Philomena (2013, Stephen Frears) - Screening Notes

Writing accompanying notes for a film I missed at LFF and have as yet still to see. So a simple synopsis and brief overview of Stephen Frears career is all I could manage. Much prefer writing notes for classic movies when the opportunity arises. 

 Starring: Judi Dench, Steve Coogan, Sophie Kennedy Clark

Screenplay by Steve Coogan, Jeff Pope Based on the book 'The Lost Child of Philomena Lee.'

Directed by Stephen Frears

Based on a shocking true story Philomena attacks its subject matter with passion and a dark sense of humour. Fifty years ago Philomena (Dench) fell pregnant out of wedlock and was forced into a convent. The child was taken away from her. After hearing her story at a party burnt-out journalist Martin Sixsmith (Coogan) agrees to help Philomena find her son and the two begin an unconventional friendship and a journey to uncover the truth.

Stephen Frears - Selected Career Highlights

Now aged 72 years old Frears shows no signs of slowing down. Over a forty year period he has proven himself highly versatile and always at his best when working in tandem with a strong writer. Though he made his film debut in 1971 with the quirky thriller Gumshoe Frears spent the next decade or so honing his skills in television notably for the BBC's 'Play for Today' series.

Frears returned to cinema with a trio of acclaimed British movies. In the understated The Hit (84) a beatific Terence Stamp unsettles two criminals escorting him to his death by calmly accepting his fate. The Hanif Kureshi scripted My Beautiful Laundrette (85) combines a gay love story with a satire about Pakistani immigrants embracing Thatcherism and made a star of Daniel Day-Lewis. Prick Up Your Ears (87) is an even-handed and touching account of the tragic relationship between 60's playwright Joe Orton and his lover and eventual murderer Kenneth Halliwell.

Frears cracked Hollywood with Dangerous Liasons (88), a suitably chilly version of the Pierre Choderlos de Laclos novel, yet moving in its final moments. Martin Scorsese hired Frears to direct The Grifters (90), a bleak crime thriller about a small-time con-artist mixed up in a scheme with his estranged mother. The 90's proved less successful though with expensive projects Accidental Hero (92), Mary Reilly (96) failing. Frears recovered, successfully relocating Nick Hornby's much loved novel High Fidelity (2000) to the States.  Gritty thriller Dirty Pretty Things (2002), and the Oscar-winning biopic The Queen (2006) won him more acclaim. Frears is currently filming a biopic of disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong.

Screening Notes - 'Rush' (2013, Ron Howard)

"It's the enemy you know. Happiness. It puts doubt in your mind. Because all of a sudden you have something to lose."

The remarkable race for the 1976 Formula 1 Championship is brought thrillingly to life in this colourful dramatisation of the battle between two drivers with contrasting personalities. Niki Lauda, impressively played by German actor Daniel Bruhl, is the dour pragmatist who adopts a tactical approach to racing and designs his own cars. Australian beefcake Chris Hemsworth is Peter Hunt, the dashing English playboy with a reckless streak. Rush recreates an era when Formula 1 was potentially lethal. For one of these men a rainy day towards the end of the 76' season will have a profound effect on their life.

Ron Howard - Career Highlights

Though one of the most successful and versatile directors in Hollywood Ron Howard will always be best known for playing Richie Cunningham on the long-running sitcom Happy Days (1974-84). Born into a showbiz family, Howard appeared in countless TV shows as a youngster as did his brother Clint who some may remember as the blonde kid who befriends a Grizzly bear in Gentle Ben. Howard began directing under the tutelage of B-movie king Roger Corman who produced his first movie Grand Theft Auto (77). The comedy Night Shift (82) was a modest success but Howard's next two films, Splash (84) with Tom Hanks falling in love with a mermaid and Cocoon (85) about a group of OAP's given a second lease of life after an encounter with alien life-forms, were massive box-office hits. Sword and sorcery epic Willow (88) remains a favourite with 80's kids. Parenthood (89) is a funny and wistful comedy about family life which makes great use of a young Keanu Reeves.

Backdraft (91) an exhilarating drama about fire-fighters in Chicago shows Howard developing an interest in stories about people working in high stress environments. The highly acclaimed Apollo 13 (95) is Howard's first film based on real life events. Gripping thriller Ransom (96) casts swivel-eyed lunatic Mel Gibson as a businessman turning the tables on the kidnappers holding his son hostage. Howard won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind (2001), starring Crowe as a mathematician struggling to cope with schizophrenia. Crowe again starred in the underrated Cinderella Man (05) as Depression era heavyweight boxer Jim Braddock. Huge box-office returns for The Da Vinci Code (06) and its sequel Angels and Demons (09) but neither film pleased the critics. Frost/Nixon (08) about the events leading up to President Nixon's confession of perjury live on television marked Howard's first collaboration with Rush screenwriter Peter Morgan. Howard also narrated the cult TV comedy Arrested Development and appears in the final season as a comic version of himself. 

Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979, Werner Herzog)

Back in cinemas just in time for Halloween Werner Herzog’s remake of F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horrors (1922) is an idiosyncratic take on the vampire movie. As with his recent reworking of Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant (1992) it resembles the original but has a lunatic poetry of its own. Instead of replicating the expressionist techniques used by Murnau, Herzog filmed on location in Germany and Romania and makes wonderful use of natural light.  The opening credits play over shots taken of mummified corpses twisted in agony as Popol Vuh’s haunting somnambulistic music sends a shiver down your spine. 

