I was surprised to see the credit “Based on the graphic novel” on the screen at the beginning of this British comedy clunker. It seems every other movie this year was based on a graphic novel! Nothing wrong with that I suppose, just unexpected with this type of Thomas Hardy-ish material which concerns a writer’s retreat setting in a quaint English village captured in the ever lasting golden hour. In a tale told in seasons, aspiring authors congregate at the home of a bestselling writer (Roger Allam) and his hosting wife (Tamsin Greig) who has long learned to look the other way to deal with her husband’s affairs. Allam is always pompously pontificating about his supposed literary talent mostly to a struggling neurotic writer played by a buffoonish Bill Camp.Returning to the town for the first time since her nose-job, Gemma Arterton, as the title character, appears in skimpy cut-offs and red tank top and every man in sight swoons.This includes Luke Evans as the gardener/handyman who had a fling with Artenton when they were teens we’re told in a racy flashback.Artenton is a journalist covering a punk pop band named Swipe who break up after a row on stage in which the drummer (Dominic Cooper) is outraged over the coupling of 2 his band-mates particularly since one had been his girlfriend. To Evan’s chagrin Cooper and Artenton quickly couple up themselves, all the while a couple of hiding chatty schoolgirls (Jessica Barden and Charlotte Christie) watch it all smitten themselves with Cooper.Allam gets into the game by bedding Arterton, Camp secretly pines for Grieg who he uses as a muse, and the schoolgirls cause trouble with a naughty email so there’s endless foolish shenanigans at every turn.The film builds to a tragic last third, hints of which are dropped here and there throughout, but once it’s upon us its effect is mind-numbingly banal. For all its energy and colorful imagery, “Tamara Drewe” never gels. It’s a completely charmless and painfully unfunny farce. Every attempt at wit falls flat and I could never deduce what the point of it all was. No insights into restless writer’s mindsets or hearts – it’s all just misplaced vanity.It also doesn’t help that the characters are all unlikable especially Allam’s who is just a transparent caricature of a womanizing cad.The film doesn’t seem to be on anybody’s side so there’s nobody to care about. Despite the richness of the countryside and Frear’s ace sense of staging, its ultra-smarmy tone sabotages the entire production.I can only hope that the graphic novel (and still going comic strip in the Guardian) by Posy Simmonds is more worthwhile than this dreadful tripe.More later...A Review Of The Dreadful TAMARA DREWE
TAMARA DREWE (Dir. Stephen Frears, 2010) I was surprised to see the credit “Based on the graphic novel” on the screen at the beginning of this British comedy clunker. It seems every other movie this year was based on a graphic novel! Nothing wrong with that I suppose, just unexpected with this type of Thomas Hardy-ish material which concerns a writer’s retreat setting in a quaint English village captured in the ever lasting golden hour. In a tale told in seasons, aspiring authors congregate at the home of a bestselling writer (Roger Allam) and his hosting wife (Tamsin Greig) who has long learned to look the other way to deal with her husband’s affairs. Allam is always pompously pontificating about his supposed literary talent mostly to a struggling neurotic writer played by a buffoonish Bill Camp.Returning to the town for the first time since her nose-job, Gemma Arterton, as the title character, appears in skimpy cut-offs and red tank top and every man in sight swoons.This includes Luke Evans as the gardener/handyman who had a fling with Artenton when they were teens we’re told in a racy flashback.Artenton is a journalist covering a punk pop band named Swipe who break up after a row on stage in which the drummer (Dominic Cooper) is outraged over the coupling of 2 his band-mates particularly since one had been his girlfriend. To Evan’s chagrin Cooper and Artenton quickly couple up themselves, all the while a couple of hiding chatty schoolgirls (Jessica Barden and Charlotte Christie) watch it all smitten themselves with Cooper.Allam gets into the game by bedding Arterton, Camp secretly pines for Grieg who he uses as a muse, and the schoolgirls cause trouble with a naughty email so there’s endless foolish shenanigans at every turn.The film builds to a tragic last third, hints of which are dropped here and there throughout, but once it’s upon us its effect is mind-numbingly banal. For all its energy and colorful imagery, “Tamara Drewe” never gels. It’s a completely charmless and painfully unfunny farce. Every attempt at wit falls flat and I could never deduce what the point of it all was. No insights into restless writer’s mindsets or hearts – it’s all just misplaced vanity.It also doesn’t help that the characters are all unlikable especially Allam’s who is just a transparent caricature of a womanizing cad.The film doesn’t seem to be on anybody’s side so there’s nobody to care about. Despite the richness of the countryside and Frear’s ace sense of staging, its ultra-smarmy tone sabotages the entire production.I can only hope that the graphic novel (and still going comic strip in the Guardian) by Posy Simmonds is more worthwhile than this dreadful tripe.More later...
