24 Frames Per Second

House of Tolerance [18]

2012-01-28T15:31:00.001Z

Dir: Bertrand Bonello

Bertrand Bonello's latest has attracted diverse opinions, most of which seem to tend to one end of the scale or the other. It's not hard to see why people have loved it or why they have hated it, and that's really why I've been feeling quite torn on it.

The film takes place almost entirely within the confines of an upscale - but, we soon learn, financially precarious - brothel run by Madame Marie-France (Noemie Lvovsky) in 1900. We are plunged completely into this world, where the girls live, sleeping much of the day and taking care of clients ("Shall we have commerce?") all night. Through a multiplicity of characters we see all the workings of this place, particularly how the girls are, for the most part, trapped in their work by impossible to repay debts to the otherwise rather motherly Marie-France. For most the chance of escape will only come along if one wealthy client takes such a shine to them that he will pay her debts and marry her.

The brothel - called L'Apollonide, also the film's original title - is a whole world, and it has a large and wide ranging cast of characters, few of whom are likely to be very familliar faces to UK audiences. The good news is that the whole cast is excellent. Characters feel as though they would have been rather sketchy on the page (and it's true, some do blend into the background) but the actresses in the main roles bring plenty of personality to their performances.

It's a surprise that Hafsia Herzi, who plays the dark skinned Samira is top billed, because her character seems to have less to do and a rather more simplistic role (her colour makes her a novelty for clients) in the film, which isn't to say that she's bad, but may indicate that some of her scenes were cut. If any one character can be said to be the lead then it is Clotilde (Celine Salette), now 28, and a 12 year veteran of the trade, who turns increasingly to morphine, while hoping that her favourite client will pay her debts off. Salette easily has the biggest character arc, and she plays it with great emotion, but also with great restraint.

Among the other notables are Water Lilies' Adele Haenel as Lea, probably the most matter of fact of the prostitutes; Jasmine Trinca as Julie, whose relationship with one client could do with a bit more development; Alice Barnole, who makes a creditable debut as Madeleine, whose face is disfigured early in the film, and whose storyline is probably the most affecting and Iliana Zabeth, excellent as 16 year old new recruit Pauline.

The problem that Bonello creates himself is that despite a rather lengthy feeling 122 minute running time, the various small stories never really cohere into an overall narrative that drives the film forward, and the fact that there are too many characters for all of them (or even many of them) to come into sharp focus means that the langourous pace can become wearing and the lack of plot frustrating, even though the film is beautiful and well acted.

Bonello's visuals emphasise the two sides of the girls lives: the (likely fake) opulence of the brothels and client rooms, juxtaposed with the plain shared rooms that they sleep and eat in. While there is copious nudity (from all the prostitutes apart from Haenel), the film's sex isn't terribly explicit. Bonello seems less interested in the act than in the before and after. When Pauline arrives at L'Appollonide there is a long sequence taking her (and us) through the whole process the girls go through to prepare for one client and freshen up for the next. As well as the preparation, Bonello also looks at the consequences of these transactions, physically in terms of Madeleine's Joker-like scars, spiritually through Clotilde's relationship to her favourite client, and medically through a sequence in which a doctor comes in to check all the girls for diseases. All of this is beautifully captured, as Bonello's camera glides trhough this insular world.

Period detail is quite strong, but that doesn't mean that Bonello is afraid of a few anachronistic moments. Madeleine's nickname - the woman who laughs - is a nod to a Conrad Veidt film from 1928, but more notable is the use of music - soul over the opening credits, Nights in White Satin over a wake - that brings this modernism into the film in the most striking, and most interesting, ways (it works here in a way it doesn't in, for example, W.E.).

There are also problems with Bonello's direction though. He is certainly prone to repetition, and by the end develops a real tendency to overegg a point (the final shot is horrendously, head-slappingly, stupid, and feels like Bonello yelling 'GET IT?' through a megaphone into your ear), and the film, despite at times feeling overlong, also seems to have moments missing: why, for example, does one character vanish for a time, only to re-appear without comment?

I can see the problems here, it's certainly an uneven film, there is definitely some confusion around what Bonello is trying to say with it as a whole, and I can even see why it will infuriate some viewers, but there are great things in House of Tolerance. The more I consider it the more I think it will be interesting to revisit, if only to see how my feelings about it really shake out.

An Education: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

2012-01-25T12:00:00.000Z

Dir: Martin Scorsese

Why Is This On The Syllabus?
There are any number of reasons I've been meaning to see Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore for years. Take your pick from the fact that it's an early diversion for Martin Scorsese, quite different from most of the rest of his work, and made in an incredibly fertile period (in between Mean Streets and Taxi Driver). It also has an outstanding cast; an Oscar winning Ellen Burstyn, an Oscar nominated Diane Ladd, Harvey Kietel, Kris Kristofferson and an 11 year old Jodie Foster.

What Did I Learn?
That even in the seventies Martin Scorsese was not infallible.

I've been fortunate with the An Education project so far; I've seen several very good films and one great one, but the winning streak had to break at some point, and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore did it. Alice (Burstyn) is in her mid-thirties and living what seems to be a pretty unhappy life as a housewife, rather than fulfilling her ambition of being a singer, with her husband and their 11 year old son Tommy (Alfred Lutter). Her husband dies in an accident at work, and Alice and Tommy go on the road, aiming to end up in her home town of Monterey, but making stops along the way where Alice takes jobs singing or waitressing and ends up meeting suitors like Kietel and Kristofferson.

The basic problem was simple for me: I just didn't find Alice very interesting. She's a very unprepossessing character, very average, and while there's something to be said for dramatising the everyday lives of very normal people, there was little that hooked me in here. This isn't to say that Burstyn is bad, because she's not, in fact she's impressive, but Alice is just dull. She's got none of the spunk of Diane Ladd's Flo; a fellow waitress in a diner on one of the stops on Alice and Tommy's stop start roadtrip, and much of the time she feels a bit like a crying prop, moved from pillar to post, from man to man, but seldom moving the drama forward herself, and apparently (given the film's ending) not learning a damn thing on the way.

Another problem is that Alice is almost always accompanied by Tommy, who I understand is supposed to be annoying... but... JESUS. Not since Bob in The House By the Cemetery (yeah, I mentioned Lucio Fulci in an article about 70's Scorsese) have I wanted so desperately to be able to punch a small child in the mouth. He's a constant, whining, pain in the arse, really, the noise couldn't be more irritating if Alice took a police siren everywhere she went. Again, it's not that Alfred Lutter plays the role badly, it's just that the character is so exquisitely punchable.

The other performances largely follow a similar pattern; good actors in roles that are either one note (Keitel, Ladd) or so brief you hardly notice them (Foster, who is flat out fantastic for about ten minutes, Lane Bradbury, who does three minutes as Keitel's wronged wife). Diane Ladd is great, and gives the film a much needed shot of energy, her character also, eventually, lifts Alice's character somewhat, leading to one the film's best scenes where the two of them sit outside and talk about men. In the few scenes where Alice is having fun the film does spark to life a bit, another great scene comes when she's telling Kristofferson's David about how she learnt to kiss. Unfortunately these moments are few and far between.

Martin Scorsese is clearly out of his comfort zone, and he makes some very odd choices here. The film opens in 4:3 ratio, with an incredibly obviously stagebound tribute to The Wizard of Oz, establishing Alice's love of music. It's utterly against the tone of the the rest of the film. Scorsese has a fluid camera style for this film, but to me it felt extraneous, and never stopped the movie from feeling like a stage play. Again, it's not a case of a job being done badly, but the elements never seemed to fit together for me.

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore isn't a bad film, it's just a dull one. I never warmed to Alice, or really to any of the other characters, and that meant that the film never had the emotional weight and pull it was clearly striving for. A major disappointment.

Blu Ray News: Master of Cinema and Arrow Video announcements

2012-01-24T16:45:00.000Z

I don't do very much news on the site, but for a while I have been thinking that it would be wise to cover some releases and other news that I think would interest you. Note: This does NOT mean I'll be reporting every scrap of mundane movie news like some sites out there, as I consider that one of the great contributors to why movies struggle so much to surprise us anymore. However, some things are worth writing about...

Masters of Cinema announce April, May and June releases.
On April 23rd, Eureka Video's brilliant Masters of Cinema series will release the following titles on Dual Format Blu Ray and DVD.

LIFEBOAT(Masters of Cinema) DUAL FORMAT (STEELBOOK EDITION ALSO AVAILABLE)
Alfred Hitchcock's only film for Fox, made at the height of WW2, stars a first-rate ensemble cast, led by grande dame of the stage Tallulah Bankhead, as the survivors of a Nazi attack set adrift on a lifeboat in the Atlantic Ocean, pitted against interpersonal animosities, creeping paranoia, and the captain of the Nazi sub that placed them in their current predicament...

UGETSU MONOGATARI (Masters of Cinema) DUAL FORMAT
Mizoguchi's intensely poetic tragedy consistently features on polls of the best films ever made. This new HD restoration is the film's first appearance on Blu-ray anywhere in the world, and is accompanied by an HD presentation of Mizouguchi's 1951 classic OYÛ-SAMA.

SANSHO DAYU (Masters of Cinema) DUAL FORMAT
One of the most critically revered films in Japanese cinema history, Mizoguchi's deeply affecting classic has been newly restored in HD and appears here on Blu-ray for the first time anywhere in the world, and is accompanied by an HD presentation of Mizoguchi's 1953 classic GION BAYASHI.

On May 28th, MOC release a Charles Laughton double bill.

ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (Masters of Cinema) DUAL FORMAT (STEELBOOK EDITION ALSO AVAILABLE)
For the first time in the UK, one of the most imaginative and nightmarish fantasies from Hollywood's golden age of horror - starring the legendary Charles Laughton. Originally rejected by the BBFC, this first and best screen adaptation of H. G. Wells' THE ISLAND OF DR MOREAU, is one of Hollywood's wildest pre-Code pictures.

RUGGLES OF RED GAP (Masters of Cinema) DUAL FORMAT
The UK home viewing premiere of one of the finest films of Leo McCarey (MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW, AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER) finds Charles Laughton in one of his greatest roles as a personal valet shipped off to America in the service of the brash and wealthy Egbert Floud (played, coincidentally enough, by Charlie Ruggles); a sophisticated comedy of rude manners ensues.

and on June 23rd, two Billy Wilder classics arrive in the Masters of Cinema collection.

DOUBLE INDEMNITY (Masters of Cinema) BLU-RAY (STEELBOOK EDITION ALSO AVAILABLE)
Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler team up to create one of the greatest, and quintessential, films noirs of the studio era, a classic of the hard-boiled genre nominated for seven Oscars, and whose performances by Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson have been leaving audiences breathless for almost 70 years. Now, exclusively restored by The Masters of Cinema Series for its first ever release on Blu-ray anywhere in the world.

THE LOST WEEKEND (Masters of Cinema) BLU-RAY (STEELBOOK EDITION ALSO AVAILABLE)
An Academy-Award-winning (including Best Picture) triumph from the great Billy Wilder, with Ray Milland as a writer's-block-ridden and booze-sodden author spiralling into a days'-long rock-bottom binge crafted by Wilder with expressionist fervour. This gorgeous Blu-ray edition is the first available anywhere in the world.

Arrow Video announce Unlimited Editions

I LOVE Arrow Video's line of horror and exploitation Blu Rays, but they are hugely expensive, so here's some good news... Beginning with Caligula on February 20th Arrow will start releasing all their Blu Rays in 'Unlimited' editions. These will replace the initial print runs, boast 2, rather than 4, artwork choices and come in a standard BR case rather than the windowboxed slipcase of their current releases (editions like that will still be released for future titles, but will be limited). It appears that, aside from the poster, all the extras will be retained, and for the reduced RRP of £19.99, maaking these editions much more affordable.

X: Night of Vengeance [18]

2012-01-24T14:38:00.000Z

Dir: Jon Hewitt

X: Night of Vengeance. It's about two hookers (one about to retire, one just starting out) on the run from a killer who murdered their client, and set over a single night in Sydney's red light district. Well, that sounds promising; modern Ozspolitation, two beautiful women on a roaring rampage of revenge. That's what I thought, that's why I sat down. That's not what we got.

Let's start with this: X: Night of Vengeance is not a vengeance movie. The bigger problem? X: Night of Vengeance is not a good movie. At all. After the first half hour or so, X is absolutely relentless, and yet it's so incredibly straightforward, and so little fun, that it is massively dull. It has the cartoonish villainous bastards of an exploitation movie, but its female characters are blanks who either have to run away or be saved by men. It's dumb as a rock and completely heightened, but it can't reconcile that side of itself with director Jon Hewitt and co-writer Belinda McClory's pretensions to art and social commentary (both of which it botches anyway).

The tone is maddeningly confused. It starts out by being about 15 year street veteran Holly (Viva Bianca) finally quitting prostitution and moving to Paris on her 30th birthday, but the script then proceeds to kick Holly for the next 90 minutes, making her a punchbag for men and basically screaming at her that she's a whore and can't escape. The treatment of new arrival Shay (Hanna Mangan Lawrence) is no better, she's another stereotype; a 17 year old runaway from a drug addled home, and the film is so keen to beat on her that it never, ever lets up on her character's abject misery, even though it's set on her first night in Sydney. I think we're supposed to see Holly as a strong woman, but she seems only to exist to soak up abuse, and neither she nor Shay are allowed to strike back (like they might have on, say, A NIGHT OF VENGEANCE), their most proactive strategy being running to men for protection.

There are no surprises. When Holly and Shay go to Holly's 'boyfriend' for help it's clear what's going to happen. When Holly seems to leave Shay in the lurch you KNOW she's coming back, the narrative ticks predictably by, and for all its pace, never once raises the pulse.

If the women fall into just one type; victims, the men fare somewhat better, there are a whole two kinds of men in X. Of the three male characters with any real screentime two are cartoon bastards and one is - I'm not making this up - a saintly cab driving magician who falls for Shay (he's played, really quite badly, by Eamon Farren). The worst performance in the film comes from Stephen Phillips, who all but foams at the mouth as lead villain Bennett, and spits lines like "I hate women" in between beating the shit out of Holly and Shay (he's not very nice). It's not as if the acting is ever much better than that though. Viva Bianca is lifeless and remote as Holly, which would be fine if it seemed to be a persona for her tricks, but she's the same throughout the film, and Hanna Mangan Lawrence is little better, though what can you expect when all they've been asked to play is an assortment of clichés that needs rescuing a lot?

On the other hand, you have to give X: Night of Vengeance some credit; being boring and offensive is a hell of a trick.

Underworld: Awakening 3D [18]

2012-01-24T11:42:00.001Z

Dir: Marlind and Stein

I keep giving the Underworld series a pass, and I'm beginning to wonder why. I guess it's because I find the essential idea - a hundreds of years long war between clans of Vampires and Werewolves - pretty damn cool and I enjoyed the relentless, but generally decently choreographed, action scenes. It's always been rampagingly stupid and horribly written and acted though, and frankly I think I have finally lost patience with the series.

The film begins - AGAIN - with the opening shots of the first film (no, seriously) and a recap of the story so far (though passing over much of the last film, prequel Rise of the Lycans). We're also introduced to the premise of this film - humanity has discovered that Vampires and Lycans exist and is trying to destroy them (oh God, the Underworld series is attempting to be about ethnic cleansing). Selene (Kate Beckinsale) and her Vampire/Lycan hybrid lover Michael Corvin (played in the first two films by Scott Speedman, and here, judging by fact he's not listed on the film's IMDB page and never speaks, by a pile of pixels) are on the run. Selene is captured, and 12 years later she wakes up in a lab, immediately escaping and going on the run, while also hunting for the creature that helped her escape; a hybrid child known as Subject 2 (India Eisley).

Underworld: Awakening is one of those moves that pulls off the odd trick of being both head-slappingly simplistic and idiotic and massively complex and convoluted. So it makes less than no sense. To attempt to solve some of this issue every last line of dialogue is exposition (actually, I don't know that Kate Beckinsale has spoken a line in the whole series that wasn't exposition, or delivered as if she'd just woken from a coma, come to think of it). This tactic fails, largely because the dialogue is unspeakable.

The performances are woeful. Beckinsale has nothing to offer from an acting standpoint. The basic tools of acting seem to me to be intonation, expression and physicality, but Beckinsale never uses the first, and while Selene does have a particular physical presence that's largely thanks to Beckinsale's constraining costume. It's an incredibly boring performance, and a real problem given Selene's connection to Subject 2. Among the other performances, India Eisley is a perfectly blank counterpart to Beckinsale and Theo James as vampire/plot device David is so wooden that you could build a very nice chair out of his performance. The only actors who contribute anything resembling effort are the wildly hamming Charles Dance and Stephen Rea. Rea at least has the good grace to look mortified.

I might be fine with all this if it weren't for the 3D, for 3D is the destroyer of action. I was fine with the last three Underworld films because, really, who cared if they were stupid, the action was fun and bloody. Unfortunately you can't see much of the action this time as the mix of an overtly dark look, reasonably fast motion and cutting and frenetic action with (terrible) 3D means that the whole thing becomes a smeary, indistinct, mess.

I'm not going to waste more time on Underworld: Awakening (and I doubt I'll waste any on the sequel it signposts. Even if you're a fan (or as I am, a grudging enjoyer) of the franchise, this will disappoint, and if you're not, well, it's more of the same shit, but this time you can barely see it.

Haywire [15]

2012-01-20T12:46:00.000Z

Dir: Steven Soderbergh

I know that it may not often seem like it, because of my hatred of some of the recent trends in the genre, but I love action movies, and I've a particular fondness for martial arts films. It's always intriguing when a director not known for a background in action takes on an action film (recently think Joe Wright with Hanna or David Mamet with Redbelt), and Steven Soderbergh, eclectic talent though he is, is definitely not someone I expected to be branching out into the genre. Perhaps that's why I liked Haywire so much.

Haywire is a lean little movie; just about 90 minutes long, the plot and characters are skeletal -Mallory Kane (ex MMA fighter Gina Carano), who works as a contractor in operations the US government doesn't want on the books, is betrayed by her employer (Ewan McGregor), who sends an assassin to kill her, she survives, goes on the run, and vows revenge - but on these bare bones Soderbergh hangs a pacy and thrilling film with some great action scenes.

The supporting cast all have rather broadly defined roles, but that's fine, because whether it's Michael Douglas as the slimy, possibly untrustworthy, Government figure, Bill Paxton as Mallory's Dad or Michael Fassbender as the suave hired killer, they all give capable performances. For her part Carano will obviously never be one of the world's greatest or most versatile actresses, but she works perfectly here, giving Mallory a tough, direct, no shit attitude in everything from relationships to fights, it's not an especially deep characterisation, but it is consistent.

Where Carano and Soderbegh really come good is in the action scenes. Having cast a real fighter in the lead, Soderbergh seems to want to keep the fights as real as possible, so everything is ground level, hard punching and kicking. There don't seem to be any wire or CGI assits for Carano here, and even the sound effects seem subdued (we've become used to hearing a punch land like a gunshot, but here there is a much more naturalistic tone). This simple approach extendeds to the way Soderbergh shoots the action. So often I have to complain about Hollywood action scenes losing all sense of geography, thanks to shakycam close ups and editing that appears to have been done with a blender, not so here. For the most part (bar a tense set piece in Mallory's Father's house), the action is at least in mid shot, so we get a sense of the space between characters and of what's around them, and so that we can actually see the simple but effective action choreography. Haywire's fights don't have the balletic complexity of my favourite martial arts films, but their forceful simplicity works well for the film and is fun and thrilling to watch.

Picking out standout set pieces is hard here, because all of them are great. In an early scene, after a foot chase, Carano does a short run up a wall to take someone down, which is one of my favourite stunts in the film, and a fight with two armed policemen in a laundry is another highlight, but the brutal fight with Michael Fassbender may be the film's finest hour. Overall though, Soderbergh marshals and shoots the action brilliantly, from fights to foot chases to stunt driving.

Haywire isn't brain food, but there's nothing wrong with that, it's taut, thrilling and fun, and has one of the best endings I've seen in some time. It's a rare beast; an American action movie I can wholeheartedly recommend.

Goon [15]

2012-01-18T15:07:00.000Z

Dir: Michael Dowse

I wasn't expecting much from Goon, indeed I only really saw it because I had some free time that needed filling, but this turned out to be one of the more welcome surprises I've had in a cinema of late.

Goon is a sports comedy about Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott), Doug doesn't fit in with his family of academic overachievers, but when he gets into a fight at a semi-pro hockey game he's given the chance to be a 'goon' - essentially get into fights at tactically advantageous points in the game - for his local team. Moving up in the world, Doug finds himself playing for a team in a more professional league, guarding former star player Xavier La-Flamme (Marc-Andre Grondin), who hasn't been the same since he was injured by another 'goon', Ross 'The Boss' Rhea (Liev Schreiber). Doug finds himself bonding with teammates and falling for local girl Eva (Alison Pill) and on a collision course for a fight with Rhea when their teams meet in the play offs.

The reason I wasn't too excited at the prospect of seeing Goon was simply that I'm not a great sports fan, and that and the fact that I'm not Canadian, eh, means that I know less than nothing about hockey. The hockey story is the thing I found least interesting about Goon, it's not badly told, and the individual sequences feature some bone-crunchingly convincing and often pretty funny violence, but even in the final game the stakes feel pretty low, and while the clash of the titans between Scott and Schrieber delivers as a fight, it never feels hugely important.

I warmed to this film largely thanks to Seann William Scott's performance (which has to rank somewhere in the Top 50 sentences I never thought I'd need to type). Doug Glatt is basically the inverse of his American Pie alter-ego, Steve Stifler; he may be paid because he's great at punching people on the head, but Glatt is a gentleman to a fault, doing his job on the ice, but always apologising to the people he beats up, doggedly but politely pursuing Eva, and taking his lumps willingly when he has to. The role allows Scott to stretch acting muscles I wasn't sure he had, particularly when he tries to reach out to his disappointed parents (Eugene Levy and Ellen David). I wished the film had leant a little more heavily on the relationship storyline between Doug and Eva, because while Goon is by no means a romantic comedy their various dates and almost dates are funny, and the relationship is one you root for because both of them are good, likeable, people (amazing that a sports comedy gets right what almost every rom-com of the last five years has got so wrong). It also bears mentioning that Alison Pill is adorable as Eva, and really ought to be getting more work and be a bigger name than she is.

Some parts of the narrative can feel undernourished (I suspect the Blu Ray will have a large deleted scenes section), but the film gets by on a set of broad but enjoyable performances Schrieber is perhaps best, his Canadian accent seems dead on, but it's the sadness you feel from him when Rhea and Glatt meet over coffee, that really feels much more affecting than you'd expect. Also worth singling out in the ensemble are Richard Clarkin and Kim Coates as, respectively, the Captain and Coach of Doug's team. The only real letdown, for me, came from co-screenwriter Jay Baruchel, whose off-screen contributions are more rewarding than his shrill turn as Doug's best friend.

On the whole, Goon is flawed, but I enjoyed it warts and all, it's well worth taking a chance on.

An Education: The Searchers

2012-01-15T13:44:00.001Z

SPOILERS ahead

Dir: John Ford

Why is this on the syllabus?
I like to think, when it comes to cinema, that I've got a very solid knowledge base. I may not have seen everything, but I've at least seen some of everything. However, over the past two decades I have avoided one major genre; the Western. It just never really appealed to me (less so after doing the Old West in GCSE history, which was astoundingly dull compared to the history of medicine). I've seen, and love, a lot of films that modernise some the ideas of the genre (Badlands and No Country For Old Men, for instance), but the appeal of the classic Western has eluded me.

The thing is, the Western is one of the most important genres in cinema, and I can't really pretend to be a fully rounded film fan or critic without having seen a good few of them, nor indeed a good few films starring John Wayne and/or directed by John Ford, who are both, it's fair to say, somewhat important figures in cinema history. To me it seemed that their most renowned and best loved collaboration had to be my jumping off point for the genre.

What did I learn?
That there's much, much more to John Wayne than the endless 'Say Pilgrim...' parodies suggest. Though a massive star in his day, Wayne has never really been regarded as much of an actor, and seems to be viewed more as a walking persona. Obviously I need to see more of his films to really come down on a side of that argument, but on the face of it his work in The Searchers feels like a good rebuttal to those charges; embodying many of the film's darker and more morally complex themes.

That's another thing that surprised me about this film; I'd always envisioned the classic Western, perhaps incorrectly, as a genre where the morals were simple; good guys and bad guys easily defined and the tone one of a slightly wistful romanticism about simple times past. That's not this film, and it's all the better for it.

The story sees Wayne's Ethan Edwards return, years late, from fighting for the Confederacy. He goes to stay with his brother's family, but is quickly called away to investigate suspected cattle rustling by local Indians. It soon becomes clear that the cattle were a cover for a murder raid by the Comanche, and Ethan returns to find most of his Brother's family dead, and the two daughters missing. Ethan and his adoptive nephew (Jeffrey Hunter) set out to find the women and kill their kidnappers, embarking on a search that will take five long years.

In any other film this dedication would be pure, making Ethan the unambiguous hero of the picture and Jeffrey Hunter's Martin little more than a sidekick, but, happily, The Searchers is much more complex than that. Frank S. Nugent's dark screenplay (from a novel by Alan LeMay) paints Ethan as an unrepentant racist. He repeatedly tells Martin that they aren't family, not because Martin is adopted but because he's an eighth Cherokee, but that's really just the start. Ethan isn't on a rescue mission, he's out to kill, and not just the Comanche who killed his family. When they finally find Debbie, the niece who survived (played at 15 by an 18 year old Natalie Wood), Ethan and Martin discover that she has lived with and become part of the tribe, rather than been their prisoner and the idea that has bubbled under the entire film and been the reason that Martin has stuck so close by Ethan comes to the surface. As we've heard Ethan say earlier, prisoners who have lived within the tribe for so long aren't white any more, and he plans to kill Debbie along with the rest of the tribe, rather than take her home.

I wonder how this played in 1956, what it was like both to have Ethan be this way and to have movie refuse to treat him as a hero because of it, back in pre civil rights era America. I can't say, but certainly now it's a shockingly dark choice and the movie gains much complexity from the way it treats Ethan. Much of this comes from the relationship between Ethan and Martin, which remains suspicious throughout, and injects a great deal of tension into the film. In a mid-movie sequence Ethan appears to leave Martin alone and without a horse as he sleeps, and then draw a rifle on him. On this occasion, it happens, Ethan defends Martin (though he's also using him as bait), but there's never any doubt that if the younger man ceased to be useful, Ethan would have no compunction about killing him, or that, as much as he wants to rescue his adopted Sister, Martin is there largely to try to keep Ethan on a leash.

There are lighter things happening, namely the sub-plot about Martin and the girl (Vera Miles) who wants to marry him but is disappointed by his long absence hunting for Debbie. Miles is excellent and pretty affecting, but frankly this storyline just ends up taking away from the quest narrative and the dynamic between Ethan and Martin, especially in the long wedding sequence towards the end of the film, which stops the film's momentum at a critical point. A better handled lighter note is a misunderstanding that leads to Martin getting an Indian wife. Ethan's amused reaction to this gives us a glimpse of a lighter side of Wayne (though he never lets the continuity of character slip, Ethan's amusement is mean and racist) and it also powers the main narrative, and leads to a resonant moment later in the film.

Throughout the film both Wayne and Hunter are excellent; their terse and distrustful relationship rings true and powers the film and each plays the complexities of his character with credibility and conviction. The rest of the cast are a little overshadowed - though there are no real weak links performance wise - but Vera Miles is appealing as a woman surprisingly modern for 1868 and Natalie Wood makes an impression in her handful of scenes.

John Ford is a director whose work I hadn't previously seen, except in clips in documentaries, this won't be the last of his films I watch. Ford's direction makes this dark tale an incredible and accessible spectacle. He revels in the outstanding vistas that his settings (Monument Valley being the most recognisable) allow him, with many beautiful wide shots that communicate just how vast the task facing Ethan and Martin really is just in finding Debbie in the first place. However, Ford also finds beautiful and resonant shots in smaller and more personal moments. The justly famous bookends of characters framed in doorways spring to mind, each reflecting Ethan's place (or lack of it) in this more settled world. It's not just the still moments that Ford shoots beautifully though; this is a film full of action, and those sequences are beautifully realised. In fact, a lot of today's action filmmakers could learn something here; the gunfights are exciting and have real impact, but the cutting is still measured and the geography of the action sequences is clear. I can't stress how much more enjoyable action is when it's intelligible (Bay, are you listening?)

I think I'm several viewings away from getting everything I'm going to get out of The Searchers, as moments and shots are still lingering with me from last night. Ultimately, isn't that what defines a great movie; the knowledge that the next time you watch it you'll not only take away something more, but you might even take away something different?

Educate Yourself
If you buy The Searchers from one of these links you'll get the film and help out 24FPS at no extra cost. Awesome!

The Darkest Hour 3D [12A]

2012-01-14T14:44:00.001Z

Dir: Chris Gorak

By now you've probably heard of the irredeemable shittiness of The Darkest Hour; a 3D sci-fi thriller from the director of Right At Your Door, which was a solid piece of modern nuclear paranoia and promised better things than this for Chris Gorak's future. So, is it as awful as you've been told? Well... no, it's not, but it's pretty fucking close.

The story, such as it is sees internet entrepreneurs Emile Hirsch and Max Minghella arrive in Moscow, only to find that their idea has been stolen by an unscrupulous Swedish business man (Joel Kinnaman). Drowning their sorrows, Hirsch and Minghella meet tourists Olivia Thirlby and Rachael Taylor. As they party, mysterious lights arrive out of the sky, which turn out to be aliens. Most of the inhabitants of the city are killed, and this rag tag group find themselves on the run in a deserted Moscow.

It's not that The Darkest Hour doesn't have a decent premise, the problem is more that from the premise on down the whole thing is incredibly unoriginal. This is not so much a film as it is a mixtape; a grab bag of ideas from other, better, movies, jammed together in an asinine screenplay then shot in (pretty pointless) 3D in an effort to boost the box office numbers. There are shades here of War of the Worlds, 28 Days Later, and the less distinguished likes of Skyline and Tomorrow When the War Began (honestly, someone ripped off Tomorrow When the War Began... badly... that may be the saddest thing I've ever had to type). When the best you can of a film is 'at least it's slightly better than Skyline' you really have redefined damning with faint praise.

Despite a reasonably talented cast, the performances are terrible, Gorak has seemingly spent all his time on the 3D and the entirely bland and anonymous camera style, and left his actors to flounder with characters so thin they barely exist and dialogue so awkward and stilted you'd imagine it was lifted straight from a characterisation for dummies book. At a screenplay level the most frustrating thing is how fantastically stupid and inept these people are. Despite the entire city being destroyed and deserted, Hirsch decides to lead the group to the American embassy, even when it's pointed out to him that this is a stupid idea, as it will be in as bad a state as everything else in the city. However, the monopoly on idiocy is probably held by Olivia Thirlby's character, who, rather than swim for the safety of a submarine (that the characters are already aiming for) swims past it when aliens come close, then runs half a mile through an infested area and hides in a bus. We're meant to root for her safe return at this point, but any sensible viewer will think 'serve you right, stupid bitch'. They also manage to mess up everything. They group discovers two Russian survivors and, within hours of entering their (scientifically dubious) sanctuary, have destroyed it and got two people killed.

It's also worth noting that the idiocy is not confined to the characterisation. The difference between day and night is important here (because the invisible aliens set off electrical equipment, meaning the characters lightbulb warning system is only effective at night), so when, even though to any sighted layman, it looks like 10am or so on screen, someone says 'we have to hurry, the sun will be up soon', well, let's just say somewhere either a screenwriter or a director needs a harsh kick in the balls.

Ultimately though, while The Darkest Hour is egregiously stupid and inept, it's completely inoffensive. The actors are trying, they just don't have anything to work with (and the poor Russian cast members struggle valiantly with the English language) and while the 3D adds little it doesn't look all that terrible (that said, Gorak's composition is prone to flatness) and is technically average at worst. It's a waste of time, but I can't get cross about it, it went in one ear and out of the other, the time it takes to watch this film is approximately equal to the time it takes to forget it completely, so it shouldn't trouble you for long.

It's not good, and you shouldn't see it, but I'll be amazed if it's even in the conversation when we wrap up the worst of 2012.

An Education: Nashville

2012-01-12T20:30:00.001Z

Dir: Robert Altman

Why is it on the syllabus?
Because Robert Altman is one of the cornerstones, one of the major forces in American cinema, and one of the people who brought a daring independent sensibility to major studio films. He also pioneered a way of working, with a roving camera, naturalistic performances and multi-tracked dialogue that not only allowed him to brilliantly marshal huge casts, but also continues to influence filmmakers to this day. Nashville is continually mentioned as one of his most uncompromising and best films.

What did I learn?
That you CAN fit ten hours worth of material into a 159 minute film. I've found Altman hit (Short Cuts, Three Women) and miss (Popeye, Dr T and the Women, Cookie's Fortune), but when he's on song, it really is a joy. Nashville may be the best I've seen from his extensive filmography, it is an astonishing technical achievement, but more importantly it's riveting throughout, engaging us in an incredible patchwork of moments; snapshots from the lives of 24 different people.

