solace in cinema : A vast wasteland of movies

There’s a few things to get out of the way before I get onto the movie which I saw on Friday night in 3D at the IMAX. Like most people I know, the trailers and stills for Beowulf had left me completely underwhelmed. The CGI rendering of the cast was last used to good effect in The Polar Express to make Tom Hanks look like a paedophile. At best the trailer looks like a cut scene from a video game and anyway, haven’t we had enough of this story yet? While The 13th Warrior is a guilty pleasure of mine I was convinced that this tale of daring do had been nailed once and for all in Sturla Gunnarsson’s Beowulf & Grendel, bypassing as it did the myth and fantasy aspects by trying to build a more realistic retelling of the poem. So while I was happy to be invited to the preview I wasn’t overly optimistic as I donned my silly glasses in front of the towering screen.

It took a couple of minutes for the brain to accept the scope of what was going on and there’s also an initial distraction trying to discern Hopkins and Malkovich under the effects, but by the time Grendel made his first appearance I was hooked.

Beowulf is an awesome experience.

The story for the most part sticks to the familiar narrative: King Hrothgar is having a spot of bother with a monster by the name of Grendel leading (heroic with a capital H) Beowulf and a boat full of Geats to come to his aid. Like just about every other interpretation of the tale this one does wander off-poem, but this version unfolds into something special as it finally brings together the young hot-headed warrior with the more world-weary king many years later.

What you get is A LOT of heroics, a lot of violence and an intelligent version of a classic tale that pushes the technology a lot. 3D films used to be just about jabbing things at the audience, and while there is a fair bit of spear poking here, the effects are also used to create depth of vision. The visuals have a fantastic perspective to them, especially when the camera pulls back to take in the landscape. This is going to be sadly lost away from the IMAX.

Kidz in da Hood
Dir: Catti Edfeldt and Ylva Gustavsson

I was wary off the bat with ‘Kidz in da Hood’ (Förortsungar) because of the ‘kool’ spellings in the title, that coupled with the fact that it was a ’street’ movie for children made me start to worry for my sanity before I even sat down in the screening. ‘Kidz..’ is the story of a young immigrant girl who along with her grandfather finds refuge in a young musicians flat on a council estate in Sweden. I was unaware that ‘Kidz..’ is kind of a musical as It didn’t mention it in the blurb I read and when a character broke into song (or rap) I was like ‘oh jesus…’. Here’s the thing.. I fucking HATE musicals.. I really can’t stand them, they’re just below cheerleading and mime in my scaling of the dramatic arts. I don’t know what it was about this film but something won me over even with the actors throwing in the occasional song. The child leads are all good, rating high on the cute factor without ever slipping into little rascals territory and the adults are also sincere and likable. The standouts are obviously Beylula Kidane Adgoy as Amina (her first acting role) and Gustaf Skarsgård as Johan (son of Stellan Skarsgård no less).

Despite my initial hesitations ‘Kidz in da Hood’ was a charming film, ideal for kids and adults alike. It’s not perfect but has some great performances, a plot that skips along and the occasional Swedish kid rapping.. which is actually much better than it might sound.

Rating: Kidz in da Hood is 96 minutes long and feels like exactly that

You can check out the non-subtitled trailer on the official swedish site here

Book tickets here

The Heartbeat Detector
Dir: Nicolas Klotz

Ok here’s the imdb synopsis for this film “Paris, today. Simon works as psychologist in the human resources department of a petrochemical corporation. When Management gets him to investigate one of the factory’s executives, Simon’s perception becomes disturbingly chaotic and cloudy. The experience affects his body, his mind, his personal life and his sensibility. The calm assurance that made him such a rigorous technician starts to falter.”

“A secret NATO train filled with US Marines is halted by a bolshy local station master; rambunctious Balkan farce moves inexorably to tragedy as the soldiers and townspeople try to fraternise.”

