PLAIN AMAZING

DIRECTED BY KEN LOACH

STARRING: STEVE EVETS, STEPHANIE BISHOP, GERARD KEARNS, STEPHAN GUMBS, LUCY-JO HUDSON, JOHN HENSHAW, JUSTIN MOORHOUSE AND ERIC CANTONA

Halfway through ‘Looking for Eric’, Eric Bishop (Steve Evets) sits down to have a smoke with Eric Cantona, a metaphor of his conscience, wishes to digress into football like he always does when confronted by a situation. Eric Cantona (Himself) in turn, dances with him. We don’t see him for the rest of the film from there, even the sequence where he’s most anticipated, where he doesn’t show up but still sends a deputy: Lily. It’s a done deed, what needs to be said had been said and Eric surely had been found. The end result of a search that had in no way been agonizing, but which had been filled with buckets of happiness and awesome goals.

So, how many films have we come across before that dealt with a supernatural character to keep a lonely man company? It would be incompetence on my part (not to mention ignorance) if I fail to quote names over here, but that’s not my point. The question I chose to ask myself instead is what can possibly make Eric Cantona stand out from the multiple geniuses who had nurtured losers in film-town through the ages, up until Chef Gusteau in Brad Bird’s ‘Ratatouille’? Simplicity, perhaps, because the character isn’t stressed, he just walks around and exists, there’s no puff of smoke or surprise. Eric is at home with Eric, and even with a troubled inner self, he’s still able to sit with the same and talk with it. The decisions are his, no minds changed, with the most far-fetched sequence being the most inspiring of the lot: Cantona’s best moment had been in seeing someone else score because of him, he quotes proverbs to substantiate that and he plays the trumpet too (“I’m not a man. I am Cantona.”). A cynic could be prickled here, but I thought it played along pretty well, I was more than happy with the deflation of this celebrity.

The contrast of build almost develops a sort of cool chemistry between the lead characters. Cantona being the tall and sturdy self that he is, while Bishop hovers far on the runty side, Steve Evets proving to be riveting with his performance, a sort of ‘live-in’ act more than a staged show. Lily (Stephanie Bishop, Laura Ainsworth) is amazing, the moments are amazing, I’m thrilled to know that the man Ken Loach could be this romantic at his age, but then again that’s nearly how old Eric is too. Dear me, lots to say, lots to say! Well, moments when Jess (Stephan Gumbs) watches militant rap videos with his friends, moments when I actually suspected him of having hidden the gun, moments when there’s a porn club in Ryan’s (Gerard Kearns) room, and there’s moments when there’s Eric in Eric’s. Goes to show that a man who’s messing his life up messes his children’s life more, because what’s suicide and depression to him turns out to be aggression and violence in the case of his ‘kids’. And I personally found their individual rooms irritating, too much of near-nudes. On the other hand, there’s also the well-mannered (not that the boys aren’t, they had just ‘forgotten’) daughter, the actual offspring Sam (Lucy-Jo Hudson) who is pretty much a breeze, the kind of child parents patch-up for, not to mention the fact that she has a girl of her own, adorable Daisy.

As I mentioned before, there wasn’t a moment when I was bitter and waiting for something good to happen, because everything was just impending and not doubtful. Lily had ‘moved on’ with just herself and Eric merely has to find the one who loved her, because that’s pretty much the only part of him that can love. Everything’s alright once he lays his hand on that version of him, love lights the rest. This is the kind of film that incessantly keeps one in good spirits because that’s exactly what it is: A depiction of a life that’s full of love and acts of love and I think you’ve just got to face it – Love’s fun.

THEY'RE 'KIDDING' ME!

DIRECTED BY MATTHEW VAUGHN

STARRING: AARON JOHNSON, CHLOE MORETZ, MARK STRONG, CHRISTOPHER MINTZ-PLASSE, LYNDSY FONSECA AND NICOLAS CAGE

A sense of evolution apparent, I’ve observed that superheroes got younger as time progressed, not to mention the debate surrounding the necessity of superpowers in order to be one. If ‘Superman’ flew and did all such things and ‘Batman’ defied that cliché, it was up to ‘Spiderman’ to even break through the aspect of mental-determination and need for change by inflicting personal intentions as base motive. Now, I’ve no mind at all to touch upon the ethics of it already, but what was College in the case of Peter Parker turns to school for Dave Lizewski a.k.a ‘Kick-Ass’. He is (most probably) 17 years old, but he isn’t a superhero. But ‘Hit-Girl’ (Chloe Moretz) is: And she is (again, most likely to be) eleven.

