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.

The Rink

A waiter (Charlie Chaplin) gets into trademark mischief at work and then goes to a skating rink on his lunch break. There he meets a pretty girl (Edna Purviance) and the two of them hit it off. The waiter has a confrontation though with a customer (Eric Campbell) who recognises him from the restaurant and the two start bickering and fighting while skating. Having left the rink, the girl invites the waiter to her skating party that night but instead of revealing his real job he tells her that he is Sir Cecil Seltzer. Later, at the party, people who had met during the day once again meet up as various strands of the story come together, resulting in a fast paced chase ending.

I was a little bored by the first half of this film which was set mainly in a restaurant, but my enjoyment grew as the action turned to the rink. There Chaplin was able to showcase his remarkable skating skills and ability to bully his co star Eric Campbell in an ever changing variety of ways. The second half more than makes up for the lacklustre opening and left me with a smile on my face if not a laughter induced stomach ache.

Lawless

Lawless is a prohibition era gangster biopic about three brothers from Virginia. Jack Bondurant (Shia LaBeouf) is the youngest of the brothers and lacks the courage, strength or attitude to violence that his older brothers Forrest (Tom Hardy) and Howard (Jason Clark) possess. Forrest especially is a sort of Clint Eastwood figure; strong, silent and deadly. All three are involved in the moonshine business but their trade comes under threat when a new Special Deputy (Guy Pearce) arrives from Chicago to put a halt to their operations.

The film shares traits with Director John Hillcoat’s previous film The Proposition. Both focus on brothers outside the law in semi-desolate locations who must battle across a thin line between right and wrong against corrupt officials. The visually stunning but run down locations and decaying beauty also help bring to mind Hillcoat’s The Road. This film though is more of a coming of age story as young Jack Bondurant fights for respect from his brothers and the gangster who inhabit his world. It is also a tale that blurs the lines between good and evil, right and wrong with the Bondurant boys becoming anti heroes who the audience will be routing for from start to finish.

Anna Karenina

Director Joe Wright’s adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s 1877 novel Anna Karenina is one of the most visually stunning and artistically bold films I’ve seen in quite some time. Wright places most of his plot within the confines of a dilapidated theatre and has his actors make use of the stage, stalls and behind the scenes areas when forming the sets of late Tsarist Saint Petersburg. Actors will walk from one part of the theatre to another with sets and costumes changing around them, all with the hustle and bustle of both a real theatre and lively city. It’s a stylistic decision which was probably met with scepticism by studio bosses and the like but works incredibly well to bring to life the characters which themselves are so wonderfully written by Tolstoy.

Anna Karenina (Keira Knightly) is married with a son to senior statesman and a man who is greatly admired and respected in society, Count Alexei Karenin (Jude Law). Their marriage is typical of the society in which they live in that it was not for love and he is much older than she is. On a trip to visit her brother Prince Stepan (Matthew Macfadyen) in Moscow she attracts the attention of a young, rich and handsome cavalry officer called Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). After an infatuation the two fall madly in love but in a closely nit society in which infidelity is ‘against the rules’, Anna must decide which is more important? Her standing, child and image or true love.

Behind the Screen

Behind the Screen stars Charlie Chaplin as a stagehand on a movie set. Chaplin is overworked and underappreciated and his boss (Eric Campbell) spends most of the time asleep, leaving Chaplin to do the heavy lifting. Meanwhile a young woman (Edna Purviance) is trying to get her big break as an actress but is turned down so dresses up as a male stagehand in order to have at least some involvement in the movies. At the same time the fellow stagehands go on strike for being woken up by a studio boss and plot their revenge…

This isn’t one of the funniest Mutual shorts but it certainly has one of the better plots up to this point. It’s multilayered and features side plot as well as the main narrative. It is also an opportunity to see behind the scenes of an early movie set in much the same way as His New Job, Chaplin’s first film for Essanay a year earlier. What the film is most famous for now though is its forthright joke about homosexuality, a subject which was barely mentioned in cinema for another fifty years.

