DVD Review - Assault on the Pacific: Kamikaze (2007)

Assault on the Pacific: Kamikaze a.k.a. For Those We Love, 2007.

Directed by Taku Shinjo.
Starring Keiko Kishi, Satoshi Tokushige, Yosuke Kubozuka and Michitaka Tsutsui.


SYNOPSIS:

A World War II epic about a squadron of Japanese Kamikaze pilots and their journey through training and first missions toward the terrifying destiny of their battle with the US Navy over the Pacific Ocean.


In films, the kamikaze have generally been shown as menacing, faceless danger, first appearing as an ominous dot on the horizon and then as a source of death and destruction. Assault on the Pacific: Kamikaze takes a different route, focusing instead on the young men in those planes. Touching on their personalities, fears, desires and relationships. The men, most of them barely out of their teens, are not rabid zealots or men devoid of emotion. Many of the young pilots have flashes of doubt, one flight leader even going to his Colonel to raise his concerns that his pilots have nowhere near the skill to hit a battleship and their lives are being thrown away needlessly. He is censured by his commander, are all who try to question the validity of the kamikaze missions, even though many show flickers of doubt.

This attitude, the suppression of reason and emotion in the face of duty and “glory” that many characters show is sown at the start of the film, when we are shown the upper echelons committing to the plan after the head of the air force states that defeat is inevitable but talks about 'The Spirit of the Nation' and Japan's identity through defeat and emerging on the other side. These generals espouse the Japanese military code of death before defeat or capture. With this attitude historically woven into their offices and ranks, the top brass seemingly only think in grand, nationalistic terms, not without an awareness of the loss of good young men, but more with an obstinate doctrine that it must be so, for Japan to state its intent and retain its honour.

Assault on the Pacific mostly takes place in a small town where the suicide squads, as they call themselves, are stationed. Young girls from the local school are drafted in to care for the men in their last few days of life. In the town, a lady affectionately known as 'Auntie' to the young men, runs a restaurant where the men come to relax and eat. For Auntie, this ushers in a time of continual tragedy and loss, as the young men she remembers as cadets who trained nearby come back one after another to tell her that they will soon be dead. The one young man who she sees the most is Kanayama, who had trained there as a cadet and whom Auntie had taken under her wing as if her own son. As the film goes on, and each character becomes more known and liked, a palpable sense of tragedy builds. Casual, everyday actions are tinged with a dark finality. When Auntie's eldest daughter – Reiko, is lent a book by Kanayama, she tells him that she'll return it in a few days. A silence follows as they both realise the importance of the statement and he tells her that she can keep it. Auntie constantly struggles with the dichotomy between her own, paternalistic feelings for the men (and Kanayama in particular) and trying to be an impartial comfort to them.

The continuous strain of seeing these happy, healthy young men before her and having prior knowledge of their deaths is an odd, emotionally strange situation for a person to be in and Auntie seems more drawn and weighed down as the film progresses. The film doesn't attempt to provide any clear-cut resolution to these feelings, as it would be impossible to crystallise one over-arching, all important message to be gleamed from what happened at this time, in this place. It instead shows a more realistic portrayal of war, from multiple viewpoints. The decisions and motivations of the men at the top of the ladder will and will not be in line with those of the men giving up their own lives. The young men, between themselves, display wildly differing attitudes to their mission. Some are volunteers, others are not. Kanayama, the night before his flight, breaks down to Auntie and her daughters. He comes to the conclusion that he doesn't know who or what he is dying for, just that he knows he will. There is a crushing inevitability in his words, the ultimate realisation that even his life is not his own.

The film again injects more ambiguity about half way through, when a pilot who has been noted to have doubts about giving up his life is beaten and berated and sent out again the very next day. After taking off, the pilot pulls his plane upwards so it will stall and allows it to crash to the earth in a ball of flames. Other pilots and mechanics rush to the scene whilst his commanding officer watches on, aware that the man has taken his own life on his own terms. The film again throwing open the concept of 'honour' to interpretation.

After this, an officer talks with another pilot and the justifications for their mission. Told that he and others are going to bomb a relatively unimportant target, the pilot asks why their lives would be given up for such an innocuous reason. The officer tells him that it is because if they bomb things like the jetty they have been ordered to, the Americans will believe that there are thousands of kamikaze, ready to attack anywhere, at any moment. The pilot grasps that all that is important is their death: that a show of fanatical (manufactured or not) intent would make the invasion of Japan itself a terrifying prospect. The officer states that 'There is right way and a wrong way to lose a war.' and that the kamikaze will help Japan strive for a better peace settlement. This, obviously, was not the case. The film time and again highlights the disconnect between this knowledge of the officers and upper command and the respective information available to those actually dying.

When time comes for the young pilots to actually go and undertake their mission, their fate is mostly to end up blown out of the sky or exploding into the sea. The battle scenes are well handled, with no sense of misplaced victory or defeat in the men's actions – just the sense of futility at their deaths. When one pilot does hit a ship, the repercussions are shown, with American crewmen trying to help their wounded, who are just young men themselves.

Ultimately, Assault on the Pacific aims to present a character study rather than anything over-the-top or distastefully action-laden. It shows the kamikaze pilots as young men at the heart of a conflict that their country was losing. They are not shown as bloodthirsty or hateful, just as normal men. The film does an exemplary job of avoiding portraying its characters as the familiar war film tropes and generates a genuine sadness for the fate of characters you come to know well. There are some moments that tip over into melodrama but these can be forgiven as the film, overall, is an effective parable about the real people behind actions that can sometimes seem incomprehensible.

Alex Williams

Movie Review Archive

Movie Review - Sucker Punch (2011)

Sucker Punch, 2011.



Directed by Zack Snyder.

Starring Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung, Oscar Isaac, Carla Gugino, Jon Hamm and Scott Glenn.





SYNOPSIS:



Locked away against her will, a young girl's vivid imagination provides a thrilling escape from her dark reality.





With Sucker Punch, Zack Snyder is for the first time directing a film that isn't based on a pre-existing property. Dawn of the Dead, 300, Watchmen, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (tee hee) all take their cue from other sources. Re-making Romero, adapting Frank Miller and trying to bring Alan Moore's opus (good luck pleasing him) all gave the director someone else's ideas to riff and build on.



Sucker Punch marks the first feature film Snyder has conceived and written from the ground up. Initially starting out as a short story of Snyder's, Sucker Punch grew into an elaborate, $150 million dollar fantasy epic and, as such, the burden rests entirely on him. Co-scripting the film with Steve Shibuya, Snyder has turned out a film high in fantastical, over the top action but lacking when it comes to the justification of the carnage on screen.



After finding herself imprisoned in 'Lennox Home for the Mentally Insane' (can someone be 'Physically Insane'?) via the machinations of her evil, abusive step-father, Babydoll (Emily Browning) conjures up a plan to escape with her fellow inmates Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jenna Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Jamie Chung), striving to find the five items they need to escape – a key, a knife, fire, a map and a mystery object that will only be revealed to Babydoll at the end of her quest.



