Tag Archives: Movies

Amour  (2012)    57/100

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Rating :   57/100                                                                     127 Min        12A

‘Amour’ deals with elderly couple Georges and Anne, played by Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emannuel Riva respectively, as they both deal with the anguish incurred when Anne suddenly suffers a stroke. It is the latest French language film from Austrian auteur Michael Haneke (‘The White Ribbon’, ‘Funny Games’, ‘Hidden’) and although a lot of thought has gone into each scene and line of dialogue, and the film is both thought provoking and well acted, and indeed successful at showing what the impact of a serious stroke can be, The Red Dragon found it nevertheless to be suffering from a certain design flaw. If you are familiar with Haneke’s work, then you can tell not only what will happen in the end by the first ten – fifteen minutes of the film, but also the manner in which it will develop. Through this lens it takes on the guise of an artificial construct, an example of what The Red Dragon likes to call dehumanised cinema, where the script is written to a sort of signature template, no matter how involved, and the characters have little to no, or in this case inverted and anaesthetised, positive human connection, and instead function as cogs in a large artistic wheel. In effect, we watch a play of smoke and mirrors, rather than one full of human characters.

It is a subtle distinction in this case, so much so I decided to watch it twice, and whilst I found it difficult to change my initial reaction to the piece, I certainly came to appreciate its attention to detail a lot more. The film opens with the discovery of the body of Anne, and with regards to her husband we are presented with a duality as to his character, given in uncertain but equal measure until a very clear distinction is arrived at and quickly followed by a trademark Haneke flourish. Therein, however, it is trying to be too clever for its own good, with a lot of the story and direction designed to keep us guessing rather than invest in the two octogenarians as people, and the flourish is vile in its predictability and austere anti-reason character skewering. Haneke also fits in a bit of art house indulgence in the form of a pigeon that mysteriously flies in through an open window twice, and each time proceeds to devour the food crumbs that have very obviously been put down to keep it there long enough for the shot.

Riva is up for Oscar glory thanks to her performance in this, which is merited, and she is the oldest actress to receive the honour, especially nice since the ceremony will be taking place on her birthday (she will be turning 86). It’s one of three high profile French films this year to focus on serious physical impairments, the others being ‘Rust and Bone’ and ‘Untouchable’, the latter of which is by far the most rewarding and deserving of the three. Similarly, the American film ‘The Sessions’ fits into that category, also an award contender and a bit more positive in its outlook, but with something of a forced sense of comedy. ‘Amour’ is also nominated for best film, director, and original screenplay at Sunday’s Academy Awards, and although it is a film I wanted to like more than I did, there remains a certain beauty to the performances, and a certain icy warmth in their relationship to the title.

This is 40  (2012)    70/100

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Rating :   70/100                                                                     134 Min        15

The latest from producer/writer/director Judd Apatow focusing on two of his previous characters, specifically married couple Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) from 2007’s ‘Knocked Up’, as they both reach the milestone of their fortieth birthday. Their two daughters are played by Mann’s children with husband Apatow, namely Maude Apatow as hormonal teenager Sadie, and Iris Apatow, who is a bit of a scene stealer, as her much younger sister. Good use is made of Megan Fox in support, or perhaps more correctly, her body, as she is accompanied by Jason Segel, Chris O’Dowd and Melissa McCarthy, although each of these feature too briefly in a film that is the latest in a cinematic trend of movies that are fifteen to twenty minutes too long. Fans of the actors and director will certainly enjoy this, and the cast do bring the characters and story to life with relish, delivering a steady stream of pretty decent comedy.

Altogether they pull off the film, but the drama behind the story, supposedly focusing on a couple going through difficult times triggered by money issues and the passage of time, doesn’t really work for several reasons. Firstly, Leslie Mann could easily pass for someone ten years younger (she is actually forty in real life) and comparing her body to that of Megan Fox, as her character does in the film, isn’t really fair, although even Fox has reputedly had at least a slight nose alteration since her rise to fame with ‘Transformers’ in 2007. Debbie constantly has a go at Pete for eating cupcakes and we suppose his increasing weight is putting a ‘strain’ on their relationship, and yet he seems to do a lot of fairly serious cycling and looks quite fit in general. There are a lot of relationship issues thrown together over a very short time frame, and it gets particularly overdone, repetitive and messy toward the end, but overall it doesn’t detract too much from it being an enjoyable film. Stay through some of the credits at the end for a great outtake scene with Melissa McCarthy too.

