[Film] Film 2014

[Acker79]

Theyv'e not said why it was rated so strongly, the British censor made it 15 as it had them looking at a gay porn mag, the dildo and maybe the kiss

The kiss had nothing to do with it. It was rated 15 because of occasional strong language including a number of discriminatory terms, verbal and visual sex references (the porn mag and the dildo), men wearing bondage clothing, drug use and mild violence. http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/pride-2014

I would like to see the MPAA give such information about their ratings decisions. Though, it was rated R, which means children under 17 can still watch it if they are accompanied by an adult.

 

[Meade's Ball]

Briefness tonight.

Ok it started well with The Drop. The director did Bullhead a couple of years ago, and that rumbled along tensely. He follows that with this Brooklyn-based crime drama with Tom Hardy as a seeming simpleton helping his cousin Marv, the sorry he's gone Gandolfini, run a dingy bar that's used on occasion as a money drop for gangsters. Hardy hears a puppy whimpering in a bin he passes, causing him to run into Noomi Rapace, who bravely attempts to sound Brooklynny, and a series of bad turns cause bigger things to happen. I liked it. Good acting - Matthias Schoenearts, the Belgian, gives a stunning accent and Hardy's one is consistently strong with its whine - and a director who knows you don't need the vastest amount of explosions and bloodshed to let us know that something will soon happen. Worth seeing when it comes out sometime next month.

The next film was an Israeli comedy, of sorts, called Self Made. Difficulties on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide have a pair of entirely different oddbods swap identity. I didn't mind it, until they did swap nonsensically and i grew bored. Some amusements along the way though.

Next up was a Korean film called A Girl at my Door. This was strange. A female cop moves to a new town to fight her alcoholism, but everyone there, in a westerny way, is kind of ruled by one bad egg, who is constantly pissed, as pretty much everyone else is. It began humorously, but the sickness of the town seemed to infect the storyline as more horribly twisted things happen. One thing was so sick to watch that i don't know how to word it. I don't think i enjoyed it a lot.

Last of the day was even sicker than the previous one. I had the good fortune to have it introduced by the director, Tetsuya Nakashima, who insisted that what was coming up was horribly violent and may make some people sick. He advised for people to move toward the back of the theatre. Despite being a chap seemingly in his early 60s, he warned us all with great glee. What i then watched was a mental couple of hours of an ex-detective suffering from manic depression and schizophrenia looking for his missing daughter. Gangsters, bent cops, animated sequences, suicides, rapes, repeated stabbings, teenagers selling drugs and incest are then thrown together in a constant mess, as if all through the eyes of our troubled dic. It felt a bit like Angel Heart and Jacob's Ladder with its skewed memories and flashbacks and a little bit Tarantino-esque with its exploitation-influenced anime, but mostly this was just eye-shaking sickoid loonfestery with innumerous bodies gorily left in its wake. Very very wrong, but i didn't mind chuckling in the darkness of it when i got the occasional grip of what was happening. The World of Kanako was its name.

 

[The Buttery Biscuit Base]

I signed a disclaimer earlier saying that I can't tell anyone how AMAZING this film is.

Or how I think it is one of the BEST films I’ve seen for some years.

Or how GREAT the cast is.

Or how the said cast has put in some INCREDIBLE performances.

So don’t ask...



But seriously, great film out in Jan 2.

I know, I know but the film 2015 thread isn't up yet.

 

[Meade's Ball]

A good day of it today, which ended pretty much with a large black approaching me close to Piccadilly to say that i like girls and to come with him as he has many on offer. I was pleased i might have looked like a chap who enjoys the company of nude chicks, but less overjoyed with the likely conclusion made by this behemoth that i must have to pay for it. He didn't bring me down, though, or along to his den.

So, 4 films again. The first was the hugely stylish A Girl Walks Home alone at Night, a black and white Iranian vampire film. It was a David Lynch graphic novel of a film with hints of Let the Right One In in its weirdness and comic-book feel and take on innocent vampire-human love. It had a good mix of humour and powerful musical accompaniment to it, but a slight dose of boringness afflicted it about two thirds of the way in. That might have come from its constant efforts to seem clever, but overall some good fun scenes of our muslim vampire skateboarding through Bad City, her long gown flapping like a cape in the breeze as she smirks planning her next blood-drinking and of the local pimp jiving amusingly before his slaughter. Quite good.

