Taxing but compelling

Having won his place in the hearts of countless suburban multiplex-goers with such joyous spectacles as Weekend At Bernie’s 4: Suffer The Consequences and the more recent Harry Potter & The Ceaseless Pain Of Eternal Damnation, funny-guy movie director Michael Haneke returns to regale us with this light-hearted Scooby-Doo period-piece mystery packed with youthful exuberance and high jinx.

All right, most of you will realise I’m swinging it a bit there. Haneke is not your go-to man for fluffy fare suitable for the casual cineaste. Quite the opposite. But as Pocket-lint is the home of the forward-thinking and the innovative, it seems only fair that we should make room for one of cinema’s most progressive film-makers, especially as only A Prophet stand between The White Ribbon and Oscar glory (at the time of writing), and his 2005 film Hidden is viewed by many as one the last decade’s finest works.

Those unfamiliar with Haneke need to know that they’re in for a taxing but compelling session. Set in an idyllic village in Germany ahead of the First World War, The White Ribbon recalls a string of suspicious and traumatic events that shattered the peace and upset the feudalist harmony: the doctor is badly injured after his horse is felled by a tripwire, a barn is set alight, a mill worker dies and children are abused.

At the centre of it all is a group of youngsters, unsettling little Aryan sods who seem to dispassionately view these events, no matter how shocking. Among these children are Martin and Klara, the offspring of the local pastor, a noble man who strives to ensure their purity and keep the community’s moral compass from going royally on the fritz.?

Haneke seems to be setting up a logical path; find out what the kids are up to, set up a bit of retribution and then home for cocoa – but Haneke doesn’t like to play by Hollywood’s rules. Is it really the kids? Are the victims entirely blameless? Do we get to find out what’s going on? Not exactly. While much of mainstream fare seems to hang its narrative on traditional genre points, with a built-in need for payoff, Austrian director Haneke inverts those notions. While films conventionally use certain cues to move us, be it gore in a horror film, CGI, action scenes or the actor’s delivery of an emotive line, Haneke is able to operate on a plane that rejects all of those.

Instead he works on a truly subconscious level – he can locate our deep fears and discomfort and present them to us with the merest effort. Though narrated in retrospect by the village teacher, we aren’t given the benefit of his perspective, instead we’re placed in the middle of it, given no insight beyond that of the villagers. We may feel we suspect what’s going on, but ultimately that’s of zero help. What this means is that our way of experiencing the film is unique – instead of the film validating or disproving our hunches, we’re forced to take it as it comes, meaning we’re far more emotionally tied in.

Haneke knows this and plays his trump card scenes to maximum impact. A passing reference to incest is handled with such restraint and subtlety that its impact becomes devastating when insinuated onscreen. It’s all filmed with such crisp precision and measured build up that your focus isn’t allowed to stray from the point.

It’s already been well noted that this is an allegory for the rise of the Nazi party – the children stand for Germany’s dark future, with neither religion or the republican authority of the local baron able to stem the tide. What makes The White Ribbon so textured and complex is that there is no easy answer – everybody has to shoulder part of the blame, but there’s conversely the sense that it was also unstoppable.

Verdict:

Undeniably powerful and moving, The White Ribbon is a fascinating jigsaw that offers a rich, humanistic experience that works on multiple levels. Though set in the past, it gives us a timeless insight into the darkest parts of mankind, yet does so with a skill and vision that is hard to find fault with. That said, its appeal will be specific – its light touch may leave some a bit cold.

Rating: 15
Starring: Christian Friedel, Burghart Klausner, Rainer Bock
Directed by: Michael Haneke

Extras: trailer, featurette

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Home Cinema DVD

The White Ribbon – DVD originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Wes Anderson does Roald Dahl

Even though we here at Pocket-lint are coaxed into gleeful states of frothy delirium whenever technological advancements come into our purview, what’s equally heart-warming is that, rather than rendered past inventions as obsolete, such creations actually tend to increase the love for the thing that they’ve outstripped.

Have the CD and MP3 not helped foster warmth towards vinyl? Does the Xbox not make the Megadrive a fond reminder of how far we’ve progressed? Granted, DVD, Blu-ray and hard disks pretty much screwed VHS, but there’ll always be an emotional attachment to the advent of home cinema.

