Trance and Danny Boyle - the Master of Mesmerism

Danny Boyle - national hero after his work on the 2012 London Olympics, and perhaps one of of my favourite directors. What I love more than anything about Danny Boyle is that unlike other film-makers (with perhaps the exception of Ang Lee or Steven Spielberg) is that he doesn't confine himself to one genre. Shallow Grave is a world apart from The Beach, which is completely different to Sunshine, which is as far removed from 127 Hours as The Sound of Music is from The Evil Dead! In a recent interview he stated that he likes to take small films and make them feel big - a feat he certainly achieved with his Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire. With a clear passion for film, an awareness of the importance of the story and a good script, combined with a dexterous flair for film-making, Boyle is one of the greats - which is why I was more than a little bit excited when the lights went down for Trance last night.

The premise is a simple one - James McAvoy plays Simon, an art auctioneer with a bad gambling addiction. As a means of wiping off his debts he joins forces with Vincent Cassel's Franck, a small-time gangster with a penchant for finger nail removal. Working with Franck to pull off an inside job - the lifting of a Goya painting worth over £25 million, the plan seems to go well until Cassel opens up the painting to find the canvas is missing - and thanks to a bump on the head, McAvoy now has amnesia! This is where the simplicity ends. After a heavy bout of torture fails to jog Simon's memory, they resolve that the only way to find the missing Goya is for Simon to see a hypnotherapist - enter Rosario Dawson's Elizabeth Lamb, intelligent, provocative, and seemingly with motives of her own. What follows is a mind-bending narrative of twists and turns that cinematically blurs artifice and reality. This creates positives and negatives. Negatively, this could be construed as very confusing. I have to concede, there are parts of the film where the boundaries between what is vision and what is reality are extremely hard to fathom and present the intelligent viewer with the same problem-solving skills as Channing Tatum trying to work out which shoe goes on which foot. Yet despite this highly abstract fusion of artifice and reality, it is Boyle's intention for it to be as such. The viewer is constantly supposed to be working to fathom what is real and what is not - after all the film hinges on hypnotism, and like McAvoy's character we are supposed to be vicariously hypnotised and work out the twists and the turns of the plots with him. This abstract approach from Boyle has trademarks of his cult classic, Trainspotting - which is no bad thing. What the story gives us though is a complex, engaging and highly psychological thriller that is, granted not Boyle's masterpieces, but a British film that shows Boyle to be one of the greats of modern cinema.

The film has a relatively small cast, the crux of the action focusing on the interplay between McAvoy, Dawson and Cassel. McAvoy gives a strong and physically brave performance as Simon who is put through the emotional ringer, as well as the physical one. He handles the range of complex emotions, both the expressed and repressed ones with great conviction, solidifying his status as a leading man both at home and abroad. Cassel gives an equally fine performance as the villainous Franck, playing him with the required charm and bubbling malevolence, whose techniques for extracting information would make any qualified manicurist wince. It's nice to see Rosario Dawson being given a role to flex her performance muscles. More than just the formulaic love interest, her Elizabeth Lamb is a complex character whose motives remain ambiguous throughout the movie. Kudos has to be given for her bravery as well - baring not just her soul but her body (quite graphically so) as well. The role allows Dawson the opportunity to give a strong and nuanced performance.

Overall, in true Boyle fashion, Trance has the desired hypnotic effect. Perhaps overly convoluted at times (something which some critics have highly criticized the film for) this only serves to demonstrate the subject matter - the highly complex world of the human psyche and the dangers that can come about from delving too deep.

It only remains to say that while Trance may not go down as Boyle's masterpiece, the man is still a directorial force to be reckoned with - and with news of a Trainspotting sequel in the works, visiting its characters 20 years later- I think it's safe to say Mr. Boyle and great movie-making have not quite finished with each other.

Jack the Giant Slayer - Fie-Fi-Fo...FUN!

