Led Zeppelin - Celebration Day

On December 10^th 2007 the seemingly impossible happened. Led Zeppelin, the world’s original super group and one of the few bands in history who could rival The Beatles for fame and popularity at their height, reformed for a one off concert at London’s O2 Arena for the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert. The show set a world record for ticket demand with over twenty million people (including myself) registering online for a chance of one of the 20,000 tickets. Like close to twenty million others I didn’t get a ticket for a show that myself and other fans had been waiting for, for over twenty five years.

Fast forward nearly five years to October 17^th 2012 and the concert was screened for one day worldwide in cinemas ahead of a DVD and Blu Ray release on November 19^th. This time demand wasn’t so high and I managed to get two tickets for a screening at my local multiplex. While in no way the same as seeing the band, my favourite of all time, live, the two hours I sat in the cinema were amazing. The band showed that despite having barely played together in thirty years and missing original drummer John Bonham whose death in 1980 was the trigger for the band’s breakup, that they are still able to rock with the best and sounded close to as good as they have on any other live recording I’ve seen.

The Woman in the Fifth

A writer and University Professor (Ethan Hawke) arrives in Paris with hopes of relocating to the French capital and reconnecting with his estranged daughter. After tracking down his ex wife and child he is shunned by the former and warned to stay away. His ex tries to convince the daughter that her father has been in prison but he claims he was just ill. The writer soon finds himself robbed of all his possessions and manages to secure a small room in a hotel run by a gangster in exchange for acting as a night guard, an ask no questions role. One evening he meets a mysterious widow (Kristen Scott Thomas) and the two begin a strange affair, ruled by her odd request of meeting at 5pm sharp in her 5^th arrondissement apartment.

This is a film with a lot of build up and minimal payoff. I spent seventy five minutes waiting for the reveal in an ever increasingly bizarre film but it never came. It’s very difficult to discuss the film without spoilers so I’ll write what I thought and then present my opinions at the bottom of the page in case anyone doesn’t want any spoilers.

A Dog's Life

Charlie Chaplin’s first short for First National Pictures was released in April 1918, six months after his final film for Mutual. Chaplin in his Tramp character befriends a local mongrel dog called Scraps and together they go about causing mischief and mayhem. Later, Scraps comes to the aid of the Tramp when he gets into trouble with some thugs and helps his master set up a new life for himself and his new lady friend, a bar singer (Edna Purviance).

What was immediately obvious about this opening First National film was its quality. The sets, costume and story are all far superior to pretty much anything seen in a Chaplin film before. The sets especially look as though they may well have been real streets. There is a much more rounded story which incorporates comedy as one aspect rather than relying solely on kicks up the backside or doffing caps to curbs. The film is still funny but this isn’t one of Chaplin’s finest works. What it is though is one of his finest stories to date and overall one of his best short films.

Charlie Chaplin - The First National Films

Having ended his contract with the Mutual Film Corporation amicably, Charlie Chaplin signed the world’s first One Million Dollar movie contract in June 1918. This contract gave him total control over production for a return of eight films. Chaplin decided to build a new studio off Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. The famous Chaplin Studios were designed in the style of English country cottages and contained everything Chaplin would need to develop, film and cut his movies. Chaplin eventually sold the studios in 1953 and they are now owned by Jim Henson Company.

Chaplin began work on his first film for First National in early 1918 and A Dog’s Life was released in April. Over the next four years Chaplin shot eight films at his new studio for First National during one of the most turbulent times of his career. In September 1918 he married the seventeen year old actress Mildred Harris in what was and still is a highly controversial marriage. Harris lied to Chaplin about being pregnant and the marriage ended in a messy divorce in 1920. During the same period the star became frustrated with First National’s impatience and lack of concern for quality and in 1919, while still under contract with First National created United Artists with fellow actors and directors Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith. The venture which was self funded and offered the Hollywood stars the chance to work freely and independently although Chaplin himself didn’t make a film with the company until 1922 as he was still under contract with First National.

Ruby Sparks

Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano) is still living off the success of his first novel which was published when he was still in his teens. Ten years on he is struggling to write despite having no friends to distract him. In an attempt to help him open up his shrink (Elliot Gould) tells him to write a few pages about whatever comes to mind. After waking from a recurring dream about an enchanting woman, Calvin finds that he can’t stop writing. His writing comes to a halt though one morning when he wakes up to find his literary creation Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan) is alive and in his kitchen making eggs. Has he gone insane or has his character really jumped off the page and into his life?

The trailer for Ruby Sparks was excellent and I was really looking forward to the film. It had the sort of buzz that accompanied Little Miss Sunshine and looked to be a quirky and funny indie comedy of the sort that I’m very fond of. Now I’ve seen the film I can attest that the trailer is even better that I thought as it trails a film which doesn’t quite live up to the advert and certainly isn’t as funny as advertised.

