Editor of FILMdetail
Director Paul Greengrass was recently at the Latitude festival where he did a fairly in depth BAFTA interview with Simon Mayo about his career.
They discuss his love of The Battle of Algiers (1966), his time working on World in Action, The Murder of Stephen Lawrence (1999), Bloody Sunday (2002), The Bourne films (2004, 2007), United 93 (2006) and Green Zone (2010).
You can watch it in full here:
> Paul Greengrass at the IMDb
> BAFTA
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DVD & BLU-RAY PICKS
Ingmar Bergman’s The Faith Trilogy (Palisades Tartan): Ingmar Bergman’s classic three films from the early 1960s about religion and spiritual crisis have been repackaged for a new DVD box set.
Notable for cementing his reputation as one of Europe’s finest directors, they still remain amongst his finest work and feature some exquisite cinematography from long-time collaborator Sven Nykvist.
Tartan have remastered the films and added introductions with Marie Nyrerod speaking to the late director.
Although they are short they feature Bergman talking about his fondness for Winter Light and the censorship issues surrounding by The Silence.
The discs come in separate slim line cases along with a booklet of reviews by the late critic Philip Strick. The discs are all region free.
> Buy Ingmar Bergman’s The Faith Trilogy on DVD from Amazon UK
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Clint Eastwood: The Director’s Collection (Warner Bros.): This neat compilation of Eastwood’s more recent films as a director came out on DVD last month and has now got the Blu-ray treatment.
It includes his most recent drama Gran Torino (2008), his World War II dramas Flags of Our Fathers (2006) and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), the Boston crime drama Mystic River (2003) and his Oscar winning western Unforgiven (1992).
> Buy Clint Eastwood: The Director’s Collection on Blu-ray from Amazon UK
ALSO OUT
14 Blades (Icon Home Entertainment) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Centurion (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Elvis – The Movie (Fremantle Home Entertainment) [DVD]
Mongrels: Series 1 (2 Entertain) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Perrier’s Bounty (Optimum Home Entertainment) [Blu-ray / DVD]
The Killing Machine (Anchor Bay Entertainment UK) [Blu-ray / DVD]
The Machinist (Palisades Tartan) [Blu-ray / with DVD]
Whip It (Lionsgate UK) [Blu-ray / DVD]
> The Best DVD and Blu-ray releases of 2009
> UK cinema releases for Friday 13th August 2010 including The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and The Last Airbender
By the late 1960s John Ford was firmly established as one of the great directors of his era, for films such as Stagecoach (1939), The Searchers (1956) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).
The following BBC interview from 1968 is a fascinating snapshot of Ford in his later years (he would die in 1973).
Years of heavy drinking had clearly taken their toll and the opening question sets the tone:
Interviewer: What sort of childhood did you have? Where you interested in movies way back?
Ford: Not really. Not interested in them now, actually.
Also note the heavy smoking, Ford’s belligerent attitude, awkward zooms, random transitions to black and white and the obligatory posh English interviewer.
It is almost a short film itself.
> John Ford at the IMDb
> Essay on John Ford at Senses of Cinema
Terence Malick made one of the great debuts in US cinema with Badlands (1973), but the famously reclusive director also had an unexpected cameo in the film.
In the film a teenage girl (Sissy Spacek) goes on the run with a rebellious young man (Martin Sheen) as they embark on a cross-country killing spree.
Whilst filming a scene set in house the couple temporarily take over, Malick realised that the actor he hired to play ‘Caller at Rich Man’s House’ had not turned up.
Malick himself had to play the uncredited role and although he wanted to eventually re-shoot the scene with someone else, Martin Sheen reportedly persuaded him not to.
> Terence Malick at the IMDb
> Senses of Cinema essay on Terence Malick
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NATIONAL RELEASES
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Walt Disney): Inspired by the famous segment of the Walt Disney classic Fantasia (1940), this modern day update moves to contemporary New York, where an awkward teenager (Jay Baruchel) learns how to use magic under the guidance of a master sorcerer (Nicolas Cage).
They soon have to deal with two evil wizards (Alfred Molina and Toby Kebbell) who want to control New York.
Director Jon Turtletaub and producer Jerry Bruckheimer achieved massive box office success at Disney with the National Treasure series and this was clearly aimed at the same family demographic that went to see those films.
However, this underperformed last month in the US when it went head-to-head with Inception and the middling reviews meant that it was a disappointing summer for Bruckheimer after Prince of Persia also failed to set the box office alight. [Vue West End & Nationwide / PG]
The Last Airbender (Paramount): Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film is a live action fantasy film based on the animated US television series. The story takes place is a mystical kingdom split between four tribes who can manipulate (or ‘bend’) the different elements of fire, water, air and earth.
When a young boy (Noah Ringer) is discovered as an ‘Avatar’, someone who can uniquely manipulate all four elements, he journeys to the North in order to help the two members of the Water tribe (Nicola Peltz and Jackson Rathbone) in their battle against the war-mongering Fire Lords (Dev Patel, Cliff Curtis).
This got brutal reviews and underwhelmed at the US box office when it opened there last month. The basic problem is that it feels like several episodes of TV series squeezed into a 94 minute feature film.
In addition, the tone is so self-consciously serious that at times it feels like a parody. It isn’t quite as horrendous as some have claimed, but it marks another low point in the once feted career of Shyamalan whose career has gone in to a creative nosedive after The Sixth Sense (1999) and Unbreakable (2000). [Vue West End & Nationwide / PG]
Tinkerbell and The Great Fairy Rescue (Walt Disney): The other Disney film out this week is an animated feature based on the Disney Fairies franchise, produced by DisneyToon Studios. A sequel to 2009’s Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure, the story revolves around Tinker Bell, the fairy character from J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and features the voices of Lucy Lui and Michael Sheen. [Empire Leicester Square & Nationwide / U]
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ALSO OUT
Black Dynamite (Icon): A low budget blaxploitation spoof starring Michael Jai White as a Shaft-like character seeking revenge after his brother dies.
Made for an authentically low-budget, this received a warm critical reception when it opened in the US, which meant its underwhelming box office performance was a surprise.
Icon will be hoping the reviews and buzz will help spread the word it looks like this is a film that will find its true audience on DVD. [Ritzy & Key Cities / 15]
Le Refuge (Artificial Eye): The latest film from French director François Ozon is about a heroin addict (Isabelle Carré) who overdoses with her rich boyfriend (Melvil Poupaud) and upon waking realises that her life has significantly changed. [Curzons Mayfair, Renoir, Richmond, Ritzy & Key Cities / 15]
The Secret In Their Eyes (Metrodome Distribution): An Argentinean crime film told in flashback sees a federal agent become entangled in the investigation of a brutal murder in Buenos Aires. Directed by Juan José Campanella, it was based on Eduardo Sacheri’s novel La Pregunta de Sus Ojos (The Question in Their Eyes) and stars Ricardo Darín, Soledad Villamil, Javier Godino, Guillermo Francella and Pablo Rago. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film earlier this year and has become the second biggest box office success in Argentine film history. [Barbican, Clapham Picturehouse, Curzon Soho, Rio & Key Cities / 18]
The Final (Chelsea Films): A horror film set in a high school about pupils at a school who plan revenge on their bullies by staging a fancy-dress party in the woods. Directed by Joey Stewart. [Empire Leicester Square / 18]
Five Easy Pieces (Park Circus): A reissue for Bob Rafelson’s 1970 film about a oil rig worker (Jack Nicholson) who is disenchanted with everyday American life. A vintage performance from Nicholson and a perceptive screenplay by Carole Eastman and Rafelson make this one of the best films of the early 1970s. [BFI Southbank, Everyman, Gate, Ritzy & Key Cities / 15]
> UK DVD and Blu-ray releases for this week including Psycho and The Seven-Ups
> Get local cinema showtimes for your area via Google Movies
Christopher Nolan became an A-List Hollywood director with Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008) but his early films contain intriguing images related to the caped crusader.
In his debut film Following (1998), there is a sequence in which two characters (played by Jeremy Theobold and Alex Haw) break into a flat which has a Batman logo on the front door.
When Nolan was shooting this film on a tiny budget of around $6,000 it would have been fanciful to imagine that just a few years later he would be the director entrusted by Warner Bros to reboot the Batman franchise with a budget of $150 million.
It was something noted recently by Theobold in a recent interview with Empire:
…the apartment of my character, ‘The Young Man’, was my flat in Iliffe Street, Walworth. Which is also where the bat was.
