109mins, Director: Jason Reitman
Ryan Bingham, (George Clooney) is a ‘career transition counsellor’ who delights in his autonomous lifestyle flying around the world 322 days of the year and firing people.
Having already racked up millions of air miles, Ryan is most at ease in a clinical airport setting and delights in the plastic smiles of check-in clerks, prompted by their computers to say ‘pleasure to see you again Mr Bingham.’ He waltzes confidently from boardroom to boardroom, smoothly firing unsuspecting employees whose bosses haven’t got the nerve to do it themselves, before boarding the next plane to do the same all over again.
Between assignments in the corporate setting of a hotel lobby, Ryan encounters the smart and sassy Alex, (Vera Farmiga, The Departed). Sparks fly as they compare frequent flyer and privilege cards, leading to a no-strings attached affair based on coinciding airport layovers.
When his company hires Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), an ambitious and uptight graduate desperate to prove herself, her cost-cutting plan of firing people via a Webcam instead of in person threatens to leave Ryan grounded. Furious, he confronts his boss, which results in him going back on the road, to his horror with the young Natalie in tow, to show her how it is done.
The two women in Clooney’s life are never inferior to him in character nor in performance, and as Natalie’s presence in his travelling world certainly brings viewers plenty of comedy, it is his budding relationship with Alex that begins to challenge Ryan’s life philosophy that being unattached is best.
It is unclear what Reitman is trying to prove with Bingham’s character, but his portrayal of the high-flying lives that he and Alex lead is both clever and incisive. As films go, it certainly won’t change your life, but this is Clooney at his Danny Ocean best: sophisticated, cool and likeable. A gentle, thought-provoking comedy that’s well worth a watch.
Esther Jones
]]>
The Jam. The Clash. The Sex Pistols.
These are the names that spring to mind when someone mentions late 70s music. It’s surprising then, that the latest musician to get the rock biopic treatment is Ian Dury.
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll paints a picture of a man full of contradictions. At times solipsistic, deeply self involved and destructive, it nonetheless shows someone who is just as capable of love and compassion than he is aggression. The film charts Dury’s journey from fronting the High Roads, to subsequent underground and later mainstream sensation with The Blockheads.
A brilliant British cast falls in behind Andy Serkis’s Dury, including Naomie Harris as his lover and Ray Winstone as the father. Well executed bit parts from Mackenzie Crook and Noel Clarke are also included.
Under Mat Whitecross’s direction, (previous distinguished credits include The Road To Guantanamo) Dury’s life is told in a colourful, humorous and occasionally harrowing work. His past and relationship with his disability is explored in depth, particularly the psychological effects which seem to dog him daily.
While Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll is full of enthusiasm to promote it’s central character’s rollicking, give ‘em hell attitude to life, it avoids any of the cherry-picking and sweetening of other biopics. Finally, a warts and all tale to show that Dury was flawed, occasionally brilliant, but definitely not a nice man.
More British films need to be made in this vein. Compared to the conventional Nowhere Boy, Serkis shows that there is still room for a powerhouse performance in a low budget indie film. Serkis doesn’t play Dury, he is Dury, and when Polaroids of the man himself are flashed onscreen, you occasionally forget that you’re watching a film, not a documentary.
Thoroughly outstanding, and while it doesn’t really innovate or metamorphasise the biopic genre, it’s a solid film with strong performances and appropriately, a raucous soundtrack.
Joseph Stashko-Adamaszek
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll is on general release from January 8
]]>
Night #18 – We hear it. Whatever it is, ghost or demon or malevolent energy, Paranormal Activity has one hell of an antagonist. The cause of the bumps in the night in the latest hand held horror film has a way of slowly saturating you with a cold dread that will make you curse bedtime for weeks. Oren Peli’s no budget debut as writer/director, truly, is extra-ordinarily terrifying.
Odd, then, that the first thing you think when watching Paranormal Activity is that for supposedly the most horrifying film of recent years, it doesn’t seem very scary. Katie and Micha who are the couple at the centre of the plot are bubbly, believable and endearing, joking about the creaking floorboards they put up with on a nightly basis. “This’ll be fine” you tell yourself, “I’ve seen Poltergeist”. How naive.
The anxiety begins slowly, Night #1. The film is structured around the unusual occurrences after dark that escalate very, very gradually.
This continues as a prominent theme throughout, and before long audible sighs of relief issue from the audience whenever a scene contains natural light.
However the relentless night scenes are labelled and numbered, each one slightly more ominous than the last. Each one uses the same unnerving wide-angle shot of the bed next to the open bedroom door. This creates a neat, slow boiling trepidation that keeps the audience hooked without that much really happening.
