Films: The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass (2007)

Dir. Chris Weitz
Cast: Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman, Dakota Blue Richards, Freddie Highmore, Ben Walker, Sir Ian McKellan...

Imagine a world where people walk around followed by their souls in the form of an animal, where The North is a land of struggle, violence and mystery, and where adults begrudge the tendency of all children to get themselves covered in dust. Hang on, isn't this meant to be fantasy?

Philip Pullman's weird and wonderful story is brought the screen in this huge, visually enchanting movie. I was blown away by the visual effects, the scenery, the voice talent of the non-human characters, and even the movie debut of Dakota Blue Richards who plays lead character Lyra.

Lyra escapes the drudgery of her 'Uncle's' college when she is whisked away to assist the seductive Mrs Coulter (Kidman). The trip turns sour, however, when Lyra realises that Coulter is up to not good, and in charge of a thuggish group known as the Gobblers. Lyra has been given the last existing Golden Compass and soon finds that people will stop at nothing to get hold of it. The compass tells the truth to the person who can read it. Lyra and her demon (soul), Pan, journey to The North, enlisting the help of the Gyptians, families of children who have been taken by the Gobblers, and a huge armoured polar bear (voiced marvellously by McKellan). It is an adventure of the most exciting kind, where, of course, the good guys always triumph. However, the film ends on a cliff hanger, enticing audiences to sign up for the subsequent two films that will make up the trilogy.

A handful of stunning perfomances and even more stunning visual effects all add to this enchanting film. If you can get past the jargon which is used from the outset, assuming that we have all read the books and completely understand terms such as 'The Magisterium', 'Demons' and 'the Dust'. The world which is created is completely fantastical but strangely believable as the relationships between characters and Lyra's journey to save her friends are genuine.

My rating *** 3/5 stars
Recommendation: If you fancy escaping to a complete fantasy, you will enjoy this film. Forgive the oversuse of bizarre vocabulary and get involved! Not enough Daniel Craig for me, but I'm looking forward to the 2nd film!

Film: The Oxford Murders (2008)

The Oxford Murders (2008)
Dir. Alex de la Iglesia (oh sure, his name means 'Alex from the church!')
Cast: Elijah Wood, John Hurt, Julie Cox, Leonor Watling...


I'm not one to shy away from a film by an unknown director. I am not one to bring preconceptions to a film when I watch it (with the exception of anything involving Keanu Reeves or Andie MacDowell - sorry). This film seemed fairly intruiging to me. Is it possible to raise the profile of mathematical studies by getting the legendary John Hurt and Frodo Baggins himself on board? I like a good murder mystery and Oxford is a beatiful location. Like I said, I was quite interested.

It is hard to say what let me down, really. This film just did not deliver. Well, Oxford was beautiful, at least. I found the plot was too loaded, too heavy. The dialogue was predictable - I even quoted several lines before they were said. Wood brought his wide-eyed boyish quality to the character of Martin, a young mathmatician studying for a year at Oxford. However, this was not enough to carry him through the sketchy script, and his flaws certainly did not make him any more likeable. I think that is what was wrong. I could not empathise with any character in the film. Frankly, they were all utterly bonkers. Hurt put in a good performance but even he sounded ridiculous delivering some of his lines. Neither of the leading female roles made me jump for joy and note down their names for future releases.

The basic idea is that Martin (Wood) is an american student who believes in the power and structure of the secret structure of numbers to give us absolute truth. Lost already? Seldom (Hurt) is a slightly creepy and very grumpy professor and maths genius who denies Martin's claims. But when they both appear at the scene of a mutual friend's murder, where a peculiar mathematical symbol has been left, their brains start ticking. So the story traipses through a chain of murders and symbols, predictions, arguments, threatning conversations and one rather uncomfortable love scene. The film comes to a close in a way which is both a twist and the only completely logical ending. Nothing to write home about.

My rating: ** 2/5 stars
Recommendation: If you like maths you might like this. Or you might not. Or maybe if you have a brain that thinks, you might like it. Or not. If you are impatient, have something else to do or don't enjoy getting confused and then angry with yourself that you were confused by something so obvious, don't watch it. Ok?

Films: Hancock

Hancock (2008)
Dir. Peter Berg
Cast: Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman, Eddie Marsan.

John Hancock is a man of amazing strength, ability and...terrible people skills! This guy can take a shower of bullets, walk into a moving freight train, jump a mile high and fly even further. However, blessed with all these powers, Hancock cannot seem to win over the public. The first we see of him in the film is mouthing off to a young boy and drinking neat whisky.