Keen-eyed viewers have spotted a Batman logo on the door of the flat. Some call it ironic (incorrectly), others say it’s prescient. Actually, I’d put it up in 1989 when I moved there; there was a film out called Batman that year…
And that was the way we made the film. None of the sets were designed, few were dressed. We made do — or rather, Chris chose places he thought were suitable and would take little arranging.
So far, so coincidental.
But it doesn’t stop there, as a screen grab Nolan’s next film Memento (2000) recently surfaced featuring …a Batman logo:
If you zoom in to the top right of the frame (timed at 0:47:58 on the DVD) you can see the logo for Batman alongside one for Superman.
Here is a close up of the image:
The other twist is that Warner Bros have also entrusted Nolan with producing a new Superman film.
Was it fate? Destiny? A cunning career plan?
It is almost as spooky as that Shining-style picture of ‘Simon Pegg’ at Bobby Kennedy’s funeral.
As someone on the Nolan Fans forum has pointed out:
If only we could find a bat symbol in Insomnia…
Has anyone spotted one?
> Christopher Nolan at the IMDb
> Nolan Fans
[Memento photo via NolanFans]
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Aimed squarely at the generation who grew up watching action movies in the 1980s, The Expendables is ultimately a disappointing exercise in nostalgia.
The story involves a group of ageing mercenaries (Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lungdren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture) who accept a mission in a South American dictatorship.
It has the well-worn tropes of a genre picture, such as a gang of misfits, swarthy villains and a damsel in distress, whilst combining screen personas from different sub-genres.
Principally, we have Stallone (Rambo), Li (martial arts), Statham (the Transporter and Crank series) and various tough guys associated with wrestling or UFC.
We first meet them on a mission hunting pirates in Somalia and they are soon hired for a mission in South America where they come across a dictatorship run by a general (David Zayas) and a ruthless former CIA rogue (Eric Roberts).
After initially deciding they want no part of it, their conscience gets the better of them when they feel they have abandoned the general’s rebel daughter (Giselle Itie) and decide to return for a final showdown.
In a sense this follows on from Stallone’s last two pictures: Rocky Balboa (2006) and Rambo (2008), which were designed for the star to revisit his most famous screen roles.
Both had a certain low-rent charm but The Expendables is a different beast: a sprawling, messy quilt of a film stitched together with little craft, wit or intelligence.
The whole project reeks of laziness: hire some famous action stars, blow stuff up and throw in some jokey cameos (notably Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger) and everything will be cool, right?
Well, it isn’t. For a film with a reported budget of $85 million, this looks and feels too much like the low-rent stuff Cannon Films pumped out during the 1980s.
Not only do we have some shoddy direction and editing, even the action set pieces are a let down. The use of CGI for blood, explosions and background is overused and often glaringly obvious, whilst the more reflective moments are cringe inducing.
All the women characters are walking clichés, either victims or frustrated partners, and the allusions to the real world – which include Somalian pirates and waterboarding – are clunky and out of place.
The best thing that can be said about the film is that the pacing is mercifully quick, although anytime the film pauses for some male bonding gags is often a cause for concern.
At the screening I saw, there were people cheering the opening credits as they popped up, as if this was a reunion concert for a super group of veteran action stars.
This of course is precisely the thinking behind the film, which is a curious hybrid: a low rent action film puffed up on steroids to resemble a modern action picture.
In effect, it is the first karaoke action film, aimed at a male audience eager to see stars of yesteryear kick some old school ass and blow stuff up all whilst winking at the audience.
Some have already said this is a male version of the Sex and the City movies, in that it is a familiar story with ageing stars, packaged for a specific demographic.
That is not a bad comparison and like those films there is a hollow, unimaginative core beneath all the elements that certain viewers will gobble up like comfort food.
Potentially, there is a sizeable audience for The Expendables, who not only love the idea of revisiting part of their youth but will also cut the film a lot of slack because it isn’t meant to be taken that seriously in the first place.
But this is part of the problem. It feels tired when considered on its own merits, but more so in a summer where we have already had two other misfits-on-a-mission movies (The Losers and The A-Team).
There has been a hunger for the 1980s in pop culture recently as a certain generation comes of age and hankers after its youth.
Pandering to this trend has simply spawned an action film as mediocre as those from that decade.
> Official site
> The Expendables at the IMDb
> Reviews of The Expendables at Metacritic
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DVD PICKS
Psycho (Universal Pictures): Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1960 film is one of the most significant Blu-ray releases of the year. The tale of a woman on the run (Janet Leigh) who stays at a lonely motel run by a man (Anthony Perkins) with some serious parental issues remains a landmark in cinema history.
The groundbreaking depictions of sexuality and violence might seem tame by today’s standards but helped shape what could be shown on screen and arguably paved the way for the modern horror genre.
Categorizing the film is still tricky. It is a thriller? A horror? A mystery? The real answer is probably a combination of all three, but certainly it built upon Hitchcock’s reputation as the master of suspense towards something more shocking and sinister.
If you are revisiting the film, it is hard not to be struck by how fresh it still feels despite being so iconic. Certain sequences still have a visceral, raw power and there is a sinister aura throughout.
Universal have included a raft of extras for this release, which include the following:
> Buy Pyscho on Blu-ray from Amazon UK
> Psycho at the IMDb
The Seven-Ups (Optimum): This neglected 1973 crime drama was the sole directorial effort of Philip D’Antoni, best known for producing Bullitt (1968) and stars Roy Scheider as an NYPD cop who runs a task force charged with catching criminals guilty of offences worth at least seven years in jail.
When a valuable street informant (Tony Lo Bianco) double-crosses the cops, they decide to throw out the rule book in taking on the criminals of the city.
It bears some notable similarities to The French Connection (1971): there is a classic car chase (featuring stunt driver Bill Hickman) and Scheider’s character has more than a passing resemblance to his role in William Friedkin’s film.
Despite this, there is much to appreciate in The Seven-Ups. It paints an evocative picture of New York in the early 1970s and the screenplay by Albert Ruben and Alexander Jacobs doesn’t squeeze characters into clichéd situations.
D’Antoni gives the film a vivid and gritty look whilst also coaxing some fine performances from his cast, which includes Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco, Richard Lynch and Larry Haines.
Whilst not as good as The French Connection, if you’re a fan of cop movies from this era it is well worth seeking out.
> Buy The Seven-Ups from Amazon UK
> The Seven Ups at IMDb
Spiral: Series 1 & 2 (2 Entertain): This intelligent French police drama first aired on UK TV back in 2006 on BBC Four and like The Wire attracted a small but devoted following, especially amongst critics.
This week sees the release of Series 2, but as it might not be on the radar for a lot of viewers I’d recommend the combined Series 1 & 2 boxset.
The French title “Engrenages” literally translates as “Gears” and presumably hints at how crime and violence, amongst other things, can spiral out of control.
The first season deals with the death of a young Romanian woman found on a rubbish dump in Paris. The resulting investigation slowly reveals her past life but also sheds uncomfortable light on the very legal system that is trying to uncover the truth about her death.
The second season starts with a burned corpse discovered in the boot of a car and what initially appears to be a case of urban violence slowly grows into a much larger case involving international trafficking and arms dealing.
Like The Wire, it is an intelligent look at crime as a social disease rather than simply a puzzle to be solved. But it is arguably darker and more twisted than any US cop show would dare to be.
There aren’t too many shows that feature charred corpses in grisly detail or teenagers snorting heroin before collapsing into a coma.
It might not yet have the popularity of crime dramas on the mainstream channels but Spiral is a subtle and refreshing antidote to what’s currently on the box.
> Buy Spiral Series 1 & 2 from Amazon UK
> Spiral at the IMDb
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ALSO OUT
Deep Blue Sea (Warner Home Video) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Kamui – The Lone Ninja (Manga Entertainment) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Legion (Sony Pictures Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (Park Circus) [Blu-ray with DVD]
The Blind Side (Warner Home Video) [Blu-ray with DVD]
The Infidel (Revolver Entertainment) [Blu-ray / DVD]
The Stranger (Anchor Bay Entertainment UK) [Blu-ray / DVD]
> The Best DVD and Blu-ray releases of 2009
> UK cinema releases for Friday 6th August 2010 including Knight & Day
US voice actor Josh Robert Thompson is probably best known for his pitch-perfect impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but this video of him doing Robert De Niro auditioning for Star Wars is also pretty sharp.
