Rev Stan's film blog

Midnight in Paris - why I didn't like it as much as the critics

Woody Allen's latest film, heralded in some quarters as a return to form, is clever and funny and there are many film-makers who'd be happy to produce something thus labelled. But that is about it and I kind of expected more from Woody Allen.

On holiday in Paris with his fiancee, script writer turned wannabe novelist Gil (Owen Wilson) goes for midnight walks across the city. One night he is picked up by a vintage car and transported back to his favourite era, the Paris of Hemmingway and Fitzgerald, Gaugin and Dali. Indeed he is literally transported back in time and so starts a series of encounters with his favourite writers and their contemporaries from the art world of the day.

Meanwhile back in the real world his fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams) is reigniting an old friendship with Paul, an intellectual braggart (Michael Sheen) and you can see what is coming from a mile off.

OK so it's a pleasant enough ride, sentimental but in a good way. It's high brow in its references but even with my limited knowledge of the writers of the period there was enough to amuse and engage. It is has some nice little cameos - Adrien Brody as Dali is favourite. And yes it is cleverly contrived but I didn't bound out of the cinema thinking 'wow that was great'. It was more 'that was fun now what is next?'

I think the problem, for me anyway, is that the central couple just aren't likeable. Inez and Gil seem incompatible from the outset and are irritating in their own ways. I've never really warmed to Owen Wilson as an actor and he gets the 'the Woody Allen role', the sort of mumbling-bumbling-whiney personality which inevitable makes me bristle and feel all assertive and full of Kathy Bates-esque no nonsense. Bates, incidentally, was my favourite character in it, playing the literary agent of the day, Gertrude Stein. If Allen set out to make us sentimental about the past he did it by giving all the period pieces the charm and interesting characters.

So yes it was fun and clever and a mildly interesting exploration of our rose-tinted view of the past but it was also at times predictable and at little irritating. I'm sure when I check the critics will have loved it but for me it was a pleasant 'OK' and I'm going to give it 60%.

And yep I was right on IMDb it gets 80% with a Metacritic score of 81% while on Rotten Tomatoes it has 95% from critics and 83% of users rated it three and a half stars or more.

 

 

 

 

Fifteen minute review: One Day

I've not read the book, I've not read any discussions about Ann Hathaway and accent-gate so I came to One Day with a clean sheet of paper. What I wanted was something warm, romantic, funny and a bit sad and that is pretty much what I got.

For those unfamiliar, One Day tells the story of Emma (Hathaway) and Dexter (Jim Sturgess) who meet at University. Emma fancies Dexter but other than a brief, what can best be described as a liaison, they become friends. The film follows the two catching up with them on the same day every year as they go through their lives with all its joys and disappointments - the jobs, the success, the failure the loves and the losses. It's a sort of will they or won't they get together but more than that. Although it steers closely to the cliff of cliche at times it never quite goes over the edge.

Both principles put in good performances. Sturgess has the hardest job of making Dexter an at times arrogant sod,  like-able and does it with twinkle and charm. And the accent thing. It's not so much Hathaway's Yorkshire accent I had a problem with, more the fact that it only seemed to come out on odd words or sentences like she'd suddenly remembered she had to do a Yorkshire accent. The rest of the time she does an adequate non-region specific English accent.

One Day could have been a film that I hated but I really enjoyed it. I laughed and I cried, what more can you want on a rainy afternoon? It ain't going to win any awards but I'm going to give it 65%.

Think is one of those films that the audience likes more than the critics as it's got a user rating of 63% on IMDb with a Metacritic rate of 48%. On Rotten Tomatoes it is a similar story with 69% from the audience and 37% from the critics.

* Haven't found the British trailer yet and I refuse to post the American version with the awful voice over, if anyone finds it please let me know. There is something about the sound of it that just makes me recoil from a film mainly because I just think of all the parodies.

(I) Love (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Other Drugs

Saw this at a preview screening at the lovely Clapham Picture House last Sunday and once again Mr Gyllenhaal made me giggle like a love-struck 14-year-old.

He's still looking buff, not quite as pumped up as he did in Prince of Persia but perfect for a bit of bod exposure, of which there is plenty in this rom-com. He plays Jamie, a pharmaceutical company sales rep and womaniser who could charm his way into a nun's habit.

But of course this is a rom-com so there has to be a dose of cliche and he meets his match in the form of Maggie (Anne Hathaway) who sees through his charm. Of course Jamie falls for Maggie (and that isn't a spoiler because it's in the trailer, which is linked below) but the twist is that she suffers from early onset Parkinson's Disease.

