The Intouchables

Last year’s French award baiting, box office smash hit, The Intouchables known in the UK as Untouchable finally gets a release in the UK, a full year later than in its home country and my was it worth the wait. The film broke box office records in France, becoming the 2^nd highest grossing French film of all time after just nine weeks at the box office and has gone on to gross  €277 million worldwide from a budget of just €9.5 million. I’d heard very good things from the countries that had been lucky enough to get the film within a year of its release but I wasn’t expecting to enjoy the film quite as much as I did. It’s been a very good month for film with the likes of Anna Karenina, Looper and then Holy Motors all edging into my current 2012 Top 10 list but I think at the moment Untouchable is beating them all with it’s surprisingly frank and extremely funny portrayal of a young French-Senegalese man’s (Omar Sy) struggle in taking on the role of full time carer for a paralysed millionaire (François Cluzet).

Casablanca

Although relatively popular and well received when released in the summer of 1942 due in part to events in North Africa at the time, Casablanca has since risen to be one of the most critically acclaimed and well though of films in history. It currently ranks number 23 on the IMDb’s Top 250, number 3 on the AFI’s 100 Movies and is one of Hollywood’s most loved romantic melodramas. The film is also one of the most quoted films of all time too with quotes such as “We’ll always have Paris”, “Here’s looking at you, kid” and the often misquoted “Play it Sam. Play As Time Goes By” being well known to people who have never even seen the film. Until today I was one of those people and like hundreds of other classic films it was on my list of must sees for a long time. Now it’s off that list and I’m glad of it. Although I wouldn’t personally put it towards the top of my favourite films of all time it is certainly a wonderfully taught and romantic drama which successfully mixes the geo-political problems of the age with a fine romantic story which remains eternal to this day.

The plot is set in the Moroccan city of Casablanca on the route of a great refugee trail from Nazi occupied Europe towards America. Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) is a cynical and politically non aligned bar owner based in Casablanca whose neutrality is put to the test when an old flame unexpectedly appears back in his life.

Holy Motors

Holy Motors must be the strangest, maddest and most bizarre film I’ve seen since at least Love Exposure and possibly ever. In a statement about the nature of both acting and the digitalisation of the world, Leos Carax’s film stars Denis Lavant as a man who travels through Paris in a white limousine that is driven by Edith Scob. Along the way he stops for various ‘appointments’ for which he adopts an entirely different character complete with makeup, mannerisms and speech. Throughout the course of the day he becomes a beggar woman, motion capture artist, assassin, disappointed father plus many more.

The film’s message or statement is open for interpretation and after telling my girlfriend what I though I asked her the same, to which she replied “I thought it was about weird stuff”. The film is enjoyable however you view it and whether or not you read into any hidden messages or not. The themes that I personally believe the film is tackling may be totally different to the person next to me but it doesn’t matter. Holy Motors is a thrilling, darkly comic and bonkers film that is worth tracking down.

Easy Street

Charlie Chaplin as his Tramp character is asleep outside a Mission, close to the danger filled and lawless Easy Street. After being partially reformed by the Mission where he meets a beautiful young woman (Edna Purviance), the Tramp decides to join the Police and is immediately sent out on the beat to Easy Street, a road from where Police return battered and bruised. Through luck and wit the new Policeman tries to reform the street and return it to the local residents.

Comedy wise this is probably the most disappointing of Chaplin’s Mutual Films that I’ve seen so far. In the entire film I only laughed out loud once and generally there were very few funny moments anywhere. What the film does contain though is another tender story about overcoming the odds, hard work, temperance and love which is something that Chaplin was becoming the master of at this stage of his career.

Memento

Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) is a man who suffers from anterograde amnesia from a knock to the head on the same night that his wife was killed. The affliction means that although he can remember things from before that night, he is unable to store any new information for more than just a couple of minutes. His lack of short term memory causes huge problems for Leonard, especially as he is in the middle of a man hunt to track down his wife’s killer. In his pursuit Leonard is aided or hindered (he’s not quite sure) by a man named Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) and a woman called Natalie (Carri-Anne Moss). All Leonard has to rely on are photos with notes written by himself and tattoos drawn all over his body which point to clues and reminders.