Hamlet

Based on one of William Shakespeare’s most famous plays, 1948’s Hamlet was Directed by and starred Laurence Olivier. The film became somewhat of a Marmite film, winning four Oscars including Best Picture but being criticized by some for leaving out vital aspects and characters from Shakespeare’s text. I had never seen a production of Hamlet until today but despite being forced to read Shakespeare at school in the most uninspiring ways possible, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the several plays I’ve seen as an adult. I am in no way an expert on the bard but what I’ve seen, I’ve loved. It’s with a heavy heart then that I have to report that I did not enjoy Olivier’s interpretation of Hamlet and found it to be one of the dullest movie watching experiences of my year so far.

I’d class Hamlet as a good film which I did not enjoy, much as The Expendables is a bad film which I did enjoy. One of the difficulties when one is watching a Shakespeare play or film is the language barrier. Written in four hundred year old English, the words and phrases are very different to my modern mother tongue and it can be difficult to extract the meaning from the text. I’ve never really struggled before with the likes of Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, Coriolanus and Much Ado About Nothing but here much of the language washed over me. I think this was because of two things. Firstly I wasn’t interested and secondly the actor’s voices reverberated around the sound stage causing echoes which bumped into the following words.

On the Waterfront

The winner of the Best Picture Oscar in 1954, On the Waterfront is a crime drama about urban violence and corruption amongst longshoremen in the New York docks. Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) is a former prize fighter turned longshoreman with links to mob connected union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb). After the death of a dock worker in suspicious circumstances, his sister (Eva Marie Saint) begins sniffing around and becomes involved with Terry which causes him to be torn between two worlds and right and wrong.

The film was nominated for an impressive twelve Academy Awards, winning eight including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Brando) and Best Supporting Actress (Saint). With eight wins it joined Gone with the Wind and From here to Eternity as the most highly decorated films in history at that time. The film itself was a fairly low budget expose of the corrupt underworld of the New York docks and bought to light the now common themes of mob racketeering and deaf and dumb police cooperation.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I saw this film a little by accident and although I wasn’t as impressed with it as some others, I’m glad I saw it. We went to the cinema to see Liberal Arts but after just five days on release, it had been pulled by my local multiplex so we chose Wallflower instead. Charlie (Logan Lerman) is nervous about starting his first day of High School and is already counting down the days until he can graduate. He is smart and shy and has had a tumultuous twelve months which only added to an already painful life. On his first day he manages to avoid trouble but makes just one friend, his English teacher (Paul Rudd) who spots something in Charlie and gives him extra work to do at home. A few weeks into the school year though Charlie starts to become friendly with step siblings Patrick (Ezra Miller) and Sam (Emma Watson) which leads to a year of ups and downs on his road to manhood.

I’d describe The Perks of Being a Wallflower as a grower, not a shower. I found the opening few minutes difficult to enjoy and had little to relate to the main characters but as it opened up it really grew on me and I found it charming. It’s as good a High School film as I’ve seen this year and contains some nice messages and great performances.

The Adventurer

Chaplin’s final film in his Mutual contract and marking the end of a brief but fruitful relationship is The Adventurer. A convict (Chaplin) is on the run from Prison Guards on the coast when he hears the sounds of people crying out for help. He comes across three people who are drowning having fallen off a nearby pier and saves each of them one by one. One of the people he saves is an attractive young woman (Edna Purviance) who invites the man back to her house to rest without knowing his past. As the two begin to get on very well, the convict’s past catches up with him thanks to the persistence of the young girl’s suitor (Eric Campbell).

Chaplin’s final outing for Mutual is a more than decent short which features some genuinely laugh out loud moments in addition to a well tailored story and plenty of trademark slapstick. What makes it stand out for me though is not only was it the last film Chaplin made for the Mutual Corporation but it was also his last to feature regular adversary Eric Campbell who tragically died just a couple of months after the film’s release in a drink driving accident. Chaplin and Campbell were very close friends, living next door to one another when the latter died and Chaplin never again cast a regular actor to play his antagonist.

Contraband

A remake of the Icelandic film Reykjavik-Rotterdam and Directed by the star of the original, Baltasar Kormakur, Contraband is a middle of the road action-thriller starring Mark Wahlberg as a former smuggler who is forced to take on one final job to save the life of his wife’s brother. Featuring a more than talented cast and a couple of nice reveals, Contraband occasionally rises above the milieu of generic thrillers but overall lands back in amongst its fellows with a script that contains little real action and few thrills.

Whenever I see the names Giovanni Ribisi or Ben Foster appear in opening credits I always sit up and take notice as for my money they are two of the best actors working in Hollywood today. To have them both in the same film is some coup. Wahlberg is an actor who occasionally impresses me but pretty much phones in his performance here and his wife, played by Kate Beckinsale is merely a plot device and has no meaningful role or lines. The same can be said for the talented Lukas Haas who is given little chance to shine.