The Royal Tenenbaums

I first saw this film when I was about sixteen on one of my frequent trips to the cinema with friends. When one of them told me about it I thought it sounded awful. I was used to seeing action and comedy films on a Friday night and didn’t want to sit through a film about some family and an old man dying. In the end the film completely shocked me and helped to introduce me to the joys of cinema, seeing passed the Friday night popcorn movies to which I was accustomed. It was also the first of many Wes Anderson films that I fell in love with. I often site Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver as being the film which opened my eyes to cinema but thinking about it now, this film did the same thing, albeit to a lesser extent, two years earlier.

Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) is thrown out of his house by his wife (Anjelica Houston) before their three genius children (Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, Gwyneth Paltrow) reach their teens. This has a far reaching impact on all of their lives and none of the three grow up to fully reach their potential. Playwrite Margot (Paltrow) stops writing, Tennis champion Richie (Wilson) retires ages twenty-six after a breakdown and business guru Chas (Stiller) becomes overly protective of his own children following the untimely death of his wife. After years of being out of the picture, Royal decides he wants to become reacquainted with his quirky children but ends up going about it in all the wrong ways.

The Pawnshop

Charlie Chaplin’s sixth film for Mutual is one with very high highs and disappointingly low lows. It features a scenario and story which doesn’t really go anywhere but also features several moments of slapstick that are amongst his best to date.

Chaplin stars as a pawnshop assistant and gets in a long running fight with fellow employee John Rand. Typically inept at his job, Chaplin is eventually fired only to be taken back on straight away after his boss Henry Bergman has a change of heart. Meanwhile Chaplin’s attentions are drawn to Bergman’s daughter Edna Purviance who is busy baking in the back of the shop. Trouble appears late on as a thief, Eric Campbell enters the shop intent on taking it for everything it’s got.

The Hurricane

In 1966 professional boxer Ruben ‘Hurricane’ Carter was arrested for triple homicide and subsequently found guilty and sentenced to three life sentences for the crime. Despite always maintaining his innocence a second trial also came to the same guilty conclusion. Biopic The Hurricane tells the story of Carter’s fight to clear his name with the help of some unlikely accomplices in the form of three Canadians and the teenager from Brooklyn who they’d taken in. Denzel Washington stars as Hurricane Carter in one of the performances of his career in a film which portrays the hatred, racism and injustice that the human race is unfortunately capable of dishing out to one of its own.

The film uses a non linear timeline to flash back and forward from Carter’s early years, through his boxing career, incarceration and the eventual meeting between himself and Lesra Martin (Vicellous Reon Shannon), Lisa Peters (Deborah Kara Unger), Sam Chaiton (Liev Schreiber) and Terry Swinton (John Hannah) who all fought tirelessly to prove his innocence. The bulk of the film concentrates on the period from Carter’s arrest in 1966 to the mid 1980s though. Although it is far from a perfect film and inaccuracies have been levelled towards it, the incredible story and Washington’s performance make this a film which I’d recommend to anyone.

The Count

Charlie Chaplin’s fifth film for Mutual is a somewhat simpler film than its immediate predecessors The Vagabond and One A.M. and is more reminiscent of his Essanay work, albeit it more sophisticated and slightly funnier. Chaplin plays an inept Tailor’s assistant who gets fired for burning a Count’s trousers. His boss (Eric Campbell) finds an invitation to a party at the house of Miss Moneybags (Edna Purviance) and decides to impersonate the rich Count in order to marry the attractive, rich girl. Chaplin is also at the party having snuck in through the back door and beats Campbell to the impersonation. All hell breaks lose though when the real Count arrives, along with the Police to chase out the imposters.

The Count features lots of funny moments but lacks the knockout blow of the likes of One A.M. or The Bank. It’s testament to the quality of Chaplin’s Mutual films that I felt disappointed by The Count even though it is far superior to a lot of his Essanay films.

North by Northwest

Alfred Hitchcock’s tale of mistaken identity and Cold War spying has gone down as one of the most highly regarded films in history. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, is ranked at 55 in the AFI’s 100 Years 100 Movies ranking and holds an 8.6/10 on IMDb. Carey Grant plays Roger Thornhill, an Ad Man who is abducted by James Mason’s ‘Townsend’ character under the suspicion that he is the spy George Kaplan. Thornhill is chased across America from New York to South Dakota via Chicago by the Police and Townsend, meeting the seductive Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) along the way. In this next sentence I’m going to say something that will probably draw a lot of negative comments along the lines of “You don’t know what you’re talking about” or “You mustn’t have been watching it right” but not only do I not think North by Northwest is a great film but I personally believe it is the worst Alfred Hitchcock film I’ve seen so far. The film undoubtedly features some great stand out moments but as far as suspense and thrills go, this one left me cold.

