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Must have seen the trailer for We Need to Talk About Kevin about half a dozen times over recent cinema visits but unlike Melancholia it just heightened my anticipation and, by the numbers that were in the early bird screening today, I wasn't alone.
It's based on the novel by Lionel Shriver about a mother coming to terms with an appalling act of violence carried out by her son and questioning her part in shaping him into a someone capable of such an act.
The story flits backwards and forwards from before Kevin's conception to his mother visiting him in prison putting the pieces together that lead up to the dispicable act.
From the opening sequence where Eva (Tilda Swinton) is enjoying a festival in France which involves everyone smothering themselves in tomatoes to scraping off the first lot of paint smeared on her house post Kevin's trial, red becomes a powerful motif. It is an ambiguous colour symbolic of both love and horror and summing up nicely Eva's feeling for her son from his birth.
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.
With a title like Wreckers you know that no matter how solid and seemingly perfect a relationship appears, something or someone is going to shatter it.
Married couple Dawn (Claire Foy) and David (Benedict Cumberbatch) have moved out of the city to the rural village where David grew up to start a family.
It's all very idyllic: doing up an old cottage, chickens in the garden, singing in the local church choir and then David's brother Nick (Shaun Evans) turns up. Nick is in the army and has done active service in the Middle East.
There is an immediate and obvious close bond between the two brothers who haven't seen each other for a long time. Nick suffers terrible nightmares and is prone to sleep walking and David is a adept at dealing with these episodes - something he has learnt from the past.
The longer Nick stays the more of the past - the brothers childhood - is brought up fuelling a growing tension between the siblings and threatening to expose the lies in Dawn and David's own relationship. The problem is exacerbated by the reigniting of old friendships with former school friends who still live in the village.
This is a gentle, slowly unraveling film which examines love, rivalry and betrayal. Foy and Cumberbatch make for a natural and compelling couple which is the lynch pin of the film, a sunshine that is slowly engulfed in the darkness of lies and deceit. Both give wonderfully subtle performances often played out in the tightest of close ups and they have able support from the rest of the cast.
Wreckers is evocative and beguiling, another cracking low budget, independent British film and I hope it gets the wide distribution it deserves.
I'm going to give it 80% but you'll have to take my word for it, this being its first airing and part of the London Film Festival, it hasn't been widely reviewed and therefore doesn't have any IMDb, Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes rating yet. It doesn't even have a trailer yet that's how fresh out of the can the screening was.
I was a massive fan of River Phoenix. He was my bedroom poster boy with his devastatingly good looks and unique talent.
He was roughly the same age as me and making interesting films often about the troubles of youth. Not a troubled youth myself, well not in anyway to cause real concern, I nonetheless identified with many of the characters and was often moved by his performances.
Despite his looks, which must have had casting directors queueing up, he never sold out in his choices. In fact I can probably credit him with shaping my interest in independent and non-mainstream cinema.
His death from a drugs overdose cut short what would, I'm sure, have been a long and interesting career, so it's with great interest that I read that the last film he made is to finally be released next year. He'd nearly finished making Dark Blood when he died and his younger brother, the equally talented Joaquin, is apparently going to help out with some final voice work as he sounds very similar.
It's difficult to express in words how excited I am to see this and it is certainly near the top of my list of most anticipated films of next year.
Popcorn movie time, a welcome chance to disengage brain and just enjoy the ride. And the Three Musketeers fitted the bill perfectly. OK so all the money has been spent on the sets, costumes, action and effects rather than the script but it's an engaging spectacle and lots of fun.
Milla Jovovich plays an Irene Adler type character, a sassy lady who can handle herself and double crosses lover and Musketeer Athos (Matthew MacFadyen) on their last mission. The story then follows wannabe Musketeer D'Artangnan (Logan Lerman) who is precocious, hot-headed and extremely cocky but finds his heroes have thrown in the towel on saving the day and general swashbuckling activities.
With Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) conspiring to seize the French thrown from its young King (Freddie Fox) and D'Artangnan eager to impress the Queen's maid on whom he has a major crush, forces soon conspire to kick the Musketeers back into action.
Orlando Bloom plays a be-quiffed English aristocrat and bad-guy and is quite good, channelling Rik Mayall's Lord Flashheart of Blackadder fame. Lerman does a convincing job as the newest recruit, although his American accent seems out of place. When you are playing such a cocky character it would be easy (for me anyway) to be secretly wishing the baddies would take him out but he won me over.
Waltz is naturally superb as baddie Richelieu, as is Mad Mikklesen as the leader of his guard but MacFadyen was the draw for me. Love the MacF and it was nice beyond words to see him playing an action hero. OK so most of the action is reserved for Lerman but he does a good line in buckle-swashing when he gets the chance.
All round good entertainment and they've left it open for a sequel so if it takes anything at the box office I'm sure they will be making another.
I'm going to give it 70%. On IMDb it's got a critics rating of 59% with not Metacritic rating yet (it's released in the US this weekend) while on Rotten Tomatoes UK it doesn't have a critics consensus yet but has an audience rating of 59%. Will update when the scores come in.
