life at the movies

Duplicity

aidanmann — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:41:40 GMT

Julia Roberts (in case you weren’t aware) in a story that was pitched a little low at a 12a rating in the UK and consequently a little slow, especially in the beginning with a long drawn out fight sequence in slow motion, which I felt like ok I get this can we move on now? Clive Owen as usual did a standup job. Nice cinematography by Robert Elswit who has director of photography on Michael Clayton, Syriana, Punchdrunk love and a whole bunch of other films. Also interesting use of split screens in editing by John Gilroy (Pride and Glory, Michael Clayton), which helped pick up the much needed pace later in the film.

Il Divo

aidanmann — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:40:46 GMT

Caterina Stagno in Il Divo a most surreal experience documenting Giulio Andreotti’s political career starting with the formation of his seventh government. This is the third film in recent times I have seen from Italy dealing with the topic of mafia involvement at the highest level of politics. Crime Novel (Romanzo Criminale) being one of them and the more recent Gomorra the other. Andreotti now 90 years old and a senator for life is portrayed in this rendition in a way that reminds of a character in a Peter Greenaway film. Was Andreotti initiated in the Mafia? Was Andreotti complicit in the failure to rescue Aldo Moro? Philip French’s take on it. http://aidanmann.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/il-divo/

Flash of Genius

aidanmann — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:02:50 GMT

Lauren Graham pictured who plays the female lead in this story of a man who takes on Ford motor company after he alleges they infringed on his patent, for the intermittent windshield wiper no less. A small film with a moral at the end. Apparently based on a true story as first reproduced in the New Yorker. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1054588/

Manon

aidanmann — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:28:21 GMT

Tamara Rojo with Charles Acosta in a Royal Ballet production that pales in comparison with the live HD broadcasts from the Met that are now drawing ful houses at the movies. This was prerecorded and did not live up to the technological specifications that are now deemed standard. Like for example being able to hear the dancers moving across the stage, this is all drowned out by the music and they seem strangely silent. I prefer the rough and tumble of the live opera to this where you can hear every squel of the floorboards and you feel as if you are right there. If this was done live I might appreciate it more. http://www.roh.org.uk/cinemas/manon/index.aspx

Bronson

aidanmann — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:27:16 GMT

Tom Hardy directed by Nicolas Winding Refn of ‘Pusher’ fame. This is a truly intriguing story of a man who somehow came to spend thirty years in solitary confinement out of the thirty four years he has been in prison. Apparently due for release his parole hearing was on the 11th of March and the result is to be announced within seven days. This film was released on the thirteenth to coincide with the parole hearing. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1172570/

The young Victoria

aidanmann — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:25:57 GMT

Emily Blunt in Victoria lite, which should have been titled Victoria and Albert since it seemed to be a lot about him as well. Costume drama the reviews of which did not make me rush out and see it on opening night but as it was still playing a week later I thought I would take the plunge. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0962736/

Watchmen

aidanmann — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:20:03 GMT

Carla Gugino pictured as Sally Jupiter / Silk Spectre in this dark tale set during the fifth term of Richard Nixon’s presidency (a fictional event I hasten to add). I got to the 11pm Saturday night screening of this film at the cineworld on Broad Street in Birmingham after watching Madam Butterfly and Survellance one after the other, so five hours of visual feast preceeding. The second film of the evening with an 18 rating and this one at 2 hrs and 40 odd minutes quite an event. I have to admit I fell asleep during the final showdown but I might drop in to catch the end of it and besides it wouldn’t be the first time I fell asleep at the movies. Jackie Earle Haley who I last saw in Little Children was pretty amazing as snarling right wing Walter Kovacs / Rorschach. Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Edward Blake / the Comedian kept reminding me of Robert Downey jr in Tropic Thunder. I think Zack Snyder says it best: http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-03-04/film/zack-snyder-didn-t-ruin-watchmen/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409459/

Surveillance

aidanmann — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:19:07 GMT

Julia Ormond in this David Lynch produced Jennifer Lynch directed psycho thriller more reminiscent of Natural born killers than Boxing Helena her last piece that I am aware of. Filmed in Saskatchewan this story gets more psycho by the minute. Many Twin Peaks sorts of moments. Actually very funny in moments. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409345/

Madam Butterfly

aidanmann — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:14:37 GMT

Another one of the HD broadcasts from the Met this one with Patricia Racette (pictured) as Madam Butterfly. This was an Anthony Minghella production which his wife Carolyn Choa directed and directed. Amazing set design by Michael Levine. Bunraku puppets were used to portray certain sequences. Had to be seen to be believed the lifelikeness of these puppets. Patricia Racette has an amazing voice and it is easy to see why this opera has remained so popular, because it is really good. http://www.metoperafamily.org/metupload/hd/madamabutterfly.pdf

The International

aidanmann — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:07:22 GMT

Nilaja Sun pictured in this shootemup to beat all shootemups. If you are angry at the bank, the banking system, bankers even, then this film is for you. If you however are into car chases then this film will disappoint you greatly. Also starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts billed as a German coproduction features stark architectural backdrops, and some snappy European suits and haircuts. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0963178/