Lars and the Real Girl

Lars Lindstrom (Ryan Gosling) is a shy and retiring man living in the garage of his brother and sister-in-law’s house. He frequently tries to avoid contact with his friends, co-workers and family and when he does have to interact with others, conversation is stilted before Lars is able to escape. Despite the obvious interest of colleague Margo (Kelli Garner) Lars has no girlfriend so his brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and Sister-in-law Karin (Emily Mortimer) are shocked when one day Lars appears at their front door with the news that he has a house guest; a wheelchair bound, half Brazilian, half Danish missionary whom he met on the internet. Gus and Karin are initially overjoyed that Lars has met something but are soon startled to discover that ‘Bianca’ is in fact a Real Doll sex doll whom Lars is convinced is a real person. Worried about his mental health his family and friends all rally around Lars and attempt to welcome Bianca into the community while trying to get Lars the help that he so obviously needs.

The term rollercoaster ride of emotions is a little bit tacky and overused but it applies here. Every few seconds while watching this film I went from laugh out loud laughter to shock to sadness and back again. The film manages to be incredibly uplifting, sad and funny, often at the same time and features some great acting and an astonishing and original script.

The Thing

A Norwegian helicopter is seen chasing a dog through the Antarctic until it reaches a US Research Station. A man emerges and tries killing the dog but is himself shot by one of the researchers. Eager to understand what drove the man to such lengths, helicopter pilot MacReady (Kurt Russell) and Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart) head off to find out what is going on in the Norwegian station. When they arrive they find death and destruction but discover that the Norwegians had discovered a craft and frozen body deep inside the ice. The US team take the body back to their base for an autopsy but soon discover it isn’t a dead body but a thawed out creature that is capable of killing and metamorphosing into anyone with which it has contact. Not knowing who amongst them is still human the team enters into a climate of fear and mistrust and battle to stop The Thing from reaching civilization.  

This film was recommended to me by a friend a few months ago at the same time as I watched The Fly. I liked that film but The Thing is on a whole different level. I enjoyed it from start to finish and although never scared, thought it was a brilliant thriller with wonderful creature design.

Total Recall

Based on the short story by Philip K. Dick which was the inspiration for the 1990 film of the same name, Total Recall takes place after a chemical war at the end of the twenty-first century. Following the fallout, only two areas are left habitable on Earth; The United Federation of Britain (UFB) and The Colony (the landmass of Australia) which is where the workers are forced to live. Each day they must take “the fall”, a kind of superfast lift which takes them through the centre of the Earth and joins up the two habitable areas. One of these workers is Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) who wakes up from a reoccurring dream about trying to save a woman from synthetic cops. Upon waking he is comforted by his wife Lori (Kate Beckinsale) but feels as though he is meant for something more. Quaid discovers Rekall, a company which can implant false memories and decides to check it out. This decision creates a ripple effect and leaves Quaid unsure of whom he is and why people, including some of those closest to him want him dead.

I saw Paul Verhoeven’s original 1990 film again recently and having now seen both cannot make up my mind as to which one is better. Although they have a similar plot and share themes they are two very different films, made for different times.

D-BOX Cinema Seating

Have you ever been on a rollercoaster and after the three minute ride though to yourself, “I wish that could have lasted another couple of hours.”? Well a few months ago my local cinema introduced D-BOX seating to one of their screens. Having read up on it at the time I came to the conclusion that it was another ridiculous and expensive gimmick which would surely detract from the cinema going experience rather than as advertised, enhancing it. Several months later I finally decided to give it a chance and went to see The Expendables 2 in one of the new seats. Here is my review.