'Fee-fi-fo-fum, ask not whence the thunder comes.' So opens Jack the Giant Slayer, whose thunder in this instance comes from The Usual Suspects and X-Men director Bryan Singer. After the recent release of Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, it seems that our childhood folk tales are getting the big screen treatment - such is the case with Jack - a fusion of the classic tales 'Jack and the Beanstalk' and 'Jack the Giant Killer'.

The film begins by introducing the hero of the tale. Jack, a seemingly hopeless farm-boy, whilst in an attempt to sell his horse, chances upon an encounter with a mysterious monk attempting to flee the city with a bag of apparently magical beans capable of supposedly terrible things. 'Whatever you do,' the monk warns, 'don't let them touch water.' Which of course means that when Jack's uncle throws away the beans in a rage, one of them naturally falls into a puddle. Introduced in parallel to Jack is the Princess Isabelle, who like Jack, longs for adventure beyond her social constraints. Thrust together, the two characters's destinies are forever fused when Jack's mysterious bean sprouts into a giant beanstalk, taking himself and Isabelle, along with his house, to a land above the clouds inhabited by murderous giants who have vowed to wreak vengeance on the little people down below. So follows an adventure of literally giant proportions as characters do battle to save the princess, their city and defeat those nasty tall folk.

On the whole, the film is a fast-paced and tongue-in-cheek yarn with its fair bit of scares! Obvious influences from classic film adventures over the years are abound; Peter Jackson's The Return of the King, the third part in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, heavily influencing in the climactic siege of the city, with both the battles of Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith being evident. I went into this film thinking I'd get a decent 12A family romp, with the odd scare thrown in. However, it's actually quite terrifying in parts, the giants making me shrink back in my seat more than once. Perhaps this was just the IMAX 3D though.

Nicholas Hoult plays the part he's meant to - the aesthetically pleasing hero of the tale who only got the job because of his looks. Aside from that his performance is pretty much what the character is - a one-dimensional hero who's only function is to save the day and look good doing it. The best performances come from the more meatier roles. Stanley Tucci never gives a bad performance and this is no exception. He's pitch-perfect as the villainous Roderick, playing him with the required charm, Machievellianism, and a stroke of camp thrown in as well! Ian McShane brings gravitas to the role of the King while Bill Nighy once again channels his Davy Jones, playing the loathsome giant leader, General Fallon. It's also nice to see Ewan McGregor bringing back his Obi-Wan Kenobi accent (one he can actually pull off!).

All in all, the film impressed more than it disappointed. Although disappointing at the box office when it opened yesterday it shows Bryan Singer is back on big-budget form - something which is all the more encouraging as he begins work on the new X-Men film, Days of Future Past. If you're after a rollicking good adventure then you can't go too far astray with Jack the Giant Slayer - yes it's predictable, occasionally cheesy, with some actor's behaving as if they're auditioning for the local village panto, but the pros outweigh the cons. If you fancy a scare, a laugh and a decent two hours at the movies then from one Jack to another - you can't go too wrong.

Oz The Great and Powerful and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone - Magic at the Movies!

My trip to the cinema yesterday proved to be a veritable feast of magic and wonderment,with back to back viewings of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, a new comedy starring Steve Carrell, Steve Buscemi and Jim Carrey, followed immediately by Sam Raimi's hotly anticipated Oz The Great and Powerful. Both films that deal with the art of magic and the lives of magicians, the two films cast a spell over me as I became enchanted through laughter, dazzling special effects and excitement. Rather than give two separate reviews, I thought it only apt to review these films side by side and weigh up whether it is Oz or Wonderstone that casts the most ensnaring of spells!

We begin with The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, a comedy that sees the pairing of the two Steves, namely Carrell and Buscemi, as lifelong friends who become magicians as a means of shedding their 'nerd-like' personas. Met with fame and adulation they become the headline act at Bally's Casino in Las Vegas. Now jump forward ten years. Our magicians are still pulling in the crowds at Bally's with the same show they've been doing for years which has put on a strain on their friendship to say the least. Enter Jim Carrey as a tattooed Dynamo/David Blaine-esque street magician who's set to become the next big thing thanks to his outrageous form of 'magic'. Suffice to say, feuding ensues! What subsequently transpires is a hilarious game of magical tit-for-tat, each trying to out-do the other.

