[Starting Thursday, February 9th, Toronto's TIFF Bell Lightbox will be presenting a retrospective of French master Robert Bresson's films entitled The Poetry of Precision: The Films of Robert Bresson. To celebrate the event, here is a review of Bresson's second film, which will be playing at the Lightbox on February 23rd and March 5th.]

Here, in Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne, is a story that might have been given an unsatisfactory treatment, like so much melodramatic drivel, and instead is carefully invested with some actual weight. Each of the central characters and their concerns are represented with an admirable amount of depth and conviction, elevating the narrative to nearly grand proportions. This shows how, even at just his second feature film, Robert Bresson had a firm grasp on his craft. That craft would eventually grow into a singular, pure style far more severe than what he uses here, yet Les Dames still certainly deserves recognition as a notable (and entertaining) entry in the great filmmaker’s body of work.

The film opens with the introduction of Hélène (María Casares), a calculating, icy femme fatale if there ever was one, and Jean (Paul Bernard), the object of her affections who, foolishly and a little too eagerly, rejects her. Outraged by this turn of events, she begins to put into motion a plan of revenge. In doing so, she reunites with an old friend of hers (Lucienne Bogaert) who has fallen into a bad lifestyle of boisterous parties and lewd hangers-on. The main causal agent for this unfortunate situation is none other than her daughter, Agnès (Elina Labourdette), who is trapped in her double profession as a cabaret dancer and prostitute. Hélène helps them by moving them to a new, sparsely furnished apartment, then goes about the delicate task of orchestrating a fresh romance between Agnès and Jean. The latter becomes positively obsessed with Agnès, escalating his courtship of her without realizing the truth about her past nor Hélène’s sinister motives behind her advice and direction.

A large part of what makes Les Dames so compelling is the respectful development of its main characters by the actors. Casares, known for her work with Marcel Carné and Jean Cocteau (who wrote the dialogue for this film), turns in a stunningly dramatic performance as the ideal vision of a woman scorned. She uses her sultry looks to her fullest advantage, her expressive eyes commanding attention and respect with no compromise. As the lovesick Jean, Bernard isn’t quite as impressive as his female co-stars, but still manages to convincingly fill the role of Cupid’s (and Hélène’s) hopeless mark. But the most intriguing presences in the film are Labourdette and Bogaert as the fallen daughter and her touchingly supportive mother. Labourdette in particular lends a certain glow to the screen every time she appears with her enchanting, spirited presence – no wonder Jean is so smitten. Yet her strong personality especially resonates when she is filled with shame by the frustrating remnants of her old life as a well-known hooker, such as when she encounters a throng of “admirers” who have followed her from her previous job at a nightclub. Though she possesses a genuine talent and even passion for dance, as seen in one scene in which she enthusiastically cavorts around the new apartment, she is determined to leave that chapter of her life behind, to not just find a new kind of love in Jean but also to try and keep herself from letting her previous sins weigh her down.

This is what makes Hélène so cruel: the young woman she has chosen to play a part in her plan is not a distant, nondescript pawn, but a fully realized character with her own life, feelings and regrets. Agnès struggles to cover over the sad details of her life without even knowing that they are being used against her by this gorgeous so-called benefactor for her own selfish ends. At one point, Agnès desperately begs her mother to cut off all contact with Hélène, only to be told that that is impossible – how could she, after the charity they have been given? Thus, Hélène ensnares her targets with façades of kindness and concern, relishing the way in which she controls and maneuvers the budding relationship between Jean and Agnès whilst utilizing the agonies of love with the utmost patience before delivering the final humiliating blow. The powerful sensations of hope and desperation that pervade the film’s final moments are testaments to the degree of investment the audience has given to these characters. Such is the quality of Bresson’s storytelling, compelling us to share the characters’ agonies and fears. If this is just melodrama, then it is melodrama done right.

*Some Spoilers, Fair Warning*

Perhaps a goofy co-incidence that Facebook filed with the SEC to launch its $5 Billion (with a B) initial public offering in the same week as this virally advertised film hit cinema screens. The dollar value for the filing is itself equal parts news-catcher, market-hubris and ultimately an underscore on where society, in the here and now, lays its value: Social Networking. Even more curious that the script for Chronicle makes room for Carl Jung and Arthur Schopenhauer, but relegates Facebook and Twitter curiously to subtext. Chronicle is an interesting name for the movie; perhaps more literal in meaning (a chronological ordering of events – here by an unseen editor) but also less on-the-nose than say, “Status Update.”

I’m getting ahead of myself, perhaps.

The latest found footage movie is one of the more interesting uses of this increasingly strained sub-genre and this is why: The main character, an angry young man with nascent telekinetic powers who is well on his way to becoming a super-villain, not only self-incriminates himself by filming the process of his road to villainy but (and here is the kicker) he uses his powers control the camera’s framing of his own story. In the case of the films big climactic show-down, the full self-realization/actualization of himself as the Apex-predator, he uses dozens of cameras to capture things from multiple angles. The thing that always struck me as strange with the outbreak of social networking, is how so many young people capture themselves drinking underage, skipping school, or other such activities that are both unacceptable in society (but also loaded, perhaps, with a cachet of cool) and upload it THEMSELVES to later be prosecuted, ostracized, or whatnot by their own self-publication. To make the the unspoken, but underlying ‘thesis’ of the film is interesting to me. I wish the filmmakers (Josh Trank and Max “son of John” Landis) did not have to be so overt with every character justifying or explaining why they are filming all the time (see also George Romero’s Diary of the Dead) because, dammit, it is 2012 and rather obvious that we are race of beings whose souls are been stolen by the camera on pretty much an hourly basis – from mall and street security, to our own goshdarned phones!

Certainly this is interesting enough to let me make my way through a film where the acting is somewhat mediocre, and the character moments are played at ‘eleven.’ Perhaps over-simplification of motive is a side effect of the comic book superhero-movie genre which almost always wears its emotions and character beats on its sleeve, but it also plays into the ‘crafting of a story’ boiling a narrative down into blog entries or emoticons. I will not say the idea of building an crafted personality (ahem, Catfish) or video autobiography as catharsis (Tarnation) are new, but Chronicle is the first movie to mould these ideas in an interesting mash of genre-filmmaking (teen angst, superhero.) Well loved movies B-films such as They Live or Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1955) were not the first time their respective ideas (Trickle-Down-Reaganomics and The Red Scare) were put out there, but man, they captured their times in timeless (and yes, slightly clunky) genre fare. I do not believe that Chronicle is any different in shouting out our own bigtime flaws. Note: In the logic of Chronicle, the emotional fallout of the death of the high school super-star popular guy is given equal parity as hallway heresay of a blowjob gone wrong (Oi! Easy A eat your heart out.) The film ends on a possible note of (self-aggrandizing) blasphemy – a video blog of one of our three Übermensch filming himself in front of an isolate Tibetan monastery – in other words, “One kick-ass Facebook update, Dude!”

Instead of all these nostalgic cold-war era Marvel and D.C. comic books being turned into films, radio-active accidents and military-industrial-complex billionaires, this is the super-hero movie that our times deserve.

The Student Comedies is a DVD collection of some of Yasujiro Ozu’s earliest feature films, all part of the ‘student-comedy’ genre, popular in Japan at the time (the late 20′s and early 30′s). The films include Days of Youth (Wakaki Hi), I Flunked, But… (Rakudai Wa Shita Keredo), The Lady and the Beard (Shukujo To Hige), and Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth? (Seishun No Yume Ima Izuko). Below I give brief reviews of each feature and look at the set as a whole.

Days of Youth

Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Screenplay: Akira Fushimi
Starring: Ichiro Yuki, Tatsuo Saito, Junko Matsui
Country: Japan
Running Time: 99 min
Year: 1929

Ozu’s earliest surviving film and his first feature length film as director, Days of Youth follows two student friends as they (at first unknowingly) chase the same girl. One is a glasses-wearing bookworm, the other a cheeky prankster who will pull any dirty trick he can to get the girl. These come to a head when the three of them take a skiing trip together.

Like most of the films in this collection, Days of Youth strikes an odd but successful balance between gag-comedy influenced by the Hollywood comedies Ozu loved and mildly melancholic drama which suggests the direction he would take in his later years. The film isn’t one of his masterpieces it must be said. The artistry and subtlety the director is famous for is in it’s fledgling years, but nonetheless there are signs of future genius in the film. Although not nearly as funny as the silent comedies of Lloyd, Keaton or Chaplin (Ozu’s cast don’t have the charisma or comedic prowess of these legends), the film does have a human and naturalistic element that most cinema of the time lacked. Visually there are a couple of nice touches too, with some early use of his famous low angled static wides and signs of his careful framing, although there are a fair amount of conventional Hollywood techniques on show too.

So it’s an interesting glimpse into how the great master started out, but taken on it’s own is not much more than a simple yet charming diversion.

I Flunked, But…

Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Screenplay: Akira Fushimi
Starring: Tatsuo Saito, Kinuyo Tanaka
Country: Japan
Running Time: 63 min
Year: 1930

I Flunked, But… begins with Takahashi and his friends slacking off in their final years at college, finding ingenious ways to cheat at their exams in order to get through. However, when one trick fails the group have to face the harsh reality of flunking out. During an economic depression life is tough and the group long for their carefree college days.

Even more than in Days of Youth, this slightly later effort from Ozu markedly changes from goofy comedy to touching drama halfway through. For me, this was the more successful film. There are some nice touches in the early comedic scenes such as when the group use an over the top technique to order bread from the local bakery – shooting a cap gun to get the baker’s attention then using limbs and props to spell out the word ‘bread’ in shadow through the window. Then later on, some of Ozu’s poetic use of the cinematic format starts to shine through a little. There are some touching scenes that use body language to show emotion – including a number of close-ups of feet to show a character’s mood or mindset, a technique that is used throughout the films in this collection. I also loved the scene after Takahashi finds out he has flunked where he eats rice with his family, with Ozu using the rhythm at which they eat to signify the tension and mood of the scene.

It’s still pretty light stuff and the end was a little unsatisfying, but there are enough signs of Ozu honing his craft and elements of humour and poignancy to make this a recommended watch.

The Lady and the Beard

Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Screenplay: Komatsu Kitamura & James Maki (a pseudonym for Ozu)
Starring: Okada Tokihiko, Hiroko Kawasaki, Choko Iida
Country: Japan
Running Time: 72 min
Year: 1931

In The Lady and the Beard, graduate Okajima struggles to get by in modern Tokyo due to his old-fashioned beard and traditional ways. Along the way he falls for a girl who works at a bakery and is followed by a gangster’s moll who he saved the girl from early on in the film.

I didn’t get much from this film it has to be said. It felt quite uneven, jumping around a lot with little narrative flow, and several plot points didn’t make sense to me at all. Much might be lost in translation, but when Okajima takes the moll back to his place, his intentions are very unclear and the whole scene ends very bizarrely. There are less traces of any of the poetics or naturalism from the previous films either, instead feeling like a bit of a rush job.

Coming across as a sillier film than the others, The Lady and the Beard has it’s moments, but not enough to keep you all that engaged.

Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth?

Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Screenplay: Kogo Noda
Starring: Ureo Egewa, Kinuyo Tanaka, Tatsuo Saito
Country: Japan
Running Time: 82 min
Year: 1932

Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth? opens similarly to I Flunked, But… with wealthy student Hirano and his friends taking the easy route through college, cheating their way through exams and goofing around outside of school. However, a year before graduation, tragedy strikes as his father dies and his successful business is passed on to the young layabout. The rest of the film looks at how this inexperienced youngster struggles to adjust to adulthood and the strain being ‘the boss’ has on his friendships and relationships.

This was the strongest film of the set for me. The comedy, although still not hilarious, is more effective here, with a great scene early on where Hirano and his father try to put off his aunt from setting him up with an ‘overly modern’ young lady for marriage. Again the film turns into a drama as it goes on though and these elements impress too, building to a surprisingly intense showdown before ending on a (slightly bitter) sweet note. As in I Flunked, But… there are more examples of using close-ups of hands and feet to tell the story to an extent. There are some lovely shots too, with Ozu making good use of depth within the frame and using movement and match-cuts very effectively.

It’s a bit too melodramatic to match up to the director’s finest work, but Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth? is the best example of his skill in this collection and it’s also the most consistently engaging and interesting.

