Rev Stan's film blog

Not strictly film but one for fellow Ben Whishaw fans

Pictures are starting to emerge online of the talented Mr Whishaw filming the Alan Ball/HBO pilot All Signs of Death.

Finished reading the book on which it is based: The Mystical Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston and it is a great read.

I can understand why Ben has gone for the lead part of Webster. He is in many ways so different from anyone I've seen him play before: a bit of an asshole on a downward spiral of self destruction who doesn't seem to care who he hurts with his acerbic quips. But he is also emotionally damaged, there is an underlying tragedy behind this persona which slowly unfolds through the story and makes for a really interesting character.

Really hope it gets made into a full blown series because I shall cry if I don't get to see it.

The Girl Who Played With Fire - as good as Dragon Tattoo?

Went to a preview screening with Q&A following which you can read about here but what of the film itself? I've not read the books and really enjoyed The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo so I had high expectations but few  preconceptions.

Fire picks up the story pretty much where Dragon left off with Lisbeth Salander returning to Sweden setting up home in secret.

Framed for a series of murders she sets about clearing her name, while staying one step ahead of the police and some mystery hoodlums bent on tracking her down . One of the murder victims is a young investigative journalist working for Mikael Blomkvist's magazine on piece investigating sex trafficking which is set to expose numerous big wigs and the two story lines inevitable become inextricably linked.

Noomi Rapace is, once again, excellent as the damaged, hard, capable and secretive loner Salander who's past seeps more into the story in this second instalment. Michael Nygvist has less to work with in this film than the first but nonetheless does a good turn as the dogged-hack with a soft spot for Lisbeth.

Girl Who Played With Fire director talks Noomi and the US remake

Got to see a preview screening tonight of the much anticipated follow up to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, more of which I'll be writing about soon, but afterwards there was the chance to pitch some questions to director Daniel Alfredson.

Alfredson was chosen to helm the final two films in the trilogy based on the successful Stieg Larsson novels, filming The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest back to back LOTR style (that's 110 days film for those who are interested in such things).

**Potential spoilers** The Q&A was chaired by Empire Magazine's Damon Wise who kicked off proceedings with questions about what it was like working with Lisbeth Salander actress Noomi Rapace. Alfredson didn't give too much away except to say that Rapace was keen to do as much as possible herself including the  scene where she has to dig herself out of her own grave and which was shot at 5am in the morning.

When asked if there was anything she wouldn't have done in order to capture the character, Alfredson said "No" and that is was important for Rapace in order for her to inhabit the character of Lisbeth. But he did add that the only similarities between Rapace and the character she plays is their shared love of privacy. 

Other amusing titbits and things to look out for:

* Lisbeth Salanders apartment has name Villa Villekulla written on the door which is popular Swedish children character Pippi Longstocking's house and a reference to how Larsson said he based Lisbeth on Pippi.

* Paolo Roberto the boxer in the film is actually a real boxer and famous in Sweden. Larsson wrote him into the book leaving director Alfredson with the problem of whether to cast him or not. Roberto had to screen test to play himself and was worried that he wouldn't be good enough.

* The IKEA products Lisbeth buys for her apartment aren't product placement, it's where they thought she would shop

* Larsson, before he died, had written 85% of a fourth book and the bare bones of a fifth, whether they will actually get finished or indeed made into films is not known.

* The Girl Who Played With Fire was also a six hour TV series in Sweden but had a different scripts each with some of it own unique aspects of the story.

And so to the question I was burning to ask but someone else got in there before me: What does Alfredson think of the US remake?

What he said is that it comes down to money, the US has lots and Sweden doesn't have very much and ultimately "money rules". But he added that Sweden did the original and "Noomi will always be Lisbeth" to which the audience applauded.

What a cast (and a bit of a Harry Potter reunion)?

I've already pencilled this one into my cinema diary for 2012, for the cast alone. It's a remake of the film of the John Le Carre novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and, wait for it...deep breath...it not only has just signed Rev Stan's new fav Benedict Cumberbatch but already has:

Gary Oldman AKA Sirius Black but who has been in so many great films but the two things I always associate him with (other than HP) is Dracula and, as a director of Nil By Mouth.

Michael Fassbender who first came to my attention in the brilliant Brit Indie Fish Tank (I'm ignoring Inglorious Basterds purely because the film as a whole was dire).

Ralph Fiennes who is always Voldemort for me but I know he's done lots of other great stuff like the English Patient and I just love him in In Bruges - have also seen him tread the boards a couple of times.

David Thewlis, Remus Lupin in HP

and

Colin Firth.

I know Colin Firth the lovely, lovely and brilliant Colin Firth who every now and again steps out from the shadows of rom-com and does something amazing like A Single Man.

