Tag Archives: Movie Reviews

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I don’t do death. I’ve spent my entire life blocking out the fact that death happens. But yesterday I learned that my most dearly beloved – the sweet and loyal and gentle Finley Dogchild – has a tumour the size of an orange growing between the muscles of her right thigh. It’s not going to kill her, but the effects of it are ageing her rapidly and quite alarmingly. She’s gone from running girl to little old lady before my eyes.

Under the circumstance, it was therefore probably unwise of me, to accept an invitation to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the CGI tale starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, featuring a man who ages and dies backwards. Born an arthritic little old man, the kindly Benjamin youthens (?) as he ages, a fact that somewhat understandably causes complications in his relationship with the beautiful ballerina Daisy. It’s going to end badly – and you’ve got 166 minutes to wait for it to happen.

Yes, Benjamin Button is a really long movie about death, and a lot of the scenes seem purely extraneous to the story itself. It’s beautifully made, with a richly realised period design that’s got a Moulin Rouge kind of feel to it. But while it is undoubtedly poignant, it ultimately feels soulless. I woke up this morning, feeling that somehow I’d be cheated.

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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Ok, now that the movie’s finally out, it’s probably finally safe to talk about this…..

Although Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull features all sorts of Cold War triple agent spy-jinks and McCarthy-esque witch-hunts for hidden Reds, it would appear that most feared were those who might have tried to steal the movie’s secrets. The final credits even include a Confidentiality Co-ordinator, for heaven’s sake.

But check out this story from the New Haven Independent from May 2007 on the planned filming of the motorbike chase through the university, and you’ve basically got an entire run-down of what audiences would see on screen two years later. It’s bizarre. But it is actually a fairly typical Film Commission dilemma; oh so often, enthusiastic local journalists overwhelmed by the big stars and the Hollywood machine suddenly in their backyard, blurt out significant plot spoilers to the local community at time of filming. It’s even problematic with tv commercials, and it’s made so much worse when it’s the Film Commission that has facilitated the introduction. 

Bearing in mind that bit-part actor Tyler Nelson was sued for revealing a couple of Indie plotlines to his hometown newspaper, Oklahoma’s Edmond Sun, I’m surprised Lucasfilm didn’t jump on this one like, well…..Bad Guys.

 

Anyway, is the movie any good? Well, it certainly means to be; it’s light hearted, quick witted, self-referential fun. On the plus side, Shia Laboeuf is snake-hipped (Yes, he IS Indie’s kid)and Cate Blanchett is curiously sympathetic for a baddie, and the action leaps from location to location with typical gusto (New Mexico and Hawaii, as well as Conneticut). On the minus - though it doesn’t ever try to hide the fact that it’s nineteen years since Indie’s last outing - the producers chose to surround him with a lot of really OLD people, it’s kind of odd. Maybe youth wasn’t actually the target demographic?? 

At the bottom of it, the plot is pretty thin too. Basically, Indiana is asked to help a colleague in distress who has apparently found El Dorado, the fabled Amazonian City of Gold. He’s chased there by a Russian psychic with Louise Brooks hair, several angry natives and some extremely hungry ants. And that’s about it. Oh, and did I mention the aliens?  

Still, there’s always the theme tune; I challenge you NOT to be humming it on the way out of the theatre.

Pieces of Dan in Real Life

Anyone whining about the lack of success of the South African film industry need only to look at a movie like Pieces of April to understand what we’re doing wrong. Written and directed by Peter Hedges, April is a small, personal film, well told.  It stars Katie Holmes (post-Dawson and pre-Tom and therefore appealing) as an estranged daughter struggling to prepare a Thanksgiving meal for her dying mother and the rest of her dysfunctional family. A good portion takes place in the Lower East Side tenement block where April resides. It is a very human movie, full of sadness, good humour, wry insights and cracking one liners. The script is excellent and the performances are first rate; Patricia Clarkson was nominated for just about every award out there for her role as April’s dying mother. And there is Politics too; one of the most memorable scenes is when April’s black boyfriend (Derek Luke) goes out to what you’re set up to believe is a drug deal, only to realise that he’s actually gone to rent a suit to impress his girlfriend’s parents. See; Politics with a big P but without the trowel. Great script, great acting, small cast, few locations; South African film makers – never ever slow to wag a lecturely finger or bludgeon the audience with Issues - could learn a lot from this.

Anyway, I really only mention April because we caught Dan in Real Life at the cinema on Monday - a movie also co-written and directed by Hedges. Dan stars Steve Carrell and Juliette Binoche, and it has similar underlying themes to Hedges’ previous work; finding love, finding yourself, facing death and accepting the importance of family (however screwy, daft and inappropriate they may be.) Hedges also uses similar constructs including a central location where the family gathers – in this case a rambling timber-panelled home on Conanicut Island in the state of Rhode Island.

