Stan's Film Blog

Best of the fest part 2

2009-11-02T11:23:00.000-08:00

Some more reviews of the films I saw during the London Film Festival fortnight...

The Men Who Stare At Goats is a distinctly Coens-esque offbeat, leftfield comedy that suffers from one essential problem: the casting of Ewan McGregor. Quite simply he can’t carry off a believable American accent; one might even speculate that he can’t carry off any role – he’s so unconvincing!
However, setting that to one side first-time director Grant Heslov (one of George Clooney’s gang – he co-produced the brilliant Good Night And Good Luck) has delivered an eclectic movie that mixes genres with abandon. Clooney, Jeff Bridges (clearly channelling the ghost of The Dude) and Kevin Spacey make the most of their almost cartoon characters, mugging and fooling around as if their lives are at stake. Their roles as the US military’s warrior monks (trained to stare at goats until their hearts stop and to run through walls) are uncovered by McGregor’s useless journalist, who then finds himself in an adventure with Clooney that he terms ‘the silence of the goats’.
Enjoyable, but it could have been better. It’s simply not satirical enough.
Score: 7/10

Unjustifiably ignored, The Soloist is top-notch adult entertainment from Joe Wright. The fundamental emotional detachment that killed Atonement for me actually helps The Soloist hit the heights, Wright’s English reserve creating more emotional impact than the more obviously heart-tugging approach the average US director would take with this Oscar bait script.
Robert Downey Jnr is a newspaper columnist who stumbles upon a mad homeless musical genius, Jamie Fox. Both broken in their own ways, the film charts the peaks and troughs of the pair’s relationship, and the impact that relationship has on them.
Neither are cured by the end, but have they made progress.
Downey and Fox both underplay their roles, just as Wright underplays the potential histrionics of the script, allowing the real emotions to gradually shine through, aided by a beautiful score.
Score: 8.5/10

Cold Souls is not ‘The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Soul’. While it shares some essential plot points with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Cold Souls does not share the former’s beautiful love story.
Paul Giamatti plays a well-known US actor called, er, Paul Giamatti, who’s struggling with the preparation for the role of Uncle Vanya. He spots an ad for a soul storage facility – effectively your soul is removed and securely stored until you want to have it back.
Finding that the lack of a soul doesn’t improve his performance, he elects to try someone else’s soul… Inevitably he decides he wants his soul back – but it’s been sold on as there’s a burgeoning trade in soul trafficking…
This is a gentle, existential, downbeat comedy/drama – and will not be to everybody’s tastes. While ably supported by Emily Watson and David Strathairn, Giamatti is the brilliant hangdog lynchpin of the movie. If you like Giamatti, then you must see this.
Score: 7.5/10

Balibo is a village in East Timor; in October 1975 five Australian journalists were killed by the invading Indonesian forces. Respected Aussie hack Roger East investigates their deaths as the Australian government shows no interest, making the trip to East Timor even as the invasion is continuing.
From the first frame this screams ‘this is an IMPORTANT movie’ and the emphasis is on its message. Not that the message is unworthy: society needs reminding of the crucial role a free press can play – and how better informed we are by the work of brave, ethical journalists.
Anthony La Paglia is suitably stirring as East, delivering a memorable performance – although the manner of his exit from the movie just screams ‘Oscar’…
The supporting cast flesh out the Balibo five well, so we care about them and are shocked by the deaths.
Nevertheless, writer/director Robert Connolly hits the audience over the head repeatedly – I found myself curiously detached. A less politically pointed approach would have served the film better.
Score: 7/10

American: The Bill Hicks Story charts the laughs, life and times and eventual death of America’s greatest stand-up at the age of 32.
This documentary uses the photo animation technique first used in The Kid Stays In The Picture to illustrate hours of interviews with Hicks’ family and friends.
If you don’t know his work, you should: go to his website.
What you need to know is that he was a crusading comic who saw it as his job to hold Church and state to account – his years as a professional comedian were, after all, governed by Reagan and Bush Snr, and the Moral Majority. Indeed, it’s fair to say that his late-career renaissance in the UK saw him moving swiftly away from ‘pure’ stand-up, taking an overtly ‘political’, campaigning approach, attempting and mostly succeeding in converting his huge audiences to his cause.
He dared to ask the questions the media wouldn’t, he was an optimist, he was as committed a stage performer as there has ever been – and he simply was bloody funny.
Given the state of the world, this film’s extolling of his dream of world peace could not be more timely.
Score: 8.5/10

More reviews are below - and more will follow!

London Film Festival 2009: the best - and the worst

2009-10-30T09:57:00.000-07:00

Between 15 and 27 October, I saw 29 films, of which 24 were screened as part of the London Film Festival.
Undoubted highlights of the Festival were (in order in which I saw them): Up In The Air, Micmacs, The Double Hour, The Disappearance of Alice Creed, Air Doll, The Informant!, and Lebanon.

Up In The Air will doubtless receive some bad reviews because of its central conceit: this hero’s journey concerns the soul of frequent flyer Ryan Bingham, a man whose business is firing people – and with the economy in the shit, his business is good. George Clooney revels in the role of his Satan in a suit, mercilessly dolling out redundancy packages and platitudes to the soon-to-be-jobless. Bingham’s professional and personal lives are put in a spin by two women: fellow frequent flyer Vera Farmiga (it’s fair to say Clooney hasn’t generated this much chemistry with an actress since Jennifer Lopez in Out Of Sight) and new redundancy hotshot Anna Kendrick.
Directed and co-scripted by Jason Reitman (Juno and Thank You For Smoking), this is genuinely funny throughout, and not always blackly so, takes a few expected and unexpected turns, and has a pleasing 70s feel that leads to an appropriate conclusion. Plus it has the funniest emotional breakdown by an actress ever committed to celluloid.
Score: 9/10

Micmacs is the latest effort from Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, Alien 4, Amelie, A Very Long Engagement) and for my money is his best yet. It focuses on Danny Boon, a gunshot victim who last his father in WWII, who along with his eccentric band of brothers decides to cut the two local arms manufacturers down to size. Effectively this is a heist movie, but shot through with Jeunet’s inventive visuals, mad production design, crazy characters, love of life, and lightness of touch. Consistently funny, Micmacs should prove to be endlessly watchable.
Score: 8.5/10

The Double Hour is an Italian thriller/chiller/noir that constantly plays with the audience’s expectations of the genres. Briefly ex-cop (Filippo Timi, who has a Javier Bardem-esque brooding screen presence) meets a hotel maid while speed-dating, and then pretty much all hell ensues. The film’s subterfuge is almost immediately apparent, ensuring that you never know who you can trust (although this doesn’t prevent the audience establishing empathy with the two excellent leads). Brilliantly directed by first-timer Giuseppe Capotondi, The Double Hour comes highly recommended.
Score: 8.5/10

The Disappearance of Alice Creed will undoubtedly be marketed as the new Shallow Grave – and it stands fair comparison, unleashing a new British writer/director upon the world in the shape of J Blakeson just as Shallow Grave gave us Danny Boyle. Indeed, like Boyle, Blakeson may have to go some to ever better this tight, riveting kidnap thriller. The opening sequence is brilliantly edited, describing the logistics needed to pull off the successful kidnap of Alice Creed by two cons. As we learn more about the three characters, so the seat of power shifts between them. There are so many twists and turns taken by the script that this is all I can say without revealing spoilers! But do not think this is simply high quality schlock – it isn’t. It is gripping, scary, will have you on the edge of your seat for its entire running time, and is finely acted by its three players (particularly Gemma Arterton, who I really didn’t think could act until now). And frankly a British film hasn’t looked this good since Layer Cake.
Score: 9/10

On the face of it, Air Doll might have the maddest script of the Festival and yet its emotions and its own peculiar world are as real anything I saw this year. It concerns an inflatable sex-doll who one day gains a heart; we follow her on a journey through life and the world’s wonders. Possessed of a young child’s lack of knowledge and the ensuing curiosity, the doll interacts with half a dozen other characters, acquiring a job, friends and a boyfriend. She finds joy in the smallest things, and wants nothing more than to help everyone she meets (after all that is her purpose, to provide pleasure…), although that help is not always wanted or well-conceived. Korean star Bae Doo-Na is charming as the doll, and is surrounded by an excellent supporting cast. The film is a tad too long, but if you want an offbeat gem, you probably won’t find better this year. It is also possessed of an erotic edge simply missing from many other efforts at this year’s Festival that purported to be erotic.
Score: 8.5/10

