Topic: Jon's Random Reviews

[Najemikon]

District 9 **** Year: 2009 Director: Neill Blomkamp Rating: 15 Length: 112 Min.

From producer Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy) and director Neill Blomkamp comes a startlingly original science fiction thriller. With stunning special effects this grittily realistic film plunges us into a world where aliens have landed... only to be exiled to a slum on the fringes of Johannesburg. Now, one lone human discovers the mysterious secret of the extraterrestrial weapon technology. Hunted and hounded through the bizarre back alleys of an alien shantytown, he will discover what it means to be the ultimate outsider on your own planet.

Hollywood has had an uneasy relationship with science fiction, the least structured of all the genres. Despite helping define it in a hotbed of b-movie paranoia, the studios have largely lost the initiative to comic books, animation and even games, such as Half-Life. You can count the truly definitive entries easily, like 2001, Bladerunner, Star Wars, etc, up to Children of Men. And for every one of those there are a dozen more copies demonstrating a basic misunderstanding of the material and the audience (often by the same creators; yes, I mean you, George Lucas!), resorting to cheap and tired blockbuster staples rather than themes that sell themselves to begin with.

Thankfully a new generation of film-makers has grown up understanding that problem and Weta effects wizard Neill Blomkamp is one of them. District 9, despite a strong political sub-text, feels rough and ready, like it’s leaping from 1970s British comics, via the 1950s alien invasion horrors. All it needed was a trashy title (“My Husband is a Prawn from Outer Space!”) and the love affair for generations of sci-fi fans would be complete.

A film distinctly of two halves, the first being paranoid horror and the second alien thriller, District 9 isn’t shy about its roots (The Fly and Robocop are easy spots), but as with the recent popular zombie parodies like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland, and now superheroes with Kick-Ass, it’s a proud film made by a geek for geeks. And I mean that in the best possible sense as this is a cult film punching above its weight (Oscar nominated, no less). It’s exploitive, cartoony, and slightly nuts in the most fun way, and shot through with poignancy.

Much of that is thanks to the heartfelt and natural, but full-blooded and largely improvised performance by Sharlto Copley. In a film of broad strokes and cartoon villains, he is Blomkamp’s ace. He looks like a nerd, but acts like a live-wire, grabbing your attention immediately (important in the exhausting opening ten minutes). He could so easily have been unlikeable and predictable, being a cowardly hero with an obvious arc, but he is affecting and memorable. In all the flash bang wallop, he is likely to be what you will remember most about the story, because he sells it to you.

Not that the flash, the bang, nor the wallop should be dismissed as Blomkamp proves his talent with the effects. This is after all, technically a low-budget effort, so the CGI and model work could easily have been a low point, but they’re excellent across the board. The convincingly organic and frequently gory “Prawns” (given a nice twist with very human attitudes) are very much characters with personalities. And their technology is satisfyingly hardcore with several storming set-pieces, especially the finale and a suicidal assault on the offices of the corporate villains. The sharply contrasting palettes and a subdued, dirty landscape, come to life on Blu-Ray. It’s a real feast for the eyes.

Blomkamps decision to use a lightly handheld documentary style really helps those effects. The willingness to not focus and treat them as “real” was possibly first seen in Joss Whedon’s Firefly and then Serenity. It’s a brave thing to do, to spend significant time on effects and then not show them properly, but it makes it so much more convincing. Along with Wall-E creating traditional camera defects on purpose despite it being animation, this has created a small, but significant step for movies that shouldn’t be underestimated.

It isn’t perfect. Repeat viewings will reveal multiple plot holes and the inconsistent documentary style may jar that the fast pace largely disguises, but it’s such enthusiastic fun you will watch it over and over again anyway. It’s a loveable b-movie, complete with the poignancy and heart that those classics had too.


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[goodguy]

re: Redbelt
The obvious comparison would be the underrated Spartan, Mamet's other "Samurai" movie (with an exceptional Val Kilmer). Compared to that, Redbelt is merely okay, far too lightweight and conventional to be of any significance.

[Najemikon]

Never got around to Spartan, but I like the tone of Redbelt and as I said, I appreciated the way he subscribed to and avoided the typical sports movie ending...

[Achim]

I quite liked Ip Man myself. Accidentally bought the sequel first, feeling comepelled to buy the original one before watching it The sequel is still o.k. but far behind its predecessor. There is one particular scene I absolutely loathed, where the pushed the concept of the terrible western colonist way to far.

