Author: Jason Day

New UK movies released: Friday 5 December

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A list of all new films being released in UK cinemas, as of Friday 5 December. To get details of screenings near to you, use the Find Any Film website and search by title and location.

Action Jackson

Bollywood action film starring the decidedly buff Ajay Devgn. For more, see the official Facebook page.

Black SeaBlack Sea poster

Taut sounding action thriller with Jude Law being directed by The Last King Of Scotland’s (2006). He is a rogue submarine captain heading to the bottom of the Black Sea to hunt for treasure aboard a sunken ship. David Threlfall co-stars. More details are on the official website and it will be playing just about everywhere.

Bonobo

A marriage is put to the test when the wife is offered lucrative work as an escort. The money is great and they are desperate, but how will their otherwise idyllic family life cope emotionally and sexually? Pretty looking drama starring James Norton and Josie Lawrence, find out more on the official website. Showing at key cities only.

Eastern Boys

Crazy sounding French gay film in which a man propositions an Eastern European rent boy and ends up with a whole gang of them partying in his flat the next day. Billed as a love story and a taut thriller, this is an odd looking pick-up. The official Peccadillo Pictures webpage includes screening locations.

Get Santa

British, festive comedy with Jim Broadbent and Warwick Davis. A father and son team up to save Christmas once they discover Santa Claus sleeping in their garage after crashing his sleigh and finding himself on the run from the police. It will be showing at most UK cinemas.

The GrandmasterThe Grandmaster poster

Martial arts action film charting the back-story of the man who trained film legend Bruce Lee. Starring Tony Leung and Ziyi Zhang and with choreography from the team behind Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), there are scenes in the trailer that look beyond ravishing with eye-boggling fight scenes. The official website will impart a bit more; showing at key cities only.

Hello Carter

It doesn’t auger well for a movie in this era of social media-driven marketing when its Facebook page has only 15 likes (as of 30 November). Shame as this is a cute looking comedy starring Charlie Cox and Jodie Whittaker. Down-on-his-luck Carter has been dumped, lost his job and his home. On a mission to win back his ex-girlfriend, he agrees to help her psychotic brother, which starts a chain reaction of adventures. The official Facebook page is here and it will be showing at key cities only.

My, Myself and Mum

French comedy about a young man embracing his inner heterosexual after being brought up in a manner in which everyone assumes he is gay. Originally released in France more than a year ago, the official website will give you photos and the trailer. Showing at key cities only.

Mea Culpa

French thriller about good cops Franck and Simon. Their lives take a tailspin when Simon causes a tragic car wreck after drink driving. A few years later and out of the police, he is forced to take matters into his own hands when his family is in danger. It will be on a limited run only so use Find Any Film for cinemas near to you or keep your peepers out for your local art house cinemas listings.

Men, Women & Children

Drama about a group of high school teenagers and their parents as they attempt to navigate the many ways the internet has changed their relationships, their communication, their self-image, and their love lives. Starring Jennifer Garner and Adam Sandler, you can catch it at almost any cinema. Get more details from the official website.

Open Bethlehem

Documentary from director Leila Sansour as she returns to Bethlehem to make a film about her home town, soon to be encircled by a wall. She intends her film to be a tribute to her late father, founder of Bethlehem University, and a man regarded as a hero by his town’s folk. As Bethlehem approaches ruin her decision to flee this sleepy town, taken much to her father’s regret, comes to haunt her. Find out more on the official website, it will be screened at locations across the UK, but check out your local cinema listings.

The PyramidThe Pyramid poster

Grim and scary-looking Indiana Jones meets The Blair Witch Project (2009) horror from the producer of The Hills Have Eyes (2006). The official website has more details and it will be showing across most UK cinemas.

School of Babel

Documentary following a group of teenagers from as far afield as China and Brazil after they arrive in a French High School and are enrolled in the same class. The New Wave Films webpage has the lowdown including the key cities it will be playing in.