Carrell is hilarious as the titular Wonderstone, whose rise to fame has turned him into an arrogant, egotistical and chauvenistic example of why they say never meet your heroes. Completely absurd at times, Carrell is able to show us another side to Wonderstone, however. His ability to do the sublime as well as the ridiculous (which he so brilliantly accomplished in Little Miss Sunshine) is also on show as his character goes through the (albeit formulaic) journey of self-discovery, eventually realizing why he became a magician in the first place. Praise also has to go to Buscemi, aka Anton Marvelton, Carrell's put upon partner in magic who always gets as Marilyn Monroe's Sugar put it, the fuzzy end of the lollipop. Being an avid watcher of Buscemi in HBO's brutal Boardwalk Empire, it's nice to see Buscemi return to comedy, at which he is equally adept. Jim Carrey, although present in a more supporting role is deliciously entertaining as the outrageous and quite dangerous Steve Gray, whose stunts will have even the not so faint of heart squirming in their chairs. As far as supporting roles go, however, Alan Arkin shows us more of the ascerbic wit we saw in Little Miss Sunshine as the once great magician Rance Holloway. I have to mention Olivia Wilde, who is as always mesmerizing (ahem!). It's just a shame that she's only here as the love interest, the formulaic plot device set to bring about the redemption of the protagonist. All the same, she is wonderful as ever.

No, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is not perfect. What it is though is an above average comedy with some great actors which in today's market when the Scary Movie franchise is still going, is no bad thing. Laugh out loud gags, the odd bit of revulsion, and a moving look at our forgotten performers gives us a film that is perfect for a Friday night out at the cinema!
           

Now for the main event; the daddy of all magicians - the Wizard of Oz himself! As a child we all had that one film on video (yes, video!) that we'd play over and over again much to the great annoyance of our parents, I'm sure. For me, mine was The Wizard of Oz, Victor Fleming's stunning 1939 film. Now, 74 years after we journeyed over the rainbow with Dorothy, Sam Raimi, acclaimed director of the Spider-man trilogy, is taking us to Oz once again.

In beautiful homage to the original classic, the film begins in black and white and is presented in a smaller screen ratio, making us feel as if we're in the same Kansas as Dorothy nearly 80 years ago. We are soon introduced to Oz, played by James Franco, a conjurer with a travelling circus who is seeking to be the next Harry Houdini (combined with Thomas Edison). A complete rogue and user of women, Oz is forced to flee after the brother of a wronged flame decides he wants to use him for target practice. Hopping into a conveniently nearby hot air balloon he is immediately propelled into the air and soon becomes ensnared in a savage tornado that transports him to everybody's favourite technicolour destination. As Oz lands in the city that bears his name the screen widens and a magical display of colour welcomes us to the land of Oz! However, it's not long before Oz is plunged into the fight for the land's survival. Proclaimed as the prophetic wizard that would save Oz from the Wicked Witch, Franco's Oz must go on a journey from scoundrel to hero, and ultimately determine if he can become the great man he wants to be.

Visually, the film is stunning. Like it's 1939 predecessor, colour abounds and plays with our senses throughout the film. Albeit sadly nostalgic for the painted backdrops and men in suits pretending to be talking trees, it can't be denied that the film is a triumph of technical wizardry Oz himself would be proud of. Scored beautifully by Danny Elfman, the film not only looks beautiful but sounds beautiful too. Now much hype has been caused by the exclusion of the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion. Much to my despair, there were mere subtle allusions to our favourite residents of Oz. However, Zach Braff's delightfully cheeky interpretation of Finley the monkey was enough to alleviate the symptoms of woe for a while.