The DVD Set Itself

The Student Comedies DVD collection is out on 20th February, released by the BFI. The four films are spread over two discs (with quite short running times this doesn’t effect the quality too much). The quality of the picture on the films varies. Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth? looks great, with barely a blemish in sight, but The Lady and the Beard has a flickering cloud of white over most of the film which annoyed to begin with, but I got used to it as the film went on. Of course with films this old and rare the very fact they are in existence is commendable – the BFI have clearly done the best they can in restoring the films and even the weaker moments are acceptable to watch.

There are newly commissioned scores on all the films by Ed Hughes, featuring The Camilleri Trio and Richard Casey. These are quite modernistic and interesting, but I found them a little repetitive and obtrusive at times. It seemed odd having constant music blaring out during an Ozu film, even his lighter early work. You can choose to watch the films with no score, although a totally silent film would be too eerily quiet for me.

Also included in the package are the remaining 11 minutes of I Graduated, But…, another early student comedy from Ozu. This is an interesting watch and actually works as a short film with a clear arc still remaining, but it’s not as fulfilling as the features by a long stretch. Added to this is a 20 minute excerpt from a talk by Japanese Cinema expert (and DVD extra regular) Tony Rayns, who discusses Ozu’s early work and influences. This is very interesting and concisely presented by Rayns who is always engaging to listen to.

On top of everything is a fantastic 30-odd page booklet which contains essays and thoughts on Ozu’s beginnings and the films present in the set. This is an interesting read and helps to better appreciate the films and their standing in Ozu’s ouvre.

Overall the films are mostly solid, not mind-blowing, but as a thorough look into the beginnings of one of cinema’s most well-respected directors it’s a highly worthwhile purchase. Fans of Ozu’s later work especially owe it to themselves to add this to their shelf.

[This is an ongoing series where Cinecast regular and antagonist (He is our "Q") Matt Gamble offers an immediate reaction to new movies coming to a theatre near you; they are cross-posted from his corner of the internet, Where The Long Tail Ends]  

I’m sure you’re quite aware of my fondness for comic books. I’ve been reading them, fairly faithfully, since the early 80′s and I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. That being said, as I’ve aged I’ve drifted further and further from reading mainstream titles from Marvel and DC. Nothing against them, I’m a pretty die-hard fan of Vertigo, but I just don’t have much interest in most superhero titles these days, and Marvel and DC’s primary publications focus almost entirely on superheroes.

Nothing against superhero comics, I’m just a bit worn out after almost 30 years of reading them. They are still great when done well, but I simply don’t have the free time to wade through mediocrity, and unfortunately, in recent years too often mainstream superhero comics have been more concerned with just getting by then trying anything different or interesting.

Oddly enough, certain cinephiles are undergoing similar reservations when it comes to superhero movies. Sure they are one of the most popular sub-genres in recent memory, but man if critics don’t seem eager to crow about their downfall. Populism doesn’t pay the bills when you are a movie critic. Well, unless you are Peter Travers. That shill will rave about anything put in front of him.

Chronicle has had a pretty interesting marketing campaign to date, focusing on the idea of teenagers getting super powers and being unable to deal with the moral complications involved with them. It’s hardly a new idea, Rick Veitch produced probably the most seminal version on the concept with his Brat Pack comic back in 1992, but when it comes to film it certainly would appear to be a new idea, and one that has film snobs actually interested in a superhero film.

But the concept behind Chronicle is a hard task to pull off. Teenage melodrama can often appear frivolous and self-aggrandizing, making for a delicate balancing act in trying to woo audiences to invest in the characters emotional well-being. Toss in a fantastical element like super powers and you are left with a difficult balancing act often shunned by your standard superhero movie audience.

Leaving Chronicle I was left with mixed emotions on how well they pulled off this high wire act. The effects were solid, and while the first-person camera gimmick was hardly needed, it was passable at worst and offered some truly fantastic moments when it was at its best.

But as I rolled things over in my brain I tried to figure out why Chronicle never quite grabbed hold of me. The film did a remarkable job of toying with the audience on who would develop into the “super villain”, tempting each of the trio of main characters with gifts and character flaws that could lead to their fall from grace.

As for the boy who would inevitably become the antagonist, Chronicle offered up one of the better insights into the mind of madness and hatred I’ve seen in sometime on film. Lucas certainly provided far less for Anakin Skywalker in the total of his three films than Chronicle was able to pull of in just under eighty minutes. It’s rare for a villain to be given ample screen time to show how he became the monster, and Chronicle never lacked in effort or skill in doing so.

But in spite of this, or perhaps because of it, I struggled with truly identifying or sympathizing with the characters, and this was Chronicle’s fatal flaw. Its hard to root against the villain when he is the most interesting character, and the one who you’d most like to know more about, and most people don’t like the feeling of rotting for the mass murderer.

That being said, while I initially have a conflicted, if not ultimately a negative reaction to Chronicle, I can’t stress enough that I believe the film succeeded in its goals, often rather brilliantly. Chronicle capably challenges its audience and does its best to never pander, but at the same time struggles to truly engage the audience. Its an interesting film, and one I am eagerly hoping to revisit. Because challenging and interesting films always seem to age the best.

[Because The Innkeepers is graduating from Video On Demand to Theatrical Exhibition today, we revisit Kurt's Toronto After Dark Review. If you want to go further back in the archives, Jandy's review is here.]
 

There is a scene, perhaps midway through Ti West’s most recent film of spooky interiors and patient tracking-shots, where an underpaid employee struggles to get a bag of garbage in to the rear alley bin. It is as good of a touchstone for what he has been managed thus far with his career, going against the grain of mainstream horror trends (torture, found footage, etc.) by making more patient, measured films which rely exclusively on atmosphere and tension. Making a horror film in this day and age that eschews gimmickry and/or mounds of bad CGI (and worse dialogue) while actually getting it out into the marketplace is a herculean task in and of itself. Alas, for all the chatter (and wonderful key art) posted on the internet about The House of the Devil, the film is only a success within the select niche of genre aficionados. Notwithstanding some very minor issues with its digitally-flat (and rather abrupt) ending, it is one of the great horror pictures of the past 10 years. I have little reservation in calling it a master-work in terms of generating both tension and anticipation, which when you boil things down is damn near everything in the horror genre. Yet, suspense seems seems to be dying off with each new re-invention of horror-formula with only a few notable exceptions.

Back to the bag of garbage.

The employee is Claire and she is one of only two remaining staff serving a meagre three guests living at the The Yankee Pedlar Inn until the business shutters at the end of the week. The bag is leaking some sort of fluid as she drags it haltingly across the uneven cracked asphalt. She makes several Sisyphean attempts to heave the hulking sack into the bin whose lid seems close just a millisecond too soon. The whole scene plays out as a charming bit of physical comedy, a levity that rests purely on the comic timing and chummy vibe of Ms. Sara Paxton which, more than a bit, reminds me of Anna Faris’ endearing goofiness in Smiley Face. And so goes The Innkeepers, a haunted hotel story that trafficks in the gentle, snarky comedy of its pair of underpaid and unambitious wage-slaves before breaking out the Shining and the ghosties and turn-of-the-screw tension to become one of most effective horror films of 2011. One of the smartest, too. An early gag in the movie, which threatens to echo/resonate in the films final shot, is one hell of a deconstruction of the jump-scare and its often gross misuse in the genre. This is a good sign that West has his brain and his talent laser focused on the nature and the possibility of this type of filmmaking. The syntax similar to The House of the Devil, but the tone could not be more different. Gone is the late 70s early 80s setting, although it retains a feel of classic, vintage filmmaking that outside of a few laptop computers, and a latte bar across the street, could place the film anywhere in the 20th century. Horror and comedy are rarely mixed well, but resulting cocktail here is shaken and stirred. Hell, it is downright effervescent. The icing on the cake is that the ending here feels far more organic to the themes brought out in the storytelling than House of the Devil. In its own fashion The Innkeepers turns the rules of this sort of film inside out while still managing to follow them. It’s a neat trick, and a welcome one.

Sarah and her bespeckled co-worker Luke (Pat Healy) have a solid plan to wile away their final few days of employment. The boss has taken off to Florida and they have free reign to indulge in a little ghost-hunting in the nearly deserted Inn. Like most century-plus old hotels, there is a legend of a ghost associated with the old place and Luke is keen to get some audio or video for his personal website on the establishment. The website, like anything the characters do, is a fair bit of a lark; something done for amusement as a time-killer. The guests also provides a bit of a distraction. A divorcee with her kid and a litany of complaints, an old man staying there as much out of nostalgia for the place as anything else, are fodder for front desk banter, but an actress at the very tail end of her career (Kelly McGillis plays the part with delicious self-deprecation) is in town for a psychic/medium convention offers a bit more interaction. Is she there by cincidence, fate, serendipity? As Sarah and Luke unconsciously lean forward with their microphones into the stretching corridors of the inn – or slump down on their elbows in frustrated boredom at the front desk – a curious thing starts to happen. They might just have whipped themselves into a fervour of belief that the place is indeed haunted. The director refuses to tell. West never quite reveals whether or not anything supernatural occurs, and this is definitely to the films benefit. Some backstory on the the film reveals that when Ti West and his crew were shooting The House of the Devil, they lived in the Yankee Pedlar Inn, a quite real place in Torrington, Connecticut that provides the wonderful atmosphere, architecture and furnishings for The Innkeepers. It also turns out that a number of the crew, as well as the director, were experiencing more vivid than usual dreams while staying there; they were, after all, making a movie about evil and the supernatural at the time. West has said he does not believe in ghosts, but he also believes that this does not stop them from scaring the crap out of you when you are alone in a dark, empty room.

On paper, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang ought to be a film I absolutely love. Film noir homage? Check. Twisty turny crime plot? Check. Self-aware meta narration? Check. Robert Downey Jr? Check. Yet when I first saw the film several years ago I remember being underwhelmed and every time I’ve thought of the film since it’s been with a sort of vague discontent. But a lot of people who generally like the same stuff as I do constantly praise it and think it’s brilliant. I couldn’t really remember enough about the film to identify what it was that left me cold, so I figured it was time for a rewatch – maybe I’d get it this time, or at least be able to pinpoint what about it didn’t work for me.

The initial premise is pretty great, with RDJ as a small-time crook who stumbles into an audition as he’s running away from the cops after a badly botched job (in which his partner got shot and killed). Unwittingly playing along, he winds impressing the casting directors and is carted off to Hollywood, where he’s assigned to shadow a real detective (Val Kilmer) as preparation for this role he might get. Even though the detective, nicknamed Gay Perry (“because he’s gay”), insists that real life detective work is boring and not like the movies, bodies soon start piling up, seemingly unrelated events turn out to be intertwined, and RDJ ends up right in the middle of all of it. Meanwhile, he offers almost continual narration of the most self-aware type; he comments on how things like this play out in the movies (“don’t you hate in movies when it seems like that one guy died, and then it turns out he didn’t and jt’s so fake”) or how bad a narrator he is (going back to tell a part of the story he neglected to tell earlier).

And this self-awareness is something I both love and dislike about the movie. As a whole, I liked the movie better this time than the first time, but still have difficulty outright loving it. On the one hand, its pop culture pomo self-awareness is something I find very clever and humorous – the dialogue and narration are both extremely witty, and most of the notes I took while watching ended up just being quotes. On the other hand, it completely overwhelms everything else about the movie, creating a superficial veneer that ultimately makes the movie fairly empty, even as an homage.

There are a lot of interesting things going on in the plot, but that’s part of the problem, too – there is way too much plot for something that takes such a breezy tone. The plot is convoluted and difficult to follow anyway, but probably not a lot more intricate than something like L.A. Confidential (which I also rewatched recently), but by privileging meta humor to such a degree, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang actually encourages you not to pay attention to the plot – until the last third of the movie suddenly throws a gazillion plot turns at you and expects you to care about something it hadn’t shown a whole lot of interest in until then. I don’t mind complicated plots at all, but this movie doesn’t need such a convoluted one; that’s not what it’s about, and even once it starts to become about that it doesn’t commit to it, constantly shifting back into superficial meta mode constantly.

The problem with everything I just said, of course, is that I easily forgive meta, self-referential genre homage movies ALL the time. I like pomo stuff, and fully understand that part of that is divorcing the signifier from the signified, cutting the reference loose from the referent. Sometimes I don’t mind at all when a movie uses pop culture referentiality that’s essentially meaningless, as I think it is here. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is pulling on film noir tropes, but it isn’t really a noir film in any real way. Actual noir is marked by NOT being self-aware; it isn’t even a genre people knew they were making at the time. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang never has a single moment where it doesn’t know exactly what it is, yet precisely because of that, it fails to be what it’s homaging.

