#AlejandroIñárritu #TheRevenant #LeonardoDiCaprio#EpicMovies #CelebQuotes #FilmDirector #Birdman#inarritu #films #movies #MovieNews #Hollywood#BehindTheScenes
Thursday 29 October 2015
#AlejandroIñárritu #TheRevenant #LeonardoDiCaprio#EpicMovies #CelebQuotes #FilmDirector #Birdman#inarritu #films #movies #MovieNews #Hollywood#BehindTheScenes
fiLmReviEw
CRIMSON PEAK [2015, USA - English]
Guillermo del Toro quickly became a director whose work I'll look out for, simply because of a single film in 2006, Pan's Labyrinth. Achieving universal critical acclaim, the Spanish dark fantasy remains one of my top films of all time. Thereafter, his credits has extended to co-writing all the three instalments of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit trilogy, and helmed the 2013 sci-fi monster film Pacific Rim. On the surface, his latest horror flick Crimson Peak's main attraction to me is definitely the cast, led by Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Charlie Hunnam and Jim Beaver. Couple it with goth, seduction and a Victorian set-up in the 1900s, sounds like a concoction of another must-watch. Furthermore, Hiddleston and Chastain are two of the few names that I've made a point to watch all their films.
One clear thing about this film, is that it doesn't care much about predictability. It starts off with innocent Edith Cushing (Wasikowska), an aspiring writer who experiences a sudden demise of her father (Beaver) and gets swept away from her wealthy enclave in New York by the charming Sir Thomas Sharpe (Hiddleston), who brings her to live with him and his dark, possessive sister Lady Lucille (Chastain) in their crumbling mansion on a remote mountaintop in Cumberland. In the early stages of the plot you would know that this is a tale of goth, dark romance, and there'll be seduction, and there'll definitely be ghosts. As we are invited into the siblings' manse, Allerdale Hall is so timeworn and decayed it's awfully beautiful. Whilst Edith's broken heart is earlier won over by Thomas' effusive wooing and incantations (despite her knowing of her father's disapproval of him), once she moves in with them there is very little time left for romance. We learn that Thomas is locked within a twisted family heritage that left him and his sister destitute in both financial and normalcy. Audience is forewarned as well of an insidious scheme brewing, all against Edith.
So when Edith leaves her home in America, only to find herself waking up each night to ghostly noises and lonely explorations down long windy hallways, with an ornate candelabra in hand; one can't help but question the series of less logical moments so blatantly presented to the audience. You start a new life in a ghastly mansion with perspicuous encounters with ghosts, yet you continue to walk down the hallways every night, endangering your life without questioning or alerting your spouse? Such elaborate scheme mastered by the siblings to beguile Edith, yet they leave the most giving-away evidence of their secrets in convenient places for her to discover? Along with that, Del Toro has never been one to hide his ghosts and monsters, so we are treated here with a sumptuous cast of floating and crawling ghosts. Here lies my issue with this film, you can literally hear Del Toro's over-confident message chanted throughout Crimson Peak; here you go we're leaving all manner of hints and evidences out in the open, our plot may not even be the most sensibly written, but it's absolutely not an issue because the film is just such an eye-candy and visually captivating that you would agree and still walk out of the theatre thoroughly entertained. Well most critics have disagreed, and I'm with them.
Nevertheless, I must say this is to-date Del Toro's most visually stunning film. The star is of course Allerdale Hall. The enormity and exquisite details of the rotting manor could keep me enthralled for hours alone. The period appeal is well complemented by the seductive and splendid costumes designed by Kate Hawley, who Del Toro has previously worked with in his Hobbit trilogy and Pacific Rim.
Rating: C+
#CrimsonPeak #CrimsonPeakFilm #CrimsonPeakMovie#GuillermoDelToro #MiaWasikowska #TomHiddleston #JessicaChastain#CharlieHunnam #JimBeaver #PansLabyrinth #KateHawley #filmReview#MovieReview #horror #gothic #Romance #ghosts #Mansion#AllerdaleHall
#JakeGyllenhaal #CelebQuotes #HeathLedger#BrokebackMountain #AngLee #grieve #MaleCeleb
Sunday 25 October 2015
fiLmReviEw
THE WALK [2015, USA - English, French]
"To be able to create fully, it's maybe fine that you learn the rules, but you have to forget and to rebel against those rules."
