Tag: film

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Film Review

Tower Block (dir. James Nunn, Ronnie Thompson) 2012

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This is a no nonsense, horror/thriller movie. It is set on the top floor of a tower block that is about to be demolished. It is a British film and has an excellent British cast. It moves along exactly as you would expect, but the action is taut and interaction between characters manage to keep good tension going throughout he film.

Sheridan Smith, Russell Tovey, Ralph Brown and Jack O’Connell are all very good as the resourceful tower block inhabitants attempting to escape their situation, while quarrelling amongst themselves.  The set is excellent, the block is scuzzy, the area urban, the setting is as bleak as the position the tenants find themselves in.

The characters are flawed, but real, and there is not much pretense of politeness between them. The script is good and we grow to know, even if we don’t necessarily like, the protagonists. We want them succeed and applaud their increasingly desperate ingenuity.

This type of film generally follows a set narrative arc and the denouement is much as you would expect. There aren’t many surprises here, but it is a likeable film and very good at what it does.

Recommended.

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Film Review

The Nice Guys (dir. Shane Black) 2016

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This is a curate’s egg of a film – good in parts. It’s sets out to be a pastiche of a corny 1970s Blaxploitation movie, and it succeeds almost too well for its own good. The plot is very ’70s, a light, far fetched, political conspiracy theory.

The characters are caricatures. Ryan Gosling as Holland March is quite knowing about it and carries it off very well, we get to like him and he is actually very funny.  Russell Crowe seems to be just walking through the film saying his lines, so his character is two dimensional. Angourie Rice is great as Holland’s daughter and also has some of the best lines of the show.

This movie contains violence, sex references, nudity, bad language and drug use; all gratuitous, all characteristic of the time. Not so funny in itself but funny because in the 70s they were only recently able to put these into films, so they did, even if it was unnecessary.  The humour is broad, bordering on slapstick, but it works, mostly

The sets are perfect and costumes are right on.  I particularly enjoyed the soundtrack, apparently some of the songs were too late for the time in which it was set, but they felt right to me.

On balance, Shane Black has done an excellent job directing “The Nice Guys” in that, from slight material, he has made a little go a long way.

 

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Film Review

Penelope (dir. Mark Palansky) 2006

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Penelope has a high quality cast. It is a film studded with famous names. Christina Ricci and James McAvoy play the leads, but it also has Richard E. Grant, Ronni Ancona, Peter Dinklage, Nick Frost, Reese Witherspoon, Catherine O’Hara and many other recognisable people. In fact, I have to say we did enjoy playing spot the celebrity throughout this film.

The acting was actually good, but I cannot say that I enjoyed this movie. I didn’t like the premise. It is about a young girl who has a curse set upon her, causing her to be born with a pig’s nose. It set out to say that beauty is only skin deep and that the person is more important than how they look. However, the writer and director obviously did not believe this to be true, you could tell by the over-reaction of everyone to Penelope’s nose. Her parents believed that it was okay to keep her hidden from the world because of her looks. They felt that they would have to trick someone into marrying her. I was also not keen on a 21st century film suggesting that the only good outcome for a young girl is marriage.

I did not like the outcome of the film. I hated that the “happy ending” was not that somebody was able to love her for herself, but that her nose got fixed!

I understand that this film is marketed at children or young adults and that it is not aimed at my age group, but that makes it almost worse in a way. The film implies, as a joke admittedly, that it is normal behavior for people to run away and jump out of windows to get away from people who don’t conform to a look that we see as normal.

I realise that people have conflicting views and others may see this film differently, but if I had children of that age, this is not a movie that I would be taking them to see.

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Film Review

The Young Offenders, (dir. Peter Foott) 2016

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This is an Irish road movie, set in Cork. It is written and directed by Peter Foott and, if this film is representative of his work, he has a great talent for both dialogue and character development. Conor and Jock are two feckless 15 year olds, Conor works in a fishmongers, because his Mam is the only one who would hire him and Jock seems to support himself by nicking bikes. The film is the story of them taking off to the coast, to find some bags of cocaine that have supposedly been washed ashore from a shipwreck.