Sitting down to watch what I thought was going to be a dark satire on the conflict in Kosovo, and American military interference in foreign wars wasn’t an easy sell first thing in the morning. Saying that, if there’s one thing the London Film Festival has taught me it’s; don’t judge a film until you’ve actually watched it. ‘California Dreamin’ turned out to be an incredibly sweet ‘farce’ (for the want of a better word) that never overtly tried to hard to be oddball or charming yet pulled off both with skill.

The story essentially revolves around a couple of central characters, Doiaru the Romanian station master and black marketeer, who seems to live by the adage ‘If I can be an asshole, I will be an asshole’, Captain Jones (played by Armand Assante… last seen in multiple direct-to-video movies from my youth) a military intelligence officer in charge of seeing their package (a large container.. of unknown contents) reaches it’s destination, and The Mayor who’s attempting to welcome the soldiers to his town in order to gain investment in the region and generally manage the whole situation.

‘quirk’ is a difficult thing to put your finger on in a film, but is easy to overcook. There’s films I’ve seen in the past that portray Eastern Europe as this weird place, full of colorful characters and weird cultural differences; ‘Everything is Illuminated’ is one that springs to mind, that was so heavy handed and trite I could barely stand it. When a film sets out to be consciously ‘quirky’ I personally can smell it coming a mile away, and it grinds on me. ‘California Dreamin’ did everything right in that respect, tell a story, set-up your characters and play it out as best you can… and let ‘quirk’ come naturally to the situations.

There’s a scene in the film where the town throws a party for the soldiers, and the townspeople have obviously gathered all their American memorabilia in one place including some incredibly odd paintings of cultural icons like George Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the mayor wears a hap-hazard ’stars and stripes’ tie, and an Elvis impersonator shows up to sing. It’s with elements like this that the film really triumphs, it doesn’t try to rub the laughs in your face, but rather just adds elements into the mix and trusts that the audience will see the humor in it.

Some subjects, although seemingly interesting documentary fodder are always going to be difficult to watch when they’re committed to celluloid. Certain things are just genuinely difficult to digest, other things are ultimately not as interesting as the filmmakers thought they would be and some things… well…they’re difficult to take seriously, no matter how balanced and serious in tone a documentary may be. ‘Zoo’ a snapshot of the lifestyle of a Seattle man referred to by his internet moniker ‘Mr Hands’ who died from internal bleeding due to “interaction” with a horse falls heavily into the latter category.

It’s 10.30 on a Wednesday morning and I’m rushing to get to the press screening at the BFI of ZOO, it’s an internal struggle because on one hand I hate missing the beginning of films.. but on the other hand I’m rushing to see a film about zoophilia, a difficult topic to be presented with at the best of times. I’m sure you can see where I’d have problems. I’d read a few reviews of ‘Zoo’ before sitting down in the theatre and was aware what I was about to see was tastefully treated, and if nothing else, a film I should be able to say that I’ve watched.

First off, the striking thing about Zoo before you even touch on the uneasy subject matter is that the film is beautiful. Like stunningly beautiful, I don’t know what kind of cameras they used or who the cinematographer was… but the film really is gorgeous to look at. The story is told through audio interviews with all the people involved in the ‘incident’ and it’s aftermath while the visuals are recreations of what the subjects are describing. It’s an interesting style for a documentary to adopt but meant the scenes I was being presented with were separated from the less-than-glamorous reality that the voices are discussing. In the end it made me feel that what I was watching was at best a vacuous video experiment or art exhibit.

The audio interviews are interesting and provide more insight than the ponderous and over-stylised moving images ever do. It’s fascinating to hear different takes on the whole subject; including talking to the family of ‘Mr Hands’, the police that dealt with the aftermath, hospital staff that looked after the man, and his internet acquaintances that were present on the farm where it took place. The problem lies really in the lack of people who were willing to stand up and talk about it.