In case anyone hasn’t heard of them (and I hadn’t), D-BOX seats are seats which vibrate and tilt in time with the on screen action and are advertised on it’s website in the following way “You will live the action... D-BOX creates an unmatched realistic immersive experience, the most amazing Home Entertainment experience you have ever tried”. D-BOX is advertised as bringing you closer to the action and as being a more immersive experience. We’ve heard that claimed for 3D which is generally starting to be regarded as an expensive gimmick which rarely improves a film. Is the same so for D-BOX?

The Expendables 2

After battling Central American rebels in the popular but critically mixed 2010 film The Expendables, old school action stars Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture and the gang are back for some more noisy, mad and blood splattering fun as CIA Operative Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) enlists Stallone’s group of Expendables in tracking a downed Chinese plane inside Albania. The plane was carrying a valuable cargo which the CIA want but it is taken by international criminal and arms dealer (and I’m not making this bit up) Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and his mercenary group of caricature Albanians. Stallone and his team must try to get to Vilain before the plane’s cargo leads him to some highly combustible merchandise.

Although first film had its fun and crazy moments I wasn’t really a fan. I’ve never been a big action movie guy and don’t really like Stallone. This time though a lot of the problems of the first have diminished slightly and it is improved with a better story, great cameos and improved special effects.

The Kid with a Bike

A troubled young boy Cyril (Thomas Doret) lives in a Children’s Home after his father decided he was no longer able to cope with caring for him. Unable to accept this, the boy escapes the Home and goes back to the apartment that he and his father shared. Finding him gone, the boy continues to run from the Home’s staff before clattering into a woman in a Doctor’s waiting room while yelling about his missing bike. Later, the same woman is able to track down the bike and brings it to the Home and the boy asks if he can stay with her at weekends. The woman, a hairdresser called Samantha (Cecile de France) accepts and the boy spends time with her while she attempts to free him from the anger and rage that keeps getting him into trouble.

I first heard about this film last May when it won the Jury Prize at Cannes. I’d wanted to see it at the cinema but being a Belgian film about an angry boy and a bicycle I was unable to find it in the city of 3 million people in which I live. Although I was disappointed not to get to see it at the cinema, now I have seen it I don’t feel like I was missing out. While it’s an interesting story about two very different relationships, I didn’t personally enjoy it as much as the reviews I’d read suggested I would.

The Bourne Legacy

Running parallel in time to The Bourne Ultimatum, The Bourne Legacy stars Jeremy Renner as black ops operative Aaron Cross. After completing a gruelling hike across the Alaskan wilderness, Cross arrives at an isolated cabin where he meets a fellow operative (Oscar Isaac). Due to events elsewhere, linked to the plot of the first film in the series, the people running the secret Operation Outcome of which Cross is a member decide to shut it down by killing all staff involved. A drone attacks Cross but he manages to escape and tracks down scientist Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) who he hopes can lead him to stocks of the pills he needs to remain a superhuman.

With a plot that I didn’t fully understand and some decent action set pieces, The Bourne Legacy is a film that is not without some merit but overall I could probably have lived without seeing.

One A.M.

Charlie Chaplin’s forth film for the Mutual Film Company is a unique two reeler in which he is almost the only person on screen for the film’s entirety. Apart from an establishing scene featuring Albert Austin as a disgruntled cab driver, Chaplin has the film to himself as he struggles to get up to bed whilst drunk. Chaplin arrives home at 1am to find numerous inanimate objects in his way in his quest for a nights sleep.

In this twenty-six minute short a drunken Chaplin is scared by stuffed animals, baffled by a revolving table, constantly defeated by a flight of stairs before being bested by a fold away bed. Chaplin takes inspiration from the drunken character that made him famous in England with the Fred Karno Company, the very same character that drew the attention of Mack Sennett and gave him his break in the movie industry.

Departures

2008 Oscar winning Japanese film Departures is a deeply moving but sometimes darkly comic look at Japanese funeral ceremonies. Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) is a cellist, playing with an Orchestra in Tokyo until it is shut down due to poor ticket sales. Short of money he is forced to move back to his remote mountain hometown and live in the house that his mother left him when she died. Spotting an advert in the paper for ‘assisting departures’, a job requiring no experience, Daigo goes for an interview. He is immediately hired but soon finds out that the advert had a typo and the job is in fact to prepare the dead for cremation. Daigo keeps his new job secret from his wife Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) for fear that she will disprove and slowly learns the art of the job from his quiet but dedicated boss Shoei (Tsutomo Yamazaki). Despite being initially repulsed by the job, Daigo soon learns to respect the delicate work carried out by himself and his boss but still has to convince his wife and friend Yamashita (Tetta Sugimoto).

