Why would someone actively try to spend 30 years in solitary confinement? That is not something you will find out while watching Bronson, the biopic of Britain’s most violent prisoner. The director Nicolas Winding Refn has chosen to ignore the ‘why’ and focus on the ‘how’ of the situation in this highly stylised film. This is A Clockwork Orange with all that pesky parable removed.
The story of Charles Bronson (real name Michael Peterson) is a simple one. He went to prison at 22 and stayed there through his continual protests, beatings and hostage taking, all carried out for seemingly no reason. The film shows various scenes from these explosions of rage and weirdness. We follow Charles from prison, to a mental institution, to the outside world, and back to prison again.
Ultraviolence and contrivances take up the space left by this lack of narrative. The beatings are designed to look brutal but always cool, accompanied by achingly beautiful classical tracks (a rather obvious use of a device from Burgess and Kubrick’s work that is repeated too many times). This is one of those films where everyone speaks in a strange, stilted way, as if they’ve been heavily sedated or are Tony Blair. Naturalistic it ain’t.
Tom Hardy’s unnerving central performance just about makes it all work. He really goes for it, spending most of the film naked and writhing in dirt, or walking with mad eyes and the stiff gait of a Sergeant Major. Hardy is sure to be a star if he can keep getting the parts.
Bronson is relentlessly horrible and pointless. But that’s our Charlie! Not a great film, then, but perhaps a fitting one considering its subject matter.
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Review - Watchmen
First of all, I really love the graphic novel this film is based on. When I first read it, I was totally amazed at its depth and scope, the masterful way in which it recreates a whole world. There is no way that this long and dense story could be fully translated into one 2 hr 40 min movie. However, I believe that such an adaptation couldn’t get much better than this. However, for those who haven’t read the book, it could quite possibly be the maddest film they’ve ever seen.
To condense the story into a few pithy sentences would be an insult to Alan Moore, but I’m going to try it anyway. The film takes place in an alternative version of the Cold War in which superheroes existed and changed the course of history. It is 1985, and caped-crusader-dom has been banned, but it seems that someone is trying to kill off the ex-super people. The story shifts back and forth through time to build a picture of what led to this point.
As one would expect from the director of 300, the visuals are stunning. Dave Gibbons’ panels from the comic come to life in the noir-ish, grimy streets of pre-Giuliani New York, enlivened by touches of 80s neon. Whole swathes of dialogue are lifted straight from the comic as well – fans can be assured that the source material was revered. And then some.
My first minor bug-bear with the film concerns the soundtrack. Now, don’t get me wrong, I really love 60s music (my iTunes would testify to that effect, if an Apple application could take the stand), but sometimes it felt as if any old track from a ‘best of the 60s’ compilation was used. Nena’s 99 Luftballons, a suitably apocalyptic track, made a welcome appearance, however, and I loved the use of KC and the Sunshine Band in the 70s. I really don’t know what to make of the scene with Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. I can only assume it was a joke.
My second minor bug-bear concerns the casting. Using quasi-unknowns was a smart move, as it keeps costs down and helps the audience concentrate on the characters (imagine how awful it would have been to have Scarlett Johansson as the Silk Spectre). Jackie Earle Haley is perfect as Rorschach; his gravelly voice and unhinged demeanour accurately recreate this most popular of characters from the comic. Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian also really impresses with his supercool thug shtick, but he is the only actor who realistically ages; Patrick Wilson (who I recognised from Hard Candy) is very good as Nite Owl, but is a little young and trim to play an out-of-shape geek in his forties, and the Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman) never looks a day over thirty. The real problem, however, is Ozymandias, who seems to be played by David Spade. Ozymandias (actually Matthew Goode) should be a square-jawed Ken of a man.
These points aside, Watchmen is an amazing cinematic experience, full of ultraviolence and style. While it is not as profound as the book, it is clearly drawn from the mind of someone full of crazy and brilliant ideas. I’m not sure if a person who has never read the comic would understand what was going on, but the cinema trip will be an interesting experience none the less. If you are a fan, languish in seeing what’s in your head come to life on screen, relaxed in the knowledge that there is a director’s cut coming with all the Tales of the Black Freighter bits filled in.