I needn’t say how outrageous it all is, the film speaks for itself. ‘Big Daddy’ (Nicolas Cage) is hailed towards the end by his very own daughter ‘Hit-Girl’ that he’s the best father in the whole world. To inspire vendetta is one thing, but it is certainly not in the same league to be living just for that. In that context, I’d actually like to question the whole set-up, the backdrop, the city involved, the government. Gotham functioned in its own regard, save for the slightest of mentions of the USA. The city in ‘Kick-Ass’ is ambient of it, and I was outraged (yes) to see a cop being introduced just for the purpose of him foster-fathering ‘Hit-Girl’ in a post-climactic epilogue. We’re to assume that the superheroes almost entirely operate underground, which I find hard to believe considering there’ve been films like ‘Eagle Eye’ lately, which show that it’s pretty damn hard even for a machinery of the tiniest level to function without governmental knowledge. I thought it ought to be pretty much established that drug-lords thrive only because they’re let to me, not because the system is ignorant about them, but it seems that no one in this vicinity other than Daddy and his little girl seem to know of such shady deals. I’m not assuming things over here, I’m merely playing by the idea that policemen in ‘Kick-Ass’ city do nothing but drop their superheroes at school.

What surprises me most is the thought that I could actually substantiate even a positive review of this film, because it’s fast, often wacky and so insensitive that it’s actually the most contemporary of superhero movies, better than ‘Hancock’ in terms of lethargy and an overall laid-back nature. Bodies are walked-on and the film is outrageously funny even in the direst of situations, consequential injuries even, and I think that’s something awfully wrong. If I was rolling with laughter when Kick-Ass got stabbed the first time, it was because I was supposed to be and that’s what makes the film questionable. Hit-Girl inspires awe in sequences, pounding dozens of fully-built men to the ground, affected in no way whatsoever by blood unless in an inspirational way, and Chloe Moretz (the big mouth in ‘(500) Days of Summer’) only makes us forget that she’s probably not even pubescent yet. Surely deserves a mention, this kid, who masters fight sequences in ways that could render the likes of Milla Jovovich and Angelina Jolie speechless. What she would also deserve is some grounding for a lifetime and also some quality time in military school as any ‘normal’ parent would agree.

That was how ‘Kick-Ass’ went for me. Each moment was a rush, a rage but I was constantly nagged by this voice that asked me to keep my eyes open, to know what was actually happening instead of what was being shown. Perhaps an older Hit-Girl would have kicked Katie Deauxma (Lyndsy Fonseca) off the plot, but I still liked the brother-sister kind of bond between the wannabe and the overgrown kid. I’ve got nothing on Chloe, though. Loved her, all through.

SOULFULLY FUNNY!

DIRECTED BY FATIH AKIN

STARRING: ADAM BOUSDOKOS, MORITZ BLEIBTREU, PHELINE ROGGAN, ANNA BEDERKE, BIROL UNEL, DORCA GRYLLUS, WOTAN WILKE MOHRING, LUCAS GREGOROWICZ AND CATRIN STRIEBECK

Warning: The following is not a piece of criticism but rather a perspective of admiration, possibly to fanatical extents, which is what could predominantly have helped me like ‘Soul Kitchen’ to the level that I ended up liking it, left in splits by a couple of sequences and entirely carried ahead by the rest without an apparent dull moment. I have to say that Fatih looks to be a sort of a reciprocal of Woody Allen in this digression into unfamiliar territory, that of comedy, like how the latter does serious to get his wares ahead. Allen casts Tchaikovsky, Fatih is more grunge, house and underground, and they deal with spectacularly diverse sections of society at that. Fatih Akin, still, is the only man who could have made ‘The Edge of Heaven’ and having said that, what was done was solely an analogy and not a comparison.