A Good Day to Die Hard  (2013)    65/100

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Rating :   65/100                                                                       98 Min        12A

Bruce Willis reprises the role of John McClane that made him officially a movie star way back in 1988 with the original ‘Die Hard’, a movie that set the benchmark for every action film made ever since and became a Christmas/family tradition to watch every year (partly because it’s set at, and aired, every Christmas, and also partly due to a similar tradition set by Joey and Chandler in ‘Friends’).  The original film was followed by ‘Die Hard 2: Die Harder’ 1990, ‘Die Hard with a Vengeance’ 95, and ‘Die Hard 4.0/Live Free or Die Hard’ (also the state motto of New Hampshire incidentally – minus the ‘Hard’ part of course) 07.  All four of the previous films were worthy additions to the canon, featuring the world’s hardest cop vs. money grabbing pseudo terrorists, but what of the fifth one?  Well, it’s a lot more action focused than even its predecessors, and with a relatively short running time a lot of that action is extremely tightly cut, making it quite fast paced but also at times difficult to make out what’s going on.  Perhaps especially true during a huge car chase sequence which is otherwise packed full of impressive stunts, but is mostly reduced to a visual blur and a series of loud metallic crunches.  For a sequence that took weeks of filming, all the effort put into it deserved a better final product.  Similarly there’s a scene where Bruce Willis’ hands go from being tied to being free to beat the hell out of the bad guy, and I guess you’re supposed to assume he unties himself offscreen somehow, but there’s a constant thread of unbelievability throughout the action sequences, and one of the things that made the previous films a success was that even though they were, quite literally, over the top, efforts were made to make it seem plausible.

A plot does exist here, but so much emphasis is placed on the action that it’s been degraded in the process.  John McClane’s kids are alluded to in ‘Die Hard’, but whereas the introduction of his daughter worked with the great story in the fourth instalment, here the appearance of his son, played by Australian actor Jai Courtney (the bad guy in ‘Jack Reacher’), feels a little tawdry and allows for more than one overly cheesy moment, and although the always lovely Mary Elizabeth Winstead appears briefly as the daughter again, she only has about thirty seconds or less screen time.  If they are grooming Jai to take over the franchise they may be in for trouble as although he has the physique of an action star, he is so far lacking the onscreen charisma that would be needed for the role, in a similar way to the general reception of Indy’s son Mutt in the last Indiana Jones film.  The action all takes place in Russia, the latest in a list of Hollywood films to do so (‘Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol’, ‘Chernobyl Diaries’, ‘The Darkest Hour’, a tiny bit of the last Transformers movie), although it was filmed in Hungary, and anyone who has played ‘Call of Duty’ will see some very familiar scenes in Chernobyl.  Indeed, one can easily imagine the filmmakers sitting playing the game and having a ‘brainwave’, “Hey I know, let’s put John McClane in Chernobyl and have him blow the shit out of it!”.  Hmm.  The game is actually more realistic than the film, with radiation treated as a minor irritation to fitting Chernobyl into the story.

Despite all this, The Red Dragon still gained some nostalgic pleasure from investing in another Die Hard film, but alas it is a mar on a franchise that had thus far put paid to the widely, and falsely, held notion that sequels only dilute the original.  It was a great idea to release the film on Valentine’s Day, but an extremely questionable one to pick a director and a writer (John Moore and Skip Woods respectively) with only a small number of ok-ish films under their belt, including video game adaptations for each of them.  It seems that British audiences have been treated with the disdain of being given a heavily cut version so that the film can have a 12A rating (it’s rated R in the states), which is absolutely disgraceful.  The fact that the director has already started working on his director’s cut suggests he is far from happy with the released version on either side of the Atlantic, and we can hopefully expect to see a better one appearing on dvd in the future.  Good to see the continuation of some of the music from the other films, and indeed a classy Rolling Stones song play over the credits at the end, one knew to The Red Dragon, and one that you can see the video for, featuring Noomi Rapace, below.  If Bruce Willis and company can make number six something special, then all will be forgiven.

