January 15, 2012
As Steven Spielberg’s old pal George Lucas once said: “Emotionally involving the audience is easy. Anybody can do it blindfolded. Get a little kitten and have some guy wring its neck.” By my count, someone threatens the life of the horse (in War Horse) roughly every half an hour. That’s a lot of mortal jeopardy. Cynics will argue that Spielberg endangers the animal for the sake of the box office. But I don’t think cynics should be allowed to see this film. For while it may well be corn-fed sentimental hokum, every bit as contrived as Lassie Come Home, there’s something undeniably moving about War Horse. Spielberg is fascinated by our capacity for good. He might be a sap, but my God he knows how to make a movie.
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Posted by jtatham
January 8, 2012
It’s hard to be dapper in the age of rappers. The whole idea of wealthy chic went out with the top hat, and the art of deference. Perhaps we had to see the rich like jewels – something rare and precious – in order for them to shine. In Michel Hazanavicius’ movie, The Artist, we’re tastefully transported back to a time when film stars were treated like aristocrats. The movie is an air kiss to silent cinema. In execution, it’s as impeccable as a Cartier watch. I’m not sure it’s about anything, other than giving pleasure, but I felt about a thousand times more suave for having seen it. Perhaps it’s enough, to be like a movie-lover of the 1920s: to swoon over trompe l’oeil, and to feel the romance of life in lustrous black and white.
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Leave a Comment » | Film Reviews, International Film | Tagged: Bérénice Bejo, Jean Dujardin, Michel Hazanavicius | Permalink
Posted by jtatham
December 22, 2011
This review is dedicated to Tom Wheeler.
Everyone in this movie is waiting for a sign. The Future is uncertain; it’s like a form of semiotics. How would a happy couple know each other if they forgot they were a couple? How do people who want sex attract the likeminded? How is it that a picture connects with a person? And what do we want people to understand about us? The signals are everywhere. But if we’re too ready, we risk picking up the wrong signals. If we’re unprepared, we risk sending no signal at all. We can be forgotten far more easily than we can be understood. In Miranda July’s sophomore effort as writer/director, everyone wants to communicate their innermost thoughts. The question is: how do we interpret this sincerity? As kitsch?
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Leave a Comment » | American Film, Film Reviews | Tagged: Hamish Linklater, Me and You, Miranda July, Tracey Emin | Permalink
Posted by jtatham
December 18, 2011
When I was a kid I was obsessed with two things: Sherlock Holmes and the dubbed English language version of the Japanese TV show, Monkey. Seemingly, these two things have nothing in common; one is about an aloof, analytical, brilliant English detective – while the other is about an Asian guy in make-up doing bad karate. However, it’s clear from Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows that director Guy Ritchie has made a connection between these two, and the resulting film is exactly the kind of escapist nonsense that defined British television back in the eighties. Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes is like magician David Blaine crossed with Chuck Norris, he’s a cross-dressing bohemian Kung Fu master who also dabbles as a sleuth.
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Posted by jtatham
December 4, 2011
Aliens aren’t born; they’re made out of fear. Sounds ominous, doesn’t it? Well, don’t worry. I don’t intend to write a serious review of The Thing. Movie aliens aren’t projected out of existential dread. Their origins are rarely so subtle, or enlightening. Movie aliens are mostly crude manifestations of latent phobias…and blatant prejudice. Think of the penis-shaped monsters in Alien, or the dreadlocks worn by the Predator. Hate-filled extra-terrestrials are usually dreamed-up by hate-filled little men. I’m half-way sure the new version of The Thing is surreptitiously homophobic (but more on that later). It’s strange the way creatures from other worlds are always made out of the icky parts of things we find on Earth.
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Posted by jtatham
November 27, 2011
This is a movie about fearing the end of the world. It’s more about anxiety than the apocalypse. Whatever metaphors are contained in the script, the sense of impending doom is palpable, and unsettling. The whole film plays like a bad dream, where hidden meaning is secondary to throat-sucking dread. All horror films are about the same thing, but they let you off when the nightmare takes shape. In Take Shelter, fear is amorphous. We don’t know if the worst is real, or inside a man’s head. And that uncertainty is the conceit. Worry drives you mad. But worry warns you of danger too. It paralyses you even as it prompts you to act. That’s why the gift of prophesy is so alluring. Once you’re certain, you don’t feel angst.
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Posted by jtatham
November 20, 2011
Yes, you get to see Michael Fassbender’s penis in this movie. And yes, it’s big. But full frontal male nudity can’t hide the religious aspect of this film. I know the guys who made the Narnia movies have an idea of what “religious” means. But they’re wrong. Shame is a true religious movie. And not because anyone in it espouses religion; not because anyone is (I shudder to even use the word) “saved”; but because this film is about being human, because it abides with shame. Those who know Wim Wender’s Wings of Desire will be hard pressed not to picture an angel sat beside Michael Fassbender as he rides the subway. Love might be totally absent from this man’s life, but that only makes his struggle more profound.
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1 Comment | American Film, Film Reviews | Tagged: Carey Mulligan, Michael Fassbender, Wings of Desire | Permalink
Posted by jtatham
November 13, 2011
There is always an audience for hokum. Whether it’s an inspirational teacher story where the teacher only has one class, or a fight for justice where the lawyer breaks down in tears, the fantasy version of reality is always a sure bet for good box office returns. Nowhere is this more the case than in movies about the civil rights movement in America. According to Hollywood, there was such a tiny minority of actual bigots in the South, it’s a wonder racial segregation got started in the first place. As the new adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s novel, The Help makes clear: white folks were just itching to do right by African Americans in the 1960s. The only mystery is why black people didn’t ask white folks for help earlier…
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Posted by jtatham
November 5, 2011
You’ve seen the right-wing version of this film countless times. Charles Bronson made a career out of killing guys like Kevin: the sneering psychopaths we love to hate. But every psycho has a mother. That’s the hook – both in Lynne Ramsay’s new adaptation of Kevin, and Lionel Shriver’s unusual best-seller. This is story of a woman’s private hell. The mood of the film is toxic: polluted love. You want to see Kevin pushed off a cliff. You want to see him hang, see him riddled with bullets. But he lives. This is not a thriller, or a horror story. There is no vengeful resolution, because the heart of the drama isn’t: Who will stop Kevin? It’s: Who’s to blame? His mother is an accomplice to the crime. She’s not the hero.
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1 Comment | British Film, Film Reviews | Tagged: Ezra Miller, Lionel Shriver, Lynne Ramsay, Ordinary People | Permalink
Posted by jtatham
October 16, 2011
There may be a movie that could save Mel Gibson’s career, but this ain’t it. Never mind the premise. The Beaver is flawed from top to bottom because there isn’t a single scene you believe. Every metaphor in the script is leaden; every possibility of black humour is ignored. The family at the centre are a bad writer’s idea of a family. And no homily is rejected as being too corny or undeserved. Frankly, I wanted to flog screenwriter Kyle Killen with that damn glove-puppet. His writing has about as much truth as an anti-aging commercial. Make no mistake: this is a shallow precocious screenplay. It’s all hat and no cattle, as the saying goes. Like a bad ventriloquist, all you can hear is a lack of talent talking at you.
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Leave a Comment » | American Film, Film Reviews | Tagged: jodie foster, Kyle Killen, Mel Gibson, Percy Bysshe Shelley | Permalink
Posted by jtatham
