Rev Stan's film blog

Film going hiatus is over, let the catch up begin

A nasty bout of food poisoning had me bedridden over the weekend and so now I'm playing catch up as releases are coming thick and fast.

On my list for this weekend - although I know that only in a DeLorean or with a time-turner could I see them all - are the following:

Drive - This has been on my radar since I saw the trailer and have heard good things about this from film-going friends who've already seen it. I'm a big fan of Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan has done some interesting work so this is a definite

The Debt - Bit of a Helen Mirren fan although I admit I prefer her in more traditional fare than the ones where she's running around with guns. It's also got Tom Wilkinson and Ciaran Hinds and is co-written by Jane Goldman which are all pluses. I've broken my rule of checking out Rotten Tomatoes before seeing a film - I've got to cull my list somehow - and this seems to be doing quite well so it's definitely a draw.

Tomboy - Really want to see this French film having seen the trailer a few times but it's only had a limited and relatively short release so screening times may be the barrier.

Melancholia - No matter how many times I've seen the trailer I can't get excited about this but there is part of me that wants to  give it a go just to see what all the fuss and film festival accolades are about.

Abduction - I know, I know. This is only half on the list really, well a quarter, because of its car crash quality (Taylor Lautner in a lead role) and my utter surprise that it's got the likes of Sigorney Weaver, Alfred Molina and Jason Isaacs in it. And even though I've never seen a film rated so low by critics on RT I'm still half tempted. Is it really that bad? Do I want to see if it is? Car crash cinema - sometimes you know it's going to be bad but you still can't help having a look.

Oh go on, watch the trailer, you know it will make you chuckle/wince/roll your eyes/shake your head/wonder at just how cringeworthy the trailer dialogue can be etc

 

 

BBC News - 3D is a 'gimmick', according to a new UK film poll

27 September 2011 Last updated at 15:33

via www.bbc.co.uk

It's what I've been saying for a long time - not that my opinion counts for much. Goodbye 3D, please.

Great LOTR fun reel

This has been around for a while but I've only just discovered it. Am planning  LOTR-a-thon at Christmas as it's been a few years since I watched them.

 

So, Tinker Tailor Solder Spy...

There is always a danger when something is so highly anticipated that it doesn't quite live up to expectation and I think that that, together with a rather fidgety audience member sat two seats away contributed to dampening my enjoyment of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

It's not that this isn't a very good film. It is extremely polished, subtle and tense. And as you would imagine from such a quality director and dream cast*, the acting is brilliant. The period detail is also superb.

I think my beef with it, is that the character development suffers from the condensing of a book into a two hour film. John Le Carre's novel is a complex thriller about an investigation into a Russian mole at the top of MI6 during the cold war. OK they are spies and thus by their very nature should have an element of mystery about them but there is actually relatively little screen time devoted to the principle suspects with little more than a shifty looks to go on.

As a result by the time the identity of the mole is revealed, I'm not sure I was really that bothered.

This is a slow burn film peppered with the odd highly intense moment, as you would expect from a piece about spies spying on spies. It all fits satisfactorily together in the end but walking out the cinema it was more of a shrug than a smile from me.

I'm going to give it 65% based on the acting and production. It's got a user rating of 82% on IMDb but no Metacritic listing yet. On Rotten Tomatoes the critics seem to adore it with a rating of 97% while users have given it 76%.

* Gary Oldman, Kathy Burke, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ciaran Hinds, Toby Jones, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong and John Hurt, I mean come on.

 

In which Stan raves about Jane Eyre

I'm still coming up for air after watching Jane Eyre last Sunday. Ok so it's a costume drama based on a classic novel with Michael Fassbender, Dame Judi Dench and Jamie Bell in it, so it had a head start. But, wow, I wasn't quite expecting it to leave me speechless.

Haven't read the book for years so I'm not sure exactly how faithful it is to the novel but it certainly seemed to get right to the heart of it. The time line of the film is certainly different from the book. The film starts near the end of the story so it becomes a tale of how did Jane Eyre end up wandering the rain lashed moors looking for shelter.

What director Cary Fukunaga has done (he made the fantastic Sin Nombre) is create a film that is positively dripping with atmosphere and so emotionally charged that I was choking back the tears through most of it.

The genius is that it is so subtly done. There isn't masses of dialogue so it's very much about what isn't said and that relies on great acting and great direction and here it is in the bucket loads. Mia Wasikowska's Jane is beautifully pitched; reserved but with just enough hint of emotion underneath. And Michael Fassbender never fails to convince as Rochester - a man in turmoil constantly fighting his emotions, duty and the ghosts of his past.