There are many things to love about Nashville, but perhaps the thing that makes it truly great is the simple fact that I would quite happily watch a film about all 24 of its major characters. I'd love to spend two hours with Shelley Duvall's LA Joan, whose outgoing exterior seems to mask a real sadness and loneliness. It would be fascinating to spend an extended time exploring the home life of Delbert (Ned Beatty), Linnea (Lily Tomlin) and their two deaf kids; to see the story behind and before Mr Green's (Keenan Wynn) trips to see his beloved wife in the hospital; to find out more about the relationship between Wade (Robert DoQui) and terrible country singer Sueleen (Gwen Welles); to discover the origins of the rivalry between Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakley) and Connie White (Karen Black) and so, so much more. There's so much here I almost wish Altman and screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury had turned it into a TV series.

The structure of the film is intriguing. It begins in tiny, mosaic like pieces, with Altman capturing multitudes of characters, each engaged in their own little moments in a single place, be it an airport as Barbara Jean touches down, the traffic snarl created by a major car accident or people milling around at the hospital, for the first 45 minutes or so the film barely sits still, and develops an on the fly feel as it freewheels along, dipping into people's lives, sometimes only for a sentence or two at a time. As little as you actually see and hear of each story, these snatched moments of time feel real and intimate, and that's why Nashville ends up being so affecting, and often very funny.

As the characters become more established the film begins to pick a few to turn a sharper focus on, while never losing sight of anyone. Chunks of story become longer, and characters begin to cross over in bigger and more meaningful ways. Country stars, aspiring singers, fans, housewives and politicians all cross paths and purposes, leading to some ambitiously staged scenes that inform several stories at once. One good example is in a club where Keith Carradine, as a member of a pop-country trio who has been avoiding his bandmates all week (despite also carrying on an affair with the female singer (Cristina Raines)) who is married to his other bandmate (Alan Nicholls), performs a song from the solo album he's working on, and at least four women in the audience (Duvall, Raines, Tomlin and a BBC journalist played by Geraldine Chaplin) think he wrote it for them. This scene plays out almost as a large scale version of the record booth scene in Before Sunrise, with each woman receiving the song silently, but with clearly different emotions, only one of them aware of any of the others. It's a complex piece of drama, playing out five stories subtly over the length of one three minute pop song.

Of course, complexity, both at a narrative and a technical level, is Nashville's stock in trade. The editing is extraordinary. Picture editing is one thing, a clearly massive job brilliantly done by Dennis Hill and Sidney Levin, but the sound editing and mixing is the film's make or break masterpiece. So much of Nashville hinges on snatches of conversation, on what we hear front and centre, on what we barely hear. Music maybe the film's main preoccupation, but the soundtrack is much more textured and complex than that; even during the numbers we'll often hear other characters, whether offscreen or in the background. This is the major component of the brilliantly textured world Altman has built here, and sound editor William A Sawyer deserves as much praise as anybody for this film.

The thing is, pretty much everybody deserves praise. Of the actors only Geraldine Chaplin disappoints (her journalist is the flightiest of creatures, and I don't believe the BBC would broadcast her airy fairy shit in a month of Sundays), but even she has wonderful moments, as when,listening to the businessman son of country star Haven Hamilton sing the only song he's ever written, she jumps up in excitement when she spots Elliot Gould. The rest of the performances are exemplary, from Shelley Duvall (at this stage Altman's muse) as the girl who is so desperate not to just be Martha, to Gwen Welles' funny and moving turn as the self-deluding Sueleen and from Henry Gibson's Haven Hamilton; a man as fake as his terrible wig, to Keith Carradine's nakedly, proudly bastardly Tom, who phones another girlfriend before Lily Tomlin's Linnea has even left his hotel room. Singling people out seems almost unfair though, because right down to the smallest roles, like Scott Glenn's recent 'Nam vet, the performances are exemplary.

Many of the actors also have to sing, and most of those also had a hand in writing their material. Here it's a bit more of a mixed bag, most of the songs are great; I'd never heard them before, but they felt and sounded like established country hits, but some of the singers aren't so good, even when they're supposed to be. Henry Gibson (who you'll recognise, by the way, from Magnolia) and Karen Black both suffer vocally in comparison to some of the other singers in the film, notably Ronee Blakley and Raines, Carradine and Nicholls as the trio. However, Altman and his camera, and the audiences in the film, are so swept in the music and the particular atmosphere of Nashville that you can't help but get carried along.

Nashville is 159 minutes long, but I could quite easily have sat through another two hours, so rich are the world and the characters and so dazzling is the way that Altman juggles them all and finds the right tone with every scene. This is a brilliant and beguiling film.

Educate yourself: Unfortunately Nashville has never been released on UK DVD, and is deleted in the US. BLU RAY PLEASE!!

Next Lesson: The Searchers

The Picture Show: Worst of 2011

2012-01-11T13:40:00.000Z

In the second of The Picture Show's four Review of 2011 specials, Mike Ewins is back, and joins me for a discussion of the shittiest films of the past 12 months. We each ran down our Bottom 10 of the year, so expect a couple of hours of spittle flecked rage. You can listen to the show below, or click HERE to download the file. Enjoy, and catch you next time for the Picture Show/24FPS Awards.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows [12A]

2012-01-10T21:11:00.001Z

Dir: Guy Ritchie

A couple of years ago I gave a surprisingly warm (especially for me, let's not kid ourselves here) review to Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, which threw me for a loop by not only failing to suck, but by actually being pretty damn good, well, Ritchie has largely redressed the balance here, because this sequel feels tired where the original felt fresh and is wheezy where the original was energetic.

Time has passed in the world of Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr) and Dr John Watson (Jude Law). Watson is getting married, and preparing to leave behind his cases with Holmes, but Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris) has other ideas. He has a dastardly plan, but also wants to toy with Holmes. After Moriarty's cronies try to kill Watson and his bride (Kelly Reilly) as they leave for their honeymoon the two old colleagues find themselves trailing across Europe, often accompanied by a gypsy named Sim (Noomi Rapace), hunting Moriarty and trying to stop whatever he has planned.

One of the key problems with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is foregrounded in its title; it's a considerably darker film than its predecessor, in all aspects. The first film did have a sort of grimy look to it, but the colour palette was certainly more varied than that of Game of Shadows, which is grey. Costumes are grey, settings are grey, even the cinematography has a grey pallor about it, making the film quite dull to look at.

This darkness and dullness is also felt in the rest of the film, there is a definite attempt to be grittier, make the violence as close to the edge of the 12A certificate as possible and to generally make the film as downbeat as possible. To its massive disadvantage this is felt most in the relationship between Holmes and Watson, which seems to have lost its spark. Much of Holmes wit seems missing this time, and so his intellect, unleavened by humour, often feels smug. Where we sensed Holmes and Watson's closeness last time, we need to be convinced of it here.

When the film goes for funny this time out the aim has a tendency to be off, hitting silly and campy or - in one scene involving Holmes' brother Mycroft (Stephen 'national treasure' Fry) and Watson's wife - just plain inexplicable. The scene of Holmes in drag is a good example; the visual is good for one small, sniggering, laugh (if that, given the fact the reveal has been in every single trailer for the last few months), thereafter it's just awkward, and goes on far too long. The set pieces are reasonable, and an early one in which Sim, whom Holmes has just met, is attacked by a would be assassin is especially good fun, ranging through a massive gambling den and on to the streets. It's also true that Ritchie keeps the pace, if not the interest, high.

On top of the fact that the returning leads feel rather stunted this time out, there is the fact that Noomi Rapace, who is among the top 1 percent of the best working actors (see her astonishing turn in Daisy Diamond for proof) is utterly wasted as the gypsy woman who may have the key to stopping Moriarty. At a certain point, towards the end of the film, I thought I'd figured out what, besides window dressing and an expositional prop, Rapace was for in this movie, it seemed like an obvious twist, but still, a pretty cool one. I was wrong. It turns out that I had written a much more interesting and complex climax for the film from my seat in the fourth row from the back. That's never good. I just hope Rapace is better served by the upcoming Prometheus, and, if not, that she has the good sense to go back to Sweden and stop taking roles so beneath her talents.

As the series' big bad (who had an entire movie as a tease for his unveiling in this one), Jared Harris gives a solid performance, but his Moriarty never seems all that much of a threat, or even especially evil (particularly given his irony laden speech to Holmes across a chess board), but this is more the fault of the script than the performance, which is true of all the acting here, everyone is working hard, but the mood of the movie is wrong, and the script feels a bit lifeless.

It's a pity that Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows isn't better, because the cast - right down to Stephen Fry and the ever-charming Kelly Reilly - deserve more than they're getting here, and the first entry meant that this was a sequel I had been looking forward to.

Picture Show: 2011 in Review - Part 1

2012-01-07T11:47:00.000Z

In this episode of The Picture Show I was joined by Mike Williams (of The Littlest Picture Show) and we discussed our Top 5 Blu Ray and/or DVD releases of 2011, as well as picking a couple of runners up and our most wanted Blu Rays for 2012.

Thanks to Mike for joining me (subbing, at the last minute, for Mike Ewins). Hope you enjoy the show. You can listen to it below, or click HERE where you can download the file.

An Education: The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three ['74]

2012-01-06T22:17:00.001Z

Dir: Joseph Sargent

Why is this on the syllabus?
I saw Tony Scott's remake of this movie when it opened in cinemas a couple of years ago, and gave it what was probably, on reflection, a slightly over generous review (essentially saying that it was fine, but totally unremarkable). This first version of the story is a film I've had it in the back of my mind that I need to see for many many years, thanks largely to Quentin Tarantino, who credits Pelham with inspiring the colour coded character names for Reservoir Dogs.

I've also got a particular fondness for crime films, and while this may not be considered in the first rank of the genre's classics, it is an influential and well regarded film that I haven't seen, from a period when Hollywood was turning out great crime movies seemingly on a constant loop.

What did I learn?
Well, let's call it revision, and say that the topic we covered today is why remakes are almost always inferior. Tony Scott's LOOK AT MEEE, I'M MAKING A FUCKING MOVIE style isn't really suited to this story. For the most part it's a claustrophobic tale of four men - Mr Blue (Robert Shaw), Mr Green (Martin Balsam), Mr Grey (Hector Elizondo) and Mr Brown - who hijack a New York Subway train and 17 of its passengers, and demand that the city pay them a million dollars within an hour, or they will begin killing one hostage a minute. That's when it's best, on the train and in the headquarters of the Transit Police, as Walter Matthau locks horns with Shaw over the radio.

While Scott sought to liven things up with snazzy angles, manipulated colours and a thumping cutting rhythm, director Joseph Sargent, a veteran even at this point, keeps the focus squarely on his stellar cast, favouring a sedate camera style and reasonably lengthy shots which heighten both the tension and the sense of a mano a mano struggle between Blue and Matthau's Zachary Garber. Robert Shaw is great as Mr Blue, his absolute resolve and total calmness are chilling (and betray a possible influence on an iconic villain to follow; Hans Gruber). I also like that the film doesn't really dig into his backstory (outside of a couple of broad hints and the fact that he's British), as a criminal without a motive, in this case aside from the money itself, is always scarier. The other villains also do good work; Balsam is effective as the conflicted Green and Elizondo unrecognisable as the dangerous Grey. Matthau, too, is as good as ever; always America's rumpled, working class, everyman, he comes across as just a simple guy doing his job well in circumstances that are a little unusual, but there's no grandstanding, no big hero moment, even when he figures out something important it's just another part of just another day.

I appreciated this low key style, it makes the events seem more real, and when you've got a constrained thriller like this it's important that we as an audience buy into the situation, and when we're on the train, or sitting at Garber's desk, the whole thing feels very credible.

Unfortunately the film gets broader when it opens up beyond those two arenas, and that doesn't completely work for it. Scenes with Lee Wallace as an ill and unpopular mayor and Tony Roberts as his deputy feel like they are teleported in from a different film (an unfunny and overly blunt satire, for the record) and a lot of the other police and transit department characters also feel too broad (though Jerry Stiller is funny in a small role, and in a way that works when it plays off Matthau). Visually it's not the most stylish piece, but Sargent held my attention with his tight grip on the script, and his visuals serve to help communicate the story rather than dazzle us with visual flash.

The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three may not quite ascend to the first rank of seventies crime classics, but it's an engaging heist movie that is intelligently scripted and effectively puts you in the shoes of the characters thanks to strong acting and direction. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Educate yourself
If you buy The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three though these links you'll be getting the movie and helping out 24FPS at no extra cost. Awesome!

Next Lesson: Nashville

An Education: A Canterbury Tale

2012-01-02T18:59:00.001Z

An Education is a new series for 24FPS. Across the course of 2012 I'm going to be filling some holes in the list of accepted 'classics' that I realise I should have seen, but for one reason or another I have thus far not got around to. I'll be watching and reviewing 104 films across the course of the year (and another 52 horror films in a sister feature for www.horrormovies.ca) I'm really looking forward to it, and I hope you'll join me in what I hope is going to be something of a voyage of cinematic discovery.

If you've any thoughts on the articles, or the films I'm going to be watching (full list HERE) then please share them in the comments, via email to sam@24fps.org.uk or tweet me @24FPSUK

First up...

A CANTERBURY TALE
Dir: Michael Powell

Why is this on the syllabus?
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's films are some of the most significant in British cinema, and I've seen some (though not enough) of their later, more iconic, work, and loved it. The Red Shoes is among my favourite films of all time. I chose A Canterbury Tale because it's a slightly unexpected pick from their filmography as compared to the likes of Colonel Blimp or I Know Where I'm Going, and I'd been meaning to watch it for some time now.

What did I learn?
That I don't unconditionally love Powell and Pressburger. Now, put the torches down, stop the screams of 'burn the witch', A Canterbury Tale is a very, very good film, and I enjoyed watching it, but I really can't pretend that it had me at the same level, either of spectacle or emotion, as A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus or The Red Shoes. This may, admittedly, be partly my fault. One of the problems of spending 21 years watching movies on a more or less non-stop loop is that it leaves little time for reading, and I've never got around to reading any of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which screenwriter Pressburger is apparently echoing here, I imagine that if you've got a working knowledge of Chaucer the whole film will play much better, and likely feel more meaningful than it did for me.

The story here is slightly strange. Getting off the train in a village outside Canterbury, Alison, a young Land Girl, (Sheila Sim) meets two soldiers; Peter, an Englishman (Dennis Price) and Bob, an American (John Sweet, a non-professional who was a Sergeant in the US Army, and never acted in another film), as they walk to find somewhere to stay Alison is attacked by 'The Glue Man', who has been regularly pouring glue over the hair of girls who are going around with soldiers. Over the weekend the three stay in the village, and Alison decides that they should discover who the Glue Man is, before heading on to Canterbury on Monday.

The film's mystery storyline doesn't work terribly well, not that it's poorly told, but it's so lightweight (and the solution so stark staring obvious from the off), that it just isn't all that engaging, but I suspect that that's not really the point, and certainly Powell and Pressburger seem more interested in village life, the way people pull together in a time of war and the relationships between Alison, Peter, Bob, and Thomas Colpeper (Eric Portman), who seems to be something equivalent to head of the village council. This is where the film excels, as Pressburger's script draws each of them with some depth and complexity, and makes each relationship feel a little bit different. Particularly well written and played is the relationship between Bob and Alison, who bond over lost love in one of the film's standout scenes.

All of the performances are strong. Portman's role could quite easily have invited a hammy performance, but while he's appropriately stuck up at times (one scene takes place as he's giving a lecture to the assembled soldiers on the history of the local area), he also evolves as a character, being drawn in by the three main characters after being dismissive of them to begin with. It's left up to us to decide how much of this change of attitude is a ploy. Sheila Sim makes for an appealing lead, and a surprisingly modern one for 1944, as she takes the lead in investigating the Glue Man, drawing the men in after the fact. As Peter and Bob Price and Sweet both do solid work, with Sweet giving a relaxed and natural performance.

A Canterbury Tale is interesting in a lot of ways. At times it feel like it is pining for a dying (and now dead) way of life (look at the scenes with the wheelwright, a job that has likely completely died out now). It's also something of a tourist film, showing us glimpses of the quaint folk who live in the English countryside, and the way a GI reacts to them, but perhaps first and foremost it is propaganda, with the accent heavily on co-operation and friendship between British and American forces and civilians during the war effort. This seems especially hammered home in a storyline involving local village boys first playing at being armies and then helping to uncover the Glue Man.

Erwin Hillier's black and white cinematography is beautiful and crisp, he uses shadow beautifully, especially in the handful of night time scenes, and the vistas looking over the hills to Canterbury are expansive and stunning (a view I'm very familiar with, having ridden the bus into Canterbury most days for five years). between them, Powell and Hillier have created a striking looking film, even though, for my money, Powell's best work is in colour.

Ultimately, though I liked the characters, and was appropriately charmed by the film's ending, A Canterbury Tale seems a bit muddled, and a bit lightwieght compared to what I've previously seen from Powell and Pressburger, but it's still an engaging and enjoyable work, and one I suspect I'll grow to like more on rewatches. Now, where's the Chaucer?

Educate Yourself
If you buy A Canterbury Tale though these links you'll be getting the movie and helping out 24FPS at no extra cost. Awesome!

Next Lesson: The Taking of Pelham 123 ['74]

Mini Reviews: Millennium Trilogy (Extended Versions)

2012-01-02T15:02:00.000Z

Over the last couple of years it seems like I've spent quite a lot of time writing about the various depictions of the story and character of Lisbeth Salander, and Steig Larsson's Millennium trilogy. Having handed something of a kicking to David Fincher's adaptation of the first book; The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (still carrying the neutered English title, rather than the much better original title Man Som Hatar Kvinnor - Men Who Hate Women), I thought it was high time to revisit the original films, and to take a first look at them in the extended versions in which they were shown on Swedish television.

In the interest of full disclosure, I had seen Dragon Tattoo a couple of times since its cinema release, but had not, until now, revisited the sequels.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Dir: Niels Arden Oplev

For me this is (and will surely remain, at least until, 20 years down the line, Hollywood decides that the story needs a reboot) the definitive screen version of this story. The strengths of the cinema version remain here, particularly in the way that Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg's adaptation strips away the political ranting that can make Larsson's novel a chore at times, to focus in on the characters and the entertainingly implausible mystery at the film's centre. The writing brings each of the characters a bit closer to reality; Lisbeth no longer seems quite so superhuman as Larsson paints her, and Blomkvist no longer hooks up with everything in a skirt. The best thing about the adaptation though is how simply and clearly it renders the exposition about the Vanger family and the disappearance of Harriet Vanger, and how it resits using the reams of expository dialogue that Fincher's film falls back on to do this.

The casting and performances are what make the film tick and they are all at the very least solid efforts, and most are much better than that. Many of the cast benefit from the extra 30 minutes added to this version of the film, but none so much as Lene Endre, whose Erika Berger is more of a presence, much more fleshed out, and her relationship with Blomkvist more important, this is just one example of the many ways that the extended and added scenes provide more colour, making the film more engaging. Also excellent - contrary to what I had remembered, and reported in my review of Fincher's film - is Sven Bertil Taube as Martin, giving a performance that is, on reflection, more inheld and therefore more surprising than Stellan Skarsgaard's.

The leads are both excellent. The rumpled Michael Nyqvist makes a great Blomkvist, putting across his tunnel vision and sense of mission across ably, without losing sight of the character's intellect, or his affection for Berger, Salander and even Harriet Vanger (the connection between them is retained here, and brings a personal dimension missing from Fincher's film). However, even though her presence feels a little reduced in this extended version (because it is largely Blomkvist's side that is boosted), the film completely belongs to Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander. There's an edge of danger to her at all times, an unpredictability, and much more sense of what might well be Aspergers. The relationship with Blomkvist, as in the book, is prickly and distant, and even after they become lovers she remains totally closed off to him. While the character never lets others in, Rapace does allow us to get a sense of what is going on beneath the surface, rather than simply allowing Lisbeth to be moody.

Neils Arden Oplev's direction, while unblinking when it comes to the film's several brutally violent passages, isn't the most visually striking thing, but it serves the storytelling perfectly well, even if it serves up few truly memorable images. That said, the image of the killer's collection of memorabilia - though, ironically, right out of the Fincher playbook - is nightmarish and lingers in the memory. Oplev seems to have opted to fcus on the performances, and that's a great choice when they are so strong. Overall, Oplev has a firm grasp on his film, even at three hours the pace never really flags, and he keeps the investigation thread taut and logical - at least in its progression - throughout, while hitting all the character beats well, and dealing with the novel's long coda in a brisk fashion that wraps up the film in short order while also supplying the information we'll need for the sequels.

This definitely isn't a perfect film, but it addresses many of the flaws of its source by intelligently pruning the narrative and injecting a little more reality into Larsson's characters.

The Girl Who Played With Fire / The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Dir: Daniel Alfredson

It makes sense to tackle the second and third parts of the Millennium trilogy as a single, massive, arbitrarily divided narrative, not least because that was exactly what the novels were. Unfortunately, as well as being based on two novels full of increasingly hilarious implausibities, these films saw a shift in behind camera talent, with Ulf Ryberg taking writing duties and Daniel Alfredson (brother of Let the Right One In helmer Tomas) handling the direction. While Dragon Tattoo was broadcast on TV in the extended version detailed above, these films were made for TV, and it shows in many ways.

First of all Alfredson's films are shot on notably grainier stock, but there's also just a flatness about both his camera and his cutting style. However, most of the problems stem from the novels, which take Lisbeth even further into superhuman territory, and pile conspiracy upon conspiracy and coincidence upon coincidence until it all becomes risible. That said, the films remain pretty engaging largely thanks to a fine cast and the solid telling of what is admittedly a silly story. The Girl Who Played With Fire is by far the better film, and benefits hugely from 53 minutes of extended and added scenes, which balance the narrative to a much greater degree and allow the plot to track much more easily than in the cinema version (which also conspires to make Hornet's Nest feel much more satisfying at this level than it was at the cinema, as the two inform each other), it's also got real urgency in the second half, as Lisbeth tracks down and determines to kill her nemesis (though this sequence eventually falls victim to some of Larsson's silliest writing).

What keeps these films (especially the rather dull Hornet's Nest) afloat are the continued efforts of a fine cast, Lene Endre and the rest of Blomkvist's Millennium colleagues continue to benefit from an increased presence and import in the story, and Annika Hallin does nice work as Blomkvist's sister, who becomes Salander's lawyer, but once again it is the leads, and most particularly Rapace, who command the attention.

Michael Nyqvist basically continues where he left off with Blomkvist, he remains the stoic and principled hero, it's Noomi Rapace who really evolves here. Rapace is as effortlessly charismatic as she was in the first film, and perhaps more so than before seems to have simply stepped out of the books. In the last three parts of the series (that is the second half of Played With Fire and most of Hornet's Nest) Rapace is largely silent, but there is as much going on as there ever was when she was speaking simply in the way she sizes up people and situations, and we still feel the potential for danger in all that she does. Even at the most outlandish moments, even when Salander is basically a superhero, Rapace keeps things just about grounded.

The added scenes can't fix the silliness, nor can they mend the utterly broken pace of Hornet's Nest, which moves like a snail on valium before coming round for a solid final confrontation, but they do mean that the films at least make more sense, and they also benefit from being watched together. On the whole though, despite the best efforts of all concerned, and another great turn from Noomi Rapace, these are disappointing follow ups to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo [2011] [18]

2011-12-27T23:04:00.000Z

Dir: David Fincher

David Fincher is generally regarded as one of the world's finest filmmakers, and at his best you'd be hard pressed to argue with that summation, but for me Fincher's hit rate is really only 50% Discounting Alien3, which he's never officially acknowledged any version of as belonging to him, Fincher's career falls into a pretty clear on form/off form pattern with modern classics Se7en, Fight Club, and Zodiac followed respectively by the solid but uninspired The Game and Panic Room and the cloyingly awful The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and so, following modern classic number four (The Social Network), it seems Fincher is due an off day, and so it has proven with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Despite the fact that Steig Larsson's posthumous mega-bestseller is very much in his wheelhouse, with its tales of serial murder and long running mystery, this still seems an odd assignment for Fincher. Yes he's worked extensively within genre cinema, and yes he's adapted stories from other media before, but he's probably the last person I expected to sign up to Hollywood's latest little obsession; the remake. As most readers will know, Larsson's books - all three of them - have already, and recently, been adapted for the screen in a Swedish/Danish co-production most notable for introducing the world to Noomi Rapace. It's a surprise to see Fincher reinterpreting another director's work, especially with that work fresh in audiences minds, having dominated the world cinema scene somewhat in 2009 and 2010. Fincher and screenwriter Steven Zaillian have argued that this is not a remake so much as it is a fresh cinematic take on Larsson's novel, but whether you buy in to that argument or not, it has bone deep problems.

Having - rightly - determined that this story, given the historical background, is quintessentially Swedish, Fincher has retained the original setting of Hedestad in Northern Sweden, but has his international cast speak English. This is often something that gets on my nerves. If a film is set in a specific place, if it is about people from there, if it deals with the culture and history of that place, then surely it should be in the language that belongs to that place. The issue here is exacerbated by the extremely mixed bag of accents, which range from Rooney Mara's brave and largely successful film long attempt at an authentic Swedish tone to Daniel Craig's almost rude lack of effort, which almost feels like he's sticking two fingers up at Fincher and the audience and saying 'you fuckers are lucky I showed up at all, that's all the effort I'll be putting in'. This means that while Fincher, ever the visual master, exploits every bit of the stark and wintry beauty of his locations, the film never really has a firm foothold in the world - it feels muddled, not specific.

Credit where credit is due. Fincher and cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth definitely make this telling of the story more viscerally and identifiably cinematic than Neils Arden Oplev's relatively visually pedestrian 2009 effort. Fincher know exactly where to place a camera; his shots feel incredibly designed, but they communicate story in themselves, and many of his films would work for long periods with the sound off. This is an impeccable looking film, made up to within an inch of its life, not a hair out of place. That said... this is also one of the problems here, for a film that should be rather down and dirty in a lot of its scenes, Dragon Tattoo is often too perfectly poised, I felt this most in the film's two shocking rape scenes. Fincher doesn't shrink from the violence or the violation, but somehow the cruder technique of the Swedish film felt more viscerally upsetting to me set against the cinematic perfectionism on show here.

The cast are generally fine, but again the comparisons with the Swedish film don't do them many favours. Most seem as if they are pretty much like for like swaps, Robin Wright for Lena Endre, for instance, Wright is fine casting as Erika Berger, but she doesn't do anything that would justify casting her over Endre besides talking in English. The re-casting does come good in one case, Stellan Skarsgaard should quite clearly always have been Martin, and he easily exceeds Sven-Bertil Taube's performance. Unfortunately the casting and acting come unstuck in some important areas too. Daniel Craig is an actor I've never really understood people's enthusiasm for, I've only ever found him effective as Bond (and then only when he's in robotic killing machine mode, when has to emote it just hurts) and here he's as lackadaisical and disengaged as he always seems, sleepwalking through the role of Mikael Blomkvist in another monotone performance (which is also, as noted above, utterly unencumbered by a Swedish accent), he seems less like a crusading Swedish journalist who just lost everything than he does a British businessman on a notably shitty holiday. He's also, frankly, too much of a movie star. Michael Nyqvist's rumpled Blomkvist seemed much more real (which, to be fair, is unlike the book, which characterises him as an irresistible permashagging superjourno)and was, therefore, much more engaging.

Of course, the one thing you have to get right when adapting The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the titular Lisbeth Salander. The original film had best of all worlds, making Lisbeth just a bit more real than she is in the book (where, one suspects, she's written as Larsson's particular sexual fantasy) and having her played by the extraordinary Noomi Rapace, in a barnstorming turn that signed her ticket to Hollywood. Casting wise, Fincher does reasonably well, it's in the writing that this depiction of Salander fails. When Salander meets her new guardian, who is about to sexually molest her, he says that she is sexy when she's surly, and in that moment the film diagnoses its own biggest flaw; Salander is surly. In the book and the original film there is an ever present sense of danger about Salander, as if a single wrong word can set her off like lighting a fuse to a stick of dynamite, that's absent here, and replaced with a surly character, who the film proceeds to warm up much too quickly. The prickly relationship with Blomkvist, which continued even after they slept together, is largely swept under the carpet, the rough edges are smoothed away to leave a character who feels like she's been chipped away at to make her a little more palatable for a mainstream audience. The last time I wrote about her I was very, very rude about Rooney Mara (and no, I won't be taking anything back), but she does well here; she totally commits to the part, changing her face and her body, dyeing her hair and eyebrows and getting extensive body piercings. She's working extremely hard, and that, again, is really the problem. With Noomi Rapace she just walked on screen and owned it, that's never true of Mara, she always seems as slight as she is, and never has that screen searing charisma that powered the original film. The thing is, it's hard to blame Mara for that, because the depiction of the character is so much slighter than it was previously. Fincher has retained the character's physical nakedness, but forgotten the emotional nakedness.

While they run to a similar length (at least in their big screen versions, the Swedish film also exists in a 3 hour extended cut which I'll be reviewing soon), this Girl seems to move more slowly. The details of the investigation slot nicely into place, and there's some welcome extra background about Salander's relationship with her first guardian, but the film just feels baggy in a way that the previous one didn't, even with repeat viewings. Zaillian's alterations to the ending are also neatly done, but ultimately the changed conclusion doesn't really add or take away anything from the story, it's a different angle, really no better or worse.

The one area in which this film does completely exceed the Swedish film is in its soundtrack. Not only is the effects track as meticulous as you'd expect of Fincher, but the musical choices are little short of inspired. Social Network composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross supply the score, mixing dark industrial beats with strings to fine and creepy effect, they'll likely pick up a second Oscar in as many years (though my vote would be for The Chemical Brothers' Hanna score), song choices are also brilliant, with one scene ensuring - mercifully - that Enya's Orinoco Flow will never again sound the same, and the Karen O featuring cover of Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song driving n opening title sequence that is, for good or for ill, the single most exciting thing in the film.

On the one hand, as a fan of the Swedish film and especially of Noomi Rapace' performance, I was never really expecting this film to be anything but an expensive exercise in redundancy, but even with that in mind, given the talent involved, this has to go down as a major disappointment, because if anyone could stamp authority on the idea of remaking this film in English then it was David Fincher, and he's failed to do so. If you really, REALLY hate subtitles then this is proficient enough to be recommendable, but if you've seen, or would consider seeing, the Swedish film, then there is no reason to see this at all. It strikes me as a staggeringly wasteful use of $100million.

2012 on 24FPS... and beyond

2011-12-26T11:13:00.000Z

2011 was a slightly slower year for 24FPS, as I got used to juggling a lot more writing assignments for a wider variety of places (something I'm hoping to do much more of in 2012).

As of now I'm also writing for HorrorMovies.ca and Front Row Reviews, and in the new year I'm also going to start doing some work for Cinemart Online.

At 24FPS the year will hopefully see lots of new reviews, along with a sprinkling of interviews and other bits and pieces, but that's far from all. I'll have twice weekly feature An Education, in which I'll be watching and reviewing 104 'classic' films I've never seen before. There will be further entries in the VHS Memories series and the occasional return of Cinematters, as well as a weekly round up of mini reviews.

I'll also be bringing you weekly podcast action, in conjunction with my friend and co-host Michael Ewins, with The Picture Show. We'll kick 2012 off with a multi-part review of the year just gone, and then we'll have a weekly film review and discussion show, and maybe even the odd special, all complete with awesome guests (drawn from our critic friends).

In other podcast news... the HorrorMovies.ca podcast has been a long time in the planning, but it IS coming, and I'm going to be involved pretty heavily, I'm also the host for the next instalment of the Movie Exchange Club with Mike Ewins, Supermarcey and Bede Jermyn, and I'm hoping to make reasonably regular return visits to Super Podcast with Marcey and Bede.

On HorrorMovies I'll have my continuing adventures with the Video Nasties feature, and a 52 film Horror Education series. On Front Row Reviews I'll be resuming Casting Call; my feature on actors, and I'll continue to contribute reviews everywhere I write.

I'll keep you posted on anything else, but I hope you'll enjoy 2012 here at 24FPS, and consider following me to those other sites. It's going to be a busy year... I can't wait to get started.

Top 10 UK Theatrical Releases 2011

2011-12-22T19:59:00.003Z

NOTE: The full 24FPS' review of 2011 will be in the form of four special episodes of The Picture Show, running down mine and my guests favourite DVD and Blu Ray releases of the year, our personal awards for 2011, and our Best and Worst films of the year, including films shown at festivals during the year. This list is slightly different, covering only my favourite theatrical releases of the year, but I thought it would be worth sharing with you. Enjoy, and I hope you'll check out the full review of the year in January.

I usually spend the last third of the year saying to people that there's no such thing as a bad year for film, that if you think the year has been bad you simply haven't been seeing the right films. Now, I've seen something in excess of 200 films again this year and... it's been a bad year. Yes, the ten films below are excellent, and represent a varied spread of cinema in terms of genre, budget and country of origin, but I still have to look back to 2009's awe inspiring one two punch of Martyrs and Dogtooth to find a film that makes me sit up and say "THAT is what it's all about. THAT is why I go to the cinema".

But the films listed below aren't the problem, nor, in all honesty, are the films that number among the year's worst - it would be naive not to expect the usual round of shit sandwiches from the likes of Bay, Snyder and Hardwicke - the problem lies in between. This year the films in the middle, bar a few honourable exceptions I'll be writing about after Christmas, have been a depressing lot, not because they are awful, but because they exhibit a depressing willingness to settle for simple adequacy. It's something that seems especially pervasive in the mainstream; a 'that'll do, so why try harder?' mentality that results in the astonishingly unremarkable likes of Thor, Texas Killing Fields, Tomorrow When the War Began, and other films whose titles don't begin with a T being thrust at us with the same care and excitement that goes into prison food.

The films listed here are steak, but make no mistake, this year, at the movies, we've largely been fed gruel. Roll on 2012.

