Tag: drama

movie reviews

Beauty And Sadness

by CJ1 Comment on Beauty And Sadness

Amour ***** (out of five)

amour-movie-poster-2It’s tempting to go overboard writing about Amour: “Master movie-maker Michael Haneke masterminds a masterclass in masterful masterpiece making!” But the fact is, it’s pretty much a perfect film on every level. Structurally assured, perfectly acted, and deeply moving, it tells a simple tale, and in doing so examines the absolute extremes of its theme, which is also its title: Love.

amour-movie-poster-11The central dramatic question is straight-forward: what do you do when your lifelong partner starts to rapidly deteriorate before you do?  Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva play George and Anne, two sophisticated, retired music teachers in their eighties. At the beginning of the film they are still sprightly, going out to see a former student’s performance, taking the tram home. They are as we may all want to be in our dessert days, namely, still deeply in love, and capable of being all the other needs to fill out their days. But then Anne has a stroke, and from there, Georges must face her deterioration as he himself remains healthy.

No more of the plot should be revealed, because it is going on Georges’ journey that forms the film, and it is sublimely told. Hanneke, who wrote the screenplay, has realized that, rather than sequences and acts, this is a story of moments, and he chooses all the right ones to portray his subject with absolute thematic depth. They have a daughter (Isabelle Huppert, perfect); she’s going to “want them to do more”: that’s a moment we need to see, and we see it. Likewise, at one point Georges has to fire a nurse: it’s a moment filled with so much to say about what it is to grow old, it’s astonishing.

Haneke and his Palme D'Or at Cannes 2012
Haneke and his Palme D’Or at Cannes 2012

But the most moving scenes are those when it’s just Georges and Anne alone. Both actors give perfect natural performances; it’s Georges’ story but Anne, of course, has to deteriorate; they both deserve all the awards and praise they’ve been receiving (Riva is nominated for a Best Actress Oscar; Trintignant should have been for Best Actor).

If all this sounds depressing, it’s actually not. It’s sad, of course, but that’s different. It’s also astoundingly thought-provoking and gorgeously shot. It’s beautiful. See it with someone you love.

Movie 43 * (out of five)

Movie-43
They all knew they should never have done MOVIE 43.

MV5BMTg4NzQ3NDM1Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjEzMjM3OA@@._V1_SX214_Movie 43, a set of gross-out sketches padded with a silly overarching story and performed by a galaxy of A List Stars, is depressing. Shoddily made but, worse, absolutely appallingly written from first sketch to last, it’s a complete fiasco, a dreadful, obnoxious, deeply embarrassing disaster from start (Hugh Jackman has testicles hanging from his neck!) to finish (Josh Duhamel’s cat anally pleasures himself while raping a teddy bear!) My hopes that it just might be so over-the-top it would work were dashed in the first minutes, and it never got better. Besides the dreadful writing of the sketches (sorry, did I mention that this movie is horribly written?), these actors are not Will Ferrell, Jack Black and Steve Carrell. This is obviously all of them, in a sense, screen-testing to become Big Screen Comedy Stars, and, let’s be honest, Kate Winslet, Halle Berry, Richard Gere, Dennis Quaid (he’s the worst of all) – that’s not gonna happen.43.rMovie-43_11Screen-shot-2013-02-08-at-1.42.25-PMelizabeth-banks-movie-43

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
To be honest, I laughed three times, but once was just at the sheer idea that the “joke” I’d just seen was even meant to be a joke, so that doesn’t really count. The movie stinks; it’s even at times legitimately offensive. Horrible. Avoid like the plague it is.

movie reviews

Good for your Constitution

by CJ2 Comments on Good for your Constitution

LINCOLN **** (out of five)

movie_609_thumbForVideoPanel


Make no mistake, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, centered with another uncanny performance by Daniel Day-Lewis, is an excellent movie, and it grows in stature the more you think about it, partly because the subject matter is just so monumentally important. Focusing on an extremely tight frame of about four months, this is no biopic, but rather the telling of Abraham Lincoln’s fierce resolve to amend the United States Constitution to abolish slavery and declare equality of the races in the eyes of the law.

1352486185-lincolnEssentially, this the story of the passage of a piece of legislation in the House of Representatives, and if that doesn’t sound too thrilling, don’t worry, it is. Even watching the vote itself is suspenseful and very moving. Unfortunately, there is an inherent dramatic flaw, necessitated by history and the structure of the US political system: the President doesn’t actually sit in the House of Representatives, and all the best scenes in the film take place there, so our lead character is out of the main action.