Finding herself staring down the barrel of a forced lobotomy, Babydoll and her cohorts soon get to work attaining the necessary items. It's at this point that the story switches to a 30s style burlesque setting with Blue (Oscar Isaac), the corrupt, deviant orderly taking on the role of pimp and overlord who controls his stable of dancing girls with violence and intimidation. The Polish head psychiatrist Doctor Gorski (Carla Gugino) becomes Madame Gorski and is tasked with whipping Babydoll into shape so she can perform for the various greasy perverts that frequent Blue's imaginary club. From this point, Babydoll uses her dancing to enter a kind of trance, projecting herself into the various fantastical fantasies where she and the other girls take on, amongst others, dragons, cyborgs, medieval knights, steam punk World War I German soldiers and various other outlandish ghouls in order to find their needed items. Whilst the burlesque club setting is vividly rendered and special kudos must be paid to Isaac for his performance, whirling from charming and charismatic to wholly unpredictable and sadistic, this intermediate buffer between the reality of the asylum and the fantasy segments does kind of kill off the dark power of the asylum, rendering it as a briefly mentioned, background concern as you become embroiled in the club and fantasy settings.



This leads to one of the major downfalls of the film, in that Snyder is obviously a talented director when it comes to rendering the action, anarchically imbuing the action with every fantasy, video game and anime element any 14-25 year old male (who is actually interested in those things) will find irresistible and joyous. And, indeed, these portions of the film do swirl and rush with a great momentum, sweeping the viewer up with their enthusiasm and verve. These sections can only sustain the film so far though, and well rendered action doesn't make a complete film.



This where the film falls down; the prologue of Babydoll's defiant stand against her step-father and subsequent mentions of abuse (both sexual and physical) feel slightly tacked on to the film, as though Snyder felt a need to ground the film with something adult, so as to point out that all the fantasy and outlandish goings on are wholly justified as the desperate escapism of a young girl. What it is in fact hard to pin down is whether the subtext of abuse is, as mentioned, a way to make the film feel more 'adult' or whether it is because Snyder lacks the maturity as a filmmaker to convey the issues of sexual and physical abuse in a way that is mature, understanding and well-defined. To take on such a thorny and difficult issue would test any director or writer, let alone Snyder who seems far more interested in the action elements of the film than coherently addressing the most major issue raised in the film.



Beyond the stilted handling on the abuse Babydoll is subject to in real life, Emily Browning fits well in the role of Babydoll and it is immense fun to see her and her co-stars pirouetting madly through insane action scenarios and the female cast acquit themselves admirably as fearsome warriors. It's just a shame that their dramatic chops are tested all to briefly, with scenes of real emotional depth few and far between. But when they are called on to inject some heartfelt feeling, they all put in solid work with Abbie Cornish pulling off a difficult role as the naysayer of the group, eventually transforming herself through some emotional turmoil into a resilient survivor.



Overall, the film works well on the level of ridiculous over the top action but cannot sustain itself as a parable of female heroism in the face of male-led oppression. Snyder once again proves his worth as a director of balletic violence (even if he does fall back on musical cues too often to try and inject a scene with emotional worth) but does not convincingly craft Sucker Punch into a film that packs any kind of real emotional weight.

Sucker Punch is released in UK cinemas this Friday.



Alex Williams



Movie Review Archive

DVD Review - The Unforgiving (2010)

The Unforgiving, 2010.

Written and Directed by Alastair Orr.
Starring Ryan Macquet, Craig Hawks, Claire Opperman and Michael Thompson.


SYNOPSIS:

Two survivors are the only link to a spate of killings that has plagued a desolate highway on the outskirts of Johannesburg.


Taking its cue from various torture porn fare like Saw and Hostel, The Unforgiving is a topsy turvy, chronologically disordered tale of three people stranded on the South African R106 freeway, prisoners of a gas mask wearing serial killer. Beginning with Rex Dobson (Ryan Macquet) awaking and finding himself tethered by a chain to big rock, the film gradually introduces via flashbacks (and flash-forward cuts), Alice (Claire Oppeman) and Vincent (Craig Hawks) who are also being held in the remote shell of a house.

As the film progresses it becomes clear that one (or more) of the prisoners are not what they seem and the editing has fun playing around with the viewer's suspicions as it cuts back and forth between the interviews the survivors give to Detective Hirsch (Michael Thompson). The story is one of the film's stronger points, while the dialogue does not fully do justice to the characters as they sometimes resort to traditional horror dialogue that goes against the grain of the decent concept. The script does, however, throw up a curse word that will become a firm favourite in my vocabulary as one character curses another as a 'Fuck-Knuckle'.

The Unforgiving has a good time skewing the moral compass of it's characters and doesn't offer up an easy resolution that clearly lays out who is good and who is evil, it just imbues the characters with the motivations and histories to show that most people could resort to violent acts given a nudge by events beyond their control, be they long in the past or relatively recent.

Director/ writer Alastair Orr makes the most of what must have been a low budget and his direction, whilst sometimes falling back on too many hand held, shaky close ups, is relatively assured and shows promise. With the budget low, the film is shot on digital and has the requisite harsh, bleached out look that its setting would demand. Considering that this is Orr's first feature, it has to be said that he handles his duties well but could sometimes remove the camera from the immediate vicinity of the violence and allow the audience to watch from a more removed point of view, as the camera sometimes is so close to the action and seemingly caught up in the frenzy of violence that it can be hard to tell clearly what is happening. That being said, the film is not overpowered by senseless gore and, in fact, the characters are given more space to develop than many other ultra-low budget horrors.

The acting, whilst sometimes marred by the aforementioned dialogue lapses into cliché, is steady, with the actors giving their all and manifesting the skewed and unpredictable nature their characters well. Michael Thompson does well as Detective Hirsch, giving a good performance as an assured law man with something vaguely dangerous lurking beneath the surface. It is Ryan Macquet who is probably the stand out though as he twists and turns through despair, fear and horror, eventually morphing into something quite different from what you would initially expect of the character as the film reaches it's climax.

All together, despite its short running time (clocking in at 1hr 13 minutes), The Unforgiving offers up a decent tale of subverted morality and unpredictable characters that transcends its low budget and sometimes clichéd dialogue. Despite its flaws, it would be interesting to see what would become of the director were he given a bigger budget and took a step back from the horror to let it play itself out, rather than getting too up close and personal.

Alex Williams

Movie Review Archive

Red Dawn remake revises its villains

The remake of 1984's classic 'kidz against the world' tale Red Dawn has hit a snag due to the ethnicity of its villains and, fearing low box-office returns in China, MGM has insisted that the filmmakers digitally remove all traces of Chinese military and cultural symbols from the film.

The new invading force will be those pesky North Koreans because they are still evil in the eyes of the world (and they don't contribute a massive amount to world box-office receipts). It will be interesting to see how different audiences react to the film when the studio and producers have essentially said, 'Yeah, change them to North Koreans; they all look the same anyway'.