St. Vincent

Bill Murray vehicle about Maggie (Melissa McCarthy) and her adopted 12-year-old son, Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), who move next door to war veteran Vincent (Murray). When Oliver gets locked out after school one day, Vincent allows him to stay at his house until his mom gets home. Because he has bills up to the ceiling and is desperate for cash, he tells Maggie he’ll babysit Oliver every day after school. Vincent then introduces Oliver to his lifestyle, including gambling, drinking, and his relationship with a Russian prostitute (Naomi Watts). Check out the official website for some extra titbits, it will be playing just about every place.

And on Monday 8 December…

The Polar Express

Not the greatest, but possibly the most fun, Christmas film ever made. Robert Zemeckis’ enduring fantasy is about a little boy taken on a magical night-time journey to the North Pole to see how Christmas is wrapped up by Santa, courtesy of the titular, always on-time train (clearly this is not set in the UK). A one day special screening via Cineworld, check out the Park Circus website for details.

And on Thursday 11 December…

Montana

East End action thriller starring Mads Mikkelsen about a former Serbian Commando who bonds with a young boy whose father has been killed by a criminal gang lord. Showing at key, Showcase Cinemas only, the official webpage is here.

Withnail and I (1987)

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Film review of the Beatcheck screening, in Stony Stratford, of the cult classic comedy starring Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann.

COMEDY

5stars-Excellent-genius-a-classic

 

 

Cast & credits

Producer: Paul M. Heller.
Writer: Bruce Robinson.
Camera: Peter Hannan.
Music: David Dundas, Rick Wentworth.
Sets: Michael Pickwoad.

Richard E. Grant, Paul McGann, Richard Griffiths, Ralph Brown, Michael Elphick.

Synopsis

Two out of work and alcoholic actors (Grant, McGann) live in a squalid North London flat and dodge crazy drug dealers (Brown) and the attentions of Grant’s homosexual uncle (Griffiths) as they wait for the phone to ring from their agents with that elusive job. Deciding to escape the depression of their lives, they embark on a holiday to Griffith’s isolated cottage near Penrith ostensibly to recuperate. But events take a comical and very drunken turn.

Review

The archetypal British cult classic, director Robinson’s unapologetically part-autobiographical comedy about two archetypal struggling actors, boozed and pilled up, flailing in their own fetid flat and delusions of success.

I saw the film many years ago and had only dim recollections of it as I approached this screening at The Crown pub in Stony Stratford, the historic Buckinghamshire market town that doubled for Penrith in the movie. The pub, that the lead characters nip into for a quick few jars, is still open and serving “the finest wines known to humanity”.

This was an interesting and highly entertaining experience, watching a film about people getting pissed with people who were also getting pissed, a sort of ‘Intoxicated Immersion Cinema’.

Beatcheck screenings are refreshingly free easy compared with your usual film society. We were issued with ‘Fight Club’ style rules namely watch the film, go to the toilet whenever you want, get drinks from the bar whenever you want (open throughout the movie) and quote as freely as you like. Excellent tips that served the patron sat next to me well, who discreetly whispered lines of dialogue at key moments.

A merry, inebriated audience participation flowed, a few pre-empting shouts at the screen, a few glasses knocked over as people picked their way over legs and chairs in the darkness, but much fun was had by all.

And so onto the film itself. A million words of fanatical appreciation have already been scribbled about Withnail and I will duly follow suit. I love this film. It’s bonkers and right out there in the so-grossly-exaggerated stratosphere that a large proportion of it has to be true (check out this fan appreciation site for what absolutely happened in real life).

The irreplaceably funny moments include Withnail (Grant) smearing himself in Deep Heat to keep warm and then downing lighter fluid (an incident attributed to the late actor Vivian MacKerrell, a former flat-mate of Robinson’s), Withnail cunningly avoiding being beaten by a burly Irishman, the duo attempting to feed themselves by fishing in a river using only a shotgun, Brown’s uniquely placable accent and profoundly nonsensical whitterings as drug dealer Danny and Uncle Monty’s (Griffith) failed seduction of I/Marwood.

The dialogue is precious and places the film perfectly on its own two legs. It’s unimaginable for such splenetic, foul-mouthed words to sound so clever and beguiling. Griffith’s ridiculously covert, gay innuendo in which he replaces male sexual organs with a variety of root vegetables will induce a chuckle in the most repressed of cinema-goers, but he is also given to vivid prose (as dusk approaches, he says ‘the sky is bruising’, a brilliant description).