- Philippe Petit
- Philippe Petit
We are once again brought back to the days where New York's Twin Towers stand tall, and thanks to Robert Zemeckis this breathtaking biopic is for once not using the much-publicized World Trade Center to emblematize all things destructive and gloom. In fact, this film is all about hopes, dreams and roseate aspirations. French high-wire artist Philippe Petit shocked the world in 1974 when he walked the 138-foot gap between the Twin Towers on high-wire, performing one of the most death-defying stunts 416 meters (1,365 feet) above the ground. This unbelievable dream was indeed inspired after Petit saw an artist's rendition of the pre-constructed Twin Towers in a newspaper at a dentist's office, as shown in the film. To prepare him for the role, Joseph Gordon-Levitt received support from the artist himself, where Petit personally trained Gordon-Levitt in an 8-day intensive workshop. "By the end of the eight days, I was able to walk on the wire by myself, and continued to practice while we shot," says the 34 year-old Looper and Don Jon star.
The film opens with Petit talking directly to us from the top of the Statue of Liberty, and he will be narrating the entire story through flashbacks. That was actually my biggest problem with the film. Whilst in most parts Gordon-Levitt's French accent worked for me, I must agree with critics who panned his overly done accent which make him sound at times like Pepe Le Pew. Coupled with (for no reason) an attempt to make Petit look all whimsical and Fred Astaire-esque throughout his narration, it completely pulls audience away from taking the film seriously; making this format totally unnecessary.
The film spends quite a fair length in showing the early stages of Petit's life, starting from a street performer in Paris to his meeting with French girlfriend Annie (Charlotte Le Bon), his high-wire mentor Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley with a rather weird accent) and eventually the rest of his accomplices who will help him with his artistic coup, including photographer Jean-Louis (Clément Sibomy), Jeff (César Domboy), electronics salesman J.P. (James Badge Dale) and Barry Greenhouse (Steve Valentine) who actually works in the building. Whilst some may fuss about the long wait before the final "walk", I had no issues with the build-up, though at several points the film may falter with poor scripts and unnecessary comical moments which are not really funny. We have to accept the fact that the film chronicles a 6½ years of Petit's planning in France and eight months of execution in America, and though the second act is structured very much in an interesting heist format, I felt it was apt that Zemeckis gives us a fairly condensed version of Petit staging his act.
Once the story reaches the point where Petit finally steps on the wire to pull off the staggering stunt that has consumed his entire life, The Walk completely transforms into is an eye-blistering visual wonder to behold. Yes, James Marsh’s Oscar-winning 2008 documentary Man On Wire encapsulates pretty much what audience needs to know about Petit and his hair-raising coup, but it is the Hollywood version so beautifully created by Zemeckis that puts us right at the shoulder of Petit as he takes each step on the wire. Absolutely enthralling, this is to me the film that puts 3D and IMAX effects to their best. Every spectator in the theatre was basically on that rope with him. To recreate the 45-minute walk where Petit danced, kneeled and lay on the wire, Zemeckis with the help of green screen rebuilt the city and the upper levels of the towers, resulting in a breathtaking cinematic achievement in visual and effects. It is one hell of a cinematic trick, hats off to the Forrest Gump director. And while Gordon-Levitt did walk the wire during the filming of that scene, it was 12 feet in actual height. As such, this vertigo-inducing and exhilarating film must be experienced in 3D, trust me.
Leaving me absolutely aswoon towards the end, I call this film a success. The intent of this story is from the beginning angled towards the climax of the walk, and nothing else. It is a film about visual aesthetics, and I would pay to watch just that final scene again in IMAX. Lastly, another nonetheless awfully inspiring aspect about The Walk is, how it recasts the towers as symbols of wonder rather than terror, reminding us of the better memories of the Twin Towers.