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horrors is the first screen version of Bram Stoker’s novel ‘Dracula,’ Murnau adapted the story without first acquiring the rights. Changing the Count’s name to Orlock couldn't hide the plagiarism and Stoker’s widow sued, although mercifully the court rejected her plea to have the film destroyed. Herzog is free to call his vampire Dracula and keeps the main story from Stoker’s novel intact. Jonathon Harker (Bruno Ganz) travels to Transylvania to negotiate a property deal with the Count.  Dracula traps Harker within his castle and leaves to seek out his prisoner's wife. There are minor changes from the novel; the Harkers live in the coastal German town of Wismar. Mina, the leading lady in Stoker’s novel is demoted to a supporting role, while Lucy (Isabelle Adjani), takes on her characteristics of purity and innocence and also becomes Jonathon’s wife. Dr Van Helsing is no world authority on vampyres, but an ageing ineffectual small town Doctor with no real knowledge of what he is fighting against. 

Herzog regular Klaus Kinski has roughly the same look as Symphony’s Dracula Max Schreck. Kinski retains the black coat, pointy ears, bald head and fang-like teeth, but his face appears more human than Schreck’s misshapen monster. Kinski’s vamp is remarkable, as pitiful as he is unsettling. Alone in the world there is nobody else like him. Nor are there vampire babes hiding in his castle waiting on his every command, as if they were vampiric versions of Hugh Hefner and The Girls of the Playboy Mansion. Unlike Christopher Lee’s tall, suave aristocrat, who takes women at will, Kinski’s vamp literally begs Lucy to let him drink her blood and like a lot of bald men on the pull he is turned down flat. The eroticism present in the post Anne Rice vampire movie is entirely absent. Dracula feeds like a parasite, not a lover. All he brings is death, not so much by his own hand, but by the pestilence that follows him, the rats streaming into the town and infecting it with the plague. 

Bruno Ganz and Isabelle Adjani are both touching as the lovers destroyed by Dracula. Often these roles are a thankless task for actors as the Harkers are ciphers for moral innocence, but both Ganz and Adjani have the ability to flesh them out and make them seem real. Herzog conveys the intimacy between these young lovers in subtle ways, most notably a long-shot of them embracing by the sea. Most directors would use a close-up and have them express their love through words, but Herzog keeps his distance as if getting in close would be an intrusion. Adjani in particular is a spirited heroine, with her pale skin and jet black hair rendering her as haunting in appearance as Kinski's Dracula.

Herzog provides some spectacular images, such as the town square filling up with the townspeople carrying coffins, or of a last supper as a group of people infected with the plague hold a farewell dinner party for themselves. In one astonishing wordless sequence Harker (Bruno Ganz) leaves a village on foot, walking past the side of a cavernous river, climbing past a waterfall towards the peak of a mountain. As Harker rests and takes in his surroundings Herzog cuts between shots of him and the mist-covered mountains until Dracula’s Castle reveals itself as a ruin on the horizon. 

The German title is Nosferatu: Phantom Der Nacht which suits the film. Kinski's ghostly figure is at once menacing and pitiable. Another of Herzog's lonely obsessive outsiders at odds with the world around them and straining against its limitations. Herzog's film is more unsettling than horrifying, it's unease emanating from the hypnotic visuals and the feeling of doom present throughout. Often overlooked even by Herzog fans Nosferatu the Vampyre is one of his finest films and a worthy companion piece to Murnau's masterpiece. 

LFF 2013 - Story of My Death/Pioneer

Two great seducers, Casanova and Dracula meet in Spanish director Albert Serra's latest but this is no playful horror movie. In fact I'm not entirely sure what Story of My Death is meant to be. Serra apparently shot 400 hours of footage for the film which beggars belief because hardly anything happens during the film's two and a half hour running time as it is. An aged, repellent, and decadent Casanova eats a lot, gives half-baked philosophical advice on the nature of women ("women are all the same"), sexually exploits maids in a manner that would get him lifted nowadays, and laughs a lot for no apparent reason. It's entirely possible the other 397 and a half hours are more of the same.

Serra claimed not to be interested in the horror genre but he's made an interesting counterpoint to Stoker's novel with Dracula here as a liberator of poor servile women letting them turn against the patriarchy and become powerful instead of victims.  Endurance test The Story of My Death might be Serra is clearly a gifted filmmaker albeit one who likes to punish his audience. The director gave a charming introduction to the film in which he said it was okay if people walked out which may have been reverse psychology as almost everybody stayed to the end. I don't ever want to see The Story of My Death  again save for a wordless sequence in which would be lovers flirt at the dinner table after a meal. Free of all the dreadful pretensions Casanova spouts about love and its meaning I'd rather have seen that movie instead. 

I couldn't get a ticket for Gravity so Erik Skjoldbjærg's conspiracy thriller Pioneer proved a decent alternative. Set during the North Sea oil boom of the 80's as the Norwegians are forced through inexperience and lack of resources to collaborate with an American company on finding ways to extract the oil from the depths. The expeditions are highly dangerous and involve experimenting with hitherto unused techniques. When Petter (Hennie) passes out during a test dive causing the death of another diver he resolves to find out what went wrong putting himself and those close to him in danger. Skjoldbjærg crashed and burned in Hollywood with a dire adaptation of Elizabeth Wurtzel's  Prozac Nation (2001) while Christopher Nolan's remake of his 97' debut movie Insomnia put the British director on the Hollywood A-list but did nothing much for him. It's easy to read Pioneer as a reaction to this with the plucky Norwegian battling the forces of American cultural imperialism but Skjoldbjærg presents both countries as having their own agendas with so much at stake. Pioneer is a tense, claustrophobic affair with a compelling lead performance from Aksel Hennie and good support from Wes Bentley, Stephen Lang, and Jonathon LaPlagia. 

LFF 2013 - The Congress (Ari Folman)

Waltz with Bashir (2008) director Ari Folman melds together Stanislaw's novel 'The Futurological Congress' and the career of actress Robin Wright for this odd but moving mixture of live action and animation. Wright plays a fictional variation of herself, a narrative device made popular after Being John Malkovich (1999, Spike Jonze) and one which allows filmmakers to play around with a star's persona. In The Congress Wright becomes a washed-up Hollywood dropout living in an airport hangar with her two children Aaron (Kodi Smit-Mcphee) who is losing his hearing and idealistic teenager Sarah (Sami Gayle). Wright has spent the intervening years since her early success in The Princess Bride (1987, Rob Reiner) driving her agent Al (Harvey Keitel) nuts by making bad career choices.

