Moonrise Kingdom is a celebration of young love in the naively innocent America of the mid-1960s. It is both charming and exquisitely filmed giving a sense of period and a picture postcard view of the islands where it is set. There are plenty of Wes Anderson's trademark panning shots - moving from one room to another - and clever use of texts and letters that show an awareness of the possibilities of cinema without having to resort to CGI effects or 3D to achieve visual interest and effects.
Moonrise Kingdom is set in New Penzance, a small New England coastal town, in 1965, in a little coastal town in New England called New Penzance. Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward) are two bright but unpopular kids who fall in love. Sam, an orphan, is a member of the Khaki Scouts. Suzy reads sci-fi and the music of Françoise Hardy on her brother's portable record player. She spies on people - her parents and their friends - using a pair of binoculars.
Sam and Suzy decide to run away together and the ensuing crisis highlights the problems in the lives of Suzy's lawyer parents (played by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand). Ed Norton is the ridiculous leader of the scout troop, and Bruce Willis is the lonely police chief, but they all pull together in fear and of the social services officer (Tilda Swinton) who is overly keen keen to pack Sam away into an orphanage.
The movie is gently comic throughout, with touches of the absurd and the exaggerated. There are few outright belly laughs, but they wouldn't seem at home amongst the quirkiness and oddity of Anderson's cinematic style - full of small town America and simple lives torn apart by more modern events and sensitivities all of which seem awkward and alien to the world of New Penzance.
I thoroughly enjoyed Moonrise Kingdom - it is simple storytelling at its best, with some fantastic performances from all involved (but notably the two young stars in their first movie). Sadly, as is so often the case with the slightly off-beat, it has had a limited release and will be forgotten amongst the Special FX of all the blockbusters being released this week and next.
It seemed somewhat appropriate going to see Sacha Baron Cohen's comedy about a tyrannical despot on the day that the British monarch entertained several of the world's most evil oppressors as part of her Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
I've not always liked Sacha Baron Cohen's creations: Borat was a sketch stretched to breaking point to fill a movie and Brüno was just boring but I have to say I really enjoyed The Dictator.
Yes, it has many tasteless jokes and pushes the boundaries of what's acceptable, and, yes, there are moments when you'll be asking yourself "Did he really just say that?" but, somehow, it all sits comfortably within the plot.
The film opens with a graphic saying "In Memory of Kim Jong-Il" and, superficially, it is the world's autocracies that are the butt of MU h of the humour. However, the real target is America, American politics and the greed of global corporations. For me the funniest scene is towards the end of the movie when Aladeen gives a speech saying about how bad democracy is compared to a dictatorship - but all the positives of a dictatorship are things carried out by recent American presidents.
The actual plot owes a lot to Eddie Murphy's Coming to America - it's the whole fish out of water, lost in New York story again - and, quite frankly, the romance storyline could be ditched, but the plot has direction and is more than just pegs to connect comic skits, which, ultimately, was Borat's downfall.
The Dictator is only 83 minutes long too. It does what it does without being dragged out unnecessarily.
Some will find it offensive, others will love it. I really enjoyed it.
I went to see Mirror, Mirror when I made the mistake of giving my daughters the choice of movie to go see.
It's not an awful movie, and there's clearly been a lot spent on it, but it's not a good movie by a long way.
The movie begins promisingly with background story told in puppets and CGI, and the's a mildly entertaining Julia Roberts monologue, which suggests a knowing, tongue in cheek tone that, had it been followed through, could have made a much better film.
The problem is that it doesn't really do anything more than the classic Walt Disney cartoon. The fight scenes are more realistic (hey, it's got real actors not characters!) but there are probably too many of them; evil queen isn't really evil enough - for a film that was clearly a vehicle for Ms. Roberts it does rather waste her talents; comedy, and here I mean the dwarves and the excruciating scene when the prince thinks he's a dog, is just not very funny (though my 6-year loved the prince as dog scene); and the great romance isn't, we'll, romantic enough.
It's a missed opportunity. I just hope that the second Snow White more of the year (Snow White & the Huntsman) is better.
