MOVIE REVIEW
Bridesmaids (2011)
Suzanne Hanover/Universal Studios
Annie (Kristen Wiig) is having a bad time. Her bakery recently folded and she lost a lot of money, so she's working an awful jewelry-store job her mom (Jill Clayburgh in her final role) got her as a favor. She lives with two weird British siblings (Matt Lucas and scene-stealing Rebel Wilson) where she's behind on the rent. Her mom is nice, but their relationship is a little fraught. And the guy she's "seeing," Ted (an uncredited — and hilarious — Jon Hamm), is a total prick.
So it's no surprise she is not entirely pleased that her best friend since childhood, Lillian (Maya Rudolph) is getting married. And she's even less pleased to learn that, through the engagement, Lillian has gained entry into a world of country-club membership, tennis matches and couture from which she has been kept away. This world is the natural home of Helen (Rose Byrne), Lillian's new best friend, whom Annie hates on sight. Annie is the maid of honor — but who is she really?
Continue reading “Swallowing the Bride’s Prejudice” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Love Like Poison (2010)
Films Distribution
There is a disturbing recent trend in French cinema regarding teenage actresses, their bodies and the exploration of their sexuality as the plot of a film and the camera's exploration of their flesh as the milieu. This trend has, one hopes, achieved its apex in "Love Like Poison," a story so confused and degrading that the only sympathetic, normal character is a priest.
Continue reading “Besides Adulthood, Nothing Is Confirmed” »
Karen Ballard/Lionsgate
The big story in film in Britain in 2010 was the closure by the coalition government of the UK Film Council, the centralized funding body for British films with the caveat that the productions had to be aimed at the people in the region where it was filmed. The resulting movies tended to appeal to no one at all, although there were several glorious exceptions, this year's "Tamara Drewe" among them. The responsibilities are instead being shifted to the British Film Institute, which runs the BFI London Film Festival and an Imax, manages the BFI National Archive, publishes books on cinema and releases DVDs of various classic or neglected films. These responsibilities are so new and vague, the BFI hasn't yet bothered to update its website. And since the government has already developed a history of backtracking on its cultural cuts (eg. the furor over Bookstart, a charity providing free books to underprivileged kids), it's still uncertain what is going to happen.
Continue reading “C.G.I. and Rental Stores, They Were Expendable” »
MOVIE REVIEW
TRON: Legacy (2010)
Disney Enterprises
"TRON: Legacy," a movie that has been in the works since the mid-'90s, is finally here. It wears its reported budget of more than $200 million very much on its sleeve, with amazing costumes, lighting and C.G.I. work combining to create a believable — and pleasingly three-dimensional — computer-focused world. But all the money in its budget was unable to buy the filmmakers a single original idea. On reflection, that's perhaps what "TRON: Legacy" is meant to be: the first major studio mash-up movie.
Continue reading “A Digitized Shadow of Science Fiction” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The King's Speech (2010)
Laurie Sparham/The Weinstein Company
The English royal family in a period film is a tried-and-tested setting for the British to examine their feelings about difficult subjects such as class, grief, entitlement, sex and the rights of women. These movies are also easy to sell internationally. To these ends, there has been a long parade of "royal" films — "The Young Victoria," "Elizabeth," "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" and "The Madness of King George" among them. While "The Queen" is the only one that has addressed any of these issues in a contemporary setting, "The King's Speech" is yet another period piece, albeit an expertly constructed. From another angle, it is an update of "Mrs. Brown," with Geoffrey Rush playing Billy Connolly and Colin Firth in the Judi Dench role — although there is even less sex in this movie than there was in that one.
Continue reading “Royal Road to Learning” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Route Irish (2010)
Joss Barratt/Sixteen Films
The most dangerous road in the world, Route Irish connects Baghdad's airport to the Green Zone. On this road, an ambush in early September 2007 kills four private security contractors, among them Frankie (John Bishop). Frankie's best friend Fergus (Mark Womack), an ex-soldier and former private contractor now in minor trouble with the law, attends the funeral despite resistance from his widow Rachel (Andrea Lowe). At the wake, he joins Frankie's family to meet two representatives of the contractor, Haynes (Jack Fortune) and Walker (Geoff Bell). It is unfortunate, they explain, that Frankie was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Fergus is big enough and ugly enough to know better.
Continue reading “Dead in the Blackwater” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Tamara Drewe (2010)
Peter Mountain/Sony Pictures Classics
“Tamara Drewe” contains, in one handy parcel, all which the English celebrate in middle-class life: wine and cheese at an author signing in a local bookshop; chickens being hand-reared at the back of the garden; horsey women with shotguns and wellies; a thriving village pub/bed-and-breakfast with a cheerful Aussie manageress; organic, locally grown food. The movie, with cinematography by Ben Davis, looks great, too: It never rains; the partial nudity is tastefully done; and when clothes are worn, they’re perfectly ironed. This film captures exactly a middle-class fantasy of life within the English countryside. This is not a bad thing, as safe middle-classness is rarely depicted, much less celebrated, in British media; the reverse of life as known in this film was last year’s “Better Things.” “Tamara Drewe” is a gentle satire without being mean-spirited, which is a difficult tone to maintain; and as far as comedy goes, it’s actually quite good in its understated fashion.
Continue reading “Dirty Pretty Flings” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Metropolis (1927)
Kino International
"Metropolis," a German film made in 1927, was as groundbreaking in its time with its special effects as "Titanic" was in 1998. Although originally a flop at the box office, through the years "Metropolis" has grown in stature until it is now considered one of the most important and influential movies ever made, as much of a game-changer as "The Godfather" or "The Matrix." In fact, it's now impossible to see the movie with fresh eyes, as its imagery and ideas have been adapted, borrowed or outright stolen for countless films since then. For instance, there is the layered neon city of "Blade Runner," C-3PO, "Star Trek's" transporter beams, Nicole Kidman's first sequence in "Moulin Rouge!" – on second thought most 1920s nightclub sequences, the creation scenes in "The Fifth Element" and "Young Frankenstein," and any factories where nameless workers scurry underneath steaming behemoth machines. Another audience member even said of the lead actress, Brigitte Helm, “She looked just like Kate Bush” – which rather wonderfully missed the point.
"Metropolis" was edited down for length after its disastrous premiere, and the missing footage was long thought irredeemably lost. Its undeniable power meant it achieved its influence despite being a bit of a mess. Then in 2008 someone went through old film reels in an Argentinean museum. Nearly 30 minutes of missing footage, key to understanding some of the intricacies of the plot, have been restored and the re-release is to celebrate this fact. For the first time, we are able to see the movie almost as director Fritz Lang intended, and this is as close as we are ever likely to get to the film as it originally premiered.
Continue reading “A Future Rediscovered” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Maid (2009)
Elephant Eye Films
Not every movie needs has-beens preening in front of great whacking explosions. It’s so refreshing to see a movie that knows the biggest changes in anyone’s life come in quiet moments, and that grants the inner life of a maid as much respect as anyone else’s.
Continue reading “Housekeeper Makes Herself at Home” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Wild Grass (2009)
Christophe Jeauffroy/Sony Pictures Classics
The English title is a direct translation of the French word for those little weeds which sprout up in the cracks in sidewalks; in French the phrase is a metaphor for people who are a little bit unconventional. This movie certainly is different, but it works neither as a straight story nor as a genre exercise; and it seems the director wanted it that way.
Continue reading “Stalking Is Comedy” »