A lucrative offer from 'Miramount' studio boss Jeff (Danny Huston) to submit to an experimental new technique designed to replace ageing actors with CGI avatars so they remain forever young forces Wright to make a final decision on her acting career. Fade way or remain onscreen as an A-list simulacrum. Huston's casting may be a nod towards his role in Bernard Rose's fuck you to Hollywood Ivans XTC (2000) which combined the tragic life of agent Jay Moloney with Tolstoy's 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich.' Here however the satire is laboured and feels inauthentic. Though he makes fair points about how the industry sidelines women over forty and audiences are complicit in their preference for younger stars Folman has never made a Hollywood movie and it shows. These kinds of attacks work better when those involved have done time there like Rose and have scores to settle.

Folman is on stronger ground adapting Lem's story about a future where people imbibe chemicals allowing them to escape from reality into a fantasy world of their own construction. Both filmmaker and novelist share thematic interests. Waltz with Bashir is essentially a journey through Folman's memories to uncover a moment lost to him. Likewise Lem's work particularly in 'Solaris' deals with the hold the past can have over a person especially if loss is involved. Twenty years after signing away her career and letting her CGI replacement take over Wright is summoned to a meeting in an entirely animated world called Abrahama. Though this place is supposed to represent a new medium replacing motion pictures Abrahama has the retro feel of a Twenties cocktail party and the look of the animation resembles the work of old cartoons. People take comfort in the past, turning themselves briefly into Hollywood idols, or in the case of a lovelorn computer programmer Dylan improving their own physicality by turning himself into a tall dark and handsome matinee idol lookalike. Dylan is affectingly voiced by Jon Hamm who possesses one of the loveliest and saddest voices around. As Wright searches for her missing children in this strange new world The Congress becomes another mesmerising waltz through a dreamscape, once again set to a haunting Max Richter score.

The Congress is bound to divide audiences and admittedly it can infuriate as well as mesmerise often in the same scene. Yet any film featuring Robin Wright singing Leonard Cohen tracks, impersonating Sterling Hayden, and confessing she may have married unsuitable men has my vote. The Congress also features a remarkable monologue delivered by Harvey Keitel which is at once a confession of betrayal and of love which is worth the price of a ticket alone. 

The Congress

Written by Ari Folman, 

based on 'The Futurological Congress' by Stanislaw Lem

Directed by Ari Folman

Running time 122 minutes

About Time - Station Screening Notes

"I believe in some kind of path/ That we can walk down me and you."

                                                         'Into My Arms' Nick Cave

In this whimsical romantic comedy Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) is stunned to find he has inherited the gift of time travel from his father (Bill Nighy). Moving to London to work for a law firm Tim encounters Mary (Rachel McAdams) on a night out and uses his gift to try and create the perfect relationship.

Though Richard Curtis started out in television writing for the satirical sketch show Not the Nine O Clock News (1979-82) and the splendidly mean-spirited sitcom Blackadder (1981-89) his movie career has been somewhat gentler. In his screenplays for Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994, Mike Newell), Notting Hill (1999, Roger Michel) and his own directorial efforts Love Actually (2003) and The Boat That Rocked (2009) Curtis has created an onscreen version of British life which is escapist but appealing. His outlook is unashamedly romantic and About Time has the familiar elements of a Curtis movie, a shy young man falling in love with a confident woman, a likeable bunch of eccentric supporting characters, awkward family occasions, and lots of swearing. Somebody seems to have sorted out his iPod though. There's no Wet Wet Wet on the soundtrack for About Time but rather class acts like Nick Cave and Scottish singer Paul Buchanan.

Written & Directed by Richard Curtis

Running Time - 2 hrs 4 minutes 

LFF 2013 - Mystery Road (Ivan Sen)

For years now Aboriginal actor Aaron Pedersen has been a charismatic presence on Australian TV shows like Water Rats, the recent Jack Irish adaptations, and a personal favourite of mine The Secret Life of Us. In Ivan Sen's thriller Mystery Road.  Pedersen finally gets a leading role as a police detective returning home from the city to the dead-end outback town he left a decade earlier. Why Jay Snow (Pedersen) came back is anybody's guess. Snow's fellow officers patronise him and his own folk hate him for turning cop. There's an ex-wife Mary (Tasma Walton) but she's drinking her life away and angry at Snow for ignoring their daughter.

As with Jindabyne (2006, Ray Lawrence) the murder of a young Aboriginal woman causes conflict in a small town. While in Lawrence's relocation of a Raymond Carver short story the killing causes much soul searching amongst the townsfolk here nobody seems to care. Found near the highway with her throat slashed the teenager was a drug addict who prostituted herself to passing truck drivers.

Snow is given no resources to investigate the murder even though there's a long list of suspects including a kangaroo hunting sharpshooter (Ryan Kwanten), a drug pusher (Damian Walshe-Howling) preying on the Aboriginal community, and maybe even Snow's enigmatic colleague Jonno (Hugo Weaving) who has a habit of turning up at inopportune moments. Weaving is exceptional as a man whose threatening nature is only slightly softened by his avuncular manner and whose wardrobe seems to consist entirely of faded denim sleeveless shirts.

Racial tensions simmering under the surface of everyday life and the marginalisation of indigenous Australians are placed within the framework of the Western genre. Like the US show Justified it is interested in how poverty in small deprived communities often forces people towards crime or finding an escape though drink and drugs. It's no grim affair either with Sen's screenplay providing a dry sense of humour and Pedersen's understated performance holds the attention. When the inevitable showdown arrives it's one of the finest shoot-outs in recent memory. An intense fifteen-minute exchange which is chaotic, messy, and unusually for an onscreen gun battle everybody involved seems to fear for their lives.

