District 9

Now with added hyperbole!

District 9 left me with a strange feeling as I left the cinema. Almost shaken with this unknown emotion, it took me a few minutes to realise what it was. I had actually seen a satisfying sci fi movie in 2009. No racist robots, ridiculous gravel voices or a finale involving a arch-nemesis whose only power seemed to be two finger typing. There wasn’t even a needless hologram of Helena Bonham Carter. Instead, this may well be the best sci fi film of the decade.

Following the exploits of nervous, jobs worth social worker Wikus van de Merwe (a fantastically natural performance from first time actor Sharlto Copley), we are given a documentary style walkthrough of a post alien colonisation Johannesburg. Yes, post-alien colonisation. We are never truly shown why or how the aliens got there, just that they are there, and that the human governments took them to live on the ground, in the hideous “District 9”. Here, they are beaten, broken, bruised and treated like degenerate animals by the local population, gangs and even the international peacekeeping unit MNU, referring to the aliens simply as Prawns.

This documentary style footage is blended into more traditional cinematography, slowly, but seamlessly without jarring for a moment. Director Neil Blomkampf allows his world to breathe like the fine wine of science fiction that it is, rather than the cheap, over-carbonated, high strength, home brand cider of Transformers 2. This simply allows the action to have the impact that more overblown movies just can’t compete with. That’s not to say that the action isn’t on a large scale here, but it’s there for a reason. District 9 contains some of the most awe inspiring set pieces in recent times, generally due to the visceral nature of them. No pointless acrobatics, just solid, character driven ultra-violence with lightning guns. The highlight of the action comes with the mechanical armour suit seen in the trailer, which is easily one of the best cinematic robots of all time.

Sharlto Copley moves with is transition with equal ease, going from Flight of the Conchords’ “Murray Hewitt” to John McLane without it feeling forced. This is helped by the moral ambiguity of the script, meaning that Wikus is drawn into helping a revolutionary “Prawn” (named Christopher), due to a horrific incident around a third of the way through the film, rather than for some higher calling of fate, a narrative mechanic that is fast becoming the cheap way of drawing the characters together.

If I were to criticise the film, which I shall, it would be that despite it’s anti racism message, there is part of it that I’m, well, not sure if it’s a little bit racist. In addition to aggression from the ruling governing bodies of District 9, they also face threat from a Nigerian gang lead by a man who wants to eat them to steal their power. Certainly, I don’t think it was the intent of the film makers to make it appear to be a national slur, and given the pro equality message of the rest of the film, it’s probably nothing to worry about.

District 9 is a film that I would find impossible not to recommend. The story is original, full of social commentary and flows at a pace that strikes the right balance of speed so it never becomes too rushed or too slow. The action is impressive throughout, and the special effects are gorgeous. No bowing to demographics, or worse still, middle American test audiences that butcher creativity and originality wherever they tread. Instead we have an undiluted artistic vision that excites, and not touched by corporate demands for profiteering. Catch it before Fox buy the rights for the sequel.

Funny People

You always wanted too much from me, and I'm very mad at you.


Before reviewing Funny People, it's best to consider it mathematically.

Funny People is two-thirds of a good film, in that the first two thirds are really strong and the last third is knuckle-chewingly terrible, but the opening two-thirds are riddled with problems which in turn make them only two-thirds good to one third bad, whilst the final third does have enough redeeming features in it to make it about one-quarter good. So, we have two-thirds of two-thirds, which is 44%, and 25% of one-third, which is 8.33(recurring). Add this together, and we can conclude that Funny People is 52.33% good to 47.67% bad.

Let's consider the good two-thirds. The relationship between Ira (Seth Rogen) and George (Adam Sandler) is fascinating, largely thanks to Sandler's ability to play an embittered and angry rich man isolated by his wealth and confronted by his own mortality and his profound existential loneliness. He needs Ira in order to get by on a daily basis, yet he hates having to depend on someone so there is a constant sense of antagonism in their friendship that frequently veers from joking into abuse. It's a relationship that feels very volatile and real, something that could only have come into being during such heightened circumstances as George facing his own death.

