London Film Fest 2012 Day 6 - QUARTET

Tom Courtenay and Maggie Smith as Reggie and Jean,
estranged former lovers, in QUARTET.

Dustin Hoffman's directorial début is an hilarious romantic comedy set in a nursing home for classical musicians, based on the play by Ronald Harwood (THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY).  The joyful good humour and colourful characters more than compensate for the rather predictable plot, the weak middle section, and the rather cowardly finale.

All romantic comedies need a sense of peril that must be resolved and an obstacle to true love. In this movie, the peril is the possibility that the rather luxurious nursing home will be closed if enough money cannot be raised at a benefit gala where the former stars take to the stage. This problem will be solved if new arrival Jean (Dame Maggie Smith) agrees to sing, and ignores the fears that she will damage her glittering reputation.  The obstacle to true love is that Jean's cuckolded ex husband Reggie (Tom Courtenay) is also a resident in the home - they are both hurting and must be brought together by the offices of the loveable rogue Wilf (Billy Connolly) and the lovably ditzy Cecily (Pauline Collins).

The movie drips with good will and good humour. To be sure, some of that humour is the rather simplistic kind - the joy of seeing well-bred old-people swearing like troopers.  But most of it is more subtle - poking fun at the egotism of celebrities and the stereotypes about the soloists versus the chorus and directors stealing ideas and being impossible (Michael Gambon in a brilliantly funny supporting role).  The problem is that we are never in any serious doubt that Jean will agree to sing, recreating the quartet from Verdi's Rigoletto that the four singers recorded in their heyday - and there is never any doubt that Jean and Reggie will be reunited.

Sheridan Smith, Billy Connolly, Maggie Smith, Pauline Collins, Tom Courtenay, Dustin Hoffman, and real-life opera star, Dame Gwyneth Jones

And while the movie drips with humanity - sympathising with people who are patronised and put on the shelf and forever regretting their former life - it does not have the gritty profundity of the movie to which it will inevitably be compared, THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL. That film tackled racism, homophobia and failed marriages - by contrast, this is a much sweeter, lighter confection. My final gripe is that while I quite understand why Dustin Hoffman did not want to risk showing his actors lip syncing to opera, I did feel rather cheated of not seeing some kind of performance at the end.

QUARTET  played Toronto and London 2012 and will be released in New Zealand on Dec 20; in Australia on Dec 26; in the USA on Dec 28; in the UK on Jan 4; in Germany on Jan 24 and in the Netherlands on Jan 31. The running time is 90 minutes. 

BRAVE

BRAVE reached our shores much maligned - a Pixar movie that was too Disney, too earnest, too mashed up in the re-writes, not funny enough, not adult enough..... And it's true, BRAVE isn't your standard issue Pixar fare.  The protagonist is female, the setting is medieval Scotland, and instead of male bonding and pop-culture references we get an earnest, emotional and frightening film about maternal love and maturity.  Princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald) rebels against her arranged marriage to a clan heir, refusing to be a demure feminine wife like her mother Elinor (Emma Thompson).  Happening across a witch (Julie Walters) she unwittingly casts a spell that turns her mother into a bear - an animal her father Fergus (Billy Connolly) is most intent on killing. Moreover, if Merida can't undo the spell within two days her mother will remain a bear forever.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the film, and it even got a little dusty in the theatre by the end of the movie. Maybe that's because I am a female reviewer, or maybe it's because if you approach the film with an open-mind: while it's different from Pixar classics, it's still a good relatable movie.  I liked the voice work.  I really believed in the reconciliation between mother and daughter and that the stakes were real.  

Moreover, on a technical level, the film once again pushes the envelope.  Rural Scotland has never looked more lush. The scenes were Merida gallops through the countryside on her pony are just breathtaking.  And as for her wild, curly, red hair - I am just stunned by the movement, texture and detail that the animators were able to render.  I also loved the fact that the animation tips its hat to Studio Ghibli, with the witch-character and the will-o-the-wisps straight out of PRINCESS MONOKO or SPIRITED AWAY. Finally, let's not overlook the fact that for the first time ever we have a film with proper Scottish accents rather than Mike Myers painful imitation.