Beautiful Creatures  (2013)    63/100

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Rating :   63/100                                                                     124 Min        12A

The latest offering in the teen fantasy romance genre focuses on witches rather than vampires or werewolves, but retains many familiar elements; such as a young attractive female soon to be the centre of everyone’s attention, and pretty much bad news for everyone else in the middle of nowhere dead-end town where she is the newcomer, cue polarised clashes of good versus evil. It’s not too bad though, despite featuring nothing terribly original, and the leads played by Alice Englert (daughter of ‘The Piano’ 93 director Jane Campion) as Lena Duchannes, and Alden Ehrenreich as Ethan Wate are good enough to hold interest until the end, with Emma Thompson, Viola Davis, Jeremy Irons, and Emmy Rossum in support for extra gravitas and sex appeal.

It’s based on the 2009 book by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, and in their universe curiously the female witches, unlike their male counterparts, do not get to choose whether or not they take the path of good or evil, but rather fate (represented here by the moon) chooses for them on their sixteenth birthday. An odd, pseudo sexist, splicing of age of consent and menstrual cycle, implying teenage girls are creatures of sanguine whimsy rather than will, although the main character is at least projected as vague counterpoint to that notion.

Coffee and Cigarettes  (2003)    71/100

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Rating :   71/100                                                                       95 Min        15

O my goodness, this film features one of THE most beautiful actresses of all time, and as exciting a discovery as this was to make, it is matched in complete and absolute equal measure by the irritation of realising this is pretty much the only film she actually appears in! Aaaargh! Was it a drug-fuelled mirage on my part (I had consumed quite a large amount of caffeine before the viewing – it seemed appropriate), or did some horrible fate befall her after filming, like marriage?? Her name is Renee French (possibly a stage name) should anyone out there posses the answer, and she features on the headline picture above. Her character appears in one of the eleven vignettes that together make up this film, as she sits sultrily flicking through a guns catalogue, a harsh juxtaposition with her elegant looks – think of Jennifer Aniston when she looked her very best, in one of the early seasons of friends before sun blasted emaciation became the fashion of the day, but then crank up the sex factor another notch.

Happily, the film itself is also quite good – each scene is shot with classy black and white cinematography and is linked in some way to the theme of coffee and cigarettes, though writer and director, Jim Jarmusch, is at pains to show he’s not necessarily pro-smoking. Every section has a vein of comedy, and at times contemplation, with a long list of actors and musicians involved; Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Iggy Pop, Steve Coogan, to name but a few, and some had an input on the script as well. It was shot over a time span of two decades, and some of the scenes appeared as previously released short films before being collated into the final piece.

The two elements of the film’s title present a perfect ambivalence for The Red Dragon, loving one and abhorring the other. No matter what your opinion of them, don’t be put off as they exist as a fairly neutral linking artifice. It would, however, be fascinating if someone were to make a documentary exploring the use of smoking in the movies and its evolution with social trends and medical knowledge. The Red Dragon firmly believes the movie industry has a lot to answer for in terms of knowingly encouraging the youth of every generation to take up smoking and, despite the aforementioned sexual allure of Ms French, in real life there are few things less sexy than someone looking to desperately light up a fag, or uncaringly blowing their foul ash into your lungs as you are walking behind them.

Eventually, humankind will look back and laugh at the stupidity of their ancestors, smoking having long since been completely banned (I believe one dictator in central Asia has already done this), unless, perhaps, they are all fans of film noir. Check out ‘The Insider’ (99) and ‘Thank you for Smoking’ (05) for films that deal with the smoking industry as a central theme.

