Review: The Fourth Kind

As with the trailer which I previewed here: http://oncelluloid.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/preview-the-fourth-kind/, the film opens with actress Milla Jovovich once again reminding us that she is portraying REAL LIFE DOCTOR Abigail Tyler in the film and that all of what we are about to see can be backed up by REAL LIFE archive footage.  Most importantly, we are told that it is up to us what we want to believe – thanks for that, Milla.  What then follows is a mixture of REAL LIFE archive footage and reconstruction sometimes on the screen at the same time – like an alien abduction episode of Crimewatch.  Added to that is interview footage between the director Olatunde Osunsanmi and what is claimed to be the real Dr Abigail Tyler.  I should say at this point that I do not believe that any of the real life footage is real nor do I think that this is based on a true story and therefore, this review is predicated on this basis.  I must also say this, that the actress playing the “real” Dr Abigail Tyler clearly must have won the woman with a face most like an alien to star in this film.

What then follows is an hour and a half of Milla Jovovich’s Tyler who is recovering from the unsolved murder of her husband and Elias Koteas interviewing patients under various states of hypnosis sometimes matching the archive footage alongside it.  There are some scares, most of which come from the shock technique of fading to black and then presenting the scare.  There are, however, a number of problems with this film:

1. The annoying credits which appear when we see the characters for the first time

2. Why, if you have paid for the services of Milla Jovovich and Elias Koteas, would you switch to the archive footage whenever you get to the scary parts. 

3. The archive footage is not really convincing.

For me, either present it as a documentary and only use the archive footage that you are claiming is real or dramatise it entirely.  I can only suggest that the reason is that there simply isn’t enough footage to make it into a feature without the interview footage and Jovovich’s testimony.  It’s such a shame that the film doesn’t work as the trailer scared the bejesus out of me, however, all of the scares are in the trailer.

Disappointing! 4/10

Review: Tales From The Golden Age (“Amintiri din epoca de aur”)

Palme d’or winner Cristin Mungiu returns to the big screen with 4 other directors to present a portmanteau film of five vignettes depicting life at the end of the Romanian Communist period highlighting hardships and urban myths during the Ceausescu dictatorship.  The five short films are:

1. The Legend of the Official Visit

2. The Legend of the Party Photographer

3. The Legend of the Chicken Driver

4. The Legend of the Greedy Policeman

5. The Legend of the Air Sellers

What is unusual about this film is whilst all of the vignettes has been written by Cristian Mungiu, none of the short films have been attributed to a particular director unlike with other portmanteau films such as Paris Je T’aime.  As with all episodic films whether this film is successful very much depends upon whether the tone of each of the films works together and herein lies the problem with Tales From The Golden Age.  The first two vignettes are quite broad farce with comedy made from the clunking mechanics of the party machine.  This is in contrast to the somewhat more downbeat slower movement stories of the Chicken Driver and Greedy Policeman which hold a mirror up to the problems and hardships suffered by the average person during Ceausescu’s regime, in particular the rationing and hunger.  The final vignette is a far lighter story again.  For me, the more comedic and farcical elements worked far better and I actually found myself willing the longer Legend of the Chicken Driver to make way for something lighter.

There are some good performances in the film of actors that I would like to see more of, particularly in the final vignette, where the actors Diana Cavillioti (as Crina) and Radu Iacoban (as Bughi) who play a schoolgirl and a student running a scam collecting bottles.  I would like to see more of Cristian Mungiu’s filmmaking but I don’t think this is the right outlet for his clear talent.  Having said that, this film is far more watchable than 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days which was fantastic but gruelling and a tough watch. 

Romanian cinema is clearly on the up but these vignettes would work better as separate shorts rather than as a collective whole. 6/10

Review: Extract (London Film Festival)

Mike Judge, creator of Beavis & Butthead, King of the Hill and cult white collar cubicle worker movie Office Space, is back at the London Film Festival with his new film, Extract for the first time since Idiocracy graced the festival.  Having seen what happened to Idiocracy which was left on the shelf by the studio to rot, I decided not to miss out a second time and took myself off to see Extract.

Jason Bateman plays Joel, the owner of an food extract factory who is suffering from sexual frustration, disillusionment with his business and the staff that work there and unloads most of this on his best mate, Dean, played in unlikely fashion by Ben Affleck, who is back on his Kevin Smith slacker friend form.  Of all his ennui is brushed aside when sexy temp worker, Cindy (played by Mila Kunis) is recruited to work at the extract plant and seems to take an interest.  Little does Joel know about Cindy’s past or her present for that matter.