So as James Cameron leers over the film industry with his 3D CGI innovation like he’s some 35mm Gene Simmons from Kiss, so other pockets of Hollywood have retrogressed into cruder, but arguably equally magical practices; Disney has trumpeted a return to hand-drawn animation with The Princess & The Frog after years of hiding in Pixar’s pixellated shadow, and here we have cult indie darling Wes Anderson turning to old-school stop-motion animation for his latest eccentric angst excursion.

Boasting a voice cast that would draw admiring glances if it were assembled for a charity fundraiser, FMF is a highly elastic adaptation – though utterly heartfelt if the extras are any indication – of Roald Dahl’s classic tale. Said Mr Fox (George Clooney) goes cold chicken after him and his wife are almost killed during a raid on a nearby farmer’s coop. After spending years of domestic middle-class tranquillity as a father and newspaper columnist rather than as a hunter, the lure of the nearby farmers’ produce becomes too strong to resist, and as our hero has a form of mid-life crisis, he begins to go on covert sorties to the larders of feared local farmers Bean, Boggis and Bunce.

Meanwhile, the Fox family is joined by sporting nephew Kristofferson, serving to highlight the distance between dad and misfit son Ash. As the raid on the farms become more audacious, so the ire of the ransacked farmers increases – which spells trouble for the Foxes and the local animal community, with the cuckolded cock-merchants busting out the arsenal to take down the rustlers.

Man and beast soon become locked in a game of cat and mouse, until the capture of Kristofferson sets-up a final face-off between Fox and his gang and the joint human forces of Bean, Boggins and Bunce.

Like Spike Jonze’s indifference-generator Where The Wild Things Are, this takes sizeable liberties with the source material, both with using the books as jump-off points into more adult territory, arguably at the expense of the younger audience. This shouldn’t be held against Fantastic Mr Fox, as it has enough quality about it to find its own audience.

Wes Anderson is always a sod for the minutiae of everyday existence and relationships, and you don’t get much more mundane than the need to put food on the table and provide for your family. There’s a perfect match there on a base level, which Anderson then follows through with the emphasis on the relationships between the characters and their own personal issues, rather than the thrill of the chase.

Clearly, he’s more at ease with this than he is with action sequences. Fun action scenes there are aplenty, but Anderson’s love of the quirky means that these are more comedic narrative set-pieces rather than adrenaline-pumping spots. This has the downside in that you find yourself oddly impassive in places, but that feeling is never allowed to swell to a problematic degree, as the sheer beauty of the thing is overwhelming and amply compensates for that.

The quality of the visual design is truly impressive, as is the animation itself, which is so wonderfully fluid and intricately realised that you almost cease to notice it. This fluidity is echoed by the cast – Clooney plays the standard suave Clooney part, but this is the modified kooky version that the Coens get, which is hard to be too down on, while Meryl Streep offers maternal authority, warmth and grace as his wife, and Bill Murray brings that louche reassurance that he seems to have a ceaseless supply of. The keenly observed Britishness provided in the form of Michael Gambon completes a scene that’s so perfectly rendered that, even if you’re not at one with Wes Anderson’s angular Royal Tenenbaums schtick, you’ll still find plenty to make you happy.

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Verdict:

Some may find problems with The Fantastic Mr. Fox – it’s a kids’ film that’s more suitable for adults, and it’s possibly too mannered in its delivery for some, but it’s a distinctive and unique film that looks unlike anything else – and it takes a curmudgeonly spirit to not take any joy from it. ?
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Rating: PG
Starring: George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray
Directed by: Wes Anderson

Extras: Featurettes, digital version

Tags:
Home Cinema DVD

Fantastic Mr Fox – DVD originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Does Megan Fox shine?

It’s been a lively time for teen flicks in the past few years, from the multiplex-gobbling Twilight to the wry Superbad, and films like Juno and Adventureland have shown that there’s plenty of reasons for those of us who don’t look like members of the Skins cast to tuck in too.?Boasting a script from much-feted scribbler Diablo Cody, on the back of her Oscar win for Juno, this vinegary horror is shaped up to be Twilight’s snarkier evil twin.?

After driving off into the night with a bunch of occult-dabbling emo rockers, following a suspicious fire at a bar that kills a number of local kids, high school queen bee Jennifer’s behaviour takes a mysterious turn for the worse, as bloodlust and intestine excavation is curiously added to her CV – much to the concern of long-term pal Needy.