Yet, is that necessarily a bad thing? There’s no rule that a film that uses existing tropes has to be true to any pre-conception of what those tropes should be. KKBB is clearly a comedy first (and it succeeds at that), and a noir film second, if at all. Maybe I’m asking the film to be something it doesn’t intend to be. And maybe the convoluted plot is actually a joke in itself, poking fun at films like The Big Sleep that leave plot threads hanging entirely in order to focus on other things (in that case, the chemistry between Bogart and Bacall). Yet I can’t shake the feeling that there’s a missed opportunity here to be more than just a fun, wittily written spoof. I can’t shake the sense of uneasy tension I have watching the movie, a tension that stems from the comedy and the suspense being unbalanced, as the movie tries to do and be too many things without a solid basis.

So I rewatched, and I reconsidered, and I did come away with a greater enjoyment of the superficial qualities of the film, but I still can’t bring myself to call it brilliant, as so many of my friends do. It isn’t brilliant. It’s fun. And that’s it. And maybe that’s okay. But it still leaves me at a 3.5 out of 5 rating.

Director: Léa Pool
Screenplay: Léa Pool, Patricia Kearns, Nancy Guerin
Producer: Ravida Din
MPAA Rating: G
Running time: 97 min.

As the closing credits rolled on Léa Pool’s excellent documentary Pink Ribbons, Inc., I was boiling with anger. I wasn’t angry with the corporations which use an ugly, deadly illness to grow their bottom line. I wasn’t even angry at the organizations that make it their directive to dispense millions of dollars for cancer research that has yet to yield any major breakthroughs. I was angry at myself that this “pinkwashing” (using cancer to sell goods and services) has been happening right in front of me, that I’ve seen it and even contributed to it and never considered the bigger questions. I blindly bought into the capitalist marketing machine that stands behind cancer research and never thought to make a stink about it because I, in some capacity, thought it great that companies were stepping up to the plate and helping the community at large by investing money and effort to try and save lives.

What a joke.

Based on Samantha King’s book which various sources note as being very academic in its approach to breast cancer philanthropy, Pool’s film takes a much more human and easily accessible approach to the subject. Questions on everything from where the money comes from to where it goes are addressed and Pool doesn’t shy away from the difficult questions. In some cases, we just don’t know the answers and it’s infuriating. How a disease that has been in the public eye since the 1940s with the Women’s Field Army for Cancer Control and for which various organizations have raised billions of dollars, still doesn’t have a cure… it’s staggering. There’s a good reason for this of course: money. It all comes down to money.

While major organizations like the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation are out there organizing walks and raising money for breast cancer research and the eventual eradication of the disease, most of the funding doesn’t go to research on prevention but rather to treatment. Not to say that finding better treatments isn’t important but doesn’t it make more sense to look for prevention methods so that women don’t become sick to begin with? The problem is that much of the funding raised by Komen and other foundations like it, comes from big business and sometimes those same businesses are responsible for women getting sick to begin with.

Alongside the non-profits raising funds for a cure are the billion dollar pharmaceutical companies and their studies into treatments and medications to help suffering women. Co-founders of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month AstraZeneca, one of the big pharmaceutical firms, seems keen on keeping women happy and healthy but by the same token, they manufacture pesticides that have been directly linked to cancer. They’re not alone: food chains, car manufacturers, cosmetics companies – they make millions of dollars a year by pinkwashing when often, the items they sell are direct contributors to illness or contain harmful ingredients.

What’s most apparent, and disheartening, about Pink Ribbons, Inc. is not simply what is says about the search for a breast cancer cure but what it means for anyone, man or woman, suffering from any illness. Medical research has, in many cases, turned into a capitalist game where money is of utmost importance. Sure, there are individuals within big companies that truly believe in raising money for a cure to (fill in the blank) but their bosses, presidents and board members are only interested in fattening their wallets and a cure for breast cancer, or any other illness for that matter, simply isn’t profitable. They’re not in it to find a cure but, as Ellen Leopold so bluntly puts it, to medicate it.

Pink Ribbons, Inc. isn’t all encompassing but it touches on many of the important issues surrounding breast cancer research and the ongoing gong-show that is the search for a cure. This battle has been raging for over sixty years and at this rate, it will be another sixty before we have any clear answers. Someone needs to step up to the plate and put an end to the current state of affairs because throwing money at the problem isn’t producing any answers. In the meantime, see this documentary, share it with the people you love and the next time you encounter a pink product, consider the bigger picture before shelling our your hard earned money. You’re likely better off writing a cheque to the charity of your choice.

Director: Daniel Monzón
Novel: Francisco Pérez Gandul
Screenplay: Jorge Guerricaechevarría, Daniel Monzón
Producers: Álvaro Augustín, Borja Pena, Emma Lustres Gómez, Juan Gordon
Starring: Carlos Bardem, Luis Tosar , Alberto Ammann, Marta Etura, Antonio Resines
Country of Origin: Spain
MPAA Rating: NR
Running time: 110 min.

Few films have the wherewithal to bring its audience into a pulse pounding situation in the opening minutes of a movie and then manage to keep that gripping intensity going full throttle throughout the entire running time of the picture without either going off the rails, so to speak, or becoming tedious or eye-rollingly obvious. Cell 211 has no problem with it and in fact, excels at it. Never once holding back any punches and keeping a relatively simple plot kicking and screaming with minor complications yet avoiding confusion while keeping the chaos is what makes Cell 211 one of the most excellently constructed action/thrillers I’ve seen in ages.

New prison guard Juan Oliver is starting his first day on the job just becoming acquainted with his co-workers and the basic procedures of working “on the inside” when a carefully constructed riot breaks loose and during the chaos renders Juan nearly unconscious. Unable to carry him and at first not realizing the extent of the turmoil the prison is about to fall under, the guards place Juan in an empty cell bed. Before they can figure out what to do next, they’re forced to flee the facility, leaving Juan behind as the prisoners quickly take over the compound. Juan is left to his own devices and cleverly convinces the prisoners he is one of them. Having now inadvertently become an undercover officer, he must remain undetected while gaining simultaneously gaining the trust of the prison population’s head figure, Malemadre. As more and more complications arise and clever plot turns unfold, this task is not as easy as it may at first appear and Juan is faced with several very unpleasant decisions.

The simplicity of the story is what works here. The plot practically writes itself, yet there is plenty of room for some twists and obstacles to make for far more compelling, and in some cases gut wrenching, material. While much of the film plays like a typical hostage negotiation story, the interesting dynamic among the inmates within the prison walls is what will keep the audience on its collective toes here and nothing ever comes off as contrived or obvious despite the simplicity and elements of stories we’ve seemingly seen a million times before.

There are some underlying political messages about the state of Spanish prisoners and if looked into hard enough the film has some things to say about the nature of people in general. Prisoners and guards: are they all that dissimilar when faced with unpredictable and underhanded circumstances? What about simple human interaction? Can the behavior of a person or a collective society be changed, molded or evolve with the simplest of changed circumstances or are some people just animalistic by nature? Sure it’s not a new question or one that hasn’t been asked many times before, but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it asked under this kind of compelling plot structure.

The duality between the two lead characters makes for great personality dissection. While the new guy would in real life likely be the proverbial “bitch” within these walls, he’s believably able to insinuate himself among the higher-ups within the inmate population. Because of his intellect and wit, he becomes essentially the right hand of the big man in charge. Neither of these performances are what one might consider excellent, but the intensity of the eyes and physical presence is what makes these men (on opposite sides of the law, but now both incarcerated) interesting to watch and play against each other. Mind games and physical one-upmanship interaction become almost a psychological nightmare for inmates and the theater audience alike. Are these two men playing each other or do they truly trust each other with their lives; and how does that dynamic evolve throughout the course of the film?

The outside forces bolster heavy challenges for our protagonist. If those on the inside find out who he is, they’ll torture and kill him. With access to phone lines and 24 hour available prying media outside the walls, keeping his identity a secret is not easy and gaining trust is small in comparison to keeping out the truth. With riots cropping up in other prisons around the country and Juan’s pregnant wife desperately trying to gather information, keeping the proverbial bomb from going off is the goal of some, while letting chaos reign is deep within the hearts of others.

Giving away too many details would of course spoil the action intensity on display here. But rest assured the opening sentence of this review is spot on. As I mentioned, the movie won’t hold anything back with its punches. There are moments of true brutality here and delves into scenarios of which nearly all Hollywood films would simply pull the plug on. This can make for some extremely heartfelt moments and others of pure, pumping adrenaline. With strong leads in an explosive situation that bounces effortlessly and believably from one brutal situation to the next, this is a movie that should have audience members riveted and excited throughout.

Cell 211 is available on DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday, January 31st.

DVD Extras: None.

Tracking everything from the CIA’s involvement with the Italian elections to the slow fall of Communism power, Cold War provides insights into some of the most memorable moments of the cold war and the wins and losses on both sides. Everything from Russia’s lead in the space race to Nixon’s visit to Russia and the two leader’s fight over washing machines, these are the bits of history that we can now look upon with amused smirks but which marked some of the largest wins and losses of a war of ideologies fought with words and pictures.

Cold War covers a wide variety of material over four episodes but with less than an hour per episode and nearly 50 years of material to choose from, there’s also quite a bit of history that’s not even touched on. This is most definitely an introduction and George Stroumboulopoulos, CBC’s man of the hour and the go to guy for programming that appeals to a younger demographic, is the perfect choice of host for this particular series which acts as a crash course on the Cold War and a great introduction to a confrontation that lingered with the public for decades.

Using images and footage from the period with expert commentary and talking heads, the doc moves ahead from story to story with Stroumboulopoulos guiding the way. Occasionally peppered into the mix are effective but somewhat confusing voice-overs telling stories of individuals who were affected by whatever issue is being discussed at the time. What I couldn’t figure out is whether these accounts are fictionalized or taken from memoirs and the accents which seem put on don’t help matters any. It would have been nice to get some clarification on these as they appear frequently throughout the series and are never explained.

By fart he most interesting part of this release is the disc of supplements which features an amazing collection of material from the CBC archive along with other sources. Everything from original coverage of the Apollo 11 landing to the footage of the McCallum Family emerging from a fall out shelter after living there for a week. To cap it all off and my favourite part of the collection is the US Civil Defence’s “Duck and Cover” film from 1951.

Love Hate & Propaganda: The Cold War isn’t the be all end all of Cold War documentaries and compared to the original series feels a bit underdeveloped but as an introduction to a long running standoff rich with stories and history, it certainly provides an informative introduction. As a nice bonus to the DVD release, the CBC also has an extensive website for the series with additional material which enriches the viewer experience.

Love Hate & Propaganda: The Cold War is available on DVD on Tuesday, January 31st.

MPAA Rating: G
Running time: 516 min.

Director: Michael Brandt
Screenplay: Michael Brandt & Derek Haas
Producers: Patrick Aiello, Ashok Amritraj, Andrew Deane, Derek Haas
Starring: Richard Gere, Topher Grace, Stephen Moyer, Martin Sheen
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running time: 92 min.

It doesn’t happen often but sometimes you can just tell that something’s been in the works for a while. That’s the case with The Double. The directorial debut of writer Michael Brandt who often works with Derek Haas, the film is based on a script that the duo had originally sold to MGM and which they re-acquired when the studio went under. The script had sat on some MGM shelf for 10 years before the duo rescued the rights and set off to make their film.

Set in the world of espionage and double agents, Richard Gere stars as Paul Shepherdson, a retired CIA operative brought back into the fold when Cassius, a Soviet assassin he chased around the world, re-appears after years of being inactive. As per usual with this sort of fare, Gere is partnered up with a book smart FBI agent who literally wrote the book on Cassius. Ben Geary (Topher Grace) is smart and determined and when he gets a little too close to revealing the truth, that Shepherdson is actually Cassius, he’s pushed off course and even threatened.

“OMG! You just revealed a key plot point!” It may look like this is the key element to the story but it’s revealed early on in the film not to mention the little fact that it’s in the trailer. This leads to The Double’s major problem. Once they give you that tidbit of information, what’s left to reveal? The information comes so early that it’s obvious that there is some other key point that they’re holding back and when it too is revealed, too late in the story to be of any importance, it’s dropped as passing nugget that doesn’t play into anything that’s come before; it’s a failed “Gotcha!” moment and a missed opportunity because the implications of what’s revealed would have made a much better premise for a movie.