Che II

aidanmann — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:06:45 GMT

Franka Potente pictured as the would be seducer in this long drawn out tribute to the self effacing life of the guerilla. Unlike part one we all know how it’s going to end it’s just getting there. Having said that, in hoping to avoid twenty minutes worth of trailers and ads for things I’ll never buy even if I appreciate the visuals, I missed a little more of the beginning of this than I expected to. Funny that happened with part one as well. I guess when it comes out on DVD I’ll get to watch the scenes I missed plus a whole lot more. Whether I will actually do that is another story. I have read Che Guevara though. I was asthmatic in my younger days and think the places where he is described as being up for three days (probably due to medication for that condition), maniacally working away, have a lot to do with the coldbloodedness attributed to his character, although he is revered, worshipped, and deified by some still obviously. Yes the plight of the disenfranchised as taken up by those educated but displaced from the middle. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374569/

Gran Torino

aidanmann — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:06:11 GMT

Ahney Her pictured as big sister to the errant boy next door from a Hmong family in suburban Michigan. Like one reviewer has already noted I thought the use of pejorative racial epithets was slightly overplayed in two sequences depicting conversations between unreconstructed middle age white guys. Although as a device to balance out a lack of sexually explicit speech it still worked. Clint Eastwood’s latest group of films especially Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of our Fathers (where in the screening I saw in Britain when the credits began to roll not one single person got up to go) have been amazing. This is one of the best films I have seen this year. Way better than Revolutionary Road. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205489/

Män som hatar kvinnor

aidanmann — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:05:36 GMT

Norwegian actress Noomi Rapace pictured starring in this Swedish crime genre story with a twist known internationally as The girl with the dragon tattoo but as with those with basic linguistic skills might be able to decipher is titled Men that hate women in the original. This story is the first of three novels by Stieg Larsson that has taken all of Scandinavia by storm, purportedly the biggest selling novel in Scandinavia ever. I recently read all three of them in Danish translation, the release of the third in the trilogy is due out in English translation in September. It would be a safe bet to say in the Friday evening official release day screening at the Biocentre in Hjørring that the overwhelming majority of audience members (of whom again the majority were female), had read this book. The difficulties of encapsulating this story into a 150 minute film were such that although some things obviously had to be left out the picture did not seem one minute too long. I wonder if like the 1997 film Insomnia starring Stellan Skarsgaard which was remade as a Hollywood production in 2002 featuring Al Pacino if that will be the fate of this story for it to reach a wider audience. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1132620/

Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick

aidanmann — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:04:55 GMT

Finnish born Maria Heiskanen pictured in this piece about a working class family in Malmö, southern Sweden. The backdrop of labour disputes and temperance societies sets the scene for Maria discovering a camera which she learns to operate with the help of a local photography shop owner Sebastian Pedersen (Danish actor Jesper Petersen) who basically sponsors her to document her surroundings in this time of great social change. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0961066/

Drottningen och Jag / The Queen and I

aidanmann — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:04:11 GMT

Nahid Persson Sarvestani (left) on the Seine with Empress Farah of Iran. This is a story of a journey made by the director of this film as much as anything else. In the reconciliation between the somewhat softened hard left attitudes of her youth where she in part blames herself for the death of her young brother at the hands of Savak? The Ayatollah’s new regime? for distributing communist leaflets. What is depicted in the film was that the reforms proposed by the Shah came too late and the Ayatollah was accepted by the left as a liberation theologist, also on their side, something more than a few in the Iranian revolution have come to regret. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1334556/

Mammoth

aidanmann — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:03:34 GMT

Marife Necesito pictured in Mammoth, directed by Lukas Moodyson, which had some worthwhile preformances but seemed like a less successful remake of Babel, to which it pales in comparison. I saw this Saturday night at Filmstaden in Göteborg I wish I had seen Wallander at BioPalatsen instead which would have been more honest and where better to see Swedish crime genre than at the movies in Sweden? Actually Biopalatset had their website messed up, they had billed Synedoche NY and Men that hate women, both films I want to see. I think they were a week early. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1038043/

Lucia di Lammermoor

aidanmann — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:06:03 GMT

Anna Netrebko who has a fantastic set of lungs as well as an amazing voice in this opera by Donizetti conducted by Marco Armiliato broadcast from the NY Metropolitan Opera on HD to a packed house in Birmingham where I saw it this evening. The duet at the end in the higher octaves with a flute from the orchestra was pretty amazing. Much was made of the harpist with closeups in the pit, but none were shown of the flautist which I felt was a little more than discriminatory. A split screen could easily have carried it. Whippet thin always congenial Marco Armilato compared conducting the Met orchestra to driving a Ferrari and in this piece today they were outstanding. If you catch any one of these broadcasts I highly reccomend it unless you live in New York then get down there and see it live. http://metoperafamily.org/metopera/broadcast/hd_events_next.aspx