As the body count slowly rises, so do Needy’s fears for her buddy, as she slowly suspects that some demonic shenanigans are afoot. With the prom fast approaching, Needy needs to take matters into her own hands to prevent the ball becoming an entrails buffet.
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Jennifer’s Body could easily have been a predictable, mainstream slasher, but it merrily strives to be smarter than that. The basic idea is fine enough – take the classic hormonal teen bitch template and blow it up to a logical metaphorical conclusion – the change moody teenagers go through viewed as a form of possession; that’s fine, Ginger Snaps neatly pulled off summat similar with its time of the month/werewolf analogy.

Then you can factor in the catty vibe of films like Mean Girls and Clueless, which Cody has a decent stab at – the script is peppered with teen-speak snipes. Overall, there was ample fun to have been had, but there’s a sense that it doesn’t quite hit the right spots. Jennifer’s Body is keen to be smart-arse, but seems to struggle to get beyond the posturing; the script seems content to rest on neat turns of phrase that don’t add up to anything substantial, while Needy and boyfriend Chip drag the mental age down, with their simpering fecklessness.

Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell similarly used a sappy teen in the protagonist role, but this has none of the vitality that was present in that. Likewise, Raimi showed that a 15 certificate is no barrier for a decent, lively horror, a lesson Jennifer’s Body could have taken heed from, as much of the horror lacks any of the necessary visceral flourish. It could have been different if the crew had fun with the material – even the usually reliable JK Simmons, the oddball stalwart of recent Coens films, seems to find it hard to chomp his way through proceedings.
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But you do have to give Megan Fox some degree of begrudging acknowledgement as the titular neck-scoffing cheerleader. Despite being the tasty morsel on the end of the film’s red-blooded-bloke-baiting fishing rod, she actually does a bang-up job – granted the role she’s given is a bit of an open goal, but she’s the right amount of sassy and bitchy, delivers an amply playful turn and is given far more scope to enjoy herself and put in a decent acting shift than she was in Transformers. It’s no award-winning performance, but is sound casting, and next to Amanda Seyfried’s Needy, she comes over pretty well.

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Verdict:

While by no means a wasteful use of man’s thousands of years of human experience, knowledge and understanding, Jennifer’s Body just feels like it fell short of its potential. Not funny enough to be a comedy, not punchy enough to be a true horror, it constantly fails to find its mark. There are some neat touches in the script and it’s well shot, Fox fetishists will be pleased to hear, but it feels like an IKEA flatpack that frustratingly has those few screws missing that mean it never gets quite finished off adequately.

Part of me feels that time will be kind to it and it may grow minor cult status – but places like Blockbuster kick you out at 10pm, and it probably won’t get there in that time. ?
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Rating: 15
Starring: Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, JK Simmons
Directed by: Karyn Kusama
Extras: deleted scenes, digital copy

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Jennifer?s Body – DVD originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Just another teen flick?

Success in the Hollywood mainstream is often pretty much all about the maths – “from the people who brought you X” + “starring Y” x “vogue for Z” = smash. Here we have bloke behind Superbad, plus the girl from Twilight and the boy from Zombieland. Should be solid enough, you’d hope.?

Gloriously, Adventureland is much more than solid. Funny, smart, cool and cannily observed, it manages to wear the often-unflattering coming-of-age genre suit and still turn it into something quite fetching.?

When his father is blessed with a lousy job relocation and a pay cut, college-bound James (Jesse Eisenberg) is forced to ditch his plans to get all decadent in Europe, and instead make do with a crappy summer job in an amusement park with his pal Frigo – a man whose key mode of expression is a punch to the balls.

Feeling a fish out of water, and with testicular bruising his constant companion, solace for James arrives in the form of troubled indie hipster Em (Kristen Stewart), and soon a shared love of Lou Reed and dope provides the romantic glue between the pair. But their fling only papers over the problems that remain in their families and the lack of any real future to look forward to beyond the summer holiday.

To describe Adventureland in such terms will in all likelihood make it sound incredibly tepid, but it manages to rise above that and gnaw away at the inside of your head, doing guitar solos on our shared teenage memories. Overall it’s the feelings that it captures that are most striking. Never going for the overblown gesture, it superbly captures the uncertainties of being a teenager, along with the feeling of being an outsider, while also revelling in the joy of the freedom and stupidity there is at that age, and the tight bonds that grow when you’re stuck in a shitty job.

