NORWEGIAN WOOD- Review

The showing of Submarine I reviewed yesterday was immediately preceded by a much less warm and fuzzy sermon on teenage angst, Norwegian Wood. It wasn't my idea to go and see this, but Rob Simpson's, and seeing as how there were a few hours to kill before Submarine, I thought I'd go along. I didn't know it'd be quite so heavy-going, but typically, I eventually had more time for it than Rob did.

If you do copy this plan and see this in a double bill with Submarine, make sure the happy one goes after, because Norwegian Wood is based on Haruki Murakami's novel about teenage anguish and suicide. Watanabe is a college student at a time of tumultuous student protests against the establishment. After his best friend Kizuki kills himself, a chance meeting with Kizuki's ex-girlfriend leads to a volatile relationship, and ultimately towards impending tragedy.

And golly, it is a miserable film. In that respect, it's kind of difficult to write about in the same way as it's hard to review good comedy. There's no amount of time that can make this kind of tragedy funny, and I saw in this one the kind of malaise and miserablism that many seemed to complain about in the actually very good Never Let Me Go. Where Kathy, Tommy and Ruth were programmed in their upbringing, there comes a point in this film where Watanabe almost seems programmed by the sheer amount of shit that weighs down upon him.

So as you can imagine, it's not an easy watch. It runs to 133 minutes long, and the miserablism almost becomes predictable over time. Certainly, the final 20 minutes or so seem distended in the wake of the inevitable scene that occurs before this denouement. Maybe the reason why Murakami is considered by his fans to be an unadaptable author is because the story on the page holds the kind of detail that doesn't usually translate to a visual medium. Then again, reading the blurb for the book suggests that there's still plenty of stuff cut from the film too.

And watching it also reminded me that there's an international difference in filmmaking that has nothing to do with subtitles. I see enough English language films to get a good grasp on the way they're constructed, but this one in particular seemed puzzling in the way it was edited. Although I learnt that the elbow is the least sensitive part of the body in one very short scene, I couldn't tell you why. I think part of why I stuck with it was because of the fine performance by Kenichi Matsuyama, whose Watanabe grows visibly more weary and aggrieved as events unfold. Likewise, Rinko Kikuchi, who was previously one of the few redeeming features of Babel, makes for a deeply mercurial and disturbed Naoko.

Norwegian Wood has a score by Jonny Greenwood that is so jarring that I was convinced more than once that a music cue was diegetic, and that we were about to see a violinist in the corner of the room. But the jarring qualities of the film inject some life into a morbid and miserable movie that audiences might just mistake for boring. I think there's more to it than that, but unfortunately, I'm least qualified to comment on exactly why I found it to be pretty good, on balance. And so I don't know if I could recommend it, but I can tell you that what it has to say about sex, love and growing up is very striking stuff.

Norwegian Wood is now showing in selected cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Norwegian Wood, why not share your comments below?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

SUBMARINE- Review

Occasionally, a director makes a feature debut with astonishing hype and anticipation around it, and that's the case with Richard Ayoade's first film, Submarine. I've been no different, even though I was more trepidatious than most. I don't like mumblecore much, and while the trailer was amazing, it made the film look a little mumbly to me. So I approached it with anticipation and wariness together, like I was trying to have sex with a shark.

In the vein of recent film depictions of Mark Zuckerburg and Scott Pilgrim, Oliver Tate is a young man with no perspective of the world in any terms that do not involve himself. He elevates himself in his own estimation by imagining the film of his life in a small Welsh town, as a biopic of a prominent thinker. The Herculean tasks of his adolescence are twofold- to prevent his mother leaving his father for a self-help guru, and to woo Jordana, a tomboy who likes to set fire to things, into bed.

I've been told I like to use big words on this blog. So it's with an appropriate level of self-consciousness that I point out that Submarine is a film that likes to use big words. Ayoade's script even deploys the word "atavistic" in conversation at one point, in an anecdote from the elder Tate that even has Oliver scrambling for the dictionary. I can't really think of many lines of dialogue in the film that I couldn't imagine being delivered by Ayoade himself, remembering his work in The IT Crowd and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. But the unified voice in the dialogue actually pays off in some ways, because of our self-centred hero.

Having recently despised Greenberg, I realised while watching Submarine that I'm fine with heroes like Oliver, like Mark, like Scott, because they're all young. Well, maybe I'm not OK with Mark Zuckerburg, but the point stands. If you can get behind mumblecore, good for you, but I honestly can't stand to see coming-of-age stories with 40-year-old men. The levels on which Ayoade's film work all work because it's an honest-to-goodness story about growing up from adolescence, not growing up from being Roger fuckin' Greenberg.

My main quibble with mumblecore as a film movement is that it has always seemed to me like observation masquerading as observational humour. This film ain't that, because it's very funny indeed. The self-absorption of Oliver, played by an excellent Craig Roberts, rings true in a way that's both cringey and completely identifiable. As a teenager, all of your problems seem enormous, like they're going to matter now and forever. Sometimes they carry huge pathos, sometimes they carry subjective comedic value, but they most often feel very dramatic, because we are brought up on drama.