It also works as an examination of Adam Sandler, albeit through the cypher of George Simmons. The parallels between the two men are manifold, from their level of success to the types of movies that they made their money with (I could easily see My Best Friend Is A Robot, co-starring Owen Wilson, being made as a Sandler vehicle) and the film even opens with real footage of Sandler making prank phone calls when he was younger (keep an eye/ear out for super-young Janeane Garofalo, Ben Stiller and Judd Apatow). I don't know how aware Sandler was of what Apatow was doing with the story, but the fact that he is prepared to be so thoroughly unpleasant and to utilise so many of his usual tricks (you want annoying voices? He's got 'em!) to that end suggests that the two of them were in cahoots when it came to deconstructing Adam Sandler, the comedy icon, though I think that one or both of them did mediate it to prevent it getting too dark, which is more the pity.

The film represents a crossroads for Apatow as he moves into dramatic territory that he has dabbled with in previous films but never to such an extent. Rather than wholly embrace that ethos and strike out for something new(ish) and make what he clearly wants to make, a James L. Brooks weepy mixed with a Hal Ashby subdued comedy, he relies on his standard dick-and-fart jokes as a crutch. However, rather than propping up the film they frequently trip it up. Whenever things get to serious or interesting, someone will swear or say something stupid, not so much cutting the treacle as burning the whole cake. It's very, very frustrating.

And that's without even getting on to the stand-up in the film which, for a film with 'funny' in the title, is painfully un-so. Often this is intentional, with comics like Randy (Aziz Ansari) serving to illustrate what Apatow considers to be bad stand-up, but that practiced by Ira and George isn't much better. There are some good routines in there, but most often they're just crass and dumb. Maybe it's just my taste in stand-up but I for one found it really tough to sit through so many routines that had so little impact.

The number of celebrity cameos in the film is also incredibly distracting, to the point that you end up with a scene in which George gets life lessons from Eminem, who then proceeds to scream abuse at Ray Romano. A sequence that is delirious in the moment, but really has no place in the film.

The number of routines and cameos showcases the other problem with the film; its general lack of focus. When the film was announced, many people seemed to think that it had the potential to be Judd Apatow's Annie Hall, the film that took him from being just a comedy film-maker to a film-maker of substance. Sadly, it isn't his Annie Hall, it's his Anhedonia. At two and a half hours, the film is way, way, way too long and there are so many bits that do nothing to enhance the story. Subplots such as a romance for Ira with another stand-up, footage of the sitcom that his roommate (Jason Schwartzmann) is on and the entire final third (in which a long-lost love plot is introduced) only serve to distract from the central relationship. You can't help but think that if Apatow had had what Woody Allen had, i.e., a really tough editor who could say ''this is terrible. Cut in half, get rid of the murder mystery and focus on the relationship with Annie'', then he could have delivered a film which was so much more potent and focused, not muddled and indigestible.

I think that people should see Funny People since, if nothing else, it boasts some great performances (I've not mentioned Eric Bana because he's only in the awful final third but he is great and is the only reason that that part of the film could be left in) and, for all its frustrations, it remains above all other things a very interesting failure.

Fish Tank

Andrea Arnold's second feature is, without a doubt, one of the most uncomfortable films I've ever seen. That's not to say that it is a 'tough' film or a 'difficult' film, in the way of something like Irreversible, but rather that it is so close and claustrophobic, so intensely intimate that I found myself feeling very, very uneasy throughout.

Broken Embraces

Harry Caine (Lluis Homar), a blind writer for hire, is approached by Ray X (Rubén Ochandiano) to help him pen a script about Ray's recently deceased father. Harry decides not to work with Ray, and that would seem to be the end of it. Except nothing is what it seems; Harry is in fact Mateo Blanco, a successful director of dramas who, 14 years earlier, began work on his first comedy, a farce called 'Women and Suitcases' and began an affair with Lena (Penelope Cruz), the mistress of a rich businessman (José Luis Gómez).

Broken Embraces feels like a very personal film for director Pedro Almodovar. He has dabbled in films about film-making in the past, most notably on his censor-bothering masterpiece, Bad Education, which also revolves around a director looking back on his past, but this feels even closer to his heart. The film-within-a-film, Women and Suitcases, is a none too subtle homage to his first international hit, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, right down to having actors from that film reappear (in different roles) in Women and Suitcases. Under the noir trappings of the plot is a film that clearly must mean something to Almodovar if he is willing to flag up the connection between his work and Mateo's.

What that connection is is harder to identify. It's certainly an emotionally draining film, one whose noir-inflected plot heightens the drama between the characters. The story of Mateo and Lena is beautiful yet inherently tragic; we see this young couple fall in love and find something in each other that they have not found in anyone else, yet we know from the segments set in the present day that they don't end up together, and the mystery at the centre of the film is what was it that prevented them from living happily ever after.