It may be set in the 1980s, but ironically, that just makes it all the more perennial, when you factor in the now-ness of lead actors Eisenberg and Stewart, both of whom do bang-up jobs – both mixing cockiness with struggle for identity. The script, narrative and casting all work in perfect sync too – there are plenty of clich?d characters in there, from the Napoleon Dynamite to the hot chick, but there’s always the sense that they’re more than just personality shells.

We shouldn’t really feel much sympathy with James, after all, he’s a middle-class smart-ass who hasn’t really got any problems when compared to the central character in the film Precious, but you get sucked into these characters’ lives more than you do with Precious.

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Verdict:

This really is great stuff. I’d be disappointed, but won’t be surprised if some people don’t find it that compelling – the reliance on character over laughs may disappoint some, though low blows have rarely been as funny, plus there are more than enough great lines buried in there to keep you going. But it’s a genuinely smart bit of cinema – funny and truthful, without dumbing down, with great characters whose stories are all perfectly told. ??
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Rating: 15
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds
Directed by: Greg Mottola

Extras: featurette, commentary, deleted scenes?

Tags:
Home Cinema DVD

Adventureland – DVD originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Ricky Gervais hits Hollywood

God loves a trier, which is ironic when the trier in question is devout atheist Ricky Gervais. Never one to dwell on his achievements – both The Office and Extras refused to outstay their welcome – and after just a clutch of acting gigs stateside, his first real stab at steering a major Hollywood project has resulted in this curious portion of philosophical fluff.
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Gervais takes the lead as Mark, an out-and-out loser, about to lose his job and get kicked out of his flat. The one thing he has to cling to is a date with Anna (Jennifer Garner), a beautiful specimen who has no reluctance to tell him how undesirable he is, or how low her expectations are for the date.

It’s not that she’s mean, it’s just because they both live in a world where nobody lies. Gervais gets great mileage out of this idea in a smartly scripted, if not so smartly directed or acted, opening section – brutal put-downs are exchanged at a dazzling rate, while the world of advertising is a gloriously different place than it is in our world.

On his fiscal uppers, Mark one day inadvertently tries it on at a bank. When they allow him to withdraw more than he has in his savings, a sizeable lightbulb flashes as Mark realises his luck is well and truly in. Eventually sussing how to get the best out of his new-found trick of not telling the truth, Mark reinvents himself, manoeuvring his way into Anna’s affections, though he also uses his gift to help others a bit while he’s at it.

Tragedy then strikes, as on his mother’s deathbed, he tells her there’s eternal bliss in the afterlife to ease her suffering. Word spreads rapidly about this heavenly realm and Mark is cast as a kind of prophet, leading to him getting all Moses and creating a set of Commandments with some Pizza Hut boxes. Which is all nice and that, but that causes its own set of problems, not least in that he’s still in a battle to overcome Anna’s maternal concerns over Mark’s fatboy genetics, made all the worse by the lurking presence of chiselled-jawed DNA-match arsehole Brad (Rob Lowe). Surely too, Mark must have some major uppance to come for his dastardly discovery?

Despite the mixed reaction it received and the uneven balance of comedy and drama, it’s hard to write it off totally. It’s pretty brave of Gervais to attempt to break the faith-loaded American mainstream by openly suggesting that religion is built on falsehood, and the underlying message is a pretty weighty satirical swipe that those familiar with his podcasts and stand-up will recognise.

Despite getting plenty of arfs out of the idea of a world where even the social nicety of lying is absent, and with an often snappy and cutting script, its premise is shot through with flaws – the lesser characters are far too one-note – maybe these people can’t lie, but conflicting emotions would surely have given them a a less-simpleton texture. This is all steeped in a Stepford Wives-esque delivery that is at times enjoyably idiosyncratic, at all other times infuriating.

Gervais himself makes for an odd central character. His Office and Extras shtick is reliant on the subtlety that exists beneath the broad arseholiness of his characters – they’re dicks, but you need the empathy he teases out the bland reality of many of the people around us. By having to make the comedy and delivery chunkier to fill the multiplexes, much of this is neutered.

