Fantastic Mr. Fox

When I first saw Fantastic Mr. Fox at the cinema in 2009 I fell asleep. I think this is the only time I’ve ever slept through a film and although there were mitigating circumstances I still feel bad as Wes Anderson is one of my favourite Directors. I’ve loved all of his pre Mr. Fox films and Moonrise Kingdom is one of my favourite films of 2012 so far. One of the reasons I fell asleep three years ago was because I was bored by the film but due to my love of Anderson’s work I felt the need to go back and reassess it. Unfortunately my first viewing experience was very similar to my second; the film bored me and I consider it Anderson’s worst film by quite some distance.

Based on Roald Dahl’s book of the same name the plot centres upon a fox (George Clooney) who despite promising his wife (Meryl Streep) that he would stop killing farmer’s chickens for a living, can’t resist one final spree in which he goes for three local farms, run by the meanest farmers around.

My Name is Khan

My Name is Khan is a film that comes tantalisingly close to perfection but misses out due to a mixture of a disappointing third act over simplified view of the world. Nevertheless it is an excellent film, telling the story of a pre and post-9/11 world through the eyes of Indian’s living in America.

Rizwan Khan (Shahrukh Khan) is a mildly autistic Muslim man who moves to America after the death of his mother in India. There, he meets and falls in love with a Hindu woman Mandira (Kajol) who works as a successful hairdresser in San Francisco. The film is split into three very distinct acts with the first being an often light hearted, cute and funny look at romance, tolerance and love. Khan says that the western world views history in two epochs; BC and AD but he would add a third, 9/11. Following 9/11 the lives of the Indian characters, whether Sikh, Hindu or Muslim change for the worse as racial profiling, racist attacks and xenophobia takes hold thanks to the anti-Muslim hysteria of the post-9/11 world. There is an appalling tragedy around the halfway mark which sets up the third act in which Khan travels America to meet the President and tell him “My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist”.

Amores Perros

The first film in Director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s ‘death’ trilogy (followed by 21 Grams and Babel) is a sombre and at times difficult to watch drama set in Mexico City around the themes of class, loyalty and cruelty. The film is constructed via three interlocking stories which come together by means of a car crash. The film is non-linear and dips from one story to the next, slowly building up a picture as to how and where each character fits into the wider story.

Octavio (Gael Garcia Bernal) uses his brother’s dog to make money in organised dog fights and is in love with his brother’s pregnant wife Susana (Vanessa Bauche). One day he and a friend are being chased by crooks when he crashes his car into another, being driven by the model and actress Valeria (Goya Toledo) who is in the midst of an affair with Daniel (Alvaro Guerrero), a married magazine publisher. At the scene of the crash is a down and out, vagrant man ‘El Chivo’ (Emilio Echevarria) who pushes a scrap metal cart around but hides a deeply hidden and cheerless past. The three strands only come together for the car crash scene, colliding like three marbles before being spun into differing trajectories. The film had me gripped from start to finish but left me wanting more from at least two of the three strands.

God Bless America

Once every few years a film will come along that feels as though it was made just for you. If you’ve seen God Bless America then I hope that you enjoyed it but I must tell you now, this film was made exclusively for me. Seriously, writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait must have snuck into my room one night with some sort of brain scanner and lifted the idea from this movie from my head. I’ve had numerous conversations with my girlfriend about the wonders of living in a world where you could just choose people who annoy or anger you to stop existing. I wouldn’t like to ever kill someone but it would be lovely if there was some switch that when flicked could just transport all of the mean, cruel, talentless, waster dickheads to some far away island where they could live out their lives without being of bother to the people whose lives they make a misery.