BRAVE was released in June in China, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Russia, Ukraine, Canada, India, Indonesia, Taiwan and the USA. It was released in July in Pakistan, Vietnam, Argentina, Chile, Israel, Paraguay,  Belgium, the Netherlands, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Japan. It was released earlier this August in France, the Philippines, Cambodia, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Scotland, Ireland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Croatia, Iceland, Lithuania, Spain and Venezuela. It opened earlier this week in the UK and opens this weekend in Portugal, Romania and the Czech Republic. It opens later in August in Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. It opens in September in Georgia, Italy, Serbia, Turkey, Panama, Slovenia and South Korea.

iPad Round-Up 2 - GULLIVER'S TRAVELS

When I was a pre-teen and we all obsessively watched the lo-rent sci-fi TV comedy, RED DWARF, the phrase "almost Swiftian in its rapier-like subtlety" became a standard term of praise, long before we'd read Swift in class and fully appreciated the radical, deliriously scabrous nature of his political satire. That was back in the day when schools taught children useful shit like calculus and Latin.  Nowadays, family audiences have no use for political satire - although one might have thought that in the post global financial crisis world - with governments insolvent and political systems ossified by special interests - now would be EXACTLY the time for it.  And so, dear reader, we get the movies we deserve. Towit, Rob Letterman's utterly banal children's movie, GULLIVER'S TRAVELS - a film based on Swift only insofar as it incorporates a man who wakes up in a land filled with tiny little people called Liliputians.

So, Swift aside, how does it fare as simple family entertainment? Shockingly poor.  A mindlessly simple plot, piss-poor CGI effects, hammy acting from the largely British cast of character actors, and Jack Black playing the character he always plays - the childish, rock-obsessed but ultimately love-able frump. Director Rob Letterman and writer Joe Stillman display none of the wit or imagination seen in MONSTERS VS. ALIENS or SHREK. Must try harder.

GULLIVER'S TRAVELS was released over the 2010/2011 holiday season. It is now available to rent and own.

THE X-FILES - I WANT TO BELIEVE - huh?

Never seen an episode of the X-Files. Never going to. Definitely not after this film, which plays like a sub-CSI police procedural artificially stretched beyond its natural 45 minute run-time.

6 years after the end of the TV show, cultural icons Mulder and Scully are pulled back into the FBI to help find a missing agent with the aid of a psychic, paedophile priest. At the same time, Scully is now a paediatrician, struggling with her conscience: should she give a kid a painful stem-cell treatment with a small chance of success or let him die in peace?

The spoooooky X-Files kidnap/organ-harvesting storyline was very lo-rent. Certainly sub-CSI and at around the level of an Urban Legend spoof. The stem-cell storyline could've been cool but the movie jumps the shark when Scully learns how to conduct cutting edge complex surgery by *googling* "stem cell research". Seriously?!

I'm sure the TV show was better than this. At least, that's what the message boards and my informal sample of 2 frends who are massive sci-fi geeks suggest. But there's no need to schlep to the cinema for this unless you really have a strong fan-boy urge to see Mulder and Scully kiss on the big screen.

THE X FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE is on global release.

GARFIELD: A TALE OF TWO KITTIES - one for the ankle-biters alone

After the high-grade entertainment of MONSTER HOUSE it was a bit of a let-down to have to chaperone Kid the Second through GARFIELD 2. (And they call it "quality time".) But as my Godson is a bit too young for the high-amp scares of MONSTER HOUSE I had no choice. In fairness, he seemed to have a great time, as did all the other ankle-biters in the cinema. Unfortunately though, this is not one of those new-wave kids movies that provide as many laughs for the grown-ups, despite the fact that it was directed by the same guy who directed one of my all-time favourite kids flicks: MUPPETS FROM SPACE*

Anyways, back to Garfield. As in the cartoon strip, as any fule kno, Garfield is a smart-talking cat who likes to sit around the house, watch TV, eat lasagne, and kick Odie the dog. His owner Jon is the hapless butt of his jokes. In this movie, Jon is on the verge of proposing to his sweetheart, Liz, when she is called to a vetenary conference to be held in an English castle. Coz that happens. But then this is the kind of England that only exists in the movies - where every journey takes you by Westminster Cathedral and all castles are Howard Castle, famed location of BRIDESHEAD REVISITED. The plot revolves around Garfield being mistaken for his doppelganger, who has inherited the castle from his eccentric old owner. The evil Lord Dargis is plotting to kill the pampered kittie and get his hands on the castle and the related phat cash.

The problem with GARFIELD 2 is that while Bill Murray raises the odd laugh as Garfield there is precious little for the adults. This goes against the grain of the comic strip which satirised human behaviour as much as chronicling the foibles of our pets. I also think Billy Connolly and the rest of the British voice cast are pretty ordinary, perhaps because of the weak material. The US cast is also fairly mediocre, filled as it is with the likes of Breckin Meyer and Jennifer Love Hewitt - actors neither talented nor attractive enough to star in proper movies. It also seems to be a pretty lazily made movie. I never normally spot continuity errors but even I clocked when Dargis switched suits between shots! Poor show.

GARFIELD: A TALE OF TWO KITTIES is on release in the US and UK. Worldwide release dates can be found here. *To this day, in my select circle of friends you can use the line, "I am not a shrimp: I am a king prawn" and get a laugh on the thinnest of pretexts.