I was surprised to see the credit “Based on the graphic novel” on the screen at the beginning of this British comedy clunker. It seems every other movie this year was based on a graphic novel! Nothing wrong with that I suppose, just unexpected with this type of Thomas Hardy-ish material which concerns a writer’s retreat setting in a quaint English village captured in the ever lasting golden hour. In a tale told in seasons, aspiring authors congregate at the home of a bestselling writer (Roger Allam) and his hosting wife (Tamsin Greig) who has long learned to look the other way to deal with her husband’s affairs. Allam is always pompously pontificating about his supposed literary talent mostly to a struggling neurotic writer played by a buffoonish Bill Camp.Returning to the town for the first time since her nose-job, Gemma Arterton, as the title character, appears in skimpy cut-offs and red tank top and every man in sight swoons.This includes Luke Evans as the gardener/handyman who had a fling with Artenton when they were teens we’re told in a racy flashback.Artenton is a journalist covering a punk pop band named Swipe who break up after a row on stage in which the drummer (Dominic Cooper) is outraged over the coupling of 2 his band-mates particularly since one had been his girlfriend. To Evan’s chagrin Cooper and Artenton quickly couple up themselves, all the while a couple of hiding chatty schoolgirls (Jessica Barden and Charlotte Christie) watch it all smitten themselves with Cooper.Allam gets into the game by bedding Arterton, Camp secretly pines for Grieg who he uses as a muse, and the schoolgirls cause trouble with a naughty email so there’s endless foolish shenanigans at every turn.The film builds to a tragic last third, hints of which are dropped here and there throughout, but once it’s upon us its effect is mind-numbingly banal. For all its energy and colorful imagery, “Tamara Drewe” never gels. It’s a completely charmless and painfully unfunny farce. Every attempt at wit falls flat and I could never deduce what the point of it all was. No insights into restless writer’s mindsets or hearts – it’s all just misplaced vanity.It also doesn’t help that the characters are all unlikable especially Allam’s who is just a transparent caricature of a womanizing cad.The film doesn’t seem to be on anybody’s side so there’s nobody to care about. Despite the richness of the countryside and Frear’s ace sense of staging, its ultra-smarmy tone sabotages the entire production.I can only hope that the graphic novel (and still going comic strip in the Guardian) by Posy Simmonds is more worthwhile than this dreadful tripe.More later...
SUNDANCE 2011: Submarine
Saturday, 22 January, 2011 
Submarine (2011) dir. Richard Richard Ayoade
Starring: Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige, Sally Hawkins, Noah Taylor, Paddy Considine
Submarine (2011) dir. Richard Richard AyoadeStarring: Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige, Sally Hawkins, Noah Taylor, Paddy Considine
***
By Alan Bacchus
Richard Ayoade was recently knighted by Variety in their annual 10 to Watch list, an esteemed list of hot new directors on the block. Ayoade isn’t exactly new, in addition to his experience in stand up comedy, like contemporaries Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead), Armando Ianucci, (In the Loop), Chris Morris (Four Lions) he seems to have come the superlative comedy training ground that is British television. Ayoade’s quirky UK coming of age comedy is deserving of the attention, an auteur/idiosyncratic work, not entirely original stylistically but funny and involving enough to anticipate his second film.