‘Soul Kitchen’ is funny. I wouldn’t call it hilarious or entirely justified, but it is what it is, a funny film that has a story to tell, and the humour here is for humour’s sake, it isn’t a prerequisite. Zinos is in real a tragedy, a sob-story, a laughing stock of an otherwise perfect robbery. He needs his brother to teach him something he already knows, he needs his girlfriend to show for real that she’s exactly what he fears she’d be and he has to lose his flourishing restaurant to make all this happen. He has (and earns) the friendship of Lucia, a naïve, yet committed romantic, that of Shayn, the trump, soul of his kitchen, knife on the wall, his brother Ilias, of course, and not to mention the enmity of one who’s written to be screwed by the one he screws (goes both ways), as part of which Catrin Striebeck gets to show that she can’t miss out on the sex on screen. Not the comedy, though. It’s not constructed: it hovers as it’s supposed to.

I wouldn’t call it slapstick, the physical condition, which ironically forms the backbone and isn’t an mere element. It’s the beings that are funny, the characters don’t have to be. Of course, I’m talking about Zinos and not Adam; Ilias and not Moritz, ‘Bonebreaker Kebel’ and not Ugur. Technicalities, well… the soundtrack was impressive, it had Fatih written all over it. Birol Unel extrapolates his ‘Head On’ slouch, except that it comes off to be surprisingly humourous. Pretty much a personnel overload, still it’s all good. There’s room for adoration, for empathy and most importantly, there’s a lot of laughs. Some goodness, of course, yeah. Even ‘Sideways’ ended on an optimistic note.

‘Soul Kitchen’ to me, is an example of how Fatih Akin would handle comedy in pretty much his own way. And I found that substantially soulful.

TIMID THAN FIERY

DIRECTED BY HENRY BEAN
STARRING: RYAN GOSLING, BILLY ZANE, THERESA RUSSELL AND SUMMER PHOENIX

Finally, this is a review that can never have as much dimension as the ‘New York Times’ (ruling Mr. Scott out of this) or maybe even ‘Washington Post’, predominantly because my house doesn’t overlook an anti-Semitic scenario. Not even a Semitic scenario at that, and that’s why I can’t touch upon the content of ‘The Believer’ as much as I can about the effect it produced.

I wonder how much this man can do, you know. This is not his only dilemmatic role, although Dan Dunne definitely had a way higher level of clarity on chaos than Daniel Balint, who plays a Jew who wants to blow Jews up. The world calls it ‘self-hating’, I frankly do not understand the relevance of the term. I don’t believe Danny hates himself but just the idea that he’s one among the kind of people he can never bring himself to like, although he is sub-consciously emotionally attached to his religion, particularly because he believes that he’s one of the very few who has actually understood it. What he feels is hatred towards the rest who don’t show as much clarity as he does, just like a laid-back, angst-ridden teen would hate an academically successful geek in school, partly because he thinks he understands the world better than the science-hogger can, possibly. He is, however, afraid or mortified to admit the fact that he is a Jew, although there is the substantiated opinion inside his head that one must know in order to even try to hate. To ‘be’ isn’t the same as to ‘know’.

I couldn’t find enough conflict in Danny to die, really. At least, maybe not this way, it could have been better if it was an inescapable situation where he just gives up fighting and gives in. Thought it looked a little too amateurish, to be honest. Ryan Gosling sparkles, fizzes, explodes even and yeah, he’s pretty much the bomb, it’s like everything’s on him. I cannot say that the ideas expressed in the film, be it the anti-Semitic theory based on sexuality, that which even goes as far as including Marx, are in anyway buyable, but I can safely state that Gosling’s vigour and energy in this performance made me raise as little questions about the context as possible, and I personally liked the idea of loving a Jew to destroy him, like a Godly finality curbs any sort of further development (at least that’s how I interpreted it). Again, it helps me if beautiful women play substantial parts, like Carla Moebius (Summer Phoenix) and the fascination she shows not for a ‘religion’ as such, but its language, which she finds intriguing. Sort of told that there’s more to religion than hatred, or that there’s more to religion than the religion itself, which could help one hate it less, like maybe a digression into Persian beauty to avert anti-Islamic tendencies (I’m just making an irrelevant parallel here, it’s not a big deal).

I’ve no verdict on this film, I just plainly thought it’s been a while. But yeah, thumbs up for Ryan Gosling, it’s certainly soothing to know that the man’s been in quite a substantial haul of roles.

