Matt Fullerty: Film

Showing posts with label Film. Show all posts

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer"

A Manchurian Candidate for the 2010s ... Pierce Brosnan in Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer

Roman Polanski's deft take on Robert Harris's political thriller is the director's most purely enjoyable film for years.

Roman Polanski's latest movie happens to be about a public figure, once hugely admired, now disgraced, fearing extradition and prosecution and confined to virtual house arrest in a vacation spot for rich people.

The Ghost Writer
Production year: 2010
Countries: France, UK
Directors: Roman Polanski
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Kim Cattrall, Olivia Williams, Pierce Brosnan

Did the director, when he shot this film, get a chill presentiment of how personal it was all going to look? Maybe. But it didn't stop him making a gripping conspiracy thriller and scabrous political satire, a Manchurian Candidate for the 2010s, as addictive and outrageous as the Robert Harris bestseller on which it's based. Polanski keeps the narrative engine ticking over with a downbeat but compelling throb. This is his most purely enjoyable picture for years, a Hitchcockian nightmare with a persistent, stomach-turning sense of disquiet, brought off with confidence and dash.
His leads are Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan, actors from whom Polanski gets the best by keeping them under control. McGregor is the journo, never named: cynical, boozy and miserable in the classical manner. He makes a living ghostwriting the autobiographies of raddled showbiz veterans. In the current publishing scene, his business is booming, but even he is astonished to be offered the job of ghostwriting the memoirs of the former British prime minister Adam Lang, now living with his formidable wife Ruth (Olivia Williams) in his American publisher's palatial beachfront home. A possible war-crime prosecution for assisting the rendition of terror suspects means Lang may never be able to leave American soil. And his last ghostwriter has been found drowned – an awful fate that resonates, sickeningly, with TV images of waterboarding. Could it be that the dead man discovered something dangerous about the ex-PM and his super-powerful, super-rich American friends?
Resemblances to Tony and Cherie Blair are very far from coincidental: both Harris and Polanski have clearly calculated that a libel lawsuit would make for an uproarious day in court, precisely the sort of legal appearance that Mr Blair does not care to make, in fact or fiction. This consideration adds a kind of meta-pleasure to the narrative.

Brosnan's Lang is an alpha-ego, substantially accustomed to American mega-celebrity status, smugly nurturing his Blairish sense of entitlement and resentment, yet with a weird blankness and smileyness that resurfaces continually: a Brit tendency to ingratiation that he can never quite conquer. As with Harris's novel, part of the enjoyment is gleefully imagining Tony and Cherie, in the parts of Adam and Ruth, pacing around like characters in some reality TV show from hell. Polanski has a terrific scene in which McGregor drives the dead man's car and the sat-nav "remembers" his previous journey and guides him, ghost-like, to a vital clue. The film incidentally gives us the ghost of the late Robin Cook, fictionalised as ex-foreign secretary "Richard Rycart".
The Ghost Writer may not be a masterpiece, but in its lowering gloom (it rains almost continually) the film has some of the malign atmosphere of Polanski's glory days. And there's a wonderful final image of the windblown London street – faintly hyperreal in the manner of Hitchcock's Frenzy – where something horrible has happened behind the camera. This very involving movie shows Polanski is far from finished as a film-maker.
--
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 12 February 2010

Saturday, March 13, 2010

European cinemas join threat to boycott Alice in Wonderland

Contemplating a dark hole ... Mia Wasikowska in Alice in Wonderland. Photograph: Allstar/DISNEY/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

Disney's plans for an earlier-than-usual DVD release prompt film exhibitors to consider pulling all Disney films.

Opposition to Disney's plans for an earlier-than-usual DVD release of Alice in Wonderland - after it has appeared in cinemas - has spread to mainland Europe, according to Variety.

Alice in Wonderland
Production year: 2010
Country: USA
Cert (UK): PG
Runtime: 108 mins
Directors: Tim Burton
Cast: Alan Rickman, Anne Hathaway, Barbara Windsor, Christopher Lee, Crispin Glover, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, Matt Lucas, Mia Wasikowska, Michael Sheen, Stephen Fry, Timothy Spall
More on this film

As reported on this site last week, UK distributors are considering a boycott of Tim Burton's new 3D CGI fantasy over Disney's proposal to release the DVD within 90 days of its cinema release. Usually, there is at least a four-month window between a film's arrival in cinemas and its debut on home video.

Now Holland's four largest exhibitors are reportedly threatening not to show Alice In Wonderland unless Disney backs down. Together Minerva, Pathé, Wolff and Jogchems represent between 80% and 85% of all cinemas in the Netherlands.

Youry Bredewold, who represents both Pathé and Holland's National Board of Cinema Owners, said the distributor's decision was not one which had been taken lightly.

"We will lose money due to our decision," he told AFP. "We expected [Alice] to become one of the most popular movies of 2010. But we decided we need to send a message to the whole industry: If you don't accept our terms, we will never show your movies again."

Meanwhile, Variety says that UK distributors have been mollified by a visit from Disney top brass last week, though an LA Times report today suggests that Vue and Odeon, two of the UK's three major cinema chains, remain undecided over whether to show the film. Disney has reached a deal with a third major chain, Cineworld, according to the newspaper. Industry insiders are said to be split over whether European anger will spread to the US or blow over before Alice in Wonderland's release on 5 March. No American chain has yet threatened to boycott the film, although some have said they will pull it from screens once it hits the home video market. Some Italian firms are also said to be considering their options.