Gere seems to be trying really hard and failing at finding his footing now that he’s getting too old (in Hollywood terms) for romantic lead material and though this is a valiant effort on his part, the script is weak and his skills a bit limited. For his part, Grace has yet to shine in a dramatic role and he doesn’t succeed here either.

Brandt makes a good effort of building suspense in The Double and keeping the action moving at a good pace but the story is halted early on by a mediocre script and it never manages to pick-up after the initial reveal. The energy drains from the screen with each new scene and the chase sequences feel like they’re shown in slow motion.

The one moment in the entire film that works is Shepherdson having dinner with Geary and his family. Sure, it’s a less effective rip-off of the dinner scene in Seven, but there’s a bit of heart and actual acting in that one scene, something is lacking through most of the film, and which is even more effective once the second secret is revealed.

Thought it tries hard to be an effective thriller, The Double doesn’t manage to deliver either in thrills or effective drama not to mention the Russian connection feels like it’s 20 years too late but I can’t help to feel particularly disappointed by the fact that Brandt and Haas didn’t see the missed opportunity with Geary’s character. Maybe in another ten year’s time Brandt will direct a sequel of sorts and we’ll get to see that story. I’d definitely give it a chance.

The Double is available on DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday, January 31st.

Blu-Ray Extras: A behind the scenes featurette and a rather interesting feature commentary by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas.

Sometimes I think there are reasons why some Shakespeare plays remain largely unknown among his vast repertoire – I have never read Coriolanus or seen it performed, but assuming this is a fairly faithful adaptation in terms of the text itself, it’s just…not that interesting. Caius Martius (Ralph Fiennes, who also directs) is a great military leader in Rome (here modernized in everything but language, and acting styles to some degree) whose contempt for anyone not born patrician makes him no friend of the commoners rioting over their lack of food. After a successful war against the invading Volscian army, he’s granted the honorific “Coriolanus” and encouraged to run for the consul, which he does, even briefly gaining the support of the commoners before a pair of conniving tribunes double-cross him and, with the support of the crowd, call for his banishment. He joins the Volsci, becoming the right-hand man of his former blood enemy Aufidius (Gerard Butler) to attack Rome, until his wife and mother (Jessica Chastain and Vanessa Redgrave) beg him to stop.

All of the twists and turns in the plot seem to come out of nowhere, with people changing sides or points of view at the drop of a hat. The script is probably abbreviated from Shakespeare’s play (the film runs just over two hours, about an hour less than most Shakespeare done in full), which might explain some of the disjointedness, but unfortunately it also feels longer than it is. It’s hard to relate to Coriolanus, who has a highly developed sense of honor but is also a total dick a good portion of the time – his shifts from speechifying the commoners to get their support to denouncing them as unworthy to vote are practically bipolar, and so is the crowd’s instant reversals from distrust to support to anger. These may all be problems inherent to the source material, but the overwrought and unintentionally comical acting styles in this section don’t do anything to help it.

Setting the film in a modern-day setting, with modern military uniforms and business suits, tanks and guns, gives it a bit of an extra punch, and I’m definitely a proponent of modernizing Shakespeare – stage versions do this all the time, and I’m glad to see more films attempt the juxtaposition of modern dress and accessories with the original text. This one works fairly well in that regard, the dialogue usually playing fairly well and understandably, until one of the actors gets it into his head to revert to old-school Shakespearean acting for a bit. There’s nothing wrong with old-school Shakespearean acting in the right context, but this isn’t quite it – the art direction and costume design is minimalist, and calls for a much subtler take on the text than Fiennes and company give it here. Some of the film’s best moments, unsurprisingly, are the quiet ones, with Coriolanus lamenting his fall from grace or his mother urging him to reconsider his actions. When the film goes bombastic, it loses credibility quickly.

That said, I will make a slight exception for Vanessa Redgrave, who as Coriolanus’s mother is hands down the best thing in this film. Even when she gets angry and raises her voice, her scenes crackle, and she knows exactly when to bring it back down for quiet moments that carry a dangerous ferocity. Brian Cox as Menenius, the Senator of Rome, is the only one who can match her level of skill with this material. Everyone else, including Fiennes, has an “outrage” setting and a “dull as nails” setting, and little in between. Fiennes is effective here and there, and as director he tries to invest a fairly static story with some visual interest via close-ups and frenetic editing – the war scenes in the beginning are actually fairly well-done, and I’d be happy to watch Fiennes direct something that doesn’t allow him to indulge in red-faced angry outbursts to quite this extent. By the last scenes, when he verbally takes down Aufidius, I couldn’t make myself stop wondering when he was gonna just Avada Kedavra the guy already.

If you have an interest in Shakespeare adaptations, the film is worth watching for Redgrave and Cox alone. Otherwise, you’re likely to find this rough going. I’m enjoying playing “keep up with Jessica Chastain” this year as it seems like she’s in just about every film, but she’s given precious little to do here. That may again be the fault of the original play, or it may just be that Redgrave is so good Chastain never had a chance. She does fall into simpering a time or two, but there are flashes of the Chastain who’s so good in Take Shelter and The Tree of Life, but there’s just not much for her to work with. I’m definitely curious to see her in some meaty period roles, though – perhaps a Portia or a Viola. Ultimately, however, the film is too unwieldy, unable to balance the different acting styles and tones or adequately treat the shifting alliances to become a cohesive whole rather than a jumble of mostly mediocre scenes.

Director: Monte Hellman
Screenplay: Rudy Wurlitzer, Will Corry & Floyd Mutrux (uncredited)
Starring: James Taylor, Warren Oates, Laurie Bird, Dennis Wilson
Producer: Michael Laughlin
Country: USA
Running Time: 103 min
Year: 1971
BBFC Certificate: 15

Two-Lane Blacktop is a film I’ve been keen to watch for a long time. Being a big fan of 70′s cinema and road movies (well, car chase movies more so) I’ve had this on my radar for years, but it keeps passing me by for whatever reason. Well with Eureka releasing a finely polished Blu-Ray of the film under their prestigious Masters of Cinema banner, I leapt at the chance of firing it up. Now that I’ve finally watched the film I’m pleased to say I thought it was very good and it stood up to the hype for the most part, but I’m finding it difficult to articulate why.

Two-Lane Blacktop follows The Driver (James Taylor) and The Mechanic (Dennis Wilson) as they drive aimlessly across America in their lovingly suped-up ’55 Chevy, challenging other petrol-heads to drag races to fund their travels. Along the way they pick up The Girl (Laurie Bird), an irritable youngster who seems to be drifting around just looking for kicks. Following the same route across the nation is GTO (Warren Oates), a middle-aged city-slicker driving a bright yellow 1970 Pontiac GTO, straight out of the lot. The two cars eventually meet up and set a race across the rest of the country, meant to end in Washington DC with the winner taking the pink slips of the other car.

The main reason for my befuddlement (yes, it’s a word) over my feelings on the film is that Two-Lane Blacktop is purposefully elusive. There is very little going on in terms of narrative, the main protagonist says very little and the more talkative characters rarely do so to drive the film forward (no pun intended). As the director Monte Hellman puts it, “the dialogue is a music track… the story is told through the subtext” (paraphrased). Yet somehow, this all works and not just in a chin-stroking pretentious sort of way. Yes, it is possible to gain a lot of meaning from the events on screen, but this is thankfully achieved in a largely natural way. In using non-actors in several of the key roles (singer-songwriter Taylor and Beach Boys member Wilson had never acted before and never did since), their performances can seem a bit hollow at times, but retain a naturalism that most professional actors struggle to exhibit. Surprisingly enough, these raw and flawed performances are set against seasoned character actor Warren Oates and still hold their own, largely because their characters are supposed to be so contrasting. Oates is magnificent, revelling in the bullshit stories he tells to the various hitch-hikers he picks up along the way and off-setting that with some subtle, more suggestive problems bubbling under the surface. Taylor on the other hand delivers lines a little woodenly, but has an enigmatic quality that makes him always fascinating to watch. Wilson doesn’t fare quite so well, but the focus on his character is minimal.

Speaking of enigmatic qualities though, that is really how the film works most of the time. The whole thing is an enigma, emphasised by its strange and almost surreal conclusion. The whole race aspect fizzles out, The Girl, after toying with all the men, loses interest and ditches them all and in a final coda as The Driver goes back to the drag strip the film itself just burns up, literally. The final moments spent with GTO suggest that it’s all the stuff of legend as he turns the race into another story to tell his hitch-hikers. This helps the whole thing play out like a mythological telling of the death of the sixties and the aimless disillusionment of its byproducts, with the subtly sombre tone accentuating this. Maybe it’s more about the fruitless longing for continuous youth or innocence though as none of the characters have any ties or goals, but they never seem happy. As GTO puts it towards the end as he dreams of settling down, “if I’m not grounded soon I’m going to go into orbit”.

But I don’t know – I’ll leave the philosophising to the chin-strokers, reading some of my last paragraph makes me want to slap myself. I think I just fell in love with the mood of the film – its picturesque view of the open road, the character in the sounds of the two muscle-cars (possibly the real protagonists) and its free-wheeling nature. The fact that it’s hard to pin down probably makes me like it more anyway – I get bored of being force fed stories and messages. Do we really need them when we can make our own from what we’re given or simply let the experience wash over us. And thats how I felt ultimately as I watched the film, I just enjoyed being along for the ride. It’s not perfect, I could have done with a little more to latch onto at times in terms of emotional depth, but it’s undeniably an original and beautifully made film that is intoxicating to watch.

Two-Lane Blacktop is out now on Blu-Ray as part of Eureka’s Masters of Cinema series. As ever with the films in this series the picture and sound has been meticulously restored, looking and sounding as good as new, but retaining the analogue quality you get from shooting on celluloid. The colours especially are naturally rich without looking ‘boosted’. Soundtrack-wise you have an option between the original mono track or a remastered 5.1 mix too, which is a bonus for audiophiles.

On top of all this Eureka throw in another fascinating 30-odd page booklet full of essays and interviews surrounding the film. This all adds together to make an amazing package that is well worth parting with your hard earned for.

Director: Asger Leth (Ghosts of Cité Soleil)
Screenplay: Pablo F. Fenjves
Starring: Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Jamie Bell, Edward Burns, Ed Harris, Genesis Rodriguez, Anthony Mackie, Kyra Sedgwick, William Sadler
Producers: Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Mark Vahradian
Running Time: 102 min
MPAA Rating: PG-13

It’s amazing what you miss even when you don’t realize you’re missing it.

It’s been a number of years since the release of Spike Lee’s Inside Man and since then, there have been few notable entries into the heist drama. Enter Pablo F. Fenjves, a TV writer with a story pitch that pits a desperate man, an escaped convict no less, on the ledge of a Manhattan building. The unfortunately titled Man on a Ledge stars Sam Worthington as Nick Cassidy, a man desperate for attention but more than that, he’s desperate for someone to believe in him. As his suicide note explains “I will go out of this world as I entered it. Innocent.” He requests Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks) as his negotiator, an ostracized cop who seems a strange choice for the job but Nick has a plan and he hopes Lydia will help him unearth the truth behind the crime that led to his incarceration.

There’s more to this tale than a wrongly convicted man clearing his name; it’s also the story of sweet revenge. While Nick talks circles around Lydia, slowly revealing his identity and the history that has led to his perilous situation, he’s also buying time for his brother to break into a safe in a nearby building. The grand plan is simple: prove Nick’s innocence and steal a huge diamond but getting there is a little more complicated than either of them bargained for especially when you’re dealing with dirty cops, David Englander – a ruthless real estate mogul (Ed Harris) who is willing to kill to get his way and a vault room directly lifted from either James Bond or Mission Impossible.

There are problems with Man on a Ledge’s script, especially when one considers the story with any degree of scrutiny, but that’s only an afterthought because somewhere between the time Nick climbs out on the ledge and the moment he jumps off the roof to tackle Englander on the street corner, I was so wrapped up in the unfolding events, as unlikely as they might be, that I never considered how the final thirty minutes would fall apart if the diamond had been in the vault.