The central conceit of the film is that for the most part, we're looking at the low-budget film of Oliver's life, mounting the fourth wall and perching itself there for the duration. And it's an indie film too, Oliver acting throughout as if he's on a low-budget for life, and this is the only chance to get it right and tell his story. Let's hope it's not Richard Ayoade's only film though, because it's stunningly self-assured for a bloke who doesn't ever seem to come across as charismatic in the press he's done for the film. I've recently heard him decry unwarranted enthusiasm, so it's a good thing that all of the enthusiasm for this one is warranted.

The soundtrack by Alex Turner complements the gorgeous visuals, photographed by Erik Wilson, and the production design is pretty much unique too. It's set some time in the late 1980s or 1990s that you can't quite place, the brief nod to 1986's Crocodile Dundee notwithstanding, and set in a rundown Welsh town in which Ayoade's lens is more than capable of finding beauty. The contained but quietly vibrant cast works wonders too, with Sally Hawkins and Noah Taylor as Oliver's parents, and a gloriously knobbish Paddy Considine coming between them. Most of all, Yasmin Paige bursts out of her CBBC roots to make a boisterous and enrapturing Jordana.

All of the best bits about Submarine work in tandem with each other. Whatever my usual problems with mumbly and quirky films like Wes Anderson's or Noah Baumbach's, those problems are somehow overcome with this one. I'm more at ease watching teenagers grapple with minutiae than grown-arse men, but I suspect it's also to do with the setting- repression and procrastination seem so much more at home on the British Isles. They're our main exports after all, but Richard Ayoade seems set to become a truly great British export, and his debut is far more ambitious and romantic and achingly brilliant than even the great trailer could suggest. And it's far more than just using big words, too.

Submarine is now showing in selected cinemas nationwide, and expands to more sites from Friday.
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If you've seen Submarine, why not share your comments below?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Satan Claus- RARE EXPORTS Review

Has anybody noticed that Christmas films are now like the also-rans at the box office each December in the same way as a festive single will fall under the wheels of the X Factor winner's single in the race for Christmas number 1? Last year, the big draw was Avatar, leaving Robert Zemeckis' A Christmas Carol out in the cold. Then again, Zemeckis got the last bonafide Christmas hit at the cinema with The Polar Express at the end of 2004.

With Gulliver's Travels and Little Fockers looming hideously into sight in the next couple of weeks, I'm pleased to recommend the hidden festive gem of this year, Rare Exports, a Finnish horror thriller about a boy who still believes in Santa Claus. That is, the Santa Claus of Finnish folklore- an angry, naked old monster who prowls around punishing naughty children with death more than he rewards nice kids with presents. The boy's community of reindeer herders in Lapland manages to capture the monster when Santa's burial mound is unearthed by archaeologists, but Christmas is just around the corner...

For all of the demented promise of "Santa kills kids" as a story, what distinguishes Rare Exports as a real festive treat is how tastefully the actual violence is handled. More often than not, it's apparent only be flying headgear rolling into shot as old Father Christmas decapitates a naughty someone or other off camera. My only major criticism of the film is that it could as easily have played to a family audience if it weren't for the profanity and shots of Santa's chestnuts flopping around as he chases down his prey.

I criticise this only because if this gets the following it deserves, a souped up American remake is surely inevitable, and they'll take their cue from the 15 certificate content rather than the story. That means it'll be directed by Eli Roth when Joe Dante could do a better job with it. Ho ho ho. But as in the case of Let The Right One In and The Secret in Their Eyes, other modern classics in the foreign language that have been poached by Hollywood, the source material we've got is something far less easy to classify.

What Jalmari Helander, the creator of this concept, has managed to do in his script and in his direction is to balance festive spirit with demented and slightly disgusting horror elements. Santa, when we see him, is repulsive- as the resourceful Pietari, our leading boy, tells us, "the Coca-Cola Santa is a lie". Even though he borrows certain elements from The Thing and Raiders of the Lost Ark to pitch the feature, Helander goes all out to subvert that hegemonised American image of Santa Claus, making a film that's not so much The Santa Clause as Aliens, the Christmas special.

The pace might be slow overall, but viewing it from the outside after the fantastic second half, it's about Pietari's growth from a boy into a man in the most isolated homestead imaginable. In the slower parts of the film, we see how he has to put up with teasing from his dickhead friend, and piss in the snow for lack of a bathroom in the cabin where he lives. The biggest attraction is the expedition at the top of the nearby mountain. Once that all goes wrong, he becomes something of a badass, tooling up with a rifle and hockey gear for armour, and setting bear traps in the fireplace in case Santa comes down the chimney.

Few other filmmakers could afford to pace things as slowly in such a manageable 83 minute film, but Helander pulls it all together rather well. The actors seem to have it down, and Onni Tommila, who plays our hero, overcomes that notion that all child actors seem to give good performances in a foreign language because English audiences can't understand what they're saying to hear how they delivered it. For Tommila, it's all about his poise and his approach as much as his dialogue. You can totally believe him as a makeshift action hero.