It's a propulsive and intriguing plot that manages to keep the movie fascinating even when Penelope Cruz isn't on screen. And her absence is noticeable since she completely dominates the film. Lena is a tragic heroine caught between her love for Mateo and her lover, a man that she admits to finding repulsive. She cannot leave him, though, since he is bankrolling Mateo's film, so she has to stay with him if she wants Mateo to finish the film that they have been working so hard to make. Cruz is absolutely mesmerising, projecting the strength and vulnerability that won her an Academy Award nomination for her previous project with Almodovar, Volver. He clearly know how to get the best out of her and her performance here ranks with the best work she has ever done.

Lena's obsession with completing the film, essentially prostituting herself for her art, is indicative of the concerns of the film as a whole. It is a film about the transcendent, redemptive power of cinema. Both Lena and Mateo obsess over the film to their detriment, yet we never question their commitment because we understand that their art is what defines them, and Mateo losing his sight, becoming a well-paid but unfulfilled writer, is almost as tragic, if not more so, than the fact that he and Lena can never be together.

Considering that its main character is blind, it shouldn't be a surprise that the film is concerned with sight and the visual nature of cinema. It is one of Almodovar's most beautiful films to date. His use of colour, always so strong and vivacious, is at its sensuous best here, and his camera glides through the film, luxuriating in all the details for our delectation.

For all its positives, the film seems to lack whatever it is that makes Almodovar's films so special. It seems to be retreading ground that he has covered before and, by evoking the memory of his earlier work, it simultaneously highlights how far he has come as an artist, how subtle and nuanced he can be, whilst demonstrating how this film as a whole seems to be something of a step backwards for him, or at least a step sideways. It lacks the texture and richness of his last few films, and even though Penelope Cruz and Lluis Homar anchor the film, they spend too much of the film apart and she spends too much time completely absent, depriving the film of life and vitality that mystery and intrigue cannot replace.

Perhaps it is just too personal. Maybe he is trying to say something about his own art and, in doing so, has made a film which is more for himself than for anyone else. It's not an empty film, indulgent or terrible by any stretch of the imagination, I just can't help but think that he has erected a wall around the heart of the film and that we can only peer over the top, glimpsing something great and only perceiving something good.

The Visitor

Prof. Walter Vale: What is "Arab time"?
Tarek Khalil: It means I'm late by an hour. All Arabs are late by an hour, it's genetic, we can't help it.



By rights, The Visitor should be a bad film. Not 'bad' in the old Pauline Kael, it's a great piece of trash sort of way, but genuinely terrible. On paper, it seems like the sort of woefully misguided film that would be described using that most unctuous of terms, ''life-affirming''.

Richard Jenkins plays Walter, a widowed economics professor living in Connecticut who has to go to New York for a conference. He does this against his wishes since he wants to do his one class, work on his book and do as little as possible. He goes to New York and opens the apartment that he has owned for many years, but which he has not visited in a long time. Walter discovers that Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Jekesai Gurira), a pair of illegal immigrants, have moved into his apartment.

Having read that synopsis, which only covers the first 20 minutes or so of the film, you would be forgiven for thinking that the film was a worthy slice of Oscar-bait primed to induce tears (of bleeding-heart liberalism or boredom) come February. And certainly the film seems to follow in that mode since, after an initially hostile confrontation between the characters, they learn to get along despite their inauspicious introductions and cultural differences (the film points out that Tarek and Zainab are both Muslim), particularly Walter and Tarek, who bond over a love of Afrobeat drumming. And the film features numerous scenes of the two men wordlessly drumming together, enjoying the rhythm of their playing.

These ingredients could very easily made for either an overly earnest and dour awards contender or a dangerously flippant comedy of manners, but it winds up being neither, turning instead into a genuinely affecting drama that, whilst dealing with complex issues, is not actually about complex issues.

Thomas McCarthy, who wrote and directed the film, has a real ability for making these kinds of films, i.e. films that, when taken down to their constituent parts, sound like they should be really terrible. His debut, The Station Agent, could best be summed up as a film about a dwarf who moves to a small town, makes friends and changes peoples' lives. That sounds sickeningly twee, but the result is a subtle, melancholy and beautiful piece of cinema that must surely rank as one of the best films of the decade. The Visitor, whilst not quite attaining those heights, does get very close.