Rating: B+ [for its entirety. For visuals alone, I'd give it an A]
#TheWalk #TheWalkMovie #RobertZemeckis #PhilippePetit#JosephGordonLevitt #CharlotteLeBon #BenKingsley #ClémentSibomy)#CésarDomboy #JamesBadgeDale #HighWire #FrenchArtist #FilmReview#MovieReview #Movies #IMAX #visualEffects #TwinTowers#WorldTradeCenter
DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL LEADS GOTHAM INDEPENDENT FILM AWARDS NOMINATIONS
Gotham Independent Film Awards honors the year’s best in independent filmmaking, and Marielle Heller's The Diary Of A Teenage Girl leads this year with four nominations. Earning a nod for Best Feature, Best Screenplay, Best Actress and Breakthrough Director, the film stars Bel Powley as a 15-year-old girl and her messy coming of age story growing up in San Franciso during the 70s. Based on the graphic novel The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures by Phoebe Gloeckner, the film also stars Kristen Wiig, Alexander Skarsgård, Christopher Meloni, Quinn Nagle, and Austin Lyon. The Guardian gave the romantic drama five out of five stars and called it "morally complex and sometimes uncomfortably close to the bone, but also lushly bawdy and funny, and packaged together with an astonishing degree of cinematic brio."
JOY - JENNIFER LAWRENCE'S NEXT OSCAR BET
David O. Russell is teaming up for the third time with Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in the upcoming biopic comedy-drama, titled Joy. Scheduled for a Christmas release this December, Lawrence stars as Joy Mangano, struggling single mother of three children who invented the "Miracle Mop". Cooper will play the Home Shopping Network executive who gave Mangano’s career a boost. Robert De Niro who has also worked with all three of them in Silver Linings Playbook (2012), will star as Mangano's father. Playing a role which is much older than her age (25) in this semi-fictionalized biopic, we can see here in the film's trailer a more serious and dark side of Lawrence. You can tell she's a woman who has built her walls high through her previous trials and tribulations, and is not someone you would want to mess with. Already generating major Oscar buzz for Lawrence despite the fact that the film has not been released yet, her co-stars include Edgar Ramirez, Isabella Rossellini, Virginia Madsen, Elisabeth Röhm and Diane Ladd.
#JoyFilm #JoyMovie #JoyMangano #JenniferLawrence #DavidORussell#BradleyCooper #RobertDeNiro #EdgarRamirez #IsabellaRossellini#VirginiaMadsen #ElisabethRöhm #DianeLadd #Biopic #MiracleMop#Films #Movies #MovieTrailers #FilmTrailers #Drama #Comedy
NATALIE PORTMAN'S WESTERN FLICK IS FINALLY COMING
When Natalie Portman and director Lynne Ramsay (We Need To Talk About Kevin, 2011) announced back in May 2012 that they’ll be teaming up for the western action-drama Jane Got A Gun, the film has been heavily embattled with production setbacks and problems. During the very first day of shooting, Ramsay decided to drop out, with varying rumors circling around conflicts with lead actor (at that time) Michael Fassbender, fuss over what she was getting paid and her bad behavior (including constantly under the influence of alcohol and abusive towards crew members). Fassbender also took off due to scheduling conflicts with his X-Men filming, and was replaced by Joel Edgerton. Gavin O'Connor (Pride & Glory, 2008) took over the director's seat, and soon they even lost their villain Jude Law, who claimed that he signed on because he wanted to work with Ramsay. Replacing Law's role with Bradley Cooper did not happen as well, due to scheduling conflict. The villain's role was eventually filled by Ewan McGregor.
Against all odds we are finally treated with the first trailer for Jane Got A Gun, with Portman spotted in the bold and angst titular role Jane Hammond, whose husband (Noah Emmerich) has a run-in with an outlaw gang led by Colin (Ewan McGregor). In desperation, she turns to her former fiancé Dan Frost (Joel Edgerton) for help. The film is slated for a February release next year. Meantime, Portman has recently gone to Harvard to study psychology, where she dryly replied when people ask if that would interrupt her acting career, "I'd rather be smart than a movie star." She has also just made her directorial debut with a Hebrew drama film titled A Tale of Love And Darkness, which will be featured as Moovie Gab's fiLmsToLoOkOutFoR.