Overcoming the logic leap of North Korea being capable of invading the North American continent, the producers of the film stated that all the digital tweaking would make it clear that North Korea has a larger role than you might expect in invading the USA, but are still in league with a (presumably unnamed) Chinese Red Army.

There isn't a set release date yet for Red Dawn but it should be out by the end of the year. The film marks the directorial debut of stunt coordinator Dan Bradley (who has previously handled second unit duties on the likes of Superman Returns, Spider-Man 2 and 3, Quantum of Solace and the upcoming Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol) and stars Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Josh Peck (Mean Creek), Adrianne Palicki (Friday Night Lights), Josh Hutcherson (The Kids Are All Right), Isabel Lucas (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen) and Ken Choi (Captain America: The First Avenger).

Megan Fox to star in Judd Apatow's Knocked Up spin-off?

Megan Fox is reportedly in line to take a role in Judd Apatow's follow-up to Knocked Up. The as-yet untitled spin-off to the 2007 comedy hit will see Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann return as the slightly crazed pairing of Pete and Debbie. Meanwhile Deadline are also reporting that Albert Brooks is set to join the cast and will take on the part of Rudd's father.

No role has been outlined for Fox as of yet but Apatow should have the nous to pull the best from her and play to her strengths. The actress will perhaps be looking for a quality role after the muddled and rubbish Jonah Hex, the epic and bloated crap-athon that was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and the underwhelming reception for Jennifer's Body and Passion Play.

So far details are sparse about the project apart from the fact that Universal Pictures will be handling distribution and Apatow will be occupying the director's chair for the first time since 2009's Funny People.

Upcoming Spider-Man reboot is officially 'The Amazing Spider-Man'

Next year's reboot of Spider-Man has now been officially named - Andrew Garfield will star as the epoynymous webslinger in The Amazing Spider-Man. The title is interesting because it harks back to the comic-book source of Spidey and will further stoke expectations about the new series.

Spidey's latest outing has been lamented in some quarters as following too soon after Sam Raimi's sometimes great, sometimes awful Spider-Man trilogy, which came to a close in 2007.

A new image has also been released by Sony, giving another view of Spider-Man's newest costume:

The darker colouring is immediately apparent, and it is interesting to note the mechanical web-shooters, opposed to the fan-grating choice of biological goo shooters of Raimi's films.

With the title now locked in and the new image's seeming closer adherence to Spider-Man comic book lore, The Amazing Spider-Man looks to be evoking an intriguing, somewhat faithful reading of everybody's favourite neighbourhood webslinger.

Starring in the reboot alongside Garfield's Peter Parker/Spider-Man is Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, with Martin Sheen (Uncle Ben), Sally Field (Aunt May), C. Thomas Howell (Ray Cooper), Denis Leary (George Stacy), Irrfan Khan (Nels Van Adder / Proto-Goblin) and Rhys Ifans (Dr. Curt Conners / The Lizard), while Philip Seymour-Hoffman is rumoured as Venom (!?).

DVD Review - Black (2009)

Black, 2009.

Directed by Pierre Laffargue.
Starring MC Jean Gab'1, Carole Karemera, Francois Levantal and Anton Yakovlev.


SYNOPSIS:

Black (MC Jean Gab'1), licks his wounds and considers his future after a bank robbery gone wrong, in which nearly his entire crew is wiped out. He soon receives information from his cousin about a large cache of diamonds currently residing in a bank in Dakar, Senegal. Quickly assembling a new gang, Black sets out for Africa and what he believes will be the score to end all scores. However, his gang are not the only people interested in the diamonds and Black is propelled into a world of corrupt Russian army gunmen, voodoo and spiritual awakening.


From the outset, Black sets out its stall as something different from a straight up heist movie. On his way to hijacking a bank money transport, Black (MC Jean Gab'1) narrowly avoids hitting an old man in tribal priest's robes who reveals to Black a prophecy, telling him; 'You are the lion. The one who will defeat the evil snake.' Black takes the old man's words in his stride and continues on to the robbery which turns into a disaster. The holy man's prophecy will, of course, prove eerily accurate and adds an extra dimension to the film. Black is not just drawn to Africa by the thought of riches but is also seemingly pulled there by forces beyond his control. These elements of the supernatural / magical could jar when coupled with the heist objective but the film is structured as such that the more fantastical elements of the story emerge towards the end of the second act and work well as a more spiritual juxtaposition with the gun play of the previous action.

Debut director Pierre Laffargue does a good job of adapting his craft to suit the stylistic back and forth needed for a genre-masher like Black. He allows the cameras to get in close when gun fights erupt and has a good eye for a raw, gritty aesthetic. Laffargue is equally adept at staging and capturing glamorous, slow-motion sequences and flowing, one take shots. It is the director's fluency and adroit hand that allow the film to cross over into various filmic realms without it feeling disjointed or fractious. Laffargue is ably assisted by his leading man, with Gab'1 handling his duties well, able to bring out a boyish charm and capable, muscular presence in equal measures.

In combining elements of blaxploitation and spiritual/fantastical themes with the modern heist movie, Black is able to tread and, quite often, cross the boundaries of believability to no ill effect and mesh the various elements therein to keep the film running. The film does sag slightly, however, in the second act. Taken up chiefly with the meeting of and burgeoning relationship between Black and Pamela (Carole Karemera), for a while the film is subject to some aimless meandering. This is remedied by the pair's journey into the Senegalese plains and their time with a native tribe. Seen as fulfilling an ancient prophecy, Black and Pamela undergo the rituals of the tribe and soon embody the spirits of their 'totems' – Lion and Panther respectively. After their awakening, the pair journey to the lair of ubiquitous white panama suit wearing villain Degrande (Francois Levanthal), who has metamorphosed into a snake-man creature thanks to his voodoo priestess wife (Mata Gabin). Phew.

The final showdown is shot in an ethereal, blue hue and gives the whole climax a woozy, animalistic feel. The film ends with Black back in the Parisian suburbs, subject to the excited talk of young men about his legendary exploits in Africa. He sits in silence, listening and drinking a beer. Making his way to the street to be rejoined with Pamels, Gab'1 radiates calmness in his final scenes and displays outwardly the mystifying experiences of his character's time in Africa, which has now taken him far beyond the base nature of money and diamonds.

Alex Williams

Movie Review Archive

Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Molly Ringwald and John Hughes

In a special feature running all this week, Alex Williams counts down his Essential Actor / Director Partnerships...

Molly Ringwald and John Hughes

Sixteen Candles (1984)
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Pretty in Pink (1986)

In the mid 80's, there was no one in movies who could make a better teen film than John Hughes. In his three films with Molly Ringwald (Hughes didn't direct Pretty in Pink – Howard Deutsch did - but Hughes wrote it and had a large degree of input into the film), Hughes explored in honest and realistic terms what it meant to be a teenager and, in Molly Ringwald, he found a versatile actress perfect for the centrepiece female roles of his mid 80's films.

