Wednesday 26 March 2008

The Orphanage

Cast
Belén Rueda
Fernando Cayo
Roger Príncep
Mabel Rivera
Andrés Gertrúdix
Montserrat Carulla
Geraldine Chaplin
Screenwriter
Sergio G. Sánchez
Director
Juan Antonio Bayona
Running Time
105m 36s

Laura returns to the stately manor house that holds such a special place in her heart. The orphanage was abandoned years ago; Laura and her husband, Carlos, plan to reopen it as a center for sick and disabled children. It will be a place where boys and girls--including the couple's beloved 7-year-old Simón--can play freely in the open air, enjoying the sunshine and the nearby beach. In its years of solitude, however, the orphanage has acquired a haunted, unhappy air. To get used to his creepy surroundings, Simón starts to have relationships with imaginary friends. Simón's circle of unseen friends quickly expands to include five more boys and girls, who tell cryptic stories and engage him in elaborate games that carry a suggestion of the sinister. Troubled, Laura allows herself to get sucked into her son's eerie world, which seems to resonate with a far-away and disturbing echo of her own childhood experiences. (Picturehouse)


A great scary atmospheric ghost story.

Wednesday 19 March 2008

The Savages

Cast
Laura Linney
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Bosco
Gbenga Akinnagbe
Screenwriter
Tamara Jenkins
Director
Tamara Jenkins
Running Time
114 minutes

As their estranged father Lenny (Bosco) sinks into senility in an Arizona retirement village, Wendy (Linney) and Jon (Hoffman) Savage are forced to figure out how to care for the dad who never cared for them.

First, the projection of the film was 15 minutes late in starting and then was too dark for a large section. A scene which I saw in the trailer, set in a well lit room, was in semi darkness. I don't know enough about film projection to say how that happens but it did. Anyway on with the review, the film starts well but doesn't really go anywhere. I've seen reviews which say the trailer gives a false impression of the tone of the movie making it seem like more of a blackly comic drama than it really is and I would agree. The film actually reminds me a lot of Nanni Moretti's The Son's Room in that it's quite minimalistic and if you have no personal experience of the subject matter to be able to fill in the gaps the emotional intensity is missing. There's just a lack of dialogue but lots of hand held shots of building tops, tree tops and cacti tops. Also making the children a professor and a playwright just seems unnecessary, keeping the average viewer from identifying closely with them.

Wednesday 12 March 2008

The Bank Job

Cast
Jason Statham
Saffron Burrows
Stephen Campbell Moore
Daniel Mays
James Faulkner
Alki David
Michael Jibson
Richard Lintern
Don Gallagher
David Suchet
Craig Fairbrass
Keeley Hawes
Peter Bowles
Colin Salmon
Alistair Petrie
Georgia Taylor
Screenwriters
Dick Clement
Ian La Frenais
Director
Roger Donaldson
Running Time
111 minutes

A car dealer with a dodgy past and new family, Terry has always avoided major-league scams. But when Martine, a beautiful model from his old neighborhood, offers him a lead on a foolproof bank hit on London's Baker Street, Terry recognizes the opportunity of a lifetime. Martine targets a roomful of safe-deposit boxes worth millions in cash and jewelry. But Terry and his crew don't realize the boxes also contain a treasure trove of dirty secrets--secrets that will thrust them into a deadly web of corruption and illicit scandal that spans London's criminal underworld, the highest echelons of the British government, and the Royal Family itself. This is the true story of a heist gone wrong in all the right ways. (Lionsgate)

Not very good. Unoriginal, dull and messily told.

Wednesday 5 March 2008

There Will Be Blood

Cast
Daniel Day-Lewis
Paul Dano
Kevin J. O'Connor
Ciaran Hinds
Russell Harvard
Mary Elizabeth Barret
Kevin Breznahan
Brad Carr
Screenwriter
Paul Thomas Anderson
Director
Paul Thomas Anderson
Running Time
158 minutes

When Daniel Plainview gets a mysterious tip-off that there's a little town out West where an ocean of oil is oozing out of the ground, he heads there with his son, H.W., to take their chances in dust-worn Little Boston. In this hardscrabble town, where the main excitement centers around the HOLY ROLLER church of charismatic preacher Eli Sunday, Plainview and H.W. make their lucky strike. But even as the well raises all of their fortunes, nothing will remain the same as conflicts escalate and every human value--love, hope, community, belief, ambition, and even the bond between father and son--is imperiled by corruption, deception, and the flow of oil. (Paramount Vantage)

I don't know how many decades have passed since the last oil prospecting western so it's surprising and refreshing to see one. Daniel Day-Lewis is mesmerising and the whole film centres around him as really the only main character with everyone else reduced to cameo sized appearances. The whole thing is absorbing but there's a strangeness about it and in particular the ending, which is kind of eccentric.