As to the leads, Franco is an actor whom I can take or leave. He never ignites the screen and he doesn't here. He is perfectly competent in the role of a conman flying by the seat of his pants. Sadly, throughout his gradual transformation to the eventual leader of Oz, he lacks charisma and the power which comes across in several of his troop-rallying speeches. Less Braveheart, more heart failure. Michelle Williams is wonderfully ethereal as Glinda, whom we all know from the 1939 classic and epitomizes the kind and benevolent witch who even has a star on the end of her want. Rachel Weisz sadly fails to inspire as well. Yes, I've actually just said something negative about the fabulous Rachel Weisz. I don't know what it was. She was supposed to be a bitch and I just didn't get it. As for Mila Kunis, I nearly swallowed my own tongue when I heard she would play Theodora, latterly the Wicked Witch of the West, so evil in Fleming's version, played by the brilliant Margaret Hamilton. However, I will eat my words and say this - Kunis was terrifying. At times one couldn't help picturing Meg from Family Guy, yet she played the wronged and embittered lover with a monumental anger and desire for revenge that I will admit cowering slightly in my seat.

So, did I feel the magic? Yes and no. Did I feel the same magic as when I watch The Wizard of Oz? I can't say that I did. Whether though the usage of CGI or the amount of time passed, it didn't feel like Oz. However, I did feel the magic in the sense that what Raimi has done is give us a new Oz, complete with a different kind of magic. No, it's not the Oz I grew up with but it's an Oz children of today will grow up with - and that's not such a bad place to be.

Side Effects - Mind Games

Entering the cinema last night I was brimming with excitement after all the positive buzz surrounding Steven Soderbergh's latest film. Having recently declared that Side Effects would be his final film, I was intrigued as to whether Soderbergh would be exiting the world of celuloid with a bang or with a whimper. I am happy to declare that he indeed does bow out with an impressive bang; a deeply taut, complex and engaging psychological thriller that will leave you wanting to camp out on Soderbergh's lawn and handcuff him to the director's chair he is choosing to leave behind.
(Soderbergh, left)

Pitched as a Hitchockian psychological thriller, the film sees Jude Law as a Brit psychiatrist practicing in New York who begins to treat patient Rooney Mara after an apparent suicide attempt. A woman with a history of depression coupled with a husband recently released from prison ('portrayed' by the ever-bemused looking Channing Tatum), Law's character Jonathan Banks insists that Mara (Emily) becomes his patient and sees him for regular therapy. After a series of treatments seem to draw blanks, Banks prescribes Emily with Ablixer, a new experimental drug recently on the market. Initially all seems to be going well until Emily starts to experience side effects that have repercussions for all connected to her. What follows is a tight, compact and exciting game of psychological mind-play. Filled with more twists and turns than a pirrouetting contortionist, we are plunged into a suspenseful, satiric and thought-provoking look at the faith we place in doctors, the role of pharmaceutical companies, and the nature of psychology and what a dangerous thing it can be.

Jude Law excels as Banks, the seemingly unflappable doctor who finds himself in a pretty precarious situation being targeted from all sides. Law's roles have been a bit hit and miss lately but here he gives perhaps a career best, driving the narrative forward with charm and humility that makes you root for his character for the entire film. On the flip side to Law's charismatic and collected Banks, we have Mara's portrayal of Emily, the seemingly depressed and unbalanced city worker who puts Banks through his paces. More complex than Law's character, from the outset, Emily is a character the audience cannot relax with and can move from one extreme emotion to the other with startling rapidity. Mara does this frighteningly well, able to convey through a sublime performance a deeply complex and intriguing woman at the epicentre of extremely dangerous events.

Support in the cast comes from Catherine Zeta-Jones, who portrays Dr. Victoria Siebert, Emily's former psychiatrist, in what is a thoroughly chilling performance. It is also nice to see Vinessa Shaw of Hocus Pocus and Eyes Wide Shut fame, as Law's wife. The theatrical poster for the movie would appear to think the film as an ensemble of four: Law, Mara, Zeta-Jones and Tatum. However, it really is about the first three guys who all turn in brilliant performances. Unless a live-action version of Toy Story is in the works and the part of Mr. Potato Head up for grabs, I really think Channing Tatum will forever be searching for his ideal role.