Departures is a film that really messed with my emotions. I went from laughing out loud to being close to tears before an emotional but satisfying ending. It is not surprising that the film won so many awards upon its release and continues to be held in such high regard.

Rope

In a New York City apartment a faint scream can be heard as two friends’ murder a third before concealing his body inside a large wooden chest placed prominently inside their living room. The crime is committed moments before people who know the dead man arrive for a party. Lead conspirator Brandon Shaw (John Dall) commits the murder as an intellectual exercise in order to prove his superiority over the dead man and other party guests. Fellow conspirator Phillip Morgan (Farley Granger) is less confident about the crime and much more conscious of having a dead body in his midst. Amongst the party guests are the dead man, David’s parents, girlfriend, ex-classmate and all four friend’s ex-prep school housemaster Rupert Cadell (James Stewart) of whom Brandon is most wary of being able to discover the body. 

The film comes off like a play and is indeed based on a play from the 1920s. The entire plot takes place inside one apartment set and mostly within one room of that apartment. Although characters move about the setting I don’t think the camera ever leaves the living room. Adding to the sense of being a play is the editing. The film is shot as though one long, continuous take though is actually broken up into ten separate takes with each cut being masked by a man’s jacket moving across the screen or the back of some furniture. This allowed the director, Alfred Hitchcock the chance to cut scenes and change the magnificent backdrop which indicates the passing of the day.

The Vagabond

A Musician-Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) leaves town following a chase to find himself in a gypsy camp. There he finds a poor abducted girl (Edna Purviance) who he attempts to cheer up with his music. Having witnessed a savage beating of the girl by the gypsy chieftain (Eric Campbell), the Tramp goes about saving the girl and setting her free. While attempting to woo her, a handsome artist chances by and has Edna sit for a portrait. The portrait attracts the attention of Edna’s estranged family who attempt to take her away from the Tramp for good.

I honestly can’t think of a single Chaplin film during which I’ve laughed so little but on this occasion that is not a negative statement. Here Chaplin provides plenty of his trademark pathos and creates a film which is much more of a romantic drama than romantic comedy or slapstick comedy.

Brave

A young Scottish Princess called Merida (Kelly Macdonald) spends her days fighting against the rules set by her mother Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson) and wishes to be more of a free spirit, able to ride her horse, eat and wear what she wants and most importantly practise her archery skills. A trip to a Witch adds a further twist to the mother daughter relationship and puts both their lives at risk.

Despite being a huge Pixar fan I went into Brave with a small sense of dread. I expected, and as it turned out I was right, that this would be Pixar’s most Disney-like feature to date and that’s something that disappoints me. We already have Disney to bring us fairytales of Princesses and suitors but there are very few studios who are brave enough or mad enough to come up with the likes of Toy Story, Wall-E or Up. For me there was little to distinguish Brave from a modern Disney film along the same lines as Tangled. Despite this, Brave is still a fun film with a lot to like.

Big Miracle

Based on a true story, Big Miracle is about the efforts in 1988 to save three Grey Whales from drowning in frozen seas of Point Barrow, Alaska, one of the most northerly inhabited settlements on Earth. Anchorage based reporter Adam Carlson (John Krasinski) is reporting from Barrow when he spots a small gap in sea ice through which three whales are struggling to breathe. Once his story gets national coverage, thousands of reporters, National Guard and Greenpeace activists including Rachel Kramer (Drew Barrymore) descend on Barrow to cover the story and help set the whales free.  

Although billed as a family film, for me this feels like the next generation disaster movie. We’ve already seen a shift from the terrorist style movies of the 90s towards the 2012 environmental type movies and this feels like the next step. Throughout the film I was constantly reminded of Deep Impact and Independence Day. There are several intertwining stories with overlapping characters, families watching the proceedings on TV, reporters from all over the world lined up in that tracking shot which you always get, enemies coming together, several love stories, tragedy to open the third act and surprising international cooperation saving the day. If you substituted the whales for a meteor or alien invasion then you have the exact same disaster film which everyone has seen before.