The Informant! Sees Steven Soderbergh mixing his more arthouse leanings with the high class production sheen of Ocean’s 11. Matt Damon plays an ‘apparent’ corporate whistleblower, caught up in a web of lies, some of his own making. Not properly supported by two not-entirely capable FBI agents, Damon’s Marc Whitacre suffers as the pressure of the investigation and subsequent court case take their toll on his fragile grip on reality. Played largely for laughs (backed by a humorous score), though not at the expense of tension, The Informant! is offbeat, leftfield, etc – and for some audiences may not succeed. However, I clearly enjoyed it and was left frequently slack-jawed at the ever-increasing lies. That the script is in part true makes watching the movie an even more incredulous experience.
Score: 8/10

Media shorthand dictates that Lebanon will be labelled ‘Das Boot in a tank’ – and that’s an entirely fair comparison. But even more than the acclaimed U-boat drama, this is truly experiential cinema.
All we ever see is the interior of the tank and the four Israeli soldiers manning it – and what they can see out of it and hear on the radio – as they do their bit for Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
Writer/director Samuel Maoz has created this unsettling masterpiece from his own recollections of serving as a tank gunner in that war. The authenticity of the production is stunning, both the look and the sound (you really must see this in a good cinema), but not at the expense of characterisation. These are not four men, but four squabbling boys, ill-fitting with each other, ill-fit for war – but old enough to die for their country.
The stress they are put under is immense, and the audience shares in it: we feel both the nerves of the gunner, unable to shoot at a living target, and the tank commander’s anger at the gunner’s inaction.
Quite brilliant, but Lebanon is such a disturbing experience, I’m not sure I want to see it again!
Score: 9/10

However, almost certainly the best film I saw out of those 29 was Up. I thought Wall*E was going to be Pixar’s high, but this trumps it. The first seven minutes will be held up as long as film exists and is celebrated as one of the high points of cinematic achievement: a brilliant combination of near-silent storytelling, aided by great characterisation, a moving score and judicious editing. That’s not to say the film falls into a trough as Up surfs a relative tsunami of emotions in the ensuing 80 minutes, delivering great gags and raw emotional scenes, often on top of each other. To hell with the Best Animated Film Oscar, Up should be in the running for the Best Film Oscar, full stop. Its message that you should chase your dreams – and if given the chance you must grab it in honour of all those who never did – and that life is there to be lived is as important a lesson as has ever been imparted by film.
Score: 9.5/10

The Cone of Shame
This award, named after the cone that the dogs in Up fear the most, recognises the year’s most shockingly bad film. The inaugural recipient is a film so bad, so hellbent in its own madness that you can’t even laugh at it; indeed, in hindsight I would far rather have been deprived of every sense for 90 minutes! The film is Valhalla Rising. I’m not even going to attempt to explain the film’s virtually non-existent plot, nor waste time on discussing the dehumanising effect of its drone-core soundtrack, I’m just going to tell you that you need never see it, no matter how interested in Vikings or Mads Mikaelsen you are.
Valhalla Rising: you wear this year’s Cone of Shame. Wear it with dishonour!

Review: Let The Right One In

2009-04-12T09:19:00.000-07:00

This is an outstanding contribution to cinema's long fascination with the vampyr, and brings some new spin to the subject matter. In short, boy meets girl, boy and girl fall for each other, but girl is a vampyr...

Set in a Stockholm suburb in the early 80s during a typically snowbound winter, the film focuses on Oskar, as 12-year-old boy, verging on being an albino, the only son of divorced parents, and very definitely an outcast by any measure. In between being bullied at school and being ignored by his mother, by night he befriends Eli, the new girl on the block who lives next door. Apparently unaffected by the freezing cold during their night-time meets, Eli gradually lets her hefty guard slip and slowly the two outcasts become an item of sorts.

The film glories not in gore (although as a vampyr movie inevitably there must be some blood-letting), but in the realistic mundanities of how to survive as a 12-year-old vampire. In a declaration of love and friendship, Oskar takes her to the sweetshop of buys her mixed candy: she tries it and suffers an allergic reaction (for want of a better word). Hakan, the old man she lives with, clearly both loves and fears her, while she treats him with a mixture of respect and disdain; he has the task of providing her with fresh blood - which can of course only be achieved through murder...

There's a pleasing lack of special effects or displays of vampyr powers: she says she can fly, but we only hear off-screen fluttering; and we only see the results of her final attack.

There's also a pleasing lack of info about Eli's past: while made a vampyr at the age of 12, we don't know how long she's been the undead; and we don't find out much about her relationship with Hakan,

The sense of unease, the feeling that nothing good can come of this prevails, aided by the downbeat setting, precise direction, a score that swirls from comforting to unsettling with ease, and deeply troubling sound design (ever wanted to know what a vampyr's stomach sounds like when it grumbles, now's your chance).

The principal cast are excellent, especially the two child leads, although internet scuttlebutt suggests Eli's voice is provided by another actor. Particularly fine is the scene where Oskar decides they should become blood brothers, ill-advisedly slitting his palm and offering Eli the opportunity to do the same: Eli's desire for the blood is offset by her own self-loathing and fear of revealing her true nature to him - it's exquisite.

In the end though, this is a romance (in both the original and more modern, accepted definition of the word) and love, even between the living and the undead, must triumph. This is very much the darker alternative to Twilight. See it.
Score: 8.5/10

Review: The Damned United

2009-03-28T15:24:00.000-07:00

The Damned United is a rip-roaring Boys’ Own dream-turned-nightmare with a peach of a turn by Michael Sheen at its centre.
This is the story of Brian Clough’s 44 days in charge of Leeds United, of his overwhelming desire to beat Don Revie, the super-successful manager in whose footsteps he chose to follow.

While fully fleshing Cloughie out, he is nevertheless very much the hero of the piece (you’ll be cheering him on through every outburst, you’ll feel his hurt when scorned by Revie, by the Leeds players and most painfully by his assistant manager Timothy Spall’s Peter Taylor) – and Colm Meaney’s Revie very much the villain of the piece (the coda makes a wry and vengeful comparison between Cloughie’s subsequent success and Revie’s ensuing failure).

Slighted by Revie upon his first visit to Derby County, Clough becomes consumed by the need to beat him and his mighty Leeds. Half of Cloughie’s outbursts are on the money – he’s the only sane man in the room – and the other half are at best almost wilfully misjudged.

The feel and the look of the 60s and 70s is effortlessly created, but not slavishly so such that the production design becomes a performer in its own right (step forward Life On Mars and Ashes To Ashes). That footballing era is also wonderfully conjured, in some ways casting Cloughie as man well before his time.

The film takes a sideways glance at what was to come for football - hooliganism on and off the pitch, a sport both elevated and corrupted by growing mountains of money – without ever fully addressing them.

The film begs the question (and not unreasonably leaves it unanswered): did Clough set out to fail at Leeds? Was his hatred of Revie and his boys so great, all he wanted to do was tear the team down and erase the memory of its triumphs? Better they should be remembered for losing under him than winning – because if they won, everyone would say he had just inherited a great team from Revie…

Sheen is at his crowd-pleasing height, playing Clough with all the pomp the viewer could possibly expect. He also reveals the emotional cripple, the failed player behind all that front and mouth. If there’s a criticism of the film’s take on Clough, it’s that we learn little of the qualities that made him a great manager and gave him the title of best manager never to manage England.
By comparison with Sheen, Spall is hardly stretched, and yet no other British actor could so comfortably play Taylor happily stuck in Clough’s shadow.

Of course, die-hard, life-long Leeds fans need not see this: they didn’t warm to Cloughie then and they won’t now.

Set aside concerns about factual accuracies, or indeed changes from the book (god knows it has got its own doubters) or the Clough family’s disavowal, and just enjoy a great British film with the greatest British actor of his generation. It's a spry 97 minutes long and makes fantastic use of Fleetwood Mac's Man of the World (one of my all time faves) in a key scene that ultimately suggests those 97 minutes are about that most curious of things: male friendships.
Score: 8/10

Review: Watchmen

2009-03-08T14:48:00.000-07:00

Watchmen is by far the most faithful adaptation of an Alan Moore comic yet to hit cinema screens – but does it trump The Dark Knight? Read on! Visually, this is the comic brought vividly and realistically to life, aided by fully realised sets and props rather than 90% blue screen and CGI.

It retains the essential structure of Moore’s work, telling the story in the order he set – meaning cross-cutting past, present and future narratives. The history of the Minutemen (the super hero team that predates the Watchmen) is superbly explained in the opening credit sequence after the death of The Comedian.