[Najemikon]

I have heard generally good things about the sequel. I must pick it up at some point.

[Najemikon]

The Warrior and The Wolf * Year: 2009 Director: Tian Zhuangzhuang Length: 101 Min.

It’s hard to find truly bad films because even the worst ones are memorable. Maybe it offended you and made you angry; or perhaps you laughed at an actor attempting to rescue a terrible script. You could feel sorry for a director who is clearly trying his best with a good idea, but no budget. The whole production could even have a whiff of insanity, but at least there is something.

The Warrior and the Wolf has nothing to offer at all. I cannot find a single element that deserves highlighting! This may seem harsh, but I’m usually a very optimistic reviewer. I never give up! At the end of this I couldn’t even feel disappointed. There are no missed opportunities here, because there are no good ideas.

The plot is based on a short story called Rasai-Ki by Yasushi Inoue about a reluctant soldier who misses his simple life as a shepherd and falls in love with a tribal widow, despite the warnings they will be cursed to roam as wolves. It seems like it would make for a poetic and emotional romance. I’m sure the short novel is wonderful. The film is not short enough and it certainly isn’t wonderful.

I’m impressed I managed to glean that much of the plot after watching it, because it’s nigh on impenetrable. And if you don’t believe me, consider that on several occasions, it throws up a title card updating you on the plot! Clearly someone realised it wasn’t making any sense at all and the viewer would need help to keep up.

Whether anyone will have the courage to make so much of an effort is up for debate. It’s pure nonsense while we see the Chinese shepherd (played by Japanese Joe Odagiri) trying to be a soldier and having disagreements with his tough General (Tou Chung-hua). The General is injured and somehow, the shepherd seems to now be leading the troops (military career prospects in ancient China are clearly excellent, if ambitious). They occupy a seemingly deserted village, but he finds Maggie Q (Vietnamese American playing a Chinese widow) hiding in a hole under her hut. At this point there is a great deal of sex. The film is no longer just nonsense, but is now very grubby nonsense.

Sex scenes are hard enough to take seriously in the best films, so when I say that The Warrior and The Wolf has the worst love scenes I have ever witnessed, I’m sure you’ll accuse me of exaggeration. Let me explain: the shepherd, who we understand to be a gentle chap who never wanted to be in the army anyway and would rather have stayed at home to play with baby wolves, takes the poor, scared widow out of her hidey hole and shags her violently from behind. It isn’t pretty, it isn’t romantic and she certainly isn’t pleased, so I would assume this to be rape. Undeterred, he repeats the awful process several times, until she falls in love with him. Yeah, I know how that sounds and that’s how it is. Now bear in mind this is the centrepiece of the story; a love to conquer all others and their forbidden romance risks them being turned into wolves for eternity, or something, so I’m really struggling with the logic at this point of reaching such a profound conclusion from sweaty violation! I know China is very strict on sex scenes. In fact Maggie Q was a replacement for Tang Wei, who was banned after her performance in Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution (a very erotic film and powerfully so for the right reasons), so maybe they were trying to simplify them, but in any case, a story such as this needs time and depth for the characters to be believable and they just don’t get that.

Needless to say, the film plays out without irony or any kind of message. It’s such a mess I find it impossible to comment on the actors (beyond the inventive international casting I already referred to) or the script. Everything is just lost in an indecipherable heap of poorly filmed fight scenes, grubby sex and CGI wolves.

I was very surprised to see it was directed by Tian Zhuangzhuang who has a respected reputation. Martin Scorcese called Tian’s The Horse Thief his favourite foreign film of the 1990s. In that case, maybe the mere mention of his name alone will convince world cinema aficionados that I must have misunderstood his new film. If that’s the case, then I wish you the best of luck. You’ll need it.


Read the full review with technical specs at DVD Compare

[Najemikon]

Black Heaven (L'autre monde) **** Year: 2008 Director: Gilles Marchand Rating: 18 Length: 101 Min.

Gaspard and Marion are in love and enjoying summer in the south of France... until they stumble upon a lost phone. At first they decide to track down the owner... But the game takes a much darker turn when they find him dead, in a mysterious suicide ceremony. Next, lies a half unconscious girl, Audrey. With her enigmatic Tattoo and her Gothic looks, she soon lures Gaspard into Black Hole, a dangerously addictive video game. Gaspard discovers an obscure universe, full of infinite possibilities.