I like French movies. They tend to avoid the same mistakes as Hollywood moves (or even British movies) by not getting fixated with special effects and pampering to the egos of superstars. Instead, and I know this is a massive generalisation, they focus on storytelling, the narrative and character development. Maybe it's because they are made in much smaller budgets, or maybe they still care about the art of movie making and less the effect of it.
La Délicatesse is a delightful movie, full of emotion, and heart warming moments, as well as many moments of gent,e humour, and a great soundtrack that includes everything from rock and roll to faux Steve Reich minimalism.
Nathalie (played by Audrey Tautou)is a beautiful and successful business executive in Paris. Her life is just perfect, happily married to her soul mate. but then, suddenly she is widowed. She struggles to cope with her loss and, to the dismay of her friends and family, submerges herself into her work.
One day, though, she finds a new spark for life, from a most unexpected quarter - her rather awkward and plain looking office junior, Markus (François Damiens).
Markus is initially stunned at Nathalie's interest and, over time, their relationship moves from awkward to loving, but they have a bigger battle - dealing with the reaction of others to their romance.
Markus starts off seeming odd, peculiar, and, perhaps, even a little creepy. He is unused to female attention but the affection the two characters develop is delightful and charming.
Yes, it's subtitled, and if you don't like reading subtitles there's no easy way round that (unless you happen to be fluent in French, of course!), but I think it's definitely worth the effort of reading them. This is a good movie that develops characters you care about and that are believable. No explosions, no monsters and no mega budget blockbuster but a lovely movie to while away a couple of hours and give you hope for the human spirit.
One final word of praise has to be for the QUAD in Derby where I went to watch this movie - probably the best cinema in the East Midlands and with a great café bar too.
Ricky Gervais isn't one to shy away from controversy. Some might suggest he seems to deliberately court controversy because it helps viewing figures and ticket sales.
I'll be honest: I'm not sure about him. He has produced some undeniably brilliant work (The Office), and, in his role as Master of Ceremonies at the Golden Globes he popped many an over inflated Hollywood ego with some incisive wit and some simple insults, but, sadly, he does seem rather hit and miss, and, worst of all, he seems to have fallen hook, line and sinker for his own publicity guff.
Yes, he is successful - there is no denying that - and, yes, he is almost certainly worth a fortune as a result of the huge success The Office has had in its American version, plus some movies which have done well - but his arrogance is, at times, infuriating and detracts from the good things he has done.
Derek is his latest project. At the moment it's a one-off hour-long comedy drama but, I wouldn't be surprised if, assuming viewing figures are high enough, he turns it into another cash cow. Having said that, I think it's fair to say that it's unlikely that the programme would ever have hit our screens without Ricky Gervais' involvement - and, boy, is he involved - he does just about everything in the show except make tea for the cast.
Derek works in an old folks' home, with Doogie (played by Gervais' friend Karl Pilkington). Both Derek and Doogie are what you might politely call simpletons.
Some have been "outraged" at the portrayal of someone who clearly has a learning disability, and, there's no denying it, it is awkward and cringeworthy, but I feel it is our reaction to those with a learning disability that is being questioned more than Derek being laughed at.
I wonder if those who are "outraged" by Derek complained about the portrayal by Ardal O'HanlanFr. Dougal in Father Ted, or felt that Fawlty Towers' Manuel took the mickey out of people with learning disabilities too much? I would suggest that simpletons have been used as the butt of comedy since time in memorial - but does that make it right?
It's an odd debate that will dominate reviews of Derek and, as a result, the genuine heart of this comedy drama will be lost. What Gervais highlights is how awful it is to be in an old folks' home for the rest of your days, just waiting for death.
It's a shame that Gervais' natural inclination to shock has got in the way of what could have been a touching and humorous look at life as an old person in modern Britain.
Still, Mr. Gervais will have done what he wanted - got people talking about him, and I'm sure it won't do his bank balance any harm. Sadly, though, Derek just isn't very good and lacks any lines that are actually funny.