The Imposter

In 1994 a thirteen year old Texan boy called Nicholas Barclay disappeared from San Antonio. Three years later his family received a call from a Spanish official, claiming that Nicholas had been abducted by a sex slave ring but was now with him in Spain. Despite Nicholas leaving as a thirteen year old with almost Aryan colouring and returning tanned with dark hair and eyes along with a foreign accent, the family accepted the boy who returned as their son. This documentary tells the story of Nicholas’ disappearance and the extraordinary events in 1997 when it seemed that he had returned.

The documentary is created using a mixture of talking heads; achieve home videos and convincing reconstructions which are themselves combined with the talking heads. Almost all of the major players in the story take part which is a little surprising as by the end hardly anyone comes out with any sort of credibility.

I went into this film knowing the story having read about it recently in a magazine. I knew very little about the film however and wasn’t actually sure if it was a documentary or drama. The film plays its cards very early and it isn’t exactly a spoiler, especially given the title, to tell you that the person who returns home in 1997 is not Nicholas Barclay. The real interest for the first half of the film at least, is how on earth this man managed to convince Spanish officials, the American Embassy and most incredibly the family of the missing boy that he was Nicholas. It’s almost too unreal to be true. Without giving too much away, the man who claims to be the boy is of French-Algerian descent and several years older than Barclay. He looks nothing like the boy.

OSS 117: Lost in Rio

OSS 117: Lost in Rio is the sequel to one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and is bought to us by the team behind that film and The Artist, Oscar Winners Michel Hazanavicius and Jean Dujardin. A James Bond pastiche, Dujardin stars as OSS 177, France’s top secret agent. It’s 1967 and he is on a mission to capture a microfilm containing the names of French Nazi collaborators from an ex-Nazi now residing in Brazil. He is joined by a beautiful Israeli Army Officer, Delores Koulechov (Louise Monot) who is tasked with bringing the Nazi back to Israel to face a war crimes tribunal. 117 bumbles his way through Brazil with the help of his Israeli colleague, attracting the interest of various women and the CIA along the way.

I was really excited to see this sequel as Cairo, Nest of Spies is one of the best comedies I’ve seen in the last year. I’d previously read that the sequel wasn’t as well received in France as the original and I’d have to agree with that assessment. It is in no way as good as Cairo, Nest of Spies but is still an enjoyable hour and a half.

The Vow

Around four minutes into The Vow I looked down at the notes I was making and they read “Why sex in the middle of the road?” “How did he get her permit?” “He looks like a potato”. I was tempted to just make that my review but I will go on.

Paige Collins (Rachel McAdams) and her husband Leo (Channing Tatum) are driving back from the movies when she decides to initiate sex at a set of traffic lights. Most people would perhaps wait until they were home or maybe nip down an alley but Paige goes for it in the middle of a snow covered street. After taking her seatbelt off the car is rear ended by a truck which sends Paige through the windshield in ultra slow motion. Once Paige wakes up in hospital with the smallest scars imaginable, we discover that she has short term memory loss and has forgotten her entire life with Leo. He looks like a confused Mr Potato head and runs away but decides to come back and try to get her to remember their life together (without using any photos, videos, texts or facebook updates etc). His quest is complicated with the introduction of Paige’s stuffy parents (Jessica Lange & Sam Neill) who want their daughter back.

Gone

Gone is a sometimes tense but often boring psychological thriller from Brazilian Director Heitor Dhalia, working in the English language for the first time. Amanda Seyfried stars as Jill, a young woman living with her recovering alcoholic sister Molly (Emily Wickersham) after an alleged attack on her the previous year. The police dismissed her abduction and attack claims after finding no evidence and Jill was eventually admitted to a mental institute. Back in the present, Jill returns home one morning, after a nightshift as a waitress to find that her sister has disappeared. With little help from the police Jill takes it upon herself to track down Molly and her assailant, attracting the attention of the law towards herself in the process.