He also does a mean Morgan Freeman too.
> Official site
> Josh Robert Thompson pranks George Takei on The Howard Stern Show
David McCandless of Information is Beautiful has created a very funny infographic of Wikipedia’s lamest edit wars.
Among my movie related favourites are:
Click here for a larger version.
> Information is Beautiful
> Buy the Information is Beautiful book from Amazon UK
Never Let Me Go will be the opening film at this year’s London Film Festival on October 13th.
Adaptated from Kazuo Ishiguro’s bestselling novel, it stars Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield and is directed by Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo).
Alex Garland (The Beach, 28 Days Later) wrote the screenplay and it is the story of three young adults and an English boarding school which hides a dark secret.
A co-production between DNA Films, Film4 and Fox Searchlight, it is likely to feature in the end of year BAFTA and Oscar nominations.
Sandra Hebron, the Festival’s Artistic Director has said:
‘It is a great pleasure to be able to open the festival with a film as accomplished and imaginative as NEVER LET ME GO. It combines impeccable film making, outstanding performances and a deeply moving story, and I couldn’t wish for a stronger or more appropriate opening night.’
On having the film’s European premiere at the Festival, Andrew Macdonald of DNA Films said:
‘We’re delighted that NEVER LET ME GO has been selected to open this year’s festival. It has been a privilege to be involved with bringing Kazuo Ishiguro’s remarkable novel to the screen, and to work with such an exceptional British cast. We look forward to unveiling the film in London.’
Director Mark Romanek also adds:
‘I think I can speak for the entire cast and crew when I say that we are deeply honored and excited to have been selected to open this year’s festival. For me personally, it seems the perfect way to celebrate the conclusion of an incredible filmmaking experience in the UK.’
The full programme for The 54th BFI London Film Festival will be announced on Wednesday 8th September and it will run from 13th-28th October 2010.
Fox Searchlight are seasoned pros when it comes to getting films attention in the awards season and the first trailer was an impressive first glimpse at what can be expected:
Never Let Me Go will be released in the UK on January 14th 2011.
> Official site
> Never Let Me Go at the IMDb
> BFI London Film Festival
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NATIONAL RELEASES
Knight & Day (20th Century Fox): A action-comedy about a rogue spy (Tom Cruise) and a car restorer (Cameron Diaz) who meet at an airport and are then pursued by the FBI and arms dealers across several countries.
A strange hybrid which feels like it has undergone several script rewrites, this is neither as funny or exciting as it should be. Director James Mangold was a curious choice for this kind of material and he seems undecided on how to balance the contrasting elements.
There is no real suspense or danger because the situations are basically played for laughs, whilst the romantic elements feel undercooked for the same reason. This wouldn’t be a problem if the comedy was strong, but mostly this is just inoffensively watchable.
It is also a reminder that Cruise and Diaz have lost some of their star power. Their characters here feel like faded duplicates of previous roles: Cruise essentially plays a sillier version of his Mission: Impossible persona, whilst Diaz does her ditzy blonde routine.
For a summer release from a major studio, it also feels cheaper than expected. The sense of scale and the action scenes (which often feature some ropey CGI) are all fairly underwhelming.
A solid supporting cast on paper includes Peter Sarsgaard, Paul Dano and Viola Davis, but there are wasted in one dimensional roles.
The disappointing US box office performance came as a shock to Fox and they will be hoping that it performs better in foreign markets such as the UK. [Odeon Leicester Square & Nationwide / 12A]
Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore (Warner Bros.): You know that something has gone seriously wrong with the summer movie season when a major studio has decided to make a sequel to a 2001 film about a war between cats and dogs.
This film sees the battle between canines and felines put on hold when they join forces to thwart a rogue cat spy.
Featuring the voices of Chris O’Donnell, Christina Applegate, Michael Clarke Duncan, James Marsden, Joe Pantoliano and Katt Williams this clearly isn’t going to be the standout film on anyone’s IMDb listing.
To add insult to injury this is another film trying to cash in on the 3D craze, although the poor reviews and less-than-spectacular US box office will probably mean that this will be quickly forgotten. [Nationwide / 15]
Step Up 3D (Universal): The second unnecessary sequel in 3D this week is the third film in the Step Up series, which sees a guy called Moose (Adam Sevani) team up with a street dance crew for a competition against some other dancers.
Directed by Jon Chu, it co-stars Alyson Stoner and Harry Shum Jr. and looks set to cash in on the current craze for all things dance-related. [Vue West End & Nationwide / 12A]
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ALSO OUT
Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (Soda Pictures): A French drama based on the fictional novel ‘Coco & Igor’ by Chris Greenhalgh, which fictionalises the affair between Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky in Paris during 1920, the year that Chanel No. 5 was created. Directed by Jan Kounen it stars Mads Mikkelsen and Anna Mouglalis. [C’World Hammersmith, Curzon Mayfair, Odeons Covent Gdn, Wimbledon & Nationwide / 15]
Eccentricities Of A Blonde-Haired Girl (New Wave Films): Adapted from the short story by author Eça de Queiroz, this drama is the tale of a beleaguered man (Ricardo Trêpa), who recounts his romantic woes involving a blonde whilst on a train ride to the Algarve. Directed by Manoel de Oliveira. [ICA Cinema & Key Cities / U]
Undertow (Axiom Films): A Peruvian drama about a man (Cristian Mercado) struggling to deal with a secret affair in a small coastal town. Directed by Javier Fuentes-Leon. It won the Audience Award for Best World Dramatic Feature at Sundance earlier this year. [Apollo Piccadilly Circus, Everyman Hampstead, Odeon Covent Gdn., & Key Cities / 15]
> DVD and Blu-ray releases for this week including Shutter Island and The Lives of Others
> Get local cinema showtimes for your area via Google Movies
This short animated film by Pascal Monaco is called 35mm and is a 2 minute tour through cinema history.
See if you can guess the 35 films they reference throughout.
35mm from Pascal Monaco on Vimeo.
[Via Buzzfeed]
Rocketboom have produced a nice breakdown of the Double Rainbow video which recently became an unlikely viral sensation.
If you haven’t seen the original, it has over 9 million views on YouTube:
For Stanley Kubrick fans, this 2001 remix is especially impressive:
> Rocketboom’s Know Your Meme series
> More on the Double Rainbow at Mashable
Fflick is a new website which filters and organises what people are saying about films on Twitter.
If you use the popular micro-blogging servce then Fflick lets you see what your followers are saying about certain films, whether it is Roger Ebert, Oprah Winfrey, Jon Favreau or yourself.
In addition it uses the data publicly available on Twitter to help arrange tweets into interesting, positive, negative and interesting links about films that are trending on the site (e.g. Inception, Toy Story 3).
Although it has just launched, it looks promising so far.
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DVD & BLU-RAY PICKS
Shutter Island (Paramount Home Entertainment): Director Martin Scorcese followed the Oscar success of The Departed with an adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s 2003 novel about a US Marshall (Leonardo DiCaprio) sent to investigate strange goings on at a secure psychiatric hospital off the coast of Massachusetts. Haunted by his past, he finds it difficult to trust the chief psychiatrist (Ben Kingsley) and slowly begins to suspect that something is afoot.
Although the performances are all solid and the technical aspects first rate, the underlying premise of the story feels an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Appropriately it references Hitchcock a lot (especially Vertigo), but never reaches the heights of Scorcese’s finest work, even if that is superior to most living directors.
This was a film that divided critics and I’m still split myself over where this fits into Scorcese’s body of work.
As one of the great directors of his era he is a victim of his own high standards and some observers felt Shutter Island was simply a hollow bag of tricks.
How you feel about the final act will possibly shape your overall perception, but keep listening to the very end and you may find there is more substance than some have alleged.
The extras include the following production featurettes, both of which are in HD:
• Behind the Shutters (17:11)
• Into the Lighthouse (21:11)
The technical aspects of the film, in particular the production design and costumes, are terrific and it appears that it has got a worthy transfer on to Blu-ray.
Gary Tooze of DVD Beaver says that it is ‘visually pristine’ and is also impressed with the audio:
This is dual-layered with a fairly high bitrate and contrast exhibits healthy, rich black levels.
… the DTS-HD Master 5.1 at, a powerhouse, 4725 kbps is as perfect (or more?) than the video transfer. There really is no way to critique it as it appears to be replicating the filmmakers intent with zeal.