I've never been one to be sucked into cult teen stories. Sure, as a school kid I read Lord of the Rings and the Narnia books but wasn't a big fan of either. Now as an adult I found Harry Potter to be a bit dull (though the movies got better as the series progressed) and Twilight... well I'm male and went through puberty several decades ago so I'm clearly not in the intended demographic!
I'd never heard of The Hunger Games books until publicity for the movie began and, as it's aimed at "young adults" I wasn't totally convinced I should bother but, hey ho, I thought I'd give it a go.
The Hunger Games is set in a dystopian future world where, as an annual television event, the 12 Districts put up one girl and one boy aged between 12 and 18 to compete to the death for the honour of the district. Only one can survive.
Now I'm sure there will be those who wil decry the movie and say it's not as good as the book. I'm not convinced. That, as far as I can see, is adults trying to justify why they're reading books intended for teenagers - the same people for whom Harry Potter was published in an edition with more adult looking covers to spare their blushes on the morning commute.
It's an odd mix of a movie with elements blatantly lifted from The Truman Show, Lost and even Death Race 2000 - and not as good as any of them. It's all very clunky and awkward and, to be honest, would probably have worked better as a mini series.
It's very stylised but all so very, very predictable. Even the twist at the end (Donald Sutherland's intervention) is highly predictable in a way that the twist at the end of The Truman Show was a surprise.
Jennifer Lawrence gives a good performance as Katniss, the female representative for District 12 who volunteers herself in place of her younger sister, but Josh Hutcherson, who plays Peeta, the male representative, has as much life and character as one of those life size cardboard cut outs cinemas often have in their foyer. Most of the time he seems to be reading his lines from the trees where the games are held. (At one point Peeta is experimenting with camouflaging himself as a tree... which says all you need to know about his acting!)
If The Hunger Games are such great books they almost certainly deserve a better movie than this. I suspect fans of the books have over stated their case and it's simply a mediocre story made into a mediocre movie with a big advertising budget.
About 20 years ago I spent a few days in Philadelphia and visited Edgar Allen Poe's house there. It may have changed since then but when I visited the house was completely empty, there was no furniture or memorabilia, not even a bookcase with the author's books on it. The whole house was undecorated and the walls were, if I remember rightly, unplastered. Somehow, though, the tour guide made it into a thoroughly enjoyable and memorable visit weaving details of Poe's life with his poems and stories.
Edgar Allen Poe, the American master of horror, is found sitting on a park bench in Baltimore. He is dazed and confused and near death.
What follows is a ripping yarn of a serial killer inspired by Poe's writings, and all his most famous works get a mention. It is, on many ways, a bit like the movie Se7en but transferred to mid-19th century America.
It's not art but a great romp with cloaks and candles, graveyards and cellars, horse riding and a masked ball and a body count that would put Midsomer Murders to shame!
John Cusack, not known for period drama, is convincing as Edgar Allen Poe and the supporting cast all play their parts to support the twists and turns of the story. Alice Eve, the daughter of Actors Trevor Eve and Sharon Maughan, is Poe's love interest, the woman he wants to marry but her father objects to the suggestion of marriage.
Towards the end of the movie the possibility that it's all been the narrative of a near death dream - bringing together all the threads of his life's works. Has it all be an hallucination?
I'm not one for blood and guts and gore, and it's worth noting there are a few rather gory moments that, along with some fairly mild swearing, definitely warrant the 15 certificate
I'm just watching the first episode of Homeland, which is currently being shown on Channel 4 in the UK after a prize-winning series in the USA.
The story follows Marine Sergeant Nicholas Brody (played by Damian Lewis) who returns home after eight years having been missing in Iraq. Carrie Mathison (Clare Danes) is a CIA officer who suspects there's more to Brody's story than meets the eye. She thinks he might be plotting an attack on the USA.
The script is fairly fast-paced and the basic concept is presented in such a way that the events are believable. Mathison veers back and forth between driven, paranoid and, possibly, slightly unhinged (she is recovering from a mood disorder). She is certainly determined to find the truth.
Brody's wife has moved on, assuming that her husband was dead, and suddenly has to snap back into the role of supportive wife as Brody is treated, on the one hand, as a national hero and, on the other, as a source of information about possible terrorist groups.