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Verdict:

On top of that, Ricky lacks big-screen quality or fluid acting chops – his persona just doesn’t come across well enough to carry the picture and it feels like he’s sucking the film into a black hole, especially when he roams away from his stock-in trade of painful embarrassment. Had Ricky’s buddy Ben Stiller taken the role, who aces at believable losers you can engage with, you feel it might have been a bit more notable.

Overall, it’s a swell and interesting idea, but would have worked better if it hadn’t sought to appease a mass audience at the same time. ?
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Rating: 12
Starring: Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe
Directed by: Ricky Gervais & Matthew Robinson

Extras: featurettes, vodcasts, deleted scenes, gag reel

Tags:
Home Cinema DVD

Invention of Lying – DVD originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

As far back I as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a (French) gangster

Able to brush off plaudits like so much dandruff, French gangster opus Mesrine has already folk pointing at it, saying things like: “best crime flick since Scorsese, that is”. The crime scene genre is hardly a field that’s starved of cinematic action, so that’s some claim. So, is Mesrine any cop?

Well, it’s sprawling, striking, intoxicating and one of the suavest films you’re likely to see, if that’s any help. Mesrine is a dexterous, expertly executed work that feels fresh and timeless, both at the same time. Broken into two parts here, covering the best part of 4 hours, it unravels the tale and exertions of Jacques Mesrine (Vincent Cassel), the flamboyant criminal bete noire.

After serving in the Algerian war, he returns to France to discover that a life of increasingly unpetty crime is preferable to a job with a lacemaker. With a flair for breaking the law that’s matched by an uncompromising attitude, he’s taken in by crime boss Guido (Gerard Depardieu) before branching out as a one-man crimewave, with a penchant for bank-robbing and kidnapping.

Breaking out of prison and police custody is also a speciality, and it’s this quality, combined with a theatrical love of publicity, that gets the authorities’ backs up. Never without a dame on his arm or a brazen scheme afoot, Mesrine’s attention-seeking ways sow the seed of his inevitable finale.
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Like Goodfellas, Donnie Brasco and Bronson, Mesrine is loosely based on a true story, but despite the initial disclaimer about its fictitious tone, this one has the most convincing tone by far. Director Jean-Francois Richet gives us a story that isn’t hermetically sealed – we drift in and out of Jacques’ life, as the editing implies that plenty more happens off-screen. It follows a broad narrative arc, but has no obligation to stick to that prettying convention. Despite his obvious bad-boy bent, we also see Mesrine as a family man who tries to go straight, but even when he drifts back, there’s no need to dramatise the shift – it’s just who he is and where he’s most comfortable.

The lack of formula may grate with some, but it implies a trust of the viewer, that we don’t need a spoon-feeding of plot points. Luckily, the presence of Vincent Cassel in the lead role smooths over any such creases – charming, monstrous, funny, genial, terrifying and arrogant, often at the same time, he’s utterly compelling and effortlessly larger than life. Mesrine grows from a dapper hoodlum to a deluded cartoon, convinced he’s a noble revolutionary, yet Cassel keeps it even. Like Tom Hardy’s Bronson, the need to be notorious makes them compelling and likeable, while ensuring that the dark side of their character is never too far from view – it’s a neat trick to pull off. ?

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Verdict:

It’s also a treat to watch. When Cassel isn’t hogging your retinas, the cinematography pleasantly strokes your brow, with the lavish colour palette period setting helping to create a seductive world you really want to plunge into. There are faults – part one feels like it hogs the awesomeness, while after a while, the procession of girlfriends and sidekicks begins to blur towards the end, but by then you’ve been treated to such a bountiful wealth of excellence that you’ll scarcely quibble.
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Epic, consummate and entrancing, Mesrine: Public Enemy No.1 is a must-see for anyone who has a love of either gangster movies or world cinema.?
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Rating:?
Starring: Vincent Cassel, Gerard Depardieu
Directed by: Jean-Francois Richet

Extras: making-of featurettes.

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Home Cinema DVD

Mesrine: Public Enemy No.1 – DVD originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:03:47 +0000

Total joke?

Having helped reclaim the teen comedy from the American Pie gross-out gang, 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up director Judd Apatow attempts to move into a smarter, more mature, but no less funny terrain with the over-reaching, yet still perfectly satisfactory Funny People.