10: POTICHE (Francois Ozon)

Francois Ozon's latest is, by his standards, a minor work, but it remains a highly engaging and surprisingly spiky comedy, with much to say about sexual politics and aging. Catherine Deneuve is wonderful as the trophy wife discovering she can do more, and Gerard Depardieu hasn't seemed this engaged in a long time. An enjoyable confection.

9: THE TREE OF LIFE (Terrence Malick)

A work of vaulting ambition and astounding beauty, likely to enchant and infuriate in equal measure. Malick explores the significance of individual lives at a cosmic level. The largely whispered performances are contrasting and brilliant; Brad Pitt as a stern Father, and Jessica Chastain, ethereal as a saintly Mother. The film can be bitty, but draws together for a moving final sequence.

8: TANGLED (Nathan Greno, Byron Howard)

Disney's best film - Pixar productions notwithstanding - in the twenty years since Beauty and the Beast. This irreverent version of Rapunzel has a spunky heroine, a scary villain, an involving romance, some great songs, a tremendous hit rate with jokes verbal and visual and some beautiful visuals (the lanterns). For me it's as close as a film has come to recapturing the very special, very particular, magic of The Princess Bride.

7: HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2 (David Yates)

Epic yet intimate, and easily the best film of the series. The young actors have grown to fill their characters shoes instinctively, and each gives their best performance to date. The set pieces are astounding, but the film is at its best dealing in details; Helena Bonham Carter's hilariously uncomfortable turn playing Hermione, transformed to look like Bellatrix Lestrange; the battle of eyes between Harry and Voldemort during their wand battle and, most telling, Emma Watson's tiny look in the aftermath of the film's climax, which sums up 8 films of story between Hermione and Ron. Blockbusters aren't usually meant to be this smart, this deep, this involving, and that's why this one is a joy.

6: ATTENBERG (Athina Rachael Tsangarai)

A deeply unusual coming of age story from the producer of Dogtooth. Ariane Labed - in her first film role - gives a brilliant performance as Marina; a young woman who has barely experienced the world, and is in many ways very childlike, who begins to explore more adult things as her Father is dying. The film is packed with striking images (the opening shot for instance; one of cinema's least sexy lesbian kisses) and boasts some of the most memorable sequences of 2011 - the best being a beautiful moment set to a Francoise Hardy song. A strange and fascinating character study that promises much of Tsangarai.

5: LOVE LIKE POISON (Katell Quillevere)

Another coming of age film. Katell Quillevere's remarkable début is about a 14 year old girl (the brilliant Clara Augarde), whose sexual awakening coincides with several other upheavals in her life; her Grandfather is dying, her parents are formalising their separation and, though she's preparing for confirmation, her faith seems to be slipping. Quillevere balances the various characters and stories beautifully, making a film that feels specific and intimate, but which will also have resonance for many viewers.

4: MELANCHOLIA (Lars Von Trier)

The fatalist's flipside to the optimistic Tree of Life. In his consideration of the cosmic worth of individual lives, Lars Von Trier's happy ending is the destruction of Earth, which, you could argue, at least ends his characters pain. Kirsten Dunst justly won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her raw and fearless turn as Justine, whose depression turns almost to relief as the end draws near, and Charlotte Gainsbourg is equally brilliant as her Sister, who collapses into naked panic. If Antichrist was about screaming pain, Melancholia is about acceptance, and it's just as stark and just as beautiful.

3: THE ARTIST (Michel Hazanavicius)

In this age of slam bang editing and headache inducing teal and orange movies with soundtracks consisting entirely of things going boom (I hate you Michael Bay), it's both a surprise and a treat to see a throwback like The Artist. Director Hazanavicius both pays homage to and recreates the silent era, with this wonderfully comedically inflected drama about a silent star sidelined by the talkies. The performances are in keeping with the style, but still full of beautiful subtleties from stars Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo, and the film's blend of comedy and drama is just about perfect. Some of the most memorable moments are about how the film deals with the idea of sound, while sticking with the style of a silent. It's clever without being smug, thanks largely to being relentlessly entertaining. Honestly, if you're not charmed by this, get someone to check you for a soul.

2: TOMBOY (Celine Sciamma)

Celine Sciamma's second coming of age movie (following her début Water Lilies) confirms her as a director with a singular talent for exposing the anxieties of growing up. Tomboy is about Laure; a 10 year old girl (the exceptional Zoe Heran) who, when her family moves to a new place, begins introducing herself to her new friends as a boy named Mikael. Sciamma digs into issues of identity, but without ever quite answering whether Laure is really trans, or simply going through a phase. Tomboy really wins out through a naturalistic approach, both from Sciamma as director and from her talented young cast. Sharply intelligent, often funny, and extremely moving, this is both insightful and entertaining.

1: CONFESSIONS (Tetsuya Nakashima)

This unconventional vengeance film from Japan comes from a director whose previous film echoed Amelie more than it did Lady Vengeance. Nakashima's film is as cold, sharp and hard edged as steel. All the elements; story; cinematography; soundtrack; editing; acting (the charismatic young actress Ai Hashimoto should be one to watch in the future), fall into place, but it is the cumulative impact that all the little pieces have as they fall together, they way they make the film a 104 minute gut punch, that makes this the best theatrical release of 2011. I won't say more, I don't want to spoil it.

The Picture Show Episode 2

2011-12-11T14:30:00.001Z

In the second episode of The Picture Show, Mike and I have a bumper crop of reviews for you, with thoughts on We Have a Pope, Margaret, Romantics Anonymous and Hugo. We've also got a list of a few of our favourite movies about movies.

Next week... something a bit different. We're still anxious to hear your thoughts on the show, and if you want to suggest a future list topic we'd be glad to hear from you on that too. Hope you enjoy the show, which you can listen to on the player below, or download at your leisure HERE.

An Education: Part 1

2011-12-11T11:00:00.003Z

As I mentioned on the first post in my series on the Alien films, next year 24FPS will be playing host to a new series called An Education.

As a film fan for some 21 years, and a critic of varying degrees of semi-professionalism for the last 12 of those years, I've seen a lot of movies - more, I imagine, than most people will ever see - and yet there are still a lot of acknowledged classics that I have never got around to. In my defence, I've spent a lot of the time I haven't been watching these films watching many, many more obscure titles and expanding my film education in all sorts of weird directions, but there are cornerstones missing from my film education, and I've often heard gasps when I say I haven't seen... any of the films on this list.

So, next year, I'm going to watch 104 films - two a week - that I feel are part of the canon of generally acknowledged 'classics' and review them and comment on whether I think they deserve their classic status. The only rule I've imposed is that the films should have been made before 1990. You'll also notice that there aren't any horror films on this list, which is because I'll be doing a 52 film feature; A Horror Education, addressing the genre canon, over at horrormovies.ca

So. Here's the list, in alphabetical order, and before anyone says anything, trash classics count. Your thoughts on the titles would be welcomed.

8 1/2
The 400 Blows
1900

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
All Quiet on the Western Front ['30]
Arsenic and Old Lace
Au Revoir Les Enfants
The Awful Truth

Babette's Feast
Bande a Part
Battle of Algiers
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Blue Angel
Das Boot
Brazil
Brighton Rock ['47]
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Camille
A Canterbury Tale
Cape Fear ['62]
Cinema Paradiso
Claire's Knee
The Conformist
The Conversation
Le Corbeau
A Cottage on Dartmoor
Cries and Whispers

Les Enfants Du Paradis
Elevator to the Gallows

The French Connection
From Here to Eternity

The General ['26]
Godzilla ['54]
The Gold Rush
Gone With the Wind
Grave of the Fireflies
Greed

Harold and Maude
Heaven's Gate
High Noon

Inherit the Wind
Intolerance
The Italian Job ['69]

The Jazz Singer ['27]
La Jetee
Judex
Jules et Jim

Kes
Killer of Sheep
Kiss of Death ['47]
Knife in the Water

The Last Temptation of Christ
Lawrence of Arabia
The Leopard
Little Caesar

M. Hulot's Holiday
Man With a Movie Camera
Marathon Man
Marketa Lazarova
Mash
Le Mepris
My Neighbour Totoro

Nashville
The Night Porter
Notorious

Out of the Past

Paris, Texas
Performance
The Postman Always Rings Twice ['46]
The Public Enemy

Rashomon
Rebel Without a Cause
La Regle de Jeu
Rififi

The Searchers
The Seven Year Itch
The Seventh Seal
Shaft
Shane
She Done Him Wrong
Silent Running
Singin' in the Rain
Solaris ['72]
Sophie's Choice
Sous le Soleil de Satan
Spartacus
The Sweet Smell of Success

The Taking of Pelham 123 ['74]
Tampopo
Tarzan and His Mate
The Third Man
The Tingler
Tokyo Story
Top Hat
Touch of Evil
A Touch of Zen
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Triumph of the Will

Way Down East
The Wild Bunch
Wild River
The Wind
Wings of Desire

Z

The Alien Series: Part 1 - Alien

2011-12-09T22:57:00.001Z

I guess you can consider this post a precursor to next year's new feature: An Education, in which I'll be watching and reviewing 104 (yes, 104) films that are considered part of the 'classic' canon, but which I've never seen. I'll unveil the list of titles soon.

I had seen each of the Alien films before recently picking up the Blu Ray boxset, but had never been much of a fan. This had always frustrated me, because the weight of opinion was so stacked in the series' favour, and because a blend of horror and sci-fi with an actor as good as Sigourney Weaver at its centre, to say nothing of directors as talented as Ridley Scott and David Fincher at the helm, ought to be right up my street. So, having found a brilliant price on the boxset (£14), I decided I had to give these films one more chance. I'm very largely happy that I did, which is not to say that this series isn't likely to provoke angry comments and emails or a mass unfollowing of my Twitter account.

Okay. Deep Breath. I'm about to eat about fifteen years worth of my words.

ALIEN
Dir: Ridley Scott

I never liked Alien. Yes, I understand that saying that is essentially like handing in my critical credentials and saying 'turns out I wasn't worthy'. I've said previously that I found the film slow, and when watching it I had found myself wishing there had been a Roger Corman - apparently something that very nearly happened - to tell Ridley Scott to cut to the chase and show us the uber-cool monster. I still very much understand why I had that response.

Scott sets the scene brilliantly. The film opens with perhaps the single greatest title sequence of all time - I'm not being hyperbolic here, name me a worthy competitor - We see the emptiness of space, and slowly, line by line as the credits come up, the title begins to form across the top of the screen; the stark simplicity of it adding to the impact. cott then takes us inside the Nostromo; a mining craft taking its bounty back to Earth. The camera explores the eerily quiet and empty ship, until it arrives at plain white sleeping chamber, where the crew are just waking - earlier than planned - from suspended animation. All this takes about six minutes, and from here the pace and tone are set to methodical and chilling respectively for the rest of the film's duration.

With this viewing I found myself drawn in to the Nostromo, sucked in to the prickly relationships between a crew that has clearly been in space too long - the idea of 'truckers in space', co writer Dan O'Bannon's initial concept, proving more interesting than it sounds - and initially has more mercenary concerns than why ship computer Mother has woken them early. The film takes a lot of time before getting us to that 'why', but there is a tension inherent in both the unexpected addition to the mission, and in the fact that it appears to be a distress beacon that the Nostromo is now homing in on. There are also unspoken tensions in these early scenes, notably something that just feels a bit off about science officer Ash (Ian Holm).

As much as the pace and the tension in this early part of the film, and even more so as it goes on, the thing about Alien that really draws the attention is the astounding art direction. The Nostromo is an incredible set; you can see both the beautiful machine it probably once was (sleek lines and the pure whites of several rooms), but also the disrepair into which it has fallen (exposed wires, visible patch jobs and gaps in the wall, all of which will come into play during the film. Of course you can't talk about the design of Alien without talking about the design of the Alien and of its environment and associated imagery, all of which is the work of artist H R Giger. Giger's art is like nothing you've ever seen... well, unless you've had some intense drug fuelled nightmares, and the monster he created is both gorgeous and terrifying. Scott uses it well too, frightening us with implication much more than he does the thing itself. That works because everything that surrounds the creature has the same sort of feel about it (right down to the monolithic structure, perhaps a crashed ship, where it is found) feels like a part of that creature and creates a sense of foreboding with its very presence.

For all its patient build up, Alien is also a film of great set pieces. Twice it shocks you by doing unexpected thing with its characters, first in the famous 'chestburster' scene, which may look a little hokey now, but still produces one hell of a jump, if only because Scott, actor John Hurt and editor Terry Rawlings time every beat to such perfection, and because it occurs in the middle of such a quiet, innocuous scene, the kind that has gone uninterrupted in the film to that juncture. There is also a great later scene for Ian Holm, revealing exactly what it is that is off about Ash. Holm is fantastic in this moment, turning the character convincingly around in an instant.

It's worth mentioning also that the entire cast give fine performances. Tom Skerritt makes for a stoic and identifiable hero, and it's a shock when the movie kills him off, Veronica Cartwright works as an audience analogue as she collapses in terror, and Sigourney Weaver convincingly grows over the course of the film into the woman who seems almost to will herself to survive, and who will carry the franchise forward. This development is Alien's true masterstroke. For the first half of the film Ripley is basically a background figure; we assume she's just one more grunt who is due to have her head stoved in by the monster, by making her the survivor the film really nods to its horror heritage more than its sci-fi elements, creating one of the truly classic and iconic 'final girl' characters, but in a context and a genre more traditionally male led.

This time I found myself completely drawn in to the claustrophobic sequences that make up the second half of the film, and see the crew stalking the Alien, and the Alien stalking the crew. The jump scares work well and, a couple of contrived looking for the cat moments aside, nobody does anything egregiously stupid just to facilitate a death scene. The Alien, when we see it, is stunning, and this is where the art design pays off, because we don't see it much, and we're aware that that's because this thing can blend in with the ship, that the darkness and wall cavities and hanging pipes conceal it, and that that means it could be anywhere, which in turn means that the film is extremely tense and scary.

So... Why did it work for me this time? I think, to a large degree, it is down to the Blu Ray itself. The line - the lie - we are being sold about 3D is that it is immersive, well, I've found the reverse to be true, 3D pokes us in the eyes with artifice, for all filmmakers talk of depth. Depth is what the Blu Ray transfer of Alien provides; astonishing, enveloping, depth, more effective than any 3D process. The clarity and detail of the picture drew me inexorably into the film, and that for me is the key. Alien is a film you need to experience, and previously I think I'd only been watching it. This time I was sucked into the Nostromo, into the paranoia, into the fear, and that's why, I think, I can finally see Alien for the great film it truly is. I've seldom been happier to have to eat my words.

I've also never liked Aliens. Will that make it two full meals worth of my own opinions? (Spoilers: No, no it won't). Catch you soon for Part 2.

Romantics Anonymous

2011-12-04T19:04:00.001Z

DIR: Jean-Pierre Améris

The problem that I've had with most new romantic comedies of late has really been threefold. 1: They're not romantic. 2: They're not funny. 3: They're about awful people who don't deserve love anyway (see - or rather don't see - among others, The Bounty Hunter, Bad Teacher and Just Go With It). Well, Romantics Anonymous avoids all three of those potential pitfalls. Isabelle Carré and Benoît Poelvoorde play people who both suffer from extreme anxiety, which in both cases comes out most around the opposite sex. When Carré's Angelique - who is a master chocolatier, but too shy to say so - begins working as a sales girl for the struggling chocolate factory run by Poelvoorde's Jean-Rene the two begin to fall in love. Can their attraction overcome their crippling shyness? You'll know the answer to that question seconds in, but that's hardly the point.

It's fitting that Romantics Anonymous is set among chocolate, because it is itself a confection; a little insubstantial, not especially nourishing and, at 74 minutes, bite sized, but for all that it's easy to enjoy while it lasts, and likely to leave you wanting more. That's perhaps my biggest complaint here, I'd quite like the film to be twenty minutes longer than it is, which would leave it at a still very manageable 94 minutes, but give a little more breathing room to two interesting and charming characters and to two fine actors, who each give excellent performances here.

I can't pretend to have a full overview of Isabelle Carré and Benoît Poelvoorde's careers, but their best known works are very different from this film. Carré has excelled in challenging dramatic roles; as an erotomaniac in Anna M, and as a pregnant drug addict in Francois Ozon's Le Refuge, while Poelvoorde remains best known as the killer followed by a documentary crew in Man Bites Dog. In short, neither is an immediately obvious fit for a light rom-com.

Poelvoorde is terrific value as the incredibly inhibited Jean-Rene, whose panic is so profound that when - as an exercise given to him by his psychiatrist - he takes Angelique to dinner he also takes a briefcase with extra shirt so he can change when he gets sweaty. This turns the first date into an awkward dance, with Jean-Rene repeatedly leaving the table and Angelique, through her own panic, convinced it's her fault. The comedy of Jean-Rene's character comes from his total inability to express his emotions, that's similar to Angelique, but the two aren't simply variations on the same character. The really sweet, and funny, thing about Isabelle Carré's work comes from the way Angelique is continually trying to reassure herself. The film is so keen to tell us how lovely the character is that it names her Angelique Delange, but Carré is effortlessly appealing anyway; her sparkling green eyes and slightly gap toothed smile immediately winning.

Romantics Anonymous hits most of the clichés of its genre (with the welcome exception of the inexplicable third act breakup, which has lately become almost compulsory), but in doing so it finds many of its best scenes. The moment that Jean-Rene gets up at a restaurant and with the backing of the resident band, sings to Angelique, could have been cringemaking, but it isn't. Poelvoorde and Jean-Pierre Ameris both underplay the moment, and a great deal of the sequence is allowed to play on Carré's reaction. Even the big confession moment works. It could easily be as cloying as that horrid "I'm looking for my wife" bit in Jerry Maguire (surely one of cinema's most vomit-inducingly treacly scenes), but by this point you're completely behind Jean-Rene and Angelique, actively rooting for them to get together, and the scene plays with total sincerity from both actors, which helps both the comedy and the romance of the moment play.

The film is filled with irresistible moments, be it the night Angelique and Jean-Rene have to stay in a one bed hotel room, Jean-Rene's description of their first kiss, or Angelique's repeated singing of "I have confidence in me", in scenes that, taken with the film's bright colour scheme, feel almost Disney like; Angelique giving us her own, more understated, version of the 'I want' song.Romantics Anonymous is an all too rare thing; a genuinely likeable film. As a filmgoer I love to be challenged, but sometimes there's nothing I like better than to float away with a little bit of escapism, and Romantics Anonymous is a perfect way to do that.

The Picture Show: Episode 1

2011-12-02T16:54:00.002Z

IT'S HERE, at last, the 24FPS podcast has arrived. From here on out I, along with my co host and friend Mike Ewins and a revolving cast of guests, will be bringing you reviews, features and DVD and Blu Ray previews in a weekly show which will usually run between 70 and 90 minutes.

This week our big review is My Week with Marilyn, and Mike also takes on Dream House and I review The Thing 2011. In the list we talk biopics, and we've got DVD and Blu Ray recommendations for December 5th. You can listen in the player below or go to the show's Archive.org page, where you can also download the episode. Enjoy.

Whatever you think of the show, I'd love to hear from you, be it in the comments below, by email or on Twitter @24FPSUK. You can also tweet Mike at @E_Film_Blog, or check out his excellent website.

We're working to get the show on ITunes in the future, and to get some theme music, but please bear with as in these early weeks as we iron out the kinks.

Mini Review: Mes Cheres Etudes [Student Services]

2011-11-27T10:20:00.001Z

DIR: Emmanuelle Bercot

I'm not usually all that fond of the English language titles given to foreign films (Show Me Love, for instance, is such a weedy title for the brilliantly named Fucking Amal), but in the case of Mes Cheres Etudes - literally My Expensive Education - the English title is actually better. Student Services has a nice double meaning; referring to both a University department and making ironic comment on the plot, which sees language student Laura (Deborah Francois) turning to prostitution so that she can make ends meet while living alone and going to classes.

An adaptation of a fact based novel by 'Laura D', a student who apparently went through much of what is depicted here, this was a TV movie in France. That becomes obvious only in the last scene, which uses captions to tell us, to somewhat hectoring effect, about the realities behind this story (apparently some 40,000 French students are working as occasional prostitutes to pay their bills... HEY! Where are you going? Come back and read the rest of the review.) Until these last moments though, Mes Cheres Etudes is not what I see when I think 'TV Movie'.

Deborah Francois became an instant favourite of mine when I saw her in Denis Dercourt's brilliant, Hitchcockian, The Page Turner. Since then, the young Belgian actress has shown great range, and a willingness to take on some daunting parts, none more so than this one, which calls on her to go to some very dark places, and, most of the time, do so naked.

Laura begins selling herself as a way to pay the rent, but the film shows us how both she and her motives change, soon she's buying clothes and bags, and taking clients calls while at dinner with her new boyfriend (Mathieu Demy). She begins to assume that she's extremely streetwise, but there a couple of incidents that disabuse her of that notion. All this and more, Francois puts across with total honesty. It's a fearless performance, and one that must surely have thrown up a new challenge every day.

Director Emmanuelle Bercot's eye is unflinching, and this is a frank and intimate film, but it doesn't, for all the nudity on display (Francois may spend more screen time naked than she does dressed), feel exploitative. Sex and nudity become currency in Laura's life, be it with her clients or her boyfriend, and the scenes that deal with this sad reality are the absolute crux of both character and film. While her film is relentlessly downbeat, Bercot never - until those final captions - lets it become one of those that beats us over the head with its issue, and I think she really has Francois to thank for that, because her performance means that the film remains specific and personal rather than becoming about a larger social problem.

Mes Cheres Etudes won't be for everyone (seriously, if you want to show Granny an overachieving TV movie, stick with The Queen), but if, like me, your taste in cinema runs to the darker side and if, like me, you're a fan of Deborah Francois, then - tough as it is - this comes highly recommended.

If you'd like to buy this film, and help out 24FPS at the same time, then please click below. Cheers guys.

The Help [12A]

2011-11-25T23:30:00.002Z

DIR: Tate Taylor

It's easy to see why The Help is being tipped for Oscar glory this year, not because it's tremendously brilliant - it isn't - but because it's the kind of film that wins Oscars. It's got a whole load of big actorly performances. It's a period set movie, dealing with some of the more sordid and shameful aspects of America's chequered past, but it deals with those themes in a way that feels non-threatening, middle American, and is generally pretty upbeat. Directorially it's solidly crafted, but never breaks any sort of mould, and on screen it is populated by a mix of beloved old hands and rising stars, just waiting to be anointed. If someone bottled a formula for Oscar, it might well taste like The Help.

Based on the novel by Kathryn Stockett, The Help is set in 1963, just as the civil rights movement was really beginning to gather a head of steam. Young aspiring journalist 'Skeeter' (Emma Stone) sees the way that the black maids in her home town of Jackson, Mississippi are treated, and decides to write a book about them, but she needs testimony, and lots of it. Initially she manages to recruit Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) and Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer) to share stories about the white families they have worked for. in the meantime, local queen bee Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard) is busy campaigning for a law to require coloured staff to use separate bathrooms from their white employers and setting up the town benefit for African orphans (an irony that director Taylor repeatedly slaps us in the face with).

There is a surfeit of characters and stories here, so much so that even at 146 minutes the film suffers from a lot of loose ends and underexplored characters (most notably the black men who are married to the maids, the only one we encounter at all is a wife beater who we only ever come across as a disembodied voice on the phone). With many of the featured characters, including, damagingly, Stone's 'Skeeter', only sketchily outlined, the whole thing ends up feeling rather shallow, and not a little cartoony.

The cartoon storytelling is perhaps most felt in the opposing forces of ultimate evil (Bryce Dallas Howard, doing her best panto villain as the virulently racist Hilly) and ultimate good (a naively saintly Jessica Chastain as Celia Foote). The performances are both overblown, but both do their jobs beautifully, committing utterly to characters sadly lacking in nuance. Chastain - surely the brightest new star of 2011 - bears singling out again, as she continues to amaze with her range and sheer on screen magnetism. The problem is not the acting, it's that the fact that these don't feel like real people undermines the serious nature of what The Help is about. Yes, the way Hilly behaves is repellent, but she's such a panto villain, so devoid of any redeeming feature, that she feels like a character rather than a person, which robs much of her behaviour of real impact, and the same can be said of Celia's kindnesses and eccentricities.

The supporting characters are more real, and it's in them that we see the sort of insidious racism, that bred in prejudice that the South clearly had for many generations, but sadly we don't really get to spend enough time with them, and when we do Hilly is usually around as well. Some of the film's finest moments revolve around the petty cruelties of the day to day with these supporting characters, like the sting Aibilene feels when asked 'isn't it nice to have your own [toilet]?' by her employer (Ahna O'Reilly).

As the two maids that we really get to know Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer are both likely to be Oscar nominated, and both are excellent. Spencer makes a good fist of being, if not quite the comic relief, the more forceful and more upbeat of the pair and, in her scenes with Jessica Chastain, develops a great line in stunned reaction shots (Chastain also gets her own, probably the film's funniest moment). Davis, however, acts her and just about everyone else off the screen. It's probably no coincidence that what is likely the film's most reserved performance is also its best. Davis is the one person here who puts across more silently than she does through dialogue - even in the film's cloying, overblown, awful, final scene, her grounded performance makes the contrived little bow tied on the ending play.

The biggest problem for the film probably comes in its main character. Emma Stone is fine, though hardly a revelation, but 'Skeeter' barely feels necessary. This isn't her story, it's that of the maids, yes she gets the book started, but the authorial voice of the film feels confused, seemingly starting out as Skeeter's but moving to become Aibilene's, and ultimately a white character providing the impetus for the telling of these stories is one of a few ways the film slightly condescends in regard to its black characters. The other problem with 'Skeeter' is that she seems too modern. Yes, she's been to College, and she has different opinions from a lot of her peers in Jackson, but even her look feels incongruous - because she's the only person not dressed like a cartoon of the early sixties - and combined with her somewhat contrived status as audience analogue/mouthpiece, this makes her feel more a device than a character.

Rife though it is with problems, and while I sometimes doubt the sincerity of its politics, I can't say that I didn't enjoy The Help somewhat. It's generally well acted (Sissy Spacek hasn't been this good for a while), and until you sit back and unpick it, it's easy just to be carried along by the slightly overblown mix of drama and comedy, and by Taylor's generally quite authentic feeling visuals. Once you walk out the door, that's when you begin to realise how little like real people these characters can feel, how much of a clang some of the dialogue lands with, and how contrived many of the events of the story feel (especially the so called 'terrible awful', which smells of bullshit from the first moment we hear about it). It's tough to come down on either side with this film. I understand both why people like it and why people have serious problems with it, at the end of the day that's maybe the best reason to see it... at least it throws up some interesting issues, on purpose or not.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Pt 1 [12A]

2011-11-25T15:18:00.002Z

DIR: Bill Condon

I am - ahem - not a fan of the Twilight series, which is irritating, because you'd think I would be. I'll admit this; I'm a hopeless romantic... why else would The Princess Bride be one of my favourite films of all time. I'm also a horror fan... why else would I write for a horror movie website for no money? I also find the ideas, the nuts and bolts, of the Twilight series pretty fucking cool. No, hear me out. So there's this girl (Kristen Stewart); not the school beauty queen, a bit awkward (just as I, historically, like 'em). She moves to a new town, and falls for a guy at school (Robert Pattinson), at the same time another guy (Taylor Lautner) falls for our heroine. This kicks off a love triangle, so far so dull and sappy... well... one guy's a vampire, the other's a werewolf, and there is a very shaky truce between the two, and it looks like this girl could ignite a war. That sounds COOL. WHY ISN'T THIS COOL?!

It was, is, and ever shall be a problem of character, or the increasingly distressing lack thereof. I think I've figured it out too, figured out why nobody has a personality. It's because Twilight isn't really a story. It's not about vampires, or werewolves, or war, or even love, it's a horrific combination of author Stephenie Meyer's sparkly sexual fantasies and 'traditional values' propaganda (see previous reviews for details). I have now sat through four films - nearly nine hours - of this. My job makes me stupider.

At the outset of this part, mutually parasitic couple Bella (Stewart) and Edward (Pattinson) send out their wedding invitations, one of which is received - hilariously yet inevitably - with shirtless rage by Jacob (Lautner). Anyway, we get the wedding (which, unaccountably, Bella's father Charlie (Billy Burke) makes no attempt to rescue her from), the honeymoon and - insert menacing musical sting - the pregnancy. The pregnancy is the problem, as it is supposed to be impossible and Bella and Edward's child may well be a monster. So, as in ALL the other films, Bella becomes a target for the werewolves, but Jacob and her vampire family swear to protect her.

Unfortunately, as has become the custom for the series, none of this feels like it matters. Bella is a literal vessel in this film, little more than a pregnant husk, but that doesn't augment or change her character in any appreciable way, because she never had a character in the first place. Bella has always been a void for first Stephenie Meyer and then her readers to pour themselves into. The problem with that idea is that if you don't buy into it - and frankly as a straight man of 30 it's a BIT difficult to see myself as an 18 year old girl desperately in love with a vampire boy - then all you're ever going to see is that empty vessel, and that's just boring. When Bella is imperilled, I should care (particularly since the first three movies were essentially about how she's the single most amazing person in the world and omigod I wish she was my friend), but what is there to worry about, to care about, given that she doesn't have a personality?

This series tells us things over and over, like how much Bella and Edward love each other, and how disgustingly happy they are with each other, but it never shows us these things. For a series about a love that is, at least potentially, literally eternal, this is a disappointingly passionless set of films. The genuinely sickly looking Pattinson has no chemistry with his off screen girlfriend Stewart when the cameras roll, in fact, if there's such a thing as negative chemistry, that's what is displayed here. Pattinson looks like he's being jabbed with sharp needles every time he has to kiss Stewart, in fact, that pained grimace may be the most convincing expression he makes in the series.

What's really annoying about this instalment of the series is that it should be madly entertaining, because what happens in the last 15 minutes is the stuff of David Cronenberg's most viscerally fucked up night terrors, or, at least, it should be, but this is a 12A and Bill Condon - fine director though he may be - is no David Cronenberg. I can't imagine it will annoy anyone - you either know the books or are deeply unlikely to care - but SPOILERS AHOY... As the film comes to its climax, Bella's pregnancy is killing her (depicted through what is either good make up or the only competent digital work in the film, probably the former), so an emergency caesarean is required, some of which Edward does with his teeth, before Bella is vamped. THEN... oh then... Jacob 'imprints' - essentially falls body and soul in love with - Bella and Edward's child the second he claps eyes on her. Even if Taylor Lautner were a decent actor, which, bless his cotton socks for trying, he's not, this would be risible, faintly uncomfortable, and hilariously overblown. Unfortunately certificate concerns neuter this scene, robbing it of visceral as well as emotional impact, and the lead up to it is as drawn out, ponderous and overwrought as we've come to expect from the series.

That said, this is the least worst Twilight film, and that's probably down to Condon, who is a proper actors director. Okay, he gets nothing so revelatory from this cast as he did from Brendan Fraser in Gods and Monsters, but Stewart is better here than she's been previously, she has one or two more expressions (come on Kristen, you can do it, you can make me have to use TWO hands to count your expressions, I believe in you) and at least puts across Bella's sexual appetite with a little conviction. Condon also manages to execute one memorable sequence; a beautifully shot dream which uses bright red against stark white in a way that, if not original, is striking. Otherwise it's franchise business as usual; laughably shitty digital effects; a cast outacted by Anna Kendrick's five seconds of screentime and Billy Burke's excellent mustache; far too little of Michael 'camp as a row of tents' Sheen; far too much waiting around.

Ultimately there's no reason to see this unless you are either a Twilight fan already or hoping to have sex with someone who is a Twilight fan already. Otherwise, move along.

Twilight Saga Reviews
Twilight / New Moon / Eclipse

DVD Review: Grindhouse Trailer Classics: Volume 3

2011-11-12T13:58:00.000Z

The Feature

Ah, the 70's; the golden age of exploitation. I was born in the early 80's in the South of England, so I never got to experience drive in's, B Movies and exploitation double bills when I was growing up as a movie fan. If you're in the same boat, or if you simply want to relive the brilliantly seedy atmosphere of the 70's and 80's grindhouse, then this third collection of classic trailers ought to be right up your street.

Over 102 minutes and 55 trailers we get grindhouse in all its forms, from sexploitation films dressed up as travelogues or sincere documents of 'permissive society' (Sweden: Heaven and Hell, The Female Response, The Swappers and more) to Blaxploitation films which now look more than a little racist (The Spook Who Sat By the Door, Black Gunn, Soul Soldiers) and from incredibly sexist looking films about strong women (Superchick, Police Women, The Working Girls et al) to sleazetastic imports from Spain and Italy (Nazi Love Camp 27, Linda, Invasion of the Flesh Hunters). It's all good dirty fun, in a way that I suspect many of the full movies might not be. Another dominant theme here is redneck ripoffs, with versions of Deliverance - by way of The Most Dangerous Game - (Open Season) and the Smokey and the Bandit series (the Claudia Jennings starring Moonshine County Express), and then there are the real oddities like Blue Sunshine and Mother Goose a Go Go.

Of course much of the real fun comes not from watching but from listening to the trailers, the fantastic oversell of the voiceovers is often hilarious (as, sometimes, is the voice itself; Nazi Love Camp 27 has a guy with a very thin, reddy little voice who is completely unsuited to the job), and then there are the times that the voiceover says something so overblown, or so anachronistic, you just have to laugh (perfectly combined in the Police Women trailer "Police Women, fighting for survival with men who want them home and women who want them dead") there's also a great series of actor introductions in the trailer for A Town Called Hell ("Robert Shaw makes this rebel with a cross a man you will not easily forget").