I really wanted to bring this French film to more people's attention. In itself, it isn't hugely remarkable, but it seems like no-one has even heard of it and it has a few things going for it that really make it worth a look. The trailer might lead you to think of The Matrix or even Tron, but it's quite different. Makes you think a little bit and will stand up to repeat viewings, I feel...

Gaspard (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet) and Marion (Pauline Etienne) enjoy a carefree life in the first flourishes of a romance, until they discover a lost mobile phone at the beach. The mysterious messages and photos on it suggest the owner is due to meet someone. Intrigued, they intercept and spy on the couple, following them to a quarry where they eventually find them in what appears to be a suicide pact. The man has already died, but they rescue his beautiful, blonde companion called Audrey (Louise Bourgoin), from a fume filled car. Gaspard finds a video camera on the dashboard and can’t resist taking it.

One days adventure ending with a thwarted suicide is enough for Marion, but she doesn’t realise Gaspard took the camera and is now obsessing over the owner. By coincidence, while out with friends Yann (Pierre Niney) and Ludo (Ali Marhyar), Gaspard meets the girl again and she leads him to a virtual online world called Black Hole. It’s clear her personality is split between her real life and her virtual one and Gaspard is entering a dangerous game, especially when it transpires that Audrey’s brother Vincent (Melvil Poupaud) may be manipulating her and those she contacts.

By “coincidence”, I mean “contrivance”. It’s an unlikely twist that Gaspard would run into Audrey again and it’s especially awkward here because part of Black Heaven’s appeal is a laid-back and subtle narrative that is more about mood than plot. It’s a small gripe, but a necessary twist at least, as what emerges is a clever story about obsession. Gaspard’s life with Marion is very innocent, even “naïve” as he will later call it, and note how she lives with her father who monitors the young couple very carefully; he casts a shadow of respectability. Meanwhile Audrey’s environment on and off-line is erotic and dangerous. He finds her appeal intoxicating and he risks losing his sense of reality when he starts trying to find her avatar. When he finds her, she is a “slave” or escort operating in the Black Heaven club and they start playing a perverse game that takes him ever further away from the wholesome Marion.

What’s impressive about Black Heaven is that it is an erotic thriller without being explicit. Louise Bourgoin, recently seen in The Extraordinary Adventures Of Adele Blanc-sec, is very beautiful and has a couple of tasteful nude scenes, but that’s enough to stress this is a world away from Gaspard’s normal life. There is also a scene where he sleeps with Marion, but again, it isn’t gratuitous at all. The contrast between the two lives is so stark it’s as if Hitchcock was adapting a Famous Five book! Either that or it’s merely an overblown metaphor for browsing dodgy porn sites while your girlfriend is asleep.

Certainly the choice of using an online virtual world is a clever one that means the story stays relevant and believable despite its ambition. You could easily reimagine the plot in any era and swap the game for a seedy bondage club in the rough end of town, but no matter how obsessed he was, it would be unlikely Gaspard would have the courage to visit it. Black Hole is easy for him to get into because he can do so from the deceptive safety of an Internet connection. It also allows the story to touch on the notions of identity, particularly relevant in this age of social networking.

The virtual world of Black Hole is well realised with realistic, simple almost monotone graphics, yet also a tangible sense of depth. Just look at the opening credit sequence. Black Hole has a unique atmosphere, especially when Gaspard first spies Audrey in the club and she is singing. Her voice is haunting. Also, her hands are bound and she is blindfolded... Director Gilles Marchand clearly knows more about sexual politics than he is letting on! That just makes the restraint and focus of the story all the more commendable.

Ultimately, it may be too laid back. While Black Heaven can allude to a Hitchcockian approach to duality, romance and obsession, it could also have benefitted from the Master’s focus, suspense and occasional shock for the viewer. Just as the early necessary contrivance jarred, the last act suffers slightly from needing to resolve the threads of the plot. Still, the overall commitment to that sense of pace and mood makes for a low-key film that creeps under your skin, not easily forgotten. It deserves to find a wider audience.


Read the full technical review at DVD Compare

[Najemikon]

Praise *** Year: 1998 Director: John Curran Rating: 18 Length: 98 Min.