Sixteen Candles found Ringwald as Samantha Baker, a girl low on the social ladder at school and distressed at the small amount of attention being paid to her sixteenth birthday. Due her to sister's wedding the next day, Samantha struggles through a day of mishaps, embarrassment and eventual happiness at the film's finale, sharing a kiss with her crush Jake (Michael Schoeffling).

Acting as the central cog in the film, Ringwald imbued Samantha with a believable, engaging persona which saw the film receive high praise from most quarters and was enshrined as an essential teen / coming of age film. Throughout the film, Hughes knows exactly when to ramp up the adolescent feverishness of young romance, when to hold back in a character's time of crisis and when to let the camera share in moments of intimacy. His directing is not at all tentative and he knows how to frame scenes of conflict with a hard, unfurnished style that can act as the flipside to Ringwald's sometimes fragile air.

For Pretty in Pink, Ringwald played the opposite of her role in The Breakfast Club as poor, wrong side of the tracks girl Andie Walsh, who exists on the fringes of high school society with her best friend Duckie (Jon Cryer).


Ringwald wasn't first choice for the role and it had passed through the hands of Jodie Foster and Justine Bateman before she was cast. It is fortuitous then, that she landed the role in Pretty In Pink, as it provided the perfect end point for a trilogy of Ringwald-starring, Hughes-created teen movies that would forever establish John Hughes as one of the pre-eminent chroniclers of American youth.

Whilst Andie attempts to juggle her interest in Andrew McCarthy's Blane McDonough and deal with her crumbling father – the always brilliant Harry Dean Stanton, she also has to try and protect the feelings of her best friend and would-be boyfriend Duckie. Alongside this, she has her boss Iona (Annie Potts), who attempts to guide Andie as best she can.

Ringwald portrays Andie as a girl who is trying to process her world being thrown off it's axis. With the rush of romance and the adult decisions that come with it, she must also deal with the petty politics of the factions in her school. As Blane belongs to the rich kid set, Andie has no social right to be interested in him and vice versa, and James Spader's character Steff puts it in cold, elitist terms: “It's not worth it, man. I told you it wasn't gonna work. The girl was, is and will always be nada.”

Nothing - that is the brutal, cold estimation of Andie in the eyes of Blane's friends. In this high school, as with many others (Including the Shermer High School of The Breakfast Club), the perceived but actually meaningless terms and labels used only serve to create unnecessary and cruel divisions. Andie is seen as nothing because she is working class, Blane is seen as an arrogant rich boy because of his background, designating their true personalities as secondary and insignificant.

Hughes attempts to reconcile the need for Andie to accept the harsh realities of encroaching adulthood and her desire to retain her individuality by having her combine a dress given to her by Iona with a second-hand dress her father bought for her. By stitching together the two into a new dress, Andie makes a statement about how two halves of different origin can co-exist and create a better whole.

1985 saw the release of The Breakfast Club, with Hughes directing and Ringwald as Claire Standish, a rich girl with serious disdain for her fellow detainees. Following the course of a day, where five disparate students find themselves in Saturday detention, the film functions as an ensemble with the characters slowly revealing their true selves as the day wears on and emotions run high. Ringwald's most entertaining and intense scenes came opposite Judd Nelson's John Bender, a playful, mischievous drop out with a heart of gold.

Again, Hughes uses the juxtaposition of rich and poor, refined and rough hewn, to highlight the common and unmistakable commonalities between his characters. Emilio Estevez's Andy and Ringwald's Claire seem to be the most socially popular of the group and sit next to each other. But as the film wears on, they lose their facades of seeming perfection and crumple, admitting the same inhuman pressures experienced by 'nerd' Brian (Anthony Michael Hall) and Ally Sheedy's 'freak' Allison. John Bender is the most brutally frank about his home life, which revolves around physical abuse and neglect. Bender, once the layers of aggressiveness and self-protecting wisecracks have been peeled back, reveals a scared young man.

As with many of Hughes' earlier films, adults primarily play the role of oppressor and are largely responsible for their children's despair. Even Principal 'Dick' Vernon (Paul Gleason) cannot resist bullying and threatening Bender, mocking him for his lack of toughness in the face of real aggression in a scene, which by looking at John Bender's face, has been played out all too often already in the young man's life.

As with Pretty in Pink, the downtrodden kids provide their own solutions and make peace with one another, and finally draft a letter to their principal, letting him know that his definitions of them are reductive, misinformed and cruel, mirroring the David Bowie lyrics from Changes that open the film:

“And these children that you spit on As they try to change their worlds Are immune to your consultations They're quite aware of what they're going through”

Related:

Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog
Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Kurt Russell and John Carpenter
Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson
Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Steve Martin and Carl Reiner

Alex Williams

Essentials Archive

Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Steve Martin and Carl Reiner

In a special feature running all this week, Alex Williams counts down his Essential Actor / Director Partnerships...

Steve Martin and Carl Reiner

The Jerk (1979)
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982)
The Man with Two Brains (1983)
All of Me (1984)

As comedy partnerships go, they don't come much better than this. In their work together, Reiner and Martin co-wrote and made some of the best comedy of all time. At the time of The Jerk, Martin was the most popular comedian in America. He was regularly selling out stadiums with his stand up shows, had won the Grammy for best comedy album in '77 and '78 and had sold over a million copies of his single King Tut. Meanwhile Reiner had established himself in the early sixties by creating and writing for The Dick Van Dyke Show, a sitcom set in the world of television, and it was here that he first began to direct.

With 1979's The Jerk, Reiner directed Martin in the role of Navin R. Johnson, a wide-eyed goofball who leaves his adoptive African-American family (Navin being blithely unaware that he is adopted) to seek his riches in the wider world. What follows is the rise and fall of Navin through a series of increasingly bizarre and sometimes deadly situations that test his happy-go-lucky resolve to the limit. Widely regarded as one of the best comedies of all time, Reiner accentuates the madness at times to leave the viewer as dizzy as Navin but also knows instinctively when to just let the camera rest on Martin and let him dazzle.

Martin and Reiner followed up The Jerk with their co-written playful homage to the film noir genre Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, with Martin in the lead role as rough and tumble, bumbling private eye Rigby Reardon. The film ingeniously spliced together clips from nineteen classic film noirs from the 1940s and 50s with new footage that was shot meticulously to match. This allowed Martin to have 'scenes' with Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Bette Davis and many, many more.

Reardon and his would-be dame Juliet (Rachel Ward) are propelled through a plot that quickly reaches a ridiculous level of complexity and ends with Reardon taking on the ubiquitous Nazis in a tropical island lair. Martin pitches Reardon as oscillating between the playfulness of Navin R. Johnson and the hardboiled private dick that is expected. Martin did not watch any film noirs in preparation for the role and that helps him to break through in the film. He brought his trademark elements of intelligent, skilled buffoonery but combined it with the personality of a knowing, slightly overwrought man of the times. The combination of the two allows Reardon to exist in the world of Veronica Lake and Ava Gardner and, at the same time, a Carl Reiner / Steve Martin film.