…Audio is a good part of this presentation and the lossless track can’t be criticized.
Interestingly, there are some striking similarities between this and Christopher Nolan’s Inception: both feature a haunted protagonist played by Leonardo DiCaprio and explore the clash of appearance and reality.
> Buy Shutter Island on Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon UK
> Shutter Island at the IMDb
The Lives of Others (Lionsgate UK): The striking feature debut of writer and director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck brilliantly explored tensions and repressions in communist East Germany. Set in East Berlin during 1984, the story involves a Stasi Captain (the late Ulrich Mühe) who secretly monitors a playwright (Sebastian Koch) and his partner (Martina Gedeck), a prominent actress.
The chilling drabness of a totalitarian regime is wonderfully evoked and the contrast of the historical setting against the personal desires at the centre of the story make it all the more moving.
One of the reasons the film opened to such enormous and richly deserved acclaim back in 2006, was the way in which it wrapped a powerful human story within the framework of a thriller.
There are numerous sequences filled with tension and the pacing means that it never gets bogged down in clumsy symbolism or pretentious longeurs. The clever plotting and surprising twists also give the film an extra emotional kick in its final stages.
Details of the extras are sketchy but are probably the same as the DVD release, which were:
> Buy The Lives of Others on Blu-ray from Amazon UK
> The Lives of Others at the IMDb
The Most Dangerous Man in America (Dogwoof Pictures): A documentary former RAND military strategist Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked a 7,000-page document known as the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971. Disillusioned with ongoing deceptions of US involvement in Vietnam, he leaked the top secret documents which outlined the ‘secret history’ of the war and ultimately led to President Nixon resigning.
Although the form of the film is stylistically conventional – talking heads, library shots – the story is still a remarkable one and Ellsberg’s recollection of events is absorbing. It covers similar ground to his 2002 memoir Secrets, but manages to condense the personal and political in an efficient and tidy package.
Nominated for Best Documentary at the Oscars earlier this year its release this week is timely in light of the recent leaked military documents to various media outlets by Wikileaks.
> Buy The Most Dangerous Man in America on DVD from Amazon UK
> Official site
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ALSO OUT
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (Optimum Home Entertainment) [Blu-ray]
From Paris With Love (Warner Home Video) [Blu-ray / DVD]
I Love You Phillip Morris (E1 Entertainment UK) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Invisible Target (Showbox Media Group) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Persuasion (2 Entertain) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Shelter (Icon Home Entertainment) [Blu-ray / DVD]
The Banquet (Metrodome Distribution) [Blu-ray / DVD]
The Spy Next Door (Momentum Pictures) [Blu-ray / DVD]
> The Best DVD and Blu-ray releases of 2009
> UK cinema releases for Friday 30th July 2010 including The A-Team and The Karate Kid
Inception has been one of the most talked about films of the summer, but something that caught my interest recently was these two YouTube videos pointing out the similarities between Christopher Nolan’s film and the 2006 anime film Paprika.
The latter is the story of a research psychologist who uses a device that allows therapists to enter patients’ dreams.
Nolan himself has admitted the influence of The Matrix, 2001, Heat and Blade Runner, but see if you can detect elements of Inception in this trailer for Paprika:
Now check out this mashup up of both movies.
Although there are clearly differences, did Nolan get his central concept from the Japanese film?
> Inception review
> Paprika at the IMDb
Details have been announced for the Blu-ray release of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now in two different versions on October 19th.
Although this is the US release date, a UK and worldwide release should be confirmed relatively soon.
The epic about a US army captain (Martin Sheen) sent to assassinate a rogue colonel gone native deep in the jungle (Marlon Brando) is one of the great films of the 1970s and a vivid depiction of the insanity of the Vietnam War.
There will be a regular 2-disc set and a more comprehensive Full Disclosure edition which includes George Hickenlooper’s memorable making of documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991), which will also be in 1080p.
The package will include the original 1979 theatrical cut and the extended Apocalypse Now Redux version (released back in 2001) and both will be presented in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1.
For previous DVD releases cinematographer Vittorio Storaro made the curious decision to modify it to 2.00:1 (the Univisium format), which he thinks should be a universal ratio for all films.
But now audiences will be able to see the film in high definition as well as in its original theatrical aspect ratio for the first time.
The extras for the two editions break down like this:
2 FILM SET
FULL DISCLOSURE EDITION
Like the 2-Film Set above, plus the following:
[Via IGN UK]
> Apocalypse Now at Wikipedia and IMDb
> Pre-order the Blu-ray of Apocalypse Now at Amazon UK
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NATIONAL RELEASES
The A-Team (20th Century Fox): The movie adaptation of the popular 1980s TV show arrives in the UK after being stuck in development limbo for years. The premise is an updated version of the series with Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley and Quiton Jackson as a special forces unit who are framed for a crime. Directed by Joe Carnahan (Narc, Smokin’ Aces), it also stars Jessica Biel and Patrick Wilson.
On its US opening last month, it opened to less than enthusiastic reviews and softer than expected box office. Given the appeal of the show to a generation who grew up in the 1980s, it could still have a solid opening here but faces tough competition from The Karate Kid and Toy Story 3. [Vue West End & Nationwide / 12A]
The Karate Kid (Sony Pictures): Another franchise forged in the 1980s gets the remake treatment with Jaden Smith (son of Will Smith) playing a young boy from Detroit who moves to China, where he gets lessons in life and self defence from an ageing kung fu master (Jackie Chan).
Although it might seem counterintuitive to have the new Karate Kid learn Kung Fu, the film has already proved a success in the US, where it convincingly beat The A-Team on its opening weekend. Directed by Harald Zwart (who previously made Agent Cody Banks) the family friendly qualities of the film could also make it popular over here too, especially as the school holidays have just begun. [Nationwide / PG]
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ALSO OUT
Beautiful Kate (Matchbox Films): The directorial debut of actress Rachel Ward is an adaptation of the novel by Newton Thornburg and deals with a writer returing home to visit his dying father. It stars Rachel Griffiths, Bryan Brown, Sophie Lowe and Ben Mendelsohn. [Curzon Soho, HMV Wimbledon & Key Cities/ 15]
Down Terrace (Metrodome Distribution): A low budget British crime drama about a dysfunctional family in Brighton. Directed by Ben Wheatley, it stars Julia Deakin, Kerry Peacock, Robert Hill and Robin Hill. [ICA Cinema & selected Key Cities / 15]
Frontier Blues (Artificial Eye): A drama examining the lives of men on border of Northern Iran and Turkmenistan, directed by Babak Jalali and starring Khajeh Araz Dordi, Mahmoud Kalteh and Abolfazl Karimi. [Curzon Renoir & selected Key Cities / 12A]
Gainsbourg (Optimum Releasing): A biopic of the French singer Serge Gainsbourg, which depicts his early years in Nazi-occupied Paris through to his most successful period in the 1960s. Directed by Joann Sfar, it stars Eric Elmosnino, Lucy Gordon, and Laetitia Casta. [Cineworld Fulham Road, Curzon Soho & Nationwide / 15]
Separado! (Soda Pictures): A documentary exploring Gruff Rhys’s attempts to meet up with his lost long Patagonian uncle, the musician René Griffiths. Directed by Dylan Goch. [BFI Southbank, Curzon Soho & Key Cities]
South Of The Border (Dogwoof): Oliver Stone’s latest documentary sees him travel to Venezuela and explore the recent leftward tilt in South American politics. [Odeon Panton Street & Nationwide / 15]
> DVD and Blu-ray releases for this week including Picnic at Hanging Rock and Stop Making Sense
> Get local cinema showtimes for your area via Google Movies
This trailer mashup of Toy Story 3 and Inception by Mike Eisenberg of Screenrant is ingenious.
Of all the films to come out of the New Wave of Australian cinema in the 1970s, Picnic at Hanging Rock remains one of the most enduring.
A haunting adaptation of Joan Lindsay’s novel, the story is set at a Victorian girls school in Australia which is plunged into shock after some of the pupils go missing on a day trip to a local rock formation known as Hanging Rock.
Part of the appeal is blending of a realistic setting (despite being fiction) with a lyrical presentation, which features some exquisite cinematography by Russell Boyd.
Throughout his career Peter Weir has been a director of rare taste and intelligence and part of the reason this film still fascinates is down to its careful construction.