PRAISE tells the bizarre, erotic tale of two down-on-their-luck individuals whose passionate affair threatens to save--or destroy--both their lives. Gordon (Peter Fenton) is an apathetic, chain-smoking asthmatic living in a grubby apartment in Brisbane. When he meets barmaid Cynthia (Sacha Horler), who suffers from eczema, the two begin to have sex, play Scrabble, and confront their pathetic situations. Based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Andrew McGahan, this festival favorite is an example of Australian cinema at its most quirky and impassioned.

The first half of Praise was very good indeed. It was a typically Australian comedy of melancholy irony, beautifully directed in a naturalistic laid-back style, with great characters. If Danny Boyle was making films in Australia, they’d probably look like Praise. Unfortunately it loses momentum before the last act, becoming pointless at best and selfish at worst. By the end, I couldn’t escape the feeling of, “is that it?”. I’d wanted more from it, but it is still worth seeing.

The story follows Gordon (Peter Fenton), as he gives up on his job and feels aimless. He meets up with Cynthia (Sacha Horler), another of societies rejects and they embark on a very casual relationship. Cynthia suffers from terrible eczema and has a sex drive even more rampant than her rashes. Gordon is asthmatic, yet he smokes a great deal and really isn’t very good at the whole sex thing. Somehow they click, especially over Scrabble! It’s bizarre, but great fun and sweet natured, rather at odds with the copious amounts of sex and occasional drugs which almost make it a farce. It’s brilliant writing with a great cast of characters (especially Gordon’s neighbours) and director John Curran has a wonderful naturalistic tone, supported by Dion Beebe’s striking photography.

As with any relationship, the novelty wears off and they start to struggle to keep things going. So does the film. It isn’t as if there is a change of pace, it just seems to get bogged down and proceedings become turgid, going well past the threat of farce and into something else. The story is apparently semi-autobiographical from writer Andrew McGahan and it shows, because it becomes too centred on Gordon. Things seem to happen to Cynthia for the sake of it, without depth or challenge, simply to force Gordon into a corner. I didn’t like that, but maybe you will. Fenton and Horler had both been excellent and to be fair, Fenton is committed to the end. But poor Sacha seems helpless, straddled with a thankless role by the end. That said, it has a unique tone and we need more dramas that are as confident with real humour and real lives as Praise is. I just wish it could have rounded it off more satisfyingly.


For full technical review visit DVD Compare

[Najemikon]

Norwegian Wood **** Year: 2010 Director: Anh Hung Tran Rating: 15 Length: 120 Min.

Tokyo, the late 1960s... Students around the world are uniting to overthrow the establishment and Toru Watanabe's personal life is similarly in tumult. At heart, he is deeply devoted to his first love, Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman. But their complex bond has been forged by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Watanabe lives with the influence of death everywhere. That is, until Midori, a girl who is everything that Naoko is not - outgoing, vivacious, supremely self-confident - marches into his life and Watanabe must choose between his past and his future.

Toru Watanabe is a young man dealing with the loss of his best friend, who has committed suicide. They had grown up together with Kizuki's girlfriend, Naoko, and all three were close. Now he has developed feelings for Naoko, but she is also in turmoil and their awkward attempts at a relationship threaten her sanity.

So, a right barrel of laughs then? There is no escaping the fact that Anh Hung Tran's film, an adaptation of Haruki Murakami's renowned novel, is a somber and serious affair, but it is bitter-sweet and nostalgic too. Some reviews have criticized the method of adapting the novel (in particular Toru's narration), which I haven't read, so I can only comment that I found the film's measured style engrossing and moving. Eventually! It is far from perfect and when it meanders, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was sabotage, because when it's right, it's sublime and you wonder why a couple of scenes were done in a way that seems to pull you out of the story. While a beautiful film, it is also frequently slow and indulgent, with motivations of characters sometimes questionable and brief scenes that on a first viewing can cause frustration. Still, they are only human and the film's greatest strength is that those characters are very realistic and worth committing to (Kizuki's suicide is notable for the rather pathetic, human mechanics of how to sit in a car filling with fumes! It isn't dramatic or emotive; it's just quiet and awkward and seems more real for it). The story is full of ideas; love, sex, death and grief to name a few, but it tackles them all with confidence. And it isn't a challenge to watch, certainly not depressing despite the synopsis.

Eastern cinema sometimes falls into a trap of feeling contrived and sensational, with characters seemingly constructed to force the narrative (the recent Confessions is a prime example). This melancholic story takes place in that awkward, awful time following the loss of a loved one and it is suitably unpredictable, just as life can be when you are aimless and being forced to face up to an uncertain future.