Mathison watches him closely and spots a pattern of finger movements that Brody does whenever he is on camera. Is he sending a coded message to someone?
Lewis and Danes give brilliant performances and are supported by an ensemble of fine acting. So far, at least, everything seems very realistic.
The first episode manages to avoid "first episode syndrome" - taking too long to set up the whole premise and seeming a bit dull as a result.
It looks like an excellent series. Very much looking forward to episode two to see how this develops.
9/11, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC, took place less than a month before our first child was born. My wife and I wondered what sort of a world we were bringing a child into or even if there was going to be a world to bring them into as we watched images of the Twin Towers being attacked, on fire and, eventually, tumbling into piles of rubble.
It's unusual for Tom Hanks to be in a controversial movie, but Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close has received a lot of criticism from those who say that it is too soon to explore the emotions of that day in September 2001, and yet it isn't the first movie about the events that shook the world and changed everyone's lives since. Even with critics of the timing and suitability of the subject matter, and some other very negative reviews, the movie has been nominated for Best Movie at the Oscars, which take place on February 26th.
Stephen Daldry's movie is an adaptation of a novel, written in 2005, by Jonathan Safran Foer. The movie begins with a body falling from the sky - one of the "jumpers" who leapt from the WTC.
Oskar Schell (played by Thomas Horn in his first ever movie role, having been spotted as a winner on a kids' special of the quiz show Jeopardy) is the son of Thomas Schell (Tom Hanks), who died in the Twin Towers on 9/11.
Oskar recalls the scavenger hunts his father set up for him to help him deal with the real world as Oskar is, it is implied, borderline Asperger's. The hunts are meant to be a learning experience so that Oskar can learn that "if things were easy to find, they wouldn't be worth finding". The scavenger hunt starts at a playground swing in Central Park, where Thomas says he played as a child. Oskar, though, is afraid of swings.
Oskar school closes early on September 11th and when he gets home he finds six messages on the answer machine from his father. His mother (Sandra Bullock) is at work, so Oskar listens to the messages which say that his father is in the World Trade Center on the 105th floor of the North Tower. Oskar switches on the television and watches the TV news coverage of the events. As the Twin Towers collapse, Oskar realises his father has been killed and goes to hide underneath his bed.
A few weeks later Oskar tells his grandmother what happened and as they become closer Oskar's relationship with his mother worsens as she is unable to explain why the events of 9/11 and the death of Oskar's father happened.
One year on, Oskar decides to look through his father's closet and, in doing so, smashes a blue vase in which there is a key inside an envelope. On the envelope is the word "Black". Oskar decides to track down what the key fits will open. He looks up the name "Black" in the phone book and finds there are 417 people with that surname. And so Oskar sets about meeting all 417 people called Black to ask if they knew his father.
Well into his hunt, Oskar notices that an elderly man had moved into his grandmother's apartment. His grandmother describes him as a "stranger".
Calling on his grandmother, he meets the stranger (Max Von Sydow) and the two strike up a touching friendship. The stranger, known only as "The Renter" doesn't talk, perhaps because of a childhood trauma in the Second World War, so he communicates by writing messages on a notebook.
Eventually, Oskar does find where the key belongs and learns to confront many of his fears of the world.
Now, there are some lovely moments, and, yes, I admit it, there were a couple of times when I blubbed (but then I am known to cry at all sorts of films from Up! and Toy Story 3 to West Side Story and Scott of the Antarctic (yes, really)). The friendship between Oskar and The Renter is genuinely touching, and Max von Sydow's performance is beautifully expressive despite him not speaking (indeed, he is one of three actors nominated for an Oscar who says nothing!), but so much of the movie is overly long and clunky.
The basic premise of the movie, a young boy moving around Manhattan alone while his mother stays at home being depressed, is justified by a tortuous, unbelievable and clunky plot device late on.
Now, I'm normally someone who prefers movies to books, but maybe, just maybe, I can see that this might be better as a book. The web of small stories of all the people Oskar meets on his hunt just seem rambling and pointless in the movie but could each be explored more in a book. (I've not read the book, maybe that rambles and doesn't make complete sense either!).