Sen's slow burn approach burns a little too slowly and there is too much heavy handed symbolism on show. Occasionally the reliance on lengthy conversations with suspects makes the film feel a little too much like a television police procedural. Despite these minor flaws Mystery Road is engrossing and should provide both writer/director Sen and Aaron Pedersen with international breakthroughs. 

Mystery Road

Written and directed by Ivan Sen

Australia

2013

112 minutes

EIFF 2013 - The Bling Ring (2013, Sofia Coppola)

"What did Lindsay Say?"

Like a bitchy little sister to Sorkin/Fincher's The Social Network (2010) Sofia Coppola's movie shares similar thematic concerns of friendship in the social media age and modern celebrity. The Bling Ring is based on the Vanity Fair article 'The Suspects Wore Louboutins' by Nancy Jo Sales about a group of High School kids who robbed a bunch of celebrities of goods worth over $3 million. The group would check Facebook and online gossip sites for information about a particular celebrity to see if they were out of town, google the address, then find a way in without breaking and entering. They regularly turned over Paris Hilton's fantastically kitsch mansion because the heiress kept a key under the welcome mat. Given the comic mileage Coppola gets from this amazingly furnished abode Hilton is either a great sport or still leaves her key under the mat and the director snuck the cast and crew in while the heiress was on one of her many holidays.

Shy and neurotic Marc (Israel Broussard) is pleasantly surprised to be taken under the wing of confident Rebecca (Katie Chang) on his first day at his new school. Rebecca shares his interest in celebrity gossip sites and expensive clothes. She pays for her outfits by stealing cash and valuables from parked cars. They graduate to breaking into a school-friend's house then targeting the homes of celebrities. Other kids get involved including Nicki (Emma Watson) whose upbringing on a diet of adderall and her mother's new-age religion means she talks in the kind of meaningless self-actualisation nonsense celebrities spout in interviews, and Chloe (Claire Julien) who wears her DUI like a badge of honour. At first the raids are low-key activities, but they soon gravitate to house parties which they are silly enough to boast about to impress their peers.

Latterly the invasion of a reality TV star's glass-panelled home is observed coolly from a distance like a scene from Michael Mann's crime thriller Heat (1995) before Coppola cuts to a security team watching over them. CCTV footage of this break-in ends up on the news turning them into media stars. Coppola's aversion to moralising means the story is seen from the point of view of the kids. It's why for most of the film their behaviour seems fun. She's not condoning their activities but expecting the audience to work out they are a bunch of spoilt brats. Yet she is too kind a director not to feel something for them. A recurring theme in her movies is people who seem to have everything but still find themselves drifting aimlessly through life. They might be comfortable but there is some spark missing. Behind these kids obsession with material goods and being seen in the right places there is a basic human need to belong.

Coppola fetishisation of brand labels and the bodies of the young and the beautiful are often taken as examples of shallowness. The Bling Ring will only exacerbate those criticisms but her ephemeral film-making style and her empathy for those whose stories she tells make her one of the most intriguing and atypical voices in contemporary American cinema. 

The Great Gatsby (2013, Baz Luhrmann) - Screening Notes

Courtesy of Warner Bros

F. Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack at the age of 44 after years of heavy drinking took their toll. His friend Edmund Wilson edited together a draft version of Fitzgerald's final work 'The Last Tycoon' for publication. In the foreword Wilson wrote about the people in Fitzgerald's stories living for 'big parties at which they go off like fireworks and which are likely to leave them in pieces.' Traditionalists balked when the flamboyant director of 'Strictly Ballroom' (1992) Baz Luhrmann announced his plans to make a version of Fitzgerald's 1925 masterpiece 'The Great Gatsby.' Fitzgerald is a subtle writer, while Luhrmann's movies are gaudy coloured confections which move at a breathless pace. They do not at first sight seem a good match. Yet Wilson's comment about wonderful ruinous parties suits Luhrmann too. 'William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet' (1996) and 'Moulin Rouge' (2001) set up their doomed love affairs during lengthy and elaborately designed set-pieces that wouldn't look out of place in an old-fashioned Hollywood musical. Fitzgerald and Luhrmann may have differing approaches to their respective crafts but both men clearly know how to party.

For all Luhrmann's showiness though this is still at heart Fitzgerald's story. 1922, young writer Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) attends a lavish party thrown by mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio). Luhrmann's visually spectacular approach to filmmaking is evident in how he arranges the first meeting between Carraway and Gatsby. In the novel the two men happen to stand next to each other at a party and begin talking. Luhrmann's encounter is a seismic moment, there are fireworks in the sky. Music soars. DiCaprio's movie star smile lights up the screen. Like Truman Capote's Holly Golightly Gatsby is a fake but a genuine fake. The parties are a ruse intended to attract the attention of the love of his life Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) who lives across the bay and is now married. As with 'Moulin Rouge' Luhrmann uses contemporary music which in a period piece should feel anachronistic but instead comments on either a particular scene or a character's emotional state. Lana Del Ray's joyously melancholic song 'Young and Beautiful' reappears throughout as a refrain as Gatsby and Daisy attempt to rekindle their love affair behind the back of her ruthless businessman husband Tom (Joel Edgerton).

Station regulars will remember F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda appearing in 'Midnight in Paris' as bright young things partying with the Lost Generation of writers and artists. Later they drank their fill, too many gin rickey's and late nights did for them both but Fitzgerald seems to have known this would happen. In his novels the comedown from the parties and the damage done afterwards was always irreparable. Luhrmann maintains this undercurrent of loss. Gatsby is a difficult part and requires a movie star with enough presence to catch the attention at first glance and DiCaprio delivers. Not just in terms of beauty but in his easy charm and vulnerability. It is a great performance, anchoring this wild ride of a movie with the yearning of a man who wants the unattainable. 