WIN.

DIRECTED BY JAMES GARTNER

STARRING: JOSH LUCAS, DEREK LUKE, AUSTIN NICHOLS, RED WEST, EVAN JONES, SCHIN A.S. KERR, ALPHONSE McAULEY, MEHCAD BROOKS, AL SHEARER, DAMAINE RADCLIFF, EMILY DESCHANEL AND JON VOIGHT

A sports film-biopic that rigs together a dark-horse victory. There’s a lot of films to garner that kind of attention, right from the times of ‘Rocky’ through ‘Jerry Maguire’ (although not in a very major way) to the more recent ‘Seabiscuit’, but I find I’ve always directed any such thought only to one film, which I surprisingly hadn’t watched until today: ‘Glory Road’. Because these kinds of films are rare, where the forte is the genuineness of the emotions rather than the scale of victory. True, we get to see both in this film, there cannot be a larger victory than that of a Black-American over peers of a different complexion and there’s also the element of honesty seen, it’s like they’re shooting straight from the heart.

I sat back and wondered for a while: How could these scenes have been rehearsed? Or have they even been rehearsed, I don’t think so. Because one needs more than basketball to be in this film, to do justice to whatever it deals with. One needs heart, and that’s predominantly why I can’t comment about performances in this case, it’s simply unjust. Jon Voight is the outsider, inside and out. The rest are a team, the team. No comment either on quirk in humour, cheekiness, the dialogues are spoken, I doubt if you’d find them on paper, as far as I know they’re on film and the people have been speaking those things, doing them. They’re throwing balls into the basket, one team’s winning and the other’s losing the game. Live-action camera and video-editing cannot turn what happened into a fake, it stays real. James Gartner only helped it through, and I think that’s more than fair enough.

I liked the women in the film, somehow that’s pretty new for a sports-film, even ‘Jerry Maguire’ was out of this groove that ‘Glory Road’ sets me up for. I don’t know why there is a misconception (even among women), I think this point needs to be clarified, and yeah “look who’s talking!” right? Well yes, there’s nothing progressive about a break-up in a sports-film that could push the ‘coach’ only deeper where he’s fallen head-first into. Find better ways to emancipate your women, women! The woman who stays succeeds better at being a ‘woman’ than at being a wife, I think that needs saying more than twice. A lot of times. Don Hoskins’ wife (Emily Deschanel) lives through his ordeals, and so does Billy Joe Hill’s girlfriend. Mothers are always meant to stay, you know, I’m not really counting that in, but I was amazed at this story that speaks values and righteousness even off the court. There’s definitely more spoken on it, and as sure as hell, there’s more playing than speech.

The dark-horses are introduced, a team that’s falling apart and the coach isn’t yet another loud-mouth with a soft heart, he’s more tangible and relatable, and I think one needs to be a sportsman to know that. The team is made not by him but by itself, the pinpricks of prickle also contributed by the same. Victories are followed by the wildest of nights, and there’s punishment, discouragement, fear, loathing and liveliness in the escalation. The moments are magic, the screen is life. All you need to do is to live it, to be won.

NO MAN'S AN ISLAND

 

DIRECTED BY PETER HEDGES

STARRING: HUGH GRANT, NICHOLAS HOULT, TONI COLETTE AND RACHEL WEISZ

“What I meant was, I don’t think couples are the future. You need backup. And the way I saw it, me and Will both had our backups.”

‘About a Boy’ ended on those lines, and I think the title’s pretty fitting. It’s about a boy and nothing more, that’s it. Only that there’s a considerable ploy with the fact that a child could father a man at times, if not always. That’s what Will (Hugh Grant) tries to emphasize, that’s what Marcus (Nicholas Hoult) did in the first place, he helped bring out a certain ‘Will’ that people could actually like, and he might not have to conform with being an isle anymore because people just won’t let him be one. He teaches the boy to kiss-up, the boy teaches him to find himself, and I doubt if that would be hard in any way with a beauty like Rachel around to catalyze the change.