There are some nice additions by Snyder and the script adapters: a certain photograph in The Comedian’s apartment, the nods to Strangelove and Apocalypse Now, and some unexpected musical choices.

Rightly or wrongly, Rorschach (played with conviction by Jackie Earle Haley) is very much the crowd favourite of the piece – but much more so than in the comic. In choosing to excise some of his less charming traits and beliefs, Rorschach becomes a pint-sized Dirty Harry – with all the best lines.

Doc Manhattan is well-realised, cock and all, with Billy Crudup successfully conveying what little humanity is left within Big Blue.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan hints at the cynicism within The Comedian, but in so much that the character is seen only ever as someone else’s memory, there is little room for him to make an impact.

Matthew Goode brings an appropriately emotionless arrogance to Ozymandias, the most intelligent man in the world who also happens to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl’s impotence, sense of failure and lack of confidence is almost caught perfectly by Patrick Wilson – but I sensed something lacking in his performance, as if he didn’t believe in the material at all times.

Indeed, there’s a sense that everyone’s trying so hard to be faithful to the source that they bring none of themselves to the project and so it lacks the spark of life. This is not helped by the best actors being in the most unfeeling/darkest roles; while Rorschach is the work’s black heart, Laurie/Silk Spectre – and her relationships with Doc Manhattan and Dan – should be the emotional core of the work (often her reactions lead the audience in the comic) and I’m afraid while Malin Ackerman carries off the look (boy does she!), she fails to give weight to the character’s emotions (notwithstanding that the decision seems to have been taken to make Laurie less hysterical than in the comic).

The decision to re-work some elements of the original story are right, and the streamlining of the story to an acceptable run-time is hard to fault, but the question remains: would the story have more relevance, re-positioned in time to more or less the current day (like, say, The Dark Knight)?

The heavy weight of expectation on this movie was such that the end result could never live up to it. Ultimately the greatest adaptation of Watchmen is the one each and every reader, comic in hand, envisions in their own mind.

Nevertheless, Snyder and his team have tried – and if they have fallen short of glory, it’s not for lack of trying.

There are so many great scenes from the comic that are realised so well, I was compelled to punch the air at least once – which is more than can be said for the likes of From Hell or LXG.

Like Dark Knight, this is muscular, tough stuff (the comic’s gorier elements transferred intact), but Watchmen doesn’t quite scale the same heights.
Score: 7.5/10

Review: Gran Torino

2009-03-03T13:20:00.000-08:00

Gran Torino is quite a different beast to Clint Eastwood’s riveting Oscar-bait Changeling, but is as enjoyable, challenging and relevant – and marks the Man With No Name out as simply the best US director currently working, his ability to move between genres unmatched.

Critical shorthand dictates that GT is Dirty Harry redeemed – and breaking the story down to its pure basics, that’s true, but it’s so much more than that. That summary doesn’t reveal the humour, the love of life, the tragedy that Clint allows the film to revel in.

Briefly, Clint is Walt Kowalski, a recently widowed Korean war vet, having to come to terms, Victor Meldrew-style, with a world changing so fast around him that he simply can’t comprehend, can’t make the imaginative leap that good prevails over change; his first and last resort is bitter retrenchment.

And from that, again Victor Meldrew-style, comes the comedy, which no doubt has helped the film’s word of mouth in the US. Every time you think Clint’s verging on ham, the script turns and forces him to default to his game face: he may be 78, but when he’s aiming an M1 rifle at you, you know he knows how to use it.

You see, Walt is old school – he is as racist as that relation you don’t like talking to at family gatherings because of their outdated views. Making things worse for him are his neighbours: Hmongs, the Koreans who helped the US in the war it should be noted, but to Walt they are just the old enemy.

Of course, the inevitable culture clash is bridged by the common enemy – the local gang. Which is not to say that the film demonises gang culture – it’s comedic unravelling of older male relationships clearly draws parallels between the bravado of the gangs (whatever their colour or creed) and the unspoken bond between vets and their own coded language.

The tragedy of the collected bravado sets in relatively late in the piece – and if it strikes a discordant note, I’m tempted to say that Clint’s just being realistic. And the hints are there that the key change, the shift in tone is coming.

Much of the symbolism is hard to discuss without giving away the story, but suffice to say it’s not overplayed.

The supporting cast are uniformly excellent – and the Gran Torino itself is gorgeous.

Tom Stern, who performed such a beautiful job lensing Changeling, does another knock-out job here, while Kyle Eastwood reveals a talent for haunting scores very much in his father’s style.

Ultimately what sets GT apart is simply how enjoyable and spry it is – one suspects its lightness of touch will render it endlessly watchable. It was Stanley Kubrick who mused that the most effective easy to get a serious message across to an audience is through comedy – when you’re laughing, you’re guard is down and, QED, your mind is more receptive.

If this does turn out to be Clint’s final hurrah in front of the camera, then a more fitting epitaph I can’t imagine. Hey, it even includes him singing…
Score: 9/10

Review: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

2009-02-26T13:40:00.000-08:00

It’s easy to see how Button lost the fight against Slumdog in the end of year reviews and awards ceremonies – alongside Danny Boyle’s bravura flash and feelgood punch, this stately, contemplative storytelling reminds viewers of the past rather than the speed of change in the developing world and what that means for the future and has a slow burn effect that takes longer to sink in.

And that’s what impressed me – this is David Fincher all grown up, as strongly hinted at in his previous effort Zodiac. The flash, the look-what-I-can-do with-the-camera trick shots are entirely absent in Button, Hitchcock references are kept to the bare minimum.

As you well know by now, this is the story of a man born old who dies young – experience is wasted on the young, youth is wasted on the experienced, etc. While it is framed as a conventional tragic romance, the subtext chills this writer to the bone, fearful to a ridiculous degree as I am of physical and mental infirmity: Button of course rather than experience both together at the end of his life experiences them separately at the start and at the end of his life respectively.

Born ironically on the wave of euphoria at the end of the Great War, from the beginning we know we are watching Button’s slow, agonising march to death. The story – and Fincher’s stately pacing – draws out the pain and joy of Button’s life and experiences like a long blade on a sharpening stone. The emotional pull is strong, but reigned in – this is Fincher after all – the emotional jolts are not served up as jabs or punches but aching, slow, burning cuts that require longer recovery.

Brad Pitt, effects n all, is effortlessly subtle, achieving a level previously unhinted at, while Cate Blanchett, cruelly overlooked in the gongs, is of course pure class (and, my lord, those legs!) as the love, quite literally of Button’s life.

Supporting turns are top-notch performances from the likes of Tilda Swinton, who seemingly can’t put a foot wrong these days, and Julia Ormond, who continues her stunning comeback.

Oh, there are criticisms – it is slow throughout, no doubt. And both the symbolism of the humming bird and the hokey effect that produces it are not what one would expect from Fincher. But neither is the assured, confident, adult touch behind the camera, his desire to show off absent as he simply serves the story.

Some have the made the assumption that this is another Forrest Gump – and that’s understandable given that it’s written by the same author and features a similar high concept. With Gump, Button shares an innocent simplicity, an unwavering faith that people will reveal the best in themselves (there’s no cynicism here) – but here the hero is no simpleton, he fully grasps the tragedy of life around him, he has desires, and he realises there are burdens that he cannot carry due to the nature of his condition, forcing upon him unexpected extra emotional crosses to bear.

This is a work of some emotional weight (there’s a genuine rawness to the scenes between Ormond and the ageing Blanchett) and therefore it will live longer in the memory than Slumdog. The greatest compliment that I can pay this movie – and Fincher – is that it feels like a Frank Darabont movie.
Score: 8.5/10

And the Oscars went to...

2009-02-22T13:50:00.000-08:00

Slumdog beats Button 8-3. And Mickey Rourke doesn't win!

Best Picture
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Director
Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire

Best Actor
Sean Penn - Milk

Best Actress
Kate Winslet - The Reader

Best Supporting Actress
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Best Supporting Actor
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight

Best Foreign Film
Departures

Best Animated Feature Film
Wall-E

Best Adapted Screenplay
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Original Screenplay
Milk

Best Original Score
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Original Song
Jai Ho - Slumdog Millionaire

Art Direction
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Cinematography
Slumdog Millionaire

Costume Design
The Duchess

Film Editing
Slumdog Millionaire

Make-up
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Sound Editing
The Dark Knight

Sound Mixing
Slumdog Millionaire

Visual Effects
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Review: Rachel Getting Married

2009-02-15T08:20:00.000-08:00

The second half of my Valentine’s double bill was Rachel Getting Married, which I found more affecting and less acidic than I’d imagined. To date most discussion of this movie has focused on the performance of Anne Hathaway – and understandably so, but that does diminish some excellent work from the other key players.