I’ll start by saying the marketing in general, but especially the trailer for new film ‘The Kingdom’ is fucking terrible. I don’t know exactly which demographic it’s trying to hit, or goals it’s attempting to fill… but it misses them all. The fact is if I wasn’t aware of director Peter Berg’s previous work then no amount of star power or cars exploding in the aforementioned trailer would draw me in. Peter Berg is a ‘that guy’, a long time actor turned director who’s face you probably wouldn’t be able to associate with a name, but when you see him you remember him from lots of things. You remember him mainly as cops, FBI agents or other such man-in-suit types. Berg is making much more of an impression on me as a director than he ever did as an actor.

Berg’s previous film was ‘Friday Night Lights’ a great movie about a small town American football team trying to “take it to state”. He infused that film with a realism and emotional weight that few directors can get right. Berg pulled that trick out of the bag with ‘The Kingdom’ too, making it feel realistic, tense and exciting yet deftly side-steps cliche and pointless dramatics.

The subject matter of ‘The Kingdom’ was never going to be an easy sell; the bombing of an American compound in Saudi Arabia by Islamic militants, and the subsequent investigation to track down the culprits by an FBI team (Jamie Fox, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman and Chris Cooper). It would almost have been easier for the film to focus on the middle-east issue and become a political thriller, but that would have been a different film. The film would have quickly become mired in explaining the countries complex problems within the space of 90 minutes.

‘The Kingdom’ is not a political thriller, and while the backdrop is Saudi Arabia and the villains of the piece are Islamic fundamentalists it only ever explains enough about the situation to move the plot along at a steady pace. Elements like Islamic religion’s treatment of women, the Saudi Monarchy and American oil investment are touched upon, but only to give a context and set-up the environment in which the action is carried out.

So again with the previews, on monday I caught an early screening of ‘3:10 to Yuma’, a solid western from the greatest surname in cinema James Mangold. Here’s the little plot synopsis:

3:10 to Yuma stars Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Ben Foster, Gretchen Mol and Peter Fonda in a modern take on the classic western by Elmore Leonard from producing/writing/ directing team Cathy Konrad and James Mangold.

In Arizona in the late 1800’s, infamous outlaw Ben Wade (Crowe) and his vicious gang of thieves and murderers have plagued the Southern Railroad. When Wade is captured, Civil War veteran Dan Evans (Christian Bale), struggling to survive on his drought-plagued ranch, volunteers to deliver him alive to the “3:10 to Yuma”, a train that will take the killer to trial. On the trail, Evans and Wade, each from very different worlds, begin to earn each other’s respect. But with Wade’s outfit on their trail – and dangers at every turn – the mission soon becomes a violent, impossible journey toward each man’s destiny.

So it took a while for me to collect my thoughts after the screening, but here they are (a proper review will follow in september).
Christian Bale is excellent as the gaunt looking Arizona farmer, ex-military (he fought for the North) but is struggling to survive off the land. Russell Crowe was decent, mean at times, crazy when he had to be but it felt a little like he was cruising through to me without putting all the effort in. The real revelation was, as I predicted Ben Foster as Crowes right-hand man… the guy is an ultimate bad ass, plus he has the dead-eyed shark acting down so pat, If I ever met him in real life I’d honestly be scared of him.

The film is essentially a cowboy movie with daddy issues. Bale’s character is out to prove his worth to his son, whatever the cost. It gives him a raw eyed determination that sends him from timid farmer to badass cowboy on a mission. Crowes characters motivation never really sat right with me, for 70% of the film he’s a godless yet charming savage but seems to flip-flop halfway through into talking about his parental issues after he was abandoned in dodge city when he was very young. It’s not bad motivation for these characters but I’m not sure if I ever wanted my cowboys to share their feelings with me, I just want them to ride around looking mean shooting people’s trigger fingers off and spitting a lot. That being said the film is well put together and has several very cool shoot-outs and fast paced action scenes that meant I never lost interest. Plus with acting calibre such as this up on screen its difficult to not be engaged by the characters.

