YOU HURT MY FEELINGS**

Nicole Holofcener (ENOUGH SAID) returns to our screens with her brand of low-key rich white people dramedy. At its worst its tone deaf and deeply annoying. At its best it can be pleasantly surprising.  YOU HURT MY FEELINGS is mildly entertaining while also being a giant nothingburger.  I didn't hate it. I immediately forgot about it.  

The movie stars Seinfeld and Veep's Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Beth, a rich white person with rich white people problems. Her psychologist husband Don (The Crown's Tobias Menzies) is deeply loving but one day she overhears him saying he doesn't really like her new book. She reacts childishly. Rather than discuss it, she passively aggressively punishes him for something he doesn't even know he did.  Meanwhile their son Eliot (Owen Teague) is left third-wheeling their infantile psychodrama. The moral of the film seems to be that happy relationships involve some measure of deceit and that we should just get on with it. Okay. Cool. Mind blowing. It's all well enough acted and produced. It just feels so meh.

YOU HURT MY FEELINGS has a running time of 93 minutes and is rated R in the USA and 15 in the UK. It played Sundance 2023 and opened in the USA in May. It was released in the UK on Amazon Prime next week.

KILL YOUR DARLINGS - LFF 2013 - Day Nine

KILL YOUR DARLINGS is a compelling, moving, beautifully produced movie about a dark emotionally manipulative relationship at the heart of the Beat generation.  You don't have to be fascinated by the Beat poets to be sucked into this tale of youthful exuberance, and malevolent sexual desire, so brilliantly is it crafted.

What most people know about this film, is that stars Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame as a young Allen Ginsberg, years before he wrote Howl - a naive innocent Jewish boy arriving at Columbia and dazzled by the charismatic proto-Beat writers he meets.  But really, this isn't his film, although he's a key observer and interpreter of it - our eyes and ears inside the chaos.  Really, the film is about Ginsberg's fellow Columbia student, the charismatic but deeply troubled Lucien Carr (Dale Dehaan) and his disturbed relationship with the older David Kammerer (a heart-breakingly good Michael C Hall).  When we first meet the pair, standing in Ginsberg's shoes, it seems like it's a relationship of equals.  Kammerer is obsessed with Carr, but Carr uses Kammerer to his advantage, making him write his papers.  It feels like Carr, if anything, has the upper hand.  But as the movie progresses, we learn that Kammerer isn't just a jealous boyfriend, and Carr may not be confident in his sexual orientation.  In fact, Kammerer could well be a predatory stalker.  I guess we'll never know why and how the obsessive love story ended how it did, but I love how director John Krokidas deftly navigates the spidersweb of conflicting stories and motivations. It feels fair, and fascinating, and real, even if, in reality it wasn't a possessive Ginsberg that told Kammerer where Carr was, but an unaware Kerouac. 

The cast is superb throughout. In smaller parts, I loved the sinister strangeness of Ben Foster's well-heeled heir William S Burroughs, and the carefree charm of Jack Huston's Jack Kerouac.  In the larger roles, Daniel Radcliffe is nuanced and charismatic and conflicted as Allen Ginsberg, creating an extreme version of a relatable character - the wide-eyed kid suffering his first unrequited love affair at college.  And the way in which his eyes are opened to intellectual thought - the way in which those early college friendships can change your life - made me nostalgic for my own freshman year. But as I said before, this is really a movie that belongs to Dane Dehaan and Michael C Hall - so lucid and sympathetic and fragile and tragic.  Truly heartbreaking stuff, especially from Michael C Hall, and I hope we see more of him on the big screen now that his time as Dexter is up. 

And finally, kudos to first time feature director John Krokidas who has fashioned a movie so elegant, and intricate and confident that it's amazing to think it's really his first film. I loved the way in which he folded and moulded time, using flashbacks in a totally unconventional way. I loved the way in which he could direct both the comedic caper movie material as well as the emotionally intense material - and his feeling for editing together the great pivotal scenes.  His direction is so brave and assured that I am truly excited to see what he does next. 

KILL YOUR DARLINGS has a running time of 104 minutes and is rated R in the USA. 

KILL YOUR DARLINGS played Sundance, Venice, Toronto, and London 2013.  It goes on release in the USA and Italy this weekend, in Greece on November 7th, in Canada on November 8th, in Australia on December 5th, in the UK on December 6th, in Germany on January 30th and in Brazil on February 14th. 

MEGAMIND - A pocketful of Kryptonite

Right, you've all seen Superman? in every episode or comic strip, evil Lex Luthor kidnaps the feisty journalist Lois Lane in order to lure Superman to rescue her. Lex is clever, but truth, justice and the American Way wins out. Superman rescues Lois and she goes back to work with the trusty dull Clark Kent, unaware that he is really Superman. And poor photographer Jimmy Olsen never catches anyone's attention, as the Spin Doctors rightly observed. So, imagine what would happen if one day Lex Luthor actually defeated Superman and took over Metropolis. No Superman, Lois at a lose end, Jimmy tries to make his move, but is rebuffed, and Lex bored without an arch-enemy, tries to create a new superhero by zapping Jimmy with Superman's DNA. Only, turns out Super-Jimmy has been brooding with resentment all these years, as the Spin Doctors told us, and uses his powers for Evil, which of course, gives Lex the chance to...er....do good?!