It shows how well essayed the characters are when you consider that on paper, you might find Toru unlikeable. He is strongly attracted to another girl and his inability to pull himself together is hurting all concerned, but Ken'ichi Matsuyama's quiet performance perfectly captures how difficult it is for him to let go or hold on to the past as he wrestles with doing the right thing, based on his own emotions or a misplaced sense of duty.

I may have made Norwegian Wood sound indistinct, but it is actually finely constructed around the characters. Notice how they break into groups of three, with Toru the only constant. We start with him, Kizuki and Naoko. When Kizuki dies Toru moves to Tokyo and forms a new trio with a charmer and his neglected girlfriend, Hatsumi. Naoko ends up in a retreat to recover from her grief and she is helped by another patient who in turn chaperones between Toru and Naoko when he visits, so yet another group of three. Finally Midori at first seems the only loner, but her dangerous flirting and lying becomes something else when Toru meets her sick father, making the last triangular relationship.

The story is very adult, with a strong sexual element in all the characters. Toru in particular wrestles with notions of commitment, desire and the importance -or not- of sex. His experiences in Tokyo with his friend and the views of the neglected girlfriend epitomize this, while Kiko Mizuhara is superb as Midori, a girl who uses her sexuality as a defense, yet may be more brittle than she lets on. And Rinko Kikuchi, who overall gives a stunning performance in the hardest role, is very frank as Naoko, recognizing Toru may have certain needs! If you're thinking this is an explicit film, put it out of your mind. This is no Lust, Caution and in fact is much better and more adult for the lack of nudity and the films overall lack of sensationalism is at its most effective and important when the descriptions are so explicit.

Each of the three triangles represents an alternative path for Toru and it's very cleverly done, with even the seemingly secondary characters being fully fleshed out and complicated. I have only mentioned a few of the cast, but they are all excellent, relishing the intelligent roles and working with genuine chemistry between each other. The story takes place over several months, almost in a seasonal fashion, adding an essential sense of time when it could have drifted, while giving Tran plenty of opportunity to use various weather conditions to wonderful visual effect. The fantastically realized 60s atmosphere with occasional, predominantly Western music of the era (the title is a Beatles song that represents the story) completes a consummate delivery of a film, that while it can be slow, is also an excellent fusion of styles. The story and structure is very Japanese, but the meticulous detail in the characters is Kubrick or maybe Paul Thomas Anderson when one considers the catchy, period vibe (plus the effective and original score is from Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, who worked with Anderson on There Will Be Blood). It’s only let down by brief scenes that can seem lost and ineffective, but another viewing may balance those out too.

Norwegian Wood is a special film. Typically Japanese, yet modern and unpredictable, the sombre and tough subject is nevertheless engrossing and beautifully told. It occasionally lapses into indulgence, but the ending is perfect, considering the structure of the narrative in the preceding acts, and leaves you satisfied (I loved the final line of dialogue in particular).


For full technical review visit DVD Compare

[Najemikon]

Our Beloved Month of August (Aquele Querido Mês de Agosto) **** Year: 2008 Director: Miguel Gomes Length: 147 Min.

A tantalizing mix of documentary, fiction and everything in between, Miguel Gomes' multi-award-winning love song to rural Portugal is an intoxicating blend of visuals, sound and music. Gorgeously photographed it set one's eyes ablaze and toes tapping, but Gomes goes further to work the brain as a narrative slowly, sneakily emerges out of the (seeming) documentary melody-making.

Summoning up memories of French film-makers such as Eric Rohmer and documentarist Nicolas Philibert and in its deliberate drift from fiction into fact, echoes of Pedro Costa and Manoel de Oliviera, the film follows a self-created, evolutionary path to become something wholly individual and unique.

It’s safe to say that Our Beloved Month of August is an unusual film. Beyond that, it’s hard to pin down.

In one sense it is simply a documentary with rural Portugal and its inhabitants as its subject. Miguel Gomes films without narration or even interference of any kind and instead we just have people talking, sometimes to the camera, sometimes just to each other, framed by the beautiful Portugal landscape. Gomes favours as little editing as possible, with long shots, usually static, but occasionally daring to pan. The emphasis is on the filmmaker being invisible so what we are seeing is as close to possible as ‘fly on a wall’. We seem to be following local bands playing in different towns and steadily a story builds. For instance, we hear about a man who has become some sort of celebrity after he jumped in the river from a bridge; exactly why he did this and just how much of a celebrity he actually is depends on several different viewpoints, which are presented naturally so you come to your own conclusions. Meanwhile we come to learn more about the town and its dependency on fire wardens, who man lookouts and raise the alarm if smoke is spied. One of these wardens is a girl who also sings in one of the bands.