I’ve been so crazy with work recently that I’ve been neglecting the blog a little bit, i’ll be back in full force soon enough but right now things are gonna be a bit quiet. I’ve still taken in a couple of previews for upcoming films and in lieu of proper reviews you’ll have to settle for some intial reaction stuff.

So once again a film that’s already been and gone in the U.S finally washes up on the lowly shores of the UK. The new Brad Bird/Pixar film ‘Ratatouille’ will finally arrive on UK screens on the 5th of September, was it worth the wait? here’s the plot synopsis:

A rat named Remy dreams of becoming a great French chef despite his family’s wishes and the obvious problem of being a rat in a decidedly rodent-phobic profession. When fate places Remy in the sewers of Paris, he finds himself ideally situated beneath a restaurant made famous by his culinary hero, Auguste Gusteau. Despite the apparent dangers of being an unlikely - and certainly unwanted - visitor in the kitchen of a fine French restaurant, Remy’s passion for cooking soon sets into motion a hilarious and exciting rat race that turns the culinary world of Paris upside down.

Remy finds himself torn between his calling and passion in life or returning forever to his previous existence as a rat. He learns the truth about friendship, family and having no choice but to be who he really is, a rat who wants to be a chef.

Really the buzz word when it comes to this film has to be ‘Brad Bird’ the man with golden touch, and the right ideas behind animated films. So I’ve seen ‘The Iron Giant’ and ‘The Incredibles’ and of course love them both. So I’d heard rumblings from the US that Ratatouille was hot stuff, but honestly I’ve been so worn down by kids CGI movies and 3 whole shrek films that I’m kind of numb to it all (I expect most parents feel the same). I hadn’t read a review fully and I’d skimmed through the trailer. So consider me neutral when I sat down in the screening room.

Remember the French guy Etienne from Danny Boyle’s ‘The Beach’? No? Nor me, but he (Guillaume Canet) has just made his second film and it’s called ‘Tell No One’, or ‘Ne le Dis a Personne’ if you’re feeling Gallic. Originally a novel by Harlan Coben set in and around New York State, Canet has skilfully transplanted the action to Paris and the surrounding countryside.

The film centres around Alex Beck (Francois Cluzet), a paediatrician who is clearly very much in love with his wife, and childhood sweetheart, Margot (Marie-Josee Croze). One evening after visiting friends outside Paris, they stop for a swim at a lake they have been going to since they were kids. After a disagreement Margot swims off to return to their car, and when Alex follows, he is knocked out by an unseen assailant. When he regains consciousness he finds out his wife has been brutally murdered.

Fast-forward 8 years, and out of the blue Alex receives an e-mail that appears to be from his dead wife, whilst almost simultaneously the police discover two bodies near her murder site prompting them to re-open the investigation into her death. I can’t really give too much else away, but what I can tell you is that Alex becomes the prime suspect in the investigation, and he is forced into a race against time to discover what really happened all those years ago.

I’d heard a lot of good things about ‘Tell No One’, and I did enjoy it, but it has also left me with mixed feelings. At times it plays the European thriller card brilliantly. It is well paced, is tense in all the right places, and there are some really strong performances. Cluzet is excellent as the doctor whose anguish and desperation are palpable as he descends further into the mystery surrounding his wife’s death. And Kristin Scott Thomas is a bit of a surprise package as the lesbian lover of Alex’s sister, particularly as she performs entirely in French. Oh, and it’s got a superb chase scene through the streets of Paris that’s almost as good at Reeve’s and Swayze’s in ‘Point Break’.

But, and it’s quite a large but, the plot does seem to have a couple of pretty large holes in it, and I feel that the makers missed a trick by never really putting Alex’s innocence into doubt. I also had a bit of a problem with the film’s conclusion in that I didn’t feel that the reveal really warranted such a complicated conceit.

I was going to see ‘Sunshine’ last night, but fate intervened and I ended up seeing (from what I understand) a film that could not be much more different, ‘The Lives Of Others’, and I have to say that I’m pleased that things turned out as they did.

