Rev Stan's film blog

Frothy fun: Mirror Mirror

I enjoyed Mirror Mirror. There I said it. It was silly and fun and made me giggle (well Julia Robert's reaction to a shirtless Armie Hammer made me giggle).

It's not going to win awards for plot, the twist on the Snow White story is an obvious one, make her a fighter rather than purely a damsel in distress but one you'd expect that in the 21st century. This is more about the evil Queen than Snow White anyway and that's as you'd expect it with Julia Roberts in the roll. And she is great but she is still Julia Roberts ie I never see her as the character just as Julia Roberts playing a character.

There was a group of kids sat behind me and they were quiet throughout which I take as an indicator that they were entertained.

Some of the fight scenes were a little stodgy and looked like they were still being rehearsed but this is a kids movie so I can forgive that.

Good light, entertaining fare that isn't going to win any awards, well maybe for costumes, loved the costumes, so I'm going to give it 65%. On IMDb it has 58% and a Metacritic score of 46%. While on Rotten Tomatoes it has 49% from critics and 53% of site visitors gave it 3.5 stars out of five or higher.

 

Not convinced by Headhunters

Headhunters is a Norwegian film about a man who lives beyond his means. His day job is high end recruitment but he pays for his nice house and expensive jewellery for his trophy wife by stealing art with a friend who works for a security surveillance firm.

However things go awry when he steals a painting so valuable it will set his finances straight. It's a painting that belongs to a former military surveillance man and security technology CEO whom he is trying to recruit. The headhunter becomes the hunted.

It blends all the elements of a well-paced thriller with a veneer of tongue in cheek. Our headhunter Roger (Aksel Hennie) is a lovable rogue and sometime narrator in a style that reminded me a little of Alfie.

It's a nice blend except that the leap from art thief to hunted and all the things that happen along that route was just too big . I suppose what I'm saying and this may be a bit of a spoiler but I wasn't convinced he could be quite that clever. 

Also had problems with quite how violent it got and it is nasty in places and I'm not sure that quite married with cheeky art thief tone of the opening third.

Headhunters is entertaining and diverting enough. It did draw me in and I was willing our protagonist to succeed but I left the cinema feeling not wholly not satisfied. One big plus is that it has got Nicolaj Coster-Waldau who plays Jaime Lannister in Game of Thrones in it though and he is very easy on the eye.

It's getting 62% from me, on IMDB it has 75% but no Metacritic score yet, while on Rotten Tomatoes  it's got a staggering 96% from critics and 82% of visitors gave it three and a half stars or above.

 

The gentle poignancy of North Sea Texas

The Apollo Piccadilly is getting quite good at filling in the independent and foreign language film gaps they don't have space for at the Curzon - always worth a look at their schedule if you like indy's and subtitles. This latest Dutch/Belgian film is a coming of age story about teenage Pim who is obsessed with the boy next door Gino, while Gino's sister is fixated on Pim.

Pim lives with his accordion-playing, flirtatious mother whose focus is on going out and having fun but  he is taken under the win of Gino's mother. Pim has long held a torch to Gino and the film follows their first furtive fumblings of sexual discovery and then the confusion of sexual identity and first love that follows.

It is nicely engaging and great performances from all, particularly Jelle Florizoone as the quiet and introverted Pim. It is gently poignant avoiding melodrama but sometimes lacks a little punch to really give it an emotional kick. 

I'm going to give it 70%. On IMDb it's got 72% but has yet to receive a Metacritic rating. While on Rotten Tomatoes it doesn't have a consensus.

 

 

Hurrah they got it right with the Hunger Games

Always slightly nervous about seeing film adaptations of books I love and with Hunger Games I was worried that they'd water down the horror of it. 

If you don't know the story, it's set in the future and, in a nutshell, the rulers make the workers give up 24 children to fight to the death in a televised show with the survivor crowned winner.

Apparently some bloody scenes have been cut to make it a 12 certificate but in essence they have captured the book and how harrowing and grotesque in concept it is. There is never going to be time in a film to fully explore the relationships particularly those between Katniss and her mother and Katniss and Gael and Peeta but the core is there.

 

I loved it and I haven't longed to go back and see a film again for a while.

