Rev Stan's film blog

Ben Whishaw reveals his Cloud Atlas characters - was I right?

A great little interview with Mr W surfaced today in which he gave details of the three characters he'll be playing in the Cloud Atlas film adaptation and more besides.

Apparently the actors will be gender swapping as well as playing multiple roles.

Not long ago I wrote a post about which characters I thought he might play and I'm pleased to announced that I got, er, one correct but then the gender swapping wasn't something I'd factored in.

He is indeed playing Robert Frobisher but he's also playing a woman in the Luisa Rey story which is set in the 1970s. Now there are numerous characters that he could be. There is a youngish PR woman at the nuclear plant and I'm sure one of Luisa's fellow journalists is a woman. There is an older woman who is a protester at the nuclear plant too.

It will be really interesting to see him play a woman and the interview seems to imply that the gender swap is something he is relishing. I bet he'll get the physical performance down pat and he has a not wholly masculine face.

I'm really pleased he's getting to play Frobisher as that was the character I immediately could see him playing - he's witty, intelligent, talented and roguish. He's also bisexual and *spoiler alert* has quite a tragic ending to his story, so plenty for Mr W to get his acting teeth into.

Am a bit disappointing he's not going to be playing Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgess surely?) or Zachary, although the latter was a long shot.

Filming begins mid-September and hopefully news of the other actors characters will start to float out now. I'm just trying to imagine Tom Hanks as a woman...

 

Fifteen minute review: The Guard

Was drawn to this for the comparisons with In Bruges which I loved for its dark humour.

The Guard also stars Brendan Gleeson as Sargent Gerry Boyle, a policeman in rural Ireland who really can't be arsed with all that. So when the FBI role into town led by Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) because they've had a tip off that drug smugglers are going to be docking nearby Boyle couldn't be less interested.

Brendan Gleeson does an excellent job as Boyle who is ultimately bored by the banality of his work and life. He's a man with a penchant for prostitutes and secretly well read which is key to his character. If he was just stupid bumpkin policemen the humour would only half work but there is a hint that Boyle is far cleverer than all that and is being provocative for his own amusement.

And it is laugh out loud funny at times and a little bit obvious at times.  It doesn't quite plunge to the dark depth of In Bruges but it does have a satisfactory ending and did put a smile on my face. Good friday night DVD fodder I'd say and I'm going to give it 60%.

On IMDb it's got a rating of 79% with the Metacritic score listed as 78%. While on Rotten Tomatoes it has an audience rating of 86% and a critics rating of 96% although that figure isn't classed as a consensus yet.

  

Couple of Colin Morgan related vids: Parked Trailer and Island interview

A trailer has appeared for Colin's new film Parked which is released in the UK on October 14. Looks like another interesting choice from Mr M but I'm starting to think I'd really like to see him play something a little more edgy, a character with less of a smile.

Can I also just say what a master of accents he's becoming.

 

And then there is this wee interview he did at the Glasgow Film Festival where Island premiered earlier this year. Interesting to hear him talking about how, as a drama student, he used to work at the very same cinema his film was being shown.

Glasgow Film Festival 2011 Colin Morgan on Island by justcolinmorgan 

Troll Hunter at Fright Fest

I do hope the people behind Norwegian film The Troll Hunter had their tongues firmly in their cheeks when they were making it.

Bought a ticket on a complete whim when I found myself at a lose end in Leicester Sq at 10.45 this morning (head into town to get day seats for a play and end up seeing a film at the Film 4 Fright Festival). I had vague recollection of a trailer  with people running around in dark woods in a Blair Witch-style but other than that knew nothing about the film.

Now I scare easily but fortunately having spent a chunk of my life going to rock and heavy metal gigs, the presence of a predominantly male audience mostly wearing black didn't worry me. What did were the trailers - some french horror torture flick had looking into my lap almost immediately. The Woman in Black trailer seemed positively Disney after that but a worrying thought did start dancing through my mind: 'What the hell have you booked to see?'.

With visions of having to be enticed out from under my seat with a bag of marshmallows at the end I gritted my teeth and prepared to be scared.

But despite the fact that a large part of the film is set in woods at night - one of my biggest nightmare scenarios - I quickly started to wonder what nature of film I was actually watching.

It's mockumenatry style about a group of student film makers who stumble on national cover up, that there are trolls living in them there hills and there is one man, the troll hunter, who is employed to keep them under control, killing them if they get too close to civilisation.

They persuade the troll hunter to let them accompany him mainly because he's got fed up with the long, unsociable hours of troll hunting. Do you see where this is going?

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - the iPod of CGi

Not been an ape film fan and have avoided most of the previous incarnations but the involvement of James Franco, who's been making some great films recently drew me to the cinema.

The story revolves around Franco's character Will who works for a drugs company and is experimenting on chimpanzee's in order to develop a drug for Alzheimer's which his father happens to be suffering from.