A few of the trailers fall a bit flat - mainly because there is a section of about three in a row with no voiceover, which immediately makes them less fun - but on the whole, if you're a fan of this sort of thing then these 102 minutes will be highly entertaining (I'd also recommend having a notepad with you, as you'll want to make a shopping list as you go along). My only real complaint here is that I suspect the replay value is a bit limited, but for a grindhouse fan this remains an essential watch.

The Disc and Extras
The picture on this DVD is as variable as you would expect, a little of the softness may be addressed as the retail copy will be dual layered, while my screener was compressed to a single layer disc, but what won't change is the large amount of print damage on most of the trailers. That said, there's a charm about them looking a bit rough; it conveys a period verisimilitude (why do you think Tarantino and Rodrgiuez put scratches on their Grindhouse films?), and these trailers are, for the most part, so rare that seeing them at all is quite a treat.

The main extra is a 15 minute to camera piece with Kim Newman (who is pretty much my hero when it comes to horror and exploitation critics) talking about some of his impressions from the various trailers on offer. This is a great extra, and I only wish it were longer, or in the form of a commentary track, because I could listen to Kim talk about these movies forever.

You also get a poster gallery, and trailers for the Nucleus Films catalogue.

Overall
I liked Grindhouse Trailer Classics Volume 3 a lot, it reminded me of my youth, staying up late and watching expolitation films and trailers on Channel 4. It has a very defined audience, but if this is the kind of thing you like, then you'll like this.

Grindhouse Trailer Classics Volume 3 is out on DVD on December 5th. Thanks to Nucleus Films for the screener.

Out on Friday: 11/11/11

2011-11-07T17:57:00.000Z

In order to, hopefully, help you make a viewing choice over this coming weekend, here are some capsule reviews for those of this Friday's releases that I have already seen.

The Awakening
Dir: Nick Murphy

Assuming you've seen a few of the ghost stories that have, at times, seemed to clog cinemas over the last decade or so there's nothing tremendously new or different about this variant set in the early 20th century. That said, The Awakening is a pretty decent piece of work, and has several things to recommend it.

The first outstanding aspect of the film is the photography, which comes courtesy of 30 year old wunderkind DP Eduard Grau, who shot Buried, A Single Man and the sadly underseen Kicks. Grau's photography uses source lighting and shadow, smoke and mist, to generate an effectively chilly and foreboding atmosphere throughout the film. Nick Murphy's direction is perhaps a little standard (bar a couple of great sequences which get some terrific shocks out of a dolls house), but Grau makes every frame something worth taking the time to look at.

Rebecca Hall is, for my money, one of Britain's most interesting, versatile and talented actors of the moment, and while her role as sceptical ghost investigator Florence Cathcart isn't her most challenging she still invests it with a great deal of humanity, which helps to make the film's sometimes slightly hackneyed scares play. She's well cast too; with that classical beauty that fits a period setting, and an evident intelligence which she brings to this (for the time unusually) well educated character.

The plot is a bit familiar, involving ghostly goings on at a boys school, and Florence's increasingly desperate attempts to debunk them, but, to my surprise, it did manage to hook me in. When the final twist came around I was positively kicking myself for not having guessed it an hour previously, but the fact remains that I didn't guess it, and that The Awakening is pretty well constructed.

It's not a great movie, but Rebecca Hall is always worth watching, Eduard Grau is one of the best DPs around, and overall the film is a decent 100 minutes of spooky entertainment.

Tabloid
Dir: Errol Morris

Truth, they say, is stranger than fiction. That's a fact, that much is clear from watching Tabloid.

Tabloid unpicks the story and, perhaps more importantly, the coverage of 'The Case of the Manacled Mormon'. In 1977, Joyce McKinney followed a former boyfriend to England, where he had gone with the Mormon church. Insisting that they had kidnapped him, and were holding him against his will, she kidnapped Kirk Anderson, drove him from London to Devon, and chained him to a bed for several days, where she, believing the religion had robbed her of her soulmate, tried to break him away from it, by having sex with him.

Joyce McKinney is not stable, that seems to have been true in 1977, and shortly after, when her trial, the nature of her crime and her former beauty queen looks made her a tabloid favourite and a celebrity in Britain, and it still appears to be true, as Morris demonstrates by building most of Tabloid around an interview with McKinney. She's clearly quite nuts - and still in love with Kirk Anderson and unable to see that she did anything wrong - but you do end up feeling a bit sorry for her as her story goes on. Morris never tells you what he thinks of McKinney; whether she acted out of self interest and, to some degree, malice, or whether, as she contends, she really believed she was trying to save Anderson, but she comes across as sincere, at least in the terms of her own somewhat broken reality.

With McKinney as the key interview and reporters and a few other interested parties chipping in, Tabloid is often a very funny film. McKinney's very particular turn of phrase is often hilarious (observing that it's impossible for her to have raped Anderson she says "It’s like trying to put a marshmallow into a parking meter"), as is the way the Mirror journalist who wrote most of the stories STILL seems to talk about it in headlines. The only real problem with the film's survey of the case is that Morris was unable to speak to Kirk Anderson (still a devout Mormon, apparently), and that does rob us of the chance to give McKinney's account real context.

Tabloid's events are so outlandish you wouldn't believe them in fiction, and perhaps that's why Morris shuns his usual reconstructions here, because it's more outrageous to hear Joyce McKinney, with a tinkling laugh, come out with the details. This is not one of Morris' more important films, but it's a return to form following the lacklustre Standard Operating Procedure, and a highly entertaining, frequently jaw dropping, account of a great story.

Wuthering Heights
Dir: Andrea Arnold

I can't tell you how disappointed I am to say this, but Andrea Arnold, who made a magnificent start to her feature directing career with Red Road and Fish Tank, has come horribly unstuck with this version of the much filmed Emily Brontë novel.

It is, thanks to DP Robbie Ryan, excruciatingly, achingly, jaw droppingly beautiful. The mist shrouded Yorkshire moors are forebodingly atmospheric, Ryan captures every tiny detail, every individual hair of the characters as they are buffeted by wind and rain, every grainy detail as they find themselves caked in mud or blood. It is extraordinary looking, indeed it could almost be said to belong more to a gallery than to a cinema, and that is where Andrea Arnold has fundamentally got it wrong.

I'll be honest and say that my entire experience of Wuthering Heights before this film comes from the Kate Bush record, but I'm not sure that Arnold tells the essential story much better or much more faithfully in 2 hours than Bush did in 3 minutes, or that she invests it with as much feeling. It's my understanding that Wuthering Heights (or at least the first half, which is what Arnold has adapted here) is about the destructive force of Heathcliff's truly obsessive love for Cathy, and while that happens in the film, I really never felt it, and that is a gaping hole at the centre of the film.

The problem is twofold. First of all, Arnold is obsessed with detail. Almost every shot, especially in the first half of the film, is a juddering handheld close up of some tiny detail of a scene; a detail of a character's face, clothes or body; a detail of the landscape, a detail of an animal. She seldom, apart from some times when we are out on the moors, pulls back for the bigger picture, and thanks to a lack of dialogue and thus a lack of context (particularly if you haven't read the book), this patchwork of detail never comes together into a cohesive whole. The other problem, sadly, is the acting, to this point always a strength of Arnold's work. Here, sadly, she has largely cast non-actors as Heathcliff and Cathy (the roles are split, with Solomon Glave and Shannon Beer as the younger pair and James Howson and Skins actress Kaya Scodelario as the adult Heathcliff and Cathy), the gamble falls spectacularly flat on its face, with Glave contributing an especially wooden turn (perhaps the reason he has only about 10 lines).

Problems abound; the acting is largely terrible, the screenplay is awkwardly and inappropriately contemporary (I'm reasonably sure the book's Heathcliff never called anyone a c**t, or got called a ni**er), but the main and hobbling issue is the total lack of feeling. The romance holds no weight, no import, and therefore the film, stunningly beautiful as it is, is boring and meaningless.

LFF 2011: Top 10

2011-11-06T16:04:00.000Z

Top 10 Films
10: THE BIRD

Yves Caumon's slow, meditative, film is a demanding, but ultimately very rewarding, exploration of the impact of loss. Sandrine Kiberlain gives a superlative performance, slowly allowing the details of what has happened to make her character Anne a virtual recluse who lives, divorced, in a tiny flat and shuns almost all attention, except that of a bird that she finds trapped in the wall cavity of her flat.

Kiberlain says almost nothing, but there is an ocean of feeling in her detailed and heartbreaking performance. Caumon has said that his film is about a rebirth; essentially about Anne coming to terms with life, but he manages to execute that without sentimentality, through a visual style that begins down to earth, even a little grimy, before becoming almost Malickian in its last half hour, as Anne ventures back into the world. It's a rather beautiful piece of work.

9: NATURAL SELECTION

Natural Selection was a million miles from being he most original thing at the festival, but Robbie Pickering's incredibly endearing debut overcame its somewhat derivative status with a screenplay which boasted witty dialogue and specific characterisation and excellent leading performances from the, on the face of it, mismatched pairing of Rachael Harris and Matt O'Leary.

While the elements are familiar, the mix feels fresh, thanks to the fine performances; Harris as a naive Christian housewife, out in the world for the first time, O'Leary as an ex-con who happens to be the result of one of her husband's many sperm donations. The two have terrific chemistry as actors, and their relationship, which grows in closeness and complexity throughout, powers the film and gives it an emotional tug as well as a lot of laughs. Natural Selection was one of those rare films that just left me with a bit of a warm glow.

8: POUPOUPIDOU

Poupoupidou has a perfect title, one that tells you everything you need to know about the film. It tells you that there is some connection to Marilyn Monroe, but more importantly it tells you about the tone of the film, which is soufflé light and fun, so of course the title is being changed - to Nobody Else But You - for its English language release.

Poupoupidou, as I am going to keep calling it, is a strange little movie; a technicolor noir comedy about a detective novelist (Jean-Paul Rouve) investigating the death of a local weather girl (Sophie Quinton) whose look and life both seem to mirror Marilyn Monroe's, and falling a little bit in love with her as he discovers more through her diaries. Director Gerald Hustcahe-Mathieu marshals the elements with assurance, combining an intriguing and well thought out mystery - and a rare one in which none of the pieces feel forced together - with some terrific character comedy.

Ateention is paid in all areas, and even the supporting characters, like the receptionist at the local hotel (Clara Ponsot) who immediately falls for Rouve, feeling like real and rounded individuals with lives outside the story. Ultimately, Poupoupidou is fluff, but it's such engaging and amusing fluff that it is very hard to mind.

7: SILVER BULLETS

Among Joe Swanberg's four films of 2011, this one was the one that nearly spelt the end of his filmmaking career, and that leaks out into this film's consideration of the process of filmmaking. Two films are being shot during Silver Bullets, one a werewolf movie directed by Ben (Ti West, director of House of the Devil) and starring Claire (Kate Lyn Sheil), the other a romantic drama directed by Claire's boyfriend Ethan (Swanberg), who has cast Claire's friend Charlie (Amy Smietz) to play opposite him in the film's many love scenes. Art and personal relationships both become complicated in the course of the productions.

Swanberg is known for his improvised films, shot in a couple of weeks, and though the feel here is still very much loose and improvisatory, with four entirely naturalistic performances anchoring the film, Silver Bullets was shot on and off over two and a half years. It never really shows, and the film plays as a cohesive and convincing piece about jealousy, both professional and personal. Kate Lyn Sheil is a real discovery, and particularly stands out in a rather charming scene with West, when he puts a cheap and cheesy werewolf mask on her, as well as in the film's brilliant final shot.

A much more crafted work than Swanberg is known for, Silver Bullets shows a director expanding his range while retaining his idiosyncracy, it's highly recommended.

6: INTO THE ABYSS: A TALE OF DEATH, A TALE OF LIFE

Werner Herzog is a brilliant interviewer, his seemingly odd questions and statements elicit an incredible response from his subjects. In this film Herzog takes on the death penalty in the US, using a triple murder case to explore it and talking to victims friends and relatives, death row staff and the perpetrators (one on death row, one imprisoned for life) and their friends and family. It's a pretty comprehensive film, and a pretty comprehensive indictment of the death penalty, even though Herzog, though he takes sides, hasn't made a campaigning film.

Into the Abyss is overwhelmingly a film about pain, be it the pain of a jailed father seeing his son go the same route, the pain of a man who has spent 10 years (guilty or, as he maintains, not) knowing that the state is going to kill him, the pain of the family of a murder victim, the pain of the death house chaplain or the pain of a former guard, who had a breakdown after unstrapping his 121st executed body from the gurney. Violence is everywhere in this film, and Herzog shows us the hopelessness of trying to solve it with further, albeit clinically executed, violence.

That said, Into the Abyss also has its moments of light; a friend of the killers recalls being stabbed with a 14 inch screwdriver, and then going to work as though it were nothing, and the wife of the jailed killer gives Herzog an interview that is both funny because she seems so deluded, and sad because she seems so sweet. This is an intelligent and important work from a filmmaker who could be described in the same terms.

5: WITHOUT

The American indie début that has really set tongues wagging this year has been Martha Marcy May Marlene, that's a good movie, but the one you should really be talking about is Without. Newcomer Joslyn Jensen plays a 19 year old girl, hired to look after a catatonic old man for two weeks while his family are on holiday. Isolated, Joslyn's behaviour becomes odder and more troubling as time goes on, there seems to be something haunting her from her past, and she's becoming convinced that the old man may not be so much of an invalid as he seems.

Without is a film about questions. The uncertainty over what exactly is causing Joslyn's behaviour is more interesting than the answer (the film's only major flaw), but the film is packed with striking moments, most of them from Jensen's remarkably assured performance. She can be delicate and moving (as when she films herself singing a T-Pain song with only a ukulele as accompaniment), she can be disturbed and frightened (as when she finds her mobile phone gaffer taped to a table), and she can be strange and chilling (as in her increasingly uncomfortable interactions with the old man).

Director Mark Jackson instils a creeping sense of paranoia in the film with his spare style, but this is really Joslyn Jensen's show all the way. For me, she was the breakout performer of the festival.

4: THE ARTIST

The Artist is perhaps the most likeable film you'll see this year. Okay, so it hardly seems mainstream; a largely silent black and white comedy with two unknown (at least to most English speaking audiences) leads, trying to recapture a form of filmmaking last prevalent over 80 years ago. It not only works, it works completely, irresistibly.

Set in the late 20's and early 30's, The Artist is about a silent comedy star (Jean Dujardin) who finds his career ended by the coming of the talkies and the newly popular ingénue (Berenice Bejo) who seeks to repay him for giving her first break by using her power to get him a comeback vehicle. Director Michel Hazanavicius takes a brave approach here; many have made films set in this period, but few have emulated the style, whether through study or simply through skill, Hazanavicius captures the style of silent film beautifully (right down to the tone of the black and white). While the film is mostly silent, at least in terms of dialogue and sound effects sound is still key to its success; the score communicates what dialogue might in an ordinary film, giving a sense of how the characters are communicating, and setting the mood of each scene beautifully. Two key scenes, one of which gets perhaps the biggest laugh in the film, also use sound in a slightly more traditional way.

The whole cast is excellent, with sterling support provided by John Goodman (yelling silently), James Cromwell (avuncular even in silence) and Penelope Ann Miller (who it's just nice to see again, to be honest). The Artist is a joyous experience; funny from the very start, and performed with comic grace and dramatic assurance by Dujardin and Bejo, oh, and the dog nearly steals the film. If you don't like it you may not have a soul.

3: DAMSELS IN DISTRESS

So from a film everyone will love to a film half of you will hate, and I can't say that I don't understand, because Damsels in Distress; Whit Stillman's long, long awaited/dreaded (delete as appropriate)third film, following 1998's Last Days of Disco is pretentious, and stagy, and whimsical, and potentially incredibly annoying. I loved it. I think the longest I stopped laughing for was about 45 seconds.

Damsels in Distress is set on the campus of Seven Oaks college; a liberal arts school. Recent transfer Lily (Analeigh Tipton) meets Violet (Greta Gerwig), Heather (Carrie MacLemore) and Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke), who run the campus suicide prevention centre. She befriends the girls and moves into their dorm, and Stillman follows their friendships and relationships throughout the school year.

You could, accurately, call this film Whit Stillman's Mean Girls, as the familiar story of school cliques and young romance and friendship is filtered through the writer/director's very particular world view. Stillman's writing is incredibly finely crafted, he's a wordsmith on the level of an Aaron Sorkin or a Davvid Mamet, with a similar gift for taking a tone that is incredibly specific to him, but making his words sound as though they are coming organically from the characters he writes. The largely young and inexperienced cast (indie darling Gerwig probably has the most extensive CV here) grab Stillman's dialogue for all it's worth, savouring the precision of the lines (Echikunwoke's delivery of the phrase 'playboy operator type is truly worth the price of admission by itself) and delivering all of the jokes with dead on timing.

Damsels in Distress is Whit Stillman cutting loose and having fun. It's hilariously, anarchically, funny, it's packed with witty characterisation, odd ideas (footnotes before the credits) and great performances, and I found it endlessly engaging and entertaining.

2: CRAZY HORSE

Fred Wiseman has now made three films in a row about forms of dance; ballet in La Danse, boxing (which he says he sees as a sort of dance) in Boxing Gym and now striptease/burlesque in this film about the Crazy Horse de Paris. If you like Wiseman's particular style - pure immersion in a place, with no narration, no captioning and no particular overarching narrative structure - then you'll love this latest film, if not, Crazy Horse probably won't win you over.

Wiseman is documentary cinema's great observer, and here he watches as the Crazy Horse team creates a whole new show, all while maintaining the current show that brings the punters in every night. Wiseman shows us the dance routines, of course, but he gets into everything; his camera hangs out with the dancers backstage, watching as they get ready, and as they pass time watching ballet bloopers. He attends rehearsals and creative meeting, financial meetings, costume fittings. He's along as the creative team give hilariously pretentious interviews to other crews, he observes auditions, and eavesdrops on the judges comments on the hopefuls. In short, Wiseman gets into every nook and cranny of the Crazy Horse.

Crazy Horse is neither a story driven documentary nor straight reportage, instead it seems like a gorgeous patchwork of images and moments snatched from the 150 hours of footage that Wiseman shot over six weeks, designed to give us a feel for what it is like to be in this place and amongst its people as an observer. It's an incredibly diverting film; beautiful, sexy, funny, and endlessly interesting.

1: ALPS

Having come out of nowhere with the best film of the 2009 festival (actually, I've not seen a single better film since that screening), Yorgos Lanthimos may not have delivered the sort of gut punch here that he did with Dogtooth, but Alps is another intelligent, unusual, haunting piece of work that marks him out as one of the most intriguing directors working.

Taking the idea (explored in Sion Sono's similarly mad and similarly brilliant Noriko's Dinner Table) of a group of people who work 'standing in' for the deceased relatives of recently bereaved people, Lanthimos focuses on a nurse (played by Dogtooth's Elder Daughter Aggelikki Papoulia), following her life both as part of the Alps group and - we are led to believe - at home with her father. What is best, at a conceptual level, about Alps, is the uncertainty of its story. Who are these people? How did they come to be in this group? Which of their interactions are real, which are part of a 'stand in' job? These questions and more Lanthimos leaves open to us in an intriguing and sometimes disturbing fashion.

Both performances and direction are striking too; Lanthimos often holds images for a long time, making interesting use of focus to blur the lines of reality and fantasy, just as his characters have for themselves. The acting is top notch, particularly from Papoulia and Attenberg star Ariane Labed. I love that I need to see Alps again in order to figure it all out, I love that even key relationships are troublingly blurred, I love, in short, that weeks after I've seen it, I'm still thinking about almost every aspect of this movie. That's why it's on top of this list.

LFF 2011: Bottom 5

2011-11-01T18:22:00.001Z

First of all let me apologise for not having more LFF coverage this year, I've been engaged by other sites quite a lot over the last few months (hence my decreased writing here) and was engaged to write a festival diary for Front Row Reviews. You can read all 60 of the mini-reviews I wrote over there by clicking HERE. All the diary entries are my reviews.

By way of compensation, here, over two posts, are the high and low points of the festival (or at least of the 62 films I saw)...

Bottom 5 Films
5: A DANGEROUS METHOD

I've seen all of David Cronenberg's features bar the rare Fast Company and M. Butterfly, and his latest is far and away the least interesting film of the lot. It's perfect subject matter for Cronenberg; Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) falling into an affair with a beautiful patient (Keira Knightley), just as his rivalry with Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) is reaching its height, and yet the director fudges it. The sexuality feels unimportant, the psychoanalysis never really exposes the characters and the two never mix in an interesting way.

Stylistically this is just another period film; Cronenberg brings nothing to the table, and really, this could be any director's film. However, probably the worst thing is Keira Knightley's performance; so histrionic and so catastrophically terrible that I may have to rethink my general regard for her as an underrated actress. This is the most disappointing film of 2011.

4: DRAGONSLAYER

I knew a few people who liked to get stoned when we were teenagers. I didn't hang out with them when they smoked, because I didn't smoke, and because when they did they became incredibly boring company, I'm sure the random bullshit stoners spout is funny when you too are stoned, but I haven't been, and wasn't when watching Dragonslayer. This being the case, 75 minutes of watching a perpetually stoned 23 year old skateboard and smoke weed wasn't a particularly edifying experience, despite a few nice shots.

I didn't feel like Dragonslayer showed me anything interesting, introduced me to anyone I wanted to spend time with or taught me anything - except that stoners are fucking boring, but I knew that - and a documentary that doesn't do any of those things isn't worth even 75 minutes of my time.

3:LIKE CRAZY

Ah, the prosaic, easily solvable,self made, relationship problems of two uninteresting and unsympathetic 23 year olds. It's like Before Sunrise, but insufferable. Felicity Jones has been inexplicably lauded for her relentlessly okay performance, it's even been suggested that she's an outside contender for an Oscar nomination, but despite the acclaim, she and Anton Yelchin are boring as a young couple; one English, one American, separated by her visa status (because she overstays on a whim).

The central characters aren't interesting or sympathetic, they both seem selfish, and there is little sense of what drives them to be together (the closest we get to seeing what they have in common is a 30 second conversation about their favourite Paul Simon album). I din't care what happened in these people's lives, and while after Before Sunrise I wanted to know where Jesse and Celine ended up, I'm simply glad to be rid of this dull, mumbling pair.

2: W.E.

Okay, so after the catastrophic reports from Venice I wasn't expecting Madonna's latest directorial effort (following the barely shown Filth and Wisdom) to be good... I went not so much to see the film as to view the corpse... but I hear that this is actually the re-edited version, which I thought was still in progress, and if that's true, Dear GOD, what must they have shown at Venice? W.E. tells two stories equally poorly; that of Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough, at least a decade too young for the part), who, despite the fact that she was, at best, a Nazi sympathiser, Madonna seems to see as some tragically maligned angel, and that of a woman in 1998 New York named Wally (Abbie Cornish) who is obsessed with Simpson.

It's beautiful, but totally nonsensical. Madonna's cross cutting of the two stories is by turns inexplicably vague and thuddingly on the nose. The performances - bar Riseborough's valiant effort - are uniformly terrible, the dialogue is hilariously risible and the direction is ridiculously hysterical, as Madge drenches the film in a hideous score and steals her every daring move from other filmmakers (notably a use of The Sex Pistols' Pretty Vacant which... nods to... Sofia Coppola's use of music in Marie Antoinette. If this is the recut version of W.E. then it is still an utter disaster, if it is the original cut it is unsalvagably piss awful.

1: THE FUTURE

Stop The Future, I want to get off. I hated Miranda July's precious little piece of shit Me and You and Everyone We Know, and I didn't want to see her second feature, but I was dragged along by my friend and (now former) July admirer Mike Ewins. I'm not sure I've forgiven him yet. Amazingly, The Future is worse than Me and You; more twee, more cutesy, further up its own roomy arse. There is not a second of sincerity, not a frame of invention or interest. There's not one clever or thought provoking image or point. What there is is two near identical hipsters (July and Hamish Linklater), sitting around and fretting about the fact that getting a cat basically means the end of the fun part of their lives.

I want to slap these people, bellow "WELL DON'T GET A FUCKING CAT THEN YOU PRETENTIOUS, SELF REGARDING WANKERS" and leave them to the rest of their lives. But NO, July thinks this is ART, so we have to watch as she behaves like an insane person, and indulges her taste for the twee by having the cat narrate the film. It's pointless, meaningless, horrendously boring, cinematic water torture. I'm never watching another Miranda July film.

LFF 2011: ALPS

2011-10-20T11:04:00.000+01:00

Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos

In 2009 I saw Yorgos Lanthimos' second feature film, Dogtooth, at the LFF and was knocked sideways by it. For my money I haven't seen a better film since, old or new. Alps could never have been the cinematic kick in the teeth that Dogtooth was, it is too burdened by being the subsequent feature to one so striking, but even if it is not the instantly flooring thing that Dogtooth was, Alps remains an incredibly vital, individual and fascinating piece of cinema, and sees Lanthimos deliver on the promise of his last film.

The title refers not to the mountain range but to a group of four people; a nurse (Aggeliki Papoulia, the elder daughter in Dogtooth), a paramedic (Arus Servetalis) and a gymnast (Ariane Labed, the lead in Dogtooth and Alps producer Athina Rachel Tsangarai's Attenberg) and her coach (Johnny Vekris). This group seems to exist as a sort of grief counselling service, but the therapy they off is for one of the group to take 'stand in' for a dead friend or relative of the bereaved and re-enact scenes from their lives. We largely follow the nurse, encountering the other characters either when the group meets or when two of them have the same job.

As you would expect if you've seen Dogtooth, there is a deeply uncomfortable and uncertain feeling as you watch Alps, Lanthimos challenges even your most basic assumptions about the truth of the relationships between the characters, and while that may make Alps a frustrating watch for some, the constant questioning and my shifting perspective on what was going on in the film was something I found fascinating.

The film unfolds patiently, each little vignette filling us in a bit more either on how the group's sessions work (we see the nurse with several people who are definitely clients, notably a couple whose teenage daughter she tended to in hospital) or how the group dynamic functions. The funniest and the most disturbing scenes revolve around that group dynamic, like Dogtooth this film shows a small, dysfunctional, family ruled over by a stern patriarch, who amuse themselves in strange ways. At one group meeting they perfect their stand in skills, doing impressions for the others to guess (Ariane Labed's hilarious take on Prince really has to be seen), even there though, there is no levity, no sense of community, and if there's one thing I'd complain about with this film it's that it would be nice to understand a bit more about how this group came together. Tension is an odd thing in this film, take the scene where the paramedic gives the nurse a 'test'; it's immediately obvious what's going to happen, but Lanthimos delays it so long, and makes you dwell so uncomfortably in the moment with his unblinking, unmoving, camera, that it is a genuinely nailbiting moment, not so much about what, but when.

I loved Alps at a visual level from the opening shot, which is very simple, just a still frame of Labed standing in a gymnasium, waiting to perform a rhythmic gymnastics routine, as O'Fortuna booms out of the speakers. It doesn't tell us much, but it's such a striking juxtaposition of image and sound, and such an unexpected opening image that it makes an immediate impression. The rest of the visuals are similarly striking and heavily designed. the Alps members are often the centre of shots, but also often obscured, with many shots showing the back of one of them, in close up, with background characters in blown out focus. Lanthimos holds shots for an often uncomfortable length of time, as if he wants to force us to look long and hard at this strange world he has created.

The question of identity also comes up a lot here, with characters adopting other personae so frequently that we're never allowed to be sure who they really are. Even Ariane Labed's character; the naive gymnast who clearly struggles with her work for the group presents a question in this respect, though her coach is definitely another member of the group I found myself wondering, thanks to their sometimes robotic interaction and the often repeated question of why she can't perform to pop music, whether he might also be a client. This question comes up even more intensely with the nurse, we see her interacting with and feeding medication to a pensioner whom she calls her Father, but there is always a nagging doubt as to whether he too is a client and, ultimately, whether these people really have real lives that include others. I'm sure Lanthimos doesn't want us to know the truth of these relationships (and nor do I really want to know), but I'd be intrigued to know what he thinks is the truth of them.

Like Dogtooth, Alps is a comedy, a deep, dark, none more black comedy, but a comedy nonetheless. The humour hits like a hammer, because it's so out of place, and delivered in such a deadpan fashion. It comes in the awkwardness of some of the re-enactments (the nurse and the coach pantomiming sex, re-enacting the moment an elderly client caught her late husband with another woman), in the dialogue (in the opening scene the paramedic urgently asks a gravely injured girl who is her favourite actor) and in the images (the nurse trying to get that same girl, bandaged almost from head to toe, to play tennis). Set against the strange and disturbing world of the film, this absurdist humour is odd, but very effective. The performances strike a similar tone; they seem a little robotic at times, but that comes out of the situation presented, and adds to the comedy of many of the re-enactment scenes but, particularly from Papoulia and Labed, there are hints of much more going on beneath that emotionless surface the characters are trying to present.

Ultimately I still don't know quite what to make of Alps. It's clearly an astonishingly accomplished piece of art as well as highly engaging and - surprisingly I suppose - entertaining film, and it further marks out Yorgos Lanthimos as one of the most interesting directors in world cinema. I don't think it's the instant classic that Dogtooth was, but it's no disappointment. Days after I saw it, it continues to go round in my head, images and questions recurring over and over, I can't wait to see it again and try to work it out.

LFF 2011: Superheroes

2011-10-14T22:52:00.000+01:00

Dir: Michael Barnett

If, having read comics, seen Kick Ass, and basically become aware of how hard most superheroes with 'actual' powers get their arses kicked much of the time (even when they ultimately win), you think; I should get myself a costume and do that', there is a good chance you're utterly mental. Certainly this is true of many of the real life superheroes in Michael Barnett's film, but, happily, Barnett isn't mocking these people, indeed he's celebrating them, and many of them deserve to be celebrated.

Superheroes looks at several individuals and superhero groups, but turns its focus most closely on two people who work largely alone, and a group of four superheroes who share an apartment (I smell a sitcom). The one who is perhaps most like you'd expect a real life superhero to be is Master Legend; a paunchy, straggly haired, middle aged guy who uses his 'powers' largely to drive around in a van, drink beer and hit on young women, while dressed in what looks like spray painted armour from the dressing up box I had when I was five. He's well meaning, and funny, but he's not so much a real hero. Mr Xtreme, who has a picture of Kitty Genovese (who was raped and murdered outside a populated building, within reach of 38 witnesses who did nothing) on his armour, is getting things done, and he's more typical of the superheroes we find here. Mr Xtreme is beating up criminals, he's helping out by - in costume - patrolling areas where assaults have been reported, making flyers appealing for information on a local groper and helping the homeless.

This seems to be what most of the real life superheroes seen here are like, yes, some of their tactics are questionable (the four who live together often do 'bait patrol', hoping one of them will get mugged so the others can intervene), but none is ever seen to be violent here, instead channelling private pain (most speak of difficult childhoods) into a desire to help in their own odd way. I'm not about to make a costume and become [fanfare]THE CRITIC![/fanfare], but there is something inspiring about a superhero get together where a group of costumed individuals go round distributing essential to the homeless, or a group of superheroes making such a loud noise in a park that drug dealers can't operate that night.

All this and more is chronicled by Barnett with a humane, often amused, but never derisive, eye. Much of the film is very funny, because these people are funny, but thier overwhelming sincerity wins out, and makes Superheroes an unlikely feelgood, inspirational, movie.

LFF 2011: Shame

2011-10-14T18:47:00.000+01:00

Dir: Steve McQueen

"I'm not perfect, but I'm trying", so says Carey Mulligan's Sissy as Shame reaches its emotional crescendo. To invoke a more famous quote, nobody's perfect in Shame. The film takes place in the city that never sleeps, and nor do the people; they don't sleep together, they fuck. This is how Brandon (Michael Fassbender) lives, his life revolves around sex, any kind of sex; anonymous sex with a girl from a bar; transactions with prostitutes; desultory wanking to porn of all kinds. It's an addiction, and one that is clearly taking a toll on his life. His Sister, Mulligan's Sissy, comes back into his life early in the film, looking for a bolthole as she tries to make it as a singer, but she's not the calming influence you might imagine, indeed, Shame isn't really interested in the idea of calming influences, or recovery, it's a film about the downward spiral.

I wasn't a huge fan of director Steve McQueen's first film, Hunger, and specifically of its very austere visual style (a five minute static shot of a piss being mopped down a corridor, seriously?) and so I was pleased to see that Shame, while still beautifully designed and clearly made with an incredibly artistic eye, largely leaves that style behind for something a bit closer to a standard film grammar. That said, much of the most striking stuff here is still done in single takes, largely the conversations between Fassbender and Mulligan's characters.

McQueen is a director who understands exactly how to tell a story with his visuals. There is plenty of dialogue in Shame, and yet I can't shake the feeling that the film doesn't really need it, because so much comes through the visuals, be it the way that Sissy's presence distresses Brandon's incredibly precise apartment, the body language as Fassbender scores with a girl that his boss (James Badge Dale) is trying to hit on, the awkwardness of a date, repeatedly interrupted by a waiter, in these and more scenes, all the emotion is communicated through McQueen's shot and editing choices and the superlative physical performances.

That's not to say that Fassbender and Mulligan (who completely dominate the film) aren't brilliant when they have to speak, indeed there is an incredibly natural feeling to their dialogue and their relationship as brother and sister. There is an interesting note in the credits, with the writing credited as based on a screenplay by McQueen and Abi Morgan, which seems to confirm the loose, improvised feeling that much of the film - and particularly an emotional conversation between Fassbender and Mulligan - possesses.