And there's no real explanation of the title, which, after Martha Marcy May Marlene has to be the trickiest title to get right in many a year.
It's not an awful film, I've seen much worse, and worse films have ended up winning Best Movie at the Oscars, but, for me, this wasn't the movie I was hoping for, it didn't live up to the trailer which, I thought, looked inspiring, emotional and coherent.
I remember, years ago, going to see the play of The Woman in Black in the West End and being told by everyone that it was the most terrifying thing EVER! I left the theatre disappointed, feeling rather short changed that, yes, it had scary moments but it was, to my mind, far from being the scariest thing EVER!
Today I went to see The Woman in Black in its movie version. It has, of course, generated a lot of publicity as you'd expect from the first movie adaptation of a best selling novel that's also been a hugely successful West End play. Oh, and of course, it's Daniel Radcliffe's first movie since the Harry Potter franchise came to an end last year. In recent weeks it's been difficult to avoid Mr. Radcliffe while he does the publicity rounds - in fact, the only people with a higher public profile in recent weeks are disgraced footballers and Muppets (insert your own joke here!).
The movie has been adapted by Jane Goldman from the original Susan Hill novel and is very different from the play, which is a two-hander, though the bulk of the acting is done by Radcliffe and Ciaran Hinds who plays Daily, the wealthy local landowner who takes it upon himself to help Kipps.
The story tells of Arthur Kipps, a young lawyer, who travels to a remote village in the North East of England in order to sort out the estate of a deceased woman. He isn't welcomed by the locals, who make the locals in American Werewolf in london seem friendly but he, nonetheless, begins work at the old house which is situated on a tidal island. Gradually, as he gets to work, strange things start happening and he sees visions of the Woman in Black.
It's a tremendous ghost story, and it's great to see the legendary Hammer brand being relaunched like a phoenix from the flames of oblivion. The scares come, on the whole, from your own imagination. There's lots of suggestion and things are implied without things being particularly graphic or gruesome. I'm really not one of gory slasher movies! There's always something sinister when you combine clockwork toys, shadows, candles and an old, deserted house - this uses these brilliantly and, I have to admit, I got goosebumps and chills on several occasions through the film.
There were some genuine squeals of fright from others in the cinema too. If you don't get to see it at the cinema, and I suggest you do try to see it on the big screen, it'll be a great movie to watch on DVD at Hallowe'en.
Martha Marcy May Marlene may not be the snappiest of movie titles I've ever come across, and, I must confess, I had to read it from the wall behind the cashier when buying my ticket, but the movie, a tense, dark, emotional piece of indie cinema, is far more memorable than the title!
Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) runs away from a cult in the Catskills where she has been physically and psychologically abused over a period of about two years, losing all contact with her family. She phones her sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson), who takes her to the lakeside holiday home she rents with her husband, Ted (Hugh Dancy) who is a successful, wealthy and priggish Brit!
It is instantly obvious that Martha is deeply troubled and scarred by her experience at the cult and the abuse dealt out by high sinister Patrick (John Hawkes), a terrifyingly authoritative cult leader who renames all his followers (Martha is renamed "Marcy May").
The action zips back and forth between the present, at the lakeside house, to her time at the cult's farm and gives several moments of ambiguity as a result of the sudden juxtaposition that is occurring in Martha's confused and damaged mind.
The movie is scary and creepy and unsettling and, at times, uncomfortable viewing but, having said that, it is gripping and a riveting watch which has won a number of awards including Best Director for Sean Durkin at the Sundance Festival.
Everyone over a certain age knows "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" - either from the John le Carré novel or the tremendous television adaptation in which Alec Guiness played George Smiley, the central character in TTSS.
On the surface, it is, of course, a Cold War spy movie, but, with its web of secrets, lies, trust, betrayals, friendship, pacts and paranoia, it could be seen to be a mirror to the complexities in our modern society.
Tomas Alfredson's takes John le Carré's novel and presents it in a very clear shade of stone grey - it oozes tension from start to finish.