This slow pace doesn’t last forever, It isn’t long before the couple start to commune with the spirit. Micha, seeing the whole ordeal as an option to document some first grade ghostly happenings, starts toying with the spirit in the hope of catching something on tape, whereas Katie has a far more pressing need to see it come to its end.
The change in dynamic between the two as the days and weeks progress is expertly done. What begins as a persistently happy couple gradually becomes embroiled in a downwards spiral of fear and apprehension that leads to one of the most uncomfortable endings in any recent horror.
Nonetheless, it’s the cause of the terror who’s the real star. Peli does magnificently well to keep all but the slimmest facts about what in fact it is, tight to his chest. The result of this is some of the most uncomfortable viewing you will find in the cinema, and brilliantly entertaining for it. Just don’t go alone.
Chris Hamer
]]>A refreshingly gooey, horror fan’s horror movie, Drag Me To Hell has one hand in camp eighties super gore while the other tugs at the heartstrings.
The film follows Chris, a young female loans officer played by Alison Lohman, who in an effort to throw off her nice girl image refuses a loan renewal to an elderly lady. As you might expect, this elderly lady is not the type who takes bad news well, resulting in possibly the most undeserved three days of terror in the history of unlucky females in horror films. However, the film gets all of the plot points out of the way early, making an expositional first act that is neat but obvious, and leaves more time to focus on the scary parts. Raimi also makes the attempt to have us like his heroine a little too forcefully; she’s a farm girl in the big city, she used to be fat, she’s too nice to be promoted – this grates to begin with, but adds reams of comedy value when the pus starts to fly. Oh yes, there’s pus.
The boyfriend, played by up and coming nerdy heart throb, Justin long, is a brilliant character who remains the voice of reason in a terrifying world of demons and back talking goats that only Chris can see. The result is a priceless few scenes in which the logical boyfriend can’t keep his scepticism to himself – his reaction to being charged sixty dollars for a palm reading is particularly well timed.
The plot is simple really, and effective, and not a backwards walking Japanese ghost girl in sight. Drag Me To Hell really does bare all of the hallmarks of the Evil Dead series, with the addition of some superb acting and story telling skills, fans of Raimi’s earlier work will feel at home.
Be warned though, any punches left pulled from Evil Dead are delivered with force in the first few minutes of Drag Me To Hell. The opening scene sees a young gardening boy succumbing to the same unknown force of evil in front of a young medium. But attacks on helpless Mexican minors are really just a prelude to the atrocities that occur during the next ninety minutes. Luckily, Raimi has made the more gruesome scenes with an undertone of hilarity. No one’s eyes could pop out at that speed, that often, and that accurately, could they? A question you may find yourself asking.
Raimi also makes the most of the cinema space, he uses sound effects with the skill of a horror auteur, and knows how to reel the audience in for the big frights. For this reason, Drag Me To Hell is first and foremost an entertaining horror flick, with emphasis on the fun. Compared to the now formulaic descendants of psychological-horrors such as The Ring that peaked in originality a few years back, it’s an interesting niche. The fact that Raimi isn’t taking himself too seriously is incredibly refreshing and oddly innocent – especially for a film that shocks visually.
Well worth the time, Drag Me To Hell is diet Evil Dead with a far more accessible plot that will entertain you as much as it disgusts you. People fond of cakes and kittens, however, would do well to avoid it.
Chris Hamer
]]>You wouldn’t think that a soundtrack for a series primarily enjoyed by teenage girls could be so powerfully emotional to people over the age of 14, but New Moon manages to confound expectations.
For a little context, the foundations of the plot are that the sparkly vampire Edward breaks up with Bella, who then has a breakdown over it and Jacob, who rarely wears a shirt, helps her through it. It took a particularly convincing friend to get me to see past the sparkling vampires and a warped idea of a relationship, but once I did, I was more than impressed.
The first song brought to my attention was Thom Yorke with Hearing Damage. Few words can describe how brilliant this song is, despite FiX’s editor denouncing Radiohead and all related projects as “crap”. It starts out fuzzy then gradually becomes so entrancing that on first listen, I forgot I was in a shoddy halls of residence for a few moments. Thom Yorke’s voice is like velvet in this song combined with a hypnotic melody, what’s not to love?
Lykke Li’s Possibility is the next song I found to be wholly impressive after a few listens. Initially I thought it was lacking in substance but it’s so stark and almost uncomfortably frank, you can hear the heartbreak in her voice and believe in it.
But one of the strongest songs on the soundtrack has to be Grizzly Bear feat. Victoria Legrand with Slow Life. I’d say it’s fairly standard Grizzly Bear with sweeping melodies as well as otherworldly vocals and, like Possibility, it’s very honest with its emotions. I find the chorus to be particularly heart-wrenching with lyrics like ‘even though you’re the only one I see, if you ask I’ll cut you free’.