We are not given much information about the back story of the characters, except that they are all failures to some degree, looking either wistfully or with angry regret on their pasts. Uncle Monty never had the confidence to pursue acting and will “never play the Dane”, Withnail scorns the producers and directors who haven’t utilised his talent, other male actors having probably prostituted themselves to get ahead. I/Marwood is prone to sub-Byronic poeticism to surmise his current, fetid predicament.

Promise is unfulfilled in Withnail, as evidenced in his final scene as he delivers a perfect soliloquy from Hamlet to artistically ignorant zoo animals, he’s stuck in a never-changing present of disappointing phone calls to his agent, depressive ramblings and constant thirst for booze. I/Marwood is hopeful and looks ahead, manages to avoid the bottle and lands a plum leading role, much to his surprise.

Grant was never better than this performance, the one that launched his careers (though the film earned only a pittance when first released), revelling in the fevered ramblings, shouting at schoolgirls, the landscape or anyone who will listen to him. Grant is teetotal in real life, requiring some skilful manipulation by director Robinson to coax out this classic, piss-head turn.

McGann’s almost angelic, curly haired good looks are presented in complete opposition to Grant’s sweaty, deathly pallor, but his anxiety ridden and slightly naive ‘I’ is just as impressive. Griffiths and Brown  round off a remarkably funny quartet of performances with inimitable, irreplaceable performances.

The Drop (2014)

The Drop film still Gandolfini Tom Hardy
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Film review by Jason Day of crime drama The Drop starring Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace.

Director: Michael R. Roskam. Chernin Entertainment/Fox Searchlight. (15).

CRIME

3stars-Good-worth-watching1

Cast & credits

Producers: Peter Chernin, Dylan Clark, Mike Larocca.
Writer: Dennis Lehane.
Camera: Nicolas Karakatsanis.
Music: Marco Beltrami, Raf Keunen
Sets: Thérèse DePrez.

Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, James Gandolfini, Matthias Schoenaerts, John Ortiz, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Michael Aronov, Morgan Spector, Michael Esper.

Synopsis

Bar tender Bob (Hardy) keeps his head down and keeps the drinks flowing during shifts at his cousin Marv’s (Gandolfini) bar in Brooklyn. Marv’s is a ‘drop’ bar, namely an unofficial place where the proceeds of criminal activities by local gangs (ringleader: Aronov) can be safely dropped and stored during an evening, for collection when the bar has closed. But Marv has other plans for the small fortunes that he stores and is working behind the scenes with local low-lives such as Schoenaerts to rob the criminals, unbeknownst to the kindly and unquestioning Bob. Bob meanwhile develops a romantic attachment to the brittle and abused Nadia (Rapace) when he picks up a stray dog that has been left in her rubbish bin. A dog that was dumped by her violent ex Schoenaerts.

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The Imitation Game (2014). Film review of the Alan Turing code breaking WWII drama

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Film review by Jason Day of The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley about the code-breaking work of Alan Turing.

Drama

4stars-Very good lots to enjoy 1

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UK films out this Friday (w/e 14 November 2014)

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A list of new film’s to be screened in UK cinemas as of Friday 14 November 2014.

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UK films out this Friday (Friday 7 November 2014)

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A list of the new movies that will hit UK screens as of Friday 7 November 2014

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UK films out this Friday (31 October 2014)

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A list of new films being released in UK cinemas from Friday 31 October 2014.

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A Separation / Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (2011)

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Film review of the Iranian divorce drama A Separation (2011) from director Asghar Farhadi.

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UK films out this Friday (24 October 2014)

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A round up of the main, new films that will hit UK cinemas as of Friday 24 October 2014…

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The Past / Le Passe (2013)

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Film review of the French/Iranian divorce drama The Past starring Berenice Bejo.

Director: Asghar Farhadi. Memento/France 3/Sony et al.

4stars-Very good lots to enjoy 1

 

 

Producer: Alexandre Mallet-Guy
Writer: Asghar Farhadi.
Camera: Mahmoud Kalari.
Music: Evgueni Galperine.
Sets: Claude Lenoir.