Rare Exports is the best festive film in years, and despite its deadpan approach, it really is within reaching distance of being like Gremlins, rather than making a Christmas exploitation film like Black Christmas or that Jack Frost that didn't have Michael Keaton in it. This currently sits as one of my favourite films of the year, and I'll definitely be revisiting it next December, to enjoy more of its twists and turns, its gleeful grubbiness and the warm Christmas feeling it left me with. You'd better not shout. You'd better not cry. You'd better not pout, I'm telling you why. There's a serious possibility they might remake this in Hollywood. And fuck it up.

Rare Exports is playing in selected cinemas nationwide. Seek it out and have a very merry Christmas.
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If you've seen Rare Exports, why not share your comments below? If you really can't make it to a cinema that's showing the film, the short film embedded below is a more than reasonable substitute to tide you over.



I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Mid-Class Crisis- ANOTHER YEAR Review

Looking through Mike Leigh's filmography, I haven't found a single thing I've seen. I've found a lot of films I want to see, like Topsy Turvy, Vera Drake and Happy-Go-Lucky, but I wouldn't think it unfair to say that Leigh doesn't reach a huge audience in terms of distribution. Not to dismiss anything just because I haven't seen any of his films, but because nobody has been telling me that I should have. Except for Another Year, which proves that Leigh can connect with audiences on a better level than mere cinema distribution.

Against the grain of most kitchen sink realist dramas, the central figures in Another Year are Tom and Gerri (geddit?), a perfectly happy middle-aged couple. He isn't cheating on her, she doesn't have any terminal disease- it's the people who surround the blissfully married pair that seem to have all the problems. The film takes place over four seasons, charting Tom and Gerri's interactions with their bachelor son Joe, alcoholic Ken and desperately lonely Mary.

As a film, it's quite aggressively genteel at times, to the point of being over-powering. In many respects, it can be compared to Tamara Drewe, but with all of the bawdy comic shenanigans that characterised that film. It does also take place over four seasons though, and the middle-aged middle class contentment is a Guardian reader's delight. The difference is not that Another Year feels more worthy, but that it's generally more substantial.

I can't deny that it made me cringe a couple of times, particularly when we see just how bloody contented Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen play Tom and Gerri. That's not to say it's poorly acted or that Tom and Gerri are weak characters. Not at all, it's merely that people that happy and twee often make me cringe in real life too, and how great it is to see a film tipped for awards contention in which we get great performances based on positivity, rather than overcoming adversity or being utterly riddled with depression and sadness. Broadbent continues to prove himself a national treasure and Sheen makes a big impression even if she's sidelined as the film goes on.

It would be remiss of me not to mention that it's not all based in positivity. Most prominently of the lonely acquaintances who visit Tom and Gerri over their year, you have Lesley Manville giving it all she's got as Mary. Her performance is almost so powerful as to obscure everything else, working the semi-improvised method acting to her huge advantage and utterly burying you in her character's story. Mary's is the most sympathetic part of the film, and also the most compelling. If I were a betting man... hell, I'm becoming a betting man, just so I can make as much money as I can from what's sure to be short odds on Manville taking home acting awards from here to the Kodak Theatre.

The film rambles on a little- its 125 minute runtime works out at about half an hour per season. Without the connector of Mary's desperation, it might seem a little episodic. It continues to play with its premise and characters though- at a later point in the film, we get to see the class divide more clearly with the arrival of the excellent David Bradley as Tom's brother, who lives a long way from the middle class contentment we've been pitched into thus far. However, with the main characters being so utterly content, you can generally tell that unless Leigh let the cast improvise a dramatic turn, like a bloody tram crash or something, nothing bad is going to befall Tom and Gerri.

I realise that this comes in the same week as I sort of panned Monsters for cutting loose with the script and improvising most of the film, but somewhere along the line, Mike Leigh has nailed how to do that in a way that resonates with me. Gareth Edwards might one day manage the same, but at present, it's not particularly satisfying to see his film and the more overtly Oscar friendly period piece The King's Speech sweeping up at the British Independent Film Awards this week, while Another Year didn't really get the love it deserves.

When we leave behind the characters of Another Year, many of them haven't moved from where they were at the beginning. But you wouldn't call 2010 a waste of time if you realise in a few weeks' time that you haven't crossed an infected zone, gone looking for your dad in savage mountain country or stopped a runaway train since January. You would still have grown, and as dramatic as the film is, with all of its great performances, its strength lies in how very real it feels. It's not the film you want to see every week at the multiplex, but once or twice a year, it's a very precious thing.

Another Year is still showing in selected cinemas nationwide, and arrives on DVD on 28th February 2011.
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If you've seen Another Year, why not share your comments below? If you're keeping up with the Tom and Gerri gag, join me in lobbying for the Itchy and Scratchy rendition of the film- would be a sight to behold, I think.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

There's Always One- MONSTERS Review

Remember how District 9 dazzled everybody last year to become the sleeper hit of the year? I also remember how inevitable it seemed that a weaker copycat film would shortly manifest itself. Monsters is not that film, despite what the deceptively similar marketing techniques might have you believe. Aside from not erring too close to Neill Blomkamp's film in content though, it's also not really anywhere near as good.