Hathaway is great as Kym Buckman, all nerves and bile, the recovering junkie, fresh out of rehab returning to the family home in time for her titular sister’s wedding. Weddings are emotionally-charged affairs at the best of times, but especially this one as it takes place at the parental home. Throw in Hathaway’s dynamite Kym, and opening of wounds and heated debate of the family’s dysfunction – and the shocking cause of Kym’s need for rehab – surely follows.

Of course she particularly puts her sister Rachel (played understatedly by Rosemarie DeWitt) and her well-meaning but long-suffering father Paul (Bill Irwin) through the mill. The biggest shock of all is the confrontation between Kym and her mother, (Debra Winger, characteristically assured as the distant and estranged Abby).

Kym is by far the most fleshed out character, our understanding and sympathy towards her helped by seeing her at AA meetings.

While this is dark cinema (shot handheld from an improvised script, quite Dogme-style), the characters do wear all their emotions (good and bad) on their sleeves, making the movie something of an emotional rollercoaster. Nevertheless, the final scene is not as downbeat as might have been expected.

If it turns out that this is director Jonathan Demme’s final fictional movie, it will serve as a fine testimony to his eclectic, indie tastes.
Score: 8/10

And the BAFTAs went to...

2009-02-08T13:14:00.000-08:00

BAFTA kept the Slumdog steamroller moving, leaving Benjamin Button to pick up the scraps. Slumdog picked up seven gongs, mostly in categories it was heavily tipped to win.

Button walked away with just three, none major. Righteous wins on the night include In Bruges (Original Screenplay) and Wall-E (Animated Film). Strong 'British' wins also came for Man On Wire and Hunger.

The two surprises of the night were I Loved You So Long scooping Best Foreign Film, and Penelope Cruz, winning Best Supporting Actress for VCB.

The really big loser on the night was Frost/Nixon: no wins.

Best Film
Slumdog Millionaire

Best British Film
Man On Wire

Director
Danny Boyle - Slumdog Milllionaire

Leading Actor
Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

Leading Actress
Kate Winslet - The Reader

Supporting Actor
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight

Supporting Actress
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Original screenplay
In Bruges

Adapted Screenplay
Slumdog Millionaire

The Carl Foreman award for special achievement by a British director, writer or producer for their first feature film
Steve McQueen (director/writer) - Hunger

Film not in the English language
I've Loved You So Long

Animated Film
Wall-E

Music
Slumdog Millionaire

Cinematography
Anthony Dod Mantle - Slumdog Millionaire

Editing
Slumdog Millionaire

Production design
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Costume design
The Duchess

Sound
Slumdog Millionaire

Special visual effects
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Make-up and hair
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Oscar noms throw some curveballs

2009-01-22T08:46:00.000-08:00

It's Button v Slumdog at the Oscars - and Revolutionary Road and Clint Eastwood have been snubbed. Benjamin Button leads the race with 13 nominations, ahead of Slumdog on 10. The only surprise among the top two is Cate Blanchett missing out for Supporting Actress.

The next-best is Milk with a surprise 8: Oscar’s not known for being this gay-friendly, but it’s a biopic, which always goes down well. Among its noms is a surprise Best Supporting Actor nod for Josh Brolin.

The Dark Knight collected 7 nods, mostly technical, but inevitably Heath Ledger is recognised. Wall*E follows on 6.

Frost/Nixon only picked up 5 nominations – but still no recognition for Michael Sheen. Also on 5 is The Reader – with Kate Winslet recognised in Best Actress rather than Supporting (the Golden Globe category she was slotted into and won) – and Doubt, with 4 of its cast being rewarded with noms.

Changeling garnered just 3 nods (including Best Actress for Angelina Jolie), while The Wrestler got 2 for Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei.

The big losers were Revolutionary Road, scoring just 3 noms (2 of which are in crafts), and Clint Eastwood, who’s work behind the camera on Changeling, and in front of the camera as well as behind it in Gran Torino, failed to chime with voters.

Predictions? Tough: Ledger for Best Supporting Actor and Jolie for Actress – everything else is wide open!

Best Picture
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Director
Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
Stephen Daldry - The Reader
David Fincher - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard - Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant - Milk

Best Actor
Richard Jenkins - The Visitor
Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn - Milk
Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

Best Actress
Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie - Changeling
Melissa Leo - Frozen River
Meryl Streep - Doubt
Kate Winslet - The Reader

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams - Doubt
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis - Doubt
Taraji P Henson - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei - The Wrestler

Best Supporting Actor
Josh Brolin - Milk
Robert Downey Jr - Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Doubt
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon - Revolutionary Road

Best Foreign Film
Revanche
The Class
The Baader Meinhof Complex
Departures
Waltz With Bashir

Best Animated Feature Film
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
Wall-E

Best Adapted Screenplay
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Original Screenplay
Happy-Go-Lucky
Milk
Wall-E
In Bruges
Frozen River

Best Original Score
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Defiance
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E

Best Original Song
Down To Earth - Wall-E
Jai Ho - Slumdog Millionaire
O Saya - Slumdog Millionaire

Art Direction
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Changeling
The Dark Knight
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road

Cinematography
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Changeling
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
The Reader

Costume Design
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Australia
Milk
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road

Film Editing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire

Make-up
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Sound Editing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Iron Man
Wanted
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E

Sound Mixing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Wanted
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E

Visual Effects
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man

BAFTA noms: Slumdog rollercoaster continues

2009-01-15T11:07:00.000-08:00

BAFTA continued its mild eccentricity and desire to buck the trend with eclectic nominations. Slumdog Millionaire and Benjamin Button lead with 11 noms each - but some of those noms are surprising. For instance, Dev Patel and Freida Pinto have been recognised by the Academy in Slumdog, but Cate Blanchett in Button has not. At the moment, Slumdog must be the hot favourite for Film, Director, Adapted Screenplay and Cinematography.

Next most-nominated is The Dark Knight with 9 nods - but only one major, inevitably for the late Heath Ledger. Changeling picked up 8, including Best Director for Clint Eastwood, Leading Actress for Angelina Jolie and JMS's script, plus a slew of technical and craft nods; however, it was not nominated for Best Film, effectively losing out to Milk, which is otherwise recognised only for Sean Penn (Leading Actor) and the script.

Frost/Nixon picked up 6 nods - but Michael Sheen failed to secure a nod. The Reader followed on 5. Doubt's powerhouse cast all secured nods, while Brit-flicks In Bruges (4) and Hunger (2) both did well. Burn After Reading secured a surprise 3.

The Wrestler only garnered 2 noms (for Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei). Thankfully Woody Allen's awful VCB only got 1 nod.

The Kate Winslet steamroller continued - but she can't win 2 BAFTAs as she's up against herself in the Leading Actress category (whereas at the Globes she was in two different categories). Brad Pitt also picked up 2 nods for Button and Burn After Reading.

Aside from the Slumdog-favoured categories, look to In Bruges of Hunger taking British Film, Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler, a Heath Ledger v Philip Seymour Hoffman battle for Supporting Actor, and Tilda Swinton to take Supporting Actress. Leading Actress is tough to call: Kate could cancel herself out, leaving the way open...

The BAFTAs are announced on 8 February. For the record, the Oscar noms are Thursday 22 January.