I shouldn’t be surprised that Memento is completely mad, difficult to follow and ingenious all at once as Director Christopher Nolan has since followed it up with the likes of Inception as well as his multi-billion dollar Dark Knight franchise. As twisted and confusing as Inception was though it has nothing on Memento which is presented in two separate but ultimately converging narratives. The first is filmed in black and white and is presented in a traditional linear way with scene following scene until the finale. The second and certainly more unique narrative strand is in colour and opens with the film’s finale before working its way back to the opening. The result is an incredibly complex and often frustrating plot which can leave you with more questions than answers.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Produced by go to comedy guy Judd Apatow and written by lead actor Jason Segel, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a comedy that I was never in much of a rush to see. I vaguely remember it being around in 2008 but it didn’t entice me to the cinema. I’ve since become more familiar with Segel’s films and when someone at work offered to lend me the DVD I thought why not? I’m glad I did borrow it as it’s a remarkable romantic comedy that completely surprised me with its extremely funny script, well drawn characters and endearing storyline.  

Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) is a fairly successful TV Composer who is in a five year relationship with the actress Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). One day and almost out of the blue Sarah tells Peter that she is ending their relationship and leaves him. Depressed and heartbroken Peter decides to go away for a few days and heads to Hawaii where, yup, you’ve guessed it, Sarah is also staying with her new rock star boyfriend Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). Feeling even more depressed than he was back in L.A, Peter attempts to at least try and forget Sarah and is helped by the hotel staff which includes the attractive concierge Rachel (Mila Kunis).

The Big Lebowski

After a case of mistaken identity Jeff ‘The Dude’ Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), an unemployed Los Angeles based slacker seeks out his millionaire namesake in order to complain about the mistreatment he received by mistake. The meeting is followed the next day by a call from the millionaire saying that his young, trophy wife has been kidnapped and he wants The Dude to be the bagman; delivering the money to the kidnappers. This sets off a chain of events which leaves The Dude bewildered and confused and all on the eve of his bowling league semi-finals.

The Big Lebowski is one of the hundreds of films which I’ve wanted to see for a long time and I’m happy I’ve finally sat down to watch it. I’m a fan of the Coen brothers’ work having really enjoyed seven of the eight of their films I’ve seen previously. This is most definitely joining those other seven and avoids being plonked in the bargain bin next to The Ladykillers. It’s packed full of great Coen dialogue and fantastical situations, all bought together with a great cast who are all on sparkling form.

The Lion King

A few months ago I took part in a blogathon/questionnaire type thing in which one of the questions was ‘Which ten classic movies haven’t you seen?’ Among my answers were the likes of Citizen Cane, Casablanca and North by Northwest (which I’ve since seen) but by far the biggest response to this question came from people who couldn’t believe that I hadn’t seen The Lion King. So when a friend at work (who was equally shocked) offered to lend me a shiny Blu-Ray copy I had to take it and give it a go.

Mixing a coming of age story, Hamlet, Bambi, parts of Genesis (the ridiculous stories, not band) and anthropomorphic animals, The Lion King is about a young Lion called Simba who was set to ascend the throne after the death of his father but was halted by his evil Uncle Scar. Wandering for years in the wilderness he learns about the world with the help of a Warthog named Pumbaa and a Meerkat called Timon before rising to the challenge of deposing his wicked Uncle.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

As soon as I hear the opening notes of John Williams’ iconic Jurassic Park score I can’t help but smile and be transported back to the mid 1990s and to a time when Jurassic Park was pretty much all the boys my age would talk and think about. I experienced the Jurassic Park smile recently when I re-watched the sequel to the 1993 film for what must be at least the eighth time. The smile stuck with me for the opening hour and a half as I reminisced about when I’d first seen the film and remembered what was coming next. Some of the things that made this sequel good are still evident but unfortunately so are the aspects that made it bad.

Four years on from the Jurassic Park Incident as it is now know, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) is assembling a team to explore, catalogue and protect the Dinosaur inhabitants of a second island, close to the original known as Site B. For this mission he recruits a reluctant Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), a man who has been publicly and academically chastised for talking about the Jurassic Park Incident. Malcolm is understandably hesitant about mixing with Dinosaurs again until he learns that his girlfriend Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) is already on the island. So, he travels to the island along with equipment specialist Eddie (Richard Schiff), photographer Nick (Vince Vaughn) and a stowaway to rescue Sarah but not only come up against Dinosaurs but the InGen Corporation who want to further exploit the animals for profit.  

Looper

I was lucky enough to get to a preview screening of Looper a full five days before its UK and USA release and boy was it worth getting in early. Looper is a smart and twisting Science Fiction thriller which plays with the ideas and rules of time travel to create a tense film which leads you down unexpected alleys, confounding your ideas and expectations.

It’s 2042 and in thirty years time travel will be invented. Although immediately outlawed the machines are used by the mob to send people back in time for execution thus destroying all evidence of murder. The people who carry out the killing are called Loopers. One of these Loopers is Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who conducts his job with the utmost professionalism despite a few personal issues. One day though to his shock, he looks up at the tarpaulin ready for the arrival of his next victim when the man who appears in front of him is the older version of himself (Bruce Willis).