For Jane Eyre to work Rochester has to be a hard, brusk man but with chink in the armour that convinces you that Jane would fall in love with him. And I was convinced. The relationship between the two leads crackles with tension and repressed emotion. It is the fire against the bleak backdrop of the setting.

 My only very slight niggle is the underused talents of the likes of Mr Bell as St John and Sally Hawkins as Jane's cruel aunt.

It's gone straight to the top of my DVD list and I'm giving it 95%. On IMDb it's got 75% from users and the Metacritic score is 76%. On Rotten Tomatoes it's got 86% from critics and 79% from audiences.

 

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy London premiere

Nice video from WalesOnline from the premiere with cast interviews on the red carpet and lots of clips. Sunday can't come soon enough.

 

Dimensions - worth selling the house for?

When the writer and director stand up and say they sold their house in order to make the film you are about to watch there is a big part of you hoping that it is good. And they - Antony Neely and Sloane U'Ren - did just that ahead of the cast and crew screening of their film Dimensions yesterday at the BFI.

It is a romantic sci-fi set in 1920s/1930s Cambridge about a boy, Stephen, who after an encounter with a professor becomes interested in time travel. A tragic incident results in Stephen growing up obsessed with going back in time.

And there is much to be admired in Neely and U'Ren's endeavour. Both have a lot of experience in film and television, Neely in composing and U'Ren as an art director and it is these areas that really shine in Dimensions. It is beautiful both in its settings, costumes and how it is shot. Neely isn't listed as the composer but the music is certainly atmospheric.

It's weakness is, however, its script. The dialogue feels awkward and cliched. While the plot's premise is an interesting one there are a some scenes which seem forced in order to contrive the plot and there are also some plot holes.

There are some good performances from the younger cast and Henry Lloyd Hughes does a reasonable job as the grown up Stephen but there are also some stiff performances and often the extras in background look staged.

Parts of the film feels like they lack confidence while others feel experienced and accomplished.

Dimensions was certainly a brave venture for a first movie and I'm not sure Neely and U'Ren pulled it off which is a real shame because I so much wanted to like it.

You can find the Dimensions trailer here and below is a slide show of production shots.

 

A new Dimensions for Stan (or the first invite to a film screening)

This is a first for me. I've been invited to a screening of a new film. It's a indie Brit flick called Dimensions and the trailer looks rather interesting.

The screening I'm going to is also the cast and crew screening - another first. Looks like it's going to be an interesting afternoon.

 

Am I the only one who didn't like gritty Brit flick Kill List?

Now I must clarify, I didn't wholly dislike Kill List. It is a master class in suspense and tension. It's just that it got to a certain point, about three quarters of the way through, when the turn of events  made me go 'what the f***?'. And not in a good way.

It starts off very ordinary. Husband and wife Jay and Shel (Neil Maskell and MyAnna Buring) are going through a rough patch. Jay hasn't worked as a sales rep for eight months and it's putting a strain on their marriage. His friend and colleague Gal (Michael Smiley) comes to dinner with his new girlfriend Fiona (Emma Fryer) and persuade him to go back to work. It quickly becomes obvious that they are not actually sales reps but hit men.

The two embark on a job that involves three kills but there is something odd about this job. The man that hired them isn't quite what he seems and neither is Fiona.

*spoiler alert* All well and good, tension building nicely, lots of intrigue, then bam from out of nowhere comes this straw-mask wearing cult who dance around naked and make human sacrifices. It all gets a bit silly from then on, although there is a brutally perverse twist at the end. I'm not adverse to a curve ball in a plot, far from it, but I just didn't get it and it disappointed me to the point of feeling cross.

The highly anticipated Skin I live In

Bit of a fan of Almodovar, even if his last film Broken Embraces wasn't quite up to scratch.

Leaving behind Penelope Cruz, who was becoming a regular, he's turned to Antonio Banderas as the big name actor on which to hang his new project The Skin I Live In.

Banderas plays Robert Ledgard a renowned plastic surgeon and skin graph scientist who's haunted by past tragedy. What his colleagues don't know is that he's been taking his work home with him using a mysterious woman as his guinea pig.

And that's about as much as I can say about this deliciously twisted and perverse film without spoilers. If you think about it too much it messes with your mind and for that I loved it. Almodovar is back.

It's getting 83% from me. It's not been widely reviewed and doesn't seem to have a US release date yet, other than playing at a couple of film festivals in the Autumn, so there is no metacritic rating but it has 79% from audiences on IMDb. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a critics rating of 93%, although there aren't enough reviews for it to be deemed a consensus yet and an audience rating of 87%.