Meanwhile, the languid, almost invisible style of the film is occasionally interrupted by the film-makers themselves and this is where things become rather less straightforward! For instance, just a couple of minutes in, after we have briefly seen a band playing in the town, we see the crew arranging a domino display in a hut. The door is opened, the dominos fall and the camera follows the display, complete with edits. This is the opening shot of the film, a finely constructed set-piece at odds with the naturalistic tone of the documentary. When the display has completed, the director complains that it has been ruined. He planned to use it as the opening shot of the film. Which it is!

Yes, in a deadpan comedy of irony with echoes of Fellini’s 8½, we are watching the making of the very film we are already watching. It can be very funny and I particularly love the philosophical closing shots, of the director arguing with the sound man that he’s recording music no-one else can hear (except us of course)! Ok, I know that sounds dangerously close to pretentious, but even if you think it is, it’s worth seeing.

Slowly, over the course of watching the bands play we start to focus on several people, like the girl in the band who is also one of the fire wardens. We learn about her close relationship with her father and the mysterious disappearance of her mother. We see her and her friend flirt with the guitarist, and in the most graceful fashion, the mischievous narrative has gently evolved into a scripted, edited drama. These people are actors (in one of those ironic asides, we even saw one arguing about what scene he was supposed to do, long before we met his character) and this is now a love story. It’s a good one too. Sónia Bandeira who plays the attractive Tânia is fantastic, capturing your attention, even though you thought you were watching a documentary. That you don’t feel short-changed by either side of the film is testament to the skill in which it is woven together.

I had found some elements of the documentary frustrating. Occasionally you might wonder what the point of a particular long shot is, considering there is seemingly no political or social agenda, and the music can be infuriating. It seems all Portuguese folk music has the same melody with overly dramatic lyrics about love, lost love, obsessive love and marriage in between! But this just makes the drama all the more convincing when it arrives.

This shouldn’t work, but it does. Gomes is like a magician, showing us openly how his trick is done, yet still the trick catches us out. The notes in the accompanying booklet suggest the film was intended to be fiction, but delays meant Gomes and some of his crew were stranded for a time, so he just started filming what he saw, hence the documentary. I’m not sure whether to believe him, but accident or not, his film is a masterful demonstration of what can be achieved in film narrative. It makes for a fascinating end-point of the methods first explored in Italian Neo-Realism. I really didn't expect to have such a conclusion and certainly it doesn't quite fit the genre proper, but after spending some time pulling together my 1960s Italian reviews (http://www.dvdcollectorsonline.com/index.php/topic,7445.0.html) I couldn't help but find similarities. In any case, it's really worth seeing.

What sort of a film is Our Beloved Month of August exactly? No idea, but the transition from documentary to fiction is superbly done, strangely moving and memorable. It may be you’ll fear it is contrived, but it is so gentle and honest that even the playful scenes with the film crew convince.


For the full technical review, please visit DVD Compare

[Najemikon]

This Boy's Life **** Year: 1993 Director: Michael Caton-Jones Length: 110 Min.

He looked like the ideal husband. He seemed like the perfect father. That's just what they needed. But that's not what they got.

In 1957, Toby (DiCaprio) and his divorced mother Caroline (Barkin) travel across America looking for a place where life will be better. Desperate to make a decent home life for her son, Caroline agrees to marry her ardent suitor Dwight (De Niro). Dwight might look, walk and talk like the perfect father, but to Caroline's horror he soon turns out to be an evil, bullying tyrant who is determined to make Toby's life as painful and miserable as possible…

It’s good to see This Boy’s Life again after all this time. It was always a good film, if not overly remarkable, but now has the added interest of seeing Leonardo Dicaprio in one of his earliest roles.

For a long time, I didn’t really rate him as an actor. It might have been Titanic that did that because it was such a high-profile, but simple role. Also, he seemed lost in the shadow of actors like Johnny Depp, who would consistently choose more interesting parts, or even the late River Phoenix, with whom his looks and style bear a resemblance, except Phoenix had such a natural talent. In recent years, Dicaprio has more than proved his worth, especially since Catch Me If You Can. I like how you can see him putting a determination into each of his roles. He’s successfully bridged the movie star/actor divide and being Martin Scorcese’s muse doesn’t hurt either.