If you've seen the film, read the books. If you haven't seen the film then go, it is the best sci fi teen drama since I don't know when (and certainly not exclusively for teens). Twilight looks sickly sweet and wafer shallow in comparison. 

Can't wait for the DVD and I am hoping they do the 15 certificate cut.

It's getting 90% from me. On IMDb it has 77% and a Metacritic score of 67%. On Rotten Tomatoes 87% of users have rated it 3.5/5 and higher and critics aggregated rating is 86%.

 

Review round up: Terrific Trishna

I like what Michael Winterbottom has done with Thomas Hardy's Tess of D'Urberville's story. He's transposed it to modern day India where class and honour is as much of an issue as 19th century England but what he has also done is made our heroine's antagonist a far more complex character. There is no Angel = good, Alec = bad but Jay, played by the wonderful Riz Ahmed is a combination of both.

Freida Pinto takes on the role of the tragic heroine, here called Trishna, who meets Jay who is in India with friends on holiday. Jay is staying on to help run the family hotel business and offers Trishna a job. It is money her family desperately needs.

The romance that initially unfolds is so beautiful you ache for it to succeed but this is Hardy-based so things don't quite work out happily ever after. Jay, with his Western upbringing wrapped up in Indian culture is conflicted and this doesn't bring out the best in him.

Michael Winterbottom shows us India warts and all. A country that is modernising and on the up in certain respects but rooted in tradition and poverty in others. 

It's a beautiful, subtle, devastating and emotionally wrought film and I'm going to give it 78%. On IMDb it's got 62% and no Metacritic score yet. On Rotten Tomatoes it has 77% from critics and 52% of visitors gave it three and a half stars or more.

 

Review round up: Rob-bland Pattinson fails to reach emotional depths in Bel Ami

I've yet to be convinced the Robert Pattinson is anything but a pretty face and two emotions acting. I've not read the source novel on which the film is based but from what I've heard from those who have it had a lot more depth than is portrayed in the screen version.

It's about an ex soldier clawing his way up through late 19th century Parisian society by charming and seducing  rich woman. The twist is that the seducer is seduced and the world he is seeking to dupe turns the tables on his scheme. 

However that makes it sound more intriguing than it actually is. This is Dangerous Liaison's 'lite'. Despite a cracking supporting cast with the likes of Uma Thurman and Kristen Scott Thomas it just feels like the whole film sleep walks through the story.

If there is any inner turmoil or conflict going for our hero then he doesn't really show it. Neither is there any real passion. On a scale of one to 10 with one being really pissed off and suicidal and 10 being exctactic he bumbles around the 4,5, 6 mark pretty much all the way through.

It is all pleasant enough to watch with the costumes etc and RPatz is always easy on the eye but I couldn't help feeling it needed a rocket up its emotional bum somewhere along the line. Our Mr Edward Vampire either needs to reach deeper inside himself for his performance or a better vehicle with which to show off his talents. He's in danger of being dubbed Rob-bland Pattinson here in the vicarage.

Bel Ami is getting 50% from me. On IMDb it's got 59% with no Metacritic score while on Rotten Tomatoes it has 45% from critics and 53% of visitors have given it three and a half stars or more.

 

Review round up: The disturbing subtlety of Michael

Nearly forgot about this one, or is it a case of trying to forget? It's not that it is a bad film, it is more that it is a difficult film to watch. 

It's the story of a seemingly ordinary, boring man who has a darker side which is that he keeps a boy locked in his basement which he's specially kitted out for the purpose.

Not the lightest of subjects on which to base a film. The abuse is only alluded, happening off screen and thus leaving the awfulness to your own imagination. But what is all the more disturbing is the ordinaryness with which the man is painted. The writer/director Markus Schleinzer has purposely chosen to show him in this light rather than portraying him as an obvious deviant.

Yes he is abhorrant but had he been presented in some sort of monster it would have made it much easier to distance myself from what he is and what he is doing.  

His regular, boring, insurance clerk persona is far more affecting and disturbing. The tension is an underlying revulsion building to dramatic denouement, but dramatic in a way that you don't expect.

I didn't like Michael, like is the wrong word but I thought it was well done so it's getting 73% from me. On IMDB is has 75% with a Metacritic score of 64%, while on Rotten Tomatoes it has 72% from critics and 82% of visitors gave it three and a half stars or more.