This is a pair of brilliant performances by two actors working at different ends of the emotional scale. Fassbender is all held in, as if Brandon is desperate not to feel emotion at all (and who can blame him, when the moment he does, right at the end of the film, is so painful?) sometimes though, as in the moment he cries while Sissy sings New York New York, or the astonishing shot where he seems to crack, mid-threesome, Fassbender lets us see the cracks in that façade in a beautifully subtle way. Mulligan is also brilliant, firmly trashing the ingénue image that she could have built for herself with a fearlessly naked performance (yes, physically at one point, but the more important nakedness here is emotional). If Brandon seems to reject emotion, Sissy appears to crave it, looking for connection with her brother, for solace in quick sex with his boss, and beginning the film with a desperate call, begging a boyfriend not to leave her, which Mulligan plays heartbreakingly offscreen.

Physicality is key to Shame too. This could easily, given the amount of male and female flesh on display, have been an exploitative film. That it isn't is down to McQueen's matter of fact approach to the nudity, and his seeming insistence on making the sex scenes a key part of the character development. It does, however, have to be said that it is no surprise that the film will go out unrated in the US, as the MPAA are nervous of nudity even now, and 'little' Michael Fassbender has such a prominent role here that there is an argument for giving him an 'And' credit. With that out of the way, it's worth repeating that Shame's sex scenes are all pivotal to the character development, never more so than in that late threesome scene, which is essentially Brandon hitting bottom - no pun intended, you sick bastards - Fassbender is extraordinary in that scene, absolutely conveying Brandon's near-breakdown state in a way that is actually moving, while McQueen's camera seems to dwell in the idea of Brandon drowning his sorrows, whatever they might be.

The more I think about Shame the better it seems, and I can't wait to see it again, yes there is a moment right at the end that feels, given how the film deals with the modern world and modern relationships as scattered and messy, a bit too on the nose, too much like a movie when the rest is like life, but that's a nitpick, and there is also an effective ambiguity to the ending. On the whole, Shame is likely to be one of the best films of the LFF this year, and perhaps one of the best of 2011 overall.

LFF 2011: Natural Selection

2011-10-09T11:38:00.000+01:00

DIR: Robbie Pickering

Robbie Pickering's début has many touchstones, and it fits the mould of a relatively typical quirky American indie, but despite the fact that - especially to fans of the Coen Brothers' earlier, more freewheeling films - it may feel familiar, Natural Selection comes at us with such energy and such likeability that it is hard to imagine that anyone will mind very much.

The film focuses on Linda White (Rachael Harris), a 40 year old housewife whose husband Abe (John Diehl) refuses to make love to her for religious reasons, as they can't have children. One day Abe has a stroke, leading Linda to discover that for 25 years he has been donating at the local sperm bank. Thinking that Abe is going to die, and that he has asked that she track down his son, Linda sets out to find the 23 year old progeny of one of Abe's donations, but gets more than she bargained for when she finds Raymond (Matt O'Leary); a foul mouthed, drug addled, recent prison escapee.

Even from that brief synosis you can probably figure out much of what is going to happen during Natural Selection, and you'd be right most of the time, as the film does tick off a quite well established series of events, and foreshadows many of its twists quite clearly. This often annoys me more than it does most people, purely because I've seen so many films over the years (8-9000 is my current guess), but here it's fine, because the drama and the laughs come not so much from the storyline as they do from the characters.

Characterisation is a collaboration, it comes from the writing, the direction and the acting, and the three have to work in concert for it to really work. Here the balance is struck beautifully. At a screenplay level Pickering has created characters who seem on the surface to be a little stereotypical (the sheltered Christian housewife striking out on her own for the first time, the dishevelled redneck fuck up, etc) but slowly the script reveals layers behind that surface and reasons for the way these characters are. One pivotal scene has Raymond and Linda share a stolen supper, and reveal some painful truths about their backgrounds, and that, among several other scenes, really lets us see them as rounded characters. Pickering's direction is also strong, visually Natural Selection may not be the most dynamic or original film, but he exhibits a fine sense of timing in his cutting, a good balance between comedy and drama, and finds a few memorable shots (few more so than when we first see Raymond).

For me though, Natural Selection is an actor's piece, and while there are good supporting contributions from Diehl and Jon Gries, the film really belongs to Harris and O'Leary. O'Leary, an actor since childhood and familiar from the Spy Kids series and Brick, among others, is unrecognisable and very funny as the lank haired, bearded and frequently injured Raymond, he evidently enjoys Pickering's salty dialogue, and plays an early scene in which, after he's been beaten up, Linda gives him a bath, with perfect comic timing. That said, he's also believable in the film's more dramatic beats. Harris (whose looks, though very played down here, remind me of the excellent French actress Isabelle Carre) is perhaps even better. She too plays some of the comedy quite broadly, but only by embracing Linda as a character, she's never winking at the audience. Some people have observed that Linda; a buttoned down Christian housewife who believes in her duty to her husband so much that she's stayed in a sexless marriage for 25 years, wouldn't so readily fall into some of the things she does with Raymond. For me, Harris' performance makes it play, Linda always remains the fundamentally decent and sweet woman she is at the start of the film, but I believe her process of discovering the different things that that can mean once she's really out in the world for the first time.

The performances really power this film, O'Leary's character in particular might be problematic, as he is deeply unlikeable and sometimes cruel to Linda, who is loveable from the word go, but O'Leary is entertaining enough, and gives Raymond just enough depth, that we're always willing to go along with him, and even understand at some level why Linda does.

Natural Selection is at times a little schizophrenic; sweary and sometimes graphic (there is some violence, some brief nudity and a clip from Driller Killer), but also sweet natured and gently funny, it's a shame that this may well get quite a restrictive rating in the UK, because I could see it being the sort of gateway drug to more offbeat and interesting cinema that something like Raising Arizona was for me when I was about 13. It's not perfect; there is a moment towards the end that feels far too neat for this otherwise quite wilfully messy series of events, and is entirely predictable into the bargain, but that said, it's extremely well written and played, highly entertaining, and overall just one of the most enjoyable and likeable films I've seen in some time.

LFF 2011: The Future

2011-10-02T13:55:00.000+01:00

DIR: Miranda July

Miranda July is a conceptual performance artist. Yes, this is going to hurt. Following on from insufferably twee sounding art projects like Things We Don’t Understand and Definitely are Not Going To Talk About and her insufferably twee feature début Me and You and Everyone We Know (whose most memorable storyline featured a six year old boy talking to a woman in a chatroom about his fantasy of 'pooping back and forth, forever'... yes, I'll excuse you while you go and vomit) July has returned with this, her second feature film as writer and director. Guess what? It's twee, and insufferable.

The Future is about Sophia (July) and Jason (Hamish Linklater); a doppelgänger couple who have decided to adopt an injured kitten they have named Paw Paw, however, they can't take Paw Paw home until his paw heals, in a month. So, entirely logically, they both quit their jobs and decide to do what they want with 'their last month of freedom'. Jason joins a group going door to door selling trees, while Sophia decides to make 30 youtube videos of 30 dances. Eventually, bored, Sophia calls a number on the back of a picture Jason bought for them, and ends up meeting the artist.

It's not that I hate the people in The Future, more that I pity them. I mean, honestly, these people are in their mid thirties, they have nothing to tie them down, appear to be in a stable relationship (yes, with a person who looks creepily like their reflection, but still) and are gainfully employed, and yet these whiny pretentious douchebags have an existential crisis over adopting a cat. Here's a thought... If it's so troubling that you're going to panic about your mortality, call the animal shelter and don't adopt the thing. Or you could make some mind numbing performance art about it, I guess. Guess which way Miranda July goes here.

It's not that I hate the people in The Future, more that I don't believe these people exist. Nobody talks like this. These people don't have conversations, they speak in a series of non-sequiturs , spouting barely connected banalities at each other, as if that way lies profundity (spoiler: they're wrong). I can accept that maybe Sophia and Jason are just odd, maybe they both have aspergers or something, but honestly, everyone in the movie appears to be an alien. Jason goes to buy a hairdryer from an old man, who then becomes his main confidant, because that's what happens when you pick up an EBay purchase. The oddest moment comes when Sophie dials that number on the back of the painting, and talks to the artist. For some reason this guy never says (during the course of a supremely odd conversation) 'fuck off bitch, you are crazy', which, trust me, is the only sane response to Miranda July... sorry, to Sophia, and thus the entire second half of the film is rendered totally unbelievable.

When July wants you to feel something (I think we're meant to be sad when Sophie and Jason split up) you don't, because nobody in the movie seems to have feelings, or when they do they express them by burying themselves in the garden, or pulling a T Shirt over their head and improvising a dance... you know, like normal humans do. This is because July has ideas above her station, and think that her 'art' (and, look, I know I've defended some things as art that you might shake your head at, Martyrs for one, but if this is art then literally anything is art. Maybe I'll go and film myself shitting and if I give it a pretentious title like 'I am the void, and so are you', it will be art too) is so provocative and full of ideas that she doesn't need to engage with concepts like plot, character and emotion.

Good GOD this film is boring. It's not even really a film, it's just a series of quirky ideas that Miranda July had, but she's got no idea of how to express them in cinema. I don't know what she's saying with this film. It might be about Gen X ennui, equally it might be about a cat with a broken paw. In the film's most sick making device July herself does a squeaky voiceover, narrating the movie, as the cat waiting to be adopted. If that sounds 'cute' to you, by all means go and see The Future, and do feel free never to talk to me. I HATED this film, loathed it on a physical level, everything about it, and everything about the overwhelmingly fake and contrived July made me itch to get out of my seat as fast as humanly possible. I hated July's first film, the equally cutesy, equally vapid Me and You and Everyone We Know, but I gave her a chance here, well, this is worse, and I am done, no more Miranda July for me. Ever.

24FPS at LFF 2011: Plan of Attack

2011-09-23T11:05:00.000+01:00

I've just heard that, for the second year running, I'm a fully accredited member of the press corps for the London Film Festival, so I'll be aiming to bring you expanded coverage even from the extensive coverage I had last year. Hopefully this will mean more reviews and more interviews across the four weeks that the festival runs for us (two press weeks, two full festival weeks). So, to give you a bit of an idea as to what you can expect, here are the 83 (yes, 83) films I'll be aiming to see at this year's festival with the first ten in a rough order of importance to me.

1: Alps

There is no film, none, at the festival or otherwise, that I presently want to see more than Yorgos Lanthimos' follow up to his monumental Dogtooth (which I saw at LFF 2009). I have avoided all plot details, all reviews, all I know is the 20 second clip we saw at the press launch makes me suspect that this is not just more of the same, and that I'll be disappointed if it's not the film of the year.

2: Martha Marcy May Marlene

I've been dying to see this, and Elizabeth Olsen's (sister of Mary Kate and Ashley) apparently revelatory performance, since it premiered to glowing reviews at Sundance in January. It sounds smart, dark and disturbing... right up my alley in other words.

3: Shame

Great reviews from the festivals it has played so far, and Fassbender's Best Actor award at Venice promise much for Steve McQueen's second film. I like both Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, and I always like to see filmmakers and actors exploring sex in a truly adult way. I'm hopeful that's what we'll get here.

4: Dreileben

Dreileben is actually three films by three German directors. Each film has the same starting point; the escape of a convict from custody, but each then spins its own story, linked subtly to the others. A project this ambitious will likely either be a tremendous success or a total disaster, I'm looking for ward to finding out which based on the titles of the three parts; Beats Being Dead, Don't Follow Me Around and One Minute of Darkness.

5: A Dangerous Method

I've said it before, but it bears repeating, the ingredients are fantastic here; David Cronenberg making a film about psychoanalysis, and a cast comprising Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortenson, Kiera Knightley and Vincent Cassell. I honestly can't see how I won't love it.

6: Michael

The case of Josef Fritzl has inspired several provocative pieces of art (the bestselling novel Room being the best known) and this tough sounding film from Austria by a former casting director who has worked with both Jessica Hausner and Michael Haneke promises to be challenging. It's about a 35 year old man who keeps a 10 year old boy prisoner in his cellar. Reviews from Cannes were mixed, but Austria has turned out some impressive films and filmmakers of late, who have dealt well with difficult subject matter.

7: She Monkeys

My liking for European teen movies has been something of a running theme on this site and through the various LFF's I have attended (this is my sixth), and this Swedish example sounds promising. The story of two 15 year old girls on the same equestrian acrobatics team falling for each other suggests echoes off both Fucking Amal and Water Lilies. I can only hope She Monkeys is half as good as either of those great films.

8: Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life

In the wake of the execution of Troy Davis, whose guilt was in substantial doubt, Werner Herzog's documentary about the death penalty couldn't be more timely. Herzog is a fascinting guy, and I'm sure he'll have an interesting take on this issue, I hope the film will let all sides speak in the case it focuses on, rather than become a campaigning film.

9: Sarah Palin: You Betcha

In terms of catching the Zeitgeist, Nick Broomfield's latest may have missed its moment, but still, it has the potential to be a very funny, and not a little scary, insight into the American right wing. Hopefully Broomfield can go beyond name calling here and dig a little deeper into what makes Palin and (perhaps more interesting) her supporters tick.

10: The Fatherless

Another Austrian film, and I always seem to have one film in my main selection that for some reason I can't quite pinpoint, just calls out to me and says that it's going to be good. In 2008 it was Everybody Dies But Me, in 2009 Dogtooth, in 2010 Nothing's All Bad (all films that made my Top 10 in their years). It's about a group of grown children who have just lost their father, and their memories of their unconventional upbringing, and apparently flashes back and forth from present to past. The still above is what really stood out for me, there's just something starkly evocative about that image. I hope this one pays off.

and here, in alphabetical order, are my other Must See titles...

The Art of Love
The Artist
Asmaa
The Awakening
Back to Stay
Bernie
Better This World
The Bird
Breathing
Carnage
Coriolanus
Corpo Celeste
Crazy Horse
Darwin
The Dish and the Spoon
Dreams of a Life
The Fairy
50/50
Flying Fish
The First Born
The Forgiveness of Blood
The Giants
Goodbye
Guilty
Hara Kiri: Death of a Samurai
Headhunters
Here
Hors Satan
Hunky Dory
Hut in the Woods
The Ides of March
Junkhearts
Last Screening
Last Winter
Let the Bullets Fly
Like Crazy
The Loneliest Planet
Lotus Eaters
Low Life
Miss Bala
The Monk
The Natural Phenomenon of Madness
Natural Selection
Nobody Else But You
On The Sly
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
Oslo, August 31st
Ostende
Play
Rampart
Return
Seven Acts of Mercy
17 Girls
Silver Bullets
Sleeping Sickness
The Sleeping Voice
Snowtown
Stopped on Track
Strawberry Fields
The Student
Superheroes
Take Shelter
Tales of the Night
Trishna
Twilight Portrait
Undercurrent
W.E.
We Have a Pope
We Need to Talk About Kevin
When the Night
Wild Bill
Without
Wreckers
Wuthering Heights

There are also a few (typically three) films yet to be announced (not counting the surprise film). I would hope that at least some of these will feature: Take This Waltz (Sarah Polley's second directorial effort, starring Michelle Wiliams, Seth Rogen and Sarah Silverman), Killer Joe (William Friedkin's latest, with the brilliant young Brit Juno Temple in the lead), Himizu (The latest from cray, and prolific, Japanese auteur Sion Sono), The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Some remake by some bloke called Fincher) and at least one film with Isabelle Huppert, given that there are several to choose from right now.

An Interview with Tomboy Director Celine Sciamma

2011-09-15T14:04:00.000+01:00

Celine Sciamma's first film, Water Lilies, was a lyrical and beautifully executed début about the sometimes painful process of a first (in this case lesbian) crush. Her second film, Tomboy, looks at a younger character; 10 year old Laure, who, after her family moves, begins introducing herself to the other children living near her as a boy named Michael. It's another sensitive and beautifully acted film, and establishes Sciamma one of the most interesting young (she's just 30) voices in French cinema.

I was lucky enough to sit down with Sciamma on a visit to London and chat with her briefly about her new film.

My questions are in bold, Celine Sciamma's replies are in normal type.

Celine Sciamma: The Hospital Club, London. 14/9/11

Sam: To begin at the beginning; your degree is in literature, and you trained as a writer rather than as a filmmaker. So how and when did you decide to become a filmmaker, to move into that side of art?

Celine Sciamma: Well, I don't remember making a decision. I really wanted to be a screenwriter, I wrote my first script when I was in school, which was the script for Water Lilies, which became my first film. In France there is this strange... all the directors write their own movies, unlike here or in the US, there is no market for screenplays, so once you have one that you wrote yourself that really entices you to direct yourself. So that's what happened. I was not sure, but I decided, I will say yes anyway, because the movie is not going to be made anyway because it won't find money. And then everything got really fast, because we got the money, so I got to direct the movie but I don't remember taking the decision, because I was so scared.

Sam: Just something that happened because of the way the industry works in France then?

CS: Yeah, and it was really lucky that it happened because I discovered how much I loved it, but I was really really scared of doing it.

Sam: Obviously you're a young female filmmaker, and both of your first two films are to a certain degree about young women coming of age. How much personal experience do you find leaking in to your cinema, and is it important to you that that happens?

CS: I think, especially when you do work about childhood, you go to your memories, the teenage years even more so, even more vivid because it's closer. But I think you have to talk a little bit about what you know, about what is true, so that you can bring fiction [to it]. If I'm talking about a fifty year old man, I don't know anything about that, so I think It's not going to be great storytelling, whereas, talking about childhood and teenagehood, as a rookie, as a coming of age director, I feel like I can go further from my life. It's not really autobiographical, I remember how it felt, so I have the feeling and then I can build characters that are very far away from me. But of course, especially in Tomboy, there are things that are memories from my own childhood, like the relationship between the two sisters, that's really something that is mine.

Sam: The other thing that is really central in Tomboy is the issue of gender, and I think it's going to provoke a lot of debate with audiences; is she transsexual, its it just a phase? Is that something that you decided for yourself, and did you discuss that with Zoe, who plays Laure?

CS:Well, I have my own opinion of course about who she's going to become, even if it's not in the movie, the movies contains all the hypotheses - willingly - that way everybody can connect. We talked, me and Zoe, about how she felt about the character, about who she was going to become, we talked about her opinion, because that's the one that really...

Sam: She's quite young to have a defined take on that.

CS: Of course, that's why it was interesting that she really connects with the character. To her it was just a phase, and that as important for her, that it was just a phase because then she could go really deep into the phase.

Sam: Does that come from the fact that she's actually quite a girly girl?

CS: She's not that girly, no. She was kind of boyish actually. She doesn't have the short hair, she had that for the movie but now it's grown back, but she's the kind of girl who plays with the boys and she's very childish, very into childhood, not interested in boys or girls, she just plays soccer everyday, basketball, she's really an outdoor little girl. She's kind of boyish, and that's why I think she connects, and why she thinks it's just a phase, because for herself she thinks it's just a phase.

Sam: Talking of playing with the boys, you cast some of Zoe's real life friends as her friends in the movie. One of the things that fascinated me about both Water Lilies and Tomboy is that you have very naturalistic performances from very young and generally quite inexperienced actors. o how do you work with them as a director, do you stick close to the script?

CS: Well it depends. When there are a lot of children on the set and we have those group scenes it's really about directing them in the moment. So I'm picking child after child and it's not totally improv, I'm telling him 'I'm shooting you' so they always know when the camera is on them and when they have to perform or they don't. So I just let them play football and sometimes I say 'now you're gonna spit' or 'now you're gonna look at her' So it's live, live directing, because they didn't read the scene before.

But when I'm with Zoe, or the little sister, it's all written down and they have to say the right words. Of course we bring a little improv, and we do very long takes - ten to twelve minute takes. They always have things to do; playing with play-doh, playing in the bath, to get this natural feeling, and then we try to get the words that have been written.

Sam: Talking of how you shot the film, you made quite an interesting choice with the camera you used for this film, which is a stills camera.

CS: Yes, the Cannon 7D

Sam: So, how did that influence the design of the film, and were there particular challenges or advantages to the choice of that camera?

CS: I chose it mostly for artistic reasons, it's a cheap camera and everybody is shooting with it now because it's cheap, it's a good camera, but it's cheap. What I really like about it is that it resembles 35mm, regarding the field of depth, regarding the colour, and so you can really get the characters and the blurry backgrounds that you get from 35mm. So to me it was an HD camera that had a very strong cinematographic feeling. It's also lighter, and the camera needed to be lighter because when you are shooting at a child's scale, like that [indicates camera height], you have to be lighter, so that was also part of the decision.

More philosophically I like the idea that memories from your childhood, it's still pictures, for my generation and for yours, now it's going to be different. I like the fact I was shooting with a still camera, the feeling, like those memories from childhood. But it's really because the image has a strong cinematographic feeling.

Sam: I know Tomboy came together very quickly, and that you had been working on the idea but banged the script out very fast. Do you think that benefited the film, or when you watch it now do you think 'I wish I'd had a few more months to work on that'?

CS: I think it benefited the film because I knew it from the start, it was my own decision that I only had three months between writing and shooting to bring the movie to life, so I made the script thinking about that, thinking 'okay it's going to be only fifty sequences, not too many sets' because I wasn't trying to make something that big [a large gap between her hands] fit something that big [a small gap between her hands]. But of course sometimes you have regrets, but that's not a matter of scale, it's a matter of pragmatism, you know? But the whole energy of the film was like that, it's been an amazing experience but I don't know that I'll do it again. One of a kind.

Sam: You also said that you didn't expect Tomboy to be your second film. Do you have one you expect to be your third and is it getting made?

CS: [Laughs] No. I don't know yet. I wish I could do TV, I'm interested in TV series also.

Sam: To tell a story across a longer period?

CS: Yeah, to follow characters for a long time.

Sam: And just a quick final question; aside from any of your own, what's one film you would tell everyone to see.

CS: Oh... The one I'm always showing to people when they haven't seen it is Mulholland Drive.

Thanks to Celine Sciamma for sitting down with me, and to Peccadillo Pictures and Premier Pr for setting up the interview. Tomboy opens on Friday and is one of the best films of 2011 to date, and Sciamma's Water Lilies is on DVD and is one of my Top 100 films. Check them both out, and Mullholland Drive if you haven't already, she's right, it's great.

LFF 2011 Preview Part 1

2011-09-11T12:19:00.001+01:00

Yes, it's that time again, for all us movie fans the circus is back in town, as the London Film Festival ramps up for its 55th year. This is also the final year for artistic director Sandra Hebron, whose tenure has seen the festival become a very significant event in the world film calendar. It looks like she and her team have crafted an eclectic programme again this year across all the familiar strands, and across this 3 part post I'll be picking my personal must sees of the fest.

Let's begin, then, with the festival's heavy hitters.

GALAS AND SPECIAL SCREENINGS

Opening Film: 360
Dir: Fernando Mierelles

A dynamic and moving study of love in the 21st century from the director of The Constant Gardener.

Mierelles reunites with his Constant Gardener star Rachel Weisz, and assembles a cast of international talents (also including Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins, Jamel Debouzze and Moritz Bleibtreu) for the globetrotting set of interlocking stories about couples. It's an adaptation of La Ronde (hence 360). For me, Mierelles is overrated, and this looks very middling, but as the opening film, and one of Rachel Weisz' four Oscar hopeful roles this year it must count as one of the big events of the festival.

Closing Film: The Deep Blue Sea
Dir: Terence Davies

Terence Davies' poetic and sensitive adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play, with subtly nuanced performances from its impeccable cast.

A classy British cast for a classy British director, adapting a play by a classy British writer. Yep, that's an LFF closing film. This is perhaps the expected Oscar nominated performance for Rachel Weisz, playing a woman who, in 1950's London, leaves her older husband (Simon Russell Beale) for a younger man (the very busy Tom Hiddleston), but inevitably finds that that relationship also has its problems. This looks like a heady drama with a beautifully crafted look and a standout part for Weisz.

The Artist
Dir: Michel Hazanavicius

They don't make ‘em like they used to, apparently. Well, ‘they' do now!

Set in Hollywood in 1927, this homage to silent cinema was one of the big popular hits of the Cannes Film Festival, and won lead Jean Dujardin the Best Actor prize. The Artist is, apparently, not quite a modern silent, but eschews dialogue almost completely and that, along with the crisp black and white photography, should allow us to plunge into what is now, for most, a lost world, just as the movies discovered sound. This looks like a smart, sweet and funny love letter to cinema. I can't wait to see it.

Coriolanus
Dir: Ralph Fiennes

A clever, contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare's play of political power and intrigue, directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes.

Rather shamefully I don't know Shakespeare's Coriolanus at all. That said, what we've seen of Ralph Fiennes' directorial debut doesn't exactly scream Shakespeare at you. Instead it seems that by setting this story of a Roman general in modern day and in a Balkan war zone Fiennes has come up with a muscular adaptation, combining Shakespeare's words with the ultra modern imagery that he and Hurt Locker cinematographer Barry Ackroyd have collaborated to find. Fiennes also leads a cast packed with the best of British acting talent... and Gerard Butler, who appears to be playing a man who shouts in a Scottish accent. Well, you can't have it all can you?

A Dangerous Method
Dir: David Cronenberg

Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender and Keira Knightley star in David Cronenberg's compelling look at the early days of psychoanalysis.

A new David Cronenberg film is always a cause for celebration as far as I'm concerned, and it seems that, having been preoccupied with the body for so long, Cronenberg is becoming more and more interested in exploring the mind with his recent films. Here he depicts the relationship between Sigmund Freud (Cronenberg's current muse, Viggo Mortenson), Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and one of Jung's patients, with whom he has an affair (Keira Knightley). So, and adventurous and high quality cast, a script by Christopher Hampton and Cronenberg dealing with sex and psychoanalysis. Sign me up.

The Descendants
Dir: Alexander Payne

Alexander Payne is another filmmaker I find hit and miss, but this, his first film since Sideways, looks to be much more up my street than that film or About Schmidt. George Clooney plays a Dad who suddenly realises, when his wife is seriously injured in an accident, that he doesn't really know his two daughters (who are ten and seventeen). Clips suggest that Payne's comedic instinct as as sharp as ever and that Clooney is well cast. The danger is probably that the film could start to feel over familliar, or that the inevitable learning and hugging could be cloying, but hopefully Clooney's Cary Grant like charm will keep those things from becoming a real issue.

The First Born
Dir: Miles Mander

The sex lives of the upper classes come under scrutiny in this tour de force of late silent British cinema.

You're probably best off asking Pamela from Silent London about this one. The archive gala is a late silent period British film, starring Madeline Carroll, who would go on to be one of the quintessential Hitchcock blondes in The 39 Steps. Coincidentally, The First Born was co-written by Hitchcock's wife, Alma Reville. The story of a philandering husband, jealousy, miscegenation and images of Carroll taking a bath (shot in very voyeuristic fashion) must have been controversial at the time, and suggest a film that is still likely to feel adult and somewhat contemporary.

The Ides of March
Dir: George Clooney

George Clooney directs and appears alongside Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti and Evan Rachel Wood in this smart, incisive exploration of dirty politics on the campaign trail.

After a misstep with charmless screwball throwback Leatherheads it seems that George Clooney is back to what he does best as a director. The Ides of March casts Clooney as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination (who seems to carry more than a few echoes of Barack Obabma). The cast is high quality, the quetion mark will likely be whether Clooney and co-writer Grant Heslov can keep the political rhetoric from being too heavy, or, worse, the whole thing from simply feeling like The West Wing lite.

Shame
Dir: Steve McQueen

Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan star in Steve McQueen's frank study of a New York man's sexual compulsion.

I didn't like Steve McQueen's debut; Hunger quite as much as some other critics, but Shame sounds more interesting for several reasons. First is Michael Fassbender, the real standout aspect of Shame, reuniting with McQueen having gone from strength to strength as an actor since their last collaboration. Second is Carey Mulligan, whose career is so much in the ascedant right now that she could be doing blockbuster upon blockbuster, but instead she's choosing daring parts like this and finally there's simply this; when was the last time you saw an English language film that treated sex as more than something to leer or snigger at? It doesn't happen much. Truly adult films, treating adult subjects intelligently, are too rare. This looks like being one.

We Need to Talk About Kevin
Dir: Lynne Ramsay

The much-anticipated film based on Lionel Shriver's Orange Prize-winning novel.

One of the great mysteries in the film business is why, after the opening one two punch of her magnificent Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar, it took eight years (and several collapsed projects) for Lynne Ramsay to be allowed back behind a camera.

This adaptation of the novel about a woman (played by the always magnificent Tilda Swinton) trying to come to terms with the fact that her son has committed an awful crime sounds like it is right up Ramsay's particularly bleak street, and the casting also seems dead on, with John C. Reilly as Swinton's husband and the hotly tipped Ezra Miller apparently outstanding as Kevin. I just hope it's as good as I want it to be.

Final Destination 5 [15]

2011-09-05T20:54:00.000+01:00

DIR: Steven Quale

Reviewing the previous entry in this franchise, the confusingly named The Final Destination, I declared the then nine year old franchise dead. I spoke too soon, and two years later, here we are again with the same idea; Attractive twentysomethings cheat death in a disaster (a bridge collapse this time out), then are picked off by death in a series of Rube Goldberg inspired lethal coincidences.

Here a group of work colleagues are their way to a weekend business retreat, when one of them (Sam, played by Nicholas D'Agosto) has a vision of the bridge they are on collapsing, and manages to get his ex-girlfriend (Emma Bell), some of their friends and their boss (David Kochener) to follow him off the bus to safety. Soon after, as ever, splashy violence ensues as Death rebalances the books.

I know, as do you, that at this point character isn't the most important thing in a Final Destination movie, but surely it would be nice, and asking only a little, to have characters that you could tell apart. I didn't even remember most of these people's names as I was watching the movie - though IMDB reveals that, yes, they have names, and the franchise tradition of invoking horror directors names continues with the likes of Peter Friedkin (Miles Fisher), Candice Hooper (Ellen Wroe) and Oivia Castle (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood). Again it's the leads who come off worst, some of the others have a trait (Peter is angry, Candice is nice, and likes gymnastics, Olivia is hot but - oh no - wears glasses). but Sam and Molly (Emma Bell's character) are voids, I nothing them, so it's hard to care much whether they live or die.

Another issue is that, while the build up to the death scenes, the series of coincidences that leads to each, tends to be excellent, there is often a rather listless, 'oh, that'll do' feeling to the actual deaths. The gym sequence is maybe the best example; an expertly shot and paced build up, using the space and the elements to build real tension as to what's going to happen, followed by an underwhelming, and, even by the standards of this franchise, credulity straining outcome. Another death that produces an 'oh', rather than an 'arrgghh' begins with a nightmarish medical procedure, but ends in a deeply anticlimactic fall.

This said, Final Destination 5 is largely fun. The 3D is gimmicky, but Steven Quale sees it for what it is and embraces, even revels in, the gimmick. Guts are thrust out of the screen at us on a regular basis, glass repeatedly shatters in our faces during the opening credit sequence (and how nice it is to see one of those these days) and the depth perception is used effectively - for this extreme vertigo sufferer anyway - in the inventively gory bridge sequence.

The performances are proficient, as is the direction, with Quale building up each death scene brilliantly, even if Eric Heisserrer's often tin-eared screenplay sometimes fumbles the final moments. Nothing rivals the OH SHIT impact of the first film's bus, or the sequel's fence, but the gore is as OTT and as guiltily funny as ever. What really makes Final Destination 5 stand out a bit though is its ending. There are clues (largely relating to technology) throughout the film, but a clever twist genuinely took me by surprise in the film's last ten minutes. It does mean that this really needs to be where the franchise ends, but it's a great nod to the fans, and quite a clever (and, when you stop and consider it, chilling) beat in its own right.

Final Destination 5 delivers what it promises on the label; it's dumb fun. Go with a girl who'll jump at all the right moments and consequently grab on to you, or go with a group of franchise fans, either way, though it won't change your world, you'll come out entertained.

Blu Ray Review: Heavenly Creatures [18]

2011-08-27T14:29:00.001+01:00

DIR: Peter Jackson

The Film
Today, Peter Jackson is one of the major names in world cinema, and one of the most commercially and critically successful directors in the world, but it was not always so. In 1994, when Heavenly Creatures came out, Jackson was the mad maverick behind splattery black comedies like Bad Taste, Braindead and his 'Muppets from Hell' movie Meet the Feebles. It was, then, something of a surprise that he should be the filmmaker to tackle one of his native New Zealand's most infamous and shocking murder cases.

Heavenly Creatures tells the story of the intense friendship between fifteen year old Juliet Hulme (Kate Winslet) and Pauline Parker (Melanie Lynskey), which ended up, when the girls were to be separated, in the brutal murder of Pauline's Mother (Sarah Pierse). The girls, from opposite ends of the economic scale, bond over their shared history of medical problems ("All the best people have bad chests and bone diseases") and their creativity. This creativity bleeds into a fantasy world and the girls become increasingly obsessed with and dependent on it and on each other.

In many ways Heavenly Creatures is very different to Peter Jackson's previous films; it's set - largely - in the real world, deals with real people and events and is notably less extreme than the likes of Braindead, but it also shares DNA with those films, and is clearly the product of the same directorial mind. Jackson starts the film, after a shocking opening flash forward, by grounding us in the real world, we get footage from a promotional film for Christchurch, New Zealand, where the film is set, and a rather conventional looking (if beautifully shot) first couple of reels, however, as Juliet and Pauline become closer, and as their shared fantasy world develops further, Jackson allows his camerawork to become more and more extreme. As the film goes on it slips more and more frequently and freely into fantasy, and Jackson, even in the real world, plays up the oddness of his characters visually with offbeat, off centre angle choices. This, however, ceases for the climactic murder, which is rendered in brutal and disturbing detail.