To condense the story into a few pithy sentences would be an insult to Alan Moore, but I’m going to try it anyway. The film takes place in an alternative version of the Cold War in which superheroes existed and changed the course of history. It is 1985, and caped-crusader-dom has been banned, but it seems that someone is trying to kill off the ex-super people. The story shifts back and forth through time to build a picture of what led to this point.
As one would expect from the director of 300, the visuals are stunning. Dave Gibbons’ panels from the comic come to life in the noir-ish, grimy streets of pre-Giuliani New York, enlivened by touches of 80s neon. Whole swathes of dialogue are lifted straight from the comic as well – fans can be assured that the source material was revered. And then some.
My first minor bug-bear with the film concerns the soundtrack. Now, don’t get me wrong, I really love 60s music (my iTunes would testify to that effect, if an Apple application could take the stand), but sometimes it felt as if any old track from a ‘best of the 60s’ compilation was used. Nena’s 99 Luftballons, a suitably apocalyptic track, made a welcome appearance, however, and I loved the use of KC and the Sunshine Band in the 70s. I really don’t know what to make of the scene with Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. I can only assume it was a joke.
My second minor bug-bear concerns the casting. Using quasi-unknowns was a smart move, as it keeps costs down and helps the audience concentrate on the characters (imagine how awful it would have been to have Scarlett Johansson as the Silk Spectre). Jackie Earle Haley is perfect as Rorschach; his gravelly voice and unhinged demeanour accurately recreate this most popular of characters from the comic. Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian also really impresses with his supercool thug shtick, but he is the only actor who realistically ages; Patrick Wilson (who I recognised from Hard Candy) is very good as Nite Owl, but is a little young and trim to play an out-of-shape geek in his forties, and the Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman) never looks a day over thirty. The real problem, however, is Ozymandias, who seems to be played by David Spade. Ozymandias (actually Matthew Goode) should be a square-jawed Ken of a man.
These points aside, Watchmen is an amazing cinematic experience, full of ultraviolence and style. While it is not as profound as the book, it is clearly drawn from the mind of someone full of crazy and brilliant ideas. I’m not sure if a person who has never read the comic would understand what was going on, but the cinema trip will be an interesting experience none the less. If you are a fan, languish in seeing what’s in your head come to life on screen, relaxed in the knowledge that there is a director’s cut coming with all the Tales of the Black Freighter bits filled in.
Monday, 9 March 2009
Review - American Teen
American high school is one of the scariest concepts imaginable to people from Europe (and I believe to many Americans as well). The caste system, the humiliating lunch incidents, the horrors of the vote for homecoming queen, all of this is both reassuringly alien and frighteningly familiar to the generations brought up on American-dominated popular culture. And while the idea of attending one of these neurosis factories is repulsive, watching people doing just that is endlessly fascinating.
Everyone knows that The Breakfast Club is one of the best high school films ever and reveals deep truths about this shallow institution, as well as adolescence more generally. However, that doesn’t mean that all teenagers fit one of the archetypes featured in it (a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal). The director Nanette Burstein has decided to ignore this and make a documentary that chooses real people based on their resemblance to the characters in that film.
American Teen follows four students at Warsaw Community High School in Indiana in their senior year. There’s Megan the queen bee, Jake the nerd, Colin the jock and Hannah the misfit. Each one leads very separate lives filled with pressure, either from their parents or from themselves. There are smiles and tears as they decide their future and deal with all the issues you’d expect to see in an episode of Beverly Hills: 90210 or Saved by the Bell. Some of the storylines are so perfect and well filmed that it is difficult to believe there’s no script.
The people are engaging and their stories are compelling, but the film did not produce the emotion in me that I thought it would. The closest it gets is with Hannah, a pretty, funny and creative girl who becomes depressed. You just want to hug her and tell her that everything will be ok and that she isn’t worthless.