Best Film
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Best British Film
Hunger
In Bruges
Mamma Mia!
Man On Wire
Slumdog Millionaire

Director
Danny Boyle - Slumdog Milllionaire
Stephen Daldry - The Reader
Clint Eastwood - Changeling
David Fincher - The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard - Frost/Nixon

Leading Actor
Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
Dev Patel - Slumdog Millionaire
Sean Penn - Milk
Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

Leading Actress
Angelina Jolie - Changeling
Kristen Scott Thomas - I've Loved You So Long
Meryl Streep - Doubt
Kate Winslet - Revolutionary Road
Kate Winslet - The Reader

Supporting Actor
Robert Downey Jr - Tropic Thunder
Brendan Gleeson - In Bruges
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
Brad Pitt - Burn After Reading
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Doubt

Supporting Actress
Amy Adams - Doubt
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Freida Pinto - Slumdog Millionaire
Tilda Swinton - Burn After Reading
Marisa Tomei - The Wrestler

Original screenplay
Burn After Reading
In Bruges
I've Loved You So Long
Milk
Changeling

Adapted Screenplay
The Curious case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Revolutionary Road
Slumdog Millionaire

The Carl Foreman award for special achievement by a British director, writer or producer for their first feature film
Simon Chinn (producer) - Man On Wire
Judy Craymer (producer) - Mamma Mia!
Garth Jennings (writer) - Son of Rambow
Steve McQueen (director/writer) - Hunger
Solon Papadopoulos, Roy Boulter (producers) - Of Time And The City

Film not in the English language
The Baader Meinhof Complex
Gomorrah
I've Loved You So Long
Persepolis
Waltz With Bashir

Animated Film
Persepolis
Wall-E
Waltz With Bashir

Music
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Mamma Mia!
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E

Cinematography
Tom Stern - Changeling
Claudio Miranda = The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Wally Pfister - The Dark Knight
Chris Menges, Roger Deakins - The Reader
Anthony Dod Mantle - Slumdog Millionaire

Editing
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixo
In Bruges
Slumdog Millionaire

Production design
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Revolutionary Road
Slumdog Millionaire

Costume design
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road

Sound
Changeling
The Dark Knight
Quantum Of Solace
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall E

Special visual effects
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Iron Man
Quantum Of Solace

Make-up and hair
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Duchess
Frost/Nixon
Milk

Golden Globe winners

2009-01-11T22:42:00.001-08:00

And the Golden Globe winners are Slumdog Millionaire ( Picture, Director, Screenplay and Score) and Kate Winslet (Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress).
Surprises: Colin Farrell winning for In Bruges, Sally Hawkins for Happy-Go-Lucky, and VCB winning Best Comedy (whoops...)

BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE 

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
KATE WINSLET – REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
MICKEY ROURKE – THE WRESTLER

BEST MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
SALLY HAWKINS – HAPPY-GO-LUCKY 

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
COLIN FARRELL – IN BRUGES 

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
WALL-E

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
WALTZ WITH BASHIR

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE
KATE WINSLET – THE READER

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE
HEATH LEDGER – THE DARK KNIGHT

BEST DIRECTOR – MOTION PICTURE
DANNY BOYLE – SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE 

BEST SCREENPLAY – MOTION PICTURE
SIMON BEAUFOY – SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE 

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – MOTION PICTURE
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE 

Review: The Reader

2009-01-11T08:30:00.000-08:00

The Reader is full of cracking performances from its star-filled cast, its plot – complete with twist – raises questions about morality and the law, and the direction is assured, but there’s some magic ingredient missing somewhere.

Ralph Fiennes is Michael Berg, a German lawyer; being played by the king of the stiff upper lip – any emotion tightly reined in – clearly indicates he must have been scarred in the past to make him the way he is. The film charts his encounter, at the age of 15, with Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet) in the late 50s.

Setting aside any qualms the audience might have of a 30-something woman to all intents and purposes seducing a 15-year old boy and any questions of credibility (it’s easy to see what he sees in her, but what on earth does she see in him?), Berg and Schmitz are fleshed out well by David Kross and Winslet, building audience empathy, but we know it can’t last. In between the sex, she asks him to read her to her – and essentially that’s their relationship: sex and him reading aloud to her.

Inevitably she leaves him (although the reasons are not entirely clear) and the city. A decade later, as a law student, Berg finally sees her again – in court, on trial for war crimes, accused of being an SS guard who death-marched 300 women out of Auschwitz.

Berg must wrestle with his feelings for her, the resentment he still carries, and, as the case heads towards its conclusion, the knowledge that he can save her. But does he want to save her? Does she deserve saving? If he withholds what he knows, does it matter that she’ll be punished for the wrong reasons?

30 years later he still wrestles with the same questions and sets out to find some catharsis.

Ultimately, Bernhard Schlink’s book, on which David Hare based this adaptation, is clearly concerned with Germany’s national guilt over the horrors of WWII. Apparently, director Stephen Daldry and his producers the late Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella were concerned that the universal themes of the novel not be confined to the time and place of the book’s setting – and they decided the only way to resolve this was to go with an English-speaking cast.

And that’s a mistake, I feel. It’s the same as if Scorsese had made Schindler’s List: it wasn’t his movie to make. This is a story about Germany’s past – and it should have been made by a German. Indeed two of the cream of the crop of German acting talent (Bruno Ganz and Alexandria Maria Lara) are in the movie, playing telling supporting roles, lending authenticity.

Everything about the movie is of the very highest quality and there are many outstanding scenes – Fiennes, as ever, suffers exquisitely and slightly perversely he commands the two or three most emotional scenes in the movie – and yet, like I said at the start, there’s something missing.
Score: 7.5/10

2008 box office review

2009-01-03T07:21:00.000-08:00

2008 was the year of the Bat and Abba: between them The Dark Knight and Mamma Mia! took $1.5bn worldwide.
Dark Knight ended up a few dollars short of the $1bn mark, its take split $530m/$466m in favour of the US. It was No.1 in the US by a $212m margin, but was beaten by Indy Jones 4 by just a few dollars in the international marketplace.

Mamma Mia! made most of its money in the international marketplace, ending in third place ahead of Kung Fu Panda. The top four films grossed more than $400m each internationally. Passing the $300m barrier were Hancock (just shy of $400m) and Quantum of Solace (which in most major markets failed to match the success of Casino Royale).

Aside from Mamma Mia!, other box office surprises were Iron Man and Sex And The City, both taking $260m or more internationally. Box office under-performers were The Mummy 3 and Prince Caspian, the second part in the Narnia franchise, falling 44% short of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

In the UK, Mamma Mia! is now the most successful film ever (at least in terms of box office receipts), with Bond in second place, and Batman, bloodied and bruised in third. High School Musical 3 did surprisingly well in seventh.

Worldwide Top 10
The Dark Knight $996.9m
Indy Jones 4 $786m
Kung Fu Panda $631.6m
Hancock $624m
Iron Man $581.6m
Mamma Mia! $570.5m
Quantum of Solace $531.3m
Wall*E $500.6m
Prince Caspian $419.6m
Sex And The City $412.6m

US Top 10
The Dark Knight $530.9m
Iron Man $318.3m
Indy Jones $317m
Hancock $227.9m
Wall*E $223.8m
Kung Fu Panda $215.4m
Madagascar 2 $174m
Quantum of Solace $164m
Sex And The City $152.6m
Mamma Mia! $143.8m

UK Top 10
Mamma Mia! £69.1m
Quantum of Solace £50m
The Dark Knight £48.6m
Indy Jones 4 £40m
Sex And The City £26.1m
Hancock £24.5m
High School Musical 3 £22.6m
Wall*E £22.3m
Kung Fu Panda £20m
Iron Man £17.1m

International Top 10
Indy Jones 4 $469m
The Dark Knight $466m
Mamma Mia! $426.7m
Kung Fu Panda $416.2m
Hancock $396.1m
Quantum of Solace $367m
The Mummy 3 $289.8m
Prince Caspian $278m
Wall*E $276.8m
Iron Man $263.3m

The Golden Stans 2008

2008-12-29T14:30:00.000-08:00

It’s that time of year again: it’s the Golden Stans, 52 weeks and 53 films after The Fountain controversially took three awards (Best Film, Best Director and Best Original Score).

2007 was tough to judge, but 2008 was a little easier – unfortunately – due to the large number of event pictures that disappointed. Thankfully the great films were diverse: animated (fiction and documentary), crowd pleasers, horror, intense character pieces, etc.

So, on to the first category: Original Score. This was a contest between the two composers who fought out 2007’s award - Clint Mansell and Clint Eastwood, nominated this time for The Wrestler and Changeling respectively - and The Dark Knight tag team of Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard. Both Clints delivered appropriately haunting soundtracks, but the full scope of the Zimmer/Howard team's output and how they worked with the director swings the award their way.

The Best Cinematography Award features nominations for outstanding work from: Roger Deakins (In The Valley Of Elah); Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood); Wally Pfister (The Dark Knight); Tom Stern (Changeling); and Anthony Dod Mantle’s huge leap from Dogme lenser of choice (and all that entails) to embracing colour for colour’s sake on Slumdog Millionaire. However, there can be only one winner: and it’s Wally Pfister for his magisterial command of the IMAX format – and indeed the non-IMAX sequences – in The Dark Knight. This was jaw-dropping stuff.

The Best Adapted Screenplay Award also wings its way towards The Dark Knight as well, the brothers Nolan and David S Goyer pulling the very essence of Batman, The Joker and Harvey Dent from the very best – and numerous – sources to winning effect. Honourable mentions should go to Peter Morgan for Frost/Nixon and JMS for Changeling – both bringing considerable authority to their work.