Writer-director Gareth Edwards paints the America of Monsters as a post-Cloverfield continent. Alien encounters have become a routine occurrence, six years after the destruction of a space probe brought tonnes of alien spores down to Earth in Central America. This led to everything in between the USA and Mexico being cordoned off as an infected zone, through which photojournalist Andrew must escort his boss' daughter Samantha.

Despite the pains I have to go to to make a blurb about the world, the plot is far more about the last part of that synopsis than about the world it's set in. It's never usually a problem when a filmmaker focuses on character development and story over bombast and spectacle, but the problem here is that the characters and story are not that arresting. Because the crew was so small, many of the supporting actors are people that they met along the way and persuaded to be in the film. So while Edwards gets the writing credit for coming up with the step outline, much of the film is ad-libbed whenever the extras are involved. The story of the film's production is more engaging than the film itself.


I don't know about anyone else, but I generally hold that when it comes to film, it's better to find truth in a construction, than to try and construct truth and fail. That's why, in terms of comedy, for example, something as wildly over the top as I Love You Phillip Morris seems more human to me than mumblecore output like Cyrus or Greenberg. Edwards' sketchy approach means that the bystanders come across as even more strained, rather than naturalistic. Real life couple Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able are fair enough as Andrew and Samantha, but I never really invested in their characters like I was supposed to. Simply put, they're not that interesting, and it's a real shame that the film uses the world's acceptance of aliens as a licence to show no interest in the world either.

Surely the most notable thing about the film is its budget, and the professional look it has, for that budget. Edwards created all of the special effects shots himself in post-production, using consumer level software like Autodesk 3ds Max. The film itself was shot guerilla-style on location, with a tiny crew and not so much as a camera dolly to work with. The production budget came to just over half a million, apparently, and for that, I have to say that it's a very handsome film. The special effects are extremely well integrated and make even the Cthulhu-like monsters of the title look realistic. The trouble is that the film is focused instead on the relationship drama, which doesn't hold up because the characters aren't that likeable.

Edwards says he was aiming for “War of the Worlds meets Lost In Translation”, and that's at least a sharp relief from the usual alien invasion movie tropes. By taking the decision to stick with these characters, we do get some consummately executed moments. The closest thing the film has to an action scene is viewed from inside the jeep where Andrew and Samantha are hiding. We don't get lascivious shots of how great the CG monsters look in that scene, but we're instead confined to a vehicle, with our leads, in a scene that's reminiscent of Jurassic Park, another Spielberg film.

The film itself is never as interesting as the idea though, nor is it as interesting as its own special effects. The praise for the film, as far as I can see, is coming from one very specific place- the place that wants independent films to take on Hollywood at their own game with a fraction of its budget. Where District 9 and Kick-Ass have succeeded in the past year by being produced outside of the studio system and for a fraction of say, Avatar's budget, those were both great movies with great performances and a great script, irrespective of budget.  

Monsters is really more of an achievement in visuals, for its relatively low budget. It's less of an achievement in entertainment or storytelling, and when I was led to expect a masterpiece by everyone and their mums, I don't feel the result is that memorable. I do hope that Monsters does well in cinemas all the same, because as disappointing as it was, it's still a cut above most of the other stuff now playing in multiplexes. It's not District 9, no matter how desperately the distributors want it to be, but it is a captivating albeit frustrating piece. Edwards comes close enough to getting it right this time that I'm looking forward to whatever he does next.

Monsters is now showing at cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Monsters, why not share your comments below? If you need any more persuasion that Vertigo Films are dying to make this into the new District 9, look no further than the title. In the actual film, the aliens are always referred to as "creatures" and their lack of screen time makes that title equivalent to calling Unstoppable "Peace and Quiet".

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Millennium Part 3- THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST Review

The final part of the Millennium trilogy brought Lisbeth Salander's story to a close this week, in The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. This review will be spoiler-free as far as this film is concerned, but it may contain minor spoilers for the first two instalments, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire.

Lisbeth is in hospital, there to go to police custody just as soon as she's recovered, to be tried for crimes she didn't commit. With the evidence he's gathered, Mikael Blomkvist sets about composing a shattering exposé of her treatment by the Swedish government. A dastardly covert group, the Section, is prepared to do anything to suppress the truth as the case heads for trial. This shit just got as real as it can get.

It's a funny thing, really. I've gone from dreading the idea of an English language remake after seeing the first instalment earlier this year, to really looking forward to it after seeing the final instalment. Two things have changed between then and now. Firstly, David Fincher signed on to direct and had The Social Network, one of the best films of the year, released in cinemas. Secondly, I realised how director Daniel Alfredson effectively pranged the Swedish language version when he took over with the second film.

At the time, I quite liked The Girl Who Played With Fire, even if it inflated the world of the previous film to the point that it wasn't recognisably taking place in the same universe. I felt it built the series to a point that the third film could go either way, and end the trilogy with either a fizzle or a bang, so long as either one was well made and thought out. They opted for a fizzle, and boy, was I wrong. And the very worst thing I can say about the underwhelming third instalment is that The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest makes the previous film look weaker in retrospect.

