Magicians has the same writers and cast as Peep Show, so I was very excited about seing it, as I love that sitcom. I quote it most days. In fact, I am basically Mark Corrigan. Unfortunately Magicians isn’t as good as Peep Show, but it still tickled my funny bone.
David Mitchell and Robert Webb (them off the British Mac adverts, if you are an idiot and don’t watch Peep Show) play a duo of successful magicians. After a particularly nasty incident, the two vow never to speak and go their separate ways, both ways leading to obscurity. Years later, they enter the same magic competition, intent to out-do the other.
The plot is perfectly adequate, and allows for lots of cameos and some nice romantic subplots. Jessica Hynes (née Stevenson, co-creator of Spaced, making me wish all over again that she was doing as well as Simon Pegg) was absolutely lovely as Mitchell’s love interest, and the great Peter Capaldi was as deliciously mean as ever in the role of the competition’s judge. The two leads play the same characters they always play, just a bit nicer (so, basically themselves, then). Unsurprisingly, they can do this well.
The writing is good, but judging by the rest of the audience’s reaction, I’m not sure that it’s to everyone’s taste. However, the work of the writers Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, laced with pop cultural references and great phrasing, is exactly what amuses me. If they hadn’t produced such great televisual work (which also includes The Thick of It), then this would be considered a good (but not great) comedy, but expectations were so high. The central device of Peep Show, having everything from the character’s perspective and hearing their inner-thoughts, is missing, and once gone you realise what a useful and important element it is. Without it we just have two quite nice magicians doing magic with some funny jokes. All in all, a missed opportunity.
Thursday 26 July 2007
Wednesday 4 July 2007
Review - This is England
This is England starts with a Non-Uniform Day, something I never expected to see in a film. Unlike Americans, we British are not used to the rituals of our school lives being shown on screen. They only get on Grange Hill, and isn’t even on the telly anymore. It is little details like this that make This is England such a joy, showing vividly what it was like to grow up in Thatcher’s Britain.
It is 1983, and 12-year-old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) is trying to come to terms with the death of his father in the Falklands. He has no friends, and the other kids tease him about his flares and his dead dad. A chance meeting with a group of skin-heads change all that, giving him somewhere to belong, almost a new family. This new sense of security is shattered by the arrival of Combo (Stephen Graham on terrifying form), a volatile National Front supporter, straight from prison, and things get serious for Shaun very quickly. The director Shane Meadows shows how it is all too easy to get sucked into this dark world. The easy answers Combo offers are attractive to this boy that has been so disappointed by life.
This is a film full of small moments, many hilarious, and all so real; it is no surprise to learn that Meadows based it on his own experiences. With the exception of Combo, all the characters are such reasonable people (something you rarely see in films), and even he is so well-drawn that he has your sympathy. The cast of largely unknowns are wonderful, completely becoming their characters; there isn’t a second where you don’t feel you are in 1983. Turgoose is great, tough but still cute, and Jo Hartley is spot-on as his concerned mum. Joseph Gilgun as Woody, the head of the nice skin-heads, is so charming, you just want to be his best friend too. Some of the funniest scenes feature the romance between Shaun and Smell, a sort of Girl George played sweetly by Rosamund Hanson.
This is England reminds me of a sort of low-key British version of Goodfellas: it takes you from hilarity to poignancy to bursts of violence to seriousness and back in a blink of an eye, and does so seamlessly. A film full of cool clothes, cooler music, quotable lines, and realistic characters, it is ripe to become a cult classic. And it may just be my favourite British film of all time.
It is 1983, and 12-year-old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) is trying to come to terms with the death of his father in the Falklands. He has no friends, and the other kids tease him about his flares and his dead dad. A chance meeting with a group of skin-heads change all that, giving him somewhere to belong, almost a new family. This new sense of security is shattered by the arrival of Combo (Stephen Graham on terrifying form), a volatile National Front supporter, straight from prison, and things get serious for Shaun very quickly. The director Shane Meadows shows how it is all too easy to get sucked into this dark world. The easy answers Combo offers are attractive to this boy that has been so disappointed by life.
This is a film full of small moments, many hilarious, and all so real; it is no surprise to learn that Meadows based it on his own experiences. With the exception of Combo, all the characters are such reasonable people (something you rarely see in films), and even he is so well-drawn that he has your sympathy. The cast of largely unknowns are wonderful, completely becoming their characters; there isn’t a second where you don’t feel you are in 1983. Turgoose is great, tough but still cute, and Jo Hartley is spot-on as his concerned mum. Joseph Gilgun as Woody, the head of the nice skin-heads, is so charming, you just want to be his best friend too. Some of the funniest scenes feature the romance between Shaun and Smell, a sort of Girl George played sweetly by Rosamund Hanson.