Gary Oldman takes the lead as George Smiley, a somewhat mild-mannered MI6 agent who comes out of retirement to try to uncover a mole in the secret British agency known as the "Circus". Vital information is being leaked to the Soviets and Smiley is the man chosen to track him down.
Oldman is outstanding in a measured and underplayed performance rather at tangent to his recent movies. Smiley is unassuming and watchful - the opposite of the Bourne/Bond template of spy to which movie audiences have become accustomed. Oldman will get plenty of nods come awards time, but the ensemble acting is tremendous, as is the atmospheric soundtrack.
The past few months have seen some tremendous performances by actors being other, historical figures - Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher, and Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe being, perhaps, the most noteworthy. In Midnight in Paris, Owen Wilson plays Woody Allen. He's not billed as that, nor is he actually impersonating Woody Allen, who wrote and directed this movie, but every line that Wilson says you can imagine coming from Woody Allen's mouth. If he'd worn a pair of thick rimmed specs you'd think it was a good impersonation.
I really enjoyed Midnight in Paris, but then I do like Woody Allen movies. If you don't like Woody Allen you're probably best avoiding this. It has all the hallmarks you expect: a jazzy soundtrack; an awkward leading male; several attractive females; a witty script; and some beautifully shots of one of the world's greatest cities (this time Paris and not New York).
Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is a Hollywood scriptwriter who is in Paris for a holiday with his fiancée and her parents. He is writing a novel and finds inspiration from walking the streets of Paris late at night or in the rain. His fiancée doesn't understand and lets him go off on his own. Gil gets lost and, as a church clock strikes midnight, an old fashioned car pulls up. The car is a portal back to the 1920s, where Pender meets many of his literary heroes.
It may not be Annie Hall or Manhattan but it is great fun, with many big laughs. The period detail is well observed and, although the movie is a lead role for Wilson, the ensemble acting is tremendous, as you'd expect in a Woody Allen movie.
There are tremendous performances from Rachel McAdams, Michael Sheen and, even, Carla Bruni, the wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Definitely worth going to see if you like Woody Allen or if you love Paris. I look forward to seeing it again, which has to be a good sign.
If you've not used Newsstand on an iOS5 device yet you really don't know what you're missing (obviously).
In the same way as the iTunes store revolutionised online music sales, Apple hopes that Newsstand will revolutionise the newspaper and magazine market. It is both an online newsagents and a library for your purchases - so far I love it. I've felt guilty for a while that I hadn't given up paper magazines in the same way as I've stopped buying CDs, books and DVDs (unless they're offered very cheaply in a sale!).
I've never bought a lot of magazines, and early attempts at e-magazines were awful... Just PDFs of the physical product that you flipped through. Newsstand takes magazines into the 21st century - at last!
It's like the newspapers from Harry Potter - the pages come alive!
Tap! is a magazine I've bought since it launched a couple of years back. It gives information and reviews about apps, devices, etc. for iPhones, iPods and iPads. It's always been a good read but the Newsstand version takes things on and makes it a much more enjoyable experience.
But it's not just a web site - it's a completely different experience!
The writing is good, informative and not too techy. There's always a celeb part (in the latest edition Graham Linehan discusses his iPhones home screen) and there used to be a column by Caitlin Moran but that seems have gone. I guess it was unnecessary puff.
Via the Newsstand version you can not only read a review of, say, an new app, scan through various images of it in use but, from with within the magazine, click straight to the app store so that you can download it. You can purchase individual issues or subscribe too.
Genius!
The other publication I love is the Guardian newspaper Newsstand edition. Currently it's free (due to a sponsorship from Channel 4) - then it will become become about £10 per month.
Yes, yes, I'm sure I'm going to be called a Fanboy again but, really, you should try it out or, at least, get someone to show you how good it is.
The one thing Newsstand needs is a bigger range of magazines but, surely, this both heralds the end of print media whilst giving a lifeline to the same publications.
Tin Tin (let's call it that for simplicity) is a tremendous romp - buckles are swashed with abandon, there's tension and action, fantastic chase scenes and a fair bit of humour and levity.