In 1993 he acted opposite then Scorcese regular Robert De Niro, in the true life story This Boy’s Life, based on the book by Tobias Wolff. With stories like this it’s always hard to assess how much is a balanced account and how much an author is creating a revised. Certainly the story holds no real surprise or insight and from a certain perspective can sometimes feel selfishly weighted to the boy (justifies the title I suppose!). But the difference here is that the partnership of the leads, bolstered by a well-judged and generous performance from De Niro, transcends the adequate writing to find something more genuine. Meanwhile, Michael Caton-Jones could count this as his best film (Basic Instinct 2 is hardly a match!), successfully capturing the time and place with a fantastic soundtrack and wisely allowing the cast to take the reins.

The story is simple enough. Toby (Dicaprio) is a teenager struggling as typical teenagers do, and not being helped by his well-meaning mother, Caroline (Ellen Barkin). Toby has a close relationship with her, but she can’t settle, has little money and is lost between relationships (the last being Roy, played by Chris Cooper in a brief role) and jobs. After she fails one more time to make it work and Toby gets into trouble at school again, they land up in Seattle and she meets Dwight (De Niro). Caroline is determined to stay put and considers marriage. Meanwhile Toby is heading further off the rails so Caroline sends him to live with Dwight and his three other children for a while. After a few months, she joins them and marries Dwight.

While Toby is on his own with stepfather-to-be, he very quickly finds that the charming Dwight actually tends to be a bully. Toby gets on well the other children (look out for a pre-Buffy Eliza Dushku), but comes to dread the routine with their dad. Things don’t improve when Caroline joins them as she is also victimised to a lesser extent, but has no fight left, believing she really has to settle this time.

The awkward relationship is very believable. Dicaprio is excellent as Toby, struggling to keep straight and he’s fairly convincing as a troublemaker, although his boyish looks don’t quite work when he’s playing the slightly older Toby (the story jumps on two years in the last act). He gets good support from groups of friends both when he is younger and especially older (including a young Tobey Maguire). But as we see in his later work, he puts everything into realising the character of a young man struggling to keep his wits in the face of some awful abuse, with attempts to break the cycle continually frustrated. There are less violent scenes than you might expect, although one late in the film is pretty brutal. Dwight’s meanest tricks are subtle, designed to break Toby’s spirit over a long period of time. De Niro could easily have just played this as a one-note bully and keep it simple, but gives a nuanced performance that suggests Dwight is a much weaker man than he makes out.

I don’t know how much of this nuance is related in the book, but maybe Dwight was a settled family man, struggling to deal with a teenager used to running around the country with his mum, while Tobias the author might have a selective memory of his childhood. He addresses his behaviour, but read between the lines and do we find a spoilt kid who just wanted an easy ride and a stepfather who thought a hard-line was acceptable? I don’t want to make excuses for some of the stunts Dwight pulls, it’s just a testament to the cast that I can least see a possibility in their performances and it lifts the film way above average.

The last act is an emotional and satisfying conclusion, but overall I wanted the script to tell me more about Caroline (how much was her free spirit nature a factor? And some of her more interesting aspects are glossed over), Dwight’s history and the opinion of his other kids to truly understand the Toby’s perspective. There’s some great scenes with the whole family (watch Toby and Dwight setting off for Scouts, or Caroline doing a puzzle with Dwight’s daughter) and I think more of those would have made for a more colourful film.


For a full technical review, please visit DVD Compare

[goodguy]

What sort of a film is Our Beloved Month of August exactly?

Exactly the kind I get excited about in anticipation. So seeing your review here is a very pleasant surprise.

[Najemikon]

What sort of a film is Our Beloved Month of August exactly?

Exactly the kind I get excited about in anticipation. So seeing your review here is a very pleasant surprise.

I thought you might catch this one! While I was watching it I imagined this was your kind of thing. Parts of it infuriated me, but overall it is quite brilliant.