Part of the charm are the characters, all of which are wonderfully realized by the actors. Ed Harris has a handful of scenes yet the moment you see him you know he’s a villainous man you don’t want to cross. Anthony Mackie, so good in last year’s The Adjustment Bureau (review), is excellently cast as Nick’s friend and Worthington himself is great in his back and forth with Banks, even if his accent leaves a lot to be desired but by far the most entertaining are Jamie Bell and soap star Genesis Rodriguez. The duo responsible for the nitty-gritty of the heist have some of the best lines but beyond that, they have a great natural chemistry that make the mediocre banter and cheesy one-liners work.

I’m not convinced Man on a Ledge will play as well the second time around since much of the film’s success comes from the careful reveal of information but director Asger Leth delivers an occasionally suspenseful, assured and hugely entertaining heist/revenge drama. Further proof that January can no longer be written off as the month of trash.

Man on a Ledge opens Friday, January 27th.

Director: Anh Hung Tran
Screenplay: Anh Hung Tran
Producer: Shinji Ogawa
Starring: Ken’ichi Matsuyama, Rinko Kikuchi, Kiko Mizuhara
Runtime: 133 min.

I find myself in an almost existential funk as a result of watching Norwegian Wood. It is almost as if the cast and crew sought to craft a film that would satisfy all of my aesthetic whims (through both my eyes and ears), while simultaneously grating against the very fabric of my analytical mind. In most reviews, I would save the following zinger for the end, hoping to glean a (hopefully genuine) smirk from each and every reader – that does not seem appropriate here, as the following ramblings will likely steer you away long before you reach my conclusions. That being said, there’s one rather simple term with which I may describe this film with startling accuracy:

Beautiful disaster.

Norwegian Wood is, at its heart, a tale of shared love and loss. Watanabe (Matsuyama) and Naoko (Kikuchi) are drawn to each other on the heels of the inexplicable and unexpected suicide of Kizuki – the best friend of the former, and the latter’s beau. Their shared ability to cope with Kizuki’s passing is tenuous at best, eventually driving the fragile Naoko into an isolated sanitarium … and Watanabe into the arms of the extroverted, playful, and vivacious Midori (Mizuhara). Watanabe struggles to strike a balance between his love for Naoko (whom he sees sparingly) and his need for unadulterated human contact, personified by the cruel and manipulative Midori.

Stylistically, Norwegian Wood is nothing short of exceptional. Mark Lee Ping Bin’s cinematography paints a beautiful portrait of most every aspect of the human condition, from the simple (the touch of another, the feel of skin on skin) to the macro (nature as a spectator) to the metaphysical (the ephemeral intimacy of mere proximity or shared thoughts). His utilization of shadows, tones, and an incredibly diverse color palette serves as a fine reminder of how very beautiful life is, or can be. Much of this is applicable to Johnny Greenwood’s melodious orchestral score, as well, which I’m quite sure will be shamefully forgotten this time next year. A score’s ability to paint a picture with music is a tragically overlooked aspect of filmmaking (thus begins and ends a mini-rant).

At this point, you are more than welcome to turn your attention elsewhere.

To refer to the characterization as poor would likely be inaccurate, if not entirely false. That being said, I cannot quite think of a more appropriate label, with the possible exception of schizophrenic. We are treated to alternating implicit and explicit explanations of beliefs and motivations, which are oftentimes incomprehensible (and occasionally conflicting). It is not, in my mind, a matter of the characters changing in any significant matter. Rather, it seems an intentional means to keep the viewer off-balance – or, I suppose in-tune with the hectic nature of intimacy, as it spills over many levels. It strikes me as disingenuous, if not downright manipulative, and it makes it difficult (for me, at least) to see the characters as anything more than sensual caricatures of doomed lovers.

Perhaps this is a criticism more properly leveled against the actors, as many a fine script have been butchered by poor casting. That is not the case here, as both the writing and the acting are at fault. Matsuyama is dense, and his body language never quite jibes with what he is saying and doing. It seems as if he is uncomfortable in his own skin, and not in such a way that is befitting of his character. Kikuchi shows an array of emotions that is equal part dazzling and dizzying, and her character suffers for it. I suspect that the viewer is expected to find Kikuchi’s … moods … to be a result of PTSD or something of that nature, but her words and actions are too often distracting and contradictory. As for Mizuhara, well, she comes across as a bitch just for the sake of being a bitch. Her primary motivation? She’s a bitch. Why is she a bitch? Because it’s fun. Okay.

I understand that much of my complaints can be explained away by the tone of the film. After all, it is a film revolving around loss and coping and soul-searching and all that jazz – but that is simply not an excuse for lazy storytelling and one-dimensional characters. I’m sure I will give the film another chance, given its generally glowing reviews, but it is difficult for me to imagine myself enjoying the manipulative nature of it all.

And therein lies my issue with my own core take on Norwegian Wood. The beauty crafted by Bin and Greenwood is something that I could enjoy in perpetuity. I want to see the vibrant green hillsides and feel the intimacy in contact. I yearn to hear the loneliness and yearning in the strings. Yet I cannot rectify that with my disdain for most everything else, which essentially comprises the very foundation of the film. For that, I cannot offer a sensible take on such a beautiful disaster.

Running Time: 300 min
MPAA Rating: NR

I’m a romantic at heart, obvious by my passion for happy endings where the girl and the boy of her dreams end up together, and I’m certain it all started with an early introduction to King Arthur and his queen Lady Guinevere. Over the years I’ve come to realise that my idea of Arthur, Guinevere and the Knights of the Round Table are more myth than reality, stories and ideals popularized by early writers which then permeated through society and helped shape ideas of chivalry and courtly romance, but it’s a myth that still fascinates me and thousands of others who spend their time uncovering the history behind the myth.

For decades historians have been studying Arthur, looking for clues of the myth in our history and the results have yielded some fascinating bits of information. When it was announced that the History Channel would be releasing King Arthur and Medieval Britain, I knew I had to see what they had to offer and it’s a mixed bag.

Rather than a five part miniseries exploring Arthur, the set is a collection of five episodes, ranging from sixty to ninety minutes, taken from History Channel archives. There is no new material here but rather a collection of episodes on a similar subject packaged together and the result, though somewhat disappointing at first, does eventually surface as an interesting collection of historical material. The first three episodes “Quest for King Arthur,” “King Arthur: His Life and Legends” and “Ancient Mysteries: Camelot” are all excellent on their own but seen back to back, it’s clear that they all cover very similar material and in some instances, even using the same sources and though the episodes have aired years apart, together they seems a bit redundant.

By far the most interesting, perhaps because the material is relatively fresh the first time around, of the first three episodes is “Quest for King Arthur.” Narrated by Sir Patrick Stewart, the episode makes use of re-enactments, locations, images from historical texts and interviews with a number of important Arthurian historians, including a representative of The Wallace Collection, in an effort to track the origin of Arthur from the so called “scrap baskets of history.” The following two episodes are essentially re-hashes of much of the history presented in the first with a few tidbits of additional information thrown into the mix. It could make for an interesting watch over a long period of time but back-to-back, the three episodes feel too similar.

The second disc offers a little more variety with “Knights and Armor” and “Quest for the Holy Grail.” These two are not as focused on the legend of Arthur instead, they each focus on a specific subject in which the myth of Arthur makes a passing appearance. Though it appears to be the oldest episode on both discs, “Knights and Armor” is also one of the more interesting, covering the rise of armor from early 5th century right through to the 18th century with even a mention of modern armor. The episode does a fantastic job of interweaving history of daily life, weaponry, fashion and even courtly love into the fray while venturing into heraldry past and present.

Though King Arthur and Medieval Britain isn’t what I expected, the overall collection, however repetitive in parts, is an entertaining and rich source of information, particularly for those interested in a “crash course” on Arthur and medieval Britain. With so much material on the subject, King Arthur and Medieval Britain is a great starting point for anyone interested in further reading, providing information on classic works (the poems of Chrétien de Troyes and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s “The History of the Kings of Britain” among others) collections of historical artefacts as well as modern societies and individuals specializing in Arthurian studies.

On a personal note, I have found King Arthur & the Knights of the Round Table a great index of information on the subject.

King Arthur and Medieval Britain is now available on DVD.

Not a moment is given before the gorgeously apocalyptic opening of Xavier Gens new film sees its cast of characters barricaded in the basement bunker of a New York City high-rise. Then the few survivors have all the time in the world, stuck with each other after the world end. Such is the premise of The Divide, a film that is more icky than it is beautiful, as if someone decided to make a less-parable, less-arty version of Fernando Meirelles and José Saramago’s Blindness with video-game aesthetics as book-ends. The Divide is not so much about anything, but much like the directors previous, and quite furious film, Frontier(s), it plays out the situation that leaves little to the imagination, and more than a fair bit of wincing from this viewer. For the film takes its little neo-society of under a dozen and puts them through a hell that one character foreshadows, “but you are going to be swimming through a whole lotta godawful shit before you get out.” Yea, that about sounds right.

The actor who utters this phrase, is none other than Michael Biehn, who James Cameron endeared to science fiction geeks everywhere with the soldier-of-fortune 3-punch: The troubled freedom figher Kyle Reese in The Terminator, stalwart and reliable Cpl. Hicks in Aliens and hair-trigger nutter Lt. Coffey in The Abyss. To say the dude has INTENSE down pat is an understatement, and that Gens has more than a little worship of the actor doing his thing onscreen is apparent. Case in point, Biehn’s first line of dialogue is “Let there be light.” So that kind of says everything we need to know. Biehn plays Mickey, a retired NYC Firefighter turned superintendent – maybe a tad racist – and tightly wound-up nutter, but one that good sense to have a fully stocked bunker in the basement just in case New York takes another pounding from, his words, those towelheads. He is stand-offish and intimidating towards his new found roommates: Josh, a gay man (ex-Heroes star Milo Ventimiglia) his lover Bobby (Michael Eklund) and younger brother (Ashton Holmes), an older mom (Rosanna Arquette) and her pre-teen daughter, a black guy (Courtney B. Vance), a lawyer (Iván González) and his wife Eva (Lauren German) who looks enough like Milla Jovovich that one suspects she be start kicking some ass later on. I list the characters as ‘types’ here and there is a reason for it. The film is not so much interested in developing character as it is tightening the panic-screws on the trapped souls. Initially there are guys in Hazmat suits that have lots of plastic and lab equipment, but little interest in helping anyone. When they take the daughter out of the equation, this is a an act of mercy for the audience considering the five rings of hell the film descends into from there on out.

With a beautiful stedicam roaming the basement, and time passing at a crawl, the group divides (natch) along the level headed stalwarts, the stir crazy, and the dead, and well, Michael Biehn is is kind of all of the above. Overhead fluorescent lighting makes the faces of Ventimiglia and an about-a-nine-on-the-wacko-scale Eklund resemble skulls. The dwindling living attend to such inevitable tasks of chopping up a corpse or two and disposing of the body parts in the lonely lime-limned septic toilet, while rationing out the dwindling food and water supplies. It is grim stuff, and the director lets the audience bear witness enough cruel acts to make the ensuing tension palpable. The Divide is going to split audiences (sorry, couldn’t resist) with its duel nature both as a gristly horror freak-show, and a slow-burn science fiction thriller. If you read between the lines, you won’t find subtext as much as a delicious sense of ironic – and laconic – humour; perhaps the films chief surprise. Filmed in real time with the actors on a strict diet, you watch them physically (and mentally) waste away as the show goes on and the radiation in the air supply starts hair falling out. After a rough start of not giving a sweet damn about anyone except for scenery chewing Biehn, the strong willed Eva begins to emerge, all Ripley-like. Gens clearly has a hard-on for the Alien franchise, most in particularly, David Fincher’s entry which is echoed here, and often. Amongst the morally and physically rotting menfolk, she somehow manages to stay Lancôme-luminous. At one point it is hinted that she may or may not be pregnant, but the name enough has the implication in this brave new world. She just might have to strip down to her underwear and swim upstream in that river of shit.

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Based on the short story by: Jean Bruller (a.k.a. Vercors)
Screenplay: Jean-Pierre Melville
Starring: Howard Vernon, Nicole Stéphane, Jean-Marie Robain
Producers: Jean-Pierre Melville & Marcel Cartier
Country: France
Running Time: 88 min
Year: 1949
BBFC Certificate: PG

I‘m ashamed to say I’d only seen one Melville film before this and that was Bob le Flambeur which I thought was decent, but I didn’t quite see what all the fuss was about. From my lack of knowledge of his work and his fame as a director of super-cool new wave gangster films, I wasn’t sure what to expect from his World War II drama Le Silence de la Mer. What I got not only took me by surprise but blew me away.