More Salt please - Angelina kicks ass

Once you get over the fact that Angelina Jolie needs a good meal, or three, inside her and she isn't going to snap in two if someone touches her, she is the female Bourne.

The Bourne films are great action packed thrill rides and successful, so I course Hollywood is going to flail around for something of a similar mould and what better for a similar but sufficiently different concept than to have a female CIA agent on the run? (Although I understand Tom Cruise was originally earmarked for the part, thank goodness that didn't come off.)

Like Bourne, it is about a spy on the run from the bosses. OK so there isn't the memory loss like Bourne but the audience does have to piece together Salt's past and as the tagline suggests, who she actually is.

Salt (Ms Jolie) is accused of being a Russian sleeper spy whose mission is to assassinate the Russian president and so spark an international conflict.

Naturally this entails lots of exciting, imaginative and sometimes edge-of-the-seat chase scenes. The audience is kept guessing about about whether she is or isn't a Russian spy and who can actually be trusted but then that isn't that much different to Bourne either.

All this is making it sound like I thought Salt was a bit 'yadda yadda yadda' but I didn't, I really enjoyed it with all it's twists and turns and inventive spy resourcefullness and daring. There is one particular chase scene where Salt is leaping from the roof of one fast moving lorry to another which is so brilliant shot as to give you a real sense of the danger that I was squirming in my seat, palms sweating.

It's also satisfying to see a woman getting the lions share of the action, not only pulling it off but also putting the otherwise male dominated cast in the shade.

Inevitably there will be another one, if Ms Jolie can be persuaded to sign on the dotted line. Unlike her character in Wanted she doesn't end up with a bullet in the head so it's not like they'd have to write some elaborate back from the dead plot which put her off Wanted 2.

The professional view:

Empire Online gave it three stars concluding: "Noyce marshals the crunches and bangs well, and it zips along at a pace sufficient enough to keep the paranoia alive. Never entirely predictable — a bonus these days — it’s further confirmation of Jolie’s action goddess status."

Total Film liked it a bit better and gave it four stars: "As we declared on our cover last month, cinema has a new super spy. And while the closing credits don’t actually spell it out, they might as well do: Evelyn Salt Will Return. And that’s a good thing."

Rotten Tomatoes UK gave it 61%

Metacritic gave it 65%

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky

What can I say about this film? Well it's beautiful - I love the period and Chanel's style is par excellence so it gets loads of points for elegance.

But what of Chanel and Igor themselves and the relationship the film is set around?

Stravinsky (Mads Mikkelsen looking like a period Freddie Mercury) first meets Chanel (Anna Mouglalis) at the disastrous first performance  of his The Rite of Spring in which police are brought in to calm down the disgruntled crowd.

A few years later, exiled from his native Russia and living in a cramped hotel with his wife and family, Chanel offers him her house outside Paris in order to work. And so he moves with his family and a relationship develops between him and his host.

Other than a physical attraction their motives for their liaison aren't clear. Chanel leads Stravinsky into adultery by stripping off in front of him. When confronted by his dying wife, who guesses what is going on, Chanel offers no apology or signs of remorse despite her interest in Stravinsky already appearing to be on wane.  As the relationship begins to crumble he produces the rework of The Rite of Spring which was to be hailed a masterpiece and she finally chooses the signature Chanel no. 5 scent.

Chanel comes across as manipulative bitch to Stravinsky's lost devoted puppy and we are led to believe their liaison helped them create some of their best work.

It's an unsatisfying biography that reveals little about the people themselves rather concentrating on the relationship that may or may not have actually happened but if you want to watch women swanning around in beautiful clothes in elegant settings then it's definitely worth it just for that.

What the professionals said:

Steve Rose in The Guardian gave it three stars commenting "Ultimately, the affair develops into a brittle battle of artistic wills. "I'm as powerful as you," Chanel tells Stravinsky. "You're not an artist, you're a shopkeeper," he replies. It's an inviting question. How do you compare such disparate talents? How do you compare smell with sound?"

Anthony Quinn in The Independent also gave it three stars: "This Coco is more austere and ruthless than Tautou's gamine waif, and the film itself is a more considered, textured portrait. One of the best things here is a coda that finds both principals alone in old age (they died within months of one another in 1971), contemplating mementoes of their liaison – whatever it was – half a century before."

Rotten Tomatoes UK gave it an overall rating of 51%

Metacritic gave it an overall rating of 56%

50th film this year is South American movie Undertow

Yes I'm sad, I count the number of films I see each year or rather I keep a numbered list, and on Sunday I notched up my 50th, a little South American film called Undertow.

And I must start by saying that it didn't live up to expectation but that is mainly because the film I expected from the trailer seemed to be an entirely different film to the one of watched. What I was expecting was a story of a poor fisherman, wife expecting, drawn into some sort of crime/murder endangered his life.