What I liked about Extract is that Joel is a likeable lead with whom it is a pleasure to spend an hour and a half.  Equally impressive was the way in which Judge draws his supporting characters in terms which mean that get enjoyment from them no matter how little we see of them on screen and get a sense of what they are really like - from Clifton Collins Jr.’s unfortunate gopher Step to the two old biddies on the production line and J.K. Simmons’ co-owner.  My particular favourite, however, is male gigolo, Brad who makes an appearance when Joel makes an ill-judged decision, a man who is so stupid it is painful but he does provide a hell of a lot of laughs.

Where the film falls down a bit is that the comedy is occasionally too broad and not all of the characters work, in particular Joel’s wife is so pathetic and annoying that you wonder why Joel would ever have gone for her.  However, the film has sufficient goodwill to get over these.

8/10

Chatter: Oscar Hosts

It is being reported that Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin will host the 82nd Academy Awards show in March.  The two actors co-star in Nancy Meyers’ romantic comedy, It’s Complicated, with Meryl Streep (due for release in the UK in January).  The announcement from the Academy ends speculation as to who the new hosts for the show will be after reports that last year’s host Hugh Jackman and Tropic Thunder co-stars Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr turned down the plum role and follows the announcement that Ricky Gervais will host the Golden Globes.

Martin has hosted the ceremony on two previous occasions but this marks Baldwin’s first presenting gig.  The 30 Rock star will have a lot to live up to after Hugh Jackman’s all-singing, all-dancing affair from last year.  Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin strikes me as an odd combination and clearly someone did a lot of thinking to come up with this pairing but both Martin and Baldwin can do funny.  However, I would like to see Baldwin’s 30 Rock co-star Tina Fey involved.

Who would you like to see hosting?

Review: Creation

2009 represents 200 years since the birth of botanist and evolutionary scientist, Charles Darwin and this is recognised (or capitalised upon) by Jon Amiel in his latest directorial effort, Creation.  This is not, however, a biopic in the traditional sense in that Creation is not a classic telling of the life of Darwin.  Instead, what the film is about is the story of how Darwin’s revolutionary book On The Origin of the Species came into being and the great internal strife Darwin felt in publishing his theory even though his life’s work backed up his theory to the point that he could deny his ideas no longer.

Real life married couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connolley play Charles and Emma Darwin, a partnership which came about despite their being first cousins, a fact which we learn about as they face disapproval and Darwin’s own theories on evolution take shape.  Emma Darwin is a deeply religious woman and it is this fact combined with his grief and guilt over the death of his eldest and favourite daughter, Annie, that persuades Charles to withhold the manuscript of his theory.

As the central character, Bettany gives a nuanced and effecting performance.  It is difficult not to be swept away by his boundless enthuaiasm for his subject matter as he instructs his young children in the ways of ecology, telling them stories of his travels.  This means that the audience feels his grief and distress far more acutely during which Bettany manages to stay on the right side of overwrought (just).  It is natural that Charles be given so much screen time – after all, it is his story but this does have the effect of relegating other characters to bit part players.  Jennifer Connolley’s role is underwritten for the obvious hold she has over Darwin’s career whether she means to or whether she even realises it but Connolley performs admirably in the role.  Only Martha West as Annie matches Charles’ treatment which is fitting given that the pair are clearly two peas in a pod.  West’s performance is very natural and a fine foil to Bettany.  I had also hoped to see more of Toby Jones and Jeremy Northam but in truth their characters seem to serve only to push the film on and to make clunky observations about the nature of Darwin’s faith and the strength of belief in his own theory.

Whilst this film is deeply affecting in the emotional pulls that it provides, it does suffer from the occasional stray into a territory which feels forced or overtly literal when a more subtle approach would suffice.  Devices such as Connelly bashing away at the piano or some of Charles’ sightings of the ghost of his daughter aren’t necessary and detract from what are fine acting performances at the centre of this film.  Perhaps a more confident director in this genre of filmmaking than Jon Amiel would have had the courage of his convictions.

Given this film’s subject matter, it is likely that any story about Darwin, evolution or On The Origin of the Species is likely to opposed by a cross-section of society, whether or not they have seen the film for “promoting” evolutionary science.  However, those who do not believe in evolution as the explanation for the adaptation of life on earth may find something in this film to enjoy even if they do not agree with all of the content.  Clearly, Bettany’s Darwin is a man for whom “faith” in many forms is extremely important whilst he also has a strong regard and sense for the role religion plays within the society in which he lives and, unlike some of his champions today, takes no great pleasure in challenging the status quo or debunking the creationism taught in the country’s pulpits.