Second was The Keeping Room. Dreary American film starring Brit Marling, who i just find annoying. Set in the 1860s, or summink, and meant to show the strength of women having to defend themselves in Carolina at the end of the civil war, perhaps. Didn't prove suspenseful in the most part, and didn't really put together the cause of Sam Worthington's macho madness as he and his friend went around a raping and a murdering in uniform. I didnae like it.

The pick of the bunch now for me was A Second Chance, made by Susanne Bier. I'd seen her film from 2010 just a few months ago when it was on BBC4. A Better Tomorrow. A cracker of a film. I wondered if this might follow suit, and again it was thoroughly gripping. A Danish film starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Bier came out after the film and discussed for a bit Coster-Waldau's natural hunkiness and could understand his lure all the way through Game of Thrones. In this he is a cop who walks into the flat of heroin users whose baby is covered in its own faeces and urine, an image that of course is horrible to see. The law doesn't allow anything to be done about this and our cop goes home to see his wife and newborn to remind himself in his middle class world of what is normal and good. What happens after that i won't say specifically, but the drama explodes with our lead stretching the bounds of acceptability and the consequences of chance and his actions causing the tension to continuously rise. An excellent twist comes too. Oh, i loved this film. The subject matter difficult, but so so gripping. The film could have been filmed anywhere as shots are always in close-up, the wrinkles on each character's face seemingly cracks in their armour and every pour about to leak beads of tearful sweat as everything comes undone.
I am seeing Bier's other film at the festival in a couple of days, i think, although this one is American. Still, i hope she carries on being brilliant.

I have no idea about the comedy of Andalucians teasing the identity of those from the Basque country, but as my girlfriend and her sister wanted to see this hit from Spain, i said i would go along. It was actually quite amusing. They pissed themselves knowing the stereotypes and the playing around with language, but in spite of me not getting all those references, it was generally quite enjoyable. The Spanish Affair, it's called on these shores and much better than i expected.

 

[Acker79]

Will you be watching Robot Overlords?

 

[Meade's Ball]

Will you be watching Robot Overlords?

No, don't think i have that one. British sci-fi, innit. Today i've got Whiplash, which got a standing ovation last night apparently, Phoenix and 1001 Grams. I'm tired. Will go on about what i saw yesterday now.

 

[Meade's Ball]

Yesterday was not a great day for it, but it ended with something suitably strange and different with a jaw-dropping conclusion.

Right. First up was a German thriller. My god it was bad. But badly enjoyable in bits. Like a rubbish tv movie really and not seeming to fit into the ethos of the festival. A lost memory film in which a slightly muscular mechanic starts to be followed, being told by a gang of gypsies that he is someone else. Became more silly as it went, the man who wants to get revenge on his "lookalike" being camply evil. Stereo was its name.

Second was Mads Mikkelson in the first Danish western. This was hit and miss. I love the Mads, so that made it watchable, but then it had Jeffrey Dean Morgan in there, which made it less so. Not bad, but didn't carry through as grippingly as it opened. Interesting talk from the director afterwards though. Salvation, it's called.

Third was Hard to Get, a South African thriller which bounced about in a typical action film way. It could have starred a Wayan as the innocent ladiesman drawn into a life of crime by a woman he couldn't conquer. Throwaway fun, i suppose, and reasonably shot.

The final film of the day was tough to watch. I am not sure how many Ukrainian deaf school mafia films there have been without a single word "spoken", but this was my first. No subtitles either. Just sign language on display, which i don't understand. Took 20 minutes or so to get used to, but then it was darkly engrossing. This lad of 16 turns up at his new deaf school and is pretty much straight away examined to see if he could be part of this brutal moneymaking clan. What then unfolded was some twisted pimping, some clubbing of the innocent and an astonishing set of end of film vengeful murders. I was completely agog. Blimey. You have to put it all together as it goes, reading the emotions of the body language and the explosions of temper without them being spelt out to you directly with words. Stunning stuff.

 

[Meade's Ball]

Sometimes it is most difficult to fling oneself from one film and its style to another. Yesterday i went from the drumming extravaganza Whiplash with all its energy to the sombre and lead-paced Phoenix, and in the latter my head couldn't stop bobbing in the opening 15 minutes or so, with it still so wired to the excitement of Whiplash's impossible-not-to-cheer ending, and then fell into a lifeless slump.