Fifteen year old Oliver Tate is from the Wes Anderson family of protagonists, an articulate self-aware youth, too mature for his body and with too much misplaced energy. Through the heavily detailed observance in his voiceover we know exactly who this character is. Early on he describes his efforts to find his niche in high school by experimenting with a roll call of peculiar hobbies from French crooners to silly hats.
Like Rushmore’s Max Fischer Tate wants to have the emotions of an adult, but has no outlet for life’s drama. His parents are emotional detached robots, who barely emote anything above a whisper to each other, his only friends in school are immature children, not yet at the intellectual level Tate desires to be.
But he also has a massive crush on the enigmatic and aloof Jordana who appears as emotionally superior and mature as he. His attempts to ingratiate himself to her involves bullying one of his good friends, resulting in her transfer from school. But it works and soon Oliver and Jordana are moving from first base to second base and beyond. Meanwhile a new neighbour, Graham, a pretentious new age psychic played with delicious 80’s mullet-head tackiness by Paddy Considine, arrives attracting the attention of Oliver‘s mom. With the impending breakdown of his parents’ marriage and inability to deal with Jordana’s own family problems, the drama Oliver so desires eventually arrives.
We’ve seen just about everything in this film already, from the articulate obsessively-specific details of his observant voiceover, to the quirky framing, wideangle lenses, and general tone of oddball kookiness. This genre goes back to The Graduate and was eventually exploited for a handful of Wes Anderson’s films. Taika Waititi’s Sundance entry from last year Boy also comes to mind, and in terms of the hilariously inventive use of absurd voiceover Trainspotting appears to be an influence.
Though it’s familiar territory his characters are honest and seem to derive from a place of real personal angst. Perhaps it’s the source material, a novel by Joe Dunthorne, apparently a semi-autobiography from Dunthorne’s youth in the 80’s. Sympathetic and unflashy performances from the kids, Craig Roberts and Yasmin Paige and the cozy warmth of Sally Hawkins and Noah Taylor as the parents anchor it all in heartfelt reality.
The (Many) Troubles With TRON: LEGACY
TRON: LEGACY (Dir. Joseph Kosinski, 2010)
Despite that I wrote about this project last year being one of my Top 10 Sequels To Classic Movies That Really Should Not Happen, I still secretly had hopes that it would be one of those rare follow-ups (think: STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN) that would right the wrongs of the furiously flawed original - that being the fanboy loved but else forgotten TRON (1982).
Well, the wrongs (glacial pacing, incomprehensible storyline, and clunky dialog) are still there in this hugely hyped high tech piece of glorified fan fiction.
You'll see many reviews that compliment this movie for its shiny slick stylized look, but bitch about its weak and soulless plot and as much as I wish I could disagree with that - the consensus is right. TRON: LEGACY is by far the most convoluted movie of the year.
As in the first film Jeff Bridges is a computer genius who finds a portal into the world that exists behind the computer screen - "the grid" he calls it in bedtime stories to his son (Owen Best). Bridges, who appears as his younger self via CGI) disappears and leaves his son to grow up to be a rebellious motorcycle driving shareholder of his father's corporation Encom embodied by Garrett Hedlund.
Bruce Boxleitner returns as Alan Bradley/TRON - a surragate father of sorts to Hedlund who informs the unruly roustabout that he got a page coming from his dad's former establishment Flynn's Arcade - a number that's been disconnected for 20 years.
Hedlund bikes over to the arcade now in a broken down slummy part of town, switches on the power (yeah, the power is still on), and powers up his dad's old computer.
Before long Hedlund is sucked into the computer and is designated into the games department. At first he thinks he's found his father when he meets Clu - who again is a CGI-ed Bridges made to look like his '80s visage - but it turns out its his father's program now gone evil.
After a somewhat hard to follow yet still cool looking light cycle sequence, Hedlund is intercepted by a spunky Olivia Wilde and taken to his actual father - Bridges again but this time as his normal aged self with a beard and his patented laid back persona (yep, the "Dude" abides once again).