On paper the story could be a police procedural or even a horror film, but by emphasizing the mystery at the heart of it, Weir crafts a much more compelling tale of repressed emotions set against the sensual force of nature.
It explores similar territory to Nic Roeg’s Walkabout (1971). Both feature a picnic gone wrong in the outback and depict anxious young people on the cusp of adulthood.
But whereas Walkabout stayed mostly in the outback and contrasted two cultures (the native and settler), Picnic mostly focuses on the school as it copes with the emotional fallout from the fateful trip.
It is also reminiscent of Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon: a community of repressed people manifests itself in sinister and mysterious ways, although Weir’s approach is less political and more open ended.
Both films understand that it is the unexplained aspects of a story that can resonate with audiences as they repeatedly fill in the mysterious blanks left unfilled by the narrative.
Of the ensemble cast, Rachel Roberts has the most prominent role as Mrs Appleyard, the stern headmistress, but many of the pupils are equally memorable, especially Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert), Irma (Karen Robson), Marion (Jane Vallis), Rosamund (Ingrid Mason) and Sara (Margaret Nelson).
The image of Lambert has become indelibly associated with the film, appearing on many of the international posters and also on this Blu-ray release.
Experiencing it in high definition for the first time, the visual look is especially striking, with the colours and locations given a new vibrancy by the new transfer.
Added to this is the improved audio, which adds an extra kick to the unmistakable pan pipe pieces by Gheorghe Zamfir that run throughout the film, along with various classical pieces by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven.
Whether or not you have seen the film before, this is almost certainly the best it has looked since the original cinema release, although it should be noted that this is the ‘Director’s Cut’ Weir sanctioned in the late 1990s for the then DVD release.
Unusually Weir and producer Patricia Lovell opted to take footage out of the theatrical version rather than add it back in. The excised sequences ran to about 14 minutes of footage, most of which happen in the final third of the film.
That said there are plenty of extras included on this disc, most of which have appeared on previous DVD versions but still providing valuable context for first time viewers.
Most prominent is a comprehensive two-hour documentary detailing the production called ‘A Dream Within A Dream’, which features interviews with cast and crew including Peter Weir, Patricia Lovell, Hal & Jim Mcelroy, Cliff Green, Russell Boyd, Bruce Smeaton, Jose Perez, Helen Morse, John Jarratt, Christine Schuler and Anne Louise Lambert.
There is also an on set documentary from 1975 ‘A Recollection: Hanging Rock 1900’ which includes interviews with author Joan Lindsay, Weir and other members of the cast including Rachel Roberts.
One of the aspects of the story that keeps cropping up in the supplementary interviews is whether or not the story was based on real events. It wasn’t but Lindsay and Weir were shrewd in dodging the question for so long as it helped create word of mouth for audiences desperate to know if it was all really true.
Perhaps the best thing that can be said about the Blu-ray of Picnic at Hanging Rock is that it reminds us the hypnotic power of the original film, which remains a classic of Australian cinema.
> Buy Picnic at Hanging Rock on Blu-ray from Amazon UK
> Picnic at Hanging Rock at the IMDb
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If you saw Inception recently and came out of the film wanting to to clarify some aspects of the plot, then this graphic by dehahs at DeviantART visualises the main mission along with the different characters, dreams and kicks.
I would recommend you skip it for now if you haven’t seen the film, but if you have then it is a good starting point for debating aspects of the puzzles Nolan created.
For a larger image click here.
[Via /Film]
Let Me In is a remake of the 2008 Swedish horror film Let the Right One In and is the story of a young boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who develops a friendship with a vampire (Chloë Moretz) in a New Mexico town during the early 1980s.
Directed by Matt Reeves, who made Cloverfield, it co-stars Richard Jenkins and Elias Koteas.
It will open in the US on October 1st and in the UK on October 22nd.
> Official site
> Interview with Tomas Alfredson, director of Let the Right One In
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DVD & BLU-RAY PICKS
Picnic at Hanging Rock (Second Sight): This haunting tale about a group of schoolgirls who go missing whilst on a picnic in 1900 remains of the iconic films in Australian cinema. Its release in 1975 signalled the arrival of Peter Weir as a major director and the hypnotic, lyrical qualities have not diminished since then.
Adapted from the novel by Joan Lindsay, it isn’t actually a true story (even though at times it has the feel of one) but remains a powerful exploration of innocence, time and mystery.
The locations, from the girl’s school to the picnic in the countryside, are beautifully captured by cinematographer Russell Boyd and as the film progresses it becomes a memorable tale of loss and regret.
An important part of the atmosphere is the indelible music which features Gheorghe Zamfir on pan pipe and Marcel Cellier on the organ.
Special features are pretty substantial and include the following:
> Buy Picnic at Hanging Rock on Blu-ray from Amazon UK
> Find out more about the film at Wikipedia and the IMDb
Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense (Palm Pictures): This ground-breaking 1984 concert film featuring Talking Heads directed by Jonathan Demme remains one of the essential rock movies. Filmed over three nights at Hollywood’s Pantages Theater in December 1983, it captured the group as they were touring their album Speaking in Tongues.
What made the film stand out from others in the genre was Demme’s innovative approach to shooting a concert.
With Talking Heads he found a band who were not only interested in stage craft but were also willing to allow him an unusual amount of creative freedom in capturing them live.
The lack of audience shots, unusual lighting choices for each song and the visible presence of the stage crew are just some of the elements which mark this out from the bog standard concert movie.
Front man David Byrne is a charismatic presence throughout and his stage persona was arguably a big influence on lead singers like Michael Stipe and Bono in later years, whilst the energy of the rest of band is just as infectious.
This was Demme’s first documentary and his use of handheld cameras, along with longer-than-usual shots, gives the film a distinctive flavour which chimes in a band who were never a slave to fashions and trends of the early 1980s.
The Blu-ray is being released by Palm Pictures and includes the following bonus features:
Film fans might note references to Dr. Strangelove and Breathless, theatre buffs may spot the influence of Japanese Noh theatre and R.E.M. fans may notice the influence of this on Tourfilm (1989).
> Buy Stop Making Sense on Blu-ray from Amazon UK
> Find out more about Talking Heads at Wikipedia
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ALSO OUT
2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (Anchor Bay Entertainment UK) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Cats and Dogs (Warner Home Video) [DVD]
Clash of the Titans (Warner Home Video) [Blu-ray with DVD]
Fantastic Planet (Eureka) [Blu-ray]
Hierro (Optimum Home Entertainment) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Paranoiac (Eureka) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Remember Me (E1 Entertainment UK) [Blu-ray / with DVD]
Shank (Revolver Entertainment) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Sons of the Wind – Bangkok Ninjas (Manga Entertainment) [DVD]
The Bounty Hunter (Sony Pictures Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Vengeance Is Mine (Eureka) [Blu-ray / DVD]
> The Best DVD and Blu-ray releases of 2009
> UK cinema releases for Friday 23rd July 2010 including Toy Story 3
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The National Archives in the UK have produced a podcast which sheds light on the history of British cinema.
Presented by Joseph Pugh, it is a recorded talk that explores some intriguing stories using documents from records in the archive.
Much of the hour long podcast is devoted to the silent era and it uncovers some interesting nuggets such as: the attempts by the Colonial Office to ban D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation; a groundbreaking British cartoon that was financed by the CIA; and the attempts in 1922 to ban a film called Cocaine.
Many of the films discussed are listed on Your Archives, a wiki where people can post more information, which is a commendable attempt to crowd source further research.
Back in early 2007 Film 4 ran an interview with Robert De Niro where he discussed three of his best films: Taxi Driver (1976), The Deer Hunter (1978) and Once Upon a Time in America (1984).
Given his recent choice of roles and the fact that he was press shy for a large chunk of his career, it is interesting to get his perspective on a time when he was arguably the finest actor of his generation.
> Robert De Niro at Wikipedia and the IMDb
> Film 4
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NATIONAL RELEASES
Toy Story 3 (Walt Disney): The third installment of the hugely successful Pixar franchise sees the toys (voiced by a cast including Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and Joan Cusack) confronted with a problem. Their owner Andy is no longer a child and when he goes off to college, they are supposed to be put in to the attic. But a misunderstanding sees them end up somewhere else.