What Undertow is in fact about, is Miguel a poor fisherman, wife Mariela expecting, who has an affair with Santiago, a rich male artist visiting Miguel's village. It is more of South American Brokeback Mountain crossed with Ghost.

So you see why it didn't quite meet my expectation but that isn't to say it isn't a good film. ***Plot spoilers*** The pace can be a little slow and it is a little bizarre if you aren't expecting it when it wanders into Ghost territory. What happens is that Santiago accidentally drowns and his ghost asks Miguel to find his body and give it a proper sea burial so that his soul can move on in the traditions of the village.

22 Bullets - well I really enjoyed it anyway

French writer, director and actor Richard Berry has based 22 Bullets loosely on the story of Marseille mafia boss Jacky Imbert who was shot 22 times and survived albeit having lost the feeling in his right hand.

Berry constructed the story around this incident, Jacky becomes Charly Mattei, played by the wonderful Jean Leno, who is gunned down after retiring from the business. His past having caught up with him and despite not being able to use his right hand he sets about enacting revenge on his would-be assassin's. 

Yes 22 Bullets is violent to the point of having to look away a couple of times and there are some cliched gangster movie motives such as Charly's love of opera but underneath that it is a character piece about  childhood friends whose life's philosophies are based on two fundamentally different premises.

Charly and Tony Zacchia (Kad Merad) who is now the Mafia-chief about Marseille town had sworn to stick together through life and death but while Charly believes he can gain some sort of redemption from turning his back on his former life and living quietly and modestly with his family and a young son Anatole (a great performance from Max Baissette De Malglaive), Zacchia believes that blood on the hands can never be washed off and all evil deeds are therefore equal.

By giving the characters history and lives with families and responsibilities outside the crimeworld, Berry has given this gangster flick more depth and dare I say it a bit of soul. That isn't to say that it isn't a taut edge of your seat suspense thriller because it is that too although I know the mix hasn't sat too well with some reviewers (see below).

Great film, I really enjoyed it.

Professional reviews:

Interesting that the Herald mentions A Prophet and Mesrine, the latter I really enjoyed but the former I didn't quite feel lived up to the hype:

EmpireOnline gave it just two stars concluding: "Despite being based on a true-life Marseilles gangland story and a towering Reno turn, Richard Berry's thriller is an uneven stew of character development, violence and sub-Top Gear car chases. Disappointing."

HeraldScotland gave it three stars: Set beside French game changers such as A Prophet and the Mesrine duo, it can at times feel as dated as an old Johnny Hallyday track.

Poster appears for Taymor's Tempest - is that Ben Whishaw????

The first poster (or as far as I can tell) had appeared on the web. Thanks to Cinema Blend who spotted it (read the story here).

Apart from being a lovely poster I got excited about the silvery figure at the top. Is this Ariel? Is this our lovely Mr W. I remembered in an interview in Wonderland Magazine last year where he is quoted as saying:

"I was naked apart from a little jockstrap, my eyebrows were shaved off and I was given breasts and enormous wings."

Now the eyebrows are difficult to see (or not to see if you get my drift) but those sort of look like wings and it looks a bit like his profile. So is it, is it Ben Whishaw? Whadda people reckon? Can I inwardly jump up and down in premature excitement about the film and his turn as the moody spirit?

Beautiful, Beautiful Kate

Wow, where did this little debut from actor turned writer/director Rachel Ward come from?

In a radio interview Ward said she got fed up of the limited and stereotyped roles for women in films and turned to writing and then film-making as a more satisfying career. She said she was attracted to making Beautiful Kate because it had the sort of roles she would have loved to have played when she was an actress.

And what great trio of roles they are: a tactless trophy girlfriend, a perceptive but overlooked stay-at-home sister and a teenage femme fatale.

Set in a remote Australian outback settlement, Ned (Ben Mendelsohn) a successful writer is returning home after 20 years absence, to see his dying father with his much-younger, trophy girlfriend Toni (Maeve Dermody) in tow.

Ned's father Bruce (Bryan Brown) is being cared for by youngest daughter. the ever-patient and good-hearted Sally (Rachel Griffiths back with her natural Australian accent). It is not a happy reunion for Ned and his father, the latter quickly seeking to criticise and belittle. Naturally Ned bristles but not only because of his father's bitter words but because the family home holds a lot of painful reminders as to why he ran away 20-years earlier.

As the story unfolds we learn that Ned had a twin sister Kate (Sophie Lowe) on whom he doted and an older brother Clifford. Kate died in a car accident and Cliff hung himself. Switching from present to past, the story of the fateful summer before his departure and his siblings deaths is told.