Here's the problem. The series is called "the Millennium trilogy", Millennium being the trendy political magazine that Blomkvist co-edits. With two films of it being the "Lisbeth Salander is awesome" trilogy, we have to have a film where the Millennium part actually becomes operative. Even after Lisbeth gets out of her hospital bed, she really doesn't have a lot to do in this film. There's a lot to be said for Noomi Rapace's always brilliant portrayal of a woman so damaged and defiant that she can't bring herself to rely on others, and she's fantastic whenever she's given some room for triumph, but let's not understate the fact that it's bloody boring to watch her character relying on others as she does for most of this film.

It's not that Michael Nyqvist hasn't done a sterling job as the minor lead for these three films, but the plot is pretty weak too. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had a compelling whodunnit plot, the reason why many people praised that film in the first place, as much if not more than for Noomi Rapace. The Girl Who Played With Fire is a film about Lisbeth's past, and it should have just been one film about her past. The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest is only a satisfying conclusion by the measure of showing the distended aftermath of its predecessor, with more exposition than investigation.

The main showcase sequence of the film is the trial, which consists of people arguing about what we already know, and creating false tension by leaving it to the latest reasonable moment to bring in crucial evidence that we, the audience, are already aware of. The new stuff is contrived, referring with an alarming frequency to one character undergoing dialysis, and also bringing in the ominously named Section, labelling them collectively not only for administrative and bureaucratic purposes, but also so they sound more evil than my own previous collective term for the bad guys- "that shower of bastards".

More than that, you have the most ridiculous element of the previous instalment, hulking Aryan Bond henchman Niedermann, just wandering around with nothing to do. He pops up every now and then to remind us that he still exists, attacking random people in much the same fashion as Jaws whenever he's not facing off with Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me or Moonraker, because he's back for the ending. After over two hours of sub-par courtroom intrigue, his reappearance is so extraneous to the rest of the film that it's laughable.

This is not a cinematic ending. Not that it needs more car chases or shootouts, both of which is has in measured amounts, but the ending of this film feels like the ending of a TV episode, and not the ending of a three film undertaking. I plan to read Stieg Larsson's books now that I've seen the films, and I realise that to some extent they must have been bound by the source material, but this is a really weak story to finish on. Part of what makes a David Fincher interpretation so enticing is that the man doesn't have a bone in his body that isn't absolutely cinematic in his approach, so if he chooses to make all three films, this one could stand to be improved.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest is an underpowered ending to the trilogy, and all in all, it feels like the afterbirth of The Girl Who Played With Fire. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the strongest of the series by a mile, so the blame must lie at Daniel Alfredson's door. Elements that made the first two instalments good are still there, like the terrific performances and the literary detail that manifests itself so well, but the story is plodding and, at 147 minutes, severely overstretched.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest is showing in selected cinemas nationwide. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is now available on DVD and blu-ray, and The Girl Who Played With Fire arrives on DVD and blu-ray on 10th January 2011.
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If you've seen The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, why not share your comments below? If you're wondering what the relevance of the title is, join the club. It would suggest all hell breaks loose for a barnstorming finale, but... really?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Now You See Him... - THE ILLUSIONIST Review

Sylvain Chomet's latest animation, The Illusionist is all about a stage magician in the early 60s, whose act is being supplanted by rock stars in the hearts and minds of audiences. With no one interested as much, he decides to try and find employment in Scotland, heading for Edinburgh. Along the way he picks up a young girl who believes he really is a magician, granting him a new responsibility.

This one is the fulfilment of a long unproduced script by French writer and director Jacques Tati. It's believed Tati wrote the script with his estranged daughter in mind for the lead role, and his aspirations to reconcile set the tone for this one, in a way. The relationship between the illusionist and the girl is paramount to the film's central theme.

Because bigger than that, this is essentially a film about the end of innocence, and the death of illusion. It's wrapped up in charm and whimsy, but it's impossible to not feel the final emotional sucker punch. Watching it is like being enveloped in a warm hug for an hour, only to realise you've been stabbed in the heart by the hugger at some point or other.

The death of the music hall and old-timey entertainment is prominent, and more stirring than it really has any right to be- I'm only 20 years old, and have no nostalgia for that era because I wasn't alive. It's one of a number of ways Chomet appeals to younger audiences, also transcending the language barrier by keeping the dialogue to a minimum. The dynamics of the comedy are similar to Mr. Bean, or the first twenty minutes of WALL·E- there is inflection, but the storytelling is largely visual.

It all looks very nice. It's of the same unpolished and slightly scratchy aesthetic as that period where Disney animations looked like 101 Dalmatians or The Aristocats, but it's still very well drawn. More than I was at the time, I was saddened that I didn't get to see this at the Edinburgh Film Festival earlier in the year, because the way the city is realised in the film could only have been more atmospheric if I'd actually seen it there.

I was honestly surprised by how accessible The Illusionist is. Lots of families were in the screening I caught, and they all seemed to enjoy it immensely. Like the best animations, it has deeper connotations for the adult viewer but it's funny and whimsical enough that kids will adore it too.