God Bless America takes some of my darkest thoughts, blows them up and adds some violence and a coherent story to make a fantastic satire of modern Western Civilisation. Frank Murdoch (Joel Murray) is a middle aged man who is annoyed by his neighbours and sickened by the putridness of society. After losing his job and being diagnosed with a brain tumour he decides enough is enough and travels to Virginia where he kills an obnoxious teenage girl who was the ‘star’ of a particularly blood pressure raising episode of My Super Sweet 16. A classmate of the girl called Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr) sees the murder and persuades Frank to take her on a killing spree, shooting those who spread hatred and fear and people who are repellent, abhorrent or disrespectful.  

Hannah and Her Sisters

In typical Woody Allen fashion, Hannah and Her Sisters is a comedy-drama that intertwines several stories from a large cast. The plot centres around three sisters and their often interconnecting relationships. Hannah (Mia Farrow) is a successful Actress and married to financial advisor Elliot (Michael Caine) who in turn is infatuated with Hannah’s sister, Lee (Barbara Hershey). Lee is in a relationship with a reclusive artist named Frederick (Max von Sydow) but begins to realise that she too has feelings for Elliot. The third sister Holly (Dianne Wiest) is an unsuccessful Actress who is recovering from a cocaine addiction. The final piece of the jigsaw is a hypochondriac TV Producer and Hannah’s ex-husband Mickey (Woody Allen) whose philosophy on life changes as the plot progresses due to the sudden realisation that he will one day die.

The film is set over a two year period but also contains flashbacks to times before the narrative began to contextualise certain relationships. Voice over from several of the actors provide the audience with access to the characters inner thoughts as the merry go round of associations and affairs slowly unfolds. The film is witty and sometimes interesting but for a fairly short film, it felt long and sometimes tedious.

Premium Rush

New York City bicycle courier Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is at the end of a tough day dodging traffic and delivering packages across the length and breadth of Manhattan when he gets one last call. Wilee has to pick up an envelope from a college campus Uptown and deliver it to Chinatown by 7pm but is soon approached by a debt ridden, crocked cop (Michael Shannon) who tries to take the package off his hands. Sensing something isn’t right; Wilee takes off at high speed which brings about a two hour chase across the Borough and ends up involving Wilee’s ex girlfriend Vanessa (Dania Ramirez), love rival Manny (Wole Parks) and luckless bike cop (Christopher Place).

For a film about a bike messenger trying to deliver an envelope, Premium Rush is a lot of fun. The action is fast paced and well shot and the acting good and sometimes great. The plot is a little uninvolving but plays second fiddle to the high speed bike action.

ParaNorman

Norman (Kodi Smit-McPhee – The Road) is an eleven year old boy living in a small Massachusetts town famous for hanging a Witch three hundred years ago. Norman is unpopular at home and ridiculed at school because he believes that he can talk to ghosts. After being approached by a creepy old man about averting the ‘curse of the Witch’, Norman accidentally raises a horde of zombies from their graves before enlisting their help along with that of his sister Courtney (Anna Kendrick), friend Neil (Tucker Albrizzi), Jock Mitch (Casey Affleck) and school bully Alvin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse)in sending the Witch back to her grave.

The first of three hotly anticipated horror/comedy/stop motion kids films we’ll see in the coming weeks and coming three years after Laika’s success with Coraline, ParaNorman begins with a flourish which sets it up to be an interesting and funny family film. Unfortunately it runs out of steam after about fifty minutes when the jokes dry up and the predictable plot takes over from what had been a fun, film which takes a surprisingly candid look at death.

Dredd

In Mega-City One, a dystopian metropolis of 800 million people which stretches from Boston to Washington DC, justice is dealt out by the Judges of the Justice Department. These lone law enforcement agents act as Judge, Jury and Executioner in a violent and crime ridden world. One of these Judges is Dredd (Karl Urban) who takes out a rookie (Olivia Thirlby) for a final evaluation before a decision is made about making her a full time Judge. The rookie Anderson has so far been unremarkable in training but is the most powerful psychic anyone at the Department has seen. On their first assignment together the two Judges end up in a two hundred story apartment block the size of a small city which is locked down by ex-prostitute turned drug baron Ma-Ma (Lena Headley).