The film has frequent flashbacks to Jill’s alleged attack which come to her as she edges closer to tracking down Molly. The plot also opens lots of avenues for possible answers but leaves the audience feeling disappointed once the answers start arriving.

The Adventures of Tintin

Known in the UK as The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, this film charts a particular adventure of Hergé’s famous comic book creation Tintin. Young Belgian reporter Tintin (Jamie Bell) buys an old model ship at a market. Straight away he is approached by two men who offer to buy the ship from him for any price. After he declines Tintin’s ship is stolen and while tracking it down he uncovers a mystery involving lost treasure. With the help of his intrepid dog Snowy and a drunken Sea Captain called Haddock (Andy Serkis), Tintin sets out to find the hidden loot and uncover the secret of the Unicorn. 

I used to watch Tintin cartoons when I was very young and though can’t remember much about them now, I do remember enjoying them. I wish I could say the same for this film. I’d read that the film was an adventure in the mould of Indiana Jones but I found the plot incredibly dull and predictable. The film was saved only by some first rate animation and a typically impressive John Williams score.

Vertigo

"Scottie, do you believe that someone out of the past - someone dead - can enter and take possession of a living being?"

A Detective, John ‘Scottie’ Ferguson (James Stewart) is chasing down a criminal over the rooftops of San Francisco when he falls and is left hanging on a gutter. When a cop comes to his aid he falls, leaving the Detective racked with guilt and a new found fear of heights which brings on vertigo. After retiring from the police force he receives a call out of the blue from an old college friend (Tom Helmore) who asks Scottie to follow his wife who isn’t herself. Scottie follows the young woman, named Madeleine (Kim Novak) as she drives to strange places then claims to forget ever being there. There appears to be some sort of paranormal explanation to the proceedings as Madeleine keeps returning to the significant places in the life of a long dead relative of hers. Tragedy strikes at an old church which leaves Scottie facing questions about his own sanity. Slowly he must try to bring together the pieces of a puzzle which appears to be come from a box a few pieces short.

I recently read that Sight and Sound voted Vertigo as the greatest film ever. It was a combination of this fact and my recent discovery of Alfred Hitchcock’s films which drew me to this movie. Having now seen it I strongly disagree with Sight and Sound’s placing of Vertigo at number one but still believe it is a good, but not great film.

The Fireman

A Fire Chief (Eric Campbell) is approached by a man (Lloyd Bacon) who asks that the Fire Department ignores a fire at his house so that he may collect the insurance money. The man insures that his daughter (Edna Purviance) is out during the fire so remains unharmed. The woman is not out though when an arsonist sets the property alight and she gets trapped upstairs. Meanwhile the Firemen which include accident prone Charlie Chaplin are at another house, putting out a fire. When the man realises his daughter is trapped he searches for them, finding Chaplin who attempts to save the day and win the woman’s heart.

Amazingly The Fireman was Chaplin’s 52^nd film but was released in June 1916. Despite his age and lack of years in the industry he was by now a pro and it shows here with clever gags and a nice central idea. Unfortunately the film suffers from a similar problem as The Floorwalker in that it just isn’t quite funny enough.

The Floorwalker

Charlie Chaplin’s first film for Mutual is set in a department store. The store manager (Eric Campbell) and his assistant (Lloyd Bacon) are trying to embezzle money from the store when a tramp (Charlie Chaplin) enters. The tramp bears a striking resemblance to the assistant manager and after getting caught up in his usual trouble, the two men decide to swap clothes to avoid being caught by those who are chasing them. With the bag of loot changing hands and an escalator both aiding and hindering their escape, the two men attempt to get away with the shop’s takings.

Since its release close to one hundred years ago The Floorwalker has gained fame as being the first film in history to introduce two popular and successful comedic ‘moves’. Charlie Chaplin introduced the escalator to audiences here and also created the now much copied mirror effect whereby two characters mimic each others moves as thought they are a mirror image of each other.