The Illusionist is still playing in selected cinemas around the country, and will arrive on DVD in 2011.
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If you've seen The Illusionist, why not leave a comment on the film and/or my review? I'd have mentioned that this isn't to be confused with the Edward Norton film, but that film already isn't to be confused with The Prestige. It was fine, but both Nolan and Chomet are leagues beyond that film.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Supergood- BLACK DYNAMITE Review

A few weeks back, I was lamenting the underpowered villains in The Expendables. On Monday, I went to see Black Dynamite, and realised that if Sylvester Stallone had come up with the villain and his plot to use in The Expendables, he probably would have made the greatest film ever. Instead, it was thought up by Michael Jai White, Scott Sanders and Byron Minns, in this superb blaxploitation parody.

Black Dynamite is the baddest, coolest, kung-fu-fighting-est "CIA agent that the CIA ever had in the CIA." He's brought back on the job when The Man murders his brother and someone gets all the kids in the local orphanage hooked on smack. So Black Dynamite assembles a crew to wage war against drug dealers in the community- sex scenes, kung fu fighting and sheer badassery ensue.

Yes, dear readers, sheer badassery. Like the best parodies, there's no mean streak in Black Dynamite. Our hero never breakdances before being flattened by a cow as in so many turds from Seltzer and Friedberg. It's not even content to rib on the tropes of the genre like Mike Myers did in the Austin Powers films. There's a love of the material akin to the works of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, and an authenticity that makes the film feel like it really was made in the 1970s.

There are stock footage explosions, boom mic intrusions, shonky dialogue and one instance of an outtake being left in the middle of a fight scene. The intrusion of the soundtrack is always welcome, especially given how the score and the rather catchy theme music capture the era as perfectly as the visuals. It's highly competent incompetence, deliberately processing the film even after all of their attention to detail so that it looks like it was made in the period.

Part of what makes the actual comedy so effective is Michael Jai White's deadpan performance in the lead role. He's the only real anachronism in the film, because he's recognisable as the mobster who put a price on the Joker's head in The Dark Knight, but that's excusable just because of how good he is. He simply plays Black Dynamite as a badass.

Not a comedy badass, but a full-on badass- White has seven black belts in real life and he really throws himself into the part. He obviously co-wrote a great script too. Having built a profile for himself as a second-string action star through the years, he came up with the idea to make this film. If there's any justice, it'll be the film that propels him into the limelight.

It's curious that Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino are generally seen to have failed to duplicate the exploitation films of their youth with the Grindhouse two-fer. Those films winked and nudged and had many "name" actors. Black Dynamite trades that for a meticulous recreation of the blaxploitation genre's values and staples, without ever missing a chance for a quotable line of dialogue or a laugh-out-loud sight gag.

The script has an acute sense of off-beat storytelling that other recent exploitation throwbacks like Piranha didn't come within reaching distance of. Audacious execution alone isn't any substitute for the understanding and affection that obviously exists here. Because Sanders isn't the type of director to wink or nudge at the audience, there are probably dozens of references and sight gags that I didn't catch first time around- once again, like Pegg and Wright. As you'll know, that's high praise, but the film really deserves it.

It's difficult to write about good comedy, especially when I'm being very careful not to spoil some of the great punchlines in this one. I will assure you that if you live in the UK, it's well worth a minute or so of your time to go to this site and demand that Black Dynamite comes to your area. White has expressed the desire to make sequels, and once you see it, you'll really want to see more- support it now and make that come to pass!

Black Dynamite is playing in select cinemas nationwide- like I said, demand it here!
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If you've seen Black Dynamite, why not leave a comment on the film and/or my review? Need any more incentive to see this one? Here's the poster.

Looks awesome, nay?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Fntstic- THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES Review

If you remember all the way back to March, I talked about how very endearing director Juan José Campanella was on-stage when The Secret in Their Eyes unexpectedly won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. This must mark the very first time I've been sold on a film just by an acceptance speech, so I toddled along to the Tyneside on Monday to watch the film.

Benjamín Esposito is a retired legal counsellor who is fixated upon a rape and homicide case he investigated 25 years prior. He's intensely bored by retirement, left only with the memories of his working life and of an unfulfilled romance with his old boss, Irene. Borrowing a typewriter with a broken A key from his old workplace, he resolves to novelise the case, and through flashbacks, we see Esposito's pursuit of the killer as he tries to find solace in the present.

I'll get my unpopular opinion out of the way first, so we can get to the business of reviewing this truly excellent film. In my opinion, there is no doubt whatsoever that this deserved the Oscar. Some professional critics have used the statuette to beat this film with, whining that A Prophet or The White Ribbon deserved the gold instead.

A Prophet may actually merit another viewing from me, as it's certainly not bad and I thought the first half hour was fantastic. What follows can't possibly measure up to those heights and it's far too long, and I didn't like it for the same reasons that I don't put The Godfather on the same pedestal as most others. I really disliked The White Ribbon, and I think it's being reinforced by a critical double standard- if there were a Hollywood movie where so little happens, it would be slated.