You get that? Hedlund and Bridges fight a CGI Bridges in a chaotic plot involving flashy yet plodding set pieces and something called ISOs (isomorphic algorithms).
In one of the movie's only good ideas, the soundtrack is orchestrated by Daft Punk. The French electronic duo also appear DJ-ing a club party scene in which Michael Sheen appears as a bleached Bowie-esque nightclub owner whose significance in the film I really couldn't tell you. Still, Sheen and Daft Punk's inventive score are 2 of the only things of merit here.
Clu, Bridges' evil '80s digitized doppelganger is a big fail. With its creepy frozen expressions and completely unconvincing mouth movements, its a huge distraction that takes one far away from any sense of engagement. I'm a huge Bridges fan and all for more Bridges for your buck, but this conceit seriously doesn't work. Maybe one day they'll be able to make seamless CGI human recreations, but we're far from there yet.
Unfortunately thats just one of many factors that make TRON: LEGACY a bad bland bomb.
The pages of soulless exposition, the lameness of the writing (Bridges actually says "You're messing up my Zen thing here, man!"), and the overall sense that the film takes itself way too seriously all add up to a deeply unsatisfying experience.
But, then at least it's about as good as the original.
Not that it's easy to compare them - the first one is out of print and not available on Netflix. It's not been shown on TV lately and DVD copies go from $90 to $200 on Amazon. It's almost as if Disney with their home video moratoriums and all were purposely trying to make it hard to see the first TRON!
With the hundreds of millions they pumped into its sequel it looks like they didn't want folks to get the right idea that TRON and its sequel are equals in the digital realm of empty eye candy cinema.
Maybe it's great if you're a geek gamer or lover of kitschy '80s crap, but yawn inducing throwaway tripe if you're anybody else.
More later...
Martin Scorsese's Fran Lebowitz Doc PUBLIC SPEAKING Now Airing On HBO
PUBLIC SPEAKING (Dir. Martin Scorsese, 2010)
"When I was a child it was called 'talking back' and now it's called public speaking, you know? But it's really the same. So, the thing I used to get punished for at home and in school...and get bad marks in school for it...then at a certain point in my life I got actually paid and rewarded for it. But it's the exact same thing." - Fran Lebowitz
This film is loosely a documentary really; it's mostly a sit-down conversation with noted author Fran Lebowitz at her favorite table at the Waverly Inn in Greenwich Village, NYC interrupted only occasionally with bio doc clippage.
Scorsese embraces Lebowitz at the beginning of the film and the back of his head can be seen as well as his laugh can be heard throughout the film, but this is a showcase for Lebowitz's gift for gab - and a damn good one.
We hear the outspoken woman, who comes across as the consumate New Yorker, as she offers views on race, gay rights, and the over abundance of bad writers in the marketplace and it's funny stuff. Intellectual insights galore from one of the few people to get their own Jeopardy category: "The Quotable Fran Lebowitz".
A highlight are Lebowitz's telling of the many meetings she had with Hollywood people over rights to her books which she never sold are as gold as anecdotes can get.
Among the clips of Lebowitz on Late Night With Conan O'Brien, Charlie Rose, various speaking engagements, and most amusingly, as Judge Janice Goldbergon on Law And Order, there is illuminating archival footage of influences such as James Baldwin and Gore Vidal as well.
As "Jeopardy" attains there are many great quotes in this doc such as:
"Here's the problem with being ahead of your time...by the time everyone gets around to it, you're bored."
Maybe, but I wasn't bored for a second watching PUBLIC SPEAKING.
PUBLIC SPEAKING is now airing on HBO. Check your local listings for show-times. No word yet about when it will be released on DVD.
More later...
ALL GOOD THINGS: The Film Babble Blog Review
ALL GOOD THINGS (Dir. Andrew Jarecki, 2010)
Andrew Jarecki, director of one of the best documentaries of the Aughts (CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS), stays in the world of non-fiction for his first narrative drama based on what's been called "the most notorious murder case in New York history."
