter/producer Lee Daniels, whose last film was the hard hitting, Oscar nominated ‘Precious’, back in 2009. Here we see a marvellous performance by everyone in the talented ensemble cast, including Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey, David Oyelowo, John Cusack, Macy Grey and Scott Glen in support. But no Oscar nods this time round? The reason is not that they aren’t merited, especially in the case of Kidman, but that the material is a little dark and overtly sexual for most people’s taste. For example, the story mostly revolves around the imprisonment of one Hillary Van Wetter, played by Cusack, and the investigation of his innocence or guilt by Miami Times journalists, spearheaded by the drive of Kidman’s character who intends to marry Van Wetter should he be found innocent and released – cue a most amusing scene in the prison featuring Cusack jerking off whilst Kidman flaunts her stuff for him, and the others not entirely sure what to do with this particularly sizeable elephant in the room (far from the first time Kidman has wonderfully portrayed a highly sexualised character, nor her first onscreen masturbatory antics – see the deserving but mostly overlooked ‘Margot at the Wedding’).
Daniels co-wrote the screenplay with author Peter Dexter, adapted from his novel of the same name, and the whole film has had a film grain texture applied to it, which is initially a huge distraction and irritant, but as the film goes on it gets easier on the eyes. This is to evoke the 60’s era it’s set in, but if we look at the success of ‘The Help’ set in a similar age and venue, the American south, which was edited with no gimmicky effects, we see its use was hardly necessary to recreate the feel they were looking for. Expect some brutal violence on the way, and they may have perhaps egged the pudding a little, but overall the great work of the cast make this vibrantly engaging and a possible career best for some of them. It’s especially good news for Efron, who is a good actor, but ever since ‘17 Again’ (09) he’s gone for safe and humdrum fare at best. ‘The Paperboy’ also marks another very noteworthy role for Matthew McConaughey, in a year that seen him with plaudits for both ‘Magic Mike’ and ‘Killer Joe’ (which premiered in Edinburgh incidentally, or Edinborow as I believe most of the cast liked to pronounce it), making 2012 almost certainly a career high for him.
This is a fascinating and topical documentary delivered via interviews with a large smorgasbord of film industry professionals, Martin Scorsese, Danny Boyle, Richard Linklater, David Lynch to name but a few, all talking about the transition from traditional film to digital. The interviewer and narrator is a perhaps not so neutral Keanu Reeves, with the footage consisting of lots and lots of clips and different viewpoints edited into the one narrative. As well as the history and pros and cons of digital, and the possibilities for the future, it gives a behind the scenes look at who does what on a movie set – what the work of the cinematographer, colourist, and editor entails, which arises as a natural part of putting the main debate and the protagonists into context. There is, I believe, a very positive conclusion too – with modern technology anyone can go out and make a film armed with nothing more than their camera, and their imagination. Different opinions on that are given, but The Red Dragon thinks the gift of filmmaking to the wider world is a tremendous one indeed.
For an experimental documentary created as a direct result of available digital technology, see ‘We Are Northern Lights’.
This film was commissioned on a fantastic premise: an open call was given to anyone with access to a camera across Scotland to record footage showcasing places that have meaning to them, people that have inspired them, or just generally anything about the nation that they felt might warrant inclusion in this compendium of short clips. The resulting finished product is a gallant mix of comedy, social and political commentary, and a sightseeing tour of some of Scotland’s natural and man-made beauty. Glasgow, Edinburgh and the Highlands feature most prominently, although many of the other cities get a look-in along the way, though I don’t remember seeing any beautiful landscape shots of the city of Dundee … Plenty to talk about and remember, and worth watching whether you yourself are Scottish, or are simply curious about our somewhat distinctive sense of self, and, most notably, our sense of humour.
This is to my knowledge the first documentary of its kind, so it is fitting that it should take place in Scotland where documentary filmmaking has such strong roots (according to legend, the term was itself coined by Scots filmmaker and critic John Grierson). In fact, although this film premiered at a sold out screening in the Glasgow film festival, the Edinburgh film festival was begun in 1947 as a showcase for documentary film, and currently holds the title of the longest continually running film festival in the world (both Cannes and Venice are slightly older, 1946 and 1932 respectively, but have both had breaks over the years).
The project is such a good idea, and has been so well received that it would be fantastic to see it spread to other countries, and indeed for it to become an annual event in Scotland, producing a databank of digital footage that the public could have free access to for research, or entertainment, in years to come. With the widespread ownership of digital cameras and smartphones, such an archive could only grow in popularity and cultural value. Another documentary released at the same time as this, ‘Side by Side’, hits on the same enterprising possibilities now available to anyone who wants to become involved with filmmaking. The official website for this project, complete with access to all the submitted material and a list of all the screenings around the nation, can be found here.
