Crimes & Misdemeanors

Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors is two stories that run in parallel and intersect only in the very last scene. One is centered around Judah (Martin Landau) who is at the end of a two year affair with a younger woman. She is not content to fade away without a fight and threatens to expose their affair to his wife and also bring to light his dubious financial practices. Judah decides to take action through his brother who appears to be well connected to the underworld. The other story is of Cliff Stern (Allen), a not very successful documentary film maker, who is commissioned to make a biopic on his famous brother-in-law, played by Alan Alda. In the process of making the film Cliff meets and falls for Jenny, one of the production assistants. Its all classic Allen with much pondering on relationships, life, death and morality. There are some hilarious quotes, my favorite being "Where I grew up in Brooklyn no one committed suicide, we were all too unhappy".

Paul

Here is a priceless bit of school holiday fun. Paul stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the pair responsible for such gems as Hot Fuzz and Shaun Of The Dead. Paul is not as violent as those two and is their first US outing. It is a HUGE amount of fun from start to finish. Some may think the swearing and occasional adult humour is a bit much for kids, but I can’t remember when last my three boys (12, 10 and 8) enjoyed a movie as much. They were literally squealing with delight. Paul is an alien with attitude, who crashed to earth in 1947 after having a bit of trouble with his spaceship around Roswell. Its established early on that he really isn’t a very good driver. Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost), English tourists, come across Paul after he has another spectacular car crash in the dessert. He convinces them to give him a ride to a destination where he can meet up with his mother ship and so a hilarious road trip ensues. I love every bit of this movie, but in particular the fun poked at fundamentalist christians. At one point Paul heals the eye of Ruth Buggs, the daughter of just such a fanatic. When she asks him how he did it, he replies: “evolution, baby….evolution!”. The movie contains many references to previous alien movies and includes a brief cameo from Steven Spielberg.

Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro has long been one of my favourite authors. The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go and particularly, The Unconsoled, rank among my best loved books. I was therefore very excited by the prospect of this film and I was not disappointed. Never Let Me Go is a beautiful, well-considered interpretation of an unusual and unsettling novel. The story involves the imagining of an alternative reality, where medical science has enabled the growing of human clones that are used as organ donors. The donors are isolated from society, raised in special boarding schools where they are taught about what they are and what the purpose of their lives is. The story focuses on the lives of three clones, Kathy (Carey Mulligan), Tommy (Andrew Garfield) and Ruth (Keira Knightly). We see them grow up together at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham College, then live as young adults at “the Cottages” a residential centre where they begin to make limited contact with the outside world. Finally, we see them “complete” their short lives as they donate first one, then two and, if they survive, perhaps three or four, vital organs. As you might imagine, it’s a desperately sad story, but it is told without undue sentimentality or melodrama. The donors calmly accept their fate and I wondered whether that would happen in real life. I expect it would in the absence of outside agitation. If you are taught from birth that your purpose in life is to be a donor, it’s likely that you would accept that, unless someone made a strong argument to the contrary. No such argument occurs here. Society has accepted the role of donors and will not be swayed to return to the dark days of premature death from lung cancer, heart failure or kidney disease. The film is beautiful to look at and the cast are excellent, particularly Carey Mulligan who is perfectly cast. Personally, I would spend a few hours watching her read from the phone book. She has one of the most attractive, kind and expressive faces to grace our screens in recent years. Here she is perfect in the role of the “carer”, a donor herself, who has the task of helping others through their completions. The love triangle between Kathy, Ruth and Tommy forms one of the movie’s central themes. Naturally, the film raises big moral questions, but does so through dispassionate observation, rather than heavy-handed moralising. Clearly it is wrong to clone and use humans as donors in this way. The real question is: why is it wrong? How you answer this may tell you a lot about yourself.

Brighton Rock

The good people at the Orpheum treated me to a preview screening of Rowan Joffe’s new version of Brighton Rock last night. Here’s a story with a rich tradition of its telling. First the book by Graham Greene, then the 1947 film version with Richard Attenborough. Now Joffe has updated the setting to Brighton in 1964. The backdrop is therefore the violent clashes between the Mods and Rockers, a peculiar bit of British senselessness. The film is visually stunning. The period setting recreated to great effect. There are many themes at play in the story. There is a strong sense of order being displaced by chaos as the genteel amusements of the Brighton Pier and the glamour of the old tea rooms and hotels give way to the loutishness and violence of the youthful gangs. Brighton is a central character in this story. I understand the 1947 film is fronted with a disclaimer to the effect that the Brighton depicted as a dark world of alleys and knife wielding gangsters no longer exists. Clearly inserted so as to not irreparably damage Brighton’s always shaky tourism industry. Fact is, the 1964 version of Brighton is also so far removed from what it is today as to seem like the landscape of an alien world. Sam Riley as the rotten Pinkie may not be quite as menacing as Richard Attenborough, but he still does an excellent job and is supported by a great cast including Helen Mirren and John Hurt. Not a happy movie to be honest, although Joffe has kept the 1947 film ending intact, rather than defaulting to the grimmer version in the book, so there is a bit of light at the end.

Black Swan

I have finally caught up with the film that won Natalie Portman this year’s Best Actress Oscar. Anyone who may have read my review on June 4, 2008 of The Red Shoes could guess that I am not a great ballet aficionado. I can appreciate the artistry and hard work that goes into it and its aesthetic beauty, but I doubt I will ever be moved by dance. I cannot imagine fighting back tears watching Swan Lake. Call me a Philistine, but there it is. Fortunately you need no affinity for the ballet to enjoy and appreciate Black Swan. It is a very well made and unnerving study of a dancer’s descent into madness. Natalie Portman deserves every bit of her Oscar for a very brave and wholly committed performance. There has been much debate about how much of the dancing is her own, but that is mostly irrelevant. All of the acting is hers and she embodies the role. The film is directed by Darren Aronofsky and it has a surprising amount in common with his previous film, The Wrestler. Both films show the physical impact of a chosen profession on the bodies of its practitioners. Both deal with the pain of no longer being able to perform at one’s peak and having to pass the crown to the next generation. The avian imagery in Black Swan is truly unsettling and brings to mind Hitchcock’s The Birds, although here the threat is all from within. It’s a very powerful film and will stay with you for days, whether or not you care one jot about the ballet.