Talaash (2013) - Screening Notes

THE ANSWER LIES WITHIN

Cast & Crew

Aamir Khan - Inspector Surjan Singh Shekhawat

Kareen Kapoor - Rosie

Rani Mukerj - Roshni Shekhawat

Written by

Reema Kagti  Farhan Akhtar, Zoya Akhtar, Anurag Kashyup

Directed by Reema Kagti

Running time 131 minutes

Though largely ignored by Western audiences Bollywood movies are big business in one of the largest territories in the world. Once mocked for their low budgets (visit Youtube and search for the Bollywood version of Spielberg's Jaws for a cheap laugh) these days Hindi movies are as stylish as their Hollywood counterparts. Many of these films are musicals and influenced by the work of classic directors like Stanley Donen (Singin' in the Rain). The tone is one of pure entertainment, escapism from everyday life. For an idea of how gloriously demented and funny they can be seek out Om Shanti Om (2007, Farah Khan).

Talaash is something else entirely, a sleek crime thriller with a phantasmagorical edge. The opening credits set the tone with a jazz torch song playing over images of neon-lit strip joints, working girls plying their trade, and beggars in the street. An unusually bleak opening for a Bollywood movie and one which tells us director Reema Kagti is taking a more realistic approach to the material and will not shy away from showing the rougher side of life in one of Mumbai's roughest areas.

Crime thrillers are as much about the man investigating wrongdoing as they are about criminal activity. Inspector Surjan Singh is a grieving father with a crumbling marriage who becomes obsessed with a seemingly unsolvable case involving a dead movie star. Singh develops a bond with Rosie, a prostitute who guides him through the backstreets of Mumbai as he searches for the answers he seeks. Rosy however seems to know more than she is letting on and what began as a simple car accident becomes something much stranger. 

Hyde Park on the Hudson (2012) - Screening Notes

Copyright Universal Studios 2012

A sequel of sorts to The King's Speech (2010, Tom Hooper) this time with King George VI (Samuel West) and his wife Elizabeth (Olivia Coleman) visiting US President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Bill Murray) to engender support for the War effort. However Roosevelt is distracted by the women in his life, wife Eleanor (Olivia Williams), mother Sara (Elizabeth Wilson), and secretary Missy (Elizabeth Marvel). All this is seen through the eyes of country girl Daisy (Laura Linney), an outsider who develops her own special relationship with the President.

Written by Richard Nelson

Directed by Roger Michell

Running time 94 minutes

Director Profile - Roger Michell

South-African born director who specialises in intelligent dramas. Michell began his career at the BBC winning huge acclaim for The Buddha of Suburbia (1993) a coming-of age story starring Naveen Andrews (Lost) based on writer Hanif Kureishi's own experiences as a teenager in 1970's London. An outstanding adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Persuasion (95) starring Ciarán Hinds and Amanda Root was made for television but received an international cinema release. Michell moved into directing features with the low-budget IRA drama Titanic Town (1998) starring Julie Walters but it was his next film which put him on the A-list. Michell was hired to direct Notting Hill (1999), screenwriter Richard Curtis's follow-up to his box-office smash Four Weddings and a Funeral (94, Mike Newell) which again showed his skill at using London as a location.

Changing Lanes (2002) is less successful, a road rage drama about the clash between a young lawyer (Ben Affleck) and an African American businessman (Samuel L. Jackson) it feels contrived. Michell returned to surer footing with three London based films. Reteaming with Kureishi Michell directed The Mother (2003) which tells the story of the sexual relationship between a young handyman (Daniel Craig) and a an older woman. Craig also stars in Enduring Love (04), an adaptation of the Ian McEwan psychological thriller. Venus (06) is again scripted by Kureishi and deals with the awkward relationship between a retired actor (Peter O'Toole) and his carer. Back to Hollywood again with mixed results for the comedy Morning Glory (2010) with Harrison Ford. Michell's next film is based on another Kureishi script, Le Weekend and set in Paris. 

Lincoln (2012, Steven Spielberg) - Screening Notes

"The greatest measure of the Nineteenth Century. Passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America."

In Frank Capra's classic movie Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939) a regular guy enters politics and is horrified by the corruption he witnesses. At his lowest ebb he considers quitting but finds new strength at the Lincoln Monument. Capra backlights Lincoln's statue making it look God-like, a mythical figure. Interesting then to see Steven Spielberg's biopic which presents Lincoln in an earthier fashion. A man who argues with his wife, tells jokes in company, and is more than capable of dealing with the complexities of political life. Tony Kushner's screenplay begins in 1865 amongst the blood and chaos of the Civil War then follows Lincoln's attempts over the next year to win the twenty votes he needs to force through the Thirteenth Amendment banning slavery.

Kushner previously collaborated with Spielberg on another historically based movie Munich (2005) about the Israeli hit squad seeking reprisals for the eleven murdered athletes at the 1972 Olympics. He is best known in the US for his Pulitzer winning play Angels in America set at the height of the AIDS epidemic and his writing has a grittiness which counterpoints Spielberg's tendency towards grand spectacle. Though epic in scale and length Lincoln takes place mostly indoors and concerns itself more with the backroom deals, political machinations, the compromises needed and sometimes cast aside for progress to be made. At the heart of the film is a towering performance from Daniel Day-Lewis, suggesting both the charisma of Lincoln and the greatness in the man which still makes him the most revered of all American Presidents. 

The Impossible - Screening Notes

"I will find them, I promise you that."

The Impossible is based on the true story of the Alvaraz family and their incredible struggle to survive the Tsunami which devastated Thailand in 2004. Though the family's nationality has been changed from Spanish to British the film is apparently a credible recreation of events. Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts play parents whose career worries fade into insignificance when they are separated from each other by the disaster. Henry (McGregor) is left with two of their boys, while eldest son Lucas (Tom Holland) is swept away with Maria (Watts).