The UK release is particularly vital for Disney because the movie has such strong British roots, and would have been expected to make £40m here. Burton, who lives in London, shot Alice In Wonderland largely in Devon and Cornwall. Apart from Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and Australian newcomer Mia Wasikowska as Alice, the film features a largely British supporting cast, including Helena Bonham Carter, Matt Lucas, Stephen Fry, Michael Sheen, Alan Rickman, Christopher Lee and Barbara Windsor.

Disney nevertheless feels that narrowing the release window is vital in the battle against home video piracy. It argues that most people see movies within two months of their theatrical release, but there is then another two-month gap before they can buy the film on DVD, which is exploited by pirates. However, distributors are concerned that they will lose business if the release window is allowed to narrow further, and are also said to be angry because they have recently spent millions of pounds upgrading thousands of screens to show 3D movies.

Bob Chapek, president of distribution for Walt Disney Studios, said on Friday that the company remained "committed to theatrical windows, with the need for exceptions to accommodate a shortened period on a case-by-case basis, such as with Disney's Alice in Wonderland.

"We feel that it's important for us to maintain a healthy business on the exhibition side and a healthy business on the home video side," he added. "We think this is in the best interest of theatre owners, because a healthy movie business is good for them and allows us to invest in high quality, innovative content."

Ben Child, The Guardian, 17 February 2010

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

"Queen to Play" - film review - checkmate!

Film Reviews

Queen to Play -- Film Review

By Frank Scheck, April 27, 2009 05:39 ET

Bottom Line: Some good moves, but no cinematic checkmate.

More Tribeca reviews

NEW YORK -- Chess as metaphor for life is the theme of Caroline Bottaro's French drama starring Sandrine Bonnaire as a maid who rediscovers herself thanks to her newfound love for the game and Kevin Kline as the misanthropic recluse who teaches her. While "Queen to Play" boasts an admirable dramatic subtlety and several strong performances, its overly familiar ideas and lugubrious pacing, as well as the fact that chess is not exactly the most cinematic of subjects, will make it a tough sit even for dedicated art house audiences. It recently received its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Bonnaire plays Helene, a chambermaid at an upper-class Corsican hotel who's dealing with financial problems, a rebellious daughter and a less than ideal marriage to a handsome but not particularly sensitive blue-collar worker (Francis Renaud).

When she sees a glamorous, barely clothed couple (including Jennifer Beals in a cameo) intensely playing chess on their balcony, it stirs something within her. She promptly buys a set, but her husband proves to be an unwilling player. Spotting a board in the home of Dr. Kroger (Kline), for whom she moonlights as a cleaning person, she implores him to tutor her in its intricacies.

Kroger, who has barely spoken to her in all the time she's worked for him, initially rebuffs. But sensing her passion, he eventually agrees, and the two begin weekly sessions in which the pupil soon starts overshadowing her teacher. By the time she's allowed to participate -- in underdog "Rocky" fashion -- in a local tournament, all the principal characters have undergone life-enhancing emotional changes.

That the film works to the degree that it does is largely due to the sensitive performances. Bonnaire delivers a beautifully modulated turn, delineating Helene's liberating transformation in quietly powerful and convincing fashion. Kline, in his first entirely French-speaking role, intriguingly underplays as the mysterious Kroger, and Francis Renaud strongly conveys the husband's complicated feelings of disdain for his wife's new obsession and concern for his marriage.

Production: Mon Voison Prods
Cast: Sandrine Bonnaire, Kevin Kline, Francis Renaud, Jennifer Beals, Valerie Lagrange
Director: Caroline Bottaro
Screenwriters: Caroline Bottaro, Caroline Maly, Jeanne Le Guillou
Producers: Dominique Besnehard, Micher Feller, Amelie Latscha
Director of photography: Jean-Claude Larrieu
Editor: Tina Baz
Production designer: Emmanuel de Chavigny
Music: Nicola Piovani
No MPAA rating, 96 minutes

Queen to Play -- Film Review

By Frank Scheck, April 27, 2009 05:39 ET

Tribeca Film Festival: Review of "Queen to Play"!

In a world where a chess game is equivalent to a night of steamy passion, you have to be a little skeptical. In Caroline Bottaro's first feature, chess is played up to the extreme, turning the game into an excruciatingly obvious motif throughout the film.

Set in the ever-scenic French Riviera, Queen to Play tells the story of a maid, Hélene (Sandrine Bonnaire), who becomes obsessed with the idea of learning chess—and soon does, with the help of her client (Kevin Kline), a snobby retired doctor. As she spends more of her time "checkmating" the Doctor, she drifts away from her cleaning duties... and her husband. In a way, her chess-playing indulgence is like an affair—and, frankly, it could rightfully be one. According to Bottaro, her film depicts "a real romance" between the mentor and the student, and their chess matches are equivalent to love scenes.

Meanwhile, the idea of the game of chess completely engulfs Hélene's world, rendering her a one-track-minded pawn. Everything from checkered tiles to square tablecloths transforms into a chessboard in her subjectivity—and thus ours too. The problem, besides the fact that this sort of imagery is entirely too obvious and forced, is that at the film's core, it's nearly impossible to connect with this woman. Our leading lady is constantly sullen, mostly expressionless, and uncommunicative. She appears to desire her husband, but then rejects his affection and empathy. But yet, she's consistent in her rendez-vous with the doctor, who (in a pretentious "I'm Kevin Kline but playing a smart doctor who's speaking only in French hah!" kind of way) plays the part of the reluctant teacher who soon falls in love with the soft spoken working class maid in a strange condescending (and maybe metaphorical?) way.