Other special songs on the soundtrack include the Editors’ No Sound But The Wind a simultaneously heart warming and breaking song (listen to it, you’ll understand) as well as Bon Iver and St. Vincent’s beautiful collaboration in Roslyn – that is if you can handle near-constant squawks of ‘dooooooooooooooooooooooooown’.
Granted, not all of the songs are particularly spectacular as the previously discussed songs and these happen to be the ones which are more suitable for the film’s target audience ie. Meet Me On The Equinox by Death Cab For Cutie – I’ll say no more. I think one song that could be considered weak shouldn’t be entirely disregarded, Band of Skulls’ Friends is light-hearted and fun if you can’t possibly handle the downer that is all the decent songs listed above. Same can be said with Muse’s I Belong To You which I think is almost playfully dramatic.
I think I’ve learnt from this soundtrack to not instantly disregard music simply because of what it’s tied to, and while the film may be a bag of crap (I’ve seen it twice so I’m well informed), the music certainly isn’t. This doesn’t mean I’m going to run out and buy the High School Musical soundtracks though, I’m still allowed some prejudice.
Kate Preston
You can read our review of New Moon here
]]>
When the world went Twilight crazy last year I had no interest in the film whatsoever. The concept of a vampire film which carried a 12A rating didn’t really do it for me, and neither did the look of the cast. Granted I was only going by the promotional pictures that seemed to be everywhere, but he looked too corny (yes, we know vampires are pale) and she looked too young (Hermione in Harry Potter and the Philiosopher’s Stone kinda young). I just didn’t get it and couldn’t be bothered to find out why everyone else did.
Oh what a difference a year makes.
It may have taken me a hell of a lot longer than everyone else, but I have now well and truly boarded the Twilight train, and am writing a review of its second instalment, New Moon, to prove it. “He” is now Edward Cullen (played by Robert Patterson) and “she” turns out to be Bella Swan (played by Kristen Stewart). I am unashamedly hooked on this little gem of a story and have vowed in the future to stop being such an inverted snob. Popular films are popular for a reason, usually because they are bloody good. High School Musical anyone? Ok, let’s start this review before I get a bit too carried away….
For those of you who are yet to see Twilight (fools!), here it is in a nutshell. Bella Swan moves to drizzly Forks, a little town in Washington to live with her dad. She meets and falls quickly in love with Edward Cullen, her pale and brooding classmate who just so happens to be a 104 year old vampire. They get together, she finds out his secret, doesn’t care, they face a lot of danger, get through it, the end.
New Moon begins with Bella`s birthday, a day she refuses to celebrate because it brings her one step closer to old age and death. And death means never seeing Edward again, which all us girls can appreciate would be quite a depressing thought (as you can see, I have got past his paleness). During a surprise party at the Cullen`s residence Bella manages to cut herself, prompting one of the Cullen brothers to lunge at her in a blood-fuelled frenzy. Edward decides to leave Forks, believing that his presence is only putting Bella in danger.
Stewart’s portrayal of abandoned Bella is controlled and focused. Her longing for Edward is projected so convincingly that you can actually feel her pain, and it’s easy to see why this film is such a hit amongst teenagers for whom romantic angst is a common emotion. But the smile is soon put back on Bella’s face when she gets closer to old friend Jacob, who just so happens to be a werewolf (I’m guessing that in the third instalment of this saga Shrek might put in an appearance, closely followed by Eddie Murphy). But Bella hasn’t forgotten her vampire and when Edward mistakenly believes that she is dead and tries to commit vampire suicide (which is a long old process involving a trip to Italy and a few choice words with a certain Michael Sheen) she charges to his rescue.
The film isn’t without its faults (when the vampires get angry they kind of just stare at each other, with Edward putting a hand up as though he is going to karate chop someone. Grow some fangs!) but if you sit back and just go with it you’re in for a pleasant surprise.
Lauren Forbes
Read our review of the New Moon soundtrack here
When discussing with friends who we thought was the greatest action film star, the usual names were bandied around with careless abandon. Will Smith, Tom Cruise and Stallone were the popular choices. I chose one Terence Steven McQueen as my pick of the bunch.
For me, Steve McQueen is an icon in the true sense of the word, in that he acts as a representative symbol of “cool”, sartorially, dramatically, physically. He lacked the elegant height of Clint Eastwood or the brawn of Bronson, but still managed to walk the walk and carve out an onscreen persona that was distinctly his.