What Jackson achieves by this is not just a film with a very individual feel, but one that draws us into the world and the psyche of its leading characters. The people that Juliet and Pauline dislike are seen almost as caricatures, and are shot in a larger than life way, often looming into frame (see the doctor who diagnoses Pauline as a lesbian, or the priest who comes to see a convalescing Juliet when she's hospitalised with TB), and their fantasies are rendered in stark contrast to the world around them, which is often drab. In the fantasy sequences even dowdy Pauline is transformed into a beautiful princess, colours are sharper and more saturated and everything is heightened.

The film is packed with memorable sequences and images in both the real and the fantasy worlds; an idyllic sequence early in the film in which the girls run through the woods, stripped to their underwear, singing and dancing makes for a sharp contrast with the almost nightmarish (and brilliantly cine literate) scene after they have seen a screening of The Third Man, and find themselves chased by "the most hideous man in the world", Orson Welles.

This contrast between the way the girls see the world as opposed to those around them is also drawn with a set of very strong performances. Sarah Pierse is particularly notable as Honora Parker; a mother who gets angry with her daughter through love and worry. Pauline sees her as the villain, but the film is very matter of fact about her, painting her neither as saint nor sinner and Pierse gives a very grounded performance which makes the march to the end (which, even if you don't know everything from the opening, is explicitly revealed as Pauline and Juliet plan the killing) absolutely bone chilling and deeply sad. The cafe scene at the end of the film (shot in the real location) is a great showcase for both Pierse and Melanie Lynskey, whose exhortation to her Mother to "treat yourself" to the last cream cake takes on a cold menace in context. There are also fine performances from the other actors playing the Hulme and Parker parents; Clive Merrison and Diana Kent as Juliet's upper class Mother and Father and Simon O'Connor as Pauline's fishmonger Father.

In the end though, the film rests on the shoulder of its two young stars, then sixteen (Lynskey) and seventeen (Winslet) and both making their film debut. Both are outstanding. Winslet is, at first glance, perhaps a bit over dramatic, but this is Juliet; she's a person of extremes, everything is either wonderful or ghastly, people are saints (James Mason, Mario Lanza and more) or 'the most hideous man alive' (the aforementioned Orson Welles), and her stories are packed with beautiful kings and queens, psychotic children and gorgeous gypsy girls. She's a drama queen, and Winslet plays that side of her perfectly. This - along with her distant relationship with her parents - also gives us an insight into why Juliet, clearly much more intelligent than Pauline, forms such an obsessive attachment to her young friend. Melanie Lynskey is also brilliant here. Her performance got less notice than Winslet's and, seventeen years later, she remains an undervalued talent. This is probably because Pauline, outside of her diary entries (all of which are real, and brilliantly read by Lynskey), she is a much more held in character. It's tough to understand a relationship like this, and a character like Pauline, but Lynskey plays her, seemingly without judgement, as just one more troubled, taciturn, teenager. By taking that starting point and moving the character credibly on through this growing obsession we get to understand how things end up as they do, because we see how Pauline, in contrast to the very open and expressive Juliet, holds her resentment in a tight ball until it explodes. These are two very contrasting and equally excellent performances.

I first saw Heavenly Creatures about fifteen years ago, and it has a special place in my heart. It was one of the first films that really interested me in cinema that was more offbeat and made beyond the US, and it was one of the first films that me and my best friend bonded over (yes, I realise that sounds odd, but honestly we're perfectly normal). For my money it remains as brilliant now as it ever was, it stands out in the distinguished filmographies of both Jackson and Winslet, and is a fascinating film about obsession and about murder. This, amazingly, is its first DVD release in the UK, and I'm really happy that a new generation of cinephiles, who may not have seen any of Jackson's pre Lord of the Rings work will now, at last, get a chance to discover this masterpiece.

The Disc

I received a screener copy of Heavenly Creatures, which did not include the extras. The release copy will boast a 'Looking Back' featurette with Kim Newman, Alan Jones and Rosie Fletcher and four postcards. I can't help but wish there was more; a Jackson commentary, a proper retrospective with the cast and the alternate cut, which is ten minutes or so longer, would all have been welcome.

That said, what we do have is a beautiful looking Blu Ray transfer. The film has been remastered, and looks like it was shot yesterday; the print has some grain structure, but is free of speckles and damage. The edges are sharp without seeming over enhanced, the colours pop brilliantly and there is a good deal of depth in the image (which is also, for the first time in the UK, in the film's original 2.35:1 ratio). This transfer perhaps doesn't have the jaw dropping appearance of a Terminator 2 or the 'wow, look how nicely that cleaned up' impact of some of Arrow's video nasty releases, but it's still a great job, and as good as this film is ever likely to look.

Thanks to Peccadillo Pictures and Rabbit Publicity for the screener. Heavenly Creatures comes to UK DVD and Blu Ray on September 12th.

If you'd like to buy Heavenly Creatures (and trust me, you would) and help 24FPS out at the same time then please use the links below. Thanks.

Announcement: NEW PROJECTS

2011-08-21T14:46:00.001+01:00

You might have noticed that 24FPS has slowed down a little recently, and I wanted to explain why that is. I have a couple of new projects, the first I'm going to keep under wraps for now, except to say that I've started work on a book. Specifics will be forthcoming, but probably not for some time yet.

My other new project is one I've been wanting to let you all (again, Hi, all three of you) in on for some time. A few weeks ago I began working at HorrorMovies.ca as a critic and feature writer. Most of my genre reviews will run there in the future, hence 24FPS' recent recruitment of horrorspondent Steve Chandler (cheers Steve).

At HorrorMovies I am writing a weekly series that will see me watch and review all 74 of the films that were on the so called 'Video Nasties' list, as well as writing reviews and more besides (watch this space for an exciting upcoming feature). My author page at HorrorMovies is in the process of being built, but until then here is the work I've done over there so far.

VIDEO NASTIES
I Spit on Your Grave ('78)
Gestapo's Last Orgy
Fight For Your Life
Tenebrae

REVIEWS
City of the Living Dead [DVD]
Hobo With a Shotgun
The Devils: Director's Cut
Tony
Red State
Fright Night [3D]

So, check me and the many other excellent writers out at HorrorMovies, and hold your breath (and your wallets, if you don't mind) for more on that book.

Thanks always for reading.

World War Z: Eyewitness Report

2011-08-20T14:37:00.001+01:00

Our new horror correspondent (horrorspondent?) Steve Chandler has had an interesting week. Just outside his workplace in Glasgow the new zombie movie World War Z has been shooting key scenes. Here are some of Steve's impressions of what he's seen, and some EXCLUSIVE behind the scenes images (which you'll find at the end of this article).

Hollywood came to Glasgow this week with the arrival of Brad Pitt, Marc Forster and the entire World War Z crew to shoot the $80m adaptation of Max Brooks’ acclaimed zombie novel. Matters kicked off on Monday as Glasgow’s George Square and some of the surrounding streets were transformed into the streets of Philadelphia. It seems that Philadelphia proved to be a prohibitively expensive city to shoot in. So when money talks with the powers that be in the US fell apart a decision was made to approach Glasgow City Council to seek permission to shoot the movie around the streets that some area of Philadelphia was apparently modelled on. George Square became a hive of activity as up went US style traffic lights and the streets were populated by dozens of US vehicles (cars, ambulances, military vehicles, huge garbage trucks etc.) With filming due to start the next day I started to get very excited indeed, but I could not have envisaged how close I was going to get to the action.

Hilarity ensued on the Tuesday when, late in the day, a Brad Pitt lookalike was spotted just outside my office window and mistaken for the real thing, cue much wetting of knickers amongst my female colleagues. I was briefly convinced that I was in fact looking at the a-list Hollywood star but after heading outside for a closer look I soon realised that, hair aside, fakeBrad looked nothing like the real deal.

A similar scene ensued on Wednesday morning with my colleagues debating whether or not fakeBrad was really realBrad. This debate was suddenly abandoned when we realised that the real deal had been standing less than ten feet away with his back to us. He turned around and prompted much screaming and squeaking from the females in the room and more knicker wetting, the latter in earnest this time. The effect that realBrad has on women is markedly more intense than that of fakeBrad (who shall henceforth not be mentioned allowing me to drop the “real” from realBrad before it gets annoying).

Soon the filming began and it suddenly became practically impossible to concentrate on work. They spent much of Wednesday shooting scenes involving a lot of extras running along the street in a state of panic in the face of what is presumably some kind of zombie related threat. Brad spent most of the day in the car with his wife and kids (not Angelina and their semi-adopted brood but his movie family). Inhabiting the role of Brad’s character’s wife is Mireille Enos who has had a significant role in US series Big Love and more recently the lead female role in AMC’s adaptation of the hit Danish crime drama The Killing.

Things got a lot more exciting on the Thursday with them repeatedly shooting a scene where Brad gets out of his car after a motorcycle cop knocks off his side mirror. He strolls in a very Brad Pittlike manner a little way down the street, picks up the broken side mirror, has a brief conversation with another driver then gets back in his vehicle before being yelled at to “Remain in your vehicle!!!” by the very same cop who damaged his car. They must have shot this scene about dozen or more times in stops and starts but being that I live in Glasgow and have never been anywhere near a big Hollywood set as they shoot a movie the entire event was very absorbing. They also kept firing a double barrel shotgun loaded with blanks about two maybe three feet away from my office window and every time I came damn close to either making a mess in my pants or dropping dead of a heart attack.

Next day there was no sign of Brad or Marc Forster as the second unit film crew set about preparing a major shot involving an enormous garbage vehicle, which had a massive metal plough attached to the front, tearing down the middle of the street knocking vehicles out of the way and causing extras and stunt people to scatter. After a short while filming the cop yelling at Brad Pitt’s character (who had been replaced by a dummy) and a few dry runs where they drove the garbage truck fairly slowly down the street until it stopped about five yards behind the motorcycle they replaced the real cop with a dummy and got down to shooting the money shot. My colleagues and I were asked to step well back from the windows, possibly for health and safety reasons, but more likely because we were in shot. I had set a camera up just inside the window to record the scene but someone in the production crew spotted it and I was asked to remove it because the flash would be visible in the shot. I didn’t honestly think it was worth trying to argue that I wasn’t intending to take a photograph but was actually planning to record the scene in hi-definition. I really didn’t think that would fly. So I smiled, kept my mouth shut, and removed the camera.

Even though I kind of knew what to expect from the crash scene they were about to shoot NOTHING could possibly have prepared me for how cool it actually was. Travelling at speed the garbage truck came racing down the street, hit the motorcycle sending the dummy flying through the air to come to rest on the roof of a car then proceeded down the street knocking cars out of the way as it went. When I say it knocked cars out of the way that doesn’t really paint a vivid enough picture of what in actuality happened. Cars went flying into the air. Stunt people were diving for cover. The sound of metal being ripped and crushed was enormous. One of the cars ended up lying on it’s roof. It was amazing. I didn’t have as good a view as I would have liked owing to us having been asked to stand back from the windows, nonetheless I was left with my mouth hanging open in complete awe of what I had just witnessed.

It seems that come Monday the filming will have moved to another street so it’s unlikely I’ll see much more of the production. But this has been a very exciting week. When I read that they would be shooting the movie in Glasgow around George Square I never anticipated having a window seat. Being that I’m such a huge fan of horror cinema and the zombie genre in particular I can only hope that I am afforded an opportunity to see some undead related mayhem. That would be very cool indeed.

24FPS Top 100: No. 52

2011-08-19T19:35:00.000+01:00

52: THE GOONIES [1985]
DIR: Richard Donner

Why is it on the list?
Just to get the obvious question out of the way. Yes. Really. I know that The Goonies is a silly kids movie, I know some of the dialogue clunks, but like a great many of my generation, though I only saw it on video, it became one of the defining films and fond memories of my childhood. But that's not why it makes the list...

The Goonies is here because it's still just as exhilarating, still just as much fun as it ever was, 26 years after it was made and a good two decades since I first saw it. For me it's both a part of my childhood and a film I still love to watch; an adventure I still enjoy going on with these kids. That's probably what caught my imagination the first time I saw it; these kids weren't much older than I was at the time, and here they were, going on the kind of adventures that we all ran around our back gardens pretending we were going on.

It also doesn't hurt that the cast, while not all the greatest actors in the world, are all clearly having fun, and have great chemistry as a group. The characters all have their own niche in the group, and with most of them you'll be able to look at your own group of friends and say 'Yeah, I was Mikey', or Mouth, or Chunk. Everyone acquits themselves well, but it's the younger members of the group (Sean Astin, Corey Feldman, Ke Huy Quan and Jeff Cohen) who get to have the most fun and nab all of the best lines as older brother Brand (a debuting Josh Brolin) and token girls Andie (Kerri Green) and Stef (Martha Plimpton, who once had 'Goonies never say die' shouted in her direction as she was playing the lead role in Hedda Gabler) mostly look on and follow behind.

The performances may not be Oscar worthy, but all of them are entertaining, with Feldman's quick-witted Mouth and Jeff Cohen as roly poly Chunk making the biggest impressions and nabbing many of the best lines. Cohen, in particular, is a delight and hilariously funny. While the others go off in search of buried treasure, Chunk is trapped in the house of villainous family The Fratelli's (Anne Ramsey, Robert Davi and Joe Pantoliano), who interrogate him in one of the film's funniest scenes. In a sweet and funny twist, Chunk also befriends the last Fratelli; deformed brother Sloth (John Matusak), who is locked in the basement, and takes him along when he goes to find and save his friends. This, of course, also leads to the film's most famous moment; Sloth's battle cry (for a fight between the Goonies and the Fratelli's aboard a pirate ship) of 'Hey You Guys!'.

The Goonies is a ride; a rollercoaster that straps you in and takes you from set piece (the wishing well) to set piece (the bone organ) to set piece (the pirate ship). It slows down occasionally, just to let you catch your breath (and to develop the romantic interest between Brolin and Green, and the animosity between Feldman and Plimpton, both of which the film mines for comedy) but for the most part this is a wild, and wildly fun, ride.

I don't envy director Richard Donner the task of marshalling this young cast, but he does it brilliantly, while also making sure the thrills and the laughs don't stop - no surprise there from the man who would make Lethal Weapon two years later. The action scenes are well staged, and the film is often stunning to look at, with Donner making the most of the outstanding production design, which becomes more and more a character in its own right as the film goes on.

When I watch The Goonies (and I watch it often), I get a warm glow. Seeing this film is like visiting old friends, going on an adventure, and revisiting an old crush (oh Kerri Green, why didn't you make more movies?), and to some degree that's what the cinema is all about, or what it should be about.

Standout Scenes
Chunk Confesses

Truffle Shuffle

And, as a bonus: a Goonies reunion (just as an aside, how stunning is Kerri Green 25 years on?)

Memorable Lines
Mama Fratelli: There it is. Okay Jake you first.
Jake Fratelli: I ain't going down there mama. Are you kidding me?
Mama Fratelli: [Cocking the handle back on the gun and pointing it at Jake] Go!
Jake Fratelli: I can't argue with that mama.

Francis Fratelli: Tell us everything! Everything!
Chunk: Everything. OK! I'll talk! In third grade, I cheated on my history exam. In fourth grade, I stole my uncle Max's toupee and I glued it on my face when I was Moses in my Hebrew School play. In fifth grade, I knocked my sister Edie down the stairs and I blamed it on the dog... When my mom sent me to the summer camp for fat kids and then they served lunch I got nuts and I pigged out and they kicked me out... But the worst thing I ever done - I mixed a pot of fake puke at home and then I went to this movie theater, hid the puke in my jacket, climbed up to the balcony and then, t-t-then, I made a noise like this: hua-hua-hua-huaaaaaaa - and then I dumped it over the side, all over the people in the audience. And then, this was horrible, all the people started getting sick and throwing up all over each other. I never felt so bad in my entire life.
Jake Fratelli: I'm beginning to like this kid, Ma!
Mama Fratelli: [tired of Chunk's stalling] Hit puree!

Mikey: Goonies never say die!

[Mouth is "translating" Mrs. Walsh's instructions for Rosalita]
Irene Walsh: Pants and shirts go in the... oh, forget about it. Just throw everything into cardboard boxes. Clark, can you really translate all that?
Mouth: For sure, Mrs. Walsh.
Mouth: [in Spanish] The marijuana goes in the top drawer. The cocaine and speed go in the second drawer. And the heroin goes in the bottom drawer. Always separate the drugs.

Mikey: [sees that a dropped statue's penis has broken off] Oh my GOD! That's my mom's most favourite piece!

Rammbock: Berlin Undead

2011-08-19T11:26:00.001+01:00

Here's a new review from Horror correspondent Steve Chandler. Enjoy.

DIR: Marvin Kren.

Clocking in at a little more than an hour including end credits I hesitate to call Rammbock: Berlin Undead a movie. It is to the feature length horror flick what the novella is to the full length novel. What we have here is a lean, mean calling card that has been stripped clean of anything that could be described as extraneous. In fact it has more substance in it’s short running time than most of what passes for horror cinema these days. As a piece of entertainment it provides substantial reason to mark director Marvin Kren as one to watch. I truly believe this could be his Mulberry Street. Back in 2006 at the Dead By Dawn film festival in Edinburgh I saw Mulberry Street and left the screening thinking “this director is going someplace”. The director in question was Jim Mickle who I recently found guilty of helming one of the best horror movies of 2011; the Zombieland meets The Road genre gem that is Stake Land. Rammbock has me feeling the same flavour of anticipation. I believe that given the opportunity Mr. Kren has a future classic up his sleeve and Rammbock will hopefully catch the eye of someone in the position to give him the opportunity to prove me right.

Rammbock shares a lot of it’s DNA with Mickle’s Mulberry Street. The focus is on a small cast of characters who live in an apartment complex somewhere in Berlin. They find themselves at the mercy of ever growing mob of ravening, bloodthirsty walking dead; victims of a virus that can be transmitted via contact with the bodily fluids of one of the infected. The movie opens with main character Michael (Michael Fuith) arriving unannounced in Berlin to return a set of house keys to the girlfriend from whom he has recently split. It’s obvious from the off that he still has feelings for his ex, Gabi (Anna Graczyk), as he rehearses a halting, ill prepared speech to the taxi driver who has just dropped him off. Michael is pretty far removed from your typical hero. I would place him in his mid to late thirties, with thinning hair and the physique of someone who is less inclined to hit the gym for a workout than he is the couch for a pizza and a few beers. The rest of the characters that inhabit this movie are, likewise, normal everyday people who, when faced with the virus outbreak and the resultant disintegration of society, react in a mostly believable fashion. Some rise to the occasion. Some go to pieces and make stupid mistakes that cost them and sometimes those around them their lives. Some are selfless and given to sudden moments of heroism. Some are revealed as base cowards who look out for no-one but themselves. But most importantly...they feel real.

I should also mention that Rammbock isn’t an zombie movie in the classic Romero sense. The undead here don’t shamble and moan. Instead they attack with the ferocity of a pack of bloodcrazed, wild beasts; emitting terrifying shrieks as they overwhelm any unfortunate soul that crosses their path. They have far more in common with the rage virus casualties of 28 Days Later or the victims of the demonic plague that breaks loose in the REC movies. The writer has also gone to some effort to put his own stamp on the nature of the virus. Once infected the virus lies dormant until activated by the first surge of post infection adrenalin. Once infected, if the virus continues to lie dormant for an undisclosed period the body’s immune system will fight back resulting in a complete recovery. In the event of the world going to hell in a handcart how easy would it be, when faced by such a terrifying situation, to maintain the necessary composure to combat the onset of the full blown virus? It’s this element of the movie more than any other that generates no small amount of suspense.

I mentioned that I don’t consider Rammbock to be a movie because of it’s length. That’s not to say that I think it should be longer. Many other directors would have shoehorned an extra thirty minutes worth of scenes into a story that simply doesn’t require it, in an effort to bring it up to feature length, resulting in an excess of flab. At no point does Rammbock outstay it’s welcome. It moves at just the right pace. Slowing down where necessary for moments of character development then hurtling at breakneck speed during the various set pieces where the survivors come under attack.

Alongside Michael there’s one other main character, a young maintenance worker by the name of Harper (Theo Trebs). They get trapped together in Gabi’s apartment minutes into the movie when all hell breaks loose. Both characters are fleshed out enough that I cared about them when the story placed them in jeopardy. Other characters are set up in a more economical fashion but skilfully enough that I understood who they were and gave a shit whether they lived or died. These are two tricks that many modern horror movies fail to accomplish. I’ve seen far too many horror movies that sacrifice character development on the altar of gore. None of the actors here are especially experienced but each and every one of them acquit themselves well.

Likewise, the direction is solid throughout. There was none of the shakycam nonsense that crops up so often these days to put a dent in my enjoyment. There was nothing showy about the camerawork but I welcomed the fact that I at no point lost track of what was going on.
So what we have here is an fantastic example of low budget horror movie making done right. Rammbock was produced by a group of talented individuals who have clearly seen a lot of similar movies and have succeeded in making something that doesn’t look like an uninspired hack job in comparison. A trap countless straight to DVD abominations all too easily fall into. I will admit that I’m predisposed to enjoy horror movies that stray into apocalyptic territory. I even got through the excremental Nightmare City, a movie that would insult the intelligence of a cabbage, without putting my size ten boot through the TV screen. Regardless of my infatuation with this genre this is an impressive début and I look forward to seeing what Marvin Kren has in store next. There’s nothing here to suggest that given a larger budget he won’t give us horror junkies something to really sink our teeth into. Something similar but on a grander scale would be very sweet indeed.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes [12A]

2011-08-17T20:34:00.000+01:00

DIR: Rupert Wyatt
CAST: Andy Serkis, James Franco, John Lithgow
Freida Pinto, Brian Cox, Tom Felton

I hate trailers, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the perfect example of why. The trailer is abysmal, first because it appears to be a three minute summary of the film (not an inaccurate impression) and second because it paints this as a dumb, shallow and frankly boring film, which it is not.

Rise (if you think I'm typing that ridiculously overlong title again you're nuts) draws much of its inspiration from Conquest of the Planet of the Apes; the fourth, and for me perhaps the best, in the original Apes series. However, this isn't a remake, and even that fashionable term reboot doesn't quite fit. It's just a new take on some of the ideas of the franchise, reinterpreting and updating them for a 21st century audience. Rise charts the development of Caesar (Serkis, picking up where Roddy MacDowall's iconic performance left off); a Chimp born to a test subject who passed on the accelerated brain development that scientist Will (Franco) had managed to give her in his search for a cure for alzheimer's. After being raised as a surrogate child by his creator, Caesar becomes dangerous as he protects Will's Father (Lithgow), and is locked away by animal control. Soon, an angry Caesar begins using his advanced intellect to plot insurrection.

In an age where plot and character are becoming less and less important compared to noise and effects when it comes to Hollywood blockbuster making, Rise feels refreshing. It's a patient film, one that takes care in the development of its main character (and I don't mean Will, who is, like all the other humans, a dull cipher) and spends time developing a logically progressing plot whose stakes increase throughout. Sounds simple, doesn't it? But apparently these concepts are alien to many of Hollywood's most successful filmmakers (Yes, Zach Snyder, that's you I'm glaring at). It's also, like all the other Apes films - bar Tim Burton's botched early 2000's 'reimagining' - a film of ideas; a political piece as well as a sci-fi action movie. The ideas aren't quite as developed here as in Conquest (which is perhaps as relevant now, in the wake of the UK riots, as it was some 35 years ago), but at least there is thought and comment here, not just sound and fury.

Performance wise, Rise is something of a mixed bag. James Franco, seemingly aware that he's not what people have come to see, phones it in, which is a shame, because he's a fine actor. That said, aside from John Lithgow, who does what he can with a thankless role as Franco's alzheimer's stricken Dad, none of the humans come off well. Freida Pinto, despite her almost indecent beauty, is horribly dull; Brian Cox picks up a cheque, and Tom Felton contributes an inept American accent and a wooden performance as an eeevil animal control officer. Thank goodness, then, for the actors playing the apes. Karin Konoval and the digital team behind the Orangutan Maurice (one of several nice tributes to the original series) definitely stand out, giving the large, old, ape an imperious and melancholy presence, however, there is only one person to whom Rise belongs, and that is Andy Serkis.

Serkis has long been at the forefront of what is known as performance capture, but this is a giant step up for both actor and technology. In fact it may be the first truly seamless marriage of the two (Gollum always felt digital to me). As Caesar, Serkis has a wide range of acting challenges; he must play a wide eyed infant, an exuberant child, a rebellious teenager, an inmate and a revolutionary. Not only must he be all these things, they must all be the same thing, the same character. It's an astonishingly demanding role, but Serkis pulls it off. I say Serkis rather than Weta because, for the first time, there is a genuinely soulful feel about this performance capture character. There is physical weight and presence too; I never felt that I was watching animation laid over a performance, nor a trained animal. I was watching Caesar. He lives and breathes on screen, his eyes are alive and his facial expressions and body language speak louder than any amount of dialogue could. That is what is great, and what is remarkable, about what Serkis does here; it doesn't feel acted.

The film grows ever more intense and more interesting as it continues. It really takes off in the prison movie section (an effective analogue to that passage of the original where Charlton Heston is imprisoned by the apes). Much of this section of the film is silent, powered by Serkis and the other ape players. As Caesar's plans begin to take shape, the film becomes both moving and chilling (once in the same moment, as Caesar turns his back on his old life). The action ramps up only in the last half hour, and director Rupert Wyatt stages it effectively from both a technical and an artistic standpoint. The thick of the action is exciting, but Wyatt also knows when to pull back for a moment of quiet; a chilling shot of massed apes attacking the lab where Caesar was born, and the human army just waiting, staring at the fog, are both effective moments. The conceit of Caesar as an ape Che Guevara works pretty well, and it will be intriguing to see where the sequel takes the character, and where its sympathies will lie.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is both ultra modern, showing off the absolute bleeding edge of special effects technology (and doing so to stunning effect), but it's also curiously old fashioned. With its 2D visuals, patient pacing, character development and political content it feels more of the Hollywood of the 70's, and that's perhaps why it's such a treat, despite the rough edges of the first, human driven, half of the film. Bring on the rumoured sequel.

Conan the Barbarian [3D] [15]

2011-08-15T10:21:00.000+01:00

DIR: Marcus Nispel
CAST: Jason Momoa, Stephen Lang,
Rachel Nichols, Rose McGowan

Do I really need to tell you that Conan the Barbarian is dumb as a brick? Do I really need to tell you that it has extremely limited character development, a story that is both incredibly simplistic and confusingly told, that the use of the word 'acting' would be to slightly over flatter the cast? Probably not. What I do need to tell you that despite (or, perhaps, because of) this it's actually pretty good fun.

In the interests of full disclosure I should say that I haven't actually seen the 1982 film with Arnie as Robert E. Howard's famous creation, and perhaps that let me have an easier time seeing this Conan as a stand alone piece. The screenplay weaves a simple tale of vengeance; Conan's father (Ron Perlman, genius casting) is murdered by a warlord (Avatar's Stephen Lang), but young Conan escapes. Twenty years later, Conan finally discovers the identity of his Father's killer and seeks his revenge. The details are a little more confusing; there's a mask that apparently makes the wearer invincible, but for some reason it needs the blood of a special girl (Nichols), the magic is never really that well established, but what more do you need than 'evil bastard wants to kill hot girl so he can resurrect his wife'?

The thing is, Conan is stupid, but it is seldom less than entertaining. Jason Momoa isn't someone I suspect we'll be seeing as he lead in an intensely demanding dramatic film anytime soon, but as a mobile wall of muscle with a voice that sounds like a constant low rumble, he's fine casting for Conan. Momoa hadles the copious action scenes well, as does director Marcus Nispel (who I had little faith in, having previously seen only his awful Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake). Several of the set pieces are genuinely exciting to watch. There's a dynamic chase sequence as Rachel Nichols finds herself pursued by Lang's men, and, refreshingly, while Conan does help rescue her, the film also shows her as a capable and instinctive fighter. Another standout sequence starts out as a glaringly obvious tribute to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but the fight between Momoa and Lang as they and Nichols dangle on a spinning platform above a pit is hugely exciting. The choreography also works well, with the cutting fast, but without obscuring the action.

Sadly, all this good stuff is filtered through a middling 3D conversion. It's not as catastrophic as the conversion of Clash of the Titans, but it does suffer similar problems like a very over dark look, which renders many of the film's later scenes a challenge to follow, and a smeary quality to fast motion which takes away from the film's greatest asset; its action. This is a film that will be much, much better in its original 2D version and that's how I'd advise you to see it.

To my great surprise I would advise you to see Conan. It's got some fun (hammy) performances, especially from Rose McGowan, enjoying herself as Lang's witchy daughter, some entertainingly bloody action sequences, a damsel who, if not exactly developed, is at least not in constant distress and a solid leading turn from Momoa. It's not going to end up in anyone's top 10, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it, and didn't think that you'd have fun seeing it with a few mates on a Friday night, in 2D.

24FPS at Empire Big Screen 2011: Day 1

2011-08-13T12:31:00.000+01:00

24FPS At Empire Big Screen 2011: Day 1

The movies have taken over the O2. There are movie cars [the DeLorean, various Bond cars], movie costumes [the Batman Begins batsuit, though I'd have preferred to see the Batman and Robin one, if only to giggle like an immature 12 year old at the fact it has nipples], movie props [original Ray Harryhausen models], and even Darth Vader, who apparently wandered, apropos of nothing, past the press room around 9am. Yep, this job can be weird.

I started my day proper (after an abortive Pint of Milk live, which was supposed to feature Mark Gattis, who got hung up at a Sherlock panel, and so didn't appear) with a 3D 'debate' panel. Debate was limited as WETA artist Dan Lemmon, Empire's Dan Jolin (who was supposed to be the 3D sceptic of the panel, but kept somewhat quiet) and two representatives of a post conversion house talked 3D. I didn't really get an entirely satisfactory answer to my question of whether, given that this 3D process is just about five years old, they thought the new technology (or artform, as they all seemed to regard it) had yet had its Birth of a Nation or Citizen Kane moment.

The tone of the session may have been very pro 3D, and I remain, if not explicitly anti 3D, a significant sceptic, that said, the way that the panel talked about their work - particularly conversion - did make me think about it as art rather than commerce for perhaps the first time. There was (too) much love for the unremittingly terrible Avatar, but there were some interesting things said, particularly about the upcoming Dredd, in which DP Anthony Dod Mantle is apparently using 3D for facial close ups, in order to use faces as landscapes of a sort. 3D, on that evidence, might yet become interesting.

The next two panels were both hosted by Kim Newman, whose reviews in Empire were the thing that got me into horror movies and who remains something of a journalistic hero. The first panel was supposed to be a discussion of the enduring appeal of Dracula, but none of the other participants made it, so Newman simply threw the floor open to questions on any (horror related) subject. He spoke with the passion and humour that makes his criticism so much fun to engage with, and, when I asked about the video nasties, reminisced at length about the DPP list ('a shopping list'), his warm fuzzy feeling for Last House on the Left (the first review he sold) and the fact that that era, while terrible for the country, was the making of many of his generation of critics. We also got tips on some up and coming horror directors to watch for, a sceptical response (from the author of Empire's Video Dungeon series remember) about the idea that bad movies can be good and droll observations about the annoyances of being a 'vampire completist'. Okay, so it wasn't the panel planned, but I doubt I'll enjoy many more this weekend.

Immediately following that panel, Newman returned with Tom Six, director of the Human Centipede films for a discussion of the recent BBFC ban of Human Centipede Part 2: Full Sequence. Six; young, with a friendly face and manner and clad in a straw stetson and khaki suit was about the last thing you'd expect of the man who just made a film in which a man wanks with sandpaper. He engaged with Newman and with the audience, giving full and frank answers to questions, in perfect English with a pronounced Dutch accent, usually with his tongue somewhat in his cheek.

We were told that the recent appeal against the banning of Part 2 has been rejected, and the filmmakers and distributors are now talking with a barrister, taking advice about whether the film is legally obscene, and planning a fresh run at an appeal. Six seemed both frustrated and amused by the BBFC; frustrated because they have somewhat spoiled his film by publishing a detailed (but, he says, selective) synopsis and are, inadvertently, encouraging UK fans to illegally download his film rather than pay for it, and amused because the film has already passed uncut in the much more censorious Australia. Six also noted that he understood how the film could cause offence, but that he didn't understand the ban, because 'How likely some idiot will make a human centipede?'.

There was an amusing picture painted of the audition process for a Human Centipede film, as Six related auditioning his Part 2 lead. He was asked to rape the Centipede as part of the audition, and raped a chair in the room 'like a maniac', at which point 'I knew he was the man for the part'. Asked about the possibility of Hollywood remake, Six said he'd sign off on it if there were big stars involved 'if they get Tom Cruise on his hands and knees, I'd like to direct that film'. Finally we got some teasing hints on Human Centipede Part 3, which will be shot in the US, 'will upset a lot of people' and will shoot this coming January. I haven't yet seen the Human Centipede films, but after spending some time with their director I'm looking forward to them.