Ray and Mary Embrey are a well-to-do and optimistic couple who could probably use Hancock not turning up in their life, but when he saves Ray's life, that's just what he does. And straight away you can sense there's some major part of the Hancock story missing. Oddly, it seems to lie in Mary Embrey. At this point, the storytelling part of the film loses its way and becomes somewhat rushed and staccato. The film does not allow itself enough time to expand certain aspects of the story. So, sadly, we are left slightly befuddled by the action that unfolds.

And action it certainly is. The special effects in this film are sensational and this is what kept me watching. Smith is charming in his portrayal of a misguiged superhero and his dialogues with Ray Embrey (Bateman) produce some of the films finest comic moments. But it is the effects which will stay with you after you turn off the DVD player. Rapid, electric, faultless visuals create the insane idea that Will Smith really can do all these things. Come on, if any Hollywood actor can, it's Will!

My rating: **** 4/5 stars
Recommendation: What the film lacks in narrative it wins back in execution. It's a visual feast. Just don't lose sleep thinking about the story!

TV MOVIE: Flood

Flood (ITV, 2007)
Dir. Tony Mitchell
Cast: Robert Carlyle, Jessalyn Gilsig, Tom Courtenay, Joanna Whaley, David Suchet

Flood exploded onto tv screens last night in the first part of this made for tv movie drama. Now, apparently this was first screened back in August last year, but I seem to have missed the boat (no pun intended) on that one. The teaser trailers which have been shown on ITV over the last few weeks were enough to get me interested. Well, it's Robert Carlyle (The Full Monty) and David Suchet (Agatha Christie's Poirot) in an epic looking movie about London being flooded. What could go wrong?

Well, generally nothing massive does go wrong. I'm talking in film terms here, not in the sense that London is hit by a huge wall of water and thousands of people are swept away. That's pretty bad. But the film is well produced, the cast are all great, and the story unfolds gradually in a way that means, at the dramatic cliffhanger last night, I was hooked enough to want to watch next week. Having thought about it, though, this could be more the fact that I just want to know which of the characters will survive and if it really will play out like an English version of other epic disaster movies like The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day. Yes, I can just hear David Suchet making some moving national address over the television as the camera pans out and the tv set floats upstream.

Let me explain the basic concept of the film. A huge storm travels across from the US and creates a massive waver which wipes out the Scottish town of Wick. The Met Office, trying their hardest to remain calm in the line of Suchet's piercing stare, make some pretty shoddy predictions about the storm blowing over. But of course it does not. Leonard Morrison (Courtenay) is a slightly estranged scientist who predicts that the weather will combine with high spring tides, overwhelm the Thames barrier and devastate London. Morrison's son (who, for the record, has issues with his father from his youth) and his ex-wife (always a winning combo in a drama) are the only people in the know who can possibly save the day.

The special effects are pretty spectacular. And the writers have considered the effects of a catastrophe of this scale on London's underground system, population, schools and hospitals. In fact, the scenes in the 'sit. room' with Suchet who plays the Deputy PM, and his team are some of the most convincing and tense. All in all, it's an interesting and not entirely improbable idea. But the film does steal from the aforementioned Hollywood blockbusters in its delivery. There have already been far too many scenes with people shaking fists and screaming 'noooooooo!' Even the regular freeze frame intercut with a digital clock ticking, very reminiscent of 24, could get annoying.

But I will tune in next Sunday nevertheless. I want to know if they manage to save London. If they do, the film will seriously plummet in my opinions, because they have pretty much set the scene for mass devastation. No, I'm not some sick freak who likes to watch suffering, but I do hate the, 'but wait, three people really can fight a 25 foot wall of water and win,' Hollywood-esque sentiment. British film can do much better than that. I'll keep you posted.

My rating (so far): *** 3 stars
Reccommendation: If you watched the first part, watch the second or you might go mad. If you didn't start it, don't bother.

Films: Brick Lane

Brick Lane (2007)
Dir. Sarah Gavron
Cast: Tannishtha Chatterjee, Christopher Simpson,Satish Kaushik, Naeema Begum,

It's always risky business treading the path of a well-known and well-loved book in the movies. However, Monica Ali's Brick Lane is brought to beautiful, sorrowful and hopeful visual excellence in the film adaptation. It is a film of newcomers, which only adds to its raw and honest quality. Gavron's directorial eye produces the film's breathtaking overall image, full of colour and light, and a kind of rough earthiness.