Apatow teams up with Seth Rogan once again, who plays Ira Wright, a no-mark comic who’s having to watch pals Mark and Leo (Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman) make a better fist of making it on the comedy circuit. Ira’s miserable fortune switches when he warms up for George Simmons (Adam Sandler), a fading comedian who’s using stand-up as a way of resurrecting his own flailing career and dealing with a terminal illness.

Seeing a kernel of talent in Ira, Simmons asks him to write some material for him, and ultimately takes him on as a kind of personal assistant. His condition helping him realise that he’d been a long-term dick to his ex-girlfriend Laura (Leslie Mann). George tries to make amends, leading to the pair rediscovering their feelings for each other, despite her being married with kids. All the while, George helps Ira find his feet as a comedian, as Ira in return helps George through his darkest hour ?- until a bit of good news for George changes everything.?

Funny People is unsurprisingly rammed with some quality one-liners and some solid comedy performances. Rogan, Hill and Schwartzman work well together, and shoot the shit with convincing ease. It’s also a treat to watch Rogan and Hill onstage, and the stand-up footage is shot with a suave, loose intimacy that gives a great freshness to their performance – and offers a good measure of how funny the guys genuinely are.

But Funny People is ultimately far too uneven, as the perfect balance between comedy and drama that Apatow achieved with Knocked Up is out of kilter here. It appears that the director is keen to heighten both the comedy and the drama, but all that happens is the distance between the two becomes more pronounced, with the softness of the predecessor making way for mawkishness. Dirty gags jostle with daytime soapiness, as George jumps through morality hoops of little great invention.

The imbalance is never better illustrated than in the scene where George and Ira rip the piss out the doctor as he outlines the seriousness of George’s condition – while humour is obviously being used as a defence mechanism, it highlights a simplified and unnatural balancing of realism and artifice.

It’s likely that your enjoyment will hinge on your own attitude to Sandler. Like Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, there are shades of Sandler’s own career in this – playing a comedian whose best days are behind him and who doesn’t actually seem that funny in his heyday, it requires serious dramatic acting chops to stir up major sympathy.

Sandler makes a brave attempt, but ultimately his turn helps leave the film mired in a middle ground of indifference. That said, Sandler’s not given much of a chance to shine, given that it’s hard to feel too sorry for a main character whose arc goes from being a dick to less of a dick to still a dick.?

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Verdict:

There are plenty of laughs to be had in Funny People, but it’s when it tries to move into dramatic territory that it comes unstuck. Keen to be seen as a youthful take on Woody Allen’s textured peak-period middle-class humour, it overstretches and becomes a flawed piece that takes too long to get over a simple message?- it’s no fun being fun.?
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Rating: 15
Starring: Adam Sandler, Seth Rogan
Directed by: Judd Apatow?
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Extras: Deleted, extended and alternative scenes, gag reel, featurettes

Tags:
Home Cinema DVD

Funny People – DVD originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

A welcome twist on the alien visitor tale

It’s suitably documented how Pavlov’s dog developed an innate response to repeated events, but did they stick around to see what happened when it got bored and sick of the sound of the bell? Was it ultimately able to fashion the “whatever” hand gesture with its paws?

I’m just wondering, as there have been some 60 years of celluloid alien invasions of Earth, responses to the threat of intergalactic occupation may peter out a bit. So I’m all a bit giddy, and fashioning large pointy foam fingers and celebratory bunting in honour of this smart and inventive film-making.

Turning the entire invasion angle on its head, District 9 finds a swarm of alien immigrants reluctantly pitching up in Johannesburg after their ship grinds to a halt. With the upper echelons of the society wiped out by a virus, only the poorer, less educated schmucks of the species remain, themselves weakened and malnourished.

Under global pressure, the South African government take the creatures in, housing them in a makeshift camp, which rapidly degenerates to a shanty town. With public hostility to the immigrants at a high, plans are made to relocate the aliens to a more remote area, segregated from an unwelcoming society. Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley), a jovial bureaucratic idiot, is instructed by a local authority to oversee the move, with the aliens’ rights seen as an obstruction that can be overlooked if necessary.

After accidentally getting infected during a search of an alien’s shack, Wikus finds himself having more in common with the aliens than he’d like, which in turn throws him unwittingly and painfully involved into the government’s darker intentions towards their intergalactic guests.