Overall, a very well acted film with just one directorial flourish too many.  Arguably Paul Bettany’s finest performance for some time. 7/10

Review: Away We Go

Sam Mendes and the American family unit (or substitutions therefor) is a combination which has appeared in all of his films so far.  Whether it be suburban malcontents (American Beauty and Revolutionary Road) struggling to make the family work, the question of whether blood is thicker than water (Road to Perdition) or a family of a different kind (Jarhead).  Away We Go is a much more low key, modest entry into the director’s CV but nevertheless the family is the key to the story.

American TV stalwarts John Krasinski (The Office) and Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live) are Bert and Verona, a young(ish) couple very much in love and 6 months pregnant.  They are also living in what could best be described as a shack, despite the fact that they seem to have decent jobs.  Having moved there to be near Bert’s parents (played by Jeff Daniels and Catherine O’Hara) ready for the birth, their plans are turned upside down when they suddenly announce they are upping sticks and moving to Antwerp.  What follows is a road trip to parts of the US and Canada where Bert and Verona’s friends and family live seeking to put down the familial roots.

A road trip movie without the travelling save for some small scenes on board planes and trains, this is another example of a film which relies on chemistry and likeability of our leads and this is something on which this film scores highly.  It will come as no surprise to those who are aware of the work of Krasinski and Rudolph on television that they are incredibly likeable and have great chemistry as a believable couple in love.  Where problems emerge are with some of the friends and family.  Whilst they are mined for comic effect and their antics did, mostly, make me laugh, they do come across as far less likeable (which is kind of the point) and less real than our leading couple.

Allison Janney is an actress that I enjoy a lot, particularly recently in Todd Solondz’s Life During Wartime and here, she is incredibly funny as a loud mouthed, brazen friend of Verona’s but given that she is such a horrible presence, it is hard to believe that Verona would ever really be friends with a person like that, let alone travel cross-country to see her.  However, she is only character that you really don’t believe.  Other characters come and go and whilst some, most notably Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character comes across as complete caricacture of a hippy earth-mother mined for further cringe comedy, others are completely natural such as Verona’s sister, Carmen Ejogo who has an ease of presence which works really well and others induce heart-breaking anguish, particularly Melanie Lynskey’s “tears of a clown” routine.

This is a film which is funny but packs an emotional punch and Mendes just about manages to balance the two tones.  His direction is unfussy and there is a very nice scene of a plane floating across an airport’s mirrored glass which is a telltale sign of the quality of direction.  I enjoyed it although I can see why it would be a film that would enfuriate others.

8/10

Review: (500) Days of Summer

To anyone who has read my reviews on here so far, it should become quite clear quite quickly that I am not a fan of the conventional romantic comedy … but let’s be very clear: this is not a love story as we are told at the start of the movie, but nor is this a conventional love story.

Told in flashback and in a non-linear method, this is the story of how Tom, a failed architect turned greetings card writer, met Summer and their relationship.  Whilst is someone who believes in romantic love and is fixated on finding the one, Summer doesn’t feel the same way following the messy divorce of her parents.  It is the first of many ways the genre is subverted by (500) Days of Summer.  Helping Tom in his travails of the heart are his mates and his younger sister.

So much of the success of a romantic comedy lives and dies by the chemistry of its two leads and this is something where (500) Days of Summer really succeeds.  Now I will admit that I am a little biased as Joseph Gordon Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are two actors who I would be happy watching in anything but together they do have a fantastic and fun chemistry.  Apparently friends before they started shooting the film, the ease which they have with each other is apparent from the very beginning.  Joseph Gordon Levitt is an actor who I normally think of as being quite an intense brooding character from his performances in films such as Brick and Mysterious Skin but whilst he gets his opportunity to brood, he is also fun.  Deschanel, on the other hand, is usually kooky and fun and here gets to emote a little more as well.

Despite the up and down events of the movie, the overall tone is one of fun and several scenes carry this off best, particularly the scenes in the karaoke bar and Tom’s dance on the way to work.  The soundtrack may be achingly cool but the film isn’t all staid mawkishness, it knows how to bring the cheese as well as any Sandra Bullock romcom.  Not all of the scenes work, in particular, the generic best friends but there is enough interesting movie making and technique from first time director, Marc Webb, to get past that.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the film because it made me smile from more or less the first beat to the end credits and the two romantic leads have terrific chemistry.  If I saw them as a couple on a local bus, I would hate them immediately but they are unquestionably enjoyable on screen.