#JaneGotAGun #NataliePortman #JoelEdgerton #EwanMcGregor#NoahEmmerich #MichaelFassbender #JudeLaw #GavinOConnor#LynneRamsay #BradleyCooper #WeNeedToTalkABoutKevin#PrideAndGloryMovie #Movies #Films #MovieTrailer #FilmTrailer#Trailers #WesternMovies #MoovieGab
Shoot 'Em Up [2007, USA - English]
OK I don't usually review full-on action films but I just needed to write one for Shoot 'Em Up. When your resume's most popular item reads Monster Man (2003 starring Eric Jungmann), you know directors like Michael Davis has only so much to offer. And hence, another why-even-bother film makes its way to the big screens to torture our eyes and insult our intelligence. It's pretty easy to deduce, when you can't make a decent horror movie, you make a comedy-horror (Monster Man); and when you know you will fail in coming up with a watchable action flick, you make a comedy-action (Shoot 'Em Up). I still find it hard to believe that a credible ensemble like Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti and Monica Bellucci can exist in a wretched quality film like this.
Owen stars as Smith, a drifter who can't stop chewing on carrots like Bugs Bunny, and ends up saving the life of a baby named Oliver from being hunted by a group of hitmen led by Karl Hertz (Giamatti). As Smith dashes through a series of jaw-dropping stunts where "villains shoot a thousand times but miss and hero shoots once it's bullseye", he soon realises the hunt for baby Oliver is ridiculously tied to a politic scandal. In order to salvage the film with some eye-candy, the plot will also include Smith attempting to hide the baby with a lactating prostitute named Donna (Bellucci).
I promised myself that I will not waste more than twenty minutes to review this film, so suffice to say, it's basically action choreographed for a 9 year old, plot written for a 12 year old, and a patience challenge for a saint. Call it a black comedy or a comedy-action all you want, garbage is still garbage. The producer claims that the film is intended to poke fun at the Americans obsession with guns, breasts and violence; but the only people I'm laughing at are those who actually made this film. If you ever wonder how many ways you can use carrots to kill people, this is a must watch.
Rating : No Rating [let's not even insult my rating E]
#ShootEmUp #ShootEmUpMovie #MichaelDavis#CliveOwen #PaulGiamatti #MonicaBellucci#actionFilm #comedy #filmReview #movieReview#movies #MoviesToAvoid
"For my investigation it was important for me privately to understand it. And they work. Even discussing it feels tricky because it isn’t something I’d recommend to fellow actors...Go faster, go longer, go stronger. That’s why you take them. And they took drugs because they work. But they also can damage the body very long-term and in very serious ways.”
- Ben Foster, admitting to taking performance-enhancing drugs as part of his research for the role of Lance Armstrong in the upcoming biopic The Program
#BenFoster #LanceArmstrong #celebQuotes#TheProgramMovie #TheProgramFilm #Biopic #Drama#Movies #Films #MoovieGab #MaleCelebs
ABOUT ELLY [2009, Iran - Persian]
I can go and on about Iranian writer/director Asghar Farhadi, who received global recognition for his 2011 Oscar-winning A Separation. That film absolutely blew me away. Named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world by Timemagazine in 2012, Farhadi is intricate in his weaving of society's interpersonal conflicts within a seemingly straight-forward story. Playing at Berlin and Tribeca film festivals in 2009, Farhadi's About Elly was lauded by film theorist and historian David Bordwell as “a masterpiece.”
The film opens on a light note, with a group of old friends, made up of three couples and their children, traveling from Tehran to the Caspian Sea for a beach getaway. Joining them are Ahmad (Shahab Hosseini) and Elly (Taraneh Alidoosti). Ahmad, an affable Iranian who returns from Germany after a recent split with his wife, is open to the idea of being matchmade with Elly, an elusive but obliging kindergarten teacher of the daughter of Sepideh (Golshifteh Farahani), who organized the getaway. Sepideh’s secret plan to introduce both of them is welcomed by the rest of the group, but we'll soon find out that it's the least of her string of little white lies which will play a part in the twist of events coming. As Elly fits into the group of friends since their university days, act 1 is a clever intention for us to observe and get to know more about each character as they joke, laugh, break bread and end the day with a game of charades.
About Elly quickly ratchets up suspense in act 2 the next day, as the upbeat mood of their weekend takes a dark turn when Elly suddenly goes missing. Leaving the group helplessly clueless, has she drowned in the angry sea attempting to save a child, or has she abruptly left the place unannounced despite Sepideh's pestering to stay. What appears to be another kitchen sink drama suddenly erupts into panic mode, trampled by series of revelations that challenge the moral core of these characters. These developments ooze varying degrees of mistrust and hostility among the friends, whilst audience is kept anxious coupled with the soundtrack of endless crashing waves so cleverly added to further bring us into the scene.