Le Silence de la Mer (translated ‘the silence of the sea’) is based on a short story by Jean Bruller under the pseudonym Vercors, which was written and distributed in secret in German-occupied Paris. It was a key work of the French Resistance and was highly regarded by the country. Melville at the time wasn’t so highly regarded, at least not in the film industry. He had been sent into military service in 1937 so hadn’t completed formal film school training. Instead he actually became part of the Resistance during the war, during which time he got hold of an English translation of Le Silence de la Mer. He was eager to bring this powerful tale to the screen, but was faced with many walls. For one he had no training or union membership to assemble a professional crew or work through the studios and on top of this Bruller himself refused to let him adapt his story. Melville wouldn’t take no for an answer though and in 1947 went ahead to shoot the film anyway, promising Bruller that he would only release the film if a panel of former Resistance members would give it the OK. All but one of these proud Frenchmen agreed to the release of the film and it went on to become a massive success in the country (due in large to the popularity of the book) and helped launch Meville’s career, acting as a much more powerful calling card than a degree or a union membership.

Essentially a chamber piece (but with a few diversions here and there), Le Silence de la Mer tells the seemingly simple tale of an ageing Frenchman (Jean-Marie Robain) and his niece (Nicole Stéphane) who live together in a rural cottage during the German occupation in the Second World War. Their life is rudely interrupted when they are forced to house German officer Werner (Howard Vernon) whilst he goes about his business in town. The couple, in protest to their ‘visitor’, refuse to acknowledge his presence, remaining silent whenever he joins them in the sitting room. Undeterred by this, Werner uses these quiet evenings to let forth his views on music, literature and politics to his hosts. Through these monologues we grow to see that Werner is in fact an incredibly polite and cultured gentleman albeit a deluded one. His romantic view of the occupation is that this ‘wedding’ of cultures will bring the best out of the two countries, merging the poeticism of France with the precise and productive drive of Germany. He cites the vast literary history of the former and the countless famous composers from his homeland as demonstrating the qualities of the two nations.

The uncle begins to feel for these soliloquies and longs to end his silent protest out of kindness and politeness, but persists (his thoughts form the narrative for the film). However, whilst visiting Paris, Werner begins to realise that his German cohorts don’t quite share the same ideals and his loving blending of nations is actually more of a bulldozing. This awful truth causes turmoil in the officer’s mind and he is faced with a decision – to revolt or to give in for the ‘greater good’ of his country.

The very definition of quietly powerful, the film is pretty much just made up of Werner talking to himself as the French resistors sit in agonising silence, mixed with the swirling thoughts of the uncle as he longs to break his solemn vow. It’s a testament to the direction, cinematography and performances that the film turns out so beautiful, so engaging and so emotionally powerful by the end. Only a handful of flashbacks jar, but intentionally so as we see the realities of Germany’s intentions.

Melville hired an inexperienced director of photography, Henri Decaë, to shoot the film, but the results are staggering. By not sticking to the general ‘rules’ of cinematography in those days, Decaë makes extraordinary use of quite abstract framing and gorgeously minimal yet occasionally contrast-heavy lighting. Some of the imagery such as the introduction of Werner, over-lit from a low angle like some sort of evil spirit, his later framing through the raging flames of the fireplace and the one and only head-on close up of the niece in the film’s key climax will haunt me forever.

The use of sound and music is powerful too with an initially over the top score introducing the German officer subsiding to a subtle and poignant underscore as we grow to like him. Most noticeable though is the persistent ticking of the living room clock throughout the prolonged silences, ratcheting up the tension to unbearable levels.

As Andre Bazin is said to have put it, Le Silence de la Mer manages to be ‘literary and cinematic’ in that it has the insight and psychological depth due to it’s dialogue and narrative heavy content, yet remains fiercely cinematic through its bold use of striking camera and sound techniques. The only criticism I would level at it which prevents me from awarding a full five star ‘perfect’ status is that the narration felt a little clunky and dated at times. It had a tendency to over-explain things that the excellent performances were already making clear. I felt as though the film would have benefitted from revelling in the silence a little more.

This is a minor quibble in what is clearly a major work though. It’s a subtly building film that takes a simple structure and idea to create bold and devastating results by it’s climax. On top of this is the great respect that must be held for the film in humanising a Nazi officer so close to the end of the war and in making bold new steps towards the rebellious nature of the French New Wave when considering it’s production. A milestone and a masterpiece.

Le Silence de la Mer is released on dual format Blu-Ray & DVD on 23rd January as part of Eureka’s Masters of Cinema series. I reviewed the DVD version and the picture quality was fantastic for a film of it’s age, with nice crisp blacks and strong detail. There were some signs of wear at the beginning with noticeable lines down the screen but these went very quickly and never returned. The sound was clear too, doing justice to the subtle but powerful sound design and score. Features-wise on the DVD there is only a 23 minute talk on the film from Ginette Vincendeau, professor of French cinema at King’s College London, but this is very interesting and sheds light on the genesis and influence of the film. The Blu-Ray also has a 41 minute new French-made documentary about Melville’s film, Melville out of the Shadows, which I’ve heard is excellent. Added to this you get the usual interview and essay packed booklet which is as good as any documentary (better than most in fact).

Welcome to January, folks – the month when studios tend to dump their dogs into the theatres. If you are not looking to play catch up on the pre-Christmas derby of Oscar hopefuls working their way to a wider release or partaking of the blockbusters deemed too ‘holiday’ for the summer season, you may be on the prowl for one of those buried gems of quality nestled amongst the Hollywood trash heap. Steven Soderbergh makes a solid case for the no-nonsense action thriller, and a bid for a few of your shekels, with Haywire. The film does nothing particularly novel. Another expendable super-spy chase slash revenge picture of which there were at least three of last year – Colombiana, Hanna and Ghost Protocol – and features neither an extravagance for expensive set-pieces nor the over-inflated high stakes. But what then separates this from last year, or a multitude of straight-to-video Jason Statham vehicles is this classic Roger Ebert bon mot, “It’s not what you do but how you do it,” which certainly applies here; even something that feels like this particular filmmaker could do in his sleep has such a precise polish and rhythm that not a second of this film feels superfluous. There are enough little touches and intangables to forgive Haywire for having nothing whatsoever to say other than Soderbergh knows his craft. The film is a walkthrough of all the things that director favours and have been showcased in his prolific c.v. The film knows to be lean and mean and is completely unpretentious about its execution.

The plot is simple enough, simple enough to let the IMDb single sentence synopsis speak for itself: “A black ops super soldier seeks payback after she is betrayed and set up during a mission.” Like a Jason Bourne film, sans the amnesia conceit, the action hops all over the world. Barcelona and Dublin get handsome on-location showcasing, but also upstate New York. Like everything in the film, the location shooting is a marvel of crisp necessity wrapped into the momentum of the storytelling. Given the prolific directors penchant for loading his mainstream films to the gills with name actors – from the Danny Ocean films to last years Contagion – and his experimental side of hiring ‘real people’ to play themselves – from Bubble to The Girlfriend Experience – he really blurs the line between the usual ‘one for them, one for me’ dynamic. Haywire is outfitted to the nines with interesting actors doing what they do, effortlessly. Antonio Banderas as a slick and sexy handler operating out of Barcelona. Check. Ewan MacGregor hiding a nervous anxiety behind a high wattage smile? Check. Michael Douglas with greased back hair? Check. All this supporting male acting energy is in service of a star making performance from Mixed Martial Arts star Gina Carano. If the studio is still looking for a Wonder Woman, Soderbergh seems to have made a pretty solid 90 minute pitch to Warners. She has a hotel-room redecorating sex-fight with Michael Fassbender’s Dublin Mi:6 operative that is the violent doppelgänger of Jennifer Lopez’s tryst with George Clooney (subtle editing bravura to match) in Out of Sight, and a trusting intimacy with her Tom Clancy-esque dad (a wonderful, if underused, Bill Paxton) that echoes the Lopez – Dennis Farina relationship in the same film. Talk about beauty, brains and brawn, Mal has all three; even more importantly for cinema, Carano’s got charisma. I mean Zoe-Bell-in-Deathproof charisma. Like Bell, Carano’s background as a fighter, and show-woman on American Gladiators, allows for nearly all the fight sequences to be done in long-take medium shot. It is a breath of fresh air compared to the shakey-cam and slice-and-dice editing all too familiar to consumers of recent Hollywood action fare.

The collection of performances and an out-of-order narrative structure add a facet of finesse to the film, but compared to the of the previous Lem Dobbs / Soderbergh collaboration, The Limey, a bonafide masterpiece, this one is entertainment only. Those who are attentive to the wonderful commentary between screenwriter and director on the DVD would detect a passive aggressive friction between Dobbs and Soderbergh during production of The Limey and perhaps a peaceful coming back to the table for round two prevented Haywire from doing a bit more stylistic risk taking. Maybe we are all just getting older, and a certain comfort zone beckons. I am by no means asking for either of these men to retire from what they do. This action film could teach a lot of other filmmakers who play in the genre how to do this sorts of thing with class and grace and a counter argument to Vin Diesel films: Fold the macho testosterone in on itself in favour of a believable competence and efficiency and let the actors do some actual acting between all the punching and running. Aw hell, Channing-fucking-Tatum is convincing in a Josh Hartnett-with-a-thicker-neck sort of way, Soderbergh should be cut some slack just for that. Haywire is proof that January is not the dumping grounds it once was.

Director: Stuart Simpson
Screenplay: Stuart Simpson
Starring: Norman Yemm, Nelli Scarlet, Kyrie Capri, Karli Madden
Producer: Fabian Pisani
Country: Australia
Running Time: 75 min
Year: 2010

An Australian entry into the wave of B-Movie homages that have been flooding in since the release of Grindhouse in 2007, El Monstro Del Mar! (a.k.a. El Monstro!) is a truly independent addition that makes it’s influences known right from the outset. Opening in black and white with three buxom beauties ‘dressed’ in rockabilly-meets-burlesque style outfits dancing to 60′s soul music blaring out of the car stereo, writer/director Stuart Simpson has some serious love for cult legend Russ Meyer.

This bunch of bad girls swiftly and brutally despatch of a couple of hapless locals who come to their assistance, then hit the road. We (vaguely) discover that they’re on the run after killing some nasty looking thugs and they end up in an isolated seaside town, where they plan to lay low for a while. After their elderly neighbour Joseph (Norman Yemm) warns them not to go in the water things start to get less sexploitation and more monster movie though as the girls awaken El Monstro Del Mar!

Once this viscous beast starts wreaking havoc it’s up to the remaining girls and the repressed virgin Hannah (Kyrie Capri), Joseph’s granddaughter, to show the tentacled bastard who really wears the trousers around here!

I wasn’t expecting much from this after watching the trailer and in general it’s not advised to go into any micro-budget film with too much hype, but I had fun with El Monstro Del Mar!. Granted it suffers from many of the problems on-the-cheap genre movies face, e.g. low-rate digital photography, ropey performances and a shoddy script, but Simpson seems aware of what does and doesn’t work so steers the film in the right direction as often as he can.

Problems like those listed are dealt with most of the time too. Although the technical quality of the camera equipment is weak for instance, there is some quite interesting framing used, especially in it’s Meyer aping opening. Throughout, the visual style is fairly impressive to be honest including some effectively moody low-key lighting in the interiors. It’s a shame it’s not a little more consistent on this front though as there are also a fair share of bland and poorly exposed shots. For a film made for next to nothing they certainly pull out the stops enough to stick a firm finger up at the Hollywood big boys though.

One factor that won me over more than any other though was the music. I’m a sucker for 60′s soul and there’s plenty to go around as well as a healthy dose of grungy rock, surf music and rockabilly. It’s a strong mix that is complemented by an effectively Morricone-like score from Fabian Pisani. The music, added to the burlesque elements and Meyer-inspired visual flair give El Monstro a dirty, sexy vibe that is infectious and helps it rise above the usual horror cheapies.

Although the acting is pretty shoddy, there is enough character and swagger to the bad girls and their banter to endear and to be honest, as cliched as it is, Hannah’s predictable transformation into a bad-ass is effective too. Unfortunately it’s the one leading male performer that lets things slide as Norman Yemm’s old man of the sea shtick doesn’t quite cut it. He’s not really any more hammy than anyone else, but he doesn’t have the charisma to get away with it. His scenes tend to drag the film back a bit whereas the girls drive it on.