Like Louisiana, Rhode Island has a pretty aggressive and successful Film Incentive programme, and that’s why you’ll increasingly see RI locations appearing on screens before you. Dan was filmed in in the cities of Newport, East Greenwich, Jamestown, Westerly and Providence, with key scenes at Providence’s Seven Stars Bakery and the Point Judith Lighthouse in Narragansett.

However, the main focus is the family home (a monstrously ugly pile called “Riven Rock” located on West Bay View Drive in Jamestown) where the chaotic Burns clan gather en masse for bonding activitiesthat include family aerobics, family crossword puzzle races, family American football and family talent shows. I think we were supposed to learn from all this that the family unit, though it may be loopy, is warm and familiar and always supportive. Personally, if I’d been thrust into the midst of that zoo, I’d probably be considering doing a Jeremy Bamber.

Iron Man (again)

Based upon Marvel’s iconic Super Hero, Iron Man tells the story of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), a billionaire industrialist and genius inventor who is kidnapped by the Bad Guys and forced to build a devastating weapon for them. Instead, Tony builds a high-tech suit of armour and escapes captivity. Upon his return home, Tony comes to terms with his wastrel past. When he uncovers a nefarious plot with global implications, he dons his powerful armour and vows to protect the world as Iron Man.

My thoughts? I haven’t enjoyed a Superhero movie this much since, well, since ever. It just goes to show what really great actors can do with a witty script under the guidance of a director (Jon Favreau) who’s actually thought about his material. Downey, who I’ve always thought a bit flaky, is truly excellent, and Terence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges all turn in superb supporting stints. Bridges (who admittedly has the best material to work with) does a tour-de-force nasty Bull Daddy, that should have leathermen everywhere very, very excited. He’s even got the cigar!

Iron Man movie was shot in California – a conscious decision by the director to avoid yet another New York location. Production was based in the former Hughes Company soundstages in Playa Vista, California. (Hughes was apparently one of the inspirations for Tony Stark.)

 

 Wikipedia reports:

Filming began on March 12, 2007, with the first few weeks spent on Stark’s captivity in Afghanistan. The cave where Stark is imprisoned was a 200m long set, which was built with movable forks in the caverns to allow greater freedom for the film’s crew. Production designer J. Michael Riva saw footage of a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, and saw the cold breath as he spoke: realizing remote caves are actually very cold, Riva placed an air conditioning system in the set. He also sought Downey’s advice about make-shift objects in prison, such as a sock being used to make tea. All this created greater authenticity.

Stark’s capture was filmed at Lone Pine, California, and other exterior scenes set in Afghanistan were actually filmed at Olancha Sand Dunes, also in California. A lot of the military stuff was shot on location at Edwards Airforce Base, of which Favreau said: “This is the best back lot you could ever have. Every angle you shoot is authentic: desert, dry lake beds, hangars.”

There’s also a fun story on how the military received the production at Edwards team stars in ‘Iron Man’ superhero on the Air Force’s own website.

 So much for Runaway Production.

Little did he know……

In Stranger than Fiction, Will Ferrell plays Harold, an anal IRS agent who begins hearing a voice in his head, narrating his life. But then the narrator – a distinguished author with writer’s block – Emma Thompson, says: “Little did he know that this simple seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death……”

I’d noticed the movie at the video store on numerous occasions and chosen not to select it. I’m not sure why not; in a film starring both Ferrell and Thompson, perhaps I feared that the clown be cancelled by the thesp, or vice versa? Too cerebral for Ferrell, too downbeat for Thompson? Whatever; I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Stranger Than Fiction turned out to be a clever, intriguing and often moving comedy that is full of warm characters and some quirky but genuine insights into the human condition.

It is also an incredibly stylish film, in the broadest possible sense. You can’t help be struck by the locations, production design, and visual effects, but here the use of locations to define the characters is particularly detailed. 

 

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Mistress of Spices

Aishwarya Rai plays Tilo, Mistress of Spices, a kind of sayer-healer-agony aunt who is sent to California with three implausible challenges: help people to accomplish their desires (but never her own) through the considered application of spices; never leave the store; and never touch another person’s skin.

But she’s sent to Oakland for pete’s sake, within spitting distance of San Fransisco, and with a jaw-dropping view of the Golden Gate Bridge from her roof terrace, no less. So of COURSE she’s going to fail. The fact that she does it with Dylan McDermott is kind of irrelevant.

Of course there’s a suspension of disbelief, and there are some questions that are simply imponderable: exactly how magical is sesame seed? who buys her loo paper? is all that open product actually hygenic? how mordantly incurious is she, to be so close to one of America’s greatest cities and never set foot out of her shop?

Interminable 10000 BC

OK, so even my regional loyalty can be pushed to its limits.

Citing nothing more than the fact that it had been shot in Namibia as rationale, (it was the biggest budgeted film ever to have shot in southern Africa, employing hundreds of African cast and crew members in the process), I forced Christopher sit through the interminable 10000BC over the weekend.

