CINEMA: The Soloist

With a heart warming true story like the one featured in this film it was likely that Universal thought they had a possible Oscar winner on their hands.

It tells the story of LA Times journalist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr) who, looking for something to write about in his weekly column, discovers a mentally ill homeless guy named Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx) who play beautiful classical music in the city streets on the two strings of his tatty violin.

Lopez set about writing a series of articles on Ayers and the lives of the many other homeless people in LA in the hope of improving his and their lives. So you have a ready made story of adversity, a central character of a journalist who is angry at the city’s government and wants to do something to help those less fortunate; and the other lead who is mentally challenged but capable of making lovely music to charm the audience and hopefully the Academy voters as well.

So what went wrong?

Well, like many many other biographical dramas that have reached us over the years this is directed in such a clichéd “movie of the week” way you are never really carried along with the story which has the emotional depth of a cheese sandwich. British director Joe Wright has proved that he can handle complex drama before with the excellent Pride & Prejudice and the acclaimed Atonement but here he seems to be coasting along and falls back on the tried and tested technique of show a bit of the present and then simply flashback to Ayers’ past so we can learn a little bit at a time about what made him go slightly loopy and live on the streets.

This has been done so many times before and in much better hands but maybe it’s the syrupy script from Susannah Grant and Steve Lopez himself that fails to really set the story alight and get the audience to fully engage in the unfolding drama. There is no doubt that this is a fascinating, interesting and intelligent story, and the book is probably awesome but the screenplay is peppered with clichéd dialogue and character arcs.

However the two central performances from Downey Jr and Foxx are excellent. Downey Jr does now seem to play himself in nearly every role ,but that seems to work and although this role is similar to his one in Zodiac he gives Lopez enough rope to hang himself as he is so determined and dedicated but remains likeable and redeemable by the third act.

Foxx proves again why he won the Oscar for Ray as he makes Ayers wholly human in an astoundingly realistic way, with his repeating of words and phrases and crazy dress sense but with an obvious deep-rooted intelligence and huge love for music that calms him down when performing it. Foxx is electric in every scene he is in, out-acting Downey Jr in the showier role but Downey Jr is also needed to bring the film to its inevitable and predictable conclusion.

The Soloist is worth seeing for the performances for sure but not for script or direction, however the Bach and Beethoven Ayers plays makes the film come alive, and that is a beautiful thing.

Mark Cappuccio

CINEMA: The September Issue

If you’re not into fashion then this documentary about the putting together of American Vogue’s biggest ever issue will probably not be of much interest, however, there is plenty here to amuse and entertain.

Ostensibly, the film concentrates on Vogue’s British-born editor Anna Wintour, she of the steel curtain fringe who must be obeyed (and the template for Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada). But Wintour, with her withering looks and stick-insect frame, proves to be far less interesting than the main creative force behind Vogue, Grace Codrington.

The scenes which follow ex-model Grace from her initial ideas for photoshoots through to the studio or location shots where her visions are captured are truly inspiring. At one point she faces the movie’s cameraman and tells him she has had an idea that includes him; when we duly see him taking part in a shoot that makes the September issue it’s almost a eureka moment – aha, so that’s what she was thinking!

Also highly entertaining is a passage of scenes following photographer Mario Testino shooting Sienna Miller in Rome for Vogue’s front cover, and not coming up with the shot Wintour specifically asked for.

You couldn’t make it up.

Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Dorian Gray

Anybody filming Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray faces a real dilemma; should they show the portrait of Gray as his debauched ways change it into a hellish monstrosity, or should they not show it and leave it up to the audience’s own imagination as to what it looks like?

Either way they’re damned because if they do show it it can’t possibly live up to everyone’s expectations and if they don’t the audience are bound to be disappointed they didn’t get a look see. In fact, it is the portrait of Dorian that proves to be the disappointing note in director Oliver Parker’s handsomely-made production.

Rising star Ben Barnes plays the beautiful Dorian, an unspoiled young man who inherits a vast fortune. Unused to the ways of society, he is taken under the wing of bored social mover and shaker Lord Henry Wotton (Colin Firth) whose interest is piqued. Can he mould Dorian into the morally corrupt, debauched libertine he himself would like to be – if only he had the courage?

He decides to give it a try and soon has Dorian believing that ‘the only two things worth having are “youth and beauty”. So Dorian makes a pact with the devil; he will sell his soul to the dark side, but only if he can retain his looks and never age. Dorian embarks on a life of orgies, trips to opium dens and even murder, and indeed never ages. However, up in the attic, something awful is happening to the beautiful portrait of him, painted by Basil Hallward (Ben Chaplin).