I’ve never read a Dredd comic and was fortunate enough never to see the 1995 Danny Cannon/Sylvester Stallone adaptation so went in completely cold to the story and characters. I understood that there was some sort of big deal about not taking Dredd’s helmet off but that was about it. I also understand that it’s one of the UK’s biggest and best known comics so it’s with great pleasure to report that in a summer of incredible comic book adaptations that Dredd is able to mix it up with the American behemoths and come out the other side as a really solid action movie which mixes the best of the 1980s with a modern twist.

Love Exposure

One of the longest, strangest and best films I’ve ever seen, Love Exposure is a four hour long Japanese epic written and directed by acclaimed director Shion Sono which tackles themes such as love, lust, religion, the family unit, loss and…um… up skirt photography.

Rather than a plot summery, here is a brief outline of the five main characters. Hopefully it will put across the magnificent uniqueness of this fantastic film.

Yu Honda (Takahiro Nishijima) is a seventeen year old Priest’s son. Following sorrow in his father’s life, the Priest only allows Yu to see him during confession. Yu ends up desperately searching for Sins to commit so that he can tell his father and drifts into the world of up skirt photography which he becomes a master of due to his martial arts skills. After loosing a bet regarding who has the best photo, his friends dare him to dress up as a woman and find a girl to kiss. He comes across a young woman called Yoko who he instantly knows is his ‘Mary’. The only problem is that when they meet, he is in drag as ‘Miss Scorpion’…

Yoko (Hikari Mitsushima) is the same age as Yu and lives with her father’s ex lover Kaori. Her father abused her as a child and as a result she hates all men. One day she is confronted and attacked by a group of men but saved when a strange woman called Miss Scorpion comes to her rescue. She falls instantly in love but at the same time is forced to move in with Kaori’s new lover and his son, Yu who she hates with a passion.
Kaori (Makiko Watanabe) is an early middle aged woman who has spent her life going from one man to another. Along the way she has picked up the daughter of one of these men, Yoko. The two of them bonded as friends and now wherever Kaori goes, Yoko follows. Depressed one day, Kaori finds herself in a Church where she forces herself on the Priest.
Tetsu Honda (Atsuro Watabe) is a Priest, widower and father to Yu. Conflicted between his faith and love of a new woman he starts putting pressure on his son to Sin before eventually disowning him altogether when it becomes clear that his Sins have got out of hand. Along with Kaori and Yoko, he is indoctrinated into a cult called the Zero Church by…
Aya Koike (Sakura Ando) is a member of the Zero Church Cult who indoctrinate families into their circle. Like Yoko she too was abused by her father but instead of escaping, chopped off his penis when he was asleep. Aya turns her attention to Yu and his family when she sees an opportunity to indoctrinate them.

Le Havre

An ageing shoeshine, Marcel Marx (Andre Wilms) takes in a young African boy, Idrissa (Blondin Miguel) after he escapes from a ship’s cargo container in the French port of Le Havre. Despite Marcel’s lack of money and sadness that his wife Arletty (Kati Outinen) is gravely ill in hospital, he does all he can to reunite the young migrant with his mother who has settled in London.

Le Havre had an olden feel to it which permeated the whole film. The location, costume, cars, and ambience gave the impression that it was set in the late 1960s or early 1970s. You get the idea that the world has moved on and forgotten people like Marcel who sits outside the station waiting to shine shoes, looking down at people’s feet to see mostly trainers and looking up at faces to see mostly aversion in people’s eyes. You also get the sense that like many port cities, Le Havre is also a city that has been left behind. Marcel’s neighbourhood in particular has an almost Dickensian air about it with a small bakery, grocery shop and narrow streets lined by small, dilapidated houses. The arrival of a young African boy in to the mix spices up the area and adds a sense of rejuvenation, bringing the community together.