Chatterjee gives an amazing performance as the young mother of two daughters sent to England to marry an older man when she was just 17. She rarely needs to speak for the amount of expression she has in her eyes. The film is intercut with scenes shot in the lush, green Bangladeshi village of her youth, which is a vivid contrast to the red brick and market stalls of Brick Lane. Mrs Ahmed is stifled by her husband, who Kaushik plays in such a way that means you can't dislike him for long, and the wonderful stories of home that her sister writes in letters. The nephew of a clothing producer, Karim, comes into Mrs Ahmed's life and she is suddenly allowed to feel and be loved. However, on a backdrop of the events of 9/11, the pressure on muslims in Brick Lane becomes unbearable. Simpson (Karim) is brilliant; both innocent and forceful in his passion for Islam.

The film is beautiful and the characters are all portrayed wonderfully. Ali's novel comes out unscathed; in fact, it is literally brought to life. The story is so well constructed that the viewer is constantly in tandem as to how they want it to conclude. And when it comes to the conclusion, it is also perfect.

My rating: ***** 5 stars
Recommendation: Buy the DVD. It will become a firm favourite. Honestly, you won't regret it.

Films: Bienvenue Chez les Ch'tis

Bienvenue Chez les Ch'tis (2008)
Dir. Dany Boon
Cast: Dany Boon, Kad Merad, Zoé Félix, Anne Marivin

This film has taken over the French box-office this spring, a complete surprise success. Dany Boon is well known in France for his stand-up comedy, and he moves seamlessly onto film here. He brings his unique brand of visual and coloquial humour to the film, and his cast are absolutely brilliant.

The story follows the life of Phillipe Abrams (Merad) who has recetly been forced to move from the warm, beautiful South of France to Nord-pas-de-Calais for his job as manager of the local Post Office. He and his wife prepare for the worst - freezing conditions, simple people and definately no fun. However, the group that Phillipe meets, are warm and welcoming, no frills, laid back kind of people who become his best friends. They life a life full of riotous laughs and ridiculous situations that must be kept from Phillipe's wife who has become much more loving in the light of her husband's 'traumatic' new work situation.

The film is full of laughter, visual and verbal gags - even the title plays with the differences between the French accent in the north and south - and clichés about the north-south divide. It is very easy to watch, even if your French is not that good. The wordplay is hilarious and perhaps some of the funniest scenes revolve around a misunderstanding of the spoken word. However, it is during the four-minutes it takes for Phillipe and Antoine (Boon) to get completely plastered while doing the daily post round, that you completely fall in love with the whole film.

Rating: ***** 5/5
Recommendation: Try and pick up as much French as you can, but just enjoy the superb humour and warmth of this wonderful gem!

Films: Modern Love

Modern Love (2008)
Dir. Stéphane Kanzandijan
Cast: Alexandra Lamy, Stéphane Rousseau, Bérénice Bejo, Pierre-Francois Martin-Laval, Clotilde Courau, Stéphane Dubac

It's a French film with an English title. Why not? Taking the format of a film within a film, Modern Love follows the almost excrutiating rollercoaster of relationships of three couples. The first, which wins the film's most laughs, are the odd on-screen coupling of Marianne (Lamy) and Vincent (Rousseau). They sing, dance and sign their way through some brilliant cinema moments. Love conquers all and they literally ride off into the sunset.

The two 'real-life' couples are made up of Eric (Laval), the author of the film-in-the-film, and Marie, a woman who is so bizarre it's hard to see why Eric is so infatuated with her, and the bouncy, boyish Elsa (Bejo) and gorgeous Jérome (Dubac). There is a certain amount of characters crossing paths - though nothing to equal the likes of Love Actually - and neither couple ends up particularly happy.

Eric and Marie's strange relationship comes from a past which is never really explained, and what does go on between them is verging on the slightly weird. Eric is loveable however, as a tortured and love-struck writer. Elsa and Jérome have some very funny scenes but also never make a very believable couple.

I found myself just waiting for the next Marianne and Vincent musical number, which seemed to be the most enjoyable and actually most realistic. The finale is brilliant. If it's too complicated to say, why not sign how you feel? All in all, the film is funny and watchable, but it is the interspersed light-hearted songs that keep the audience from wondering whether all relationships in France are built on such disturbingly rocky foundations.

Rating: *** 3/5
Reccommendations: It's a quirky, French Rom-Com. You won't quite know how to react. Give it a try!

Films: Sweeney Todd

Sweeney Todd (2007)
Dir. Tim Burton
Cast: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jamie Campbell Bower

I know what you're thinking; It's a Tim Burton movie, featuring Tim Burton's brat pack. But can I say that it is so much more than that?!