Although Oliver Parker has over-emphasised the homoerotic charge of the book, it looks extremely elegant and there are some lovely performances, especially from Firth who has never been better than as louche Lord Wotton.

However, the portrait slowly morphs into a decidedly porcine caricature, more comic than scary, and maybe it really would have been better to never see it in its final incarnation.

Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Julie & Julia

This is a movie of two halves or, more accurately, two separate stories rather uncomfortably sandwiched together and it soon becomes clear which of the two steals the show as best jam butty.

In the blue corner is eccentric American cook Julia Child (Meryl Streep on magnificent braying form), living in post-war France with her diplomat hubby Paul (Stanley Tucci) and intent on becoming a proper French-style chef. In the red corner is frustrated New York writer Julia (Amy Adams) who, with nothing better to do with her time, decides to cook all 524 recipes from Julia Child’s cordon bleu cookery book and blog about it.

So, who ends up being the most entertaining? Julia Child of course. With her pearls, her booming voice, her sheer joie de vivre and her expert skill with a deboning knife, Streep makes Child a wonderfully warm woman; slightly bonkers but all the better for that. The picture director Nora Ephron paints of Julia’s relationship with her husband Paul is delightful, a marriage made in cake heaven with dollops and dollops of best French butter. Meanwhile, in comparison Julie and her husband (Chris Messina) come over as dull, colourless and without flavour.

Had Ephron been able to make a movie solely about Julia and Paul Child it would have been a marvellous thing to behold – a jelly in the shape of the Vatican perhaps, or an exploding Rum Baba – as it is, the scenes where Streep and Tucci are on screen are the ones to savour and mean half this movie is a fantastic feast.

Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Fish Tank

After her very impressive debut with Red Road, Andrea Arnold impresses once again with a slice of teenage life viewed under a powerful microscope. On a rundown Essex council estate Mia (Katie Jarvis) lives with her single mum (Kierston Wareing) and gobby younger sister (Rebecca Griffiths).

Excluded from school and unable to contain her frustration and anger at everything and everyone, Mia seems to be slipping close and closer to ASBO hell. She has no friends, nowhere to go and nothing to do, although she dreams of being a dancer. When mum starts seeing a new boyfriend Connor (Michael Fassbender) Mia feigns disinterest in him, but secretly she is intrigued and is soon casting him as the father figure she has never known. But with teenage hormones rampaging, the relationship between Mia and Connor changes into something less innocent and positive, with Mia developing a dangerous crush that will tear her family apart.

Although there is an element of inevitability about the story arc of Fish Tank, Arnold directs with flashes of pure genius and beauty. In the midst of the concrete gloom of the estate, dark orange sunbeams will dance through windows, the image of a vast wind turbine slowly turning is used throughout the film, while the scene of the mother and her two daughters dancing silently together in the front room of their flat speaks of ties of love that can never be articulated in words.

Katie Jarvis, who had never acted before, has to carry the bulk of the movie and does so with an assurance that is almost scary. One to watch and savour.

Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Inglourious Basterds

One of the problems with Quentin Tarantino’s films is that he seems to just want to make things that he would enjoy watching and enjoy making and as he wants to control every aspect of his cinematic babies you have to go with his decisions or not watch his films at all.

Basterds has been kicking around in some form for more than 10 years and Tarantino has finally decided to get off his ass and get it into cinemas and amazingly it’s the best thing he’s done since Jackie Brown.

Set during the German occupation of France in the Second World War, the story follows Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) who witnesses the execution of her family at the hands of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). She escapes and flees to Paris where she forges a new identity as a cinema owner. Also in Europe, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) is set the task to organise a group of Jewish American soldiers into a guerilla fighting force dropped behind enemy lines to terrorise Nazis and strike fear into their very souls performing shocking and swift acts of retribution.

Into the mix is thrown famous German actress and undercover agent Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) who along with some well placed British secret agents is set to embark on a mission to eliminate the leaders of the Third Reich at a cinema premier. The two plot lines of course converge one fateful night in Shosanna’s cinema where the fate of the war will be decided for good.

Being a Tarantino fan since True Romance I was excited and curious to see this new film after the awful Death Proof and over indulgent Kill Bill and to see if he could still create great dialogue and kick-ass cinema. I was thoroughly impressed and happy to see that the break he has had to get this script right has been what was needed to refuel and replenish.