Pan's Labyrinth is one of my all time favourite films so if his name is attached to something then I immediately prick up my ears.
Del Toro didn't direct Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark but he co-wrote and produced it and it certainly has his mark stamped on it.
Like Pan's it blends reality and fantasy but this time is set in contemporary America rather than in Spain during the civil war. Young girl Sally (Bailee Madison) has been sent to live with her father and his new girlfriend in a big old house they are doing up to sell on. She is depressed and it is hoped the change will bring her out of her shell.
When Sally discovers a hidden basement and hears her name being called from behind an old fire grate she is initially curious and pleased thinking she's found new friends. But they turn out to be not quite as friendly as she first thought, in fact they don't just want her for a friend.
Unfortunately for Sally her busy Dad (Guy Pearce) and his girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes) just think she's misbehaving.
What I love about del Toro's style is that his fantastical elements have such a dark and sinister edge that harks back to the old fairytales before Disney got their hands on them and made them all cutesy and cuddly. Of course Don't Be Afraid, like Pan's, is not a children's film it's a 15 certificate and here in lies the problem.
Continue reading "Guillermo del Toro is back, sort of: Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark" »
This year is shaping up to be a cracking year for British film making and in particular low budget films. So far we've had Submarine, The Island and Third Star all proving that with a great story and not very much money you can make a cracking film. And now stepping into the arena is actor Paddy Considine's writing and directing debut Tyrannosaur.
If I was to say it was about an unlikely friendship it immediately conjures up all the wrong sort of cliched images but that is sort of what it is in essence as two very different people help each other escape their lives.
Joseph played by the wonderfully craggy-faced Peter Mullan is a drinker with an explosive verbal and violent temper and a good line in remorse the morning after. He is trying, with intermittant success, to break out of the destructive cycle he's got himself in.
Olivia Colman plays Hannah, a devout Christian and seemingly happy and friendly charity shop volunteer who is being abused verbally and physically by her husband James (Eddie Marsan).
The first thing to say about it, is Olivia Colman is stunningly good in this. She's one of those jobbing actors you feel has just been waiting for a chance to show the breadth of her talent and here it is. If there was any justice she would win lots and lots of awards. (The film has picked up some gongs at film festivals).
Peter Mullan too is superb. Joseph carries an air of threat about him so when he says to Hannah "you aren't safe with me" you know it is true but at the same time his self redemptive qualities make Hannah's trust believable.
There is a great supporting cast from the likes of Sian Breckin who plays the daughter of Joseph's dying friend and Ned Dennehy who plays his alcoholic friend. And I always love Eddie Marsan who is just chillingly abhorrent in this.
Tyrannosaur is far from an easy watch. It has a gritty and brutal realism that is probably more well observed than we'd care to admit from the comfort of our cosy cinema seats. While there are tender moments and glimpses of human kindness it never falls down the cliche trap door but is instead a tense, gripping and utterly moving film.
It's on a limited release and I hope plenty of people go and see it, because it is really very good. I'm going to give it 90%. On IMDb it's got 81% but no Metacritic score yet while on Rotten Tomatoes is has 91% from critics and an audience rating of 89%
The genius of Drive, for me, is that it succeeds in making the audience get behind a protagonist who says very little, has no back story and is prone to acts of the most brutal violence. He doesn't even have a name, in the end credits he is just known as 'Driver'.
Boiling the plot of Drive down to its most basic, it is about a man (Ryan Gosling) who drives. He has three jobs: a stunt driver for movies, a mechanic and a getaway driver. He is a very good driver, carrying out his work with a cool, calm precision leaving the sweating to those around him.
But he isn't cocky or smarmy, there is a humanity to him. He helps out his neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her young son while Irene's husband is in prison. There is in an obvious attraction between the two but he is never predatory indeed he is extremely gentlemanly.
When Irene's husband gets out of prison and is pursued by a gang for unpaid protection money the driver agrees to help out but the heist intended to sort out the cash flow goes wrong and he soon finds himself on the wrong side of the local mob.
The shocking thing about the driver is that he seems emotionally anaesthetised about inflicting such brutal acts and yet you catch glimpses of something far darker beneath the surface, something that he can't quite control. And this is Gaspar Noe-style brutality, visceral assaults that have the slightly more sensitive types (and I count myself one) squirming in their seats to cover eyes and ears.
And yet you forgive him, in fact you root for him. The film positively oozes with atmosphere that it almost feels like a tragedy.
With a different director (Nicholas Winding Refn won a director nod at Cannes) and a different lead this would most likely have become an average thriller however it is a film of binary opposites that all work brilliantly to elevate it to something more. The pared down dialogue, scenes of simple domesticity and tender moments interwoven with pulse-racing car chases, tension and abject violence.
I'm going to give drive 83% because it was understated and gripping and I enjoyed it very much. On IMDb it has a rating of 84% and its Metascore is listed as 79%. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a critics rating of 93% and a visitor rating of 79%
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