With new characters voiced by Ned Beatty, Whoopi Goldberg and Michael Keaton this sequel has been in the works for a long time. The delay was mainly down to the friction between former Disney chief Michael Eisner and Pixar but when these problems were resolved with the new regime under Bob Eiger – which saw the 2006 merger of the two companies – the film was back on track.
Directed by Lee Unkrich, co-director of Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc and Finding Nemo, this looks set to be another huge success for Pixar. Like the previous Toy Story films it has managed to combine critical plaudits with an inbuilt appeal to audiences of all ages. [Nationwide / U]
Splice (Optimum Releasing): This sci-fi horror concerns two scientists (Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley) in the near future who experiment with human DNA for a large corporation, only to slowly realise that they have made a mistake.
Directed by Vincenzo Natali, still best known for the 1997 film Cube, it got a proper wide release in the US from Warner Bros last month, despite being filmed on a lower-than-normal budget. The visual effects are solid but the major problem is that it is too derivative, especially of David Cronenberg’s The Fly, and doesn’t really add anything to the crowded horror sub-genre which depicts science gone wrong. [Vue West End & Nationwide / 15]
The Rebound (Paramount/Momentum): A romantic comedy about a recent divorcee (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who starts a relationship with a younger man (Justin Bartha) she has employed as a home help.
Directed by Bart Freundlich, this seems like token summer counter-programming for female audiences who don’t fancy seeing the big summer blockbusters. [Empire Leicester Square & Nationwide / 15]
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ALSO OUT
Baaria (E1 Entertainment): Director Giuseppe Tornatore (best know as the director of Cinema Paradiso) returns with a film about his childhood growing up in Sicily. [Odeon Covent Garden & Key Cities / 15]
City Island (Anchor Bay Films): A low budget US indie about a dysfunctional family in the Bronx, headed up by a prison guard father (Andy Garcia) who secretly yearns to be an actor. Julianna Margulies and Emily Mortimer co-star and Raymond De Felitta directs. [Key Cities / 12A]
Ivul (Artificial Eye): A semi-autobiographical film from director Andrew Kotting about a young man (Jean-Luc Bideau) coming of age in a manor house in France with a Franco-Russian father. Jacob Auzanneau and Aurélia Petit co-star. [Curzon Renoir & Selected Key Cities / 15]
Jasper, Penguin Explorer (Soda Pictures): Directed by Eckart Fingberg and Kay Delventhal, this German animated film is about a penguin (voiced by Rick Adams) who thinks another world exists beyond the ice caps of the South Pole.
Khatta Meetha (Eros): A Bollywood remake of the 1989 Malayalam film, Vellanakalude Nadu, starring Akshay Kumar as a construction contractor. [C’Worlds Feltham, Shaftesbury Ave., Wood Green, Vue Acton & Key Cities]
My Night With Maud (bfi Distribution): A reissue of Eric Rohmer’s 1969 film about the relationship between a Catholic and a Marxist and a freethinker named Maud. [BFI Southbank, Curzon Soho & Key Cities / PG]
> DVD and Blu-ray releases for this week including The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Tokyo Story
> Get local cinema showtimes for your area via Google Movies
In this video from the AFI archives, French director François Truffaut talks about how Roberto Rossellini and Alfred Hitchcock influenced his own work.
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DVD & BLU-RAY PICKS
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Momentum Pictures): The adaptation of the bestselling novel by Steig Larsson sees a discredited journalist (Mikael Blomkvist) and a mysterious computer hacker (Harriet Vanger) uncover dark secrets about a wealthy family, whilst trying to solve a 40 year-old murder.
The Millennium Trilogy of novels has been one of the publishing phenomenons of the last few years, so much so that a Hollywood remake with David Fincher directing is in the works.
This is the first of the Swedish films and is an absorbing story, even though some of the darker elements make take unsuspecting audiences by surprise.
Danish director Niels Arden Oplev keeps up the suspense and intrigue over the 151 minute running time and the two leads do a solid job of translating their characters from page to screen.
Extras included on the DVD and Blu-ray include:
The forthcoming Swedish films in the trilogy are The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest.
> Buy The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo on Blu-ray from Amazon UK
> Find out more about The Millennium Trilogy at Wikipedia
Tokyo Story (BFI): The most famous and acclaimed film from Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu is a moving family drama about a married couple (played by Chishu Ryu and Chieko Higashiyama) who visit their grown children in Tokyo only to find their offspring too absorbed in their own lives to spend much time with them.
Exploring family relations, regret and the difficulties of life in a nuanced way Ozu crafted a film that has gathered enormous momentum down the years.
Partly this is down to the distinctively sparse style of Ozu’s camera work (he loves stillness and stationary shots) but it is also because the themes explored have a timeless poignancy.
Added to this is the backdrop of 1950s Japan which had only just emerged from the devastation of World War II which gives it a distinctively bittersweet flavour.
The film is usually included on more serious critics polls, so the its UK debut on Blu-ray from the BFI is a fairly big deal for serious cinema fans.
This is a dual disc version that includes the Blu-ray and DVD disc also contains a liner notes booklet with an essay by Professor Joan Mellen and Ozu biographer Tony Rayns.
Extra Features:
> Buy Tokyo Story on Blu-ray from Amazon UK
> Tokyo Story at the IMDb
Cameraman: The Jack Cardiff Story (Optimum Releasing): A new documentary from director Craig McCall explores the career of Jack Cardiff, one of Britain’s most famous cinematographers.
With a life that spanned the development of cinema, taking in silent film and the advent of Technicolor cinematographer Cardiff worked with luminaries such as Michael Powell, John Huston, Alfred Hitchcock, Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn.
On films such as A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948) and The African Queen (1951) he established himself as a world class talent and in 2001 he became the first cinematographer to receive an honorary, Lifetime Achievement Oscar® for:
“Exceptional contributions to the state of motion picture arts and sciences; and for outstanding services to the Academy.”
Director Craig McCall has been working on this documentary for several years, interviewing Jack himself (who passed away last year) and various admirers including Martin Scorsese, Thelma Schoonmaker, Kathleen Byron, Kim Hunter, Moira Shearer, John Mills, Lauren Bacall, Charlton Heston and Kirk Douglas.
Extras on the DVD include the following:
> Buy Cameraman: The Jack Cardiff Story on DVD from Amazon UK
> Listen to our interview with Craig McCall about Camerman: The Jack Cardiff Story
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ALSO OUT
Chloe (Optimum Home Entertainment) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Donnie Darko: The Original and the Director’s Cut (Metrodome Distribution) [Blu-ray]
Early Summer (BFI) [Blu-ray with DVD]
Late Spring (BFI) [Blu-ray with DVD]
Nanny McPhee (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray]
Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray with DVD]
The Crazies (Momentum Pictures) [Blu-ray / DVD]
The Karate Kid (Sony Pictures Home Ent.) [Blu-ray]
The Karate Kid 2 (Sony Pictures Home Ent.) [Blu-ray]
> UK cinema releases for Friday 16th July 2010 including Inception
> Browse previous DVD and Blu-ray picks
A clever video mashup of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) off and Fight Club (1999) that seems to have originated from a discussion on Metafilter.
[Via Buzzfeed]
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NATIONAL RELEASES
Inception (Warner Bros.): The first blockbuster to come out at UK cinemas since the World Cup ended is this insanely ambitious sci-fi actioner from director Christopher Nolan. The story revolves around a gang of hi-tech thieves led by international fugitive Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), who steals highly valuable information from people’s dreams. After a job on a Japanese businessman (Ken Watanabe) goes wrong, he is faced with the daunting challenge of ‘inception’: instead of stealing information, he must secretly plant some inside the mind of an important businessman (Cillian Murphy).
Assembling a team of experts (which includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page and Tom Hardy) who can help him execute the mission, he must also deal with his own troubled past, which endangers his ability to do the job at hand. The scale and ambition of this film is something to behold as Nolan returns to the narrative puzzles of previous films like Memento (2000) and The Prestige (2006) but does so on the scale of his recent Batman films (certainly this would never have got made if The Dark Knight wasn’t such a huge success).
This is a challenging film and many audiences might be put off by the way the story switches between the real world and the shifting dreamscapes of different characters. Having seen it twice now, the pieces do fit together, although at times you feel like you are struggling to remember a dream just by following the action on screen.
DiCaprio is solid in the lead role and his team have also been well cast: Joseph Gordon Levitt is a charming point man; Ellen Page nicely combines innocence and gravity as the rookie ‘dream architect’; Tom Hardy relishes his part as a forgerer; Ken Watanabe is a pleasingly enigmatic boss figure; Cillian Murphy conveys surprising depth as the rich mark and Michael Caine hits the spot in a smaller than usual part.