Director Juan Antonio Bayano made his feature debut with the creepy horror film The Orphanage (2007) and you can see the influence of that genre here. Bayano builds tension with close-ups of everyday objects being used (a juice blender, a ball bouncing) that coupled together with the ominous music seem to act as portents. The first act makes it very clear the devastating the effects of the Tsunami hitting the resort and the sound design department captures every crunching noise as trees are snapped like twigs, buildings demolished, and people dragged underwater. Camerawork is often handheld and used to disorient the viewer.

It would be unfair to reveal any more except to say after this powerful opening sequence the film becomes a journey through a ruined landscape as the survivors come together and try to find their own folk. While Watts received an Oscar nomination for her performance and McGregor also impresses young Tom Holland steals the film as the resourceful Lucas. There is also a striking but all too brief appearance from Geraldine Chaplin as a kindly stranger. The Impossible is a powerful but ultimately rewarding viewing experience. 

Written by Sergio G. Sánchez, Maria Bélon

Directed by Juan Antonio Bayano

Running time 114 mins

Bond Movies - The Beginning

The Bond films are released on Blu-ray over the next couple of weeks so I'm going to post some Bond related articles starting with reviews of Dr No and From Russia with Love, both directed by Terence Young whose contribution to the look and feel of a James Bond movie can still be seen in the franchise fifty years later. 

Dr No (1962, Terence Young)

Courtesy of MGM

"World domination. The same old dream."

Once upon a time, many years ago, when Sean Connery still had most of his hair, audiences saw a James Bond film for the very first time. Nowadays most people have their favourite Bond actor, or movie, or Bond girl, but they went to see Dr No without any of the baggage modern audiences bring to the franchise. Though it is rougher than later Bond movies Dr No remains of huge interest not just for starting the franchise, but for its contribution to the action movie.

Barry Nelson had played an Americanised version of James Bond in a TV version of Casino Royale in 1954 but it was not a success. Producers Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli and Harry Saltzman considered a number of actors for the role of James Bond. Novelist and Bond creator Ian Fleming wanted David Niven, while Cubby and Saltzman courted Danger Man star Patrick McGoohan. Dana Broccoli, Cubby’s wife, saw a rugged-looking actor in the slightly barmy musical Darby O’Gill and the Little People (Robert Stevenson 1959) and told her husband she'd found his 007.

Until Mrs Broccoli clapped her eyes on him Sean Connery was a bit-part player in movies like Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (John Guillerman 1959) and Cy Enfield’s brilliant Hell Drivers (1957). A working-class Scot rather than the posh boy Fleming wanted, director Terence Young spruced Connery up and knocked off a few of those rough edges.

James Bond (Connery) is sent to Jamaica to investigate the deaths of two British agents. Teaming up with CIA operative Felix Leiter (Jack Lord), Bond finds himself on an island belonging to the mysterious Dr No (Joseph Wiseman), who has a nuclear laboratory and intends to reroute rockets from Cape Canaveral.

 Although Dr No lays down the formula for the James Bond franchise there are some noticeable differences. There is no pre-title sequence and no song playing over the opening credits. Stuntman Bob Simmons performs the gun barrel walk instead of Sean Connery. Guy Hamilton would click all the elements into place with Goldfinger, but Dr No and From Russia with Love are grittier than many of the films that would follow them.

Despite this there are still plenty of the Bondian touches audiences would come to know and expect from a James Bond film. The villain is a meglomaniac with a physical impairment and there is plenty of action though these sequences are far more low-key than the extravagant set-pieces the franchis has become known for. Best of all is the young, lean and fit Sean Connery as Bond, in his element and ruthlessly delivering a pay-off line Dirty Harry would be proud of to one of his victims, "That's a Smith and Wesson, and you've had your six."

There is also a girl and she is remarkable, though calling her a girl does her a disservice. When Ursula Andress emerges from the sea it is fairly obvious she is all woman. Every time a new Bond film is released we hear the same old spiel from actresses and the press about how this time the girls are more than mere decoration, they are strong women. It's nonsense, Bond girls were always strong. Honey Ryder (Andress) casually delivers an anecdote about killing a man with a poisonous spider because he interfered with her. She might look great in a bikini but Honey is tough enough to deal with any man, even James Bond.

From Russia with Love (1963, Terence Young)

Courtesy of MGM

"Red wine with fish. That should have told me something."

After the box-office success of Dr No work quickly began on a sequel.  Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman intended to put together a Bond film every year though they would find this to be increasingly difficult as the size of the productions grew increasingly bigger.  From Russia with Love had twice the budget afforded to Dr No and its filming remains one of the most troubled shoots in the franchises history.  

SPECTRE wants revenge for the death of their agent Dr No at the hands of James Bond (Sean Connery).  They set a trap for Bond by tipping the British of about a decoding device called the Lektor the Russians have designed, knowing full well they will send Bond after it. 

SPECTRE assign Soviet double-agent Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya) and ruthless assassin Red Grant (Robert Shaw) to obtain the Lektor and kill Bond.  Klebb forces a beautiful young Soviet agent Tatiana Romanov (Daniela Bianchi) to seduce Bond and lure him into SPECTRE’s trap. 

From Russia with Love had some serious problems during production.  The screenplay was a work in progress.  Actor Pedro Armendariz became gravely ill during filming and was diagnosed with cancer.  The shooting schedule was rearranged to accommodate Armendiaz allowing him to film all his scenes together. 

Director Terence Young had a lucky escape while filming a boat chase when the helicopter he was travelling in spiraled out of control and sank into the sea.  Showing the kind of fortitude 007 would have been proud Young escaped from the stricken aircraft and returned to work immediately after being treated at the scene. 