The Best Original Screenplay Award features a fight between ridiculously scary The Orphanage, the surprisingly funny In Bruges, and the sublime Wall*E. However, the winner, if only for the central conceit is Wall*E.

Now on to the big six categories, starting with Best Supporting Actress; the nominations are:
Amy Adams in Charlie Wilson’s War
Laura Linney in The Other Man
Evan Rachel Wood in The Wrestler
Amy Ryan in Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead and Changeling
Charlize Theron in In The Valley Of Elah
Marisa Tomei in Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead and The Wrestler
And the winner is… Marisa Tomei.

The nominations for Best Supporting Actor are:
Paul Dano in There Will Be Blood
Aaron Eckhart in The Dark Knight
Anil Kapoor in Slumdog Millionaire
Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight
John Malkovich in Burn After Reading and Changeling
Sam Neill in Dean Spanley
All five would be worthy winners: Dano holding his own against Daniel Day-Lewis; Eckhart’s descent from white knight to hideous villain; Kapoor’s duplicitous, media-hungry gameshow host; Ledger’s savage and absolute burial of the memory of Jack Nicholson’s comical turn as The Joker; and Neill’s, er, twitching. But the winner is… Heath Ledger. I desperately wanted to give Sam Neill the nod for playing something he most definitely is not [I’m trying to avoid plot spoilers here!], but Ledger's Joker is a modern screen classic.

The nominations for Best Actress are:
Martina Gedeck in The Baader Meinhof Complex
Angelina Jolie in The Changeling
Melissa Leo in Frozen River
Belen Rueda in The Orphanage
Johanna Wokalek in The Baader Meinhof Complex
There’s a theme here: they’re all mothers who are forced to question the world around them and who all ultimately go down entirely unexpected roads that lead them to question some fundamental beliefs. They are also all stronger than the men that surround them. Picking a winner is exceedingly difficult, but a winner there must be and it is… Belen Rueda.

The nominations for Best Actor do not include Robert Downey Jnr’s immensely charismatic turn as Iron Man, nor Philip Seymour Hoffman’s diverse work in Charlie Wilson’s War, Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead and Synecdoche, New York, nor Andy Lau and Jet Li in Warlords, nor the scary but theatrical ham of Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood. Instead the best six are:
Josh Brolin in W.
Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon
Tommy Lee Jones in In The Valley Of Elah
Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler
Michael Sheen in Frost/Nixon
Benicio del Toro in Che
Ultimately this is a three-way fight between Langella’s impersonation of tricky Dicky, Rourke’s spotlight-hugging, tour de force comeback and Jones’ career-best turn.
A while back I described the winner’s performance thus: “[His] journey from stout, proud Vietnam veteran to painful realisation that he has failed as a father, and indirectly as a husband, is one of the great performances of American cinema. Hank Deerfield might well be the most finely drawn and observed character to emerge in American film for generations: his history is revealed in every gesture, every thought, every word.” Thus, the winner is… Tommy Lee Jones.

Best Director is another hard-fought category. Missing are the likes of Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon), Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler), Andrew Stanton (Wall*E) and Uli Edel (The Baader Meinhof Complex), but making the list are:
Juan Antonio Bayona for The Orphanage
Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire
Clint Eastwood for Changeling
Paul Haggis for In The Valley Of Elah
Christopher Nolan for The Dark Knight
Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood
It's so very difficult to split Nolan and Haggis; I don't want to see either go unrewarded for their full realisations of their ambitions, and therefore I'm going to cheat: they can share the award!

And so finally, Best Film. There follow the 15 nominees in alphabetical order:
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
The Baader Meinhof Complex
Changeling
Dean Spanley
Frost/Nixon
In Bruges
In The Valley Of Elah
Iron Man
Religulous
Slumdog Millionaire
The Dark Knight
The Orphanage
The Wrestler
There Will Be Blood
Wall*E
Many on the list deal directly, indirectly or subliminally about America and its corrupt heart (Baader Meinhof, Changeling, Frost/Nixon, Elah, Iron Man, Religulous, Dark Knight and Blood). Thankfully there are also some truly uplifting humanist stories (Anvil, Dean Spanley and Wall*E) in there too.
Picking a winner was of course difficult. However, the films I reacted to the most during the year were Anvil, Changeling, Dean Spanley, Frost/Nixon, Elah, Religulous, Dark Knight, Orphanage, Wrestler and Wall*E, which at least makes it a 10-way battle!
There’s a lot of raw emotion and righteous anger in that list, which doesn’t help me come to any kind of rational decision. Ultimately, it’s a fight between Anvil, Frost/Nixon, Elah, Dark Knight and Wall*E.
So, for better or worse, the winner of the Golden Stan 2008 for Best Film is… The Dark Knight.

Roll on 2009!

2009 preview

2008-12-29T13:57:00.001-08:00

2009 is about to begin so it’s time to see what’s in store. The year starts heavy with Oscar-bating product before moving into the box office heavy hitters as the year winds on. May, in particular, is the month of the geek: Wolverine, Star Trek, Coraline and Drag Me To Hell!

Che Part One 1 January
Benicio del Toro is successful revolutionary Che…

The Reader 2 January
Already nominated for a fistful of Globes, this concerns a young man who falls a woman who works in a Nazi prison camp. That woman is current Oscar fave Kate Winslet. Stephen Daldry directs.

The Spirit 2 January
Frank Miller’s adaptation of Will Eisner’s comic strip hero in the 300/Sin City-style. Expect no lightness of touch… Already flopped in America.

Defiance 9 January
With a cast including Daniel Craig and Liev Schrieber, and with Ed Zwick at the helm this WWII film carries WEIGHT. Early reviews have not been kind.

Frost/Nixon 9 January
A must-see!

Slumdog Millionaire 9 January
Danny Boyle’s Indian Who Wants To Be A Millionaire crowd pleaser.

Seven Pounds 16 January
The new Will Smith is mentioned here simply because somes critics have praised the originality of the script – and the twist that can’t be mentioned.

The Wrestler 16 January
The Darren Aronofsky/Mickey Rourke comeback special.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 23 January
David Fincher delivers an Oscar-friendly picture about the man who ages backwards. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett star.

Milk 23 January
Sean Penn goes for Oscar number two in Gus Van Sant’s biopic of San Fran’s first openly gay elected official.

Franklyn 30 January
British sci-fi/fantasy ensemble piece. The visuals alone make this a must-see.

Revolutionary Road 30 January
Sam Mendes directs Leo and Kate. More Oscars?

Valkyrie 30 January
Bryan Singer directs the plot to kill Hitler, led by Tom Cruise.

Doubt 6 February
Oscar-bating performances from Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep in the adaptation of the stageplay in which a vicar is accused of abusing a child.

Push 6 February
Another post-Heroes, this-isn’t-a-super-hero-movie-it’s-a-movie-about-people-with-special-powers film.

Che Part Two 20 February
Benicio del Toro is the not-so successful revolutionary Che…

Gran Torino 20 February
Clint’s final performance in front of the camera may be his greatest – and Oscar may reward him for it.

Outlander 20 February
Vikings v aliens: what’s not to like?

Watchmen 6 March
Fox have won the court case against Warners, so this might yet be delayed. Can this get anywhere close to the source graphic novel?

State of Play 17 April
Kevin ‘Last King of Scotland’ Macdonald directs the adaptation of the hit BBC series. Casting is off the charts: Rachel McAdams, Ben Affleck, Russell Crowe, Jason Bateman, and Helen Mirren to name a few.

Wolverine 1 May
Hugh Jackman brings us the origin of Logan. Snikt!

Star Trek 8 May
JJ Abrams brings us the origin of Trek.

Coraline 15 May
Henry Selick brings his stop-motion magic to Neil Gaiman’s story.

Drag Me To Hell 29 May
Sam Raimi returns to horror.

Terminator Salvation 5 June
Not content with saving Gotham, Christian Bale also wants to fight for our future against the machines as John Connor.

Public Enemies 3 July
Michael Mann directs the Dilinger movie. Johnny Depp is the gangster, while Christian Bale (does the man ever stop?) is the cop trying to capture him.

2012 10 July
Roland ‘Independence Day’ Emmerich does another planet in peril flick.

Harry Potter 17 July
Pretty much does what it says on the tin.

The Wolf Man 6 November
Che, sorry Benicio del Toro is the wolf man. Directed by Joe Johnston.

Avatar 18 December
James Cameron does sci-fi. Could be monumental or an utter flop…

Also without dates allocated yet:
Kick-Ass
Matthew ‘Layer Cake/Stardust’ Vaughan directs the adaptation of Mark ‘Wanted’ Millar’s violent comic about a kid who decides to police the streets as a costumed hero.