In a chilling opening sequence we are introduced to Colonel Landa and learn that he is not only an expert Jew hunter, but someone who greatly enjoys his job, and it sets up a truly memorable modern screen villain to hate. It’s a marvel then that

Christoph Waltz who plays Landa manages to make the character likeable despite his actions and in the process steals the entire film from out from everyone around him, including Pitt. The performances all round from the multi-national cast are excellent with everyone getting at least one line of juicy dialogue and their moment to shine.

The title of the film is a slight misdirection, as you only see the actions of the Basterds on a few missions, but what you do witness is sick and violent, with Eli Roth’s baseball wielding Donnie Donowitz being a stand out.

But the film is really about Shosanna’s story and the British government’s plot to assassinate the Third Reich’s high command, and because of this the film is all the better. Part-war, part-spy and part-pulp movie, the dialogue crackles in places and is laugh out loud funny in others. There are too many stand out scenes to mention them all, and this film, which will no doubt improve with multiple viewings, has Tarantino’s stamp all over it.

Yes it is revisionist history but what a rewrite and what a ride it is.

Mark Cappuccio

CINEMA: (500) Days of Summer

Fed up with sloppy, sentimental, twee, syrupy romances? Then get yourself down to this movie which is less chick-flick romcom, more doomed romance soundtracked by the The Smiths and more obscure indie bands.

Our hero is Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a sensitive soul who believes in the concept of one true love with a soul mate. Tom is on a quest to find “the one” and when he meets Summer (Zooey Deschanel) he believes he has found her. The problem is, Summer isn’t ready for a love so overwhelming it consumes your soul, in fact, she doesn’t really believe in a love that has somehow been cosmically ordained, but she likes Tom and a romance of sorts develops. Thus, over the course of 500 days, Tom sets out to convince Summer he is her “one”, that she loves him as much as he loves her and that they are destined to be together, forever (in electric dreams).

(500) Days Of Summer is wry and dry, clever and witty, sweet and sour. It’s about misery and sadness and loss of faith, but it is also about that weird, warm, gooey feeling you get when you fall in love. Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel are both actors you warm to immediately, mostly because they are so human and fallible, and it’s nice the film is even-handed so you don’t end up rooting for one and hating the other.

Watch out for a fabulous performance by Chloe Grace Moretz who plays Tom’s older-than-her-years sister Rachel, oracle of wisdom, common sense and sound dating advice, while Tom’s male friends are good-hearted yet useless.

So, a thoroughly modern romance from rookie director Marc Webb who manages to make you smile through Tom’s pain.

Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: District 9

It comes as an absolutely gobsmacking and equally refreshing surprise that the blockbuster of the year does not contain any recognisable box office stars and isn’t even American – it’s South African. With the last golden period for sci-fi flicks (Bladerunner, Aliens) decades behind us, we’ve suddenly got two gems in one year.

First came the small but beautifully composed Moon, and now we get the big budget District 9 which is by turns intelligent, thought-provoking, funny, entertaining and probably the best thing you’ll see in the cinema all year.

The action starts in 1990 when a huge alien spaceship begins to hover above South Africa. It soon becomes clear something is wrong with the craft and its inhabitants (known as “prawns” because of their appearance) are in some distress. As they seem non-threatening the international community sets out to help with “humanitarian” aid – clothing, food and shelter in a refugee camp which becomes known as District 9.

Twenty years later and District 9 resembles a ghetto, just like the apartheid townships of old. Many of the prawns have become addicted to beer and cat food and are being exploited by Nigerian gangsters. With the South African public fast turning against the aliens, seeing them as unwanted immigrants they believe are taking their jobs and precious resources, the government contracts a private firm known as Multi-National United (MNU) to forcibly remove them from District 9 to a new, custom-built camp well away from public view.

However, the prawns don’t really want to move from what has become their home and don’t really understand the government’s motives and so start to resist. MNU’s commander of operations Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) suddenly finds himself in the middle of a PR disaster – with the world’s cameras upon him the eviction rapidly spirals out of hand. When Wikus is accidentally exposed to an alien chemical he becomes as much of an outcast as the prawns and so must turn to an alien and its son to try and put matters right.

District 9 is all about “alienation”; about humanity’s distrust of the different, xenophobia, and “racial” hatred. The fact it is set in South Africa – until recently a country riven with racial tension under the apartheid regime – is deliberate as you are meant to see the parallels between the black/white conflict and human/prawn conflict.