Doubt

aidanmann — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:04:52 GMT

Viola Davis (pictured) who plays the mother of the boy who is in the clutches of the priest played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman that the Nun played by Meryl Streep suspects. This is a tight psychological drama echoing the societal upheavals taking place in the early sixties, placed within the microcosm of a Catholic school in a working class east coast neighbourhood. I liked it and there are some funny parts. http://www.imdb.com/find?s=tt&q=doubt&x=17&y=2

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

aidanmann — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:34:26 GMT

Rhona Mitra (pictured) who I have seen in Skinwalkers and Doomsday and who has some obviously redeeming features might have been the only thing worth seeing in this film that I managed to doze off in and wonder exactly what I was doing in it and promptly left to walk out into the snowstorm that had sent me there in the first place to catch the beginning of Valkyrie that I had missed and stayed on for this and that. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0593961/

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

aidanmann — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:24:35 GMT

Kat Cennings (pictured) plays opposite Arrested Development's and so much more than that Michael Cera in this story, that I at first thought might be a bit crap, but was underplayed very well and actually has a pretty cool event towards the end of the film and some quite real type moments. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0981227/

Valkyrie

aidanmann — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:14:54 GMT

Carice van Houten (pictured) plays loyal wife of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (played by Tom Cruise in case you didn't know), proving that he had redeemable qualities in this epic about the last of many attempted coups against Hitler. I don't know if not knowing the story makes the film better or not. I happened to know it fairly well. What happens after the attempt is where the tension really gets you. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0985699/

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

aidanmann — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:15:55 GMT

Rebecca Hall (pictured) as Vicky (who I now think I remember from Chamomile Lawn and definitely from Frost/Nixon) in this crazy little thing about love directed by Woody Allen, with Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Scarlett Johansen, and lastly Patricia Clarkson as Judy Nash who tries her best to convince Vicky to go for it instead of regretting it. Once again I missed the first 20 minutes of this advance preview but I have seen the trailer enough times to get it. I had a chance to see this Christmas week in the north of Denmark but it was a busy time. It opens here in the UK 13 Feb, I liked it, somehow or other. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497465/

Revolutionary Road

aidanmann — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:14:24 GMT

michael-shannon22 Michael Shannon (pictured) (Before the Devil Knows your dead, Shotgun Stories) who turns in an amazing performance and saves this for me otherwise ‘Titanic for grownups’. I haven’t read the book and I missed half an hour of the beginning of the film due to a French lecture amusingly enough, and might catch the beginning this evening, but in the meantime here is Phillip French’s and Christopher Hitchen’s take on the whole beautifully shot misery. ‘Mendes’s film is a lesser thing than Yates’s novel, lacking the book’s biting wit and larger resonances. For instance, it’s never stated that the amateur production April appears in so disastrously is Robert Sherwood’s pretentious 1935 pseudo-classic The Petrified Forest, where she plays an idealistic girl given the opportunity to escape to Paris during the Depression by an Eliot-quoting intellectual disillusioned with modern life.’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/feb/01/revolutionary-road-review-winslet-dicaprio ‘Haven’t we all heard some irritating person saying that if so-and-so is elected, then he/she is absolutely definitely leaving the country? There must be some reason why it is mainly liberals who tend to say this (I knew the late Mary Lee Settle, fictional chronicler of West Virginia, who did emigrate for a time after the election of Richard Nixon), but the chief thing to note about the promise is that it is usually an empty one. However, after the calamity of The Petrified Forest, April really does decide to pull up stakes and start again, this time in Paris. This initiative on her part is what eventually enables her to see that her husband is no sort of rebel or nonconformist, but instead a mediocre coward. The proposed move is so central to the action of the book that one regrets to find it so unconvincing.’ http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200812/hitchens-suburbs http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0959337/

Rachel getting married

aidanmann — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 12:25:49 GMT

Ann Hathaway (pictured) as Kym who gets out of rehab for the weekend to be at her sisters wedding held at the family home in West Conecticut. This film seems like a bitchy upmarket version of Margot at the wedding, borrowing some of the dogme handheld camera with indoor natural lighting shots which help to make things more than a little dark. I saw the midnight showing Saturday, there were four people including myself in the audience, the two women sitting way up in the back walked out halfway through, pausing to stare at myself and the other unbeknownst to me male audience member, where they clearly did not identify with this relatively upmarket american drama, in its own way no less real than the currently much raved about Slumdog Millionaire. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1084950/

Milk

aidanmann — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 11:55:20 GMT

I moved to Chicago from North Jutland Denmark when I was 17 in the autumn of 1978. It felt like I had been there a couple of weeks although it was actually a couple of months when the news came of the mayor of San Francisco had been shot dead. This news was quickly overshadowed by the Jonestown massacre, where a 1000 people died after being induced to drink koolaid laced with cyanide, a story that also had its roots in San Francisco. Ten years later when I moved to San Francisco I heard the story of Harvey Milk from people who had lived in San Francisco when it happened. This film refers to “The life and times of Harvey Milk” a film I have also seen. I live d in San Francisco for four years and I think it is hard not to see this story as an integral part of that city’s makeup. Although for those who know both films and more besides, Diane Feinsteins role in events might be interpreted differently than in this latter version. Alison Pill as Milk's campaign manager above. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1013753/