24FPS Top 100: No.53

2011-08-10T17:25:00.001+01:00

53: FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH [1982]
DIR: Amy Heckerling

Why is it on the list?
In 1982, three raunchy American teen comedies came out. Porkys was ribald, and held the promise of loads of nudity, The Last American Virgin - while interesting - never quite reconciled its comedic first and dramatic second halves, but Fast Times at Ridgemont High got it just right. The backstory is quite famous now. Aged 22, Caameron Crowe, then a journalist for Rolling Stone, returned to high school for a year to research a novel. That novel (notes for which were often taken, apparently, during frequent bathroom breaks at parties) became Crowe's first screenplay, and fortunately for Crowe and debuting director Amy Heckerling it came to Hollywood just when a glut of young talent was also arriving.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High IS the 80's, aside from the brat packers, everyone is in it. Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, Nicolas Cage, Eric Stoltz, Forrest Whitaker, Amanda Wyss and Anthony Edwards are all familiar names, and then the cast is filled out by 'oh, it's THAT guy' actors like Scott Thomson, Robert Romanus, Brian Backer, Ray Walston and Vincent Schiavelli. It's a great cast, and it's easy to see why such talent gravitated towards the film (well, leaving aside the ever present need of young actors to no longer be living on their best friend's floor), because the screenplay gives them all sharply defined (even archetypal in some cases) characters, and fantastic dialogue, as well as an effective mix of comedy and drama to play. That's perhaps why it's such a joy to watch, because you can see how much fun everyone is having, how much they are enjoying these characters and these words.

This is especially true of the two leads. Sean Penn is now known as an incredibly intense and serious dramatic actor, but here, in his first really significant role, he's playing Jeff Spicoli; the stoned surfer dude that every stoned surfer dude since, in movies or otherwise, has to live up to. He brought his customary intensity to the set; insisting that everyone call him Spicoli, even when they called him at home, but his on screen performance is totally relaxed, and hilariously funny (perhaps more so now, viewed through the prism of 30 years of absolute seriousness). His rivalry with Ray Walston's authoritarian history teacher Mr Hand is the comedic gift that just keeps on giving from the beginning of the film ("You DICK") to the end ("What Jefferson was saying was, Hey! You know, we left this England place 'cause it was bogus; so if we don't get some cool rules ourselves - pronto - we'll just be bogus too! Get it?"). And then there is Jennifer Jason Leigh, also in her first really significant role. Ever the method actress, Leigh got a job at the exact pizza place where her character works, and worked there for a month between getting the part and filming. She doesn't so much act Stacy - the most challenging role in the film, as she has the most happen to her, and does the most growing up in the course of the story - as become her. She does this so completely that, when reviewing the film, Roger Ebert asked; 'How could they do this to Jennifer Jason Leigh? How could they put such a fresh and cheerful person into such a scuz-pit of a movie?' Now, I'm sure he's right that Leigh is 'fresh and cheerful', but one thing the last 30 years made clear she's not is delicate, or afraid of immersing herself in a scuzzy world for the good of a movie. What Ebert's done here, essentially, is mistake the actress for the character. That is how good she is here.

But I don't want to get too serious here, because Fast Times doesn't get too serious, oh sure, it deals with the trials of being a teenager, from disappointing sex, to shitty McJobs, from awkward dates, to break ups and even to abortion, but for the most part it deals with everything with a smile on its face and a really good joke not more than a minute away. Crowe crafts the dialogue beautifully, but Heckerling's direction often proves equally droll, be it the graffiti she focuses on as Stacy loses her virginity or the comically huge chairs she uses to make Stacy and her nervous date Mark Ratner (Backer) look tiny as they eat together, Heckerling packs the film with fun little visuals. Visually though, there's one thing most people remember from this film. Well, no, two things; Phoebe Cates' twins. Cates (who I wish had kept working after she had a family with Kevin Kline) plays Linda; Stacy's outwardly worldly wise friend, but plays her with the implication that, actually, she's far less experienced and worldly than she portrays herself. Her nude scene, a dream sequence in Brad's (Reinhold) masturbatory fantasy, is the scene that launched a generation on the way to puberty, and in the age of VHS you could hardly rent a copy on which the track stayed sound in that moment.

Fast Times does have an overarching story (two really; Stacy's and Spicoli's) but it is more a film of moments, and that's fine, because actually that's being a teenager; you aren't thinking about the grand overarching scheme of things at 15, you're living from one moment, one experience, to the next. In this respect Fast Times, written as it clearly is, is a good reflection of that time in your life, and while the fashions and the soundtrack (especially the soundtrack, and especially Somebody's Baby) have dated massively, the film itself still feels fresh and relevant as it approaches its 30th birthday. The laughs haven't dated either (I don't want to live in a time when the fact that someone has written Big Hairy Pussy on a bathroom mirror isn't funny) and the performances are strong all round. Among the cameos Vincent Schiavelli's science teacher may be my favourite (his opening line "I just switched to sanca, so, have a heart" is one of the film's biggger laughs), but just about everyone gets their moment to shine here.

I wish there were more American high school movies this good (the last one to get close was perhaps the still underrated 10 Things I Hate About You), but this one remains a real joy and even though my heart sinks every time we hear Somebody's Baby it still makes me laugh, and, actually gets me on an emotional level too, because it's easy to feel, so well written and acted are these characters that you know, and largely like, these people. That's why it's endured, and that's why it's on the list.

Standout Scenes

Oh, and this...

You're welcome.

Memorable Lines
Mike Damone: First of all Rat, you never let on how much you like a girl. "Oh, Debbie. Hi." Two, you always call the shots. "Kiss me. You won't regret it." Now three, act like wherever you are, that's the place to be. "Isn't this great?" Four, when ordering food, you find out what she wants, then order for the both of you. It's a classy move. "Now, the lady will have the linguini and white clam sauce, and a Coke with no ice." And five, now this is the most important, Rat. When it comes down to making out, whenever possible, put on side one of Led Zeppelin IV.

Businessman: It says one hundred percent guaranteed, you moron!
Brad Hamilton: Mister, if you don't shut up I'm gonna kick one hundred percent of your ass!

Jeff Spicoli: People on 'ludes should not drive!

Jeff Spicoli: Hey, you're ripping my card.
Mr. Hand: Yes.
Jeff Spicoli: Hey bud, what's your problem?
Mr. Hand: No problem at all. I think you know where the front office is.
Jeff Spicoli: [stunned] You dick!

Mike Damone: I can see it all now, this is gonna be just like last summer. You fell in love with that girl at the Fotomat, you bought forty dollars worth of fuckin' film, and you never even talked to her. You don't even own a camera.

COMPETITION: Win Scala Forever Tickets

2011-08-10T10:20:00.000+01:00

In August and September several independent cinemas around London (led by the Roxy Bar and Screen) are showing a programme of films celebrating the wide ranging programming that used to play at the late, lamented Scala cinema (I never got to go there). In celebration of this 24FPS and MultiMediaMouth.com a pair of tickets to give away to each of two screenings.

First; The Eastern Action All Dayer

Starting at 3pm (and finishing around 11pm) this all day festival of Hong Kong badassery features John Woo's Heroic Bloodshed trendsetter A BETTER TOMORROW, Sammo Hung's martial arts Dirty Dozen EASTERN CONDORS, Yuen Woo-Ping's cult classic TIGER CAGE II and Lam Ngai-Kai's apparently utterly mental THE CAT

To win a pair of tickets to this screening simply email the answer to the following easy question to sam@24fps.org.uk or sam@multimediamouth.com

WHAT WAS THE NICKNAME OF THE CHINESE OPERA TROUPE TO WHICH SAMMO HUNG, JACKIE CHAN AND YUEN BIAO ALL BELONGED AS CHILDREN?

Second; The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp: Introduced by Tilda Swinton

Chosen for the season and due to be introduced by one of Britain's finest and most iconoclastic actresses, this is a great chance to see Powell and Pressburger's much loved classic up on the big screen.

To win a pair of tickets to this screening simply email the answer to the following easy question to sam@24fps.org.uk or sam@multimediamouth.com

WHAT COLOUR ARE THE SHOES REFERRED TO IN THE TITLE OF MARTIN SCORSESE'S FAVOURITE POWELL AND PRESSBURGER FILM?

For each screening the prize is a pair of tickets. Transport is not included, and seating will be first come, first served on the night; specific seats cannot be reserved. Good luck.

London Riots Strike at Indie Distributors

2011-08-09T10:05:00.005+01:00

I don't usually talk politics here... because it's a movie blog, but I was really saddened to read the following on Twitter this morning from independent LGBT film distributors and friends of the site Peccadillo Pictures.

Our warehouse in Enfield was burnt down last night. All our stock/catalogue/films have been destroyed. We're devastated. Bracing ourselves.

There has been much horrible news from the ongoing London riots, and obviously in the grand scheme this isn't on the same scale as the attempted murder that several people have been arrested for. That said, it's a low and a deep blow for independent cinema. What will this cost Peccadillo? What will it mean for their upcoming releases (which include one of the best new films of the year; Tomboy, and one of my favourite films of all time; Heavenly Creatures on DVD and BR for the first time)? What will it mean for the people who work at Pecca? What will it mean for their presence at London and other film festivals? What will it mean, ultimately, for filmgoers? Peccadillo don't release huge moneymakers, their titles don't make them major players who can easily absorb something like this.

And it gets worse... I now understand that this warehouse wasn't just housing Peccadillo's stock, but that for Terracotta (one of the UK's leading distributors of Asian films, about to launch a new range, and also friends of the site), Masters of Cinema, Arrow Video (whose special editions of some really nasty horror titles have been a godsend) and Guerilla Films, to say nothing of many record companies. It's a horrible and depressing result of a pointlessly destructive group of vandals (don't give them the figleaf of political respectability), and it worries me what it will mean for these companies and for their staff.

I want to extend 24FPS' sympathy and best wishes to all at Peccadillo, Terracotta, MOC, Arrow Video and Guerilla, and to anyone else affected.

I may well have more on this as it develops.

24FPS Top 100: No. 54

2011-08-06T22:11:00.000+01:00

54: GREMLINS [1984]
DIR: Joe Dante

Why is it on the list?
Honestly? Why is Gremlins on my top 100 films? I think any self respecting movie fan is likely to tell you that's like asking what's so great about pizza. It's Gremlins, it's awesome.

The thing that rather stuns me about this film is how well it mixes tones; it's a sweet, genuinely christmassy, movie with endearing characters and a lot of big laughs, but it's also dark, sharp edged and satirical, and occasionally properly scary. The thing that is really shocking about that is that Chris Columbus, you know, the bean counting rentahack who brought us such vomit inducing whimsy as Bicentennial Man (oh God, even 8 years on it haunts my nightmares) wrote Gremlins.

The fact that it works so beautifully is, then, perhaps more down to director Joe Dante, and to be fair this is very identifiably a Joe Dante film; a film shot through with its director's obsessions, particularly his pet cast members and his abiding love of cinema, and especially of schlock. Tonally it's also very much Dante's film, he mixed comedy and horror in Piranha and The Howling, but Gremlins is really where he perfected the recipe, having great fun dropping his vindictive little monsters into the middle off an idyllic It's a Wonderful Life kind of town (albeit one with a similarly dark underbelly).

Before letting the monsters loose though, Columbus and Dante draw us in to the Peltzer family as mad inventor dad Rand (Hoyt Axton, for whom the word avuncular was surely coined) brings home an exotic pet for his son Billy (Zach Galligan), Gizmo the mogwai (given impossibly cute presence by Chris Walas' stunning animatronics and equally adorable voice by Howie Mandel) is a great pet, but when Billy accidentally spills water on him he multiples, and ultimately the new mogwai become monsters, multiply further and terrorise the town in a series of riotously entertaining set pieces. Yes, that old story.

Dante mounts some great horror scenes (the Gremlin attacking Billy's old High School science teacher, with the monster shown largely in shadow, is genuinely creepy), but always laces them with a rich layer of humour. A knife wielding Gremlin attacks Billy's mother from inside their Christmas tree, and it's a scary scene because it is pretty violent, but it's also absurdly funny because the overriding image is one of a woman being attacked by a Christmas tree. Other set pieces tend more towards comedy, notably a scene where the bar Phoebe Cates (as Galligan's love interest) is working at is overtaken by Gremlins, all of whom have begun to take one their own persona, allowing Dante to riff on both terrible customers and cliché movie character types in a single manic scene. The effects are outstanding, with Walas' puppets having real physical weight and presence, and an incredible level of mobility and personality, heightening both the scares and the laughs.

However, Dante also knows how to slow down and build the characters, and he's aided by strong performances from Galligan, Cates, and Judge Reinhold; slimy as Billy's immediate boss. Despite an overriding impression that guy so dorky wouldn't have a ghost of a chance with her, Galligan and Cates actually have decent chemistry and establish a sweet relationship, and it's also worth noting that Galligan works brilliantly with the Gizmo puppet, really helping bring it life and make it feel like there is a personality and a connection there.

All in all, Gremlins is just a flat out good time. It's witty, it's scary, it's sometimes even a little moving (Cates' Santa speech - admit it, you get misty there too). It's a Christmas classic shot through with quality (I didn't even get to mention Dante's mascot Dick Miller as Mr Futterman), and it's good enough that you can enjoy it all year round. If you don't love Gremlins you probably also hate Christmas, and puppies, and babies, and all the other nice things in the world.

Standout Scenes

Memorable Lines
Chinese Boy: Look Mister, there are some rules that you've got to follow.
Rand Peltzer: Yeah, what kind of rules?
Chinese Boy: First of all, keep him out of the light, he hates bright light, especially sunlight, it'll kill him. Second, don't give him any water, not even to drink. But the most important rule, the rule you can never forget, no matter how much he cries, no matter how much he begs, never feed him after midnight.

Ruby Deagle: Mrs Harris, what are you trying to tell me?
Mrs. Joe Harris: I'm afraid none of us can pay for two weeks. Couldn't you just get Mr.Corben to just give us a little more time?
Ruby Deagle: Mrs Harris, the bank and I have the same purpose in life - to make money. Not to support a lot of... deadbeats!
Mrs. Joe Harris: Mrs Deagle! It's Christmas!
Ruby Deagle: Well, now you know what to ask Santa for, don't you?

Kate: Now I have another reason to hate Christmas.
Billy Peltzer: What are you talking about?
Kate: The worst thing that ever happened to me was on Christmas. Oh, God. It was so horrible. It was Christmas Eve. I was 9 years old. Me and Mom were decorating the tree, waiting for Dad to come home from work. A couple hours went by. Dad wasn't home. So Mom called the office. No answer. Christmas Day came and went, and still nothing. So the police began a search. Four or five days went by. Neither one of us could eat or sleep. Everything was falling apart. It was snowing outside. The house was freezing, so I went to try to light up the fire. That's when I noticed the smell. The firemen came and broke through the chimney top. And me and Mom were expecting them to pull out a dead cat or a bird. And instead they pulled out my father. He was dressed in a Santa Claus suit. He'd been climbing down the chimney... his arms loaded with presents. He was gonna surprise us. He slipped and broke his neck. He died instantly. And that's how I found out there was no Santa Claus.

Super 8 [12A]

2011-08-06T17:10:00.001+01:00

DIR: JJ Abrams
CAST: Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Riley Griffiths,
Kyle Chandler, Ron Eldard

Despite its frequently abundant charm and fine, largely very young and inexperienced, cast, Super 8 doesn't quite work the way it should, and there's one blindingly obvious reason for that; writer/director JJ Abrams hasn't decided which of his two movie ideas he wants to make, the comic drama about a group of 12 and 13 year old kids making a super 8 movie to enter in a film festival, or a monster movie involving the air force taking possession of a small town. Unable to choose, Abrams jams the two together, and the result is never cohesive.

The film divides roughly in half. The first concentrates on setting up the kids and their relationships, and is definitely the part in which Abrams most nakedly - and most effectively - pays tribute to his hero (and producer) Steven Spielberg. The boys playing the group of friends are mostly first timers, and Abrams has found a remarkably natural set of young actors, all of whom do nice work even though some of their characters are a little one note (notably Ryan Lee's Cary, an explosives obsessive who would be tiresome but for Lee's funny and energetic performance). The standouts are the kids with the most developed parts; Riley Griffiths as auteur in training Charles, whose husky build ("the doctor says I'm going to lean out, it just hasn't happened yet") makes him nervous of talking to his leading actress Alice (Elle Fanning) and Joel Courtney as make up artist and on set odd job guy Joe, who has a very Spielbergian backstory (dead Mother, inattentive Father, love of movies, crush on the school beauty). Both young actors do some great work, with Courtney really standing out in his scenes with Fanning, and Griffiths coming into his own later, when Charles and Joe argue over Alice (one of many scenes from this side of the film that felt, at least to this viewer, very familiar indeed).

Like I said, all the kids do well, but one of them exists in a league all their own, and that's Elle Fanning. I've been tipping the younger of the Fanning sisters as a major talent since I saw The Nines, and every time I see something new from her I feel freshly vindicated. What's really amazing about her is her subtlety, and as Alice she fills her performance with little moments that communicate a great deal. In two standout moments we see her, as Alice, slip effortlessly into character. It's an amazing feat of acting for a 12 year old, because Alice never goes away during these moments, we're watching Alice act, not Elle Fanning. Though the film lurches further and further off the rails as its second hour runs on, one thing always works; the boys desire to save Alice, because quite apart from being beautiful Fanning creates a warm character who you feel would have been fun to have as a friend when you were these kids age.

All of the character stuff works; the awkward silences that pass for a relationship between Joe and his heartbroken dad (Chandler); the tense situation created by Joe's friendship and growing infatuation with Alice (and the backstory behind it, related by Fanning in one of her best moments); the dynamic between the kids and the way they pull together for Charles' movie. This all adds up to a great first 45 minutes, and it's why Super 8 is a monster movie that doesn't need its monster.

The monster first appears (I say appears, Abrams contrives - in ways that become increasingly strained - to hide it until the film's final scene) about an hour in to Super 8, and from there on the film begins a sad slide into formula, away from the engaging story of these kids, their families and their movie towards an increasingly dumb and derivative monster movie. The problems are many, one pressing one being that, while it is scary to keep your monster hidden in the first set piece it is involved in (and that set piece, scored to Heart of Glass on a teenage gas station clerk's new fangled walkman, is the best in the movie), those scares do tend to be undermined when, five set pieces later, we still don't know what this thing is. The last half hour is especially problematic, as Abrams throws out much of the character detail to focus on the hunt for the monster and for Alice, and while Joe certainly seems to be a smart kid I just don't buy how quickly he makes connections as to where he will find them, as there is not really a logical chain of information for him to follow. The creature, when we finally see it, is well designed, but Abrams' late in the day attempt to give it some personality results in an absolutely toe curling climax in which the film - perhaps appropriately for an homage to 80's Spielberg, now that I think about it, very nearly drowns in sentimentality.

JJ Abrams is clearly a capable director, after all he's drawn fine performances from a large cast here, and he stages action quite well, with all the set pieces feeling at least intelligible (though some are a bit darker than I'd like). However, Super 8 does have some directorial issues. First, and I really can't stress this enough, Abrams really, REALLY, needs to lay off the fucking lens flare. Secondly, and perhaps more pressing, some of the CGI here (notably the train crash, doesn't quite come off. I know this is 2011, but given the film's retro feel, love of the homemade, and 1979 setting, wouldn't practical effects have been a nice idea? The fakeness of some of the effects also slightly undermines your engagement in the film's action, which is never a good thing. On the plus side though, the film does largely look good, the period detail is strong, and it's not in 3D, retrofitted or otherwise.

I would on balance recommend Super 8. It's not consistent, it's not cohesive and it's not as good as it could (and should) be... but that first hour or so is tremendous, the kids are wonderful and you absolutely owe it to yourself to see Elle Fanning's latest tour de force performance, trust me, we'll be talking about her for a long time to come.

Nightmare City [18]

2011-08-04T16:37:00.000+01:00

DIR: Umberto Lenzi

Please join me in welcoming to 24FPS, Steve Chandler. Some of you might know Steve as Psychocandy from the Joblo forums. As well as being a massive music geek Steve's a discerning fan of cinema, and particularly of horror, so he'll be chiming in from time to time with some genre reviews. Enjoy.

I’ve seen my unfair share of Italian zombie flicks. Zombie Flesh Eaters, The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue and Zombie Creeping Flesh to name a few. But Nightmare City has something none of these movies have. These zombies aren’t the slow, shambling undead that were the norm back in the heyday of Italian gut munchers. Oh no. Director Umberto Lenzi obviously felt that would be far too boring. Instead we have a gun toting, knife wielding, axe swinging breed of undead who have been brought back to life after being subjected to a serious dose of radiation and move like Linford Christie being chased by a doctor requesting a drug test. They are also somewhat obsessed with female breasts. Yup...second only to shooting, stabbing and chopping their victims to death they love the boobies. And if they can combine the shooting, stabbing and chopping to death of their victims with some boob related action... so much the better.
Something Nightmare City certainly does share with most Italian zombie “epics” is an almost complete disregard for anything vaguely resembling logic. Most of the characters make choices that seem to be custom built by some insane higher power (i’m looking at you Lenzi) in an effort to place them in a situation that will most likely end with their demise. Certainly there’s plenty of death and destruction on display (including one thrown TV that inexplicably explodes in mid air taking out a couple of our undead friends as effectively as a molotov cocktail). However, the effects are so ineffectual that the movie doesn’t even work as an exercise in gore.

The zombie makeup is perhaps the worst I’ve ever seen. It’s not even consistent. Some of the zombies bear a close resemblance to the lead character from Troma’s Toxic Avenger series whilst some look almost human. Others look like they’ve had their heads dipped once in glue then twice in a barrel of oatmeal. The movie also has an odd tendency to shy away from some gory scenes just when they are about to pay off. This could perhaps indicate the actions of a censor but I think it’s more likely that some of the gore effects looked so bad Lenzi decided to excise them from the movie of his own accord. If the latter is the case I can’t help but think it would have been for the best if he’d exercised the same caution with every other aspect of the movie. This is one inept piece of film making. There’s a scene near the end of the movie in which one of the main characters has to put a bullet in the head of his wife. His first bullet hits her right in the middle of the forehead. A nice clean shot leaving a dime sized hole oozing fake looking blood. Then the second shot takes her head clean off her shoulders. Her body slumps to the ground and what follows is a shot of her corpse that reveals that her head has mysteriously reattached itself to her body and she once again sports a neat little hole in the middle of her forehead. I actually stopped the movie and rewound it three times because I was convinced I couldn’t possibly have seen what I saw.

So what works? Well nothing really. The acting ranges from appalling to barely adequate with all the actors, even the English speaking ones, having been subjected to an inept dubbing after the fact so that the words don’t quite match their lip movements throughout. Our hero looks like a geography teacher (he’s actually a reporter) and is almost as charismatic as your average geography teacher. Most of the female characters exist for no reason other than to provide the quite remarkable number of tit shots that frequently liven the movie up. Yes...it’s so boring that the numerous sightings of breasts really were the closest the movie came to making this reviewer sit up and take notice.

What about the script? Let me tell you about the script. You could restock the shelves of a hundred cheese shops with the dialogue of this movie. Most of the words that spill like a torrent of nonsense flavoured toilet water from the lips of these characters would shame a slack jawed fool if he’d written them. Now i’ve watched a lot of entertaining horror movies with risible dialogue. But when you couple the risible dialogue with the aforementioned lack of logic, an aesthetic sensibility that scream “I am inept” at the top of it’s lungs and makeup/gore scenes that look like they were cobbled together on a budget of monopoly money. Well... it’s not looking good is it?

Then comes the final kick in the nuts. The ending. I would normally stay well away from providing spoilers but the ending here is so cack handed that it beggars belief and if by revealing it I can somehow persuade even one person not to inflict this movie upon their person...well my job will have been done.

It’s all a dream.
Or a nightmare if you like.

In a movie almost totally devoid of anything resembling inspiration (machine gun toting, titty loving, olympic athelete zombies notwithstanding) this is the final insult. Mr. Geography Teacher wakes up in bed next to his wife (who in the closing moments of the nightmare fell to her doom from a rope hanging from a rescue helicopter only to suddenly transform into a woefully unconvincing dummy that proceeded to flop and flip in a most unhumanbeinglike manner as it bounced off the support frame of the rollercoaster below). We are then treated to the opening three minutes of the movie again as events in real life identically follow the opening events of the nightmare. Just before the end credits begin to role the following words scroll up the screen. “THE NIGHTMARE BECOMES REALITY...” My worst bad dream would be having to sit through another movie as bad as Nightmare City in the near future. Shame on you Mr. Lenzi. Shame on you.

Captain America: The First Avenger [3D] [12A]

2011-08-02T17:35:00.000+01:00

DIR: Joe Johnston
CAST: Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell,
Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci

I have previously described Joe Johnston as a journeyman filmmaker, but frankly that was unfair, and undersells the man who made, among others, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, The Rocketeer, October Sky, and now this; one of the best blockbusters of the year. Obviously the film of Johnston's that this one most closely relates too is The Rocketeer, and actually they share quite a lot of DNA. From the square jawed hero to the World War Two setting to the ruby lipped love interest, this often feels like a large scale version of what Johnston couldn't quite afford to do twenty years ago, but it's the tone that is both most closely reminiscent of that film, and most refreshing.

After a lot of darker superhero movies, and the overblown and frankly tedious Thor, it's great to see a superhero movie that is as much boys own fun as Captain America, and that's what Johnston brings; a sense of fun, and a daring, a willingness to push the boat out just a little and do things that might seem a bit crazy (like the mid-movie musical sequence which introduces Captain America to the world at large). It all adds up to a pretty exhilarating watch, and a film that pulls you along on a wave of good will, even when it doesn't entirely work.

Captain America's origin story (which is retold here) is relatively well known, but for the record... 90 pound weakling Steve Rogers (Evans) wants to go to World War Two and fight, but he's repeatedly turned down until he's offered a chance by Dr Erskine (Tucci). Eventually Rogers is chosen as the test subject for a programme designed to create an army of super soldiers to fight the nazis, but Erskine is killed by a double agent and so Captain America must fight Nazi agent / megalomaniac 'Red Skull' (Weaving) as the army's only super soldier, leading a team of commandos.

Having been an irritating Human Torch in the awful Fantastic Four movie, Chris Evans wouldn't have been my first, second, or probably even sixth choice for the role of Captain America. Well, colour me surprised, because Evans proves to be just about perfect casting. Even if there are some problems (which we'll get to) with the opening forty minutes of the film, before Rogers' transformation, Evans' performance isn't one of them. He makes you believe in Rogers as a fundamentally decent and devoted man who deserves to be given this huge chance, so even before he gets to don the uniform, you're on his side (not that you wouldn't be, the other side being a Nazi with severe sunburn). Once we finally see him as Captain America it becomes clear just how much work Evans put into this character. First of all he's built like the brick shithouse that all the other brick shithouses are scared of, but he convinces as a character as well as simply as a force; there is an authority about him that works when he's leading the (howling?) commandos and a sensitivity that remains very much more Steve Rogers than Captain America.

As the evil Red Skull Hugo Weaving doesn't do anything especially groundbreaking, but his slightly cartoony German accent works well, he's quite menacing in both look and character and his big evil plan (though a little ill defined) is very big and very evil. Red Skull has always been, from a visual standpoint, one of the most striking characters in Marvel Comics long history, and he's certainly done justice here, with what looks to be a largely practical make up job achieving something in a suitable grey area between comic book extravagance and genuinely freaky. Weaving is also able to work well with the make up; a malleable actor, he loses none of his characterisation after the Red Skull is unveiled.

In the rest of the supporting cast there are drily funny turns from Tommy Lee Jones (whose "I'm not kissing you" to Rogers as he goes on his climactic mission may be the best of the film's surprisingly abundant good lines) and Stanley Tucci, each of whom function as something of a Father figure for Rogers. Sebastian Stan makes for a solid Bucky Barnes and recurring cast members like Dominic Cooper (as Howard Stark) and Samuel L Jackson (as Nick Fury) keep the Avengers tease ticking over relatively unobtrusively.

The script isn't exactly the most original you'll have seen, in fact there are times at which you'd swear that an uncredited magpie had written most of it, as it plunders other superhero and adventure movies for events, images and moments. It's hard to mind though, first because all the elements coalesce well, into a movie that feels very much of a piece, and also because this is something of a trademark of Joe Johnston's. In Honey I Shrunk the Kids he riffed on 50's sci-fi B-Movies like Them, The Fly and The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Wofman was one extended homage to James Whale (an unsuccessful one, but still) and in The Rocketeer he paid tribute to such diverse things as Errol Flynn, German expressionism and Rondo Hatton. Captain America is unashamedly - and entertainingly - a movie for movie fans, nods subtle and blatant are shot in the direction of Busby Berkley (in a hugely enjoyable musical sequence), Indiana Jones and even A Matter of Life and Death. It's just a slight shame that Albert Pyun's 1990 Captain America doesn't get a nod here (surely a movie like this can make room for the psych Hitler).

Obviously being a superhero movie, action is a key component of Captain America and, again, while it won't win awards for originality, the actions well mounted, easy to follow thanks to solid geography and calm cutting within scenes, pretty exciting and sometimes provides some unexpected moments (as Rogers chases a Nazi agent a kid gets thrown in the water, but before Cap can dive in and save him says "I can swim, go get him").

Not everything works though. There are three issues that conspire to stop Captain America from being quite as great as it should (and could) be. First, as is often the case, is the retrofitted 3D. It's not terrible (though I did notice, for the first time in a long time, some ghosting problems), but to describe it as necessary, or to suggest that it adds anything to the film would be untrue. This is not an especially deep film, and nor does it need to be, in any sense. The second issue is with some of the CGI. Most of the effects are seamlessly realised, but the Tron: Legacy like effects that turn Chris Evans into the thin, weedy, Rogers for the film's first act, though much better than they were in the trailer, often don't work. As was the case in Legacy the problems usually seem most pronounced when the character wears a shirt with a high collar - perhaps because it creates a hard seam - again it's not a disaster, but combined with the fact that Evans' deep voice struggles to fit in that character's frame it does give the film's first act a bit of an uphill struggle.

The third problem is the most serious, and it's with a major character. I'm sure British actress Hayley Atwell is capable and charming, but as Cap's love interest Peggy Carter she has little to do besides be very British and wear almost impossibly red lipstick. There are a couple of hints that she might be capable in action, but this is never explored, and aside from a brief glimpse of her wielding a machine gun she sits largely on the sidelines. This is a real problem, because Peggy is so unmemorable that she's even overshadowed by a brief but forceful turn from feline British actress Natalie Dormer, whose cameo made me wonder why either this actress or this character hadn't won the love interest role. As it is the love interest is a rare dull spot in an otherwise commendable film.

I won't pretend that Captain America: The First Avenger is a great film, it hasn't the depth of X-Men: First Class, the jaw dropping design of Batman Returns or the cheerful disregard for conventional limits of Kick Ass, but it is fun. Hang on, scratch that, it's Fun! It demonstrates that Joe Johnston knows how to help you have a rollicking good time, and that though that may not be the loftiest aim, it's no bad thing.

24FPS Top 100: No.55

2011-07-27T20:47:00.000+01:00

55: BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA (2007)
DIR: Gabor Csupo

Why is it on the list?
Who would have thought it; a film directed by the creator of Rugrats on my Top 100 list. I wouldn't have, that's for sure.

Bridge to Terabithia was mis-sold in the most catastrophic manner possible. It was promoted as being like The Chronicles of Narnia films for the spurious reason that the same company (not the same director but the same bloody executives) made it. It's nothing like Narnia. Okay, yes, there's a magical world - the titular Terabithia - but the film's not about that, at its heart this is a film about friendship.

The main characters are 11 year olds Jess (Josh Hutcherson) and Leslie (Annasophia Robb). Both are misfits at school; Jess because he's more interested in drawing than anything else, and Leslie because she's new, smart, and her family don't have a TV. Jess draws, and Leslie likes to write stories, so naturally the two soon strike up a friendship, and together, in the woods behind their houses, they play, inventing a kingdom called Terabithia, where they can reinterpret all the things they don't like about school and home, and have control over them.

There are many reasons I love this film, but perhaps the most personal is that this feels like a film that captures childhood - at least mine - perfectly. Childhood is a time of possibility and wonder, a time when you can defeat the school by turning him into an imaginary monster, a time when the woods behind your house and you rather slapdash treehouse can be a fortress overlooking your kingdom, and a time when being friends with girls really isn't that complicated... for a while. Without being mawkish the film explores this burgeoning relationship, as well as Jess and Leslie's home lives in a way that feels very genuine.

This can be largely attributed to the performances of Josh Hutcherson and Annasophia Robb. Hutcherson has been an impressive talent since, aged 10, he played a kid dealing with his first crush in Little Manhattan. The role of Jess isn't a showy one, he's a pretty normal kid; he likes art, is annoyed by his sisters (especially his uber-cute little sister played by Bailee Madison), hangs out with the girl next door and has a crush on his teacher (played, in a less realistic touch, by Zooey Deschanel). Jess could be pretty dull, but Hutcherson plays him as a very real and pretty complex kid. There's nothing actorly about his performance, which means that you buy it when, later in the film, he has to dig deeper and find some pretty raw emotional places. For her part, Annasophia Robb makes Leslie pretty irresistible, the girl you wish had lived next door when you were 11; smart, creative, fun and pretty. You believe them both, and more importantly you believe their friendship.

This belief in the main characters becomes vital when the film takes a truly shocking turn with half an hour to go. I saw this film when I was 27, and that twist felt like someone reaching into my chest, removing my heart and stomping on it, I can only imagine what it would have done to me when I was 11. I'd like to say more, but I won't, because I don't want to spoil the film.

Gabor Csupo proves adept at the fantasy world but, perhaps surprisingly, it's the real world scenes that he really makes stick, with a controlled, sedate, directorial style. As well as the kids he gets strong performances Deschanel and from Robert Patrick as Jess' Father.