Honestly, I was getting a bit tired of the Depp/Bonham Carter duo where Tim Burton is concerned. Perhaps he's trying to say he doesn't like change. Nobody understands Burton like the slightly dark, quirky misfits that these two actors always seem to come across as. However, I do not think that anyone else could have played the two leads in Sweeney Todd so convincingly.

Todd/Benjamin Barker and Mrs Lovett enter into a cruel and disturbed world of murder and cannabalism in order to avenge Todd's wife and daughter, stolen from him by the vicious Judge Turpin (Rickman, who may have been born to play the villain). Though the subject matter is bleak, the film plays out in typically Burtonesque visual glory and is spattered with black, occasionally uncomfortable, comedy. Depp's performance as the 'Demon Barber of Fleet Street' is fantastic. I didn't know whether to feel sorry for him or appauled by him. Likewise Bonham Carter's Mrs Lovett, whose silly infatuation for Todd leads her into a squalid life of crime. The two of them are simultaneoulsy terrible and loveable, and that's a lot to deal with in 116 minutes.

The whole film is shot in greys and blacks, with great sweeping shots of the murky London skyline, and the occasional glint of sharpened metal in Todd's derelict barber shop. Visually, this film is completely perfect. I begin to wonder whether Burton was born to direct this film. His sensitivity to imagery, colour and timing is absolutely spot-on. I'm not going to lie and say that the blood and gore is tame. It's bloody. Though, a word of warning would be that the slicing of people's throats becomes less uncomfortable than the grotesque manner in which Todd removes the bodies from his barber shop. It is an 18 certificate, and you have been warned. And then there's the music.

This film could have gone so terribly wrong on the back of a dreadful mistake in choosing to make it a musical. Thanksfully, it was quite the opposite. Sondheim and Wheeler's soundtrack is a masterpiece. I didn't even care that they were breaking into song every 2 minutes, in fact, I began to not even notice. The songs seem to flow in and out of the dialogue as though that were completely normal. Depp is a very talented singer (though some time a little nasal, with pangs of Jack Sparrow) and Bonham Carter's warbling cockney voice lends humour to every word she sings. Even Rickman gives it a try and he gets by.

Other performances of note are that of Timothy Spall, who is so accomplised at playing a weasly sidekick that he may never be offered another role again, and the naive, boyish Jamie Campbell Power. Sacha Baron Cohen, better known as Kazakh tv talking head, Borat, and Staines' very own Ali G, lends the film his own brand of ridiculous humour in one of the film's best scenes.

My only criticism is that too many cast members have 3 names where 2 is perfectly adequate, making reviewing a slightly laborious process. Otherwise, prepare yourself for a darkly satirical, disturbingly comical, musically wonderful 2 hours at the cinema.

My rating: **** 4/5 stars
Recommendation: Get past the gore and admire a beautifully directed and performed piece of cinema.

Film: Heath Ledger

Heath Ledger was found dead in his apartment yesterday afternoon. He was 28.

This news hit me like a punch to the gut. Someone so young, and just beginning to show some real, amazing talent. It reminds me of the tragedy of Brandon Lee and River Phoenix. And it makes me wonder why it happens. Could they really all hide how they were feeling from those closest to them?

Ledger is most famous for his career turning role in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain (2005), which saw him nominated for an Oscar. However, he is much loved for his parts in A Knight's Tale (2001), Monster's Ball (2001), The Patriot (2000) and 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). If you're familiar with any of his performances, you'll know that he was a young, good-looking guy who was about to become a truly brilliant actor. And that's what he'll always be. Heath, his raggedy blonde waves and dimpled grin will be immortalised.

It's been said that Ledger was suffering from insomnia since his most recent roles as Bob Dylan in I'm Not There and the Joker in The Dark Knight, which is due to be released in cinemas this summer. This might explain the sleeping tablets found in the bedroom alongside his body. But speculation will not bring any peace, resolution or answers. Despite having split from his girlfriend, Heath seemed to be completely in love with his 2 year-old daughter, Matilda, with no sign of wanting out.

We may never actually find out what happened to Heath. And we'll certainly never find out what was going through his mind on Tuesday afternoon. But he will be sorely missed by his family, and his detached but still genuinely mourning fans. Just because he's a movie star, his death is front page news, cameras surrounded his house and people crowded to pay their respects. It does not make him any less human, nor the event any less terrible.

Hollywood loses another young talent. Perhaps people ought to stop laughing about the exploits of our celebrities and their messy lives. These are the ones who are crying for help. Sadly, so sadly, Heath did not.