This is England reminds me of a sort of low-key British version of Goodfellas: it takes you from hilarity to poignancy to bursts of violence to seriousness and back in a blink of an eye, and does so seamlessly. A film full of cool clothes, cooler music, quotable lines, and realistic characters, it is ripe to become a cult classic. And it may just be my favourite British film of all time.
Tuesday 3 July 2007
Review - Das Leben Der Anderen (The Lives of Others)
We in Britain have had a period of unprecedented peace, freedom and prosperity in the last 60 years, so it is easy to forget that parts of Europe very near us have not been so lucky. The Lives of Others reminds us that up until 1989, half of Germany was under the heel of a very repressive regime; East Germany was an Orwellian nightmare of suspicion, fear, and knocks on the door in the middle of the night, and all in shades of beige and grey. By expertly telling the story of a few characters, the director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has managed to at once dig up the ghosts of the past for the German people, and exorcise them somewhat. Setting aside the political aspects, this is still an excellent human story of quiet heroism.
Set in the early 1980s, the film focuses on Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), the most successful playwright in the GDR. In fact, he is the only playwright in the GDR, since the Communist Party has deemed all others enemies of the state, forcing them to defect or go into excile. He has his leading lady, Christa-Maria (Martina Gedeck) for a lover, and friends in high places. Everything is going swimmingly for him until Christa-Maria catches the eye of a leading party official, who sets the Stasi on Georg. It is the job of Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) to monitor his every move and listen to his every conversation, anything to find an indiscretion. The lives of these two men are to become intwined in a carefully crafted and very moving way.
Highlights of a great cast start with Koch, who so impressed in Zwarteboek (Black Book). Not good-looking in the conventional sense, there is still something magnetic about him; he plays the slightly bohemian, yet-still-trying-to-tow-the-party-line, Dreyman with just the right mix of confidence and uncertainty. Mühe (Kevin-Spacey-as-Lex-Luthor’s double) gives a subtle and measured performance as the shy Stasi man. So subtle and measured, in fact, that it was sometimes hard to follow what he was doing and why (my only criticism of the film, and a small one at that as the story unfolds). Gedeck creates a strong and intelligent character who is more than a love interest, something I fear is rare in English-language cinema.
The Lives of Others deservedly won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar this year. It is a ode to the man who quietly makes a difference, who makes sacrifices and doesn’t ask for recognition. By bringing light to East Germany’s murky history, it has brought up the uncomfortable truth that people were giving up their friends and loved ones to the Secret Police only twenty years ago. By telling this one tale, many people will now feel free to tell their own.
Set in the early 1980s, the film focuses on Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), the most successful playwright in the GDR. In fact, he is the only playwright in the GDR, since the Communist Party has deemed all others enemies of the state, forcing them to defect or go into excile. He has his leading lady, Christa-Maria (Martina Gedeck) for a lover, and friends in high places. Everything is going swimmingly for him until Christa-Maria catches the eye of a leading party official, who sets the Stasi on Georg. It is the job of Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) to monitor his every move and listen to his every conversation, anything to find an indiscretion. The lives of these two men are to become intwined in a carefully crafted and very moving way.
Highlights of a great cast start with Koch, who so impressed in Zwarteboek (Black Book). Not good-looking in the conventional sense, there is still something magnetic about him; he plays the slightly bohemian, yet-still-trying-to-tow-the-party-line, Dreyman with just the right mix of confidence and uncertainty. Mühe (Kevin-Spacey-as-Lex-Luthor’s double) gives a subtle and measured performance as the shy Stasi man. So subtle and measured, in fact, that it was sometimes hard to follow what he was doing and why (my only criticism of the film, and a small one at that as the story unfolds). Gedeck creates a strong and intelligent character who is more than a love interest, something I fear is rare in English-language cinema.
The Lives of Others deservedly won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar this year. It is a ode to the man who quietly makes a difference, who makes sacrifices and doesn’t ask for recognition. By bringing light to East Germany’s murky history, it has brought up the uncomfortable truth that people were giving up their friends and loved ones to the Secret Police only twenty years ago. By telling this one tale, many people will now feel free to tell their own.
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