I was right in mentioning once that Peter Hedges could enchant me in my meanest of phases, and I don’t attribute that to masterful filmmaking, but of simple honesty and an aim at higher well being. ‘Pieces of April’ proved to give it all in one shot, ‘Dan in real life’ had Steve Carell, but was alright otherwise. The best thing about his kind of films is that they don’t give me the funny feeling of being weak in my knees by falling for melodrama, but rather a strength that here was a man who wanted to differ by looking for goodness and showing just that. There aren’t complexities or stressful interpretation of character, it’s all plainly presented and the show’s fairytale, which is what enhances its charm and I find that feeling unmatchable. There is just so much wellness, so much prosperity of heart and I found myself cheering with the crowd when Will took the stage, smiling as much as Marcus and probably as excited too, and that’s some impact for you.

She so easily inspires hate, Toni Colette. I came out absolutely loathing her in ‘Gone Baby Gone’, perhaps one could attribute that to excessive empathy towards the protagonist (played by Casey Affleck) but it’s undeniable that she’s a negative heavyweight, and what she serves to do in this film is to not enrage but to bring one down, if not to her level, but remarkably close to that. Yes, it is funny to see her cry, and it is funny to hear what Marcus has to say about her state, but this humour, as we find, isn’t ultimate although it lasts the length of the film. There’s a love replacement, and that ‘love’ isn’t just ‘love’ as illustrated by the headline, it’s an overall fondness, for as Marcus puts it, you can’t just live with two people you find you need more to keep you happy. The message is put forth loud and clear by a band of an idler, the woman he ‘loves’ (for the very first time in his life), an introverted child, his older ‘girlfriend’, and his hysterical mother who learns to not hold on to vegetarianism as much as she should hold on to her only son. The end is the beginning, but it’s not just feel-good stuff.

It’s a Peter Hedges film, for heaven’s sake. Something I’m obliged to like, because I wasn’t born a punk and neither was I made so.

NOT MY DRINK

DIRECTED BY TODD PHILIPS

STARRING: BRADLEY COOPER, ZACH GALIFIANAKIS, ED HELMS, JUSTIN BARTHA AND HEATHER GRAHAM

Yes, I watched ‘The Hangover’, about a year (or more) following its release and gigantically successful and well-appreciated run, and I must admit on the forefront that I think I had missed out on some seriously funny moments in a compactly done film, and being one who dug even films like ‘Disturbia’ and ‘21’, I acquiesce that I should probably have watched this a whole lot earlier. But, (and this is the crucial point) I still stand by my claim or stand to not watch this film because it’s just what it is – a Hangover. A bunch of guys trying to remember the fun they had, morose not because they had misbehaved, but more because they don’t remember it, and in that way ‘The Hangover’ is in no way a ‘film’ of sorts. I felt the same about ‘Knocked Up’; same about ‘Superbad’, and this is no different.

But again, this is well written. The task of keeping the viewer in the dark, not giving too much away, keeping it up to hunches and notions in a quirk of suspense in the overall comic ambience required some good screenwriting and I found the writers well up to their mark. I don’t know, the film gave me this impression that usual successful films give, this compliance with the sequence of events rather than an urge demanding for a better one instead – I just watched the film, which means I drunk into what was offered and didn’t ask for more, as far as the writing was concerned. The important task was to keep me clueless till they chose to disclose and that was successfully maintained. Well done!

Negatives? Let’s not talk about it, decidedly. It’s a lost argument to bring ethics into an utterly perverted comedy drama, doesn’t work even as much as it would in a slasher-thriller. Not blood in this case, though, but urine, it’s more than disgusting that Alan is always caught with his pants down. Heather Graham is made to look like an idiot with what could be the most inappropriate role ever, (counting in the likes of Kirsten Dunst in ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’) and the writers could have found no better way to fart on marriage and the sanctity behind the same. The excuse could be that this is ‘a guy thing’, which not only makes the misogyny excusable, but also mandatory.

So how do I end this, then, a film that cannot be called one but which has to be given credit because I was found rolling with laughter, caught with my hand in my pants? The answer is that while ‘The Hangover’ could appeal to the hip, clubbing, weed-smoking new generation (of which I do not identify myself as a part) citing cheek in humour and fairly exaggerated reality, it is an otherwise useless refuge for the conscious film-viewer who, if still existent, would stand up to ask every single moment if these people are capable in the slightest of the extinct thing called ‘human emotion’.