Review: Up In The Air

Jason Reitman’s third film is a further step on his continuum as a director.  Up In The Air fits into his cannon as another light yet mature comedy with a message.  We follow Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), a “termination operative” whose job involves travelling around the country visiting companies to make people redundant from their jobs on behalf of the CEOs who would rather not get their hands dirty.  Clearly it’s a job which most people would rather not do but Bingham appears to revel in it.  One thing is certain – that he revels in the perks and travel that go with his job.  When his boss introduces a young graduate, Natalie (Anna Kendrick) who has a scheme to ground all of the termination operatives, he has a plan to show her the value of the work he does.

Review: Precious

Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, Precious is the story of those people who all too often fall between the cracks of society, those many of us never see or look past or through.  Clarice Precious Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) is a morbidly obese black teenager who lives with her mother, Mary (Mo’Nique) who hardly ever leaves the flat.  On top of that, she is pregnant with her second child, the first not living with Precious and her mother because she suffers from Down’s Syndrome and is better cared for by her grandmother.  Other than that, Precious shows many of the same traits that other teenage girls have: she has body issues, she wants to be liked and she wants to blend in.  Unfortunately, her pregnancy and her weight mean that she is unable to do so.  We see into the life of Precious as she leaves junior high school for an alternative school aimed at troubled children.

Review: All About Steve

News of awards season fever for Sandra Bullock comes as the UK welcomes not The Blind Side, for which Bullock is now being touted as the Oscar favourite but All About Steve, arguably one of the worst reviewed films to come out of the States in the past year.  This begs the questions – is it really as bad as everyone says it is and how do you solve a conundrum like Sandra Bullock?

Review: The Road

Did you ever get the sense that Hollywood is trying to tell us all something?  After last year’s literally Earth shattering disaster movie 2012 about the Mayan disaster and 2007’s I Am Legend showing us what a post-apocalyptic world would be like as a result of superheating of the Earth’s core or viruses resulting from the cure for cancer.  This year we have The Road (and coming later The Book Of Eli) and let’s just say the prognosis is bleak!

Review: Brothers

Jim Sheridan’s Brothers is another American remake of a recent European film – this time Brødre by Danish director Susanne Bier which was only released in 2004.

Brothers is the story of Sam and Grace Cahill (Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman), an army family who are separated when Sam goes off to lead his men in Afghanistan leaving his wife and two doting daughters behind him.  Also being left behind is brother Tommy who we see leaving prison for some unknown crime at the beginning of the film.  Unfortunately for the family, Sam’s helicopter is shot down and he is presumed dead by the military.  However, that is not the end of the story.  This film explores the lives of those left behind as well as casting its eye over what is happening in Afghanistan.  When Sam is unexpectedly found alive and returns back to his homelife, will anything remain the same?

Chatter: The Top 40 Films of 2009 – 30-21

Time now for the second part of my list of the films of the year.

#30 The Wrestler (dir: Darren Aranofsky)

Mickey Rourke was returned to the fold as the prodigal son of cinema as he embodied every part of Randy The Ram in Darren Aranofsky’s tale of a hero of the 80s wrestling scene for whom life in the ring has become much harder as age and injury have caught up with him.  Rourke and Marisa Tomei, as an ageing stripper give heartbreaking performances and the action sequences never fail to disappoint but the estranged daughter sub-plot doesn’t quite work.

Key Moment: We see Randy the Ram back stage with the younger wrestlers discussing how the matches are going to go and we witness the camarderie between them and the respect which Randy commands.

Review: 44 Inch Chest

Did you get to the end of Sexy Beast and think, you know there just wasn’t enough swearing in that for my liking?  Or did you think the gay characters in Rocknrolla were a bit butch?  Do the collective works of Lars Von Trier lack the requisite levels of misogyny needed for you to enjoy your latest trip to the multiplex.  If so, 44 Inch Chest may just be the film you’ve been waiting for.

Review: Mugabe and the White African

The last decade was a golden age for the documentary with a number of documentary filmmakers making films which pricked the public consciousness and really changed the way that people think.  Andrew Thompson and Lucy Bailey’s documentary Mugabe and The White African has the potential to be another one of those documentaries.

This film tells the story of Mike Campbell, a man in his 70s and the “White African” of the title. 

Review: Exam

We’ve all been there - graduate assessment centres, the “milkround”, psychometric testing, verbal reasoning, it seems like our potential employers are forever shifting the goalposts and coming up with new ways to ensure that they get the very best candidates for any given job.  This new British film from Stuart Hazeldine extropolates those fears as it introduces us to eight potential applicants for a job at an unnamed company in the near future or as Hazeldine puts it “soon”.  They are all gunning for what they think will be the ultimate job and we are allowed into the assessment centre.  They are told by their invigilator (Colin Salmon) that there is one question that must be answered and that they have 80 minutes to answer it.  The candidates turn over their paper … and the paper is blank.

Review: The Informant!

The Informant! is, like its central character, a confused beast – not sure whether it wants to be a comedy or a drama.  On the one hand, the quirky poster, the exclamation mark and the jaunty Marvin Hamlisch score make it feels like a comedy but the subject matter of corporate corruption and the fact that the film claims from the outset to be based on a true story and one where the lead character appears to have some form of mental disorder would suggest a naturally dramatic bent.