The movie opens in the visual style of the original Tin Tin books (and the old television series) with a pre-story a bit like the pre-title sequence in a Bond movie before shifting into the modern animation.
The animation is truly magnificent - it's a mixture of Motion Capture and more traditional/CGI techniques. For the vast majority of the movie you forget that it's animated, so good is the animation and characterisation. This does, of course, raise the question....
Why not use real actors?
There's truly amazing reflections in multiple mirrors and distortion through a magnifying glass; there's floods and waves and waterfalls and breaking glass.... it's all there. They've moved the bar for animation not an inch or two but several yards.
The use of 3D is good - I mean, the vast majority of the time you don't notice it, it seems totally integrated into the movie and, apart from one moment (you'll spot it) there's no silly 3D gimmicks.
Many of the chases (and much of the finale) feel like they could have been in a new Indiana Jones movie - particularly when he climbs aboard a motorbike:
Such is the power and plausibility of Stephen Soderbergh's latest movie I found, to my cost, that when watching Contagion at a cinema it's best not to cough. People give you funny looks. In fact the quietest throat-clearing or little sniffle from someone sitting near you and your brain instantly wonders whether the events on screen are about to become reality.
Contagion tells of a near-future dystopia in which a virus, similar in nature to (but worse than) Bird Flu or Swine Flu sweeps from casino in Hong Kong around the world killing millions and beginning the breakdown of society.
The interweaving narrative threads reminded me, somewhat, of Crash, the surprise winner of the Oscar for Best Film in 2006. It is a superb ensemble piece lead, if there is a headliner, by a great performance from Matt Damon.
Few movies would hire Gwyneth Paltrow's services and then kill her off in the first 10 minutes, but this is a sign that this is story led and not star led. She's also not the only Academy Award winner or nominee to come a cropper during Contagion's tense 106 minutes. Other performances of note include Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Jennifer Ehle and the sensational Kate Winslet, in what I would say is one of her best performances.
There are some squeamish moments including someone being run over and someone else having their skull cut open (yuk!) and there is surprisingly little in the way of swearing - I imagine that in a world where social order was collapsing there could be a few more f-words!
Atmospheric music that never distracts, despite often sounding like Schoenberg's reworking of the score to The Social Network, only adds to the tension.
For me there were two weaknesses that stop this becoming a 10/10 Five Star movie:
Elliot Gould who, despite an illustrious career spanning many decades, fails to shake off being the bumbling and socially inept Jack Geller, father to Ross and Monica in Friends.
Jude Law is just awful in Contagion. He plays Alan Krumwiede, an internet blogger who wears quirky clothes, has an unfortunately timed Tin Tin quiff, dresses up in an amazing home made space suit and hats and has severe accent problems - worse than Russell Crowe in Robin Hood. He begins with a Dick van Dyke faux-cockney accent that has you waiting for him to say, "Cor blimey, Mary Poppins, what you going to do about this bloomin' virus?", turns into the Australian John Torode from Masterchef ("Viruses don't get any tough than this"), and then slipping freely between New South Wales and the Isle of Dogs until the movie ends. His character isn't necessary for the plot (it appears to be a little anti-internet rant from the scriptwriter) and this character should, I suggest, have met his end on the cutting room floor.
It's so nearly a great movie - it kept me, and the rest of the audience, enthralled for its duration and has so much to commend it. It's a shame about it's weaknesses, and it's particularly unfortunate about Jude Law.
If you haven't see it, I'd definitely recommend it - it's worth watching and let me know what you thought.
The movie is double cast with one trio of actors playing the lead characters in the 1990s and another set back in the 1960s and the action leaps backwards and forwards over the time periods.
The Cold War, the Nazi's Final Solution and the Israeli Secret Service come face to face in this engrossing thriller with the trio of agents putting themselves into jeopardy before telling their story. But is everything what it seems?
It is superbly acted, particularly by Chastain and Worthington who, between them, steal the show, as well as being well scripted and filmed. It is a must-see movie for anyone who likes their thrillers thoughtful.