It also has much to say about the plight of refugees of any race, nation, or even planet, as they flee from perilous situations only to find themselves vilified and hated in the place where they seek asylum.

However, District 9 doesn’t preach. Writer/director Neill Blomkamp has crafted a rollicking good ride with some stunning special effects, plenty of action and some nice comic touches. Sharlto Copley, who really has to carry the film almost single-handedly as the only human star, is magnificent, while the aliens are so well realised they soon become familiar rather than creepy. Peter (Lord of the Rings) Jackson produced this movie and hats off to him that he managed to persuade Sony Pictures to spend considerable sums of money on a film with no big stars and set in South Africa, not the States.

District 9 successfully rewrites the rules about what constitutes a blockbuster and it deserves nine out of 10 for doing so.

Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Broken Embraces

Although not vintage Pedro Almodovar, Broken Embraces is still far superior to many tragic love stories that have recently made it to the big screen. The main reason for this is Almodovar never sinks into trite sentimentality and the sadness of the film is lifted by flashes of humour. It also helps that it stars the stunning Penelope Cruz who is fast maturing into an actress of real depth.

As is always the case with Almodovar, there are elements of autobiography in the film, but you are never quite sure how much of the story is actually based on truth, how much on a hyper-realised version of the truth, and how much is just totally fabricated. Our hero is Mateo Blanco (Lluis Homar), an author, scriptwriter and film-maker who also uses the pseudonym Harry Caine.

Mateo – or Harry as he is known when we first meet him – was blinded in a car accident in Lanzarote many years ago, a crash that also robbed him of the love of his life, Lena (Cruz). In order to understand how this loss has shattered Mateo, the action cuts between the present and the past, gradually filling in the empty spaces and introducing characters like Lena’s older lover Ernesto (Jose Luis Gomez), and Mateo’s assistant Judit (Blanca Portillo), who become increasingly significant as the story progresses.

Being the master he is, Almodovar seamlessly blends four stories at any one time (including a film within a film) and the fact everything remains as clear and logical as it does is testament to his great storytelling skills. Cruz, as the fragile, brittle, but ultimately courageous, Lena is wonderful throughout and it is her performance that is most memorable, but praise should also go to Lluis Homar who gives Mateo/Harry a bitter (but not twisted) edge that eloquently encapsulates his inner torment.

However, this does not count as vintage Almodovar because it doesn’t have the self-contained feel of many of his previous works – it has an open-ended aura that makes it less thoroughly satisfying than, say, Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown, which built its own little world and was perfectly self-realised. However, this is a minor quibble as there is so much to enjoy here, not least the strange, exotic landscape of Lanzarote – Mateo and Lena’s version of a desert island escape.

Dee Pilgrim

CINEMA: Inglourious Basterds

Oh dear, in which the cult of Tarantino becomes slightly tarnished, as Inglourious Basterds is a bit of an over-long mess.

It starts in the manner it means to go on with a long, wordy establishing scene, as Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (a mix of camply charming manners and arch evil from Christoph Waltz) arrives at a French farmer’s house on the trail of a local Jewish family who have disappeared. From hereon in the action splits into three main storylines: we follow Colonel Landa as he becomes Hitler’s main Jew hunter; we catch up with Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) the daughter of a Jewish family Landa has slaughtered and who now lives under a false identity in Paris, managing a cinema; and we encounter the Basterds, a group of American Jewish GIs led by Lieutenant Raine (Brad Pitt), who are dropped behind enemy lines on a mission to kill and scalp as many Nazis as possible.

Tarantino’s script rambles all over the place with nearly every scene lasting just a fraction too long and boy, is it wordy. It’s obvious he is trying to ratchet up the tension but he milks each scene for all it has got and then squeezes out just a little bit more. Also, the tone of the film is very uneven; while whole passages are played for schlocky laughs, others have a more sinister feel, and in still others it seems his usual homages to other film directors or genres descend to the level of parody (the hysterically OTT clipped “old boy, tally ho” accents of a bunch of British officers). In fact, at times the whole endeavour descends into slapstick.

Although it is great that characters do actually speak in French, German and even Italian (there are subtitles) rather than everyone resorting to English, the film itself cannot reconcile its different styles, mannerisms or even messages into one coherent whole.

Had Tarantino sliced a good half hour off the very nearly two and a half hour running time he could have made a tighter, more concise, more intelligible movie without the flat bits.

Dee Pilgrim