The Soloist
Joe ‘Atonement’ Wright directs Robert Downey Jnr as the journalist trying to help mad but musical genius Jamie Foxx get back on his feet.

Dorian Gray
Oliver Parker directs a rather classy British cast in this remake.

Review: Changeling

2008-12-13T14:39:00.001-08:00

Changeling is yet another great movie from Clint Eastwood that benefits from a superb performance from Angelina Jolie in the central role and a meticulously researched script by JMS.

Indeed, the 95% factual script and Eastwood’s delicate, unfussy direction have led the film to be docked points by some critics since its sensational opening at Cannes. Some have accused it lacking nuance or warmth, that it’s too removed. Well, poppycock, I say. JMS’s script simply tells the story largely in chronological (look, no jumpcuts and fractured story!), the author believing that a story this fantastic needs no bells and whistles – the drama is inherent in the story.

Angelina Jolie is almost a revelation as the mother whose son disappears, who must then fight the corrupt LAPD when they return ‘a’ child to her and claim it to be hers before the massed ranks of the press. The trailer may make the film look too ‘female’, however, the only scenes of hysteria are in the trailer – and, within the context of the story and the film structure, they do not grate.

Jolie’s Christine Collins is an immensely capable woman, but not necessarily worldly wise. She wins instant empathy from the audience, and while her suffering is great, it is not too harrowing – although there clearly are a number of heart-breaking scenes, especially with her ‘non-son’.

The story takes a turn for the entirely unexpected deep into the second act, and briefly the focus shifts to another boy in the hands of the one good cop. What follows beggars belief – but is documented fact and only makes you wonder how Jolie’s Collins could be born so unlucky.

Support is exceptional from: Jeffrey Donovan as the shister cop Jolie crosses; John Malkovich as the preacher who backs her case; the ever-excellent Amy Ryan as Jolie’s only friend in the asylum; Michael Kelly as the only cop who believes her; and Geoff Pierson as the attorney who fights her corner in court.

The sense of period (20s/30s Hollywood) is effortlessly evoked, and shot with love (but not rose-tinted spectacles) by Tom Stern. The opening and closing crane shots, in which the stock transforms from B&W to colour and vice versa, are stunning. Oh and a final word should go to Eastwood for another beautiful score.

This is mature, affecting, thoughtful cinema and quite why it’s being overlooked in awards season I simply don’t understand. Perhaps once again, it’s because it ends on a hopeful note.
Score: 9

Golden Globe nominations

2008-12-13T09:32:00.000-08:00

So the Golden Globes have been announced with only a few shock omissions. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, and Doubt lead the race with five noms each.

The main news points are: two noms for both Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet; an astonishing four noms for Woody Allen’s awful VCB; and deserved three noms for In Bruges.

In terms of omissions none of the following have been recignised for their outstanding performances: Robert Downey Jnr in Iron Man; Michael Sheen in Frost/Nixon; Josh Brolin in W; and Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino.

At this stage, there’s only one sure-fire winner: Wall*E in the animated category.

1. BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 
FROST/NIXON 
THE READER 
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD 
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE 

2. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
ANNE HATHAWAY – RACHEL GETTING MARRIED 
ANGELINA JOLIE – CHANGELING 
MERYL STREEP – DOUBT 
KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS – I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG
KATE WINSLET – REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

3. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
LEONARDO DICAPRIO – REVOLUTIONARY ROAD 
FRANK LANGELLA – FROST/NIXON 
SEAN PENN – MILK 
BRAD PITT – THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 
MICKEY ROURKE – THE WRESTLER

4. BEST MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
BURN AFTER READING
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY 
IN BRUGES 
MAMMA MIA! 
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA

5.BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
REBECCA HALL – VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA 
SALLY HAWKINS – HAPPY-GO-LUCKY 
FRANCES MCDORMAND – BURN AFTER READING 
MERYL STREEP – MAMMA MIA! 
EMMA THOMPSON – LAST CHANCE HARVEY

6. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
JAVIER BARDEM – VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA
COLIN FARRELL – IN BRUGES 
JAMES FRANCO – PINEAPPLE EXPRESS 
BRENDAN GLEESON – IN BRUGES 
DUSTIN HOFFMAN – LAST CHANCE HARVEY

7. BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
BOLT 
KUNG FU PANDA 
WALL-E

8. BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX
EVERLASTING MOMENTS
GOMORRAH
I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG
WALTZ WITH BASHIR

9. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE
AMY ADAMS – DOUBT
PENELOPE CRUZ – VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA
VIOLA DAVIS –DOUBT
MARISA TOMEI – THE WRESTLER
KATE WINSLET – THE READER

10. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE
TOM CRUISE – TROPIC THUNDER 
ROBERT DOWNEY JR. –TROPIC THUNDER 
RALPH FIENNES – THE DUCHESS 
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN – DOUBT 
HEATH LEDGER – THE DARK KNIGHT

11. BEST DIRECTOR – MOTION PICTURE
DANNY BOYLE – SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE 
STEPHEN DALDRY – THE READER 
DAVID FINCHER – THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 
RON HOWARD – FROST/NIXON
SAM MENDES – REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

12. BEST SCREENPLAY – MOTION PICTURE
SIMON BEAUFOY – SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE 
DAVID HARE – THE READER 
PETER MORGAN – FROST/NIXON 
ERIC ROTH – THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN 
JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY – DOUBT

13. BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – MOTION PICTURE
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 
CHANGELING 
DEFIANCE 
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE 
FROST/NIXON

Review: The Wrestler

2008-11-29T11:38:00.000-08:00

The Wrestler is a magnificent comeback for both its director Darren Aronofsky and its star Mickey Rourke. Villified by many (although not me) for The Fountain, Aronofsky has not so much bounced back as entirely re-invented himself, while Rourke reignites the screen charisma that marked him out at his early 80s height.

Rourke is The Ram, a professional wrestler, who like his chosen profession has fallen on hard times. Like Rourke, The Ram clearly has talent, clearly has good intentions, but can’t help but fuck up whenever he’s close to being happy. The film charts in a slightly predictable fashion how the ageing hero decides he will no longer wrestle, how he seems to turn his life (love- and family-) around and how he fucks all that up.

But it’s not unrelentingly bleak: there are so many beautiful scenes of real, aching emotion and psychological breakthroughs, particularly with Marisa Tomei (his possible squeeze) and Rachel Evan-Wood (his estranged daughter), while the first time The Ram works on the deli counter at the supermarket will warm even the coldest cockles (Aronofsky displaying a previously untapped lightness of touch).

Like Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Knight, much will be written about Rourke’s powerhouse performance – and all of it entirely justified. It’s not simply a case of Rourke playing himself, for there is more to The Ram than just a potted history of Rourke’s mistakes. Nevertheless it’s hard not to see The Ram’s journey as enormously therapeutic for Rourke, rehabilitating him into Hollywood.

Two films cast shadows over The Wrestler, namely Rocky and Raging Bull, but for my money, it’s better than both. It has shares a similar gritty 70s attitude with those two, but it’s warmer than Raging Bull but not as sentimental as Rocky.

The conclusion is pleasingly open-ended, the support from Tomei and Evan-Wood outstanding and the score from Clint Mansell is top-notch.

The film is likely to be widely nominated and rewarded by every awards body going

In short, a must-see.
Score: 8.5

Review: Slumdog Millionaire

2008-11-29T10:56:00.001-08:00

Slumdog Millionaire, directed with characteristic verve by Danny Boyle and written by Simon ‘Full Monty’ Beaufoy, is gathering huge awards season momentum, many critics suggesting, like Little Miss Sunshine ($98m) and Juno ($228m) in the past two years, this could be the little film that makes it big.

It is a fantastically crowd-pleasing film that needs to be seen in a packed cinema, but I fear it may not crossover as easily as Little Miss Sunshine and Juno did. Ultimately, it’s a light (but not lightweight) twenty-something romance that asks much of its male cast, but relatively little of the key female, played by Freida Pinto, who is called upon simply to be beautiful and be in love with Dev Patel’s hero, Jamal.

The film opens with slum-born orphan Jamal being questioned by police for suspected cheating on India’s version of Who wants to be a millionaire – and crucially if he can prove his innocence, he’s just one Q&A away from winning 20 million rupees. Using the structure of the show itself, the film reveals, question-by-question how a boy from the slums of Mumbai could possibly know all the answers by flashing back to his youth, growing up in and trying to escape from the horror of the slums with his brother Salim and the girl of his dreams Latika.

