Boudu Saved from Drowning

If I ever win the lottery, I'm buying myself a cinema.

One of the abandoned Art Deco palaces littering my home town. I'm going to do it up and run my own independent cinema. Independent cinemas are the best, places that show more than the big release of the week on six screens (Yes, I'm talking to you, local multiplex) and will quite happily show film that will appeal to only 6 people. I'm lucky to have one of the most marvellous independent cinemas near me. I've done course and workshops and gone to open days there, I've snuck off school AND work to see films there (you wont tell anyone will you?) over a period of about 20 years. Now I feel wicked and old.

I love old films, black and white, silent with bombastic scores or hiccuping scratchy talkies. As a child I remember spending school holiday mornings watching these classics on TV. One of my favorite things to do now to catch a magnificent 1930's french comedy on the big screen, so when my favorite cinema is showing a special re-release of 'Boudu Saved from Drowning', by Jean Renior I had to be there.

It was wonderful, lyrical, meandering film about the tramp Boudu and the havoc he wreaks on the live of his bourgeois saviour. Of course by modern terms the comedy is a little tame but there was still plenty of laughs, enough to one man in my cinema roaring out loud throughout the film. Perfect night out.

Black Swan

I think I picked the perfect time to go and see Darren Aronofsky Black Swan at my local multiplex, 9am on a Sunday morning. Apparently, like 'The Kings Speech' it usually sold out, but I was the only one in the cinema when I went to the movies. To be honest, that's my idea of heaven, no other people around to chat, munch, text or kick and spoil my enjoyment of the film. And it started on time, was projected in the right ratio and sounded good. It seems I'm going to have to make more of an effort to get up early at the weekends.

I'd been looking forward to seeing this film immensely, loving the very graphic posters that appeared in my nearest independent cinema a while back and having something of a school girl crush on Vincent Cassel. A film about a ballarina struggling with her psyche to find the evil with in needed to play the dual roles of the black and white swan in Swan Lake - sounds delicious, like 'Ballet Shoes' for big girls and a slight thriller/horror element for anyone not terpsichorean inclined.

For the first hour or so of the film I was wondering what all the fuss was about, the two young female leads had obviously put in a huge amount of work to protraying ballet dancer correctly. I don't just mean they looked bird thin and wore there hair in buns, they had put in the practice and moved convincingly during the dance routines. But I found Natalie Portmans Nina just annoying, her constant fear and high strung nature was depressing me, and I'm a fan of Almodóvar and melodrama, so I wondered what everyone else was seeing in it. Then almost like switch being turned on the subtle nuances of the how Nina's story was intertwined with Swan Lake became apparent. For me it came when I was able to slot Barbara Hershey character in to cast of Swan Lake, I think it took me longer than most folks, and from that moment on I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see how it would all play out or if there would be a brilliant twist ending.

All in all I say I enjoyed the film - but it left we with lots of questions, not so much about the characters, the actors where brilliant, and I'm quite happy with what some friends have seen as unexplained/unresolved points of the story. To me it is a self contained piece and I don't see the point in wondering what next or how did they, I mean sometimes that happens, in life you never get to know all the answers. Mine are more movie geeky about lighting and cameras - how sad am I!

I mean just take a look at this spoil-tastic VFX reel

Tangled

I was lucky enough to get a ticket to a preview screening of the new Disney film 'Tangled' last Monday. Now I'm a big Disney fan - Did I mention I like everything? So I was eagerly anticipating this new film, to be honest I'd completely forgotten everything about 'The Princess and the Frog' which was very pretty but not very memorable. Growing up, Madame Medusa was my favorite Disney villain and Dr. Facilier just felt too light weight by comparison. Perhaps it was because I was older.

'Tangled' is getting massive hype from America, a beautiful return to form, a modern twist on the script and in 3D. Now I'm not entirely convinced that 3D is the future of cinema, while I still have to wear 3D glasses it will only be a gimmick. But this is the kind of film that is gimmick worthy.

Based on the Grimms' Fairy Tale, Rapunzel, if your not familiar with the story; Rapunzel is a young women is trapped in a tower, her only visitor a old women who has stolen her away from her real family. The only way to get into and out of the tower is for Rapunzel to lower her extremely long hair from the upper window. Bored with her life Rapunzel takes the opportunity to escape from the tower when a charming thief called Flynn happens to find the tower.

Nothing is new here, the heroine is feisty, the hero dumb but charming, there are several cute animals which will end up as stuffed toys in the Disney Store and villain who wont give kids nightmares. The songs are happy and upbeat, the script peppered with witty remarks and the palette is colourful. For 90 minutes I was entertained and I promptly forgot about most of it on the way home. I'm afraid the only thing I took away from the cinema was the 3D glasses.

I'm taking some family members to see it again next month and I don't find the idea appalling.

127 Hours

127 hours is not a movie I'd usually pick out to see.