9/10

Review: Valhalla Rising (London Film Festival)

Niclas Winding Refn is clearly a favourite of the film selectors at the London Film Festival.  Entries into his Pusher trilogy of films made their debut in London as did his last film, the controversial Bronson which featured a bravura performance from British actor Tom Hardy and possibly my favourite scene of the whole year so far where asylum inmates dance to It’s A Sin by the Pet Shop Boys.  Now, he is back with an all together different beast and “beast” is certainly the right word as Valhalla Rising sees Refn reteam with fellow Dane, Mads Mikkelsen who will be most familar to the majority of readers as Le Chiffre in Casino Royale.

Valhalla Rising is a stark brutal film which opens with Mikkelsen sat atoop a windswept craggy hill in a wooden cage with little protection from the elements.  We don’t know how he came to be there nor the identity of his captors.  All we know is he is there and we quickly learn that he can fight as he is made do for the amusement and sometime financial gain of his masters.  Tended to by a young boy, he appears to have little ahead of him except hunger, exposure and more fighting.  However, upon being traded to another tribe, he makes his escape.  What follows is part-supernatural, part-spiritual, part-fight movie as Mikkelsen’s One Eye stumbles upon Christian Viking missionaries who see his value whilst seeking to convert him at the same time.

This is an interesting film full of ideas about the nature of belief and about the supernatural.  During his Q&A session, Refn said that all he wanted to do was to avoid the banana skin of the Viking film which has killed many a career.  Well, he has managed that, mainly by not producing a Viking film at all.  Rather this film has shades of Herzog’s Aguirre: Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo in its flawed dangerous mission films whilst seeking to channel the director’s latent sci-fi leanings.  It is difficult to judge Mikkelsen’s performance as he is completely mute as is much of the first 20 minutes.  Having said that, I felt the silence worked as it allowed the audience to take in the impressive visuals.

Clearly, this is not a film for everyone.  Its stark sensabilities such as very little music, a mute protagonist and occasional sci-fi and horror cinematic language means that it will alienate most mainstream cinema audiences.  If Bronson was a violent crowd pleaser, anyone expecting Bronson 2 is likely to disappointed.  Not all of the film’s messages come across and overall, I would say this film ranks higher on the interesting scale than the enjoyable scale.

6/10

Review: Life During Wartime (London Film Festival)

Director Todd Solondz makes films which are something of an acquired taste and rarely make for comfortable viewing.  1998’s Happiness was a prime example of his divisive, controversial but brilliant filmmaking which held up a mirror to the fringes of society surviving in respectable suburban America.  Life During Wartime is a sequel of sorts from Solondz but in the director’s inimitable style this is not a conventional sequel.  Set seemingly around 5-10 years after the events of Happiness, Life During Wartime picks up the lives of the characters but uses different actors to portray them.  Confused … you may be but not for long.

After seeing Happiness a few years ago, it was not a film that I necessarily wanted to return any time soon and indeed, the first 15 minutes was spent dredging back memories of who was who and trying to remember which actors had originally portrayed the characters.  However, once I was done with that, I was able to appreciate the film more.  However, it is undoubtedly a clever device as it means that an audience which hasn’t seen the original doesn’t suffer the disadvantages one might expect but the question is, would anyone who hadn’t seen the original want to see this sequel?

Once we pick up the characters, one thing is clear – the characters are as messed up as they were when we left them.  Trish, played with a warmth and likeability by Allison Janney has picked up her life following her ex-husband’s conviction for paedophillia related offences from the first film and is looking for love with potential new beau (Michael Lerner) whilst her middle son (Dylan Riley Snyder, just the right side of annoying kid) is preparing for his bar mitzvah and coming terms to the thought of  becoming a man.  Ex-husband Bill, played by Ciaran Hinds in a brilliantly hangdog, tortured performance, is being released on parole and has to deal with the prospect that his family have made a backstory whereby he is dead.  Trish’s sisters are facing alternative paths with Helen (Ally Sheedy), an incredibly successful poet whilst Joy (Shirley Henderson) is struggling in her relationship with sex pest partner, Allen (Michael K. Williams) whilst being haunted by her ex, played creepily by Paul Reubens nailing the role of a horny ghost, who simultaneously desires and detests her.