Sammy’s Great Escape / Sammy 2  (2012)    67/100

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Rating :   67/100                                                                       92 Min        U

This is the sequel to 2010’s ‘A Turtle’s Tale: Sammy’s Adventures’, an English language Belgian production aimed at younger children. It’s pretty good all in all, with a vibrant and colourful underwater world where the scene stealing characters are, as always, the penguin chicks, although they don’t feature very much. Surprisingly, this is one of the best uses of 3D I’ve seen, and although it still lacks a bit of visual clarity (always difficult to tell if that is the result of post-production work, or an inherent problem with the technology) the swirling environment with characters floating around everywhere lends itself very well to the medium. The story follows Sammy and Ray, now grandfathers, and two of their grandchildren as they try to get back to their home, having been ousted from it by a gang of evil human fishermen.

There is a nod to ‘The Little Mermaid’ (89) with two of the bad guy’s ‘heavies’ appearing in the guise of eels, but here rather than having everyone erupt happily into song, Jimi Hendrix’s version of ‘All Along the Watchtower’ rings out as the captured fish start to fight each other over the food the humans give to them, aiding the message of the film that keeping any creature in captivity is a bad thing. More effort and thought has been put into this than a lot of the 3D fare that is being churned out of Hollywood at the moment, though some young children may find some of the less aesthetically appealing sea creatures a little frightening – there were a few squeals as the protagonists’ friend to be, a schizophrenic lobster, is introduced, replete with eyes rolling in different directions and claws clamping out of the screen toward the audience, though eventually everyone settled down, having seemingly gotten used to the weird variety. Seeing as the heroes of the tale are turtles, I guess there’s no reason they can’t have a third film with their next generation of offspring…

Warm Bodies  (2013)    33/100

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Rating :   33/100                                                                       98 Min        12A

A classic tale of undead zombie falls in love with young pretty lass, but still has to win over her father (John Malkovich) before they’ll have peace. The problem is, it’s very much a one trick pony, and once the slight amusement of the premise has passed there is nothing particularly funny or interesting left in the rest of the film. It’s mainly the fault of the director and screenwriter (the same person in this case – Jonathan Levine) and less so of the actors who do OK with what they have. The would-be Romeo and Juliet (who can’t resist aping the star-crossed lovers’ balcony scene) are played by zombie Nicholas Hoult (‘A Single Man’ 09) and not-zombie Teresa Palmer (‘I am number four’ 11), who almost looks and sounds like someone has mashed together bits of Amanda Seyfried and Kristen Stewart, an interesting combination …

The film also has an inherent problem in that the leading male character can’t speak properly. It does, though, at least have a pretty good soundtrack, but it even repeatedly succeeds in garbling that, cutting off songs like ‘Rock You Like a Hurricane’ by Scorpions before they’ve even started – if you’re going to sacrifice a decent story and script for good music AT LEAST PLAY THE SONG! If you really want to see a zombie romcom then forget this and watch ‘Shaun of the Dead’ (04) instead.  SPOILER ALERT (though I’m sure you will see it coming a mile off anyway) to make matters worse, their cross-species love saves all of zombiekind who start to become more human again. Bleurggghhh.

Hitchcock  (2012)    72/100

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Rating :   72/100                                                                       98 Min        12A

Threading a delicate and careful tapestry of the two main characters and their relationship, ‘Hitchcock’ gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the making of one of the most famous horror films of all time, ‘Psycho’ (60), and an insight into what it may have been like for its even more famous director, Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins), and his wife and longtime collaborator Alma (Helen Mirren). Both lead actors do a very fine job, with Hopkins in particular really seeming to relax into the role although his accent falls perhaps halfway between that of Hitchcock and his own. The film plays with the various myths and legends, idiosyncrasies and potential problems, passions and seeds of future sorrows that surrounded the latter part of the life of the director and, in particular, his last fistful of films, a few of which – ‘Psycho’, ‘The Birds’ (63), ‘Marnie’ (64), and in my opinion ‘Frenzy’ (72), have surpassed the test of time to enter into the annals of movie legend, and are studied religiously in film schools the world over.