This begins as a fairly decent action/revenge pic, as we see Jason Statham take part in a robbery gone awry. Unfortunately, the filmmakers have decided to harken back to the action flicks of the nineties where many, many films tried to unsuccessfully appeal to both sexes by having a completely hopeless damsel in distress appear amidst the otherwise testosterone fuelled carnage. Here, this unhappy role is embodied by a screeching, meddlesomely vain nobody, played by Jennifer Lopez, who seems to exist as the very antithesis to the pace of the film hitherto. Her earthly woes of maybe losing her large car because her sales job isn’t going so well, are contrasted with the several bullets Statham has had injected at close range and the mortal peril he and his loved ones have been placed in. Needless to say the lady generally just gets in the way and functions primarily as a, hopeful, box office draw, to the complete ruination of the entire endeavour. It would be interesting to know if her character is quite as pointless in the Parker novel, ‘Flashfire’, the film is based on. This is not the first big-screen adaptation of one of the series of books, from late author Donald E. Westlake, but it is the first to use the character’s name, and it is unlikely Westlake would have been happy with that, or the final product, as he had always withheld the rights to Parker’s name unless someone was willing to produce adaptations of the entire series. It’s an opportunity to begin a franchise gone begging, and a big disappointment from established director Taylor Hackford (‘Ray’ 04, ‘The Devil’s Advocate’ 97, ‘An Officer and a Gentleman’ 82).
Mearow. That is the sound of my soul weeping for the hours of life invested in this film which could have been more enjoyably spent cleaning the oven with a toothbrush. Let not my suffering be in vain. Supposedly based on a real road trip undertaken by screenwriter Dan Fogelman (‘Cars’, ‘Crazy Stupid Love’) with his mother years previously, it could be the film only exists as some kind of belated apology to his family, though it is quite likely he also watched ‘Due Date’ (10), which wasn’t bad, and thought, ‘Hey, let’s do exactly the same thing but with a guy and his mother, it’ll be hilarious!’. It’s not. The guy and mother in question here are Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand (for whom this is her first leading role since ‘The Mirror Has Two Faces’ in 1996), and the most immediate problem is that Rogen plays someone so completely hopeless that it’s impossible to identify with him, as he plans a tour of the states to sell his cleaning product and very obviously bores everyone to tears with his sales pitch along the way. Cue mother who will eventually have the right approach to solve everything, but who will initially be rejected, and son who takes her along to secretly reunite her with an old flame, which will initially cause upset, before the realisation that her best intentions were at heart. If there was any comedy along the trip they take, which includes a visit to the Grand Canyon as in ‘Due Date’, then I missed it entirely, although it did bring to the fore that using the term ‘oriental’ is no longer politically correct. When did that happen? Is ‘Asian’ out the window too? The Red Dragon, it seems, is a little behind the times, this tends to happen when one is centuries old. Streisand’s character also has a gizmo that attaches to her handbag and allows it to dangle under tables so it needn’t be put on the floor, which was reasonably nifty, and indeed a supporting character picked up on it in preference to Rogen’s product. Thus I have extracted the only two points worthy of note from the film so that you may be saved from the tragic experience of watching it.
For anyone familiar with British cinema, the opening of this film will place you in very familiar territory. A happy young girl stops in her street to say hi to the teenage boy next door who has some kind of mental disability. We assume that a certain type of darkness is about to descend on the pair. Now, whether or not that assumption is borne out I won’t say, but from the title henceforth this film makes no attempt to hide the direction it is unwaveringly heading in. We know things are going to go bad, we just don’t know in which of the myriad possible directions the trajectory will be.
The girl in question is the main character and the focus of our attention, brought to life by a masterful performance from Eloise Laurence in her film debut. She lives in a town in England with her brother, her father (played by Tim Roth), and a live in nanny who’s dating her soon to be schoolteacher played by Cillian Murphy. Her family, together with that of the aforementioned teenage boy and the perforated powder keg family from hell across the street, form the crux of the drama. A lot of the plot doesn’t make much sense, especially when it comes to the role of the police, who seem to be particularly docile and hapless throughout. Interestingly, at one point they ask someone if they want to press charges. Here the law in England and Wales may differ from that in Scotland – north of the border it’s the police who decide if action is taken against the perpetrator of a crime, rather than a citizen pressing charges. At least, that is the case for the types of crime we see take place here.
Surprisingly, despite its downfalls, including some fairly ropey choices of music, the film manages to be both hard hitting and down right amusing, predictable and yet moving – all at the same time, which makes it somewhat stylistically unique. There are a lot of nice touches too, such as a scene when we just see Cillian Murphy walking to his car, but the real focus of the shot is on one of his kids cheerfully, and amusingly, dancing away in the car park beside him. The whole film acts like a sort of tornado of destruction, but one full of life and energy and fast changing events – it knowingly plays to the comedic nature of its melodrama but balances it with just the right amount of empathy. Rare and unique, perhaps not in some ways fully deserving of the high rating The Red Dragon has given it, but nevertheless a diamond in the rough desert of gritty British suburban dramas.