Whiplash i thought in advance would annoy me, but you have JK Simmons pulling off a mean treat as the cussing jazz orchestra lead whose sharp tongue lashes like some of the misplaced notes or beats by his underlings do to his ears, and it's a cracker. It's the usual tale of a young man trying to make something of himself, converting from uncontrolled amateur to maestro, and in this case an expert drummer. It opens with his flailing arms tapping away at the end of a corridor, his kit and him in this blazing light, as we stroll toward him and his playing. He's the back-up drummer in the sort of reserve team in the music conservatory, but only 18. He's played by Miles Teller quite well, largely as an ambitious and unforgivingly determined young chap whose hands will bleed for drums and greatness, who'd rather be remembered than liked. In spite of this slight dislikability, the film has us long in part for him to improve and shine. His talent is noticed by JK Simmons, who gives him a chance in the big leagues. He's just very funny in his way of basically abusing his team, none of which will even dare look him in the eye. For Teller, he's at first not really a teacher of method, but a man who gives him a violent wake-up call, before becoming an obstacle as well as inspiration.
The music is good and the practice-sessions intense and the clash of egos between Teller and Simmons watchable, but the ending to the film is a tingling spectacular. Amazing conclusion. I loved it for that, ridding elements of the corn beforehand. A corker to watch and i might see it again.

The Phoenix i don't remember warmly at all. as i said, it was difficult to get into with Whiplash still buzzing around my head, but in general it had its excessive unbelievability to it which made it silly. Post-war Germany with a woman taking her friend or family member to Switzerland to have reconstructive surgery carried out on his face. I want to be just like i was before, says Nelly. She goes back to Berlin with two big back eyes, looking to refind and reassociate herself with her former life as a cabaret singer. How similar she looks to her former self i don't remember precisely seeing, but when she meets her ex-husband, who looked like the German Tom Selleck, he says he looks just like his now dead wife and would she pretend to be her, after some training, so that he can claim her estate. That was just stupid. He not once asked any questions to find out whether she was or wasn't Nelly. I expected more of the film, the slow-burning Barbara made by the same director a couple of years ago.

Ah well, Whiplash was great.

 

[Meade's Ball]

I'd grown a little weary on Friday, and gave up going to my first film of the day, just i have today also, leaving just one of the festival to go. Has been a good time though, and i'm sure i'll madly buy tickets again in a year.

So, Friday began with what's to be released in a week anyhow, so a foolish purchase in ways. It was Serena, directed by Susanne Bier who i'd praised so highly for A Second Chance only a week before. This was Hollywood fare starring the endlessly poor Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, who, for me, tends to keep choosing constantly annoying films. This is a melodrama in the north Carolina forests being levelled for profit in which anti-environmentalist mogul Bradley Cooper casts an eye on equestrian madwoman Jennifer Lawrence, the daughter of a deceased timberworker, and love is borne, unrealistically. They're married in days and all of a sudden she has her zany hands in his business, bringing about death and downfall. By biggins it was bluntly poor. The romance was unreal and some of the performances laughably absurd - yes Rhys Ifans i'm referring to you. The film's IMDB score is 7.4 and i pity the fools who felt any joy from this dreary pap.

Next up i just used my Cineworld card to see 71. Had to explain the film to my Spanish girlfriend who can't grasp a single utterance from those in Northern Ireland, but she could well have not understood thanks to three nattering hags sat in front of us. I loudly asked these confused old biddies to save their chatter until after the film, but on they went. Annoying. Anyhow, the film was alright. Jack O'Connell has and will be plastered over screens for the next 12 months, and that seems a good thing thus far. He's willing to show fragility to character as well as unforgiving strength, so his range is decent.

Back to the festival for 9pm in Mayfair - which i just find to be a horrible place. The film was good though. Leviathan. I had expected something more morose - don't get me wrong, this had an inbuilt sadness to it - but what occurred in this social drama were moments of quite amusing drunkenness. Vodka and corruption and betrayal in this small seaside town. Some of the shots of the sea and the craggy surroundings are beautiful and chilling, whilst the performances and dialogue are mirthfully cutting. A good film worthy of the praise sent its way throughout its festivals run.
John Hurt was in the crowd, by the by.

Yesterday i went nearer to home for White Bird in a Blizzard. I found this at the beginning a bit annoying, a take on death in suburbia through teenage eyes, but it grew on me a little, and the ending had a twist to it. It's about a teenage girl in 1988, in a newfound romance with a neighbourly doofus, whose bored-to-tears mother disappears. Through flashbacks and sessions with her psychologist, the mystery is slowly solved, even though it really take a backseat until the end. The girlfriend liked the film because of its loving mockery of fashion in the late 80s, particularly in the goth scene, and whilst that didn't tickle the same nostalgia bone in me, it was just about alright to watch.