The first half of the film has the majority of the laughs the second spends more time tugging at the heart strings as Jamie struggles to come to terms with Maggie's incurable illness and Maggie is at first mistrustful of his motives for wanting to be with her and then reluctant to 'trap' him into a future caring for her as her illness progresses.

OK so it's not going to win any Oscar's like Gyllenhaal and Hathaway's last outing together, Brokeback Mountain but it is a funny and charming popcorn movie and Jake is gorgeous *sighs*.  It gets four stars from me.

Obviously not everyone is as smitten with Mr G as I am, on Rotten Tomatoes UK it's aggregated 48% from 130 reviews. On Metacritic it's fared a little better and is rated at 55%

You can sigh at Jake in the trailer here

Am I supposed to like Tamara Drewe?

The character that is, rather than the film as a whole. But even in that there lies a problem.

I've not read any of the comic strip so I'm not sure how likeable Tamara is supposed to be but from the moment she climbs over the fence with her arse hanging out her denim shorts she just comes across as self-serving, smug and a little bit arrogant. And when she ultimately gets just what she want, when she's actually decided what that is, it is well, a little bit galling. 

Maybe I'm being a little harsh or maybe it is just the fault of a film that is a little bit schizophrenic. It tries to focus on too many things at once. There are some interesting bits and characters. For example the wonderful Tamsin Greig as the ever-supportive successful novelist's wife who suspects her husband is having yet another affair, which was the strongest storyline, and the two smutty-mouthed teenage girls who provide a sort of commentary of what is going on and most of the laughs.

It's not that I didn't enjoy Tamara Drew, it has some lovely moments and some good laughs but for a film that steers towards a happy ever after ending the just desserts aren't dished out in all the right places and I'm not sure what the point of some of it is.

The aggregated reviews:

Rotten Tomatoes gave it an aggregated review score of 78% so perhaps it's just me.

Metacritic - Not released in US until Oct 8. I suspect it might do quite well in the US because of it's quaint Englishness.

Going the rom-com Distance

There were 30 minutes between my seeing this Drew Barrymore/Justin Hill rom-com and Kristin Stewart vehicle The Runaways. Purely a timing thing, Going the Distance started earlier and that was it, but I'm glad I did because I'm not sure The Runaways would have been as enjoyable as a Sunday afternoon film.

I'm not saying that Going the Distance is an amazing film just a light, entertaining, at times nicely-scripted romantic comedy that has just enough edge to make it stand out from the usual banal fodder.

As the name suggests it's about a couple trying to make a long distance relationship work. Erin is a summer intern at the New York Sentinel and meets and falls in love with Garrett but at the end of the summer  she has to return home to California. 

Yes there are some moments that seem to be straight out of 'Rom-Com 101' but what I liked is there is plenty of potty humour between Garrett and his flat-mates, indeed I laughed out loud several times. It also has the appropriate amount of tear-jerking 'rom'. So I laughed, I cried and I'll certainly watch it again on a Sunday night when it's on Sky.

Aggregated review ratings:

Metacritic: 51% from the professionals, 4.5/10 from the readers 

Rotten Tomatoes UK: 52%

Is Cyrus the 'must-see indie comedy?

I'm always dubious when films are described as must-see but there is still a part of me that is quietly hopeful that it actually does live up to the label. So does Cyrus deserve such enthusiastic recommendations?

Well, it is definitely a slight step apart from the usual comedy fodder. For a start the premise is a little twisted.

John (John C Reilly) has been divorced for seven years but hasn't moved on. His ex is getting remarried and invites him to a party to try and get him to socialise. He meets Molly (Marisa Tomei) and they immediately hit it off.

All is going well until John meets Molly's 22 year-old son Cyrus (Jonah Hill) who still lives at home. Cyrus is all charm and accepting of his mum's new boyfriend. But the mother-son relationship is not conventional and John quickly begins to suspect that Cyrus is actually manipulating the situation.

Cyrus is definitely a dark comedy with plenty of unconventional fodder to laugh at and a few suitably uncomfortable moments. Jonah Hill surprised me, he was almost unrecognisable putting in a subtle performance as the slyly duplicitous Cyrus and Reilly does a great job as the depressed but trying and increasingly paranoid John.

And Tomei seems to be carving out a nice and refreshing little niche playing against the typical hollywood actress roles.

The premise works well, it is well acted, funny and awkward to watch as a dark comedy should be but must-see? Not quite. Very good but not that good.