If this really is to be Steven Soderbergh's last film then it's a bitter-sweet affair. Bitter in the sense that a director who has delivered some great films is putting away his clapperboard. However, sweet in the sense that perhaps he has had the courage to do what others have done and let their work gradually decline. What Soderbergh has done instead is deliver a gripping, intelligent and powerful film that a director can be proud of as their swansong.

Life of Pi - Poetry in Motion

Eight weeks ago I was due to see Ang Lee's Life of Pi, adapted from Yann Martel's Booker Prize winning novel. However, before that joyous day arrived I fell foul of some kitchen roll and broke my hip! Yes dear reader! A 23 year old man in his prime struck down by a rogue piece of kitchen ware! Thus my journey to see this much anticipated film was delayed, cutting a deeper wound than the surgeon's scalpel which I was to be privy to the following day! Alas, fear not! Well on the road to recovery, Thursday saw me hobble into the cinema at last. Was the wait worth it, I hear you ask? It most certainly was.
Very much like the glorious collaboration of the Wachowski's and Tykwer with their film Cloud Atlas (reviewed in an earlier post), Life of Pi is also a novel deemed by many to be impossible to translate to the silver screen. Yet what Ang Lee delivers is a thoroughly faithful adaption, brimming with the novel's sublime poeticism, beauty and metaphysical meditation that, like its literary counterpart, makes the film thoroughly wondrous.

The story, as the title would suggest, deals of the life of Piscine Molitor Patel, self-christened Pi, and how he survives an horrific shipwreck, subsequently finding himself stranded adrift in the Pacific sharing his lifeboat with an injured zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker!
We are initially introduced to Pi as an adult, successfully living in Montreal, relating his story to an unnamed author seeking inspiration for his next book. As in the book this usage of retrospect in relaying the narrative aids in creating the fairy tale nature so inherent to the story. Pi, as we become aware early on in the film is extremely inquisitive about faith and the nature of existence, collecting religions as one would collect stamps. This search for God, whether it be a Hindu God, a Christian God, or a Muslim God fills the film with a sense of the divine  and becomes intrinsic to his survival aboard his lifeboat. Ang Lee expresses this beautifully, through cinematography, music, a wonderfully adapted script and breath-taking special effects.
These special effects are integral to the success of the film and are for some why the film would initially seem impossible to translate from the page. After all, how is it possible to film a story which requires an actor for the majority of the film to interact with a tiger? The answer lies in the wonderful, now Oscar winning special effects created for the film. Much like the pioneering work with creations such as Gollum for The Lord of the Rings, Kong in King Kong, and Ceasar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Richard Parker, the aforementioned Bengal tiger is a triumph of technical wizardry. Aside from a brief few minutes when an actual tiger is used in the water, Richard Parker is an entirely CGI creation. What this gives us is something frighteningly real and one does not believe for a minute that we are seeing anything other than a real tiger before our eyes.

As to performances, three have to be praised. Firstly, Suraj Sharma, a newcomer, gives a phenomenal and emotionally charged portrayal as the teenage Pi. This would be a feat for any actor, never mind a newcomer. From the moment he finds himself on the lifeboat, Pi, with the exception of the occasional flash forward to the older Pi relating the tale, dominates the screen, being present in every scene. For a first time actor to give us such a spectrum of emotions with conviction and power is to be commended and I expect to be seeing much more of Sharma in times to come. Secondly, the adult Pi relaying the tale is portrayed by Irrfan Khan, known for his roles in Slumdog Millionaire, The Amazing Spider-man, and The Darjeeling Limited. Khan gives us a truly emotional performance and plays the role of story-teller to perfection. His way of conveying his relationship with the tiger is extremely moving. Thirdly, it must be reiterated how important the character of Richard Parker is to this film. After all, the film is ultimately about the bond created between Pi and this unlikely companion. The way in which every nuance of the tiger is expressed through immense attention to detail plays a big part in the success of this film.
Well, eight weeks went by of me wanting to throw caution and broken hip to the wind and see Life of Pi whatever the cost. However, patience and the threat of a doctor's sedative assuaged me, leaving it all the more special when I emerged from the cinema on Thursday feeling inspired, and dare I say serene. Ang Lee has given us a true masterpiece with Life of Pi, through its stunning cinematography, moving score, script, performances, effects, and I am certain that this film will be with me for a very long time yet.