From Blair Witch to Paranormal Activity via Cloverfield, the fake documentary genre has shown that rather than being a gimmick, it’s a format that will allow your film to flourish if you have a solid and imaginative premise.?Smoothly working between retrospective interviews and the events of Wikus’ attempts at relocation, it cannily binds the events with the ensuing cover-up, as the shocking tactics of the authorities are laid bare.

Setting it in South Africa is a massive part of the story. Clearly, the underlying analogy with apartheid is unmissable, but it serves to add a further level of tension, rather than form the basis of a political tirade. This means that as the film swerves into a more conventional action film narrative, it doesn’t feel like the social critique is binned, it was only ever a framework for the events.

The location and kwaito soundtrack, both abundantly provincial and genuinely turbulent, also lend it a world cinema edge, making it a kind of City Of God for sci-fi heads.?

Verdict:

District 9 is one of the most striking, original and impressive films of the past year. Successful as both an action movie and social satire, it’s witty, impressive and more entertaining than most of Hollywood’s output.

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Rating: 15
Starring: Sharlto Copley
Directed by: Neill Blomkamp?
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Extras: Commentary, deleted scenes, making-of featurettes.

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District 9 – DVD originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

A classic in the making?

Should there come a time that a film is released starring Dame Judi Dench, George Clooney and Nick Griffin as action heroes in a 3D costume drama period piece documentary written by Harold Shipman and Danny Dyer and directed by James Cameron, Michael Bay and Spike Jonze, it still probably won’t split audiences to the same extent as Lars von Trier’s stunning and much harrumphed-about offend-a-thon, Antichrist.

Drawing plaudits and verbal nail-bombs in equal measure when it was first released, even now after the dust has settled, it’s hard to fathom what the consensus opinion is. The arthouse community, whose place it would have been to stand up for it against the Daily Mail brigade, are still torn, with as many leaving it out of their top 10 list of 2009 as there were who included it. With its infamous cocktail of graphic sex and violence playing off against the poignant exploration of grief and suffering, it’s hard to be indifferent to it.

Following the tragic death of their young son, presented in the prologue that feels like a painfully heartbreaking Marks & Spencer advert, a couple are left to cope with their grief. A psychotherapist himself, He (Willem Dafoe) attempts to treat her, and suggests they retreat to a cabin in the countryside – where She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) spent the last summer with her late son – and continue the therapy.

But his attempts to treat her depression are soon overwhelmed by her deep-seated personal problems and the oppressive nature of their environment, as her descent into mania reaches a brutal and eye-watering conclusion.

Antichrist isn’t easy to digest and it’s easy to see why many believe that Von Trier is merely seeking to aggravate his audience – the film ignores conventional structure, often plods aimlessly and offers some of the most uncomfortable imagery ever seen, all in the most aggressive manner possible. After the haunting, but showy intro, it settles into a beautifully filmed but ponderous exploration of the couple’s anguish.

The pair are given no character traits beyond their mental condition, even their names are unknown, meaning their anguish is never out of focus. Never mind the torture porn that follows, there’s plenty of mental torture porn here. The camera rarely lets them out of its sight, while the rest of the screen is often drenched in darkness, which suggests the chasm Von Trier is about to plunge us into.

The casting of Dafoe, here calming on the surface, yet eerie and unconvincing, merely boosts the unsettling tone. Despite the revulsion it inspired at Cannes, at the same festival Gainsbourg was feted for her part, and it’s only due to her textured, naturalistic and harrowing turn that the film comes close to matching the fine cinematography.

After a talky section full of dark portent, the final third veers off narrative course as violently as it plays havoc with our retinas. After the arthouse psychodrama, Von Trier decides to do a sharp old-school meets new-school horror swerve on us, of a fashion – an isolated cabin in the woods, mysterious fog and suggestions of Satanism give way to some Saw-style body horror, culminating in the now legendary circumcision scene. Using those horror tropes, but with the pre-established emotional anguish replacing the usual slasher sentiment, it feels unsettling, odd and discordant at the same time. The incidents of violence are brief, but as Von Trier has married physical and mental horror, the effect is hard to ignore.

In many ways, you don’t need Antichrist in your life. It’s easier and maybe better to know it exists, rather than experiencing it, such is it heavy-going, obstructive and unrewarding nature. The accusation that Von Trier is merely setting out to shock is hard to deny, as there seems no willingness to prepare you for the brutality, and that’s not even tackling the accusation of misogyny – personally I read that more as being tied in with her guilt-driven self-loathing.?