It was only a year later that the two returned with The Man with Two Brains. Martin starred as the world-renowned brain surgeon and bizarrely named Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr. Kathleen Turner gave a sultry, psychotic turn as his new wife Dolores. Centring on a plot of Hfuhruhurr's burgeoning psychic relationship with a brain in a jar by the equally spell-check un-friendly Anne Uumellmahaye (an uncredited Sissy Spacek), The Man with Two Brains mines a vein of absurdist, anarchic comedy. Martin's manic doctor alternates between genius, maniac, frustrated husband and madcap would-be murderer at the flick of a switch and is ably complemented by Reiner's frenetic direction.


Martin and Reiner's work together came to an end with All of Me in 1984. Though neither party had a hand in the script, the film was well received and praise mounted for the chemistry of Martin and co-star Lily Tomlin. Tomlin's role is that dying millionairess Edwina Cutwater, who attempts to have her soul transferred to her willing assistant's body. Martin is her lawyer Roger Cobb and inevitably her soul ends up in Cobb's body, with him controlling the left side of his body and Edwina the right.

Martin was lauded for his physical depiction of the unusual predicament, with the scenes between him and Tomlin singled out for their humorous and touching nature. The film eventually climaxes with Edwina's soul once again exorcised and finally sent to her scheming assistant's body.

Martin points to this film as the beginning of his 'mature’ period, where he was able to play more normal characters without the eccentricities of his earlier work with Reiner. All of Me represents a perfect stopping point for a joint body of work that plots a perfect arc from the explosive, audacious fun of their first feature, through to a more muted and traditional end that nonetheless proved maturity does not have to come at the expense of laughs.

Related...

Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog
Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Kurt Russell and John Carpenter
Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson
Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Molly Ringwald and John Hughes

Alex Williams

Essentials Archive

Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson

In a special feature running all this week, Alex Williams counts down his Essential Actor / Director Partnerships...

Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson

Bottle Rocket (1996)
Rushmore (1998) [co-wrote but not featured]
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

As well as working for a director on screen, some actors contribute in other ways. Owen Wilson first met Wes Anderson when they were both studying at the University of Texas. They quickly began working together and the result was 1996's Bottle Rocket, which was an expansion on a short film they had made a couple of years earlier.

Revolving around a cast of misfits, Dignan (Owen Wilson), Anthony (Luke Wilson) and Bob (Bob Musgrave) plan the robbery of a cold storage building's safe. With Dignan plotting their robbery as a glorious, overblown heist of the century, the film builds towards its inevitable outcome with a soft affection for its bewildered protagonists. Dignan is the infectiously enthusiastic wannabe and, with Wilson, director Anderson found an actor capable of transmitting foolhardy bravado with a touching insecurity in equal measures. This was transmitted perfectly in the penultimate scene to their first feature. Facing almost certain capture by the police, Dignan responds;

“They'll never catch me, man... Because I'm fuckin' innocent.”

Wilson went on to co-write Rushmore with Anderson, again to much critical acclaim. During this time, Wilson was being cast in mainstream fare of questionable quality such as Anaconda and The Haunting.

With 2001's The Royal Tenenbaums, actor and director again collaborated on the screenplay. Wilson took the role of Eli Cash – a drug addicted writer and family friend of the Tenebaums with a raging, yet easily bruised, ego. Framed by the voice of Alec Baldwin as the narrator, The Royal Tenenbaums featured Owen Wilson alongside his brother Luke and a stellar cast including Gene Hackman, Bill Murray, Angelica Huston, Danny Glover and Gwyneth Paltrow.

In the film, Wilson's Cash functions as the flipside to his brother Luke's character, Richie. The two men are in the midst of life crises. Eli expresses his fears by taking drugs, behaving recklessly and emotionally manipulating people. Richie exists in a vacuum of limited expression, hiding behind his sunglasses and long hair. Of the two, Eli seems the more likely to end up hurt or worse, but it is Richie who attempts to take his own life.


With Eli, Owen Wilson captures a person who, whilst being a drug addict and depressive, still values life. His odd behaviours and outlandish persona all form part of an insanely insecure individual. Anderson treats Eli with shots that make him seem isolated and lonely, often filmed in wide shots, it only adds to the character's seeming loneliness.

Riffing on the idiosyncrasies of its oddball characters, the film managed to maintain a melancholy air of loss and regret whilst providing laughs and creating an eccentric, endearing world with Anderson and Wilson nominated for the 2002 best screenplay Oscar which eventually went to Julian Fellowes for Gosford Park.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was released in 2004 with Bill Murray as the eponymous deep sea adventurer of the title. Wilson featured as Ned, Zissou's would-be son and pilot, with Angelica Huston, Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe and Jeff Goldblum also featuring. Wilson played Ned as a softer, more likeable character than Eli Cash with an earnestness that was a perfect foil to Murray's brasher father figure.

2007 saw the release of The Darjeeling Limited, which followed brothers Francis (Wilson), Peter (Adrien Brody) and Jack (Jason Schwartzman) as they traverse India on the titular train to see their mother, played by Angelica Huston, who lives in an abbey. Wilson, as Francis, had the role of the overbearing older brother, much to his brother's chagrin.

Related...

Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog
Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Kurt Russell and John Carpenter
Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Steve Martin and Carl Reiner
Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Molly Ringwald and John Hughes

Alex Williams

Essentials Archive

Khodorkovsky documentary stolen as its Berlin premiere approaches

A documentary about Russian oligarch and outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has been stolen from director Cyril Tushci's office in Berlin just days before the Berlin Film Festival. This is, however, not the first time the documentary has been subject to odd goings-on, as a laptop containing film materials was also stolen from Tushci's hotel room in Bali a month ago. Luckily, 'Khodorkovsky' had already been submitted in rough form to the festival and its screening will go ahead as planned on February the 14th.

Centering on the controversial trial and imprisonment of Khodorkovsky, the film has naturally piqued interest in many quarters and, seemingly, also caught the eye of people determined to halt the film's release. Tushci has stated that he believes he has been followed for the duration of the documentary's production, which totals over 180 hours of interviews with, amongst others, family members and former business partners of the imprisoned Khodorkovsky, as well as a fleeting interview with the man himself.

The documentary is scheduled to be screened four times throughout the festival and, barring any more mystery burglaries, will provide an unabashed look at the modern Russian justice system.

Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Kurt Russell and John Carpenter

In a special feature running all this week, Alex Williams counts down his Essential Actor / Director Partnerships...

Kurt Russell and John Carpenter

Elvis (1979)
Escape from New York (1981)
The Thing (1982)
Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
Escape from L.A. (1996)

Unlike the previous entry, there are no crazy stories of John Carpenter ever threatening to shoot Kurt Russell in the head. What there is, however, is a body of films featuring not only acknowledged masterpieces but also some of the most entertaining action/horror fare put on film.

After wowing audiences with his portrayal of The King in 1979's TV movie Elvis, Escape from New York firmly set Russell as Carpenter's de facto leading man. With a taciturn and dangerous air, Russell's Snake Plissken established the actor as a talent capable of carrying a tense action picture with minimal dialogue and a smart, roguish persona.