Anna Karenina - Theatrical Passions

For whatever the reason, when Anna Karenina was released several months back I didn't get round to seeing it. Having a Masters degree in Victorian literature, coupled with an admiration for director Joe Wright's work, short of a good flogging, I felt I deserved a severe reprimand. However, the guilt began to evaporate as I inserted the disc into the Blu-ray player earlier this week and sat back to what I had been missing out on.
Adapted from Leo Tolstoy's novel of the same name (1873-77), the film tells of the titular heroine, played by Keira Knightley, embark upon a passionate affair with the young Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), much to the obvious annoyance of Anna's conservative husband, the religious minister, Karenin (Jude Law). What this gives us is a very basic premise: bored wife, younger lover, embittered husband. However, Joe Wright chooses to tackle this in an extremely experimental and abstract way which ultimately ends in becoming the best feature of the entire film.

Wright chooses (perhaps becoming the inspiration for his current foray into London's West End) to set the story's events in the very specific world of the theatre. This is where the abstract nature of the film comes to the fore, scene changes taking place literally before the eyes of the viewer, characters being instantaneously transported from one setting to another. The film even goes as far as to have an actual horse race, with the theatre doubling for the race course!
This new and creative approach to telling the story comes across as a bit jarring at first, one not expecting such cinematic radicalism in what on the surface appears as a straight-laced period drama. Despite this, one eventually becomes accustomed to Wright's style and are able to bask in its visual splendour.
However, despite this novel and visually stimulating take on the story it eventually proves to be the film's undoing, ultimately producing a film that appears to be favouring style over substance. The film looks stunning, both in its production design and costume (Jacqueline Durran deserving picking up the Oscar for best Costume Design two weeks ago), yet as a result of this the story seems to be pushed into our periphery and leave us with a set of one-dimensional characters about whom we start to care very little.

As far as performances go, the film I believe belongs to Jude Law. Kudos should be given just to what he had to do to his hair! Receding hairline aside, he conveys the wronged husband with dexterity conviction, making me wish he was in the film more than he was. Aaron Taylor Johnson fares less well. Cast as the young officer who fastidiously pursues Anna into eventual submission, he only achieves coming across as a youthful pest that won't leave the woman alone. Couple with curiously being made-up to look like Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka, Taylor-Johnson ultimately fails to give us a convincing portrayal of Count Vronsky. Completing the tale's trio, how does Keira Knightley stand up against her counterparts? As ever she gives a convincing performance as the conflicted heroine but she doesn't set the screen ablaze. Perhaps due to the lack of character development throughout the film, we never feel sympathy for her as we should when all begins to go sour. It is a shame because this could have been one of her defining roles, yet sadly it fails to match her earlier collaborations with Wright in Pride and Prejudice and Atonement.
Outside the main trio of protagonists, it has to be noted there is wonderful performances for the supporting cast, specifically Matthew Macfadyen (sporting a wondrous walrus-like moustache!) as Anna's adulterous brother and Kelly Macdonald as his long-suffering wife. I was intrigued to discover that James McAvoy, Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett and Benedict Cumberbatch all turned down roles in the film. I wonder if this review would be telling a different tale had they accepted!
Ultimately what we end up with is a film that is visually stunning yet lacking any real emotional depth, which is a shame. A story such as this could have been conveyed much greater and with Tom Stoppard's script and Joe Wright at the helm, I would have hoped to have been slightly more lifted when the credits rolled, rather than a little indifferent.

Anna Karenina is available now on DVD and Blu-ray.