Imagine “Bill and Ted” doing “Smokey and the Bandit” in County Cork on stolen bicycles…. well it’s weirder and funnier than that.

One of the many great lines form this film states “There are two things you need for an adventure, a treasure map and someone dumb enough to go with you” Neither of these boys have a clue about anything, but by the end of the film, you are really invested in them and wish them success.

This film has a hard exterior but a soft center. Jock is covered in bruises from his hard drinking Dad, but it is hardly mentioned.  Conor and his Mam are verbally abusive to each other but have an almost tender scene in the second half of the film. The acting is naturalistic and there are great performances from Alex Murphy and Chris Wally as Conor and Jock.  Hilary Rose is excellent too as the harsh Mam and P.J. Gallagher as “the drug dealer”

I liked the cinematography, Cork looks lovely in the sun and there are some great songs on the soundtrack, including “Where’s me Jumper” by the Sultans of Ping.  The incidental parts are clever too, Cork and its environs seem populated with eccentric characters and quirky misfits. What makes this film stand out though, is the amazing script, it is littered with funny lines and mad ideas.

Peter Foott has made an excellent film here and I am already looking forward to his next one.

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Film Review

Sense and Sensibility (dir. Ang Lee) 1995

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Sense and Sensibility is a good film, but I believe that it is almost false advertising to call it by that name. The story is so changed from the book that, although the characters have the same names and the final result is the same, it is totally unrecognisable in places as the same story. Some quite major characters have been killed off.  John Middleton is now a widower and their young child no longer in the story.  Lucy Steele’s sister, who blabs the whole story if the illicit engagement, is not in the film. Hugh Grant is far too affable in character for the grumpy Edward Ferrars in the book. Alan Rickman too easily wins Marianne over after her disappointment in Willoughby.  In fact, in this film, almost the least charming character is Willoughby, who in the book wins over Marianne, and her mother, by his easy false charm.

The acting is good, Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman are very good playing the romantic leads in a costume drama set in the 18th century. Emma Thompson is full of repressed emotion and Kate Winslett is fine as an impulsive teenager falling in love easily and recovering easily. Imelda Staunton and Hugh Laurie are wonderfully funny as Mr and Mrs Palmer.

There are some great moments of humour, the script has some wonderful lines. It is visually very attractive and there is much to admire in the period detail. A great deal of care and attention went into the making of this film and it shows throughout the movie.

It was nominated for seven Oscars. It won the one for best adapted screenplay. It was hugely popular and led to a revival of sales of Jane Austen’s novels and for these reasons it must be celebrated. I would probably have liked it more had I not read the novel itself so recently.

The film itself is most enjoyable but do go to see it as a Hollywood representation of upper class England in the late 1790s and not as a  faithful adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, the book.

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Attractions Buildings

BFI Imax, Waterloo, London.

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The building itself is quite cool. Its an eight storey, circular Perspex edifice with gigantic posters trailing the latest blockbuster alternating on the outside.

The sound is excellent, both in terms of volume and quality. You may want plugs if you have sensitive ears, they definitely have it turned up to 11, but the system is up to it and the quality is good even at that level.

The screen is vast, the largest is the UK, 540square metres of it. The 3D quality is fantastic for those films made for it, in fact, some specialist films can only be seen at their best in an IMAX cinema. However for normal 3D films the quality is only a little better than your normal multiplex. Actually to be accurate it is better in the centre of the screen but can seem a little blurred at the edges. However the experience is far more immersive because of the size of the screen.

It is not cheap, our tickets were over £20 each last time we went. The seats are not comfortable enough to sit through a full movie easily. There seem to be too few toilets for the size of the venue, each time we have gone the queues have been long before and after the film.

However having said this, it is a unique experience and it is worth going at least once to see either a made for IMAX film or a big 3D blockbuster.