The flashbacks, while vividly shot, edited and exquisitely composed, do not pull their punches: the reality of the Mumbai slums is revealed in all its colourful, awful horror. And it’s these elements that lift Slumdog to awards season contender.

Any sense of unease the audience might feel about a ‘greed is good’ mantra being the film’s ultimate message is smashed by all the shit the hero quite literally crawls through to attain his dream and the fate of his brother. Inevitably, love wins out – at which point, there shouldn’t be a dry eye in the house.

In many ways, Slumdog is closer in spirit to City of God than Little Miss Sunshine or Juno. Its feelgood charm, counterpointed by the reality it depicts, is something Golden Globe, Bafta and Oscar voters will probably warm too as so many other contenders are just too dark for the dark times in which we live.
Score: 8

Review: Waltz With Bashir

2008-11-29T10:15:00.000-08:00

Waltz With Bashir is a visually overwhelming, animated documentary. That’s right, the entire film is a doc, only presented in the animated medium, rather than live action. The animation is both the film’s strength and its weakness.

Written and directed by Ari Folman, the film is essentially a therapy session for him, as he tries to remember the massacre (during the 1982 Lebanon war) of Palestinians in Beirut by militant Christian Phalangists, which the Israel Defence Forces (in which Forman served at the time) did nothing to prevent. Unable to remember the event, his mind having apparently blocked out the horror, he sets about contacting his old comrades, and he asks them what they remember. Slowly he pieces it all together in his mind, realisation finally hitting home at the dramatic and chilling conclusion to the film.

Folman’s journey to memory recovery is an unsettling mixture of reality and dream (or nightmare) for both him and the audience, combining both the literary mechanics of Catch 22 with the war is just a bad acid trip attitude of Apocalypse Now. The freedom allowed by opting for animation (most of it by illustrator and artistic director David Polonsky) means that the full extent of the nightmarish memories are realised so vividly that the audience forgets it’s watching an animated film.

In fact the film is insanely brilliant to watch – and therein lies its weakness: the visuals are so strong, the story can’t quite match them. Nevertheless, this is very definitely worth the price of admission - and could be seen as a companion piece to Persepolis.
Score: 7.5

Review: Body of Lies

2008-11-23T09:09:00.000-08:00

Body of Lies is a curiously mixed bag of a ‘current’ thriller from Ridley Scott. Set in the tangled web of America’s war of terror in the Middle East, the film is strangely distant from its protagonists and antagonists, divesting the film of any strong emotional core.

Opening like Spooks on steroids with a botched raid on a terrorist safehouse in Manchester, action soon centres on Leonardo DiCaprio’s CIA agent, run on an almost entirely virtual basis by a complacent, corpulent Russell Crowe. DiCaprio’s agent is torn between loyalty to the CIA and to his opposite number in the Jordanian investigation bureau (a great turn by Mark Strong), and by his own growing moral concerns about how America chooses to take the fight to the terrorists – and yet he is no innocent.

There is marked mirroring, as characters up and down the chain of command use each other: Crowe using DiCaprio, DiCaprio using Strong, and Strong using DiCaprio, etc. Inevitably, DiCaprio gets in above his head. If the finale is welcome, while not entirely right in the light of the realistic bent of the film, the ensuing coda brings us back down to earth.

Ridley’s bravura visuals are present throughout, but that oft-mentioned failing of his – an inability to tell a story – remains evident here too. The story is too complex (although that could be taken as being simply realistic), set in too many theatres of operation, with too much spy jargon getting in the way of progressing the story.

The overall politics of the piece are uncomfortable as well: while America comes in for a load of criticism in its handling of the Middle East ‘situation’ (to quote DiCaprio’s character), the Middle East and all its people are painted as potential terrorists, their funders and sympathisers.

Nevertheless, there are many scenes to enjoy, notably when there’s hardware involved or the delicately etched budding relationship between DiCaprio and the Iranian nurse he takes a shine too – and the reaction of her sister and neighbours.

Ultimately Body of Lies is a more action-packed, less overtly left-wing version of Syriana – and joins the growing list of war on terror movies that have flopped at the US box office.
Score: 6.5

Review: Quantum of Solace

2008-11-10T13:11:00.001-08:00

Bond is back – but he’s not back in style I’m afraid (well apart from the Tom Ford-supplied wardrobe). While its opening weekend figures are higher than Casino Royale in every territory, including a whopping $25m three-day total in the UK, Quantum of Solace trails behind its predecessor as a film.

There are a number of essential problems, not least a leaden plot, a damp squib of an ending and an awful theme from Jack White. The all-too Bourne-esque fight scenes are just that, and while the prologue is bravely teased out (cross-cut, with no sound, between closing helicopter shot and extreme fast-cut car-to-car action), it’s not a patch on the inventive opening to Casino.

Some bold decisions were taken with the script. Conceptually they are intriguing, but they’ve been poorly developed and realised. Judi Dench’s M is now Bond’s moral compass and effectively the only woman he has anything close to a relationship with. The laughably awful Gemma Arterton makes for the flimsiest of Bond girls that the current James has seduced, while Olga Kurylenko as the vengeful Camille is interesting but doesn’t have quite enough to do (or is it simply the creative team trying to be realistic?).

Bond’s mission of revenge is hollow – he learns no lesson from it. His target, eco-magnate Dominic Greene is played by Mathieu Amalric without any charm – and seems a rather flimsy, light-weight villain (but, as the plot reveals, he is only a small cog in a very large wheel).

Having said all that, there is still much to enjoy. While the fight scenes are Bourne-esque, Bond still has to suffer (indeed Daniel Craig must have done himself an infinite number of injuries), adding realism, while the anti-US undercurrent of Casino is developed to become a strong sentiment running throughout Quantum.

The Tosca sequence (in counterpoint to the opening) is artfully staged and edited together, and concludes with a satisfying punch (and one of a number of passing nods to previous Bonds).

Bond is also called on to do some actual spying and detection work rather than just killing everyone in sight while searching for the McGuffin.

And let it be said: Daniel Craig is Bond, he absolutely owns the role. Two more Bond movies with this level of performance and physical commitment and he will be pushing Connery for the title of best Bond.

And yet the two-part conclusion to his Quantum mission is thoroughly unsatisfying. Many have said this film feels like the second part of a trilogy – and I’d agree with that.

Ultimately this is a disappointing affair: the creative team could have done so much better. But Bond is Bond, and, like the films of David Lynch and Charlie Kaufman, it’s hard to measure the film other than by its own established yardstick.
Score: 6

LFF review: The Brothers Bloom/Vicky Cristina Barcelona

2008-10-29T15:55:00.001-07:00

The Brothers Bloom and Vicky Cristina Barcelona are a pair of character-driven, four-hander comedies, achieving quite different levels of success. In the first, Brick writer/director Rian Johnson spins the ripping yarn of the two best con-men in history – the titular brothers, Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody – and their last mark Penelope, played by Rachel Weisz.

Johnson’s intention was to give equal priority to the characters as to the con itself, contrary to most con movies – and while he does that, the con itself loses focus and arguably goes on too long.

The art direction and production design lend the film a timeless feel, while the cast varies in performance and sympathy/empathy: Ruffalo is good as the older brother/bully but there’s still something slightly vacant or absent in his screen persona; Brody is appropriately moody, but brings some warmth to the loneliness and bitterness of the younger brother; Weisz almost steals every scene she’s in, playing the eccentric, kooky Penelope; and Rinko Kikuchi (Oscar-nominated for Babel) plays wonderfully dumb for most of the movie.

The essence of the con movie is that it even as it reveals the working of its tricks it must con the audience as much as target in the narrative: and The Brothers Bloom does leave you guessing until the very end.
Score: 7

Woody Allen’s VCB is not the ever-trumpeted return to form. It’s neither that funny, nor insightful and squanders a fantastic cast: Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall and Patricia Clarkson.

And just as Match Point presented a post card picture London, so VCB gives us the titular city as all tourists see it, not as the inhabitants live it.

For what it’s worth, the film tells the story of Vicky (Hall) and Cristina (Johansson), two friends, with polar-opposite views of love, on holiday in Barcelona, where they meet Bardem’s free spirit artist and eventually his crazed ex-wife Cruz. Vicky’s and Cristina’s views of love and themselves are changed through their relationship with Bardem and Cruz (both stereotypically Spanish…).

The more I think about it, the more offended I am by how inoffensive, unchallenging and uninspired this film is. Woody: do better – or don’t do at all!
Score: 3.5