Rev Stan's film blog

Kaboom: the missing link?

Kaboom didn't make me angry as bad films normally do but neither did it make me smile like a bizarre but good film should and Donnie Darko leads the way in that.

I think I'm just stunned by the ineffectual absurdity of it all. It starts out promisingly enough - albeit with a lot of gratuitous sex and nudity. Student Smith (Thomas Dekker) is bi-sexual, fancies his surf-dude room mate and has the same weird dream over and over. His best friend Stella (Haley Bennett) is a lesbian who starts going out with a woman Smith has seen before but in his dream.

On the way home from a drug and sex-fuelled night out Smith stumbles upon another woman from his dream who is being chased by men in animal masks. He tries to help her but ends up witnessing her brutal murdered.

Up to this point it's a nice level of weirdness - is Smith delusional, still under the influence of the hallucinogenic drug-laced cookie he ate or is it real?

Going for a critics recommendation and supporting low budget films: Skeletons

Mark Kermode has been saying good things about this low-budget, indie Brit-flick. It sounds amusingly surreal and is about two men that travel around the country exorcising skeletons from people's closets. I've got to say I love the premise so I've booked to see it tomorrow.

It's not on at many screens because of the budget and marketing is being done by interviews with the likes of Mark Kermode and through simple word of mouth.

(Hello) Jason Isaacs, who plays The Colonel, told Kermode that one read of the script was enough to get him involved. The limited budget meant all the actors living together in one house during filming and eating mainly cheesecake - doesn't sound too bad to me.

Have seen some interesting low-budget Brit-flicks in the last few years; Fish Tank and Scouting Book for Boys spring to mind. And where could be more appropriate to see it, than at the Curzon Soho where the cafe bar is a popular meeting point, indeed a make-shift office for some new film makers trying to get projects off the ground?

Anyone else seen it or planning to?

Two films coming out next weekend I want to see

Firstly Heartbreaker because it looks silly and charming and a good glass of wine film:

And secondly, as a complete contrast Leaving starring Kristen Scott Thomas because it looks really moving and I haven't seen a good tear-jerker for a while. Oh and Kristen Scott Thomas is a fantastic actress. It looks a bit like a French version of I Am Love, only better (sorry Tilda).

Please Give (me a film that is better than Greenberg)

Please Give was like a breath of fresh air after Greenberg last weekend. There are some superb characters each flawed in there own way but it has heart,  humour and a tenderness which in some small dose might have made the Noah Baumbach film more bearable.

But back to Please Give. First there is Kate played by Catherine Keener who, with her husband Alex (Oliver Platt) buys furniture from the relatives of dead people and sells it at vastly marked up prices from her chic and trendy vintage shop. Her charitable acts, namely giving large sums to beggars, much to her teenage daughters embarrassment, are partially motivated by the guilt she feels in how she earns a living.

Then there is the elderly neighbour Andra (Ann Morgan Guilbert). Kate and Alex, have bought her apartment and are waiting for her to die so they can knock through. Andra is a rude, cantankerous, ungrateful and straight-talking old lady. Her granddaughter Rebecca (Rebecca Hall)  is quiet and thoughtful while her sister Mary (Amanda Peet) is self-centred, flirty and doesn't hide how she feels about her burdensome grandmother, rarely visiting and letting her sister do the lion-share of the caring.

A snippet from Alan Cumming about filming The Tempest

Thanks to YetAnotherBenWhishaw blog for highlighting this little piece that Alan Cumming posted on his website. It's accompanied by the picture below but to read what he had to say about filming in Hawaii and working with actors like Chris Cooper hop over to the site. He plays Sebastian in Julie Taymor's silver screen take on the Shakespeare fantasy play. You might have to scroll down a little to find it....

The Brothers Bloom - the film and director's Q&A

At the start of this Rian Johnson film Stephen, the eldest of the Bloom brothers and played by Mark Ruffalo, says that the perfect con is one in which all parties get what they want.

As a child his first con is to contrive to get his brother Bloom (Adrien Brody) the girl of his dreams while making some cash. It involves telling a children's story which sets a fairy tale-esque tone aided by the old Eastern European shooting locations and larger than life characters such as sinister Diamond Dog (Maximillian Schell) and the silent and calculating con assistant Bang Bang (Rinko Kakuchi).

It is not your average con movie. Yes the cons are complex and clever giving the plot a roller-coaster feel but underlying it is a heart. Stephen the calculating, mastermind ultimately wants his sensitive-soul younger brother to have the 'and they lived happily ever after' ending with the woman of his dreams.