Haneke's direction is great and it's all technically fine, but it's utterly lifeless and pretentious, to me. Sadly, the only professional critic I could unearth who saw it negatively was Chris Tookey, who bizarrely started musing upon how it wouldn't make a very good musical. The White Ribbon is exclusively about subtext and nothing else, whereas The Secret in Their Eyes doesn't let symbolism dominate the telling of a great story. Moving on.

What marks the film apart from any number of police procedurals is how it all comes together. Although the unflinching approach to the all-important case is prominent, I believe this film, at its core, is a romance. Between Benjamín and Irene, sparks fly throughout and it seems all too obvious that they should be together. The lack of fulfilment in that relationship is directly fed by the crime that Benjamín can't get over- as he is perpetually being told, he dwells on the past too much. In contrast, the career-driven Irene is always looking at the future, and thus it seems unlikely their eyes will meet.

Circumstances seem to conspire to prevent any consummation of the yearning between them, and Ricardo Darin is more than equal to the task of playing Benjamín. We see him in his element in the 1970s and of course he's aged up for the scenes set in the present, and he's never any less than mesmerising as he always finds himself in juxtaposition to those around him. He's obsessed with finding justice for the victim, in a state where corruption makes some justice better than none.

There are a number of surprising flourishes throughout the film, most notably in the film's much celebrated tracking shot, which begins in the skies of Buenos Aires and moves through the stands and turnstiles of a football stadium. It's a neat cinematic touch, but in a film that is so fixated on character and plot, it almost becomes forgettable. Likewise, essential moments of humour broaden the characters and further invest the audience in the story, but they're not at all what you'd expect from a film about a rape/homicide case. Maybe it's the unexpected flourishes that make the film so good.

As with all successful foreign films, I cast my mind worryingly to the prospect of an English language remake. It especially worries me with this one because of its most beautiful flourish. If you see the end of the investigation coming, it's fine, because this is a film that demands some thought about what's going on, but that broken "A" key I mentioned pays off magnificently. I think of that heartwarming moment, and how it could never ever translate to an English language version, and I really hope Hollywood leaves this one as it is.

The Secret in Their Eyes is a splendid film that is both introspective and inclusive, and its wonderfully drawn characters, and the deep exploration of their personalities and history, are worth the Academy Award alone. Campanella invites emotional investment where certain other contenders in the Oscar category aimed to repulse and dehumanise instead. This is a tour-de-force, and a film I would be extremely surprised to find absent when I come to compile my top five favourite films of 2010.

The Secret in Their Eyes is now playing in select cinemas nationwide, and will be available on DVD and Blu-ray in January 2011.
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If you've seen The Secret in Their Eyes, why not leave a comment on the film and/or my review? I toyed with the idea of writing this one without the use of the A key, but can you imagine how the blog would look with that? "Michel By is the ultimte twt"?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

(Meno)Pause for Thought

It's been a while since I've doubled up films like this in one post, but I've decided I'm going to go back to doing that on films about which I only have a certain amount to say. It helps that both Atom Egoyan's erotic pseudo-thriller Chloe and Catherine Corsini's arthouse drama Leaving deal with similar subject matter- married middle-age women and extra-marital affairs.

Leaving is another film I saw at the Tyneside Cinema a few weeks ago, and I've taken my time writing about it. But on the day this entry is posted, I'll be on my way there to see three more films with limited distribution, so I had to leave you something to read. The film finds one Suzanne Vidal in utter boredom with her upper class family life. Everything changes with the arrival of Ivan, a labourer who's fixing up her house- the two embark on an affair that leaves Mr. Vidal closing his wallet in a temper...

In most respects, I should probably like Leaving more than I actually did. To describe the plot in the barest terms makes it sound slightly like some Brazzers video involving a bored housewife, but it goes without saying that with Kristin Scott Thomas in the lead role, the film is considerably more thoughtful than it sounds. She gives a performance that is really, properly wonderful, and she's evenly matched by the versatile Sergi López, who most will remember as the sadistic officer from Pan's Labyrinth.

The romance between their characters is electric, but the fundamental flaw of the film, for me, was in how difficult it is to empathise with Suzanne. She's not unhappy in her marriage, nor is her husband neglectful- she's just bored. To a point, that's fine, but some of the stuff that happens as a result of her boredom is unforgivable. The last five minutes brings around a terrible twist that undermines any attachment you might have had to the opprobrious Suzanne.

Although Leaving is beautifully shot and very well acted, Catherine Corsini seems so intent on undermining the bourgeois class politics that Suzanne initially upholds that she also undermines everything human. Is it fair that Suzanne's cuckolded husband should cut her off financially just because she cheated on him? Well, yes! Yes, it is, no matter how many times she bemoans her circumstances. Despite some beautiful scenes scattered throughout, the film's ugly conscience ultimately left an unbearably sour taste in my mouth.

Leaving (Partir) is still playing in select cinemas in London, and will be released on DVD later in the year.

Elsewhere, Chloe is a prostitute hired by a genuinely unhappy wife and mother to honey-trap her husband. Catherine believes David is cheating on her after he repeatedly flirts with other women right in front of her, and crucially, deliberately misses his plane home when she's planned a birthday party for him. Chloe reports back as she dallies with David, but Catherine is ultimately drawn into something much deeper.