Aggregated review scores:

Metacritic: 74% from the professional reviews and 6.3/10 from visitors to the site

Rotten Tomatoes UK: 81%

Autumn is definitely here as new film releases flood the market

After the drip feed of interesting fodder to watch on the silver screen over the summer, bam, it's Autumn and the taps have been turned on.

My tired and addled brain is spinning with what to see as there are at least four English language films I'm interested in before I even start looking at the foreign fare. It's a good job that my initial list is all English language and definitely in the trashier/light/pop corn movies quadrant so if I want to close my eyes for a bit it won't matter too much.

Here's what I'm considering for this weekends viewing pleasure:

The Runaways - purely because I desperate to see Kristen Stewart put in a non-Bella esqe performance that justifies why some critics think she is so good.

Going the Distance - Drew Barrymore was behind and also in one of my all time favourite films, Donnie Darko, and quite frankly a frothy rom-com with beautiful young people in it might be all I can cope with this weekend

Tamara Drew - Mainly because it's got a great cast of Brits and I'm hoping that Dominic Cooper still has his buff Phedre body* and gets his top off, although I suspect he won't

Cyrus - 'Uncompromising, dark and savagely funny....this year's must see indie-comedy.' Naturally I'll be the judge of that but I'm an eternal optimist.

* He played Hyppolytus at the National Theatre last year which involved him wearing combats and a tight vest for most of his performance...and he'd obviously not be a stranger to the gym. View the production pics over on the NT's website.

Hearthbreaker: Is a French chick flick more chic?

A gorgeous, swarthy French man who breaks hearts for a living? Yep that's the premise of this French chick flick.

A French chick flick? But surely French films are chic, stylish and sophisticated, not fluffy, contrived and unfunny like rom-coms tend to be?

Well Heartbreaker certainly has a storyline straight out of writing rom-coms 101.

*Potential plot spoiler* Alex is hired to split up unsuitable relationships by flirting with the girl. He, assisted by his team of sister and brother-in-law are hired to break up a couple ahead of their wedding which is just a week away. And he falls for the girl.

There is Gallic charm aplenty in the form of Romain Duris as Alex and Johnny Depp's missus Vanessa Paradis as the sophisticated and chic bride-to-be/love interest Juliette. And some delightful rom-com moments such as when the two leads re-enact the famous dance scene from Dirty Dancing.

But there are also some odd moments of slap-stick, usually centred on the brother-in-law who desperately wants the heartbreaker role, which just don't quite fit.

The pace is baggy in the middle and without the Dirty Dancing scene towards the end to lift the film the whole thing was in danger of falling a little bit flat.

So is a French chick flick more chic? Well Romain Duris certainly brings a big dose of je ne sais crois to proceedings and it has the glamourous Monaco as it's back drop but overall it's just a mildly pleasing rom-com that happens to be French.

If you do go and see it, make sure you get the version with English subtitles and not the awful dubbed version. (Hate dubbing with a passion. It should be banned.)

The professional view

Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian gave it two stars saying: "This French attempt at a high-concept Hollywood-style rom-com falls pretty flat, despite Romain Duris's nifty dance moves."

Little White Lies recommended it enjoying the heist movie approach saying: "It exudes the air of authentic European chic that Steven Soderbergh tried and failed to capture in , whisking its bedazzled audience from the streets of Paris to the hills of Monaco where everything is bathed in the golden glow of wealth, health and success."

I'm not sticking the trailer at the end of the post, as I usually do because I can't find a version that isn't dubbed.

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).

Up Cemetery Junction?

The scale of Ricky Gervais's success and how many A-list actors he seems to have clambering over themselves to get into whatever project he is working on never ceases to amaze me, as I'm sure it doesn't him.

The Office was genius. Extras had its moments but quickly became formulaic. And then he started appearing in big Hollywood films - most of which I've managed to avoid.

But Cemetery Junction sees him back on home turf with buddy Stephen Merchant albeit with the sort of actors that wouldn't normally touch what is essentially a rom-com with a barge-pole - last time I saw Ralph Fiennes he was playing Oedipus on stage at the National.

The film is set in a 1970's dead end town where a group of three friends seem to have their lives mapped out for them. For all their talk of escape none seem capable of actually cutting loose and seeing a bit more of the world.

The problem with Cemetery Junction is firstly that it isn't that funny. Yes I did laugh out loud about three times but that was pretty much it. And secondly the 'Rom' is so predictable that you can pretty much write the story from 10 minutes in.