The premise is this . . . man gets his arm trapped while rock climbing, and I don't think I'm giving too much away when I say, that to escape he has to cut off his arm. At 94 minutes, my fear was that it would be too long and drawn out, or an extended feast of blood and gore. So I'm not enamored of the premise and James Franco has never actually thrilled me as an actor, if it wasn't my lingering affection for Shallow Grave, which makes me want to see anything by Danny Boyle, I'd probably have given it a miss.

I'd expected flappy, bloated, self-indulgent but instead its a nice compact little film. After establishing the vastness and isolation of landscape we spend the majority of the film trapped in a twisting, intricate burrow in Blue John canyon. It could have been boring . . . but it wasn't fast edits, clever camera angles and shots from inside water bottles, tubes and fridges keeps it visually interesting. Francos performance is very genuine - while I'm not sure I'd ever get on with Aron Ralston I could relate to him, I don't see myself in him but I do know people like him.

THE scene, the one everyone waiting for, isn't too gruesome, take it from a complete coward but with the wonderful Hitchcock-esque build up where everyone knows what's coming and is convinced they can't watch. Its a really great McGuffin.

Overall the film is technically perfect, good cinematography, story, direction, acting . . . I could go on. Your enjoyment of the film is simply down to how much you engage with the character of Aron Ralston, once you buy into to that like him or not you have to see it through to the end.

My biggest issue again was with the cinema, poorly projected and deafening sound. I mean every-time the sound track music came on I had to sit with both fingers in my ears just to make it through it. It was interesting that at the loudest part of the film was also the part where most people left the cinema. (Roughly 10% of the audience left.)

The Way Back

Peter Weir is a probably one of my favorite directors.

His films pepper my life from as far back as I can remember, seriously I've never known a point in my life when I didn't love 'Picnic At Hanging Rock', my Mother snuck me in to see 'Witness' for my birthday after I spent weeks pestering her and my favorite English Teacher announce his retirement the week after I saw 'Dead Poets Society'.

Peter Weir and I have a connection - he may not know it but we do. So I have been waiting years, 7 in total I think since 'Master and Commander', for his new film. Another great adventure story, this time with scenery done by National Geographic, it sounded so amazing and the cast, Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess, Colin Farrell, Mark Strong and Saoirse Ronan, any one of whom I'd quite willing pay to see in a film.

Its the story of a daring escape through Russian, Mongolia, China and Tibet by a group of desperate political prisoners. As they travel the 4000 miles across some of the most inhospitable and stunning landscapes in the world, the endure great deprivation and extremes of weather. While the veracity of the story has been doubted the actors give and amazing portrayal of human endurance and courage.

But to be honest the film left me a little disappointed, with less emphasis on adventure and more focus on the amazing courage of the characters and not enough gorgeous scenery, stunning scenery but not enough of the long, lingering 'travel porn' I've come to expect from National Geographic. In saying that it was a good film and like all Peter Weir films I have no doubt I will buy it on DVD, but my biggest problem with it was it wasn't a great film. As criticism goes it pretty minor.

Unfortunately the cinema I saw this in was hosting a meeting of the local debating society - honestly I once went to see a performance at a theatre in China where everyone kept talking during the show, it was like that. My personal belief is people get so used to watching movies at home on their big screen TV they can no longer distinguish between the two . . . Come on people surely you can be quite for 2 hours?

The King's Speech

It's seemed rather fitting that I finally get around to starting this blog with Tom Hooper's "The King's Speech". I've had the opportunity to to see this in previews not once but four times and unfortunately I've had miss all four screenings.

It was worth the wait.

I was starting to dread seeing this film - it couldn't live up to the hype I'd read in the press, heard from friends and built up in my own mind. In the cinema I was getting even more apprehensive as the rest of cinema audience had each been given a list of my personal cinema bug bears and encouraged to partake in all of them. On either side of me couples who alternately swapped saliva and consumed an eight course meal. Behind me a couple who had brought a tin of Quality Street and while one rustled their sweet wrappers the other tried and failed to muffle the sound of the tin opening. I'm not sure they actually managed to eat any of the sweets just rustle wrappers and burp that lid. And there was something up with the projection; usually I'd complain but . . . It's that good.

Based on on the friendship between King George VI and his speech therapist, Lionel Logue. It ticks all the boxes required of a historical drama, it looks gorgeous, filled with exquisite actors giving polished performance and it gives you a warm sepia glow in your heart. But 'The King's Speech" also has laughs, lots of them and dialogue witting enough to make you want to co-op it for yourself. Honestly, at points I was starting to figure out which friends I could use the lines on with out them realizing I'd outright nicked them. Of course, most of them only work if you're Royal.

And it does look beautiful, and quite often I'll forgive a film a lot because it looks pretty. So when I get distracted from my observations on the wallpaper because there's an actor in the way then I know they're doing a good job. I know everyone is saying that Colin Firth was brilliant, and don't get me wrong he is outstanding, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the performance given by Helena Bonham Carter. As the Duchess of York, who before her marriage was considered a commoner, she represents the nation and duty. Years of playing over the top characters give her a repressed amusement and tragedy that strip away years of tabloid veneer and made me re-examine that old caricature The Queen Mother. She really deservers her Best Supporting Actress nomination at the Golden Globes.