Director Roland Emmerlich is famous for end of the world movies like Independence Day and the Day After Tomorrow – movies that consider the end of mankind in a sort of no-plot-big-explosion kind of way. Here he attempts to paint the other side of the picture; mankind’s fragile beginnings.

In a brief plot summary, boy loves girl, girl is stolen by nasty (Arab?) slavers, boy unites all the tribes of Earth to rescue girl. (releasing slaves is apparently entirely incidental to his motivation.) The action teeters from spectacular mountains (New Zealand) to spectacular jungle (Thailand) to spectacular desert (Namibia), locations that are populated by scary, flesh-eating ostriches, some cool mammothy things and Africans wearing a variety of hats.

In fairness, I should say I was impressed by the work of the art department; sets, costume, styling, hair and make up were all extremely detailed. It’s just that they made absolutely no sense. But on the whole, there’s no point even beginning to discuss the anachronisms, the bizarre Russian accents, the eyeliner – and I’ve seen better sabre-tooth tigers in National Geographic documentaries.

As a movie, 10000BC reminded me of many other movies – Apocalytpo is one – but more than anything it has the same clunky dialogue, the same hokey-inspirational faux history, the same bad hair as the truly stupefyingly dreadful Battlefield Earth. Only 10000BC doesn’t have John Travolta so it’s much, much worse.

It’s not just me; 10000BC was panned by the critics

However, if you’ve ever wondered how Film sets remain operational in these electricity-starved times, here’s a link to a story at the Filmmakers’ Directory.

Good Taste is a Deadly Attribute

My second Made in Cape Town movie of the weekend was Rendition, the first Hollywood production of South African director Gavin Hood, who won a Best Foreign Language Oscar for Tsotsi. Cinematography was by another high flying South African, Dion Beebe.

“Rendition” refers to the ability of the CIA to detain anyone suspected of terrorist dealings, and then to squirrel them away to foreign countries where they can be interrogated (read: tortured) indefinitely, without the fuss and bother of things like, oh, law, or due process. As the subject matter for a movie, it’s obviously pressingly relevant in these days of covert internment, interrogation and torture, post 9-11.

In Rendition, an Egyptian-American is snatched on the way home from a conference, and his pregnant wife has to try to find out what’s happened to him. The film begins in South Africa, though unfortunately only a few fleeting moments take place in Cape Town, against the gorgeous backdrop of Table Mountain.

The bulk of the action alternates between Washington DC and an undisclosed Third World, Middle Eastern country – which for filmmakers these days means Morocco.

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The Breed

In bed over the weekend with a bad back, I took the opportunity to catch up on a couple of movies Made in Cape Town.

The first – Wes Craven’s The Breed - was shot on Steenbras Dam, a beautiful stretch of water just over Sir Lowry’s Pass on the way out of town from Somerset West - where it was playing stand-in for an unnamed island somewhere off the coast of North America.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH3kjGzhb3w&]

Now I wasn’t expecting much from this film, and I wasn’t therefore disappointed. Five sketchily drawn friends (the good jock, the bad jock, the sporty girl, the ditzy blonde and the token black guy) de-camp to an isolated island off the coast, where they fall prey to a pack of super-intelligent killer sheepdogs. (I kid you not.)  It’s hardly great or ground-breaking film making, and it’s really, really hard to be scared by Belgian Shepherds.

Yet, in spite of the weak and sometimes inexplicable storyline, I thought Steenbras performed rather well. And SA actors Nick Boraine and Lisa Marie Schneider get their asses whumped early in the story line, which is always fun…..

Deathproof

Caught the uncut version of Tarantino’s Deathproof on DVD over the weekend. Actually a bit of a blast, faux-70′s styling with dodgy edits, scratchy film, wandering colour balance etc. Check out the dents on 1970 Dodge Challenger – they get less as the crashes get worse.

Deathproof features a deranged killer named Stuntman Mike – Kurt Russell – who stalks a group of young women as they spend their night in Austin, Texas, bar hopping, teasing boys, and getting trashed. Stuntman Mike proceeds to kill the girls by crashing into them head on with his death-proof muscle car. Of course, he walks away unharmed.

Months later in Tennesee, he targets another group of young women but this time, he picks the wrong targets (they’re in the film industry, so you must know….)

Deathproof

The first part of the movie is awash with Austin locations – there’s talk of The Dobie Theater, Guero’s, Lake LBJ. And the main action takes place in Austin’s real-life Texas Chili Parlor -although this venerable establishment is shown with a parking lot and a back porch (it doesn’t). Tarantino added these himself for his own fictional version of the restaraunt. The movie is (self) referential to a t - Abernathy, played by Rosario Dawson, mentions she had a thing for a director named Cecil Evans. Cecil Evans is the name of a transportation coordinator for films in Austin.