McQueen had an uproarious and unsettled upbringing, constantly getting into trouble with both his stepfather and the police. Eventually, in 1947, he enlisted in the US Marines and initially continued with his insubordinate behaviour, culminating in a 2 week stay with his girlfriend after a weekend pass had expired. This proved to be the nadir of his time in the military, and from thereon in he concentrated on self improvement until he was honourably discharged in 1950.
A string of stage and small film roles followed, including a Broadway production of A Hatful of Rain, but his big breaks early on came in television, not film. Introduced as a spin off to another western series, Trackdown, McQueen was cast as a Winchester rifle-wielding bounty hunter named Josh Randall in the CBS series Wanted: Dead or Alive.
Wanted… turned him into a household name in America, but his portrayal of Vin in The Magnificent Seven (1960) threw him into the wider international public eye. Hit films followed thick and fast, The Great Escape in 1963, an Oscar nomination (his first and last) for his part as a sailor in The Sand Pebbles. 1968’s Bullitt cemented his position as a bona fide star and proved that he could carry a fast moving and complex storyline on his own. It’s here that I’ll mention McQueen’s sartorial legacy to the world of menswear. In Bullitt he dons a range of clothes which have now become style classics. Aside from looking fantastic, he managed to carry all of this off with such a shrug of nonchalance, it never seemed he was trying too hard. Hence the endless centrefolds in GQ, Esquire et al lauding his style and trying to recreate the look.
After the success of Bullitt, more starring roles continued in the form of The Thomas Crown Affair and Le Mans (a drama documenting the famous 24 hour race). The money gained from successful roles allowed him to indulge in his favourite past time, racing cars and motorbikes. Although the famous jump in The Great Escape was not performed by McQueen for insurance purposes, he had a large amount of screen time riding his own 650cc Triumph. At one point he even considered packing in acting altogether in favour of becoming a professional race car driver.
His death in late 1980 came after he was diagnosed with cancer a year previous. What is unusual about McQueen is that he remains an icon without being subject to the commercial saturation that other dead celebrities have experienced. His legacy to acting, fashion and the romance of motorbikes and cars is indisputable.
Steve McQueen, born March 24 1930, died November 7 1980, a true icon.
Joseph Stashko-Adamaszek
To put it simply, Fantastic Mr Fox is as fantastic as his name arrogantly announces.
Initially a side project to feed Wes Anderson’s fascination with the Roald Dahl book, the stop-motion film took 2 years to make and is very charming indeed.
A few of Anderson’s motifs are peppered throughout, the use of Futura Bold font (a nod to his main influence, Stanley Kubrick) as well as the use of certain actors – namely Bill Murray (The Life Aquatic, The Royal Tenenbaums as the brilliant Badger), Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore, The Darjeeling Limited as sweet, inexperienced Ash Fox) and Owen Wilson (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic in a small role as Coach Skip the ferret). Along with this, some genius casting took place in the way of George Clooney as the title’s character and Meryl Streep as the long-suffering wife.
If you know the book well, you’ll only recognise the very foundations of the story in this film – the talking animals, the three evil farmers (Boggis, Bunce and Bean, one fat, one short, one lean…), their strange eating habits (goose liver pate infused doughnuts anyone?) and Mr Fox’s emasculating tail removal.
The film opens with Mr and Mrs Fox deciding to stop stealing chickens after narrowly escaping death but the crafty devil that is Mr Fox decides to embark on ‘one last excursion’ with the brilliant Kylie, the absent-minded Possum (Wallace Wolodarsky)! But one final excursion leads to another and the farmers he steals from get quite rightly pissed about it. Mr Fox’s attempts to be wild once more jeopardises the lives of all the animals as the farmers go to increasingly extreme lengths to get their revenge.
A few words need to be said about the film’s soundtrack. An endearing score mastered by Alexandre Desplat combined with classic pop songs by the Beach Boys and Rolling Stones to give it that cutesy edge and it’s yet another Anderson motif (consider the use of Nico, Elliott Smith and The Rolling Stones in The Royal Tenenbaums). Though one cannot forget a song about the title character written by Jarvis Cocker, who has a small role as one of the farmer’s lackeys, Petey. Speaking of the farmers, I really felt Mr Anderson brought them to life; the disturbingly lanky Bunce, the convex Boggis but I especially loved psychotic Bean, voiced by the extraordinary Michael Gambon. He was genuinely terrifying in parts throwing popstar tantrums even FiX’s editor Jo Stashko would be ashamed of, after being foiled by Mr Fox countless times.
Overall, the film’s worth a look if you could use cheering up in this shoddy autumn weather. Fantastic Mr Fox has been on general release since October 23rd.
Kate Preston
]]>