I'm not familiar with Atom Egoyan's work, but here he speaks softly and carries a big stick, to borrow a broad adage. The score is full of what the DVD subtitles call "soft" and "pensive" music, though this one's anything but soft. It's a psychodrama of an oddly seductive power. Not because its female stars bare all, but because of the palpable charge that the film accumulates throughout. The opening is fairly prosaic, but while it's never massively exciting, it's relentlessly interesting.

Amanda Seyfried is the closest thing to a weak link in the cast, but that's only because her co-stars are Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson. Seyfried is definitely watchable throughout, but every time those two shared the screen, it was fantastic. Their marriage, now deflated of romance, is utterly believable- Neeson's indignation is ambiguous enough that it actually feeds the uncertainty of the plot, and Moore beautifully portrays her character's frustration at how everyone loves a man as he reaches his autumn years while a woman is seen to be past her best.

Chloe makes for a sensual and beguiling drama, even if it goes just a little bit Fatal Attraction in the last act. That's a development I could have done without, but it has a lot to say about the gulf between genders in middle age and while many will appreciate Amanda Seyfried being naked, that's not there to titillate. It manages to be portentous without being pretentious- a mature and powerful film that leaves the viewer with a lot to muse upon afterwards.

Chloe is currently available on DVD and Blu-ray
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If you've seen Leaving or Chloe, why not leave a comment on the films and/or my review? Be sure to let me know if you're perturbed by how much I'm talking about gender lately- my current trip to the Tyneside involves Black Dynamite, so discussion may be lighter from here onwards.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Funny Bones- SKELETONS Review

As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments.
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You may currently be gesticulating at The Last Airbender and The Sorcerer's Apprentice, both of which begin screening in advance at cinemas nationwide today, with the urgency of a multiplex-lovin' chimp who happens to read this blog. But yesterday I got in a trip to the Tyneside Cinema, so frankly I'd rather talk about one of the films I saw there- Skeletons.

Davis and Bennett are exorcists, of a sort. Their clientele are engaged couples and the like, and the pair are concerned to exhuming nasty secrets and memories before people commit their lives to each other. It's not a nice business, but they're good at their jobs, and their boss, named only as the Colonel, has an appointment that might properly announce them within the apparently lucrative world of clearing skeletons out of closets.

Skeletons is one of three films I was unfortunate enough to miss on my recent trip to the Edinburgh International Film Festival, where it won the Michael Powell Award for Best New British Film, and seeking it out thereafter was definitely the right choice. If the idea of traversing people's innermost secrets and memories chimes with recent output, it's because Inception still looms large in UK cinemas. This marvellous British effort is a bit like that film, but with more of a sense of humour and less spectacle.

If Christopher Nolan's dream-faring blockbuster represented something of an odyssey, this is more of an oddity. It's the unusual little touches that make it seem so fresh and keep you watching. For instance, in trekking around middle England attending to peoples' buried traumas and secrets, there's no Skeleton-mobile. No Mystery Machine. No ECTO-1. They just walk. It lends itself immeasurably to the feeling of isolation in our protagonists' line of work that Davis and Bennett appear to walk from assignment to assignment, aside from one scene on a train as the "big job" kicks off.

In the lead roles, Ed Gaughan and Andrew Buckley make a fine double act. Gaughan's Davis is addicted to visiting one memory from his past in much the same way as a certain Cobb dallies with his deceased wife a few auditoriums down from wherever Skeletons is screening, and Buckley gives a very fine performance as his big-hearted colleague, struggling more with the clients' well-being than with the unsociable life he has to deal with because of his work.

Best of all though is Tuppence Middleton as the quiet-going-on-soft-spoken young woman who might hold the truth behind the "big job". I'd entirely forgotten about her after enjoying her performance in Tormented last summer, and she give a far more auspicious performance here, and one which I hope will get her noticed and cast in more projects. Jason Isaacs also makes a typically scene-stealing appearance as the mustachioed Colonel, driving his discordant duo to work harder and hinting at a broader industry of skeleton-outers happening off-screen.

It's definitely unfair to compare it to Inception, but I do mean it as a compliment. In Skeletons, writer and director Nick Whitfield has whipped up a terrific supernatural drama with as much ambition and nowhere near the budget. To pick a hole, it doesn't seem to have as much running time as it does ideas, which means the story becomes a little more dislocated towards the end. There's really little else to fault- who knew a light science fiction film could be this smart and inventive without a single bit of CGI?

It's leisurely paced and it was never really going to pack out multiplexes, but like all the best under-the-radar British gems, it's well worth delving into the closet of British cinema distribution Skeletons has sadly been buried within. It gets the maximum entertainment value out of an apparently modest effort, by utilising its great performers and quietly brilliant script. Oh, and Jason Isaacs' moustache.

Skeletons is now playing in selected cinemas across the UK.
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If and when you see Skeletons, why not leave a comment on the film and/or my review? What do you mean Andrew Buckley reminds you of an older, chubbier version of someone? I haven't the foggiest who you could mean...

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.