Loosely based on the life on real estate mogul Robert Durst whose wife Kathleen McCormack mysteriously disappeared almost 3 decades ago, this film begins as a love story with overhanded ominous overtones.
Through a framing device of later court testimony providing narration we meet Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst as the couple, renamed David and Katie Marks, who meet in 1971 and seem initially happy, well, if she looks the other way when he mumbles to himself.
Gosling's powerful NYC property owner father played with suave menace by Frank Langella doesn't care for Dunst or his son's hippy lifestyle (the couple smokes joints and own a health food store out in the sticks in Vermont called "All Good Things").
Langella wants his son to be back in New York working for the family business - work than mainly involves shady money pick-ups from sleazy tenants. Gosling gives in to his father and the couple give up the country for the big city.
We learn from Lily Rabe as a outgoing friend of Gosling's that his mother had committed suicide in front of her son . This may explain why he demands that Dunst immediately get an abortion when she tells him she's pregnant.
The couple grow apart after that with Gosling in NY while Dunst stays at their weekend lake house pursuing a medical career.
Gosling has several violent outbursts aimed at his worried wife and after one particularly gloomy evening at their second home Dunst vanishes.
Throughout the film we see flashes of a dark figure hauling garbage bags that presumably have human remains onto a bridge in the middle of the night.
Despite the suspicion of many, Gosling is never charged with a crime and moves on until years later when he's charged with the murder of a cranky neighbor (the always welcome Phillip Baker Hall).
Though he claims self defense and is acquitted, of course, strong doubts linger.
The film gets a bit unfocused in its final third, but it was on shaky ground much earlier it must be said. Gosling is effectively cold and creepy and the film matches that demeanor beat by beat yet the overall take-away isn't one of eerie fascination.
ALL GOOD THINGS acts as if it has secrets to tell, but it really only has a few speculations up its sleeve.
It feels like a slightly glorified "made for TV" melodrama like those shown on the Lifetime network.
The supporting cast is capable - Dunst registers more realistically than she has before for me, and as her coke snotting best friend Kristen Wiig (Saturday Night Live) has a few moments as, I guess, light comic relief, but there isn't a lot of weight to this plodding procedural.
There have been great inconclusive films before such as David Fincher's ZODIAC and Jarecki's own doc CAPTURING THE FREIDMANS - films that passionately probe for the truth through a murky web of contradictions, but ALL GOOD THINGS simply doesn't have the hook or enough layers to make it anything more than a forgettable true crime thriller throwaway.
More later....
SUNDANCE 2011: Martha Marcy May Marlene
Saturday, 22 January, 2011 
Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) dir. Sean Durkin
Starring: Elizabeth Olsen, Hugh Dancy, Maria Dizzie, Brady Corbet, John Hawkes
Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) dir. Sean DurkinStarring: Elizabeth Olsen, Hugh Dancy, Maria Dizzie, Brady Corbet, John Hawkes
***1/2
By Alan Bacchus
Admittedly I’m still trying to process this one, but what I am sure of is this slow burning ambient thriller is absolutely chilling to bone. A terrifying experience which gets under your skin, an itch you can’t scratch, or like watching a turtle on it’s back.
Durkin is slow to let us in on what exactly is happening. A non-descript farm, a house full of young women dressed in white, huddled together like in a harem. John Hawkes looking extra skinny, grisly. When one of these women, Martha (Elizabeth Olsen), runs out of the house early in the morning, in a hurry into the woods we know something is afoot.
Durkin unveils a kind of pure evil, that kind of Michael Haneke evil, uncompromising, unglamourized real world nightmares. There’s a palpable fear in Martha’s eyes as she calls her estranged sister, Katie. We still don’t know what’s going on. From Durkin splits time between Martha’s stay with her sister and her new husband, Ted at a swanky upstate New York cottage. Little things like when Martha freely jumps in the lake naked to swim.
Durkin flashes back to her time on this farm periodically, revealing ghastly cult-like rituals involving sexual abuse, violence and general social misbehaviour. Under the guidance of it’s leader Patrick (John Hawkes), men and women live like communal living, off the land free from capitalist pleasures. But at the expense of Patrick’s brutal brainwashing.