What I really love about Bridge to Terabithia is that it's a kids movie that deals with difficult truths and challenging emotions, in a way that is accessible to children but doesn't talk down to them, and that it engages with ideas prompted by those themes without becoming preachy. It's a beautiful film, and it's a shame that a unrepresentative ad campaign led to so many people either not seeing it or being disappointed when they did.

I'm leaving out the Standout Scenes and Memorable Lines sections due to spoilers.

Screening Room Double Bill

2011-07-27T09:59:00.001+01:00

Here are the two most recent episodes of The Screening Room; the podcast I present with Mike Ewins at MultiMediaMouth. In Episode 18 we discuss the Harry Potter franchise, and in episode 19 we review Gilda, Beginners, Horrible Bosses and more besides. Hope you enjoy them.

EPISODE 18

EPISODE 19

Potterthon Part 5: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 [12A]

2011-07-17T12:15:00.000+01:00

DIR: David Yates

This isn't supposed to happen. Franchises that are seven films deep aren't supposed to still be good, and certainly they aren't supposed to be continuing to get smarter and deeper even as they hit an almost entirely action driven final chapter. Franchises seven films deep (or considerably less, look at the Final Destination series) are supposed to be moulded to be empty retreads; titles that can be exploited to shore up a studio's books, without scaring away a built in audience. That's just one way in which the Harry Potter films have thrown out the franchise rulebook.

As the tile would suggest, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is not really a film in and of itself so much as it is the concluding half of a single gigantic film, but you can't - even if it's Harry Potter - release a blockbuster aimed at 12 and 13 year olds that is longer than Gone With the Wind. That said, this film does, at least in its last two thirds, have a very different feel to that of its predecessor, where Part 1 was largely a quiet and reflective film, concerned with developing and deepening the relationship between its three questing main characters, Part 2 is the explosion of sound and fury, only this time it signifies everything.

After the close up on the central trio of Harry, Hermione and Ron in the first part, this film casts its net wider, in an attempt (which it largely succeeds in) to give us a moment of closure for all of the series' significant characters, all the while keeping the story of Harry and Voldemort's personal confrontation in sharp focus as the central thing around which the whole film pivots.

There are few actors new to the franchise in this film, and the performances - which are exemplary all round - benefit from the familiarity of the actors with their characters, as does the story. Much of the film's weight is really something that it gets for free, because it comes from the history as much as it does from what is happening in this film; for example when Molly Weasly (Julie Walters) protects Ginny (Bonnie Wright) from an attacking Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter) both the act and the accompanying line "Not my daughter, you bitch" draw strength and shock from the fact that for the past ten years Walters has been a warm, serene, motherly figure in these films.

As I said above, the acting is excellent from all concerned, and with a huge cast it would be too time consuming to cover everyone, but some of the supporting players do need singling out. Matthew Lewis, who has been nerdy, accident prone comic relief from the start as Neville Longbottom, gets a great showcase here, as Neville steps up to the plate to become an unlikely but very real hero, without ever losing his essential character (in a nice moment after he barely survives a collapsing bridge he asks where Luna is; "I'm mad for her, and I've never told her, but I think I should since we'll probably both be dead by morning"). Helena Bonham Carter; thus far a mad screeching whirlwind as Bellatrix Lestrange, gets to do something very different at the start of the film, as Hermione takes polyjuice potion for a break in to Bellatrix's vault at Gringotts, and Bonham Carter gets to play very awkward Hermione now resembling the woman who, not 24 hours ago, tortured her. It's one of the film's few lighter moments, and welcome given the darkness of these 130 minutes. Also given an especially nice moment to shine is Maggie Smith as Professor McGonnagall, who gives strength to the rebellion at Hogwarts, and has a lovely moment of almost schoolgirlish glee when, just as battle is about to be joined, she gets to use a spell she's always wanted to try. Those are the moments, the ones you treasure, the ones that mean so much, because they are the ones that other blockbusters would miss, and - entirely non-coincidentally - the ones that make these people human, make us care for them. It's a shame to see the likes of Bonnie Wright and Evanna Lynch get a bit sidelined, but even they get moments to shine, and they take them with gusto.

Greatly expanded from the other films are the roles of Snape and Voldemort. Alan Rickman has always been something of a secret weapon for this franchise; his clipped tones perfectly suited to Snape's mix of menace and humour, and to conveying his murky and seemingly changeable loyalties. He's been a mysterious and intriguing character, and here Rickman finally gets to show his hand. Yes, the ten minute series of flashbacks filling in Snape's background and showing us what has been going on behind the main narrative of the previous films is a huge expository infodump, but it's gracefully executed. The casting of the young Snape (and of a young analogue for Geraldine Somerville's Lily Potter) is dead on, and the nostalgic soft focus gives it a different feel, while conferring what this memory means to both Snape and Harry, and it also happens to give the film's third act an even greater weight, to make the final confrontation feel even more apocalyptic. The battle between Harry and Voldemort has always been on two levels. It is an apocalyptic confrontation to decide the fate of the wizarding world, but as far as the films are concerned what is more important is that it is a battle between two men, tied together by fate, and this film, with its brutal end of act two twist, plays that up brilliantly. Ralph Fiennes has largely been a background figure so far; a looming threat, but in this film he finally gets to really explore Voldemort in more detail. It's an interesting piece of work, deeper than the stock evil bastard it could easily have been (it would have been easy for Fiennes to let all that brilliant make up do the work for him) but what's really interesting is how Fiennes lets us see the origins of Voldemort's evil; fear, and how as his fear grows, as his horcruxes are destroyed and he comes closer to to being able to die, he lashes out with ever more extreme and less directed fury.

The personal nature of the confrontation with Voldemort, and the heavy weight on Harry's shoulders also brings out the best in Daniel Radcliffe. Radcliffe was relatively unremarkable as an actor when he started, but as the years and the films have ticked by he's become better and better, and he's really excellent here, bringing great dramatic heft to the later scenes in particular, and convincing as a man who can command the loyalty of a great many very frightened people. Radcliffe is perhaps most effective as he walks to meet Voldemort and, in a slightly Star Wars like moment, talks to the ghosts of many of the people who have died to protect him, unlike Star Wars though, this scene carries a real emotional weight with it, and Radcliffe allows you to see it and to feel it weighing on Harry, without overplaying it.

There has always been a connection between Hermione and Ron's characters, and it's been a large part of the last couple of films. It's a pleasure to see it come to fruition here, and while there is the big emotional moment of the much talked about kiss (which actually is brief and sweet) much else is left unsaid (Hermione's simple look down to her hand holding Ron's at the end of the film speaks volumes). Again, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have visibly grown into their roles, to such a degree now that it's not really like watching actors anymore so much as it is just watching Hermione and Ron, and that's the holy grail as far as movies are concerned, once you can get the construct to go away and have your audience watching people, not characters, you've won.

Much has always been made (certainly I've done it over the past week) of the way that each film in the Harry Potter series has been darker and more adult than the last, and as befits a film that is largely about death, sacrifice and a final battle against an ultimate evil this is thee darkest and most violent of the lot. For much of its second act this is a war film, with a bloody battle that ranges through Hogwarts and takes the lives of several beloved characters, the bloodletting may not be explicit (this is still a 12A, though I suspect it pushes that rating quite hard), but it is still very real and very consequential. At the beginning of the third act, in a brief lull in the action, there is time to see the devastation, and it's hard not to get a little choked up as the camera tracks across dead and bloodied characters we've known for many years.

David Yates deserves a lot of praise for delivering on all these emotional moments while keeping the storytelling pacy (at 130 minutes this is the shortest of the series), the action exciting and the shots genuinely interesting to look at. Hogwarts itself seems different in this film; harder, colder and more foreboding than it has been before, and Yates focuses on its harsh lines and sharp edges in several moments that have an almost expressionist feel to them, given the shadowy cast of the whole film. You would expect a film with a budget this large to look good, but it's not always so, and as well as avoiding the Transformers trap of over designing characters and over crowding shots, Yates makes his effects work for his shots, not vice versa. I can't comment on the 3D, because I refuse to see this film in 3D for two reasons. First of all it was shot in and for 2D presentation, that's the director's intent, the DP's intent, the design department's intent, and that's how it should be seen. Secondly, this is a world we've been familiar with for a decade, and it's always been presented in 2D, why would I want to suddenly change the way I've experienced this world? Overall, the decision to present the last part of this story in '3D' strikes me as like switching ratios from 2.35:1 to 1.66:1 for no apparent reason for the last ten minutes of an eighty minute film. The film looks stunning in 2D; the use of light and shadow, the desaturated colours, augmented by the pyrotechnics of spellcasting, work brilliantly. This will all be diminished in 3D, thanks to the light issues the format simply can't avoid. You have to see this film, but do it properly, see it in 2D.

On its own terms, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is an exceptional film, though determining whether it is truly the best of the series (it feels like it right now) will take some perspective and some rewatches. What can be said now is that this is a film that deals deftly in both epic scope and personal drama, that its effects never overwhelm its acting or its action, that it is frequently genuinely moving, without ever feeling like it is manipulating you. Okay, so the 19 years later epilogue isn't really needed, but it's sweet, and really, after the past 18 hours, it would be churlish to complain about those five minutes. It has been a very, very long time (perhaps since Jurassic Park) since there was a blockbuster this good in cinemas, and it is likely to be a very, very long time before another comes close to this one. I'll miss Harry Potter, but there really couldn't have been a better way for this franchise to go out.

Potterthon: Part 4

2011-07-16T20:37:00.000+01:00

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1
DIR: David Yates

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 has an extremely challenging job; it must be both the calm before, and the beginnings of the storm itself. Splitting JK Rowling's final book made sense in a lot of ways (not least commercially), but it does present a challenge for this film; how do you make setup play as an exciting and complete experience? Even though the first six films built to a grander point they all, to some degree, had a self contained quest. David Yates, now on his third Potter, deals with the challenge confidently, delivering a film that is pacy and exciting, but also, due to its different form (it's essentially a road movie, and set entirely outside Hogwarts) spends greater time and energy on character than any of its predecessors, making for a surprisingly satisfying experience for what is, basically, an extended prologue.

Much is asked of the core trio of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint in this film. There are, for the bulk of the film, few of the regular minor characters to provide the spice that they usualy add. This is a film entirely on the shoulders of this young trio, and they carry it brilliantly. If Half Blood Prince showed how far Emma Watson's portrayal of Hermione has come, this time it is the turn of Rupert Grint, whose Ron finally graduates from comic relief status with some real heroism and a couple of extremely well handled dramatic scenes (particularly when, having been absent for a long time after arguing with Harry, Ron explains why he's come back to the fold). For much of the film's near two and a half hour running time we follow Harry, Hermione and Ron on their lonely quest to find and destroy the horcruxes that hold Voldemort's soul, it's here that we really get to dig into the characters and, rather than the visceral thrills that characterise both this and the other films in the series, get a couple of scenes of really taut tension as the group hide out from Voldemort's spies as they hunt the chosen one and his friends.

Two of the best scenes in this segment of the film are additions not found in Rowling's book. The first has Hermione almost discovered because, despite all her protective magic, someone smells her perfume, while the second sees Harry and Hermione, at their lowest ebb, dancing to a Nick Cave song on the radio. That moment is one of my favourites in the whole franchise; in 40 wordless seconds it speaks to all the years of friendship, all the feelings these two have for each other, giving them a brief respite from the darkness around them. It's rather beautiful.

Getting to this quest takes some work, and the process provides a handful of lighter moments. There's a lovely comic scene in which many allies take Polyjuice potion to make themselves look like Harry so that Voldemort and his Death Eaters won't know which Harry to attack, and a very funny scene, also involving Polyjuice potion, in which Harry, Hermione and Ron steal into the Ministry of Magic in pursuit of a horcrux. Even at these moments though, tragedy is never far away, in one of most movingly and subtly developed threads in the series, Hermione makes a huge sacrifice to go with Harry and Ron, erasing herself from her parents memory; another fine piece of acting from Watson there.

All the while, Voldemort and the Death Eaters, and both sides quest for the titular Deathly Hallows (whose background is filled in with a brilliant animated sequence which looks like the Lotte Reigner influenced fever dream of Guillermo Del Toro) are in the background, threatening the whole time to break through, which they finally do in a tremendous last twenty minutes. With Hermione, Ron and a heavily disguised Harry captured, Bellatrix Lestrange determines to discover if this is the real Potter she has. Thee resulting torture sequence is brief and not massively explicit, but actually it's all the more disturbing and upsetting for playing largely through Hermione's screams. This is where all the hard graft of the character work, all the history, pays dividends; it makes us care. We know these characters, most likely love them (unless you're rooting for Voldemort, in which case get the hell away from me you loony), and hearing one of them in pain, seeing her bleed, hurts.

This is what's uncommon about the Harry Potter films, and perhaps particularly about the last two (or one, depending how you wish to define it), there's a level of emotional engagement that most blockbusters either can't or simply don't care to reach.

The technical aspects of the film continue to be absolutely impeccable; the dark, desaturated, photography has a stark beauty, and matches the mood of the piece perfectly. Alexandre Desplat's score has an emotional tug, without seeming like it is instructing us as to how we should feel, and the special effects really deserve that designation, with the much improved Dobby the House Elf feeling, this time, like a real character rather than a digital approximation of one (which, again, gives a key moment a weight I'd never have expected given how I felt about him in Chamber of Secrets).

Aside from a couple of minor performances hiccups (the standard Bill Nighy performance; Welsh variation), Deathly Hallows Part 1 is just about perfect. It could have been little more than an extended trailer for part 2, but instead it continues to darken, and more importantly deepen this saga, and promises great things for the long awaited ending.

DVD Review: The Kingdom II [18]

2011-07-16T15:45:00.000+01:00

This review is by Contributing editor and E-Film Blog head honcho Michael Ewins

As an example of what to expect, The Kingdom II has a scene where Udo Kier, playing a deformed baby (easily approaching 10-ft, his elongated arms and legs grotesquely juxtapose with his bulging torso) attempts to strangle his real-life previous self. I should make things clearer: this previous Kier is actually a spirit, a reincarnation of Åge Krüger (I can't say who he is, it'll spoil Series One), who later sprouts devil horns. Is he Satan? Who knows, but hopefully I've painted a picture of The Kingdom II which fairly represents how utterly off-the-boil it is. Yes, Lars von Trier's cult series has gone completely mad, and turns out to be all the better for it...

There's a markedly different tone to The Kingdom II which fans of the first series might find disappointing. Series One was a full-on ghost story, dedicated to the eerie and occult, and it took time to build up an atmosphere of dread. It was basically four hours of character development, and I actually found the experience quite depressing. But those who found the first series overly sincere and boring (which, in fairness, will be many) will find a lot to embrace in Kingdom II, which develops the subtle streak of dark humour present in Series One and brings it to the forefront; indeed, against all expectations, Series Two is hilarious.

It's hard to talk about this change in tone without ruining any of the surprises, of which there are many, so let me give you some sample dialogue: "their pubic hair was dramatic", and, "I desire to become a duck, only a duck, nothing but a duck." Yes, and those are two of the saner moments, as we also have Dr. Moesgaard (Holger Juul Hansen) joining an alternative psychotherapy group hiding in The Kingdom's basement, whose leader seems to be as mad as anyone else. Hansen is hysterical in the part, kind of like the Danish Leslie Nielsen, dryly reacting to all the silliness occurring around him, seemingly a normal man suffering a deadpan breakdown in the midst of supernatural insanity.

Ernst-Hugo Järegård also returns as Dr. Helmer, still desperately trying to recover the information of the Mona case and also dealing with Hook's (Søren Pilmark) zombification, which leads to all sorts of comic evil (this isn't a spoiler by the way, it happens very early on). His stone-faced frustration and blunt hatred is still dramatically complex and oddly funny, and certainly in this series his character is played more for laughs, put into increasingly baffling situations, and his final hours - involving a mad-dash attempt to cover his tracks once and for all - is a real treat. I can't emphasize enough how welcome the humour is here; it also helps pick up the pace, which is a good thing for this terminally protracted series.

The Kingdom II feels much more confident than its predecessor and its audacity, while sometimes infuriating, makes for compellingly strange viewing. von Trier's tongue is firmer in cheek than ever, turning up as he does for a speech at each episode's end to slyly dig at the audience's expectations - at the end of the third episode he turns up holding a liver, and I'm again allowed to question how seriously anyone is taking the events of The Kingdom Hospital, which seems to be falling (literally) into the bowels of Hell itself.

A third series of The Kingdom was planned but sadly Järegård passed away in 1998 before production could begin. von Trier subsequently pursued his film career and during that time Kirsten Rolffes (who played Mrs. Drusse) and Morten Rotne Leffers (who played the male Down's Syndrome dishwasher) have also died, making the possibility of a third series now, fourteen years on, almost certainly impossible. It's a shame too, because the series' cliffhanger is one of its funniest and most thrilling moments, and a pure example of von Trier's individual genius, bound to antagonize but never to be forgotten...

The Disc/Extras
I discussed the muddy, sepia-inflected aesthetic in my Series One review, and that's back here, so it's hard to really subjectively comment on the transfer, which perfectly translates how von Trier and co. wanted the series to look, even if it that does mean it’s quite ugly. The visuals match the tone of the series perfectly though, and I know the aesthetic won't be for everyone, but the series has been handled with care, and it looks exactly how it should.

Extras are pretty solid actually, and about as quirky as you'd expect from The Kingdom. There's selected scene commentary, which is always fun, but most impressive are the featurettes, including your basic Making Of, 'In Lars von Trier's Kingdom', but most enjoyable is a 52-minute documentary called 'Tranceformer - A Portrait Of Lars von Trier', which even has the director providing commentary on his earliest experimental films, made when he was 10-years-old. A solid package.

If you'd like to buy the complete boxset of Series 1 and 2 of The Kingdom, and help 24FPS out at the same time, please use the link below. Thanks.

Potterthon: Part 3

2011-07-15T08:16:00.000+01:00

For the second half of the franchise there has been just one director; David Yates, who came to Order of the Phoenix from acclaimed British TV series State of Play. It seemed an odd fit, but it was an inspired piece of directorial casting as the films moved into a new phase; the march to war.

HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX
DIR: David Yates

After the less focused and somewhat underwhelming Goblet of Fire, another new face came in behind the camera for the series fifth film; adapted from JK Rowling's longest book, new screenwriter Michael Goldenberg (in his only outing in the series, the rest all having been scripted by Steve Kloves) stripped the text back into the shortest, leanest and most focused film to date. Here, just halfway through the series, the march to war truly begins, and it does so in fine style.

Goblet of Fire never visited Privet Drive, but Harry's nightmarish Uncle (Richard Griffiths), Aunt (Fiona Shaw) and cousin make a reappearance for this film's opening sequence. The film begins on a glorious summer day, quite at odds with the visuals of the last two films, but soon, Dementors arrive, and director David Yates immediately shrouds even the muggle world in darkness. Yates retains the dark tone of the past two films, but brings his own vision to it (along with cinematographer Slawomir Idziak), giving the film a steely blue tint, which sets the tone of the world, and particularly of the scenes of Harry and his friends preparing for war, against the film's major new character.

Imelda Staunton's delightful turn as Dolores Umbrage gives the film a new kind of villain; a sweet looking middle aged woman who turns out to be a petty, dictatorial and cruel figure who wants to hide what is coming from the Hogwarts students to 'protect' them. This is, obviously, JK Rowling taking on education policy, but the film makes that undertone less prevalent and less irksome than Goblet of Fire did the 'satire' of the Rita Skeeter character. Staunton is hilarious in the role, but also frightening, portraying a butter wouldn't melt façade (complete with tinkling laugh), which becomes chilling when she is crossed (see the excellent scene in which she makes Harry do lines with a special quill designed to etch the words - painfully - on his skin).

Aside from Umbrage's bureaucratic and restrictive attitude at Hogwarts the film's main focus falls on Harry's attempts to do what she won't allow, teach a practical Defence Against the Dark Arts course, raising an army of students (which includes delightful new addition Luna Lovegood, played by Evanna Lynch) to fight Voldemort when the time comes. These sequences are fantastic, the film moves quickly through the training, dealing with much of it in a couple of montages, but it takes enough time that we still get character beats, Umbrage's attempts to discover the secret class, and a real sense of the progress being made. It's adaptation working at its best, reducing something that should take a long time down to its essence without losing the storytelling.

The film's last act is exceptional; a large scale set piece taking place inside the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic, with Harry and his small army (Ron and Hermione along with Luna, Ginny (Bonnie Wright continuing to make a tiny part resonate) and Neville (Matthew Lewis, convincingly gaining in strength with each film)) facing off with a group of death eaters which now includes an unhinged Helena Bonham Carter as Azkaban escapee Bellatrix Lestrange. The battle is brutal, with a moment when Lucius Malfoy punches Luna in the face, making her bleed, and Ginny's hugely effective 'Reducta' being especially memorable for the way they raise the level of violence from previous entries. In the pitched battle the spells that fly back and forth begin to feel like bullets, and Yates directs the sequence like a gunfight, which pays dividends when an important character is hit and killed.

You would expect, by the fifth film, for the returning actors to be settling into their roles, and so it proves. The leads have always had an easy chemistry, but it's really felt in this film; the group more close knit than ever. In a lovely moment Harry, Ron and Hermione are talking about feelings, and Hermione says that Ron has 'the emotional range of a teaspoon', the reaction, the slowly dawning laughter that spreads through their little gang here, really speaks to their closeness as well as any other character beat in the series. Daniel Radcliffe, in particular, has a lot more asked of him this time out, and he delivers. When the film's tragic loss comes his reaction is really powerful, as is the way he defeats Voldemort, who has possessed him for a moment. David Yates was hired for his work with actors, and it seems to have paid great dividends. The adults also deliver, with Helena Bonham Carter making for a memorable (if slightly underused) villain, Gary Oldman bringing both warmth and force as Sirius Black and the ever entertaining Alan Rickman again giving it his best English Christopher Walken as Snape.

Order of the Phoenix is a tight, well disciplined, frequently thrilling film, and for my money its one of the best of the Harry Potter series.

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE
DIR: David Yates

Despite a two and a half hour running time, the sixth Harry Potter film doesn't stand still for very long. Right from the off director David Yates' second crack at the Potter whip throws us into events, making no concessions to latecomers (which is as it should be, by this point you're either on board or you're not). He leads off with one of the film's most striking setpieces, the Muggle world finally seeing what's happening in the magic world as Death Eaters blast through Muggle London before arriving in Diagon Alley.

Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves maintain a loose, but effective, grip when it comes to storytelling, with much that could have required the sort of florid explanations common to the first few films actually told in a few images that at first seem incidental but which ultimately add up to something much greater than the sum of those elliptical parts (the best use of this is in Draco Malfoy's story, which seems, for a long time, to consist of shots of him opening and closing a cupboard). The only place where the storytelling falls down this time is really in regard of the title, as the Half Blood Prince (the previous owner of a potions book that Harry uses to become top of new professor Horace Slughorn's class) only reveals his identity late in the day, and when he does the revelation falls flat, because it doesn't seem to mean anything.

Harry Potter and the Growing Pains might be a more suitable title for this film, as while it builds up the ongoing Voldemort storyline very capably, and has many fine action sequences, much of the running time is given over to the changing relationships between the characters. These are some of the film's most effective and affecting moments, especially when both Harry and Hermione are unable to take the person they want to go with to a party thrown by Slughorn (Ron in Hermione's case, Ginny in Harry's), this leads to a beautifully played scene between Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe in which Hermione in particular seems more vulnerable than ever before. It's great that, even as war creeps ever closer, the films still take time to have these beats, because the investment they give you in the characters gives the encroaching threat more weight, because you care what happens to these people. There's also a nice smattering of comedy in this part of the film, supplied, as ever, largely by Rupert Grint, though Evanna Lynch gets to be adorably weird once more as Luna Lovegood (if you aren't charmed when she randomly pops up in a Lion costume then you're not human), and even Radcliffe gets in on the act when Harry takes a potion called liquid luck.

On the other side of the coin the film uses the new character of Horace Slughorn (an entertainingly scatty Jim Broadbent) to introduce memories of a young Voldemort, and lay the groundwork of plot for the next two films. The full horror of Voldemort's evil, and the difficulty of the task lying in front of Harry, Hermione and Ron becomes clear in this instalment as we are introduced to the concept of a Horcrux; a device holding part of a person's soul, which enables them to live even if their body is destroyed. This ushers in a whole new sense of threat, which is given weight both by the ever darkening visual style and by the much more brutal tone to the film. A fight between Harry and Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton, finally starting to come to grips with the whole 'acting' thing, but still very much the weak link in the cast) feels extremely personal, and the violence coming from Harry speaks clearly of how much he's changed since Philosopher's Stone.

The only real chink of light in Half Blood Prince is Harry's relationship with Ginny Weasly. It's nice to see Bonnie Wright; a serene background presence in each film, come into her own here, giving Ginny great strength and resolve. She and Radcliffe have a nice chemistry together, and Harry and Ginny's first kiss has a sweetness and an innocence which works well for the relationship that has really been bubbling under since Chamber of Secrets.

It's hard to know what to say about the cast and crew at this point; everyone continues to raise their game. Radcliffe's performance as Harry has acquired a moral complexity which is incredibly compelling, but remains a real (in all senses of the word) hero. Rupert Grint continues to give us a bit of comic relief, but is also able to bring some dramatic weight when Ron is called upon to help his friends, while, as I mentioned above, there is an emotional depth to Emma Watson's performance here that we haven't really seen before, and she makes Hermione feel much more human by showing us her vulnerable side. The film also looks exceptional, Yates seems to have grown in confidence, making more unusual shot choices (look at the opening frames) and the special effects are little short of miraculous. There's really not much to criticise.

There is a lot of plot to get through in this episode of the Harry Potter series, but as ever the cast and crew do it with assurance, and they make sure that even at the heaviest expository moments the film is never dull. The set pieces are stunning, especially a mid film moment in which the Weasly house is attacked by Death Eaters (not in the book), and though the battle that ends the book has been deleted (for fear it would prove to similar to the battle that forms the second half of the final film), Yates and Kloves manage to find final moments that send a shiver up the spine and bring a tear to the eye, and make you desperate to see, finally, how it all ends.

Potterthon: Part 2

2011-07-13T12:29:00.000+01:00

In the next two films, the production team behind Potter made some changes, recognising that the story, characters and actors were growing up they brought in new directors with a darker vision. Most consider that this is when the films came of age.

HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN
DIR: Alfonso Cauron

Though Chris Columbus had created a strong visual identity for the Harry Potter films, and had led his young stars to better performances in the sequels, his move on from the franchise couldn't have come at a better time. With the stars and their characters in their early teens, upheaval was in keeping with the series at this point, as was growing up. Producer David Heyman could have gone for a safe pair of hands for this third film; another journeyman like Columbus, instead the offer went out to the visionary Guillermo Del Toro (who passed in favour of the more personal Hellboy) and then to his countryman and friend Alfonso Cauron, whose varied CV took in kids movies (A Little Princess) and who was coming off the back of a - very different - film about teenagers; Y Tu Mama Tambien.

Cauron brings a distinctly different flavour to this instalment, and though the process of darkening the series began with Chamber of Secrets, it was here that it took hold, and Cauron who really set the vision for the rest of the series. Where Columbus' Hogwarts basked in sunshine and was bright and primary coloured, Cauron's is darker and more forbidding, and quite often drenched with rainstorms. Colours are desaturated, and night time scenes play in near pitch darkness, accentuating the creepy aspects of Hogwarts castle. There is also a somewhat harder (though at this stage still PG rated) tone to the film's action, which seems to leave more of a mark than it had previously, and Cauron really up the ante on scary imagery, with a great Werewolf design and transformation, and the genuinely terrifying (were I still 9) Dementors; shrouded creatures who feed on good memories, and can suck out your soul should they so please. This is not to say that Cauron is above pulling back for some lighter hearted moments, but even those are now inflected with darkness (see the way Harry's passionate anger causes the films opening slapsticky set piece).

Another thing you have to give Cauron immense credit for is the improvement in the performances from the young leads. He apparently worked them hard, even asking them to write in character autobiographies (apparently these were delivered very much in keeping with characters; a solid effort from Radcliffe, dozens of pages from Watson, while Grint turned in nothing, saying that Ron wouldn't have written the essay). Clearly being challenged and asked to really go for something more truthful than had been asked of them before paid off, because all three visibly raise their games (Watson, benefiting from a larger role this time round, is perhaps most improved, while Radcliffe does some great work opposite Gary Oldman's Sirius Black).

The plot is solid and well told, and making it very personal to Harry and very connected to his past works well for both the film and Daniel Radcliffe's performance, giving the whole thing much more import than you felt (at the time at least) than either Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets had in the overall arc. It also raises the stakes, giving everything greater weight, because it's more emotional and demands more of Harry, making him seem more heroic.

The adult performers are largely as good as ever. I never warmed to Michael Gambon's Dumbledore, whose voice seems to be a series of one sentence tours of UK accents, and whose manner is very different to Richard Harris' softly spoken, grandfatherly figure. Among the new teachers, a scatty Emma Thompson is great fun as Professor Trelawny, and David Thewlis keeps us guessing about his allegiances as Professor Lupin. However, Gary Oldman steals the film with a short but resonant turn as Sirius Black; powerful enough to give his character real weight when he reappears in the fifth film. As ever, the old guard; Coltrane, and Rickman most notably, impress with colourful character turns, though Tom Felton continues to be a wooden disappointment.

The film, lensed by Michael Seresin, is much more visually dynamic than the first two entries, with Cauron's camera much more active than Columbus', exploring the nooks and crannies of Hogwarts and finding a lot of new angles on familiar sights.

On the whole, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is one of the best films in the series, and clearly its great leap forward from being high quality children’s films to becoming something much more resonant, and rather closer to high art.

HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE
DIR: Mike Newell

Maybe it's the fact that the characters are now 14, and thus going through the most annoying and obnoxious phase of their adolescence (hey, we've all been there), maybe it's that director Mike Newell seems a little unsure of himself, maybe its the hilarious hairstyle choices (Daniel Radcliffe's continually surprised hair being the wooden spoon winner), maybe its the underdeveloped new side characters... No, the problem with Goblet of Fire is that, right up until the end, it just feels inconsequential - well, that and the fact that it has to follow Prisoner of Azkaban.

The central thread of the film is given over to the triwizard tournament; a magical contest between three schools, involving three deadly challenges which a champion from each school must take pert in. Harry is supposed to be too young, but his name is drawn from the titular goblet anyway, meaning that he must compete. Sadly this is the most aimless part of the film, it provides some acceptably realised action, but the stakes feel very low (even at Hogwarts I don't buy the idea that a child will be allowed to drown in service of a contest) and the storyline adds little to the film up until the final challenge, some 108 minutes into the film. All in all, after the drama of Chamber of Secrets and Azkaban's action scenes, this just feels like franchise is treading water, however good the dragon effects are.

Also thrown into the mix are some John Hughes like high school shenanigans; rivalry between friends (Ron has several Nomi Malone like strops with Harry, which is as tiresome as you'd expect), some of which works quite well, a funny scene in which Ron has to dance with Professor McGonnagal and the central Yule ball are both welcome diversions from the rather plodding tournament plot, though the relationship dramas between the characters play out to much greater effect in the subsequent films. On the plus side though, this plot does allow Rupert Grint to have some fun, and he's very amusing here, especially when recounting how he asked visiting witch Fleur Delacourt out ("You know how I like it when they walk").

The script also has some problems; Goblet of Fire was JK Rowling's first real doorstop of a book, and screenwriter Steve Kloves hasn't really found an organic way to reduce it down. Even at two and a half hours it feels brutally shortened (look at the abruptness of the Quidditch World Cup, and the terrible underdevelopment of Robert Pattinson's Cedric Diggory). There is also a real irritant in the form of Rita Skeeter; a Daily Prophet journalist who is Rowling's, and the film's, brutally unfunny, sledgehammer subtle, parody of a tabloid reporter, and who feels completely out of place here.

I don't want to make it sound like Goblet of Fire is a dead loss though, as there is much to enjoy and admire here. Mike Newell may seem an odd fit for this assignment, but he develops the look of the series capably, bringing even more darkness to it than Alfonso Cauron, particularly in a forbidding opening sequence which really sets the tone for this entry, and provides our first sense of the series' central villain; Lord Voldemort. Also strong is the performance of new recruit Brendan Gleeson, who is hilarious as new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher 'Mad Eye' Moody. His costume and the effects on his false eye are brilliant, and Gleeson overplays to the hilt, having a wonderful time, especially in a lesson in which he shows the students the three 'unforgivable curses'; magic so terrible that using it will get you a one way ticket to Azkaban.

However, the film really excels in its climax. If Prisoner of Azkaban saw the series begin to grown up, the end of Goblet of Fire, and specifically Lord Voldemort's haunting line "Kill the spare", sees it come of age, with a deep, dark, frightening and extremely high stakes set piece which sees Harry confront the real Voldemort (a deliciously evil and nightmarish looking Ralph Fiennes) for the first time. It is ten minutes of screen time so good that you can almost forgive the two hours of plodding it has taken to get there. What's really important about this scene, and what makes it the key to the rest of the series, is that it makes Harry's quest going forward a truly personal one - something severely lacking in the rest of this film. This one scene echoes through the rest of the series.

Overall, Goblet of Fire might be my least favourite of the series to this point, but it does make up a lot of ground in its last twenty minutes, and does, if only on the back of those twenty minutes, feel like a game changer for the series. It's inconsistent, but essential.