Danny Huston is in support, with Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Biel playing Janet Leigh and Vera Miles respectively, though neither of the modern day leading ladies are given much to do here other than look pretty, a task which certainly falls well within their artistic purview. During the narrative, small hooks are tied to the real-life killings that ‘Psycho’ was based on, with the killer Ed Gein being played by Michael Wincott (who also portrayed the killer in 2001’s ‘Along came a Spider’), indeed the whole film is based on the 1990 factual novel ‘Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho’ by Stephen Rebello. The release of the movie coincides with a made-for-TV film, ‘The Girl’, which focused on the making of ‘The Birds’ & ‘Marnie’ and Hitchcock’s relationship with the star of both those films, Tippi Hedren. As to who plays the role of Hitchcock better, Hopkins or Toby Jones in ‘The Girl’, that is a pretty tough call to make, and though the differences in budget do make for a more slick final product with ‘Hitchcock’, as you would expect, it arguably also makes for a slightly safer one.

The two films together make excellent companion pieces and any fan of the director, or of film history, would do well to watch both of them, back to back if possible, with ‘Hitchcock’ sequentially first. And then watch his films again of course….

I Give it a Year  (2013)    53/100

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Rating :   53/100                                                                       97 Min        15

A romcom that is as obvious and two dimensional as it is largely humourless. As usual with such fare, things like adultery are made light of in order for the story to resolve itself perfectly, as if by magic, which might be OK if it were pure comedy and, well, really funny, but not if you’re trying to semi-ground the characters in reality. A few scenes do work reasonably well, but another major flaw is that the central character, played by Rafe Spall, is too unrealistically lame for surely anyone to be attracted to, never mind his classically beautiful wife (Rose Byrne) as the film details the implosion of the newly weds expected marital bliss. Anna Faris and Simon Baker round out the main cast, with support from Minnie Driver, Olivia Colman, Jane Asher, Jason Flemyng, who cheekily references his former gig as Dr Jekyll in ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ (03), and Stephen Merchant featuring his now overexposed sense of lewd comedy shtick. Look out for the somewhat uncomfortably amusing scene with live doves and Rose Byrne, and what looks very much like real fear on her face as they flap around her, almost as if someone were just out of shot tossing them in her direction….

Wreck-It Ralph  (2012)    70/100

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Rating :   70/100                                                                     108 Min        PG

Disney’s latest attempts to do for video games what Pixar did for discarded childhood playthings, à la ‘Toy Story’, their debut film, back in 95. The story follows the adventures of the titular Wreck-it Ralph (John C. Reilly) as he determines to prove himself worthier than the bad guy role he’s been programmed to play out every day in an old, classic arcade game, which has managed to survive the test of time as others around it have perished and been replaced by more modern rivals, including a ‘Gears of War’/’Halo’ esque first person shooter. It’s aimed more at kids than adults of course, who ironically won’t get a lot of the in-jokes and references, though most of the action takes place inside the fictional game of ‘Sugar Rush’, which operates much like a candy fuelled version of ‘Mario Cart’.

Though it has succeeded in making The Red Dragon think about dusting down some old games, from around one third of the way into the film it starts to feel a little sluggish and in many ways as clumsy and obvious as its main character; with the wealth of parody material at its disposal it doesn’t quite seem as involving or humorous as it ought to. Ultimately, the film is still pretty good, though this is perhaps more thanks to traditional Disney gushiness rather than fond thumb battering nostalgia, and there is enough here to merit a sequel that will hopefully have a bit more in it for adult audiences, and more in the way of familiar faces from the world of arcade games.

Perfect for families (unless you’re dead against your kids playing video games) and full of nice little touches, from poor path detection and a beholder holding multiple cups of juice at the ‘bad guys support group’, to the thanks given to the caffeinator at the end of the credits, and a little ‘Star Wars’ nod now that Disney have acquired the rights to the franchise from George Lucas (though, interestingly, parts of ‘Sugar Rush’ do look strikingly similar to a certain other eagerly awaited J.J.Abrams project … ).