Oh my goodness, this is just awful. It’s the prequel to ‘The Wizard of Oz’ (1939) which, since that was based on the first of L. Frank Baum’s Oz novels ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’, means this is an ‘imagined’ story, in the likeness of the rest. It relies heavily on special effects and a far too overindulgent, and at times outright garish, technicolouresque palette. There is a story but it’s so overtly banal, and the central performance from James Franco as Oz so completely lacklustre, involving naught but him grinning like a Cheshire Cat and delivering his lines with such drab drollery he comes across as being half stoned most of the time (although sadly his father passed away during production, so it isn’t really surprising this is not his finest moment), that replacing a lot of the characters and dreary dialogue with more effects might have actually been an improvement. Though, those same effects that the film relies on so much look absolutely terrible in places, with it painfully obvious the main characters are standing in front of a green screen. It really isn’t good enough, although The Red Dragon viewed the film in 2D, and can only hope it looks more convincing on a 3D projection.
The whole is not helped by the score from Danny Elfman which drones on uninterrupted for pretty much the entire film and must be some of the least original or enterprising work he’s ever done. The look and feel of the film, together with his music, initially evoke bad memories of Tim Burton’s ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ and, to a slightly lesser degree, his ‘Alice in Wonderland’. The whole of the intro appears in black and white, mirroring the beginning of the 1939 film, with a 4:3 aspect ratio, before expanding into full colour and 16:9 widescreen upon arrival in Oz, but it takes a painfully long time to do so. The supporting characters do little but grate, with the exception of a small china doll in the likeness of a girl whose animation and empathetic appearance are one of the film’s few saving graces. In fact all of the female actors, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams, and Joey King as the China Girl, unanimously bring some life and interest to the film, but are not in of themselves enough to make it worthwhile. Some of the real sets that were built to mix in with the computer graphics, also bring something of value to the piece.
The Oz stories were aimed at children of course, and the film might be better enjoyed by younger audiences. Not too young though, as some of the evil characters, such as the flying, screeching baboons, may terrify rather than entertain. Director Sam Raimi fits in a lot of his trademark ‘several things fly into shot at the same time in a loud and abrupt manner’ which, combined with the baboons, may also not be ideal for wee ones. The script sneaks in a bit of a nod to ‘Back to the Future’ and the music makes an acoustic acknowledgement of the fact, see if you spot it should you decide to brave the mire of cerebral boredom that this film will present you with.
The following interview with Mila Kunis is more entertaining than the actual movie.
An original story set in the near future that sees a concerned son buy a robot companion for his memory troubled ageing father, a father who had an infamous cat burglar career and ponders the possibilities of his adroit and loyal new friend. The character of the father is a little acerbic, but our sympathies still lie with him, and the robot is humanly likeable enough for their relationship to feel real. Interesting and at moments touching, although there is a subdued feel to the conclusion – it’s easy to dismiss it but it’s worthy of much more thought. Frank Langella plays the lead, with Peter Sarsgaard as the voice of the robot (though he does sound a little like Kevin Spacey, a la the computer in ‘Moon’), James Marsden and Liv Tyler are his siblings with Susan Sarandon in support. One feature of the plot sees the local library recycling all but the most precious of the books, once they’ve all been scanned as ebooks, a concept which may well come into reality in our modern digitised era. The film is also the first from two friends – writer Christopher D. Ford and director Jake Schreier.
Rooney Mara stars as Emily Taylor, a sufferer of depression after husband Martin, played by Channing Tatum, is sent to jail for insider trading. The film opens with his release and we see Emily dealing with the consequences of the whole ordeal, and also the possible side effects of the anti-depressant drugs she has been prescribed with as increasingly erratic behaviour develops. Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones play her current and former psychiatrists respectively, and we are treated to a developing mystery and an insight into the pharmaceutical industry. Compelling, well paced and well acted, ‘Side Effects’ is a pleasure to watch.
Sadly it is set to be the last film from director Steven Soderbergh (‘Traffic’, ‘Oceans 11-13’, ‘Haywire’) as he has stated he has had enough of studio interference with his work and is switching to television instead. Given most of his films remain very good, it would be interesting to see what they may have been like without this suggested creative meddling. Far from the first director to bemoan the power of producers, surely he has had enough success and made enough high profile friends, George Clooney for example, that he could afford to finance a film or two of his own, even if they were smaller scale ones? Woody Allen famously was so irate at the direction the producers took with his first movie that he vowed to never again work on anything where he didn’t have complete creative control, and he has since enjoyed decades of critical and commercial success doing just that. Come on Soderbergh, don’t give in just yet…..
See the TED talk below and the following link for some topical, and very important, insights on the potential dangers of prescription drugs. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20497086