However, 1982 would mark the point at which their partnership paid its greatest dividend. Carpenter cast Russell as helicopter pilot R.J 'Mac' MacReady and set him amidst a top notch cast (Keith David, Wilford Brimley and Donald Moffat among others) stranded in the blinding whiteness of the arctic tundra.

Fuelled with rampant paranoia, The Thing not only features action and horror set pieces that today stand the test of time but also explores the fruitful dynamic when the isolated men begin to lose trust in one another and start doubting each other's very humanity.

The film centres around the staff and crew at a research station in the Antarctic and their and eventual contact with a shape-shifting alien life-form out to replicate and, in the process, kill them all. Russell's initially laconic Mac rises to the challenges of leadership and survival in a performance of grim determination and an ambiguous end point.

Carpenter directs with a beautifully framed, static style when showing the endless white all around the camp, which serves to illustrate the double sided nature of the protagonist's predicament; if anyone does come to save them then the world will be doomed, if no one comes to save them then they are dead anyway. Carpenter recognises that this is essentially the end of the world for those in the camp and films it as such.

When the horror of their situation dawns on Mac and his cohorts, Carpenter ramps up the tension by placing every character under suspicion in escalating scenes of conflict and violence between the various men as they begin to realise their situation and it's potential consequences.

Culminating in an orgy of destruction and fire, in which the remaining men decided to destroy the camp to deprive the creature of any hiding place, the film ends with only Mac and Childs (Keith David) left alive. The two talk in ambiguous terms, feeling each other out for signs of humanity. Both are exhausted and destined to freeze once the fires all around die down, and with the last lines of the film, we are left to imagine what is what and who is who;

Childs: What do we do now?
MacReady: Why don't we just wait here for a little while... see what happens...


Four years after The Thing, Carpenter returned with Russell for Big Trouble in Little China, an action/fantasy romp with Kim Cattrall, James Hong and Dennis Dun. The film was received poorly upon release but has grown to have a strong cult following and garner respect for its verve, sense of adventure and the memorable performance of James Hong as ancient sorcerer Lo Pan.

Escape from L.A. hit theatres in '96 to tepid reviews and a 50% loss at the box office. Russell was this time joined by Steve Buscemi, Pam Grier and Stacy Keach along with a memorable cameo from Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell. Another film that has gathered in cult status, Escape from L.A. is decent sequel that re-spins a few too many ideas from the superior first installment, but is nonetheless an enjoyable further adventure for Plissken fans, which also saw Russell serving as a co-writer.

Related...

Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog
Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson
Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Steve Martin and Carl Reiner
Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Molly Ringwald and John Hughes

Alex Williams

Essentials Archive

The Hobbit to start shooting at last

Filming of the long delayed prequel to Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy is to start on the 21st of March, with J.R.R. Tolkien's classic precursor The Hobbit split into two parts to incorporate bridging elements with the earlier movies. The two films were originally slated for release in 2010 and 2011 but following numerous setbacks and the departure of would-be director Guillermo Del Toro, The Hobbit: Part 1 will now be coming to theatres in December 2012 with the second film following a year later.

Following Del Toro's exit, Jackson will again sit in the director's chair, lensing the film in studios in the Kiwi capital Wellington, with the production also making use of New Zealand's stunning landscapes once more. Before his exit, Del Toro did collaborate on the screenplay with Jackson and LOTR trilogy scribes Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, leaving room for tantalising speculation as to how Del Toro's sensibilities will influence the final film.

Martin Freeman will take up the role of the younger Bilbo Baggins, with Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee, Cate Blanchett, Elijah Woods and Andy Serkis reprising their previous roles and the likes of Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen also linked to a possible return. Newcomers confirmed so far include Saoirse Ronan, Richard Armitage and James Nesbitt.

Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog

In a special feature running all this week, Alex Williams counts down his Essential Actor / Director Partnerships...

Through history, there have been partnerships that, because of some mystical, unknown chemistry, have created something so great that is it destined to ring through the ages. Lennon & McCartney, the Curies, Tango & Cash. No list of such partnerships could ever claim to be exhaustive and, with that in mind, I have eschewed some of the more familiar partnerships, (Scorcese and De Niro, Ford and Wayne etc.) as these are so universally loved that they need no airing here.

Film, due to it's very nature, is a collaborative process. The arguments about 'auterism' aside, it is a long, multi-faceted process which demands the coming together of a large number of people to force it to completion. Within this, there are those director/actor teams that become so synonymous with one another that they create an institution unto themselves...

Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog

Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972)
Nosfteratu the Vampyre and Woyzeck (both 1979)
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Cobra Verde (1987)

In Kinski, Herzog found someone who not only matched, but also surpassed, his own fiery temperament. But, with the raging and (often) violent confrontations, came some of the best films in history.

Beginning with 1972's Aguirre, Wrath of God, the two men would work together on five films together in total. Herzog had met Kinski years previously when the young Kinski was renting a room in the Herzog family apartment. Kinski's often wild and strange behaviour left a mark on Herzog and when finally in a position to begin filming Aguirre, Herzog sent the script to Kinski, quickly receiving an enthusiastic response.

Shot on a budget of $370,000 in the Peruvian rainforest, the cast and crew had to make their way through thick, untamed rainforest and ride the Amazon River currents on wooden rafts made locally by the native inhabitants.

In the role of Don Lope de Aguirre, Kinski plays the second in command of a group of forty conquistadors sent deep into the jungle on an expeditionary mission to find a path to El Dorado. As they proceed further and further into the wild, the group falls more and more under the sway of the unstable Aguirre with death, paranoia and madness swiftly following.

Quite soon into the shoot, Kinski's aggressive and maddening behaviour began to appear and, as the gruelling shoot progressed, only became more pronounced. It is from this that one of the most notorious anecdotes in film history arises.

Late one night, whilst he was trying to sleep, Kinski became infuriated at the noise coming from a tent where cast and crew were playing cards. To remedy the situation, Kinski took a gun and fired three bullets into the tent. With the top of one extra's finger missing, Kinski began to pack up his belongings, telling Herzog that he was leaving the film. Not one to be outdone, Herzog then told Kinski that if he tried to leave he would shoot him in the head eight times and save the last bullet for himself. Persuaded, Kinski relented and the film was completed.

Released to immediate critical acclaim, the film became the jumping off point for a relationship that was as successful as it was drenched in madness.

The pair re-teamed for two films in 1977- the first had Kinski's terrifying take on Dracula in Nosferatu the Vampyre, a loose re-make/homage of F.W. Murnau's legendary 1922 take on the Dracula tale – Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.

The same year also the release of Woyzeck, which began shooting only four days after the end of filming on Nosferatu. Kinski features as a soldier slowly losing his mind in this adaptation of Georg Buchner's unfinished play of the same name.