It is very interesting to see the reality of the high school experience up close and to find out where everyone ends up. I just wish that less was made of the The Breakfast Club connection in the marketing of the film. It annoys me that a relatively minor player in proceedings has been given a starring role in posters and the end credits just to fill in for Judd Nelson’s character. It lacks integrity, something that a documentaries normally have buckets of.
Everyone knows that The Breakfast Club is one of the best high school films ever and reveals deep truths about this shallow institution, as well as adolescence more generally. However, that doesn’t mean that all teenagers fit one of the archetypes featured in it (a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal). The director Nanette Burstein has decided to ignore this and make a documentary that chooses real people based on their resemblance to the characters in that film.
American Teen follows four students at Warsaw Community High School in Indiana in their senior year. There’s Megan the queen bee, Jake the nerd, Colin the jock and Hannah the misfit. Each one leads very separate lives filled with pressure, either from their parents or from themselves. There are smiles and tears as they decide their future and deal with all the issues you’d expect to see in an episode of Beverly Hills: 90210 or Saved by the Bell. Some of the storylines are so perfect and well filmed that it is difficult to believe there’s no script.
The people are engaging and their stories are compelling, but the film did not produce the emotion in me that I thought it would. The closest it gets is with Hannah, a pretty, funny and creative girl who becomes depressed. You just want to hug her and tell her that everything will be ok and that she isn’t worthless.
It is very interesting to see the reality of the high school experience up close and to find out where everyone ends up. I just wish that less was made of the The Breakfast Club connection in the marketing of the film. It annoys me that a relatively minor player in proceedings has been given a starring role in posters and the end credits just to fill in for Judd Nelson’s character. It lacks integrity, something that a documentaries normally have buckets of.
Sunday, 8 March 2009
Review - The Unborn
The Unborn is the first Kaballah horror film. A lot of people would have assumed that was Revolver, but they would have been wrong. Here they are: ghosts that fit into Madonna’s belief system. And what derivative, logic-less ghosts they are.
Casey (Odette Yustman) is a college girl who starts seeing creepy 7-year-old boys, dogs wearing human masks, and ominous turqoise gloves left on pavements. These unnerving visions escalate, and her eyes start turning blue. Then she finds out that she had a stillborn twin. It seems that he wants to be born again.
How and why is not made clear. Instead we have the usual shocks made up of wide-eyed children, insect lavae, and crawly, twisty, creaky old people. This is very much inspired by Japanese horror like Ju-On: The Grudge. Films like this never really make sense, but they can at least be frightening. Unfortunately, The Unborn is just silly.
Yustman successfully walks around in her underwear and is freaked out by what’s going on, the main gist of her character. She looks like a cross between Jessica Alba and Jennifer Connolly, both actresses who have appeared in similar roles. This gives the whole film a sense of deja vu. The lovely Gary Oldman and Idris Elba appear, but their formidale skills are not used in their brief time on screen.
This is a trying, silly horror, which has the bad taste to involve the Holocaust in its backstory. One to avoid.
Casey (Odette Yustman) is a college girl who starts seeing creepy 7-year-old boys, dogs wearing human masks, and ominous turqoise gloves left on pavements. These unnerving visions escalate, and her eyes start turning blue. Then she finds out that she had a stillborn twin. It seems that he wants to be born again.
How and why is not made clear. Instead we have the usual shocks made up of wide-eyed children, insect lavae, and crawly, twisty, creaky old people. This is very much inspired by Japanese horror like Ju-On: The Grudge. Films like this never really make sense, but they can at least be frightening. Unfortunately, The Unborn is just silly.
Yustman successfully walks around in her underwear and is freaked out by what’s going on, the main gist of her character. She looks like a cross between Jessica Alba and Jennifer Connolly, both actresses who have appeared in similar roles. This gives the whole film a sense of deja vu. The lovely Gary Oldman and Idris Elba appear, but their formidale skills are not used in their brief time on screen.