As you would expect for a Nolan film, it is a technical masterclass: the production design by Guy Hendrix Dyas makes stunning use of several real world locations; Wally Pfister’s cinematography captures intense emotions and epic action beautifully; the visual effects by Double Negative and Plowman Craven are so good they never feel like conventional CGI; there are some highly imaginative sets overseen by special effects supervisor Chris Corbould, especially one amazing sequence involving a hotel; and editor Lee Smith manages to warp time and space brilliantly throughout.
Warner Bros have spent a lot of money on this and must be a little nervous as to how audiences are going to react. It is a dense film which may put off viewers not willing to enter the maze Nolan has constructed. On the other hand there is pently of action and spectacle here and it may be a film that people will want to debate and experience a second time. It will have a big opening but there is a question over its longer term box office prospects. [Vue West End & Nationwide / 12A]
* Read my full thoughts on Inception here *
The Concert (Optimum Releasing): A French comedy about a former conductor (Aleksei Guskov) who, after being fired from the renowned Bolshoi Orchestra during the the communist era, sees a shot at redemption when he learns that they will be playing at a theatre in Paris. He recruits a young violinist (Melanie Laurent) to accompany his old musicians and hopes to stage a new concert with them.
Directed by Radu Mihaileanu, the score was composed by Armand Amar and the music on the soundtrack features works by Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Mozart and Khachaturian. Optimum will be hoping that arthouse audiences not interested in Inception will be interested in seeing a more accessible, feelgood European film. [Curzons Mayfair, Soho & Key Cities / 15]
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ALSO OUT
Bluebeard (New Wave Films): Based on the dark fairytale by Charles Perrault, about a young bride married to a murderous aristocrat, this film version also adds another narrative layer with with two present-day girls reading the story in an old book, which they have found in an attic.
Directed by Catherine Breillat, it stars Lola Créton as Marie-Catherine, the teen bride, whilst Dominique Thomas is Bluebeard. This faces arthouse competition from The Concert, and New Wave Films will be hoping fans more discerning fans of French cinema will turn out for this one. [Key Cities]
Mega Piranha (Metrodome Distribution): More exploitation nonsense from the studio that gave us Mega Shark, with the main selling point being that it stars 80s pop singer Tiffany. Referred to as some as a mockbuster, this will get a DVD release next month. [Apollo Piccadilly Circus & selected Key Cities]
Rapt (Artificial Eye): A French drama about a rich industrialist (Yvan Attal) who is kidnapped and held hostage is the latest film from director Lucas Belvaux. [Curzon Soho & selected Key Cities / 15]
Rough Aunties (ICA Cinema): A documentary of from director Kim Longinotto about child abuse in South Africa. [ICA Cinema]
> DVD and Blu-ray releases for this week including Green Zone and Bubba Ho-Tep
> Get local cinema showtimes for your area via Google Movies
Harvey Pekar, the underground author of the acclaimed comic book American Splendor, passed away earlier this week in Cleveland, Ohio.
Although he worked for almost 40 years as a file clerk in a hospital, he turned the everyday struggles of his life in to a distinctive series of books, which started in 1976 and were illustrated by artists such as Robert Crumb, Gary Dumm, Greg Budgett and Mark Zingarelli.
Back in December 2003 I spoke with Harvey in London when the film adaptation of American Splendor was released in UK cinemas.
Directed by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman, it starred Paul Giamatti as Pekar, Hope Davis as his wife Joyce and featured an inventive mix of fiction, animation and documentary footage.
Critically acclaimed, it won a string of awards, including prizes at festivals such as Sundance and Cannes, as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
We discussed various aspects of his life and career, including how started the comic book, the film adaptation, his feud in the late 1980s with David Letterman and the influences on his work.
You can listen to the interview here:
[audio:http://filmdetail.receptionmedia.com/Harvey_Pekar_on_American_Splendor.mp3]You can also download this interview as a podcast via iTunes by clicking here
> Download the interview as an MP3 file
> American Splendor at the IMDb
> New York Times obituary
> Various Harvey Pekar links at MUBI
> Find out more about the American Splendor comic at Wikipedia
This is the first full length trailer for The Social Network, the upcoming film about the founding of Facebook.
Adapted from the 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding Of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich, it is directed by David Fincher and stars Jesse Eisenberg (as Mark Zuckerberg), Justin Timberlake (as Sean Parker) and Andrew Garfield (as Eduardo Saverin).
The film will be released in the US on October 1st and in the UK on October 15th.
Those clever folks at Improv Everywhere have staged a re-enactment of a scene from Star Wars featuring Princess Leia and Darth Vader on the New York City subway.
It is always interesting to observe how the public react to this kind of unexpected, live theatre. Note how many of the passengers start filming on their own cameras.
There is a behind-the-scenes feature explaining more about how they did the scene on Improv Everywhere’s website here.
Based in New York they have previously staged plenty of others like this, including one where they got around 200 people to freeze in Grand Central Station, the video of which has been viewed over 22 million times on YouTube.
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I want you to imagine that Orson Welles once had a TV chatshow in the late 1970s.
Then I want to you to get a little bit more creative and imagine that the guests on this show include Burt Reynolds, The Muppets and Angie Dickinson.
But wait. This actually happened.
This is the intro for an unaired pilot Welles did for a chat show back in 1979.
Note how he talks about the possibilities of television like someone evangelising about the Internet circa 1997.
But the really good stuff is yet to come.
Welles introduces Burt Reynolds (“I like him. I like him very much.”) and for some reason they are wearing matching red shirts and jackets (“simple, lousy coincidence!”).
Also note the unconventional format where they ditch the ‘what are you plugging’ banter and dive straight into questions from the audience, some of which prompt interesting answers.
After that we get some contributions from Fozzie Bear, Kermit the Frog and Sam The Eagle, followed by more pontificating from Welles about the nature of television:
To finish off, Welles indulges in some magic with Angie Dickinson, which may remind viewers of his film F For Fake (1973):
> Find out more about Orson Welles at Wikipedia
> The infamous frozen peas commercial featuring Welles
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DVD & BLU-RAY PICKS
Green Zone (Universal): When director Paul Greengrass re-teamed with Matt Damon for this Iraq War drama there were high hopes that it would repeat the box office success of the Bourne films and the critical acclaim of Bloody Sunday and United 93.
Originally based on based on Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book ‘Imperial Life in the Emerald City’, it follows a ‘WMD hunter’ (played by Damon) as he begins to suspect something is wrong with the intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
People Miller comes across in his search for the truth involve: the newly arrived US Administrator of Iraq (Greg Kinnear); a CIA agent (Brendan Gleeson); a Wall Street Journal reporter (Amy Ryan); a local Iraqi (Khalid Abdalla); and a special forces Major (Jason Isaacs).
Although I have more than a few reservations with the historical approach to the material, there is no doubt that Greengrass is a master at creating suspense and a vivid sense of realism.
The production design is particularly impressive and Baghdad circa 2003 is recreated with some excellent use of sets and CGI, whilst Barry Ackroyd’s cinematography pulls us right into the frenetic world of political and military intrigue.
Presumably worried that audiences would reject the fiercely critical tone of the film towards the US government, Universal tried to market this as ‘Bourne in Iraq’.
This was a strategy doomed to failure as when mainstream American audiences finally did see it, as they continued their ongoing rejection of films about the Iraq debacle.
There is still a lot to commend Green Zone and despite being a costly production that reportedly lost a lot of money, it may be a film that earns slow burning respect over time.
The Blu-ray comes with the following extras:
DVD Beaver report that the Blu-ray image is not as sharp as some might expect, but that this is intentional:
[The image] isn’t going to turn you on your ear with deft detail and magnificent sharpness. Not supposed to. What it does do is support Greengrass’ visual intentions in crafting the film. Earthy browns are prominent and the dusty desert achieves it’s lifeless, clandestine, dim aura. When colors shine the infrequency exports a brilliance by comparison. has a genuineness about it that gives me the feeling it is supporting the film appropriately.
> Buy Green Zone on Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon UK
> Read my original review of Green Zone
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Bubba Ho-Tep (Anchor Bay): This bizarre cult gem from 2002 is well worth a look on Blu-ray, especially if you are fan of genuine cult cinema. Directed by Don Coscarelli, the story features Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell), a man claiming to be John F. Kennedy (Ossie Davis) and a rogue Egyptian mummy in a Texas nursing home.