From Russia with Love sees two iconic figures in Bond history making their first appearances in the franchise.  Desmond Llelwyn begins his long-running stint as Q, MI6’s gadget master, forever upset with Bond for misusing his inventions.  Bond’s nemesis Blofeld is also present, although his face is never shown.  Blofeld’s voice is provided by Eric Pohlmann while Anthony Dawson is the unseen actor holding the trademark white cat.

From Russia with Love was a huge success outgunning its predecessor at the box-office.  Audiences at the time could identify with the stand-off between East and West in From Russia with Love after witnessing the Cuban missile crisis the year before.  They could also be comforted by the idea of the British and Soviets working together to defeat a common enemy. 

Though Terence Young’s direction seems rather staid these days, Peter Hunt’s editing livens things up especially during the vicious showdown between Bond and Red Grant onboard the Orient Express, where the two big men smash each other around in a confined space.  

Station Screening - Les Miserables (2012, Tom Hooper)

"there are no little facts in the human realm, any more than there are little leaves in the realm of vegetation."

Victor Hugo

In 1815 Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) is released from prison on parole. After being shown mercy by a priest he robbed Valjean vows to change his ways. Some years later Valjean has assumed a new identity and become a respectable factory owner but an encounter with Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe), a former prison guard of Valjean puts him under threat. Having broken his parole Valjean is a wanted criminal and Javert is a relentless adherent to the law unwilling to compromise or show any compassion towards those he pursues.

There have been several film adaptations of Victor Hugo’s original 1862 novel most recently in 1998 with Liam Neeson starring in a lavish Billie August production, and more daringly Claude Lelouch’s 1995 epic which relocates the story to Nazi-Occupied France and stars the legendary French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo. Hooper's movie is the first big screen version of the musical and rather than pre-record the actors he chose to have them sing live on set. Les Miserables the stageplay is the work of Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil. Impresario Cameron Mackintosh brought the musical to London and turned the show into a worldwide phenomenon.

 Jackman’s background is in musical theatre so he is well suited to the part of Valjean. Crowe made his own minor contribution to popular music by fronting his own band in the mid-80’s under the pseudonym Russ le Roq. Rounding out the impressive cast are Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Helena Bonham-Carter. Director Tom Hooper started out in British television directing shows like Eastenders and Cold Feet, before graduating to prestige TV dramas like Elisabeth I (2005), Longford (06), and the mini-series John Adams (08). Hooper made his movie debut with an adaptation of David Peace’s acclaimed novel about Brian Clough’s brief tenure at Leeds United The Damned United (09). The unexpected success of The King’s Speech (2010) which became a massive box-office hit and an Oscar-winner put him on Hollywood's most wanted list. Les Miserables is up for Best Picture at the Academy Awards which are being held this weekend. 

Lisa and the Devil (1974, Mario Bava)

"Most things aren't that easy to mend."

Took me a while to get through this wonderfully put together release from Arrow Video which includes two versions of the film, director's commentaries for both, and an accompanying booklet plus a making of documentary. Rarely seen in its original form until 1983, Lisa and the Devil was re-edited by producer Alberto Leone after it failed to attract any distributors at the Cannes Fim Festival. Leone added new footage to cash in on the success of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973).  The resulting farrago became The House of Exorcism, a notoriously awful production in need of an exorcism with only the ghost of Bava's original intentions remaining.  Thankfully the devilish influence of Leone was removed by an American network television channel who screened Lisa and the Devil as Mario Bava originally intended.

Lisa (Elke Sommer) is part of a group of tourists admiring a Fresco painting of the Devil carrying away the dead.  She is led away from the crowd by the sound of music into the back alleys of the city and loses her way.  Lisa enters an old antiquarian shop to ask for directions and meets Leandro (Telly Savalas) who is purchasing a life-sized dummy of middle-aged man.  Unsettled by Leandro, whose likeness is uncannily like the Devil in the Fresco painting, Lisa tries to find her way back to the square.  Instead she encounters Leandro again in maze-like streets, then a man who shares a resemblance to the dummy he was carrying.  As darkness falls she grows increasingly lost, until she hitches a lift in a chauffeur-driven vintage car to a house in the country. Instead of reaching safety Lisa finds herself haunted by memories of a past life.  Leandro is there too working as the butler, a wry, amused presence watching over the occupants of the big house as if he has seen this all before.

Mario Bava is usually given the backhanded compliment of being a great horror film director though he is so much more. A former cameraman, Bava’s eye for detail and his mastery of the technicalities of directing helped him create a lush visual style. Bava is less concerned with coherence than with creating a mood, often with a dreamlike logic and a talent for ending his films with unforgettable images. A recurring theme in the Bava's work is the ruination of beauty; of things dying and decaying. There is a sense of loss in his films and a belief in death being a transformation into something beyond our understanding which is affecting regardless of whatever kind of film Bava is directing.

Lisa and the Devil is Bava's purest film, a stylish gothic fantasy with a magnificent score by Carlo Savina. Sadly for many years it was only available in its fragmented form as House of Exorcism in which a demonic possession plot investigated by an American priest (Robert Alda) alters the meaning of the original movie completely. Bava's ambiguity is replaced with the certainty of Lisa's innocence as a Linda Blair style demonic possession takes over her. The latter is worth watching out of interest just to see how Leone carried out what he considered a salvage job on a movie he couldn't sell. In 1974 Lisa and the Devil seemed a little out of time in an era where the Devil was launching profanities and green puke from a child's mouth. It may have taken a few years but it is good to see some things can be mended. 

Hitchcock (2012, Sacha Gervasi)

"That, my dear, is why they call me the Master of Suspense." 