But it feels like there’s a bigger picture to consider. Von Trier has suffered from depression for many years – Antichrist was made under the shadow of it, and making this is arguably a form of catharsis for him, especially in the way that he is conveys his distaste for cognitive therapy. It all seems to suggest that rather than a movie, Antichrist is an attempt to capture the black state of mind that he and other people go through. Symbolism runs through it, and the violent acts could be the metaphorical expression of the desperation and depths to which a person in that condition finds themself.

Visually, this seems to be the case, especially with the abstract cut-aways that suggest a mental haze throughout and the absence of real-world markers. Van Gogh followed a similar trajectory, his then-reviled style embodied his history of mental illness, especially his skewed view of the outside world and his self-portraits after he cut his own ear. Maybe in time mistrust of what Von Trier has attempted may shift towards understanding.

Verdict:

Antichrist is not something that will fill a Saturday evening over a curry. It’s punishing, joyless and aggravating, not to mention absurd and hard to take. Anyone looking for the gore and titillation the knee-jerk publicity seemed to imply will be badly let down – it’s framed in too much sadness, and besides, it’s doesn’t remain once the required shock has been achieved. But still, for those who can look with impartial eyes, Antichrist is visually striking and thought-provoking.

Back in 1929, the slicing of an eyeball in Bunuel’s Un Chien Andalou caused similar outrage, now it’s a classic. Von Trier’s imagery and intentions may possibly have found approval from the surrealist Bunuel were he alive today – maybe the fuss is more indicative of society than Von Trier. Agitators like this are less cuddly than James Cameron, but history tells us we can’t deny them their place.?

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Rating: 18
Starring: Willem Dafoe & Charlotte Gainsbourg
Directed by: Lars von Trier?
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Extras: Von Trier commentary, interviews, featurettes, screen tests

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Antichrist – DVD originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:35:13 +0000

What happened last night?

Stag do, Vegas, booze, drugs, strippers, vomiting and the casting of Heather Graham – The Hangover boats a mighty number of signifiers that suggest that it was going for nothing nobler than the lowest common denominator.?Which makes it all the more prop-worthy that it went on to become arguably the cult comedy hit of the year.

The Hangover gets off to a flier: we quickly discover that the wedding-day plans of Doug (Justin Bartha) and Tracey are looking royally screwed. Doug’s friend Phil (Bradley Cooper) calls to tell her that he isn’t going to make it to the ceremony – the stag do got out of hand and now the groom is missing somewhere in Vegas.

Picking up amidst the debris of the morning after, Phil, Stu (Ed Helms) and Doug’s future brother-in-law, the stupendously maladjusted idiot Alan (Zach Galifianakis) need to find their buddy, and work out what the hell happened the night before.

With heads filled with the kind of fuzziness that comes from a serious night’s caning and a collective black-out that means they have no memory of the night’s shenanigans, the guys attempt to piece it all together from clues left in the wake of their carnage, including a lost baby, Mike Tyson’s tiger, a stripper, a stolen police car and the campest, most bad-assest Chinese character ever committed to film.?

Despite setting up for the broadest, crassest, laddiest end of the market, The Hangover is a pretty smart, well-judged affair – by steering away from the raucous events of the night before and focusing instead on the painful void the lads deal with the next day and the hunt for Doug, it’s less predictable – with it’s switching timeframe it’s kinda like Memento with a massive bar bill.

Without Galafiankis the film would have been a lot less fun, so give thanks that he is in. While the rest of the main characters have a bland everyman quality that lends a believable quality to the ridiculous scenario, his lowdown oddness and daisychain of bizarre one-liners dominate the laughs. He’s not the sole source of mentalism, though – Ken Jeong’s over-the-top fey mobster gloriously stomps all over proceedings in the final third, as Doug’s whereabouts becomes clearer.?

Verdict:

It may fall well short of the wiseass-buddies-do-Vegas benchmark set by Swingers, but The Hangover is still a canny comedy that works by having a neat set-up, backed up by a fresh script that’s packed with solid gags. Throw in some great comic performances and you’ve got yourself a sound evening’s entertainment.
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Rating: 15
Starring: Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis
Directed by: Todd Phillips
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Extras: Gag reel, featurette

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The Hangover – DVD originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0000