[Najemikon]

Potiche **** Year: 2010 Director: François Ozon

What a sad state cinema distribution is in. I’m resigned to the fact that art-house and foreign titles will never get the advertising exposure they deserve because they are squeezed out by the big studios, but it adds insult to injury that a film like Potiche isn’t allowed to struggle in dignified silence. No, it has to be perverted by bloody Orange and their annoying adverts, paraded on the big multiplex screens that would never dream of advertising such a niche film properly. Oh, I get the irony. Mobile phones ruin films, so Orange ruin this one too. Ha-ha, how droll. And I’m not so naïve that I don’t assume the distributor was paid handsomely for allowing the travesty to happen. The optimist in me hopes that their blood money helps some struggling film elsewhere, but let’s be realistic that the reputation of Potiche might not recover. The average audience member will forever label it “Ooh, it's that Orange film!”. That is, if it ever falls across their path by accident, because Orange and the multiplex chains have made damn sure their vision isn’t disturbed by not showing the real trailer, and therefore forever hide the fact that, yes, it is a real film. And I hope you make the effort because when you actually watch it, mobile phones are a distant memory.

Potiche is an unassuming French farce that is an absolute delight, thanks to a wonderful cast and some great dialogue. Set in the late 1970s, it features the elegant Catherine Deneuve as Suzanne Pujol, the ‘Trophy Wife’ of an ambitious factory owner, Robert Pujol (Fabrice Luchini) who thinks he loves her, but pays her little respect nor considers she misses it anyway. She seems to be taken for granted by her grown-up children too and the mayor, Maurice Babin (Gérard Depardieu), with whom she has some interesting history. It is set in a politically volatile time and Robert is forced out of the factory by striking workers and heart trouble. Suzanne takes over while he recuperates and proves her worth considerably. Building on her natural compassion and hitherto unseen business acumen, she revitalises the factory and wins over the workers, her children and even Robert’s secretary who he is having an affair with (of course!). On his return, Robert is not pleased. Feminism, decency and communism threaten his mini-empire, but he has some tricks up his sleeve.

It is fantastic fun to watch Suzanne pull this coup off, though it is no surprise to us. Deneuve plays her brilliantly pitched as a calm and elegant lady from the start, who enjoys life and seems content that others are happy, despite her own potential remaining unrealised, even to the extent that she seems fully aware of her husband’s indiscretion with the secretary Nadège (Karin Viard), but ignores it. Perhaps it keeps him quiet!

It is possible that Deneuve plays her too straight as the script does seem to attempt to express some complaints from her character, but it quickly subsides. I liked this though because it simply continues that consistent and effective view that she infects almost everyone around her so completely that even the narrative can’t bear to disturb her inspirational sense of ‘C’est la vie’!

Another one helplessly affected is the mayor. The scenes between Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu are without exception, superb. The film is as much about sexual politics as any other kind and the delicate to and froing of their characters is perfectly delivered. Touching and hilarious, often at the same time, their relationship is the heart of the film. And in another example of the playful narrative mirroring the characters, Luchini’s Robert refuses to be sidelined and fights his way back into the film! Watch out for the subtle scene in which he brings back presents for his wife and secretary. His quiet petulance is fantastic. He is great as a sort of villain, but because the ever content Suzanne never entirely condemns him, neither do we. It is here that some accuse the film of a misstep and technically, it does falter. The story seems to come to an end, so the shift into the last act can be awkward, but if you expect it and have faith in the character of Suzanne, I defy you not to end the film with a huge grin!

An overall problem with the film is that it could be seen as lacking relevance and there is a sense that it inhabits a bubble, especially when the principal characters are fairly privileged. Being set in the 1970s, the political climate it realises is long past (not that I’ve kept up with French politics! It may be seen as at least ironic in its host country) and the battle of the sexes has moved on a great deal too. So you can only take it for what it is and not find some deep meaning. Contrarily, that is to its and ours benefit because it’s thoroughly enjoyable. While it is very French, especially in the sharp dialogue and outrageous mini-twists (it certainly embraces farce!) I was pleasantly surprised to find it also had a lot in common with Ealing comedies, in particular The Man In The White Suit which had a similar conscience.

Adapted from a play that somewhat explains the reflective and neat plot, it is an actor’s film and rarely rocks that boat, but director François Ozon brilliantly evokes the 70s period. The opening titles and title font could not be more suited. And then there is the great soundtrack especially during a club scene when the mayor takes Suzanne dancing, while the score also could have been lifted straight from the period.



For a full technical review, please visit DVD Compare

[dfmorgan]

Nice review Jon  . I read this after writing mine as I don't like to see what others have written as it may affect what I write.

I have to say that it was those horrible Orange adverts that got me interested in this. They were the only trailers I had seen for this film and would have probably ignored it in the list of forthcoming titles other wise.