Durkin’s editing between these two time frames is seamless and by the nature of his matching of scenes implies an impending danger. This spectre of dread hangs over the film, from the first frame to the last. Part of Durkin’s game is how he shoots Martha, played with aplomb by newbie Elizabeth Olsen. Durkin’s camera is constantly lurking over her supple curvy body, teasing us the audience as well as the characters in the film. A subtle trick which supports his theme of sexual exploitation and Patrick’s use of sex as a tool for psychological dominance.
Ambient moody sounds and amplified background noises have us paying attention to every detail in the film. Moments of eerie silence are chilling, and obtuse framing in certain scene have us anticipating fits of violence, sometimes paying off, sometimes not. Though Durkin’s pacing eschews most traditional genre expectations, he does deliver the goods with at least one eye popping shock moment. But it’s what we don’t see which is truly frightening. A throwaway line such as ‘Patrick only has boys’ sends chills down my spine, and the final moments which are played vague and oblique are just as effective as the traditional scares.
With the ending it’s a wrap-up I was half-expecting - half of me wanted traditional closure, the other half had me scared to death at thought of what Durkin would show us if he did. Martha Marcy May Marlene is a mouthful of a title, but a special film, cynical but cinematic, and shows a major new talent in its writer/director.
THE KING'S SPEECH: The Film Babble Blog Review
THE KING'S SPEECH (Dir. Tom Hooper, 2010)
When Prince Albert, the Duke of York, steps up to the microphone to deliver the closing speech at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1925, we sense his extreme trepidation.
As portrayed by Colin Firth, the Duke is a dignified yet nervous man - nervous because he's suffered his whole life with a debilitating speech impediment.
His audience at Wembley cringes at his painful attempts to oratate in which the awkward gaps between words (or more accurately word fragments) seem to stop and start time.
The Duke's wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) desperately wants to help her husband and after much looking for a qualified speech therapist finds Geoffrey Rush as the erudite and sharply eccentric Lionel Logue.
Rush, who doesn't make house calls, doesn't want to take on the patient until he finds out who it is.
Firth is also hesitant thinking that his stammer is beyond repair, but after a short session is convinced otherwise because of Rush's recording of the Duke speaking almost normally while music plays through his headphones.
When the Duke's brother Edward VIII (Guy Pearce) abdicated from the throne for marrying a twice divorced American woman (Eve Best), Prince Albert becomes King George VI and is set to give a crucial radio address as war is looming.
Although it has a highly capable supporting cast including Michael Gambon as King George V, and Timothy Spall as Winston Churchill, it's mainly Firth and Rush's show. As good as Bonham Carter is here she's considerably just decoration on the side.
Firth dives into Rush's treatments involving breathing exercises, untangling tongue twisters, and a hilarious spouting out of a string of profanity in a scene that alone gives the film its R-rating.
Even as it can be seen as largely a filmed play (much like FROST/NIXON) there's an elegant film surrounding the 2 excellent actors.
It's mostly set in Rush's study, but director Hooper allows for a nice amount of visual splendor. In a rare break from the indoors the therapist and his royal patient take a walk together in a sunbathed park that fades behind them. It's arresting imagery that draws us closer to the leads and greatly enhances our emotional investment.
An investment that really pays off.
Firth takes on a difficult role - that of a stuttering man of stature - and infuses it with a living breathing fully realized performance, but it's Rush who truly steals every scene he's in. Rush is an absolute delight as the confident commoner speech therapist who fancies himself an aspiring actor.
A winner in every way, THE KING'S SPEECH was made for awards season, but unlike with such Oscar bait as "Conviction" that's so not a bad thing.
It's witty, wise, and wonderful - well deserving every bit of recognition it will definitely get.
It feels cheesy to use such clichéd critical accolades as "uplifting", "inspirational", and God forbid "the feel good movie of the year", but dammit if the shoe fits...
More later...
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