Set amidst the backdrop of the German Democratic Republic, the film tells the story of Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe), a surveillance and interrogation expert and member of The Stasi (the GDR’s secret police). Weisler has been tasked with spying on one of East Germany’s most celebrated writers, George Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), and his actress girlfriend, Christa-Maria Seiland (Martina Gedeck), as certain members of the government believe that he may be developing sympathies with the West.

As East German protocol dictated in these situations, Weissler has every room in Dreyman and Seiland’s apartment bugged, and from the attic of their building observes and listens in to everything they do. However, unexpectedly the more Weisler is exposed to the lives of Dreyman and Seiland, the more he begins to question the regime for which he has sacrificed the best part of his life.

The story is involving, and at times gripping, but the direction and ambience created by first time writer director Florial Henckel von Donnersmark, is also remarkably assured. I thankfully have no experience of East Germany in the 80s, but the muted colours, empty streets and understated direction conjure up exactly what I imagined it would look and feel like. Von Donnersmark creates a real sense of claustrophobia, the only real relief from which is Dreyman and Seiland’s apartment, which is in stark contrast to Weisler’s own.

Stylistically and metaphorically, a comparison of the two apartments seems to tell us as much about the differences between East and West as it does about the film’s characters.

Dreyman and Seiland’s apartment is very much symbolic of the West. It is an open and welcoming environment, full literature and art. It is a human place where love, and perhaps more importantly for those times, ideas can flourish. In comparison, Weisler’s typical East German dwelling is cold, regimented and loveless. Only Republican posters bring any colour to the walls, and it is telling that he almost begs the prostitute he summons to his building to stay with him after sex, as he begins to yearn for the human contact he has been exposed to through his work. It is only when Weisler is reading work by Brecht that he has stolen from Dreyman, that some light and life appears to seep into his apartment.

I’ve been a little disappointed by the releases at the box office of late. Aside from maybe two or three films, there’s been very little that I’ve wanted to see, so the new David Lynch film ‘Inland Empire’ easily made it onto my radar. In general I like Lynch’s films, even though I don’t know what’s going in them half the time. I think Homer hit the nail on the head when watching ‘Twin Peaks’ during one episode of ‘The Simpsons’ by saying, “…brilliant…I don’t get it”. With Homer’s words ringing in our ears, lets press on.

Billed as a companion to ‘Mulholland Drive’, ‘Inland Empire’ tells the story of Nikki Grace (Laura Dern), a fading starlet who’s chance at a comeback arrives in the shape of the lead role in ‘On High Blue Tomorrows’, a re-make of a ‘cursed’ Polish movie called 47. In terms of a rational explanation of the film’s narrative, that’s about as far as it goes. In typical Lynch style, the film quickly dissolves into the surreal, disturbing and utterly confusing, as Nikki finds herself trapped in one or more alternate realities surrounding the film.

Flitting between real life, the filming of ‘On High Blue Tomorrows’, Poland, and other scenarios cooked up by Lynch’s fevered mind, one of the only recurring motifs during ‘Inland Empire’ is a beautiful girl crying whilst watching a film on the TV in her room. In one of the final scenes, Nikki walks into this room and embraces the crying girl before disappearing. For me, this was the key moments as it hinted at what I took to be the film’s underlying message, namely the film industry taking risks in order to connect with audiences.

There are several moments in ‘Inland Empire’ that seem to imply the fading significance of Hollywood, most obviously the death scene played out by Nikki on Hollywood Boulevard’s ‘Walk of Fame’. I got the feeling that Lynch is commenting that through churning out formulaic films, Hollywood is bringing about it’s own downfall, and that the only glimmers of hope are directors brave enough to take risks and make films like ‘On High Blue Tomorrows’ (the fact that this is as a cursed project makes this risk all the more implicit). For as we see through the tearful girl in her room, it is films like these that truly make an emotional impact, and connect with their audience.