Speaking of driving the film on, it does hit a lull in the latter half, with too much time spent partying with the girls and not enough on building tension surrounding the monster. This means the big finale, although fun, lacks the dramatic impact it could have done with. The monster, when fully revealed is also a little too comically naff, although that’s all part of the charm I guess. I might be wrong, but I think there was a bit of stop motion used for the monster, which is always a plus point in my book. When it comes to gore effects the film scores high too with lashings of dark blood and severed limbs/heads adding to the nasty overall feel.

By running for a skimpy 75 minutes and not wasting too much time on elements such as plot or tension, El Monstro Del Mar! is a fun ride while it lasts. It’s not without it’s flaws and those unaccustomed to zero-budget genre films or 60′s exploitation will hate it, but those with a taste for down and dirty monster movies with added sex-appeal will be in heaven with this guilty pleasure.

El Monstro Del Mar! will be released in the US on February 28th by Viscous Circle Films and has been picked up by Left Films in the UK and will be released at some point in 2012.

Director: Eric Khoo
Based on the Autobiography & Work of: Yoshihiro Tatsumi
Starring: Tetsuya Bessho, Motoko Gollent, Yoshihiro Tatsumi
Producers: Tan Fong Cheng, Eric Khoo, Phil Mitchell, Esaf Andreas Sinaulan, Freddie Yeo
Country: Singapore
Running Time: 94 min
Year: 2011
BBFC Certificate: 15

I‘m generally open to most genres when it comes to film, but there are a few that can rub me the wrong way. Romantic comedies and war movies for instance, although populated with some great titles that I cherish (e.g. When Harry Met Sally, Apocalypse Now), don’t interest me in their most generic form whereas I’ll enjoy a martial arts flick to some extent even if it’s purely by-the-numbers. One (sub) genre that I often struggle with is the biopic. Films like Ray and The Aviator for instance, although well put together, really don’t do it for me. Too often they try and cram the entirety of a person’s life into a couple of hours, which makes it feel like it’s being skimmed over, or they blow their achievements out of proportion making these people into some sort of Gods. I hate the pussy-footing around they often do too, trying to avoid a lawsuit when a personality is either alive or most of their family are. Granted some biopics are fantastic – Lawrence of Arabia could be called overblown, but admirably it questions Lawrence’s behaviour (without being preachy), avoids any tacked on love story (subtly nudging towards the rumour that he was gay) and of course it looks stunning. On a whole though, biopics are films that I generally avoid – The Iron Lady and J. Edgar are not on my radar this month for this very reason.

Which brings me to Tatsumi, which is a biopic. However, it’s a biopic with a difference. Based on Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s manga autobiography A Drifting Life and directed by Eric Khoo, Tatsumi is an animated look at the life and work of the Japanese manga artist who is thought to have started the gekiga style of alternative comics in Japan, even supposedly coining the term in 1957. Gekiga is Japanese for ‘dramatic pictures’ and is similar to the term ‘graphic novel’, when describing more adult or serious storytelling done in a ‘comic-book’ style.

What I found most interesting about the film and why I feel it is a vast improvement over most biopics is in how it’s presented. As well as being animated (which helps push a film in my favour), the film’s structure is very original. Important moments in Tatsumi’s life are told in short segments throughout the film (with a voiceover from the man himself), presented beautifully in hand-drawn animation taken straight from the style of his own work. In between these though and actually taking up most of the running time are animated versions of five of his short stories. These are mainly black and white (or sepia), with basic colour being introduced to one of the later stories (the biographical sections are all in full colour).

The stories include ‘Hell’, looking at a photographer’s guilt after capitalising on the death of a woman and daughter in the bombing of Hiroshima. Next up is the bleak (not that the other stories are cheerful) ‘Beloved Monkey’, about a lonely factory worker and his pet monkey. ‘Just a Man’ is about the frustrations of a man approaching retirement who resents his wife and looks to have an affair to spite her. ‘Occupied’ tells the story of a failing children’s manga writer who is sexually frustrated and becomes obsessed with the lewd drawings in a public toilet. The final story is ‘Good-Bye’, a WWII set tale that tells of the relationship between a drunken old man and his daughter who has turned to prostitution in answer to the humiliation of the war.

In terms of Tatsumi’s life we learn of the difficult relationship he had with his brother and father, his admiration for Osamu Tezuka and his frustration at manga being initially seen as a literary format purely for children, resulting in his pushing forward of the gekiga style.

Although the short stories are quite bleak and the autobiographical segments are more snapshots than a fully formed look into Tatsumi’s life, the approach worked beautifully for me. I’m often of the thought that for a true artist their work says much more than facts and stories from their life. Also, with the ‘true-life’ segments coming from the man himself, it seems more frank and honest, never placing him on any sort of pedestal. This is just a man with a passion for storytelling and drawing who has worked hard to do so for a living. This is beautifully represented at the very end of the film when we break out of the animated style and see Tatsumi draw a panel from scratch. We get to see the work and detail that goes into his drawings, which to the layman might look simplistic and childish. This little end segment reminded me of the final moments of Andrei Rublev when his art is finally unveiled to the viewer in glorious colour after several hours of black and white. Of course, having already seen much of Tatsumi’s work through the preceding short stories, it doesn’t have the same obvious impact as in Tarkovsky’s film, but the technique is still effective.

Tatsumi isn’t perfect though. The animation is quite basic (although this is clearly to try and capture the fact that Tatsumi’s work is in manga, not anime) and the audio presentation is weak. The music in particular bothered me. It’s quite sappy and uninspired when compared to the visual work on screen. That and some occasionally weak voiceover work made the film seem a bit cheap at times, but never enough to spoil it entirely.

Overall it’s a beautiful and original film. I found it very engaging too. The short chaptered presentation helped this, preventing any narrative lulls apparent in longer stories. The short stories themselves were all fascinating, intelligent and adult, with more psychological and emotional depth than most feature films. In presenting these in line with the autobiographical segments, it made me desperate to track down more of Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s work. I felt like I’d gained an appreciation of his art without having actually read the source material, which is something most generic biopics fail to do.

Tatsumi is out now on limited release in the UK.

[With Canada's Top 10 screening in a few major cities in Canada in the coming weeks, the time is ripe to re-visit some of the titles we've seen throughout the last year.]

Cronenberg and psychoanalysis seem like a match made in heaven – few directors have probed the depths of the bizarre and cerebral as frequently or successfully as Cronenberg. While films like Videodrome and A History of Violence are generally known for their visceral brutality, such a view should not hold up beyond a perfunctory glance. Cronenberg’s films are quite dependent upon the neuroses and motivations of their characters, as well as the mindset of the viewer. Sure, there is quite a bit of shock value to be had … but the human mind and its hopes, wants, needs, and desires are consistently at the forefront of Cronenberg’s works.

At face value, A Dangerous Method is the perfect storm of subject matter and director; and this, without even considering the wonderful casting.

A Dangerous Method chronicles the relationship, rivalry, and evolution of the forerunners of modern psychoanalysis – Sigmund Freud (Mortensen) and his semi-protégé Carl Jung (Fassbender). The primary focus of the two titanic minds is sex. That is, the impact of sex and sexual deviancies on society, and the impact of societal norms on sexuality. Sabine Spielrein (Knightley) is the lens through which the story develops, both in terms of the narrative (her interactions with Freud and Jung) and her standout performance.

Perhaps inevitably, this is essentially a one-setting talking piece. While the place may change, all but tossing a monkey wrench in my metaphor, the narrative is very straightforward and the interactions of the characters rarely shift, rendering the setting itself all but immaterial (with few exceptions). As a result, A Dangerous Method must sink or swim on the strength of its subject matter and characters.

My knowledge of psychoanalysis is admittedly limited to ‘Psychology 101′ and the occasional Freudian slip joke. I have always found the human mind interesting, yet I have never truly delved into the bevy of research and writing on the topic. At its core, A Dangerous Method piques this interest, yet leaves it relatively unsatisfied. The banter between Freud and Jung often feels dumbed down, and the characters themselves seem almost disinterested – this isn’t a critique of the actors, but rather of the dialogue itself … the debate seems more akin to preening than anything else. Further, the interactions between Freud and Spielrein, Jung and Spielrein, and the three together felt somewhat underwhelming. There was never a true sense that something was at stake, despite the fact that there was, or at least should have been.

Surprisingly, the aforementioned flaws cannot quite be laid at the feet of the cast. Mortensen provides a solid turn, up to the standard that most have come to expect. I was somewhat disappointed that he didn’t steal a few scenes, but I don’t believe that his character ever had such a chance. Fassbender is likewise strong, albeit inconsistent from scene to scene. His Jung was somewhat cold and calculating, but the seething nature that intensifies many of his actions comes and goes without warning.

Knightley is the true star of the film, wavering between sympathetic and deplorable with gusto. Her body language is as powerful as any word uttered during the course of the film, and her ability to distort her facial features is reminiscent of Jim Carrey – and I mean that as a true compliment. At this moment, I am unsure that there has been a turn more worthy of Best Actress consideration to-date.

Cronenberg’s direction is quite reserved, choosing to focus on the characters themselves. The camera lingers on whomever has the floor, and slowly traces the conversation and interaction from speaker to speaker. Attention to detail is ubiquitous, yet A Dangerous Method is otherwise lacking in traditional Cronenberg fare, appearing as something of an homage to the talented director.

A Dangerous Method is something less than the sum of its parts. Mortensen and Fassbender are not given ample time to shine, and Knightley’s tremendous performance cannot piece together those moments where she is not carrying the scene. Each of the performances are worthwhile, yet the interactions are somewhat lacking. The subject matter is intriguing, yet it is not given enough attention. There is nothing terribly disappointing per se, beyond the feeling that this film could have been so much more.

In the end, A Dangerous Method doesn’t quite sink or swim … it treads water.

[With Canada's Top 10 screening in a few major cities in Canada in the coming weeks, the time is ripe to re-visit some of the titles we've seen throughout the last year. Though Starbuck plays exceptionally well on DVD, it's most certainly worth a viewing with a crowd. The group laughs are much more satisfying.]

It’s always a welcome surprise when a movie you’ve never heard of impresses. That was the case when I saw Ken Scott’s Starbuck at VIFF.

Co-written by Scott and Martin Petit, this plot is one that will have you shaking your head. Bon Cop, Bad Cop’s Patrick Huard stars as David Wozniak, a 42 year old man who still lives like an irresponsible teen: he’s seriously in debt, has a grow-op in his living room to help pay the bills and works at the family butcher shop delivering meat. He’s well loved by everyone but he’s also not trusted with anything of importance because he tends to muck things up. But he has a good heart and when it comes right down to it, he’ll do what he can to help those he loves.

One such instance of caring in the late 80s led to a spree of sperm donations when he was in his 20s. Using the alias of Starbuck, David spent numerous hours in a little room doing his business into a little cup. Yes, it’s a bit strange but it got the job done and after collecting the funds he needed David went on with his carefree life until 20 years later, he gets a visit from a lawyer. The doctor who led the clinic David had frequented made the mistake of giving his sperm to all of the couples that came in for the period of one year and as a result, David is the father of 533 children, 142 of whom have filed a class action suit to open the record books and make public the name of the man who is a “father” to them all.

The lawyer leaves behind an envelope with bios on the kids which David is determined not to open it but depressed with his current situation (his lack of money and news that his ex-girlfriend is pregnant and wants nothing to do with him), he randomly selects a bio that leads to another and a third until his life becomes a quest to be a guardian angel to all of his children. It’s laughable and on paper reads like a saccharin disaster waiting to unfold but the dramedy that reveals itself onscreen is infectious.

Part of it is Scott and Petit’s script which manages to grow the cheesy premise through some truly tender moments (I’m particularly fond of the first time David brings his girlfriend home to meet the family) but the majority of the credit goes to Huard who with the rest of the cast, primarily his best friend and lawyer Antoine Bertrand (his monologues on why David shouldn’t want to be a father are hilarious and poignant) and Julie LeBreton as David’s girlfriend Valerie, bring an unexpected humanity to the story.

I found myself taken with Starbuck on first viewing and was thrilled to find that the film plays just as well on the second and even third time around. There’s a charm that encompasses this story and rather than playing like a forgettable Hollywood blockbuster, Starbuck retains a humaninty and delivers a story about family and what it really means to be a father.