Berenice Bejo, Ali Mosaffa, Tahar Rahim, Pauline Burlet, Elyes Aguis, Jeanne Jestin, Sabrina Ouazani, Babak Karimi, Aleksandra Klebanska.

SynopsisThe Past poster

Arriving in Paris four years after leaving his wife, Ahmad (Mosaffa) is in town at Marie-Anne’s (Bejo) behest to finalise their divorce. She wishes to formally break with Ahmad to pursue her new relationship with Samir (Rahim). Samir’s wife Celine (Klebanska) is in a coma and Mare-Anne’s eldest daughter Lucie (Burlet), from a relationship with another man, disapproves of this new union. The secrets and lies of this complicated family are explored.

Review

Writer-director Farhadi has a specialist cinematic interest in quietly moving, but earth-shattering human dramas.

His first major hit, A Separation (2011) dealt with the personal, social and political fall-out that follows an Iranian couple who are going through a divorce, employing a close, interrogative style throughout. The film was a big hit with international audiences and won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

This, his follow-up, hasn’t quite achieved the same sort of peer/critical praise or box-office business, despite having a relatively big and talented star in Bejo (The Artist, 2011) in the lead role, but he continues his microscopic examination of family conflict and resolution with the same degree of artistic success.

For a film that deals with the things that are left unsaid, unresolved or ignored, Farhadi sets the tone perfectly during the opening scene at the airport. Marie-Anne signals where she is to Ahmad and he approaches. They talk but their words are not heard as the plexiglass between them mutes their conversation. They appear to understand each other, but it is a clearly awkward reunion and they soon argue when they drive to pick up her daughter from school.

It is a moment that underlines the emotional earthquakes, as Farhadi has mentioned in interviews, that can emanate from seemingly innocuous daily events, sending shockwaves that rumble in the background waiting to let-rip at any point, creating painful fissures in his characters that can unstable them for long periods.

Lucie, having forwarded her mother’s intimate emails to Samir’s wife, did the smallest of things but the repercussions have had devastating, life-altering consequences she could not have foreseen, including her own near breakdown at what she has done. Whether this maliciousness or the folly of immaturity, she none the less pays a heavy price for it.

Samir and Marie-Anne are walking in the streets of Paris one day and he carelessly steps onto the road without looking and is nearly run over, Marie-Anne only just pulling him back in time. This is the tiniest of things, but is their relationship already doomed to be a car crash involvement?

Fouad (Aguis) spills paint on the floor and Marie-Anne locks him in a room, as she may wish to shut Ahmad out of her life. Whatever the interpretation of these events, it is by focusing on the minutae of daily domestic life that Farhadi draws us into a compelling and intensely cinematic style of film-making.

He uses the same silent conversational approach later, when Ahmad bids goodbye to Naima (Ouazani), Samir’s colleague, after questioning her about the day Samir’s wife committed suicide at the dry cleaners where they work. She seems to give an honest account, but has clearly omitted something from her recollection that she thus carries with her.

Celine, in her comatose state, is not only not heard but is unseen until the very last moment, the fulcrum for the drama is silent and unresponsive to the disaster she has helped cause, her position on matters given only by the views of others. I challenge viewers to not turn their eyes from the final scene as the end credits roll!

Even though past events haunt and taunt the protagonists, there is a chance to let go, restart and move on. Ahmad’s return is a point of interest: he hasn’t explained why he walked out on Marie-Anne all those years ago. He broaches the subject with here but she doesn’t want to hear as it is ‘in the past’. He none the less seems to atone for his previous sins by acting as an unofficial family therapist, ridding their closet of the skeletons that would otherwise continue to tease them and securing a possible, better relationship for Marie-Anne and Lucie and also Samir with not only his difficult son but also the neglected, suicidal wife who will more than likely never wake up. Despite the pain caused by his return, he is the catalyst for new beginnings.

The performances are uniformly excellent, especially Bejo who is at power-house best and deservedly won the Best Actress prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. But its Burlet who is more impressive, essaying a quietly perfect performance as a troubled teen who torments her mother in order to secure her love and validation. It’s a knockout turn in a film littered with them.