McCarthy's writing plays a big part in making the film so great. There are no trailer-worthy lines in the film, no sections of dialogue that could be used as a tagline, only real, honest language and conversations between characters that seem wonderfully real. Certainly, they are heightened to an extent and the situation that serves as the jumping off point of the story - old man allows immigrants to stay in his house having only known them for a matter of minutes - does test the bonds of believability, but the understated language and characterisation make the story feel much more organic than it might at first seem.

It also helps that McCarthy has assembled a terrific central cast. Richard Jenkins, who deservedly gained an Oscar nomination for his role, is just marvelous. His initial reticence and stagnation are quickly overcome by the joie de vivre of Tarek, who overflows with enthusiasm and becomes fast friends with Walter. Their friendship, evolving as it does out of a mutual sense loss - Walter for his wife, Tarek for his father and homeland - and love of music forms the basis for the first half of the film and makes it all the more gut-wrenching when Tarek is picked up by immigration and put in a detention centre.

It is here that the film really comes into its own, as Walter is revealed to be an American hero in the mold of Atticus Finch, albeit an Atticus Finch who has had his spirit broken somewhere down the line. He tries everything in his power to get Tarek out of the centre and to get him citizenship. He rails against the system not necessarily because of a hatred of the government or similarly trite reasons, so much as because he wants to do what is right after doing nothing for so long. Jenkins' performance is measured and haunting but also allows for some moments of great warmth and humour, a combination he also managed in Burn After Reading.

Thomas McCarthy has only made 2 films in 6 years (you can add a .33 onto that for his story credit on Up) and, even though I would love to see him make films every year, I kind of hope that he keeps up this pace. If it means we will see films of this quality every few years then it'll be worth the wait.

Film Review: (500) Days of Summer (2009)

Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a 20-something who works at a greeting card company, though he trained as an architect, and is muddling along at a fairly lacklustre pace when he meets Summer (Zooey Deschanel), the girl of his dreams. They like the same music, they have the same sense of humour, they seem tailor made for each other. Except Tom believes in true love and fate, and Summer doesn't. They break up, and Tom starts looking back on their time together.

Showroomdoche #1

I occasionally get up enough vim and verve to make a film. This is one such occasion:



Usually I'd just post the film up, but since I've gotten used to somewhat long blog entries, I'll just stick a couple of production tidbits and thanks in here.

This was made as part of the Showroomdoche, S.Y. Project, an attempt to make a series of separate yet interconnected short films about, in the most round about way, working in a cinema. Specifically, The Showroom cinema in Sheffield, where I am currently employed.

The idea for this one came about quickly. The story of the video is, to a certain extent, based on reality, and pretty much as soon as a customer told me that they were ''going to get [me] if it wasn't any good'', I had the idea fully formed and started filming it the following week.

At this point, I'd like to give some serious thanks to Arron Bendelow, who plays 'Man' in the film, and has a well-deserved co-writing credit for all the stuff he made up on the fly. He completely got on board with the idea from the off and ad-libbed for a solid 15 minutes straight to camera, with me giving somewhat weak and enfeebled answers in return*. With very little direction on my part he ran with it and came up with a lot of hilarious stuff which, sadly, couldn't make it into the film without seriously unbalancing it and making it too long. It's rare (for me, at least) to have a surfeit of quality in a film so having to cut it down to the funniest and most essential parts was very difficult.

Chris Glover deserves thanks as well since he has nearly as many credits on this one as I do. Thanks for the help, Chris, and sorry that you were replaced as the boom operator by a collection of metal poles. Nothing personal, they just ask for less money.

Thanks should also go to Michaela Livingstone who, despite having nothing to do with the production, did offer up some very sage advice about the sound of the first cut, and pointed out that the original version didn't have an ending** and that, for my money, makes this worthy of being a TwelveEyes Production.

Thanks also to Emily Morgan and Kate Trodden, who were the first people outside of the crew to see the film and whose positive responses have somewhat alleviated my sense that we've all just been so narcissistic about the whole thing that we didn't realise that we'd made a shit film.

We may still have made a shit film, but a few kind words at the final hurdle certainly give the ego a much needed massage.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the film. More should follow in the coming weeks which should be better in a lot of ways. Primarily because they actually have scripts, which tends to make these things easier and funnier.

Oh, and I'm getting to that Pedro Almodovar series, but other things are getting in the way. It's nice to be busy.