A hugely entertaining dramedy, Starbuck is a widely accessible bit of Canadiana.

[With Canada's Top 10 screening in a few major cities in Canada in the coming weeks, the time is ripe to re-visit some of the titles we've seen throughout the last year. This review originally appeared at Quiet Earth.]

I‘m a total sucker for historical tales of real people I’m not familiar with so the appeal of Edwin Boyd, a WWII veteran and family man (and Canadian no less!) who is so disillusioned with his life that he turns to bank robbery, was immediate.

Scott Speedman stars as Boyd, a WWII veteran who has returned from the war and is eking out a living for his young family. Times are tough, money’s tight and Boyd is at the end of his rope. On a particularly bad day he walks off his bus driver job and tries to crack the entertainment industry. That doesn’t work out as expected and when his father steps in to help out the family, something in Boyd breaks and he takes matters into his own hands. The solution: bank robbery.

Things go well for Boyd whose good humour and showmanship come through in his robberies and when he gets caught, it’s almost disappointing. While in jail, he meets up with another bank robber, the one footed Lenny Jackson (played by the severely underrated Kevin Durand) and along with Jackson’s cronies, the group sets up another gang, this one hitting up bigger banks with bigger paydays. As Boyd’s irregular day job brings in higher payouts and larger headlines, his relationship with his wife disintegrates and when Boyd is finally caught, after yet another escape, it’s clear that his relationship with his family, the reason for the robberies to begin with, is finished.

There are some interesting things at play in Nathan Morlando’s feature film debut, a passion project 10 years in the making, but it doesn’t all work. Speedman, Durand and the rest of the cast, including Kelly Reilly as Boyle’s wife Doreen, manage quite well with the script but there isn’t a whole lot for them to work with. Much of writing is flat and uninteresting and there’s very little emotion to the story. The film feels vacant and though I wanted to cheer for Boyd whose good looks, personality and skewed sense of morality make him a likable persona, but there isn’t enough depth to the character to really cheer for.

There’s also the film’s distinct lack of tension. The heists themselves are played a bit tongue-in-cheek and there’s no sense or urgency to any of the story. Even when the gang is dying of cold and hunger while hiding out after their second escape… it’s almost as if they’re just waiting to get caught and though we know that the police is after them and at one point even see them coming, I still didn’t feel anything for any of the characters. There’s no tension in any of the film – a real problem when the most of it centers on a group of criminals on the run from police – in one of the largest manhunts in Canadian history no less!

What’s worse is that after a bit of additional reading, the film feels even more inadequate. It’s not uncommon for biopics to change, sometimes drastically, parts of the story, but Morlando left out portions that could have served to develop Boyle and his relationship with his wife and father, something which the story returns to on various occasions but never fully explores.

I didn’t care much for Edwin Boyd which feels overly long for the story it tells, not to mention that it lacks any punch, but it is a feature debut worth noting not to mention it features good performances from both Speedman and Durand. These two need to work together again. Soon.

[With Canada's Top 10 screening in a few major cities in Canada in the coming weeks, the time is ripe to re-visit some of the titles we've seen throughout the last year and Jason Eisener's expansion of the much loved fake trailer is a heck of a great selection. In addition to this review, we also have Matt Brown's review and Colleen's 3 x 5.]

Welcome to Scumtown. The graffiti runs riotous along the buildings and storefronts, and the crime even moreso. Living up to its title, it features Rutger Hauer riding the rails into town as the eponymous Hobo looking for stray cigarettes and some spare change to buy a lawnmower to make his way as a landscaping entrepreneur. The irony being that there is no grass to be seen in town. After witnessing a wanton act of violence, more a brutally bloody carnival side-show, by the local crimeboss his two identically dressed sons, he instead invests nickels and dimes on a pump-action Remington. The hobo goes to war against drug-dealers, pedophiles, dirty cops and a full assortment of colourful psychotics in the name of making Abby, a young hooker with the heart of gold, undergo a career change from prostitute to school teacher. Dartmouth, Nova Scotia was never particularly high on any tourists list of destinations, Jason Eisener’s nightmare vision of the city as an endless concrete gutter teeming with violent freaks and shuffling terrorized victims is unlikely to drum up future visitors. The brightest flowers the film can ever summon up (as a symbol of hope?) are a few rotting dandilions. Yellow weeds are as bright as it gets in this town.

Hobo with a Shotgun feels like a lost and ultraviolent product of the Canadian Tax Shelter films , the cycle of delightfully demented horror films from the 1970s and 1980s that resulted from an excess of government cash put in to stimulate a flailing Canadian movie industry. In fact, the film is indeed set somewhere in the early 1980s judging by the look of the currency being occasionally tossed around as well as a boxy gull wing car and a few choice boom boxes. While the film may have started its life as faux trailer entry in Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse, its graduation to a full-length feature easily eclipses Rodriguez’s own trailer-turned-movie, Machete. It draws its DNA not from the naughty drive-in and inner-city trash-palace fair of the 60s and 70s, but the ultraviolence of George Miller’s Mad Max films as well as the splatstick of Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive and Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead cycle, although if your ears are peeled at the beginning of the film you might just hear echoes of the Cannibal Holocaust theme.

But Eisener has two tricks up his sleeve that prevents Hobo With A Shotgun from being just another entry in the increasingly boring splatter comedy subgenre. The first is the iconic genre stalwart Rutger Hauer (the ideal nexus-6 himself, Roy Batty) an actor known first from porno-violent Dutch cinema of Paul Verhoeven, to leading man psychos and avenging angels in the 1980s, to the direct to video cheese of the 1990s and early 2000s. Age-lines and white facial hair and Hauer’s particular brand of intensity all serve him up as the perfect straight-man in the Grand Guignol atmosphere of Scumtown. Occasionally he has to snarl out a one-liner (sans original Hobo David Brunt’s Maritime accent) but the real strength is conviction with Abbey and an tired exasperation with the rest of the world. The second ace-in-the-hole is Eisener’s unique way of directing the rest of his actors. Call it “Shout Acting” which was certainly present in the original Hobo trailer, “WE’RE ALL DIRTY COPS!” and his christmas themed horror short, Treevenge (“I SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN SCHOOL…” is shout-mumbled from one of the gruff loggers as he struggles with dragging a chopped christmas tree out of the forest.) One of the chief delights in Hobo is the wacky comments the characters shout at each other in between acts of bloody cartoon violence. They are crude and rude, but hilariously creative. Mention should go to Karim Hussain’s colorfully inventive cinematography which echoes the riot-like tones of by mixing the yellow-purple-blue lighting of old Dario Argento films with a decidedly modern digital grain.

Destined for midnight-movie success but bafflement, probably outrage, from the mainstream due to its gleefully politically incorrect use of excess of sex and violence for entertainment. Excess is the key to success, this is hard, hard, hard R. The films most shocking moment (which I will not give away here, but rumour has it that funding was lost due to its inclusion in the film) has a sort of Hays Code callback – allowing to show a wanton act of sex or violence that violates traditional good taste as long as the perpetrator later pays for it on screen. With the film continually upping its phantasmagoric stakes (enter: The Plague) and its eventual passion-play with the Hobo as Christ, it is safe to say that the film goes way too far to allow for any popular success, but shall garner a healthy reputation for the crazy cult curio that it is. While the film is no Rabid or Shivers – there is simply none of the subtext present in the Tax-Shelter Cronenberg, Hobo with a Shotgun is gloriously goofy gratification – it is still worth Shout-Mumbling, “LONG LIVE THE NEW FETISH!”

[With Canada's Top 10 screening in a few major cities in Canada this week, it is perhaps time to revisit a film we love to boost in these parts. You can find Bob Turnbull's (who considers the film the best one of 2011) TIFF review here; also, you can find Bob, Mike and My own lengthy 'conversational' post about the film here.]

In an annual New Years tradition of merriment and bonding, the patriarch of a decidedly secular family asks for God’s blessing in the coming year. It is a contradictory detail such as this – a combination the pragmatic and the spiritual – in which Café De Flore asks (in a round about way) what is probably the most difficult question put to a person, at least someone in privileged first-world society: “Are you happy?”

The latest film from Québécois wunderkind Jean Marc-Vallée (C.R.A.Z.Y.) is a film of moments – intense emotional moments – offered up in a loose, free-wheeling montage (requiring the aid of voice-over) before settling into something deeper. The film further mines two of the more interesting themes that have been slowly emerging in my world-cinema filmgoing this year: The first pertains to raising children, and how connected our choices and beliefs (and anxieties) are to how the kids eventually turn out. I have seen this tackled in a variety of 2011 films ranging from guilt (We Need to Talk About Kevin) to paranoia (Take Shelter, Kotoko) to self-reflection (Tree of Life.) The second is the relation of the universe (or spiritual) to the individuals’ state of mind (Melancholia, Another Earth, and yes, again, Tree of Life.) Taking a dual narrative approach, Café De Flore divides its attention between a pair of story-lines which are connected at first glance only by the titular coffee-house tune (which is used here in many different musical forms) but other connective images and ideas slowly emerge before climatically aligning both timelines in a way that is both daring and profoundly satisfying.

The first thread, set in Montreal in 2011, focuses on Antoine, a world-hopping DJ going through an emotionally messy divorce of his own making. All kinds of familial emotional baggage is on the table between his former soul-mate, first love, and mother of his two girls, Carole, and a new love who enters his life, Rose. Ironically, Rose was introduced to Antoine by Carole, and their coming together, and their current sex life, is electric. Antoine alienates his kids, his own family, and social circles for this new woman and his own bid for happiness. Carole is left to struggle with her own emotional issues of abandonment, in which her only coping mechanism is to simply wait around until Antoine comes back to her. They were soul-mates, after all. Because Vallée is one of those rare directors who has a knack with integrating emotion on screen with music – case in point, C.R.A.Z.Y. offered its emotional beats through Glam Rock and Patsy Kline numbers – Antoine originally falls in love with Carole over a similar enthusiasm for pop songs, and hooks up with Rose after seeing her groove to some dance beats. Antoine’s daughters use ‘the soundtrack’ of their parents lives, songs that resonated in their parents’ relationship, as emotional javelins against their father who abandoned their mother for a younger woman. The Cure’s “Pictures of You” is used to stunning effect in this manner, as if Robert Smith wrote the song just to end up here. Ditto, Sigur Rós’ “Svefn-G-Englar.”

The second thread is set in 1969 Paris, and involves a single mother, Jacqueline (Johnny Depp’s life-partner, and prolific french singer Vanessa Paradis) who sees her husband abandon her after she gives birth to their son Laurent, who has Down’s Syndrome. She endeavours to raise the boy to have as fulfilling and normal life as possibly by devoting her every waking moment to his education and providing as much love as possible as protection from a rather cruel world. This approach works surprisingly well, resulting in Laurent succeeding as a placement student in a normal school. When 7 year old Laurent meets another Down’s student, Vero, it is love at first sight, and their uninhibited attachment and outpouring of emotion is extremely threatening towards Jacqueline. Where they found two child actors of this calibre is completely beyond me, as both are perfectly natural and naturally perfect.

So, in essence the two stories, and the idea of how to balance happiness of your loved ones with your own, mirror one another, and are marvelously merged together by Vallée, who is credited editor, or the more appropriate french term for it, montage. More than the sum of its parts, the film digs into how our love of others is often obsessive, you can decide whether this is in a positive or negative way (often the beginning or end of a relationship), in the same way we can react to a piece of music – both imprint the soul.

Café De Flore is not only one of the best Canadian films of the year (even the biggest enthusiast of Canadian cinema may interpret that statement as somewhat ghetto-izing) it is one of the year’s best films, period. Images and music are used in ways that are both practical and literal. Disconnected images, echoes between past and present, and the medium as a spectre in the same way that hauntings and nostalgia often spring from disparate memories. Like fellow director Denis Villeneuve, Jean-Marc Vallée is not afraid to make challenging adult-centric films with a hyper-polished, glossy look and feel. To further compare Café De Flore and Incendies would perhaps edge closer to spoiler territory, but suffice it to say that this film contains not so much of a twist ending, but rather opens up a very interesting (or perhaps off-putting depending on your beliefs) fork in its narrative just as it is bringing its seperate roads together. Folks will be talking about the last five seconds of this movie in the same fashion as the closing shot of Another Earth, or the scene on the beach in Tree of Life. But you will probably throw one or more versions of the eponymous tune on your iPod as well, if only to remind you just how damn good this movie is.