Based on a book by the film writer and Hitchcock expert Stephen Rebello Hitchcock deals with the production of Psycho and the director's battles with the studios to get the film made. To be honest I was dreading Hitchcock fearing another My Week with Marilyn (2011, Simon Curtis) debacle with famous actors giving awkward impersonations of film stars from days gone past and there is an element of that here. Neither Anthony Hopkins or Scarlett Johansson remotely resemble Hitchcock or Janet Leigh respectively. Hopkins gets the voice and mannerisms right but you never feel for a moment you are watching anything other than a performance. James D'Arcy however is a great fit for Anthony Perkins if a decade to old for the delicate tormented star but it is a lovely performance though sadly he's only in a handful of scenes.

Another problem is the lack of drama present in this story. Hitchcock's approach to making Psycho may have been unusual but it is not extraordinary. The attempts to portray Hitchcock as a busted flush and a tired old man don't ring true. There was conflict yes with the studio but not overly so and nobody died during production. Hitchcock's marketing of the film was ingenious but doesn't really come across here. Yet despite these flaws Hitchcock has a playfulness which carries it even though I suspect you would learn more about the Master of Suspense's approach to directing Psycho  by watching Gus Van Sant's much maligned but fascinating shot-by-shot remake.

Hitchcock opens with notoriously insane Ed Gein killing his own brother. Robert Bloch's novel 'Psycho' is a salacious adaptation of Gein's life. A mummy's boy who became increasingly disturbed after her death, Gein began to exhume corpses from his local graveyard to use their body parts for household objects. Eventually Gein murdered at least two more people. Gein (Michael Wincott) reappears throughout Hitchcock as a manifestation of Hitch's id and it is a pity director Sacha Gervasi doesn't take more risks rather than the conventional biopic approach the rest of the film follows. John J. McLaughlin's screenplay is more interested in the relationship between Hitchcock and his wife Alma (Helen Mirren) and her importance as a producer which is fine but the scenes of them sniping at each other over breakfast turn the middle part of the film into a domestic chore.

While there is a gallows humour Hitch would have approved of McLaughlin and  Gervasi never delve deep into his psyche or offer much insight into the creative process. The obsession with Hitchcock's leading ladies is dealt with briefly but not with the same relish as the recent HBO TV movie The Girl which was undone by the ludicrous casting of Toby Jones and the faux classiness that has infected that channel's recent output (Game of Thrones apart). Hitchcock is better value but if you're really interested I'd recommend reading Rebello's Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho instead. 

Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009, John Hyams)

Wrote this review of Universal Soldier: Regeneration a few years ago for another site. Thought I'd repost as the fourth film Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (Hyams) is released on Monday and there have been some very positive reviews Stateside. 

Universal Soldier appeared in 1992 and brought together two of the most popular action heroes of the time, Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren. Both men were trying to establish themselves as Hollywood A-Listers so this was an important film for them.


The man who benefited most from Universal Soldier was working behind the camera though. Director Roland Emmerich went on to direct increasingly large and stupid blockbusters like Independence Day (1995) and 2012 (2009) while Van Damme and Lundgren ended up as straight-to-DVD mainstays.

This time around we are in B-movie territory. The budget is minimal, with shooting taking place in and around a single location. Van Damme and Lundgren have far less screen time than you would expect. Most of the early action features former Ultimate Fighting Champion Andrei ‘The Pit Bull’ Arlovski as a new tougher breed of Unisol called NGU.

Universal Soldier: Regeneration is directed by John Hyams. Directing Van Damme movies must run in the family; Hyam’s father Peter helmed Sudden Death back in 1995. Hyams Senior is also involved in Universal Soldier: Regeneration acting as Director of Photography. You could call this nepotism, but if your son was going to Chernobyl to make a film with a guy called Andrei the Pitbull you would probably want to keep an eye on him.

Terrorists abduct the President’s children and hold them hostage at Chernobyl. Presumably filming took place in a less radioactive location. The reactor is rigged with explosives and the Russians are given 72 hours to give in to the terrorists demands.

Jean Claude Van Damme appears only briefly in the first hour. Luc Deveraux (Van Damme) is now a burnt out basket case with no recollection of his past. Van Damme looks burnt out too, as if he had just wandered onto the set after delivering his monologue at the finale of his acclaimed movie JCVD (Mabrouk El Mechri 2008).

Rehab is not going well for Luc. An outing to a local bar with his shrink ends with him repeatedly punching one of the patrons. When NGU takes out an entire team of American Unisol’s Deveraux is abducted and returned to duty.

Unfortunately the bad guys have another Unisol in reserve. Andrew Scott (Lundgren) is reawakened though if the doctor responsible had seen the first film he would probably have avoided this. Scott is crazy and quickly turns on anybody who gets on his way. Scott was last seen being torn to shreds by farm machinery so it must taken considerable skill to put his body back together. No wonder Scott never appeared in Universal Soldier: The Return (Mic Rodgers 1999), the scientists were probably still trying to work out which bit went where.

The confrontation between Van Damme and Lundgren is almost rendered meaningless by both characters being unable to remember each other. In the original the finale involved plenty of Van Damme’s trademark high-kicking. Modern action films tend to rely on more realistic moves rather than fancy footwork and so it proves here with a brutal confrontation more akin to a streetfight than the balletic mayhem of Van Damme’s early films.

Despite the lack of recognition between Deveraux and Scott the battle becomes oddly moving as one of them becomes aware of whom he is fighting against at the very last moment. Lundgren, always the most amusing of the 80’s action heroes gives it his all despite his brief screen time. Van Damme looks like he would rather be elsewhere. No wonder after delivering the performance of his life in JCVD and then finding himself making a sequel nobody needed or wanted.

The aim of Universal Soldier: Regeneration seems to have been to launch Andre ‘The Pitbull’ Arlovski as an action hero. Casting him as a killer cyborg with his personality removed may not have been the best way to introduce him to audiences, but he certainly looks the part. Van Damme and Lundgren should have given this a miss though, they deserve much better than what amounts to glorified cameos in somebody else’s movie.