Charlie Chaplin - The Mutual Films

After a hugely successful but tense year making films for The Essanay Film and Manufacturing Company, Charlie Chaplin decided to look elsewhere when his contract came to an end. Despite several offers from larger studios, Chaplin under the advice of his elder brother and Business Manager Sydney signed with The Mutual Film Corporation on February 26^th 1916 for a world record breaking wage of $10,000 a week plus a signing bonus of $150,000. This was ten times his already substantial Essanay salary of $1,250 per week. The contract made Chaplin the highest earning employee in history and also stipulated complete artistic control over his films as well as a custom made studio. The aptly named Lone Star Studio was where Chaplin was to produce his twelve two-reel comedies for Mutual over the next twelve months. Chaplin later wrote in his autobiography that those twelve months were amongst the happiest of his career.

Although Chaplin was starting fresh with Mutual he did bring along some of his stock actors from Essanay and the likes of Leo White, John Rand and long time leading lady Edna Purviance joined him at the studio. In addition to these regulars Chaplin also hired a new group to work with him during his time at Mutual. Eric Campbell, Albert Austin and Charlotte Mineau joined a much larger group of regular actors as Chaplin’s films grew in scale.

In addition to writing, directing and starring in his films, Chaplin also began producing his movies with Mutual and went on to produce almost all of his subsequent films. The first three were co-written with his behind the scenes collaborator Vincent Bryan but Chaplin maintained sole writing and directing credit for the remaining Mutual comedies.

As with Chaplin’s Essanay films, I’ll be watching each one and posting a review on the blog plus a link to each one below.  

Yellow Submarine

"It's all in the mind y'know"

Yellow Submarine is a 1968 psychedelic animated musical fantasy featuring the songs of The Beatles. The music hating Blue Meanines attack Pepper Land, draining the countryside of colour and turning its inhabitants into immobile statues. Only one man, Old Fred (Lance Percival) manages to escape, doing so in a yellow submarine. He travels to Liverpool where he enlists the help of The Beatles to save Pepper Land from the Blue Meanie menace. On their journey to Pepper Land the five of them travel through several strange seas which include The Sea of Holes, The Sea of Green and The Sea of Nothing before making it to Pepper Land to take on the Meanies. All the way they are accompanied by a selection of Beatles songs which the plot ties into.

Although the film was based on the song of the same name by Lennon & McCartney, The Beatles actually had very little to do with the film with actors impersonating the Fab Four. The band only appears as themselves in the brief closing scene. The slightly off voice work adds to the cartoon feel of the film while their actual songs provide a fantastic accompanying soundtrack.

Quantum of Solace

"This is about trust. You said you weren't motivated by revenge"

A direct sequel to 2006’s Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace stars Daniel Craig as British Secret Agent James ‘007’ Bond. Following the death of someone close to him Bond sets out to enact revenge while also uncovering a Coup d’état in Bolivia. Enlisting the help of Bolivian Agent Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko), Bond travels the globe tracking the environmentalist Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) who is in fact a member of the secret organisation Quantum, about which little is known. Despite frequent calls for restraint from his boss M (Judi Dench), Bond is unable to control his urge for revenge and ends up with both MI5 and the CIA hot on his tail.

The fact that it’s taken me four years to watch this film may give you some indication as to my indifference when it comes to 007. I used to like watching the Sean Connery and Roger Moore film’s as a child and remember enjoying the Pierce Brosnan Bond when I was growing up but there is something about ‘modern Bond’ which I just don’t get. Nevertheless I gave this a go and here’s what I thought…

Ted

Police? This guy took my teddy bear!

... Hello? Hello?

Christmas 1985 and an unpopular kid called John Bennett gets a teddy bear which he names Ted. Sad and with no friends he wishes that Ted could talk to him and wakes up the next morning to find his wish has been granted. Ted is a cute and friendly young bear who wants friendship and hugs. Twenty-seven years later Ted (Seth McFarlane) and John (Mark Wahlberg) are sat on their sofa smoking pot and talking about how Boston women orgasm. The two have remained friends but appear stuck in a rut of adolescent smut and innuendo which is getting neither of them anywhere. John’s girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) issues John with an ultimatum – it’s her or the bear, and the two friends must figure out if they are capable of or even safe to live apart.

I’ve been looking forward to Ted for months and it feels like ages since it was released in the States. Now it’s finally here I can report that it fully lived up to my expectations.