*Which is why so little of my performance is used. I cringed a good deal watching the footage back, yet I couldn't very well edit around myself and still have something that was even vaguely coherent.

**Oh, and a big 'Thank you' to my Mum, who was the originator of the punchline.

Brothers

I will always love you. That is the only truth that remains. Life is neither right nor wrong, good or bad. But I love you. That's all I know.



Michael (Ulrich Thomsen) is a Danish soldier who is being shipped out to Afghanistan, leaving behind his wife, Sarah, (Connie Nelison, of Rushmore fame) and younger brother, Jannik (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), who has just been released from prison and who has no direction in life. Shortly after arriving in Afghanistan, Michael's helicopter is shot down and he is listed as killed in action, forcing Jannik to take some responsibility and help her through this difficult time.

My second Susanne Bier film (after the wonderful Open Hearts) and again it was terrific. Much like Open Hearts, Bier takes a story that could be sensationalist and that, at times, veers on the soap operatic and makes it believable and painfully real.

The film could very easily run the risk of becoming overly melodramatic and saccharine but Bier completely avoids any such trite sentimentalism. Using a rough, handheld style she creates an intimate, almost claustrophobic atmosphere and forces the audience to observe the smallest movements of her characters, placing us almost uncomfortably close to them in their time of loss. She is an expert in capturing small but telling reactions. Take, for example, the moment when Sarah breaks down in her car whilst driving Jannik back from a bar. Whilst Connie Nielson hides her face in the steering wheel, denying us and Jannik from seeing her face, we see that Jannik sits back, completely unsure how to react and at a loss as to how to comfort this woman that he barely knows. It's a moment which, for me, having experienced a very similar moment in recent years, felt palpably and poignantly real.

Both Connie Nielson and Nikolaj Lie Kass are wonderful during this part of the film. Kass is very convincing as something of a screw up, being both pathetic and sympathetic (which is some achievement, since it is hinted very strongly that he went to prison for sexual assault, not a positive trait) and his growth over the course of the film into a more mature character is heartwarming, in the best possible way. Again, it’s the little moments that sell the big emotions. The look of concern on Jannik’s face when he stops his drunk father from driving home from the funeral, the look of pain on his face when his father tells him that he considered Michael to be his only son, all add up to a compelling character.

As Sarah, Connie Nielson carries the emotional weight of much of the film. She is the one who has to be stoic, who has to care for her two children and a grieving extended family to deal with. The build up to her breakdown in the car is subtly handled but absolutely devastating when it comes since, up to that point, she has seemed so strong, and once we see her leaning on Jannik for support more and more, we get a real sense of a friendship growing between the two out of the worst possible situation.

Even though the first half of the film is outstanding and makes for an absorbing slow-burning drama, it is during the second half of the film that it really elevates itself. Unbeknownst to Jannik and Sarah, though knownst to us, Michael is alive in Afghanistan and is being held a prisoner by rebels. Michael has a fair deal of technical knowledge when it comes to weaponry so he is kept alive, at a terrible cost.

When Michael returns home, he is a changed man. When we saw him at the start of the film, he was a warm man, a loving husband, father and brother who held his family together. The memory of his time as a captive weighs heavily on him now, and he closes himself off from those who love him, afraid that if they found out what he did in order to survive they would turn their backs on him. Worse of all, in his absence Jannik has stepped up and taken some responsibility, becoming a surrogate father to Michael's children. This drastic and fundamental change in the familial situation makes Michael into an outsider in his own family, and his guilt only further isolates him further, making him hard, brittle and paranoid as he comes to suspect that Jannik and Sarah engaged in an affair when they thought that he was dead. Ulrich Thomsen is great in this part of the film as he manages to convey just how conflicted Michael is but somehow remaining sympathetic even when he starts getting violent.

It's a Serious Film about Serious Things but it brims with life and vitality. Susanne Bier is able to imbue her films with energy and passion, even when dealing with the most dour of subjects. She is an important film-maker, capable of great things and her films should be appreciated for the little treasures that they are.

A Month of Almodovar

Last Friday Broken Embraces, the latest film by Pedro Almodovar, was released in the U.K. This is a cause for celebration since Almodovar is one of the most interesting and singular talents currently working.

To celebrate the release of his film, I'm going to spend September reviewing all of Almodovar's feature films, from Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls on the Heap (1980) all the way up to Broken Embraces.

The first review will go up tomorrow, and the rest will follow.