 

[Meade's Ball]

So that's it now. In and out of Mayfair quite quickly this time, and i plan not to go to that smug snoothole again for a year.
The last film was The Duke of Burgundy. Twas directed by peter Strickland whose last two flicks have been Katalin Varga and The Berberian Sound Studio, both of which were sound-heavy and haunting in their growing mystification. I felt a little during Varga but not enough during Berberian. Eerie films though, full of style. This time it was a sort of ode at first to 70s softcore europorn, that then becomes the demanding romance of one masochistic fantasist being punished agreeably by her partner, a lesbian lepidopterist. Butterflies flutter continuously around the film, their noise, as well as that of a cat's, beginning to drown out other sound on occasion.
It was strange and interesting and increasingly dark and sexual. I had the joys of seeing Sidse Babett Knudsen - the excellent star of Borgen - getting down to it, and she was excellent again.
I can't be sure of all that happened in it all, or what it truly meant, but it was an experience.

And now i'm done and work tomorrow morning is reborn, which i hope in ways will feel like a rest.

 

[LamieRobertson]

Interesting posts Mr Ball

 

[Brightonfan1983]

So that's it now. In and out of Mayfair quite quickly this time, and i plan not to go to that smug snoothole again for a year.
The last film was The Duke of Burgundy. Twas directed by peter Strickland whose last two flicks have been Katalin Varga and The Berberian Sound Studio, both of which were sound-heavy and haunting in their growing mystification. I felt a little during Varga but not enough during Berberian. Eerie films though, full of style. This time it was a sort of ode at first to 70s softcore europorn, that then becomes the demanding romance of one masochistic fantasist being punished agreeably by her partner, a lesbian lepidopterist. Butterflies flutter continuously around the film, their noise, as well as that of a cat's, beginning to drown out other sound on occasion.
It was strange and interesting and increasingly dark and sexual. I had the joys of seeing Sidse Babett Knudsen - the excellent star of Borgen - getting down to it, and she was excellent again.
I can't be sure of all that happened in it all, or what it truly meant, but it was an experience.

And now i'm done and work tomorrow morning is reborn, which i hope in ways will feel like a rest.

Bloody hell. Excellent work but I feel as knackered as you must have done just reading that! Point proven, in how being a film critic for a living might not always be the most joyous of endeavours. Hats off to you though.

 

[Brightonfan1983]

Cold in July. Michael C Hall ('im off that there Dexter) in 80s Southern States-set twistyish, dirty, entertaining, tense thriller. Though I'm not his biggest fan, he was watchable. The supporting cast, Don Johnson especially, is excellent. 7.6

 

[Brightonfan1983]

Has it?
It's taken about £2m already in the UK (it's ffed in the US due it getting the most adult rating possible)

I thought it was excellent. The kind of film 'we' do very well. I'm presuming the c word made a brief appearance for its rating in America? They're a funny old bunch...

 

[herecomesaregular]

Nightcrawlers - Massively impressed by this on first showing, both Jake Gyllenhaal and his hapless employee Riz Ahmed (who I last saw in the excellent Shifty) put in superb performances. Jake is both funny (to laugh at) and chilling - he makes a great psycho. The story may be a bit unbelievable (who cares) but it was certainly gripping and tense. My fave film of the year so far. 9/10.

 

[Barry Izbak]

I like a long film, but GONE GIRL just went on and on.
If they cut 20 minutes out the story would lose nothing and I would give it even higher than my 7.5/10
Rosamund Pike is fabulous and this is my favourite of her films yet.

 

[CorgiRegisteredFriend]

Anyone seen The Babadook? Not my sort of thing but my girlfriend wants to go.

 

[SouthCoastOwl]

I like a long film, but GONE GIRL just went on and on.
If they cut 20 minutes out the story would lose nothing and I would give it even higher than my 7.5/10
Rosamund Pike is fabulous and this is my favourite of her films yet.

This - saw it yesterday and agree it needs to lose 20 minutes to half an hour.

 

[Acker79]

Anyone seen The Babadook? Not my sort of thing but my girlfriend wants to go.

It was Kermode's movie of the week this week (and he isn't a fan of films like The Conjuring, or Paranormal Activity sequels because they're all "quiet quiet quiet BANG!"), Den of Geek have been raving about the film since they saw previews.

 

[CorgiRegisteredFriend]

It was Kermode's movie of the week this week (and he isn't a fan of films like The Conjuring, or Paranormal Activity sequels because they're all "quiet quiet quiet BANG!"), Den of Geek have been raving about the film since they saw previews.

Thanks. That's my afternoon sorted. Dukes at Komedia for that one.