This is a trying, silly horror, which has the bad taste to involve the Holocaust in its backstory. One to avoid.
Review - Confessions of a Shopaholic
The romantic comedy has always been a bankable genre, but the success of the Sex and the City movie proved to studios that it is not just slushy love that appeals to a certain type of girl. Putting pretty clothes on screen can have the same money-making effect as an adorable couple breaking up and getting back together in a far-fetched way. Confessions of a Shopaholic is the predictable result: a poor woman’s Legally Blonde with a focus on the mechanics of purchasing accessories. It even uses Sex and the City’s stylist. In the end, the jewel colours of the outfits are about ten times brighter than the main character, and a hundred times more compelling than the story.
Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher) is a dizzy redhead who has somehow managed to hold down a job at a gardening magazine for four years, although I doubt she could call a spade a spade if she ever saw one. Her shopping habit has resulted in wardrobes full of loud separates and creditors banging on her door. When she loses her job, she stumbles into another one at a personal finance magazine. The girl who can’t live within her means for toffee now has to give money advice. The irony! She starts writing a column in which investments and tax-free savings are explained using clothing and shopping analogies. It causes a sensation, and everyone loves her.
Now, even forgiving the extremely offensive notion that women can only understand monetary concepts if they are framed using shoe metaphors, it is pretty far-fetched to think that a financial column would get any attention at all. Still, this is where Rebecca finds herself. But will she get her dream job at a fashion magazine? Will she get with her sexy boss (Hugh Dancy)?
Fisher is a natural comedienne, and does a lot with what she is given. The problem is, the jokes are not very funny. Her strange dance is perhaps the best bit, but it is also bizarre and unnerving. Dancy plays a character that is simply handsome and English, nothing more and nothing less. Sweet cameos by Joan Cusack and John Goodman as Rebecca’s parents cannot save this film from its own low expectations.
P.J. Hogan has directed two of the best and most poignant romantic comedies of all time, Muriel’s Wedding and My Best Friend’s Wedding, but hasn’t really had a hit since. Confessions of a Shopaholic will probably not change the string of bad luck. The credit crunch has worn away everyone’s patience towards characters like Rebecca. She is now just an annoying, whining bint who should buck up her ideas and do without that darling little scarf or cute pair of heels. It’s people like her who got us in this mess in the first place.
Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher) is a dizzy redhead who has somehow managed to hold down a job at a gardening magazine for four years, although I doubt she could call a spade a spade if she ever saw one. Her shopping habit has resulted in wardrobes full of loud separates and creditors banging on her door. When she loses her job, she stumbles into another one at a personal finance magazine. The girl who can’t live within her means for toffee now has to give money advice. The irony! She starts writing a column in which investments and tax-free savings are explained using clothing and shopping analogies. It causes a sensation, and everyone loves her.
Now, even forgiving the extremely offensive notion that women can only understand monetary concepts if they are framed using shoe metaphors, it is pretty far-fetched to think that a financial column would get any attention at all. Still, this is where Rebecca finds herself. But will she get her dream job at a fashion magazine? Will she get with her sexy boss (Hugh Dancy)?
Fisher is a natural comedienne, and does a lot with what she is given. The problem is, the jokes are not very funny. Her strange dance is perhaps the best bit, but it is also bizarre and unnerving. Dancy plays a character that is simply handsome and English, nothing more and nothing less. Sweet cameos by Joan Cusack and John Goodman as Rebecca’s parents cannot save this film from its own low expectations.
P.J. Hogan has directed two of the best and most poignant romantic comedies of all time, Muriel’s Wedding and My Best Friend’s Wedding, but hasn’t really had a hit since. Confessions of a Shopaholic will probably not change the string of bad luck. The credit crunch has worn away everyone’s patience towards characters like Rebecca. She is now just an annoying, whining bint who should buck up her ideas and do without that darling little scarf or cute pair of heels. It’s people like her who got us in this mess in the first place.
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