This is a film which certainly raises interesting perspectives if you’ve ever wondered what happens to the characters when a story is put to bed but the problem with this film is that not all stories are equal and that is certainly true of the strands of this film.  Whilst the travails of Janney’s Trish as she tries to make her new relationship with Harvey work whilst looking after 2 kids, one of whom is reaching an age where there is a lot of natural curiousity and an ability to get the wrong end of the stick, are mined for comic effect and Janney’s natural warmth makes these scenes particularly accessible, the descent into depression and self pity of Joy simply do not hold the attention the same way.  This is partly because I find Shirley Henderson a difficult presence to warm to and unfortunately, this is a trait which has followed her from Harry Potter to Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day for me and find her difficult to watch.  Throughout her scenes, I found myself wanting more of Janney and Hinds.  To be fair to Henderson, this is not so much an indictment of her as much it is of Solondz who has overwritten those roles at the expense of others and the brilliance of Janney and Hinds.  A stand-out scene of the film sees Hinds seduced by a travelling cougar played with spirit and venom by Charlotte Rampling and it is this which best resembles a scene from Happiness but there is not enough of that level of ascerbic writing.

Overall, an interesting experiment which partly succeeds but is hamstrung by the need to widen its focus to characters whose strands cross over only as a result of the original film lacking the ascerbic uncomfortable nature of Happiness which worked so well.

6/10

Review: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Always likely to be subtitled with the unfortunate moniker of Heath Ledger’s final film, that The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is gracing our cinema screens at all is largely down to the goodwill which many in the film industry have towards Ledger (and, to an extent, director Terry Gilliam).  Furthermore, without wishing to be a cynic, it is hard to imagine that such a film would be opening on so many screens and to such excitement if the terrible events of last year had not taken place.  After all, the previous collaboration between Ledger and Gilliam, The Brothers Grimm, had hardly set the world on fire.

I had fully expected to find myself baffled and not amused by The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus as Gilliam’s films tend to be something of an acquired taste and broadly speaking fantasy is not one of mine.  However, despite those misgivings, Parnassus is quite an easy beast to tame.  The titular character is a man with the dubious “gift” of immortality bestowed upon him by the Devil as a prize in one of many a series of wagers, the most recent of which requires the doctor to find enough souls willing to choose correctly for him to save his daughter (Lily Cole) from the Devil’s clutches.  He seeks to win these souls by tempting them through his magical mirror and into the psycadelic CGI world of the imaginarium.  He has help in doing this from his merry horde of players namely his daughter Scrumpy, a young homeless boy Anton (played terrifically by Andrew Garfield) and Percy, a midget.  A chance meeting with a man hanging from Battersea bridge delivers the mysterious Tony (Heath Ledger), a man with a past he appears to have chosen to forget into the players.

This film starts badly as the imaginarium rocks up outside a nightclub for drunk punters to chuck bottles and generally play cringeworthy drunks.  However, Gilliam is better than this and as soon as one of the punters ends up inside the imaginarium, the film finds its feet.  This is largely down to boundless enthuiaiasm of Andrew Garfield’s Anton.  Garfield is a revelation in this film managing to be both the motor and the emotional heart of the film, matching Ledger.  The narrative mixes flashback, fantasy and reality well with Christopher Plummer providing some of the narration.

Obviously, much will be made of the performance of Ledger and he is good in this film as the man without a past but a gift of the gab.  Ledger’s death necessitated the plot device that when Tony goes through the mirror into the imaginarium, he changes his appearance to be that which the people in there with him want him to be.  That appearance is of the combined talents of Depp, Law and Farrell, each appearing in one fantasy each.  Each actor channels the performance of Ledger such that each is believable as an incarnation of Tony, particularly Depp whose acting style most matches Ledger’s performance to begin with.  However, none of that would be as effective if the worlds Gilliam created were not sufficiently magical .. and they are.  Echoing some of his previous work, in particular Baron Munchausen, Gilliam invents worlds of such beauty and imagination that they really do need to be seen on the big screen.

Gilliam deserves a lot of praise for his inventiveness and his bravery in bringing this film to the big screen.  He could so easily have been defeated but this film shows he has undoubtedly one of the finest imaginations in film making at the present time and not only that, he is prepared to give opportunities to young talent with Garfield stealing the show and Lily Cole making a highly competent performance in one of her first acting performances.  Coupled with old timers Plummer as the title character and Tom Waits as the Devil putting in clever performances, this is far more of an ensemble piece than a one man band.  In my opinion, despite the ropey opening quarter of an hour this is one of Gilliam’s finest and deserving of a place on the big screen.

8/10