Abraham_Lincoln_November_1863Still, Day-Lewis gets to spin a lot of gentle anecdotes with great meaning, and has a few scenes where his passionate abhorrence of slavery get to see him riled up. This Lincoln exudes unbelievable intelligence and goodness; essentially without a flaw, it’s a strange role, and in lesser hands he may have been the cipher at the heart of the film that bore his name. Not in the hands of the Tall Irishman, however, who’s certain to add another Oscar to his shelf, not least because he’s playing someone just so darn perfect.

A second narrative thread looks at Lincoln’s family life; I didn’t need those scenes, and Sally Field, as Mrs. Lincoln, was a distraction: I never see a character when she’s onscreen, only Ms. Field, but that could be my own peccadillo. The usually solid Joseph Gordon-Levitt struggles with a whiny role as Lincoln’s oldest son, and a young cherubic chappy named Gulliver McGrath, as the youngest, has no business sharing the screen with The World’s Greatest Actor. He’s surprisingly bad – for Spielberg has shown in the past a huge talent for picking natural child performers; McGrath is about as natural as slavery.

lincoln-_h_2012An extraordinary supporting cast makes full meal of a panoply of Republicans and Democrats, led by Tommy Lee Jones, David Strathairn, Hal Holbrook and David Constabile, and including a nefarious triumvirate of political murky dealers played by an excellent James Spader, Tim Blake Nelson and and John Hawkes. Jared Harris turns up as Ulysses S. Grant, Jackie Earle Haley brings his weaselly vibe to Alexander Stephens, and on and on it goes, famous faces as famous players.

A perfect educational tool for the decades to come, Lincoln is also surprisingly urgent, and an excellent metaphor for the current state of the US Presidency: if you’re wondering why it’s taking Mr. Obama a little longer than you’d hoped for him to make good on some of his 2008 Campaign promises, just look at the intense difficulties of getting stuff done in Washington, as represented by this sombre, powerful film, one of Spielberg’s most restrained, and best.

movie reviews

Heath, come back! We need you.

by CJ2 Comments on Heath, come back! We need you.

Bel Ami *** (out of five)

Adapted from Guy de Maupassant’s second novel, published in 1885, Bel Ami is a good film, with some very strong elements, let down rather tremendously by a seriously amiss piece of central casting.

The source material is excellent stuff. Titled Bel Ami, or, The History of a Scoundrel when first published in England in 1903, it’s a thrilling page-turner; the story of a somewhat poor but desperately ambitious clerk living in Paris who essentially sleeps his way to the top of society, it’s got everything: lashings of sex, intrigue, a glamourous milieu, politics, power and corruption, high stakes, and, in Georges Duroy, an irresistibly irredeemable cad of the highest – and by that I mean absolute lowest – order. You can imagine that a young Robert Downey Jr., Heath Ledger or Rupert Everett would have had a field day with the part; Daniel Radcliffe, I reckon, has the chops to have made it sing.

Pity, then, that the responsibility falls to Robert Pattinson, who is astoundingly not up to the task. To my mind, Pattinson, who I have only seen before in Remember Me (I have not seen any of the Twilight franchise) is many moons away from having the skills to carry a film. He misjudges everything. When required to be pleased, he smiles like someone who has been told they’ve won the lottery; when required to be disturbed, he pouts and sulks petulantly; when required to seduce a woman – the central requirement of this role – he leers at them with what almost seems like sneering contempt. Every woman in this film is meant to find Georges irresistible, but that’s hard to believe when he’s always making such ugly faces.

The nature of this material – indeed the “history of a scoundrel” – requires a strong focus on the lead character, and co-directors Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod dutifully shoot lots and lots of close-ups of Pattinson, which only compound the problem, as he’s especially unbelievable in close-up. The whole situation isn’t helped either by Pattinson being surrounded by excellent actors who are all in fine form: Uma Thurman (particularly), Kristin Scott Thomas, Colm Meaney, Christina Ricci and Philip Glenister all give intricate, strong performances that are ripe enough for the soapy material. It’s just such a pity they have to share all their scenes with an actor who simply isn’t in their league.

I loved watching the terrific plot unfold; the production design and music are exemplary, and it’s simply a fascinating world to live in for just shy of two hours. Pity that the name that almost certainly got the movie green-lit is the name that shouldn’t be above the title.