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Film Review music

20th Century Women (dir. Mike Mills) 2016

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20th Century Women is an interesting dissertation on motherhood – from the point of view of a son.

It is thoughtful and thought provoking. It has three strong female characters all of them well rounded and likeable. All three of them are excellently played and I am surprised that none of them were nominated for an Academy Award. The male characters on the other hand are less fully built and a little more caricatured.

I enjoyed the direction of the movie, Mike Mills made the narrative almost unimportant compared to the development of the characters, but completed their arc by giving a short profile of each character as they were introduced and a short synopsis of their life after the movie at the conclusion. I found this satisfying.

The Soundtrack is an odd, but not unpleasant, combination of new wave, punk and easy listening. It has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and, you never know, it could win. The screenplay is funny. I liked this film, it passed two hours very pleasantly. I suspect though, that in 5 years time, it’s one of those movies that I will sit on front of, on Netflix, and say “Oh yes, I’ve seen this, and I think it was good!”

 

 

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Film Review

Green Room (dir. Jeremy Saulnier) 2015

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Green Room is marketed as a violent thriller, gory horror movie. It is actually a violent thriller, gory horror movie. It delivers.

There is lots of blood, lots of violence, lots of aggression. There are plenty of thrills, many tense moments. It has a good cast, some dark humour and a loud indie/punk soundtrack.

It has Anton Yelchin as Pat, a guitarist in a punk rock band who witnesses a death. It has Imogen Poots as Amber, who turns out to be very handy with a knife and not at all squeamish about using it. It has Patrick Stewart as Darcy, a white supremacist with a small army of thugs and attack dogs at his disposal. He is brilliantly menacing and when he says near the start of the film “Let’s be clear. It won’t end well” you truly believe him.

Slash horror movies are not usually the type of film that I choose to watch, but a good movie is a good movie and this is well written, well directed and well acted.

In short, it is an excellent example of its genre. If you like violent thriller, gory horror movies you will enjoy this.

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Film Review

Toni Erdmann (dir. Maren Ade) 2016

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Toni Erdmann is a serious comedy. It makes you laugh, but it wants you to think.

I believe that there is going to be a Hollywood remake starring Jack Nicholson, in his first role for many years. Had it been any actor, other than Jack Nicholson, I would have thought it doomed to failure, but with him in the title role, it will be interesting to see how it turns out. Who they choose to direct will be important, too.

Maren Ade is a clever director, she throws in many jokes that are not funny, in order to make you laugh out loud at the serious parts, which are absurd and ridiculous.

It’s about a father daughter relationship. They have grown apart and the dad is determined to rectify that, whether or not his daughter has time for it. Sandra Huller as Ines is very good indeed, initially irritated by her father’s attention and his worry about her life/work balance, but gradually coming to see that he might indeed have a point.

Peter Simonischek is also good as Winfried/Toni, who is at his wits end, trying to work out how to win back the lost regard of his only daughter.

This movie is slow to start, but this is purposeful, in order to make you enjoy the gentle build up to the satisfying conclusion.

I have to admit, that I haven’t seen the other films up for the best foreign language Oscar, but I can say, that one of them would need to be exceptional indeed, if it is to beat Toni Erdmann to that Academy Award.

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Film Review

T2: Trainspotting (dir. Danny Boyle) 2016

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Trainspotting was one of the best, if not the best, films of the 1990s. In an era of remakes, follow-ups and spin-offs, waiting 20 years to do the sequel was remarkably restrained. Getting the original leads and director back together led to huge anticipation.

It is great to see the four protagonists again, and all four are on top form here. Danny Boyle’s direction is great, playing homage to the original but making it modern and keeping it relevant to the 2010s. Edinburgh looks great in its extremes; futuristic and rich, old fashioned and poor. If anything might be a bit weak, it could be the story. However although all the individual parts are good, it never reaches the highs of the original.

It is a bit like meeting a wild old friend after many years; you look forward to it, you have a good night out, you have changed a little, they have changed a little, it is nice to see them, but ultimately you don’t have much in common any more.