When the experiment goes wrong it is closed down and the chimps are destroyed apart from a baby which Will sneaks home and raises, continuing with his drug trial. The drugs allow the chimp, named Caesar, to develops beyond the normal capabilities of his species. All is going well until one day, the grown up Caesar attacks a neighbour who had been violently confronting Will's father.

Against Will's wishes he's sent to a penitentiary for naughty and unwanted apes which is where the trouble really begins.

And I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this. It's an intelligent enough story to engage, the principle characters are interesting and likeable and there are some fantastic cinematic moments. But it still has enough heart to give it depth. Harry Potter's Tom Felton channels Draco as a cruel keeper at monkey prison but it is the CGi apes which are the real stars. 

Just watching the Twilight saga's New Moon last night and the contrast between the wolves in that and the chimps in Planet of the Apes is like comparing a CD discman with an iPod.

In an interview Andy Serkis, who plays Caesar, said he approaches CGi characters in exactly the same way as he would a human character. He is also on set acting with those playing the humans (above) and it is this attention to detail which I think gives Caesar both character and realism.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is entertaining and ends satisfactorily but with just enough loose threads to lead into a sequel which I'll certainly be seeing, especially if Mr Serkis and Mr Franco reprise their roles.

I'm going to give it 78% while on IMDB it's got 80% from users and a Meta score of 68%. On Rotten Tomatoes the critics have given it 83% and users 89% so a winner all round really.

 

In A Better World - worthy of the foreign film Oscar?

The Best Foreign Film winner at this year's Oscars - In A Better World - is definitely a film to mull over. At its heart is the question of justice versus revenge and follows the story of two Danish families who become linked through the friendship of two of their sons.

Christian has just lost his mother to cancer and has a strained relationship with his father. He's just moved back to Denmark to live with his Grandmother as his father frequently travels for work. Elias's parents are getting a divorce. His father Anton also works abroad for spells as a doctor in an African refugee camp.

Elias is bullied at school but Christian, the new kid, steps in to help giving the ring leader a savage beating and threatening him with a knife. A firm friendship forms between the two. Elias's dad remonstrates the two boys saying that if you respond to violence with violence it solves nothing. While Christian continues in the belief that perpetrators of violence need to be taught a harsh lesson.

Unlocking Sarah's Key

This is the second film I've seen in as many months about the round up and expulsion of French Jews during the second world war.  The first was The Round Up and set predominantly during the second world war. Sarah's Key has two interlinked stories set during the war and in contemporary France.

At the heart of the film is the  story of Sarah (Melusine Mayance). She is the young daughter of a Jewish family living in Paris and when the round up starts she locks her younger brother in a hidden cupboard so that he will be safe.

As her family are carted off first to a velodrome in Paris, then holding camps before the final journey to the concentration camps Sarah is desperate to get back to her brother and free him from the cupboard.

The contemporary story sees an American journalist, Julia (Kristen Scott Thomas) who is married to a French architect and living in Paris and is researching a piece on the round up. In the course of her research she discovers that her husband's family apartment, which he is renovating, belonged to a Jewish family who were sent off to the camps. Sarah's family in fact.

So as the story of Sarah and her attempts to get back to her brother unfold, Julia is slowly unearthing the story herself and the connection her husband's family have with that period of history.

It's nicely done but it is one of those films that you can't help feeling like the writers have come up with a good idea then gone beyond what is really necessary, diluting what is good source material. 

The story of Sarah and whether she will or won't get back to her brother and whether he is or isn't still in cupboard, dead or alive is a compelling and deeply moving one. Julia's investigation into the story adds an extra layer of tension as she gets ever closer to discovering the truth.

*Potential spoilers* But does Julia really need to have marital and fertility problems? It is interesting to know what happened to Sarah after the war but does it need to go into quite so much detail about her family and the tension between Julia and the Sarah's grown up son just seems extraneous.

Sarah's key has some great moments and occasionally comes close to The Counterfeiters for dilemma and psychological trauma but its excess baggage weighs it down which is a shame. I'm going to give it 68%.

It's got 72% from users on IMDb, 58% from Metacritic and on Rotten Tomatoes it has 74% from critics and 84% from users.

 

Ben Whishaw in the new Bond film?

This story started circulating an hour ago about rumours that Stan fav Ben Whishaw is going to be in the new James Bond film, directed by Sam Mendes.

If it is true I really hope he plays a villain. I've bored anyone who cares to listen, and probably even written about it on this blog before too, about how I'd love to see him play a baddie. I think he would have a lot of fun with it, and after all he likes cats which is kind of essential for a Bond villain ;0)

The filming is set to begin in November which would fit in with his current known work schedule ie Cloud Atlas which is due to start filming next month.

Naturally I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for news

September - the Benedict Cumberbatch month?

Can't wait for the DVD of Third Star to be released next month. Loved the film, which had me in floods of tears pretty much from the outset.

With Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy released at the cinema next month too, I might have to declare September Benedict Cumberbatch month.

Here's a clip from Third Star:

 

Snippet of Ben Whishaw audition for Bright Star

Thanks to @amitolanes for pointing this out