What's so brilliant about this film is the revelation that the actual whereabouts of the titular character no longer seems important at the end, as we witness how each small lie repeatedly breeds damaging consequences. Whilst a woman's disappearance is on the line, what eventually matters is how each of the character deals with the crisis, broods over each other's surfacing dishonesty and unconsciously depend on them to salvage their own dignity. Farhadi builds an elaborate psychodrama depicting how harmless intentions can culminate into most scourging and life-changing events. Using everyday lives and conversations, his film has an uncomfortable but important message to tell. And along with some of the other films which are in my top list, what I really love is how the film lets audience decipher the clues and make our own conclusions. All the characters' performances are on point, especially Golshifteh Farahani. Even the children are invested in the emotional roller-coaster, making this film another testimonial of Farhadi's excellent filmmaking.
Rating : A+
#AboutElly #AboutEllyMovie #AsgharFarhadi#GolshiftehFarahani #ShahabHosseini#TaranehAlidoosti #IranianFilms #aSeparation#psychodrama #drama #suspense #filmReviews#movies #films #foreignFilms #internationalScreens
REGRESSION [Canada, Spain - English]
Bruce Kenner (Ethan Hawke) is a pushy, arrogant detective in Minnesota, who believes that young Angela Gray (Emma Watson) is the victim of demonic rituals and abused by her father, John Gray (David Dencik). The film opens pretty promisingly with John handing in himself at the police station, admitting to his daughter's accusations of his unspeakable crime, though has no recollection of the incident. Assisted by psychologist Dr Raines (David Thewlis), Kenner delves into the tortured landscape of repressed memory, convinced that answers lie therein.
The 1990 murky set-up, dark in mood and pulse reminiscing thrillers from the 90s like Final Analysis (Phil Joanou) and Sliver (Phillip Noyce), all that pan out alright with me. In fact, Spanish writer/director Alejandro Amenábar's inspiration for this film is drawn from the wave of satanic abuse scares and cases that haunted America in the late 80s - early 90s, added with the use of controversial therapy technique known as regression, which claims to heal patients by unearthing deeply buried memories through hypnotism; there are enough reasons to like this thriller. In a way I can't blame critics for coming down hard on this latest piece of work from Amenábar. Known to compose the music for some of his movies as well as write and direct, Amenábar has after all given us cinematic gems like The Others in 2001, which won 8 Goyas at the Venice Film Festival in that year including Best Picture and Best Director. Much of the initial promising premise kind of dwindled into very cliché moments involving ballerina music boxes, black cats, creaking doors and mysterious silent calls to forewarn some gruesome deaths. Amenábar has also shared his deliberate intention to mix up genres which in this case thriller and horror, but somehow becomes an issue for most critics. The film was panned for the director's over-focusing on scaring the audience at the expense of the credibility of the plot and script. Personally I have no issues with genre mash-ups, but the execution better be uncommonly spectacular. In this case, the effort does fall rather flat, and the final twist which the story leaves the audience waiting, fails to deliver gasps and awe.
Hawke has somehow discovered of late his effective portrayal in angst and aggressive roles, and he shows here a rather effortless mastery fitting into Kenner's world. His performance becomes to me the pivotal grip in the film where we witness Kenner's psychological journey from audacious crumbling down to vulnerable. So much so, it appears that the rest of the cast are rather pointless whether we have Hermione Granger as the abused victim or Remus Lupin as the plucky psychologist. Reason being, their characters are hugely underplayed, it's purely Hawke's stage from beginning to end. Secondly, am I the only one who wasn't thoroughly impressed with Watson's performance, especially her less convincing American accent? Just like how hard her fellow Harry Potter co-star Daniel Radcliffe has been trying to move on from their gargantuan roles which made them multi-millionaires before even reaching the age of twenty, Watson has been venturing into diverted roles including the pot-smoking underage drinking Nikki in The Bling Ring (2013). However I find her portrayal of the emotional and convoluted sides of Angela rather plain and mediocre at best.
Rating : C+
#Regression #RegressionFilm #RegressionMovie#AlejandroAmenábar #EthanHawke #EmmaWatson#DavidThewlis #FilmReview #MovieReview #thriller#horror #movies #films #cinema #HermioneGranger#RemusLupin #HarryPotter #DanielRadcliffe
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