1982's Fitzcarraldo had Herzog and Kinski back in the jungle, this time with Kinski as the quixotic title character who travels into the jungle to claim land for his future rubber plantation. One scene in the film called for a steam boat to be pulled several hundred metres over a large hull by pulley and hand which, true to form, Herzog did in real life. Burden of Dreams, a documentary shot at the time of filming by Les Blank, covers the arduous progress of the production.

1982's Cobra Verde would be the final film in the pair's acclaimed work together. Kinski stars as the titular title character, as he progresses from rancher to outlaw to slave trader and beyond.

Bonus:

Herzog's 1999 documentary My Best Friend chronicles his relationship with Kinski through the terrfiying lows, the dizzying highs and the creamy middles. The director reveals the lighter, gentler side of Kinski, talks of his love for the actor and his admiration for his considerable skill.


Related:

Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Kurt Russell and John Carpenter
Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson
Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Steve Martin and Carl Reiner
Essential Actor / Director Partnerships: Molly Ringwald and John Hughes

Alex Williams

Essentials Archive

Woody Allen to open Cannes with Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, starring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Marion Cotillard and featuring France's current first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, will open the 64th Cannes Film Festival on May 11th, with the film also opening in theatres across France on the same day. This comes after the writer-director showcased his previous film You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger at the festival last year.

Described by Allen as celebration of a young man's love for Paris, the veteran filmmaker also said in a statement that the film "...simultaneously explores the illusion people have that a life different from their own is better."

With Robert De Niro handed the role of Jury president at this year's Cannes, the actor remarked on the honour and responsibility of such a position: "I know this isn't an easy task for me or my fellow jury members, but I'm very honored and happy to head the jury for this year's Cannes Film Festival."

The full, official selections will be announced in mid-April and the festival will run from the 11th to the 22nd of May.

Canada's Genie Awards announce their nominations

Barney's Version, starring Paul Giamatti, has been nominated in 11 categories in Canada's premiere film awards ceremony the Genie Awards. The tale of the unrestrained, precocious Barney also features Minnie Driver, Rosamund Pike and Dustin Hoffman.

Among the eleven nominations, the film has receieved nods in the Best Motion Picture category with Giamatti up for the Best Leading Actor gong. Based upon Canadian novelist Mordecai Richler's final novel of the same name, the film has been a praise magnet for critics and audiences in equal measures.

Barney's Version is trailed by Incendies, which has picked up ten nominations. The intense drama follows twins Jean and Simon (Mélissa Désormeaux and Maxim Gaudette respectively), as their dying mother asks them to travel to her homeland in the middle-east so that they might better understand their heritage.

Highlights of the nominations for the 31st Genie Awards...

Motion Picture
10½ (dir. Martin Dubreuil)
Les Amours imaginaires (dir. Xavier Dolan)
Barney's Version (dir. Richard J. Lewis)
Incendies (dir. Denis Villeneuve)
Splice (dir. Vincenzo Natali)

Actor in a leading role
Jay Baruchel (The Trotsky)
Paul Giamatti (Barney's Version)
Robert Naylor (10½)
Timothy Olyphant (High Life)
François Papineau (Route 132)

Actor in a supporting role
Martin Dubreuil (10½)
Dustin Hoffman (Barney's Version)
Alexis Martin (Route 132)
Callum Keith Rennie (Gunless)
Rossif Sutherland (High Life)

Actress in a leading role
Lubna Azabal (Incendies)
Tatiana Maslany (Grown Up Movie Star)
Molly Parker (Trigger)
Rosamund Pike (Barney's Version)
Tracy Wright (Trigger)

Actress in a supporting role
Sonja Bennett (Cole)
Anne-Elizabeth Bossé (Les Amours imaginaires)
Minnie Driver (Barney's Version)
Terra Hazelton (FUBAR 2)
Mary Walsh (Crackie)

Direction
Xavier Dolan (Les Amours imaginaires)
Richard J. Lewis (Barney's Version)
Vincenzo Natali (Splice)
Podz (10½)
Denis Villeneuve (Incendies)

Adapted Screenplay
Michael Konyves (Barney's Version)
Lee MacDougall (High Life)
Vic Sarin, Dennis Foon and Catherine Spear (A Shine of Rainbows)
Patrick Senécal (Les 7 jours du Talion)
Denis Villeneuve (Incendies)

Original Screenplay
Louis Bélanger and Alexis Martin (Route 132)
Claude Lalonde (10½)
Adriana Maggs (Grown Up Movie Star)
Peter Stebbings (Defendor)
Jacob Tierney (The Trotsky)

Best Documentary
La Belle Visite (dir. Jean-François Caissy)
In the Name of the Family (dir.Shelley Saywell)
Last Train Home (dir. Lixin Fan)
Leave Them Laughing (dir. John Zaritsky)
You Don't Like the Truth: 4 Days Inside Guantanamo (dir. Luc Côté and Patricio Henriquez)

Claude Jutra Award
Jephté Bastien (Sortie 67)

Golden Reel Award
Resident Evil: Afterlife (dir. Paul W. S. Anderson)

The 31st Genie Awards will be presented on March 10th.

Like Crazy and How to Die in Oregon take Grand Jury Prizes at Sundance

2011 Sundance Film Festival Winners...

Long distance love story Like Crazy wins the grand jury prize for best drama on Saturday's penultimate day of the festival, with How to die in Oregon – which follows the real-life decisions of terminally ill women to end their lives, picking up the best documentary award.

Like Crazy stars Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones and was directed by Drake Doremus. Jones is the British student who falls for Yelchin's American 'Jacob' but, after overstaying her visa, is kept apart from her new found love by beauracracy and they must strive to somehow find a way back to each other. Felicity Jones has also scooped the special jury prize for her work in the film.

Best documentary winner How to die in Oregon has been collecting praise for it's unflinching and sensitive capturing of a difficult, heartfelt subject. Beginning with a scene of a terminally ill cancer patient's last moments after a barbituate overdose (Oregon legalised assisted suicide in 1994 for those diagnosed with less than six months to live), the film has won over the audiences and judges at Sundance with it's gentle and understanding approach. Director Peter Richardson and his crew followed multiple women as they wrangled with the decision to end their own lives.

Winners of the main awards...

Grand Jury Prize Documentary: How to Die in Oregon, dir. Peter Richardson.
Grand Jury Prize Drama: Like Crazy, dir. Drake Doremus.
World Cinema Jury Prize Documentary: Hell and Back Again, dir. Danfung Dennis.
World Cinema Jury Prize Drama: Happy, Happy, dir. Anne Sewitsky.
Special Jury Prize Drama: Another Earth, dir Mike Cahill.
Special Jury Prize Documentary: Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey, dir. Constance Marks.
World Cinema Special Jury Prize Drama: Tyrannosaur, dir. Paddy Considine.
World Cinema Special Jury Prize Documentary: Position Among The Stars, dir. Leonard Retel Helmrich.

Movie Review - Life in a Day (2011)

Life in a Day, 2011.

Directed by Kevin Macdonald.
Produced by Ridley Scott.