Although the scenario is off-the-wall, it is a refreshing change from the po-faced horror remakes of recent times and Campbell actually gives a very funny performance as ‘The King’.
Coscarelli is probably best known for his work on the Phantasm films and he reunited with some of the crew that worked on those films. This has some of the sensibility of those films and is probably best enjoyed late at night and in the right frame of mind.
The image on the Blu-ray actually highlights the low budget nature of the film but that isn’t too much of the problem given the overall design (this isn’t exactly a David Lean-style epic).
The extras are the same as the DVD and include:
> Buy Bubba Ho-Tep on Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon UK
> Bubba Ho-Tep at the IMDb
ALSO OUT
Baseline (Optimum Home Entertainment) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Chasing Amy (Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Clerks (Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.) [Blu-ray]
Leap Year (Optimum Home Entertainment) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Lourdes (Artificial Eye) [Blu-ray / DVD]
The Storm Warriors (Showbox Media Group) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Valentine’s Day (Warner Home Video) [Blu-ray / DVD]
Youth in Revolt (Momentum Pictures) [Blu-ray / DVD]
After some light posting during the recent World Cup, this site will now return to normal.
A blockbuster with brains and style, Inception is Christopher Nolan’s most ambitious film to date, although how mainstream audiences respond to this intricate tale is an open question.
The story revolves around a gang of hi-tech thieves led by international fugitive Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), who steals highly valuable information from people’s dreams.
After a job on a Japanese businessman (Ken Watanabe) goes wrong, he is faced with the daunting challenge of ‘inception’: instead of stealing information, he must secretly plant some inside the mind of an important businessman (Cillian Murphy).
Assembling a team of experts (which includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page and Tom Hardy) who can help him execute the mission, he must also deal with his own troubled past, which endangers his ability to do the job at hand.
To say any more about the plot of Inception would be wrong, as one of the chief pleasures in this lavishly intricate film is the way in which it unfolds, puzzling and surprising the audience like a virtuoso magician.
For writer-director Nolan, this is a return to the territory of previous films such as Memento (2000) and The Prestige (2006), where he explores the themes of illusion and reality whilst playing an imaginative game with the audience.
We are firmly in the realm of science-fiction here, but interestingly the settings are very real world: imagine if Michael Mann had decided to mash up The Matrix with Ocean’s Eleven and you’ll get some idea of the terrain here.
With some concessions, the subconscious dream worlds appear as realistic as the conscious waking world, creating a persistent question as to which is real. A clever conceit, given that cinema itself is arguably the closest art form to a dream.
DiCaprio is very solid in the lead role and his team have also been well cast: Joseph Gordon Levitt is a charming point man; Ellen Page nicely combines innocence and gravity as the rookie ‘dream architect’; Tom Hardy relishes his part as a forgerer; Ken Watanabe is a pleasingly enigmatic boss figure; Cillian Murphy conveys surprising depth as the rich mark and Michael Caine hits the spot in a smaller than usual part.
In a more challenging role, Marion Cotillard doesn’t quite hit the emotional mark required but her subplot is cleverly woven into the film and also bears some striking similarities to a key part of Memento.
The realistic touches inside a surreal world of dreamscapes, lends a sheen of believability and although the plot is an intricate hall of mirrors, there is enough exposition baked into the narrative to keep discerning audiences focused.
One could characterise Nolan’s Hollywood films so far as alternating between personal projects (Memento, The Prestige) and more commercial fare (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight), but Inception is an intriguing hybrid.
The dreamscapes and narrative open up at times like Russian dolls on acid, so it has a challenging art-house vibe, but it is also one of his most commercial to date in terms of scale and look.
There are many stylistic nods to action films of the 1960s: a team of experts assembled for a job; glamorous locations; vivid production design and costumes; a sense of mystery and wonder.
The Bond films of that decade seem a particular touchstone – one sequence plays like a homage to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) – and there are echoes of TV series from that era, such as Mission: Impossible and The Prisoner.
The huge success of The Dark Knight has allowed Nolan a particularly large canvas on which to paint and he has filled it with gleeful abandon, mixing the traditions of the spy thriller and heist movie inside a surreal, shifting dreamscape.
The cutting between the real and subconscious worlds bears many similarities to The Matrix (minus the bleak, sci-fi dystopia) and if it does hit home with audiences, then I’m sure this will be obvious reference point for many viewers.
As is now customary for a Nolan production, the technical aspects of the film are especially outstanding.
The production design by Guy Hendrix Dyas is stunning, using real world locations to marvellous effect; Wally Pfister’s cinematography (utilising several formats including 35mm, 65mm and Vista Vision) captures intense emotions and epic action beautifully.
The visual effects (by Double Negative and Plowman Craven) are stunning and blended in so well that they never feel like conventional CGI.
In addition, there are some highly imaginative sets overseen by special effects supervisor Chris Corbould, especially one amazing sequence involving a hotel, which bears comparison to those in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001.
A special mention must also go to editor Lee Smith, as the third act involves some inventive warping of time and space, which must have proved a particular challenge in the edit suite.
Warner Bros may be concerned that mainstream audiences will be confused by the puzzle Nolan lays out. It should play well to most critics and discerning audiences eager for intelligent summer entertainment.
The litmus test for many will be the extended opening sequence. Go with it and you should not have a problem with the cinematic maze Nolan has built.
A lot of Nolan’s previous work rewards repeated viewing, revealing a meticulous attention to detail and subtleties not always apparent first time around.
Inception is no different and I look forward to seeing it again with a better understanding of how the narrative will map out. It works on first viewing but there are times when the ride is intense and you have to hold on to keep your bearings.
For Warner Bros, this must have proved something of a nightmare to market but the trailers and TV spots so far have actually done a good job in selling the central concept of the film.
As far as the studio was concerned I imagine the risks of this production were offset by Nolan’s track record with the Batman films and DiCaprio’s A-list star power.
A sense of mystery has helped make a TV series like Lost such a success, so an optimist might predict that Inception could tap into a similar audience hungry for intrigue and it may even be one they return to in significant numbers.
The quality and surprising nature of this summer blockbuster has led to some effusive early praise, some of it a little over-the-top, but perhaps understandable given the current standard of studio films.
No doubt this will lead to a backlash of sorts (perhaps geeks wanting to stand out as refuseniks on Rotten Tomatoes?) but there is no denying the technical brilliance on display here in service of an audacious story.
Not all of the balls juggled stay in the air – and further scrutiny may uncover inconsistencies in the densely woven script – but, like a dream, you accept the thrilling reality of this film whilst you experience it.
Inception is a rare thing: a summer blockbuster filled with intelligence and craft, which in the current reality of remakes and sequels, feels like a dream itself.
> Official site
> Inception at the IMDb
> Reviews of Inception at Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes
> Various Inception links at MUBI
> Find out more about Christopher Nolan at Wikipedia
Breathless (A Bout De Souffle) is being re-released in UK cinemas to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its original release.
One of the key films of the French New Wave, it is the story of Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a small-time criminal on the run, and Patricia Franchini (Jean Seberg), an American who sells the International Herald Tribune along the boulevards of Paris.
With its loose narrative, location shooting, improvised dialogue, jump cuts, deliberately mismatched shots and literary references, it remains a landmark film.
It gave French and European cinema a much needed shot of inspiration when it first came out in 1960, with audiences and critics responding to its energy and artistic verve.
Pierre Rissient was the assistant director on Breathless and for the past fifty years has been a key figure in the film world: a critic, publicist and consultant to film festivals, he has helped champion directors as diverse as Joseph Losey, Jules Dassin, Anthony Mann, Hou Hsiao Hsien, Zhang Yimou, Clint Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, Jane Campion and Abbas Kiarostami.
I recently spoke to Pierre about the re-release of Breathless and you can listen to the interview here:
[audio:http://filmdetail.receptionmedia.com/Pierre_Rissient_on_Breathless.mp3]You can also download this interview as a podcast via iTunes by clicking here
Breathless is currently showing at selected UK cinemas and will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on September 13th
> Breathless at the IMDb
> NY Sun profile of Pierre Rissient from 2008
> Learn more about the French New Wave at Wikipedia
> Find out if a cinema near you is showing Breathless via Google Movies