SYNOPSIS:

A documentary compiled from thousands of hours of footage by YouTube users that tells the story of a single day on earth.


Life in a Day is the result of director Kevin MacDonald's plea to the YouTube community to record one day of their lives – July 24th, 2010 - with the ultimate aim of patching them all together. The call was heard, and 80,000 videos were submitted for selection, totalling 4,500 hours of raw footage. At this point it is compulsory to give mad props to the editor – Joe Walker.

The footage was eventually cut down to the 90 minute feature that is garnering raves from reviewers and audiences for it's moving and poignant scenes harnessed from everyday life, by everyday people. Encompassing the most mundane daily activities to the most exhilirating and saddest experiences, the film operates with a kind of rhythm that can change mood on a dime, and can elicit a broad smile as quickly as it can have the viewer choking back the tears.

The film is broken up by a few, scattered segments that take acts such as making breakfast or washing into the realm of universal experience and identification. These segments work beautifully to ground the film as a shared experience whilst also showcasing the individuality of each person and their contribution. It offers a reminder that the world is always turning and is home to billions of stories and aspirations. Every video has a different motivation, story and meaning which all tie together to represent the countless moods and hopes that make up any person.

Life in a Day does not attempt, however, to foster a sense of awe and union without showing life in it's entirety which, oftentimes, can be cruel, bigoted and numbing. A man, when asked what he feared the most, replied 'Homosexuality. It is a disease.' Whilst others chose, amongst other things; growing up, losing the world to global warming, god, politics, not returning home safely, not having a child, going bald, themselves, loneliness, death and god not existing. And, when asked what they loved the most, the replies included (among the obvious); football, a horse, god again, a refrigerator and a cat.

The film perfectly frames and crystallises moments that would have been mundane, were it not for the express intent of filming them in order to show the true marvel of life in action. There are plenty of moments of brutality that shock the viewer back into realising the fragility of life and our influence on other life on the planet.

One particularly distressing scene sees a cow about to be put to death with a bolt gun. It is hard to watch as the tool is lifted and the cow flops to the floor, taking a long time to die. It is a powerful image of life as a commodity and an example of how its intrinsic value is too often forgotten and marginalised. As well as underlining the fact that we sometimes forget that we are part of life, not a force above it, it also allows for reflection alongside the more uplifting moments and brings home the contradictory, confusing nature of life itself.

The last segment is perhaps one of the most touching of the film. A young woman sits in her car and expresses fears that would resonate with any person on the planet. She remarks that she had been waiting all day for something amazing to happen but instead she has had to work and now finds herself alone, a few minutes before midnight, to make her submission:

“All day I was waiting for something amazing to happen but the truth is – it doesn't always happen. I want people to know that I'm here. I don't want to cease to exist. I think I'm a normal girl, normal life, with nothing interesting to know about, but I want to be. Although nothing great happened today, I feel tonight that something great happened.”

With her lonely admission, as one amongst 80,000, this girl admitted the deepest of human fears and submitted what her day had been for all to see. Whilst she was crying alone in her car, a man was cycling around the world to try and unite Korea, a baby giraffe was born, hundreds of Chinese lanterns were released, a couple were being married in Vegas by Elvis and billions and billions of other lives were unfolding, starting and ending. And this film only captured one day of it.

Life in a Day premiered at Sundance 2011 and was simultaneously broadcast around the world on YouTube. It hits North American cinemas on July 24th with a UK release to be confirmed.

Alex Williams

First trailer for Lincoln assassination drama The Conspirator online

Robert Redford helms the James McAvoy starrer The Conspirator, which follows the arrest and trial of Mary Surratt (Robin Wright) after her involvement as a co-conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival back in September 2010, The Conspirator is scheduled to hit cinemas in the Spring and also features Justin Long (Jeepers Creepers), Evan Rachel Wood (The Wrestler), Jonathan Groff (Glee), Tom Wilkinson (Batman Begins), Alexis Bledel (Sin City), Kevin Kline (A Fish Called Wanda), Danny Huston (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and Toby Kebbell (Dead Man’s Shoes).

Check out the trailer…


The approach is an interesting one as it focuses on the aftermath and personal repercussions of Lincoln's death as well as the wider concerns.

The next couple of years will be Abe heavy with Spielberg's Lincoln starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Timur Bekmambetov’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - with Benjamin Walker (Flags of our Fathers) announced today as the beefcake President - both set for release in 2012.

Casting round-up: The Dark Tower, Snow White and the Huntsman and more!

Javier Bardem for Dark Tower franchise?

Reports indicate that Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) has been offered the role of Roland Deschain, the lead in Stephen King's opus The Dark Tower, which is being developed as three films and a TV series by director Ron Howard and writer Akiva Goldsman. Some news sources were reporting that Christian Bale had come into the running for the part but it emerged over the last day that Bardem has the role if he wants it. The films are to be backed by Universal Pictures, with NBC handling the television series.

Jon Bon Jovi returns to the screen

Jon Bon Jovi, or JBJ, has joined the cast of Gary Marshall's multi-character, inter-locking tale New Year's Eve. JBJ will be alongside a sizeable cast including Robert De Niro, Halle Berry, Jessica Alba, Ashton Kutcher, Michelle Pfeiffer, Hilary Swank and Zack Efron. Bon Jovi will play an ageing rocker who once jilted Berry's character. Details are still scarce aside from the name of Kutcher's character 'Reed Bennet', and a succinct plot summary: 'The lives of several couples and singles in New York intertwine over the course of New Year's Eve.' The big cast and festive setting seem to mark this out as a potential US stab at the tone set by 2003's Love Actually. No release date has yet been set, but I think we can guess.

Stewart and Mortensen for Snow White and the Huntsman?

Kristen Stewart is being heavily tipped to star opposite Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron in a new telling of the Snow White tale. Numerous actresses have screen tested for the role, including Emily Browning and Riley Keough, but Twilight star Stewart is thought to be the preferred choice. The film will bring Mortensen's Huntsman to the fore and make him a mentor and guardian to Snow White, whilst Theron will play the role of the Evil Queen.

Rise of the Guardians...

Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman and Jude Law are all set to contribute their voices to this 3D animated film from Dreamworks. The film follows Santa Claus (Baldwin) and the Easter Bunny (Jackman) as well as a host of other imaginary childhood characters, with Law voicing 'Pitch', an evil spirit. The film's source material is an upcoming series of books, The Guardians of Childhood, written by William Joyce who will also co-direct. With Guillermo Del Toro set as an executive producer, this could be a bit title in 2012.

John Travolta to play Gotti?

John Travolta is being heavily linked with the role of John 'The Teflon Don' Gotti in Nick Cassevetes upcoming film. Travolta is already signed to the project as executive producer and recently had dinner with John Gotti, Jr. to seek his approval of the project. Gotti, Jr. had this to say; “He's a tremendous actor and he'll feel the part. He nails every single one and he can do this too, I'm totally confident.” Meanwhile James Franco is also being touted a possibility for the role of John Gotti, Jr.

Alex Williams