Of course, you can't imagine DC Comics letting Superman get publicly mauled like this, so instead, you get MEGAMIND, wherein Superman isn't so much spoofed as Alan-Moore'd except, of course, with about a tenth of his wisdom and Tina Fey's jokes. The end-result is a ball of laughs, rather sweet, and definitely worth watching.

Will Ferrell plays Megamind - the Evil Genius who thinks he might just want to be nice for a change, wooing the feisty chick Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fey). It's a a role Ferrell has played a number of times in recent years, typically in movies that alternate with his cruder SNL comedy skits-turned-features. MEGAMIND is one of the few films that allows him to be both vulnerable-sweet AND grossly-comical and the mix is a treat. The typecasting continues with the rest of the cast. Tina Fey does her usual sweet, neurotic, charming thing as Roxanne - Jonah Hill does his creepy, slacker, irritating schtick as Jimmy/Hal - and Brad Pitt basically plays Superman, sorry, Metro Man, as Brad Pitt - a famous star tired of the limelight.

The comedy is definitely three steps wittier and more consistent than DESPICABLE ME. I mean, just look at how good the physical comedy is when Megamind is pretending to be Bernard in his Evil Lair. Or just look at how funny the Minion losing oxygen scene is. That stuff doesn't happen without the intervention of a director like Tom McGrath (MADAGASCAR 1 and 2) and actors like Fey and Ferrell. But for all that, Megamind doesn't have the heart of a movie like DESPICABLE ME, and I really wonder how far young kids will keep up with a movie in which a major plot point is that characters can switch bodies at the touch of a wristwatch - or where a large part of the humour, and a major plot point comes from the lead character putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable of words?

MEGAMIND is on release in the US, Canada, Russia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Egypt, Kuwait, Georgia, Portugal, Argentina, Croatia, Germany, Slovenia, Switzerland, Austria, Brazil, Spain and the UK. It opens next week in Australia, Venezuela, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Serbia and Estonia. It opens on Christmas Day in Finland and Sweden, on December 26th in Norway and on January 7th in Poland.

YEAR ONE - sporadically, funnier than I'd been led to believe

YEAR ONE had such a critical basting that I didn't bother watching at first. Good news is that it's really not as unwatchable as I'd been led to believe. Indeed, there were scenes I really liked. Maybe it's just a question of low expectations?

The movie is basically a puerile comedy vehicle for Jack Black and Michael Cera. They start of as a couple of Neanderthals, a hunter and a gatherer respectively. The best contextual and verbal humour is found in these early scenes, and I though Black and Cera worked well together. Both have crushes on girls they can't get so Black eats the forbidden apple from the tree of knowledge. This catapults them into a biblical epic, which the movie then tries to spoof. The Cain and Abel is pretty unfunny and underwritten, but the movie picks up when the protagonists end up Sodom. There's a brief skit by Hank Azaria as Abraham, but the real humour in this session comes from Oliver Platt as a libidinous High Priest.

Overall, I'd say the movie really is worth DVD and pizza night, if entirely forgettable. Still, you'd have hoped that actors of the profile of Jack Black and Michael Cera could find scripts that weren't essentially strung-together skits of variable quality.

YEAR ONE is on release in Australia, Iceland, the USA and the UK. t opens later in July in Finland, Sweden, Portugal, Denmark and Norway. It opens in August in Belgium, Egypt, France, Brazil, Bulgaria, South Africa, Spain, Argentina, Germany, New Zealand and Singapore. It opens in September in the Czech Republic, Greece, Russia, Estonia, Hong Kong and the Netherlands. It opens in October in Italy, Mexico, and Romania.

KUNG FU PANDA - earnest but unmemorable

KUNG FU PANDA is an amiable CGI animated movie for kids. Jack Black plays a kind-hearted panda called Po, the ultimate Kung Fu fan-boy. To everyone's surprise, Master Oogway names Po as the Dragon Warrior - the only fighter who can beat the evil tiger Tai Lung and bring peace to the valley. At first, all of the other Kung Fu masters mock the fat panda, but Po's tenacity wins them round. He developes his own style of Bear Kung Fu that uses his big belly as an asset and fulfills his destiny. The moral of the story is that even the most unlikely person can be a hero if they only believe in themselves.

Like Po, KUNG FU PANDA has a kind heart and good intentions. All of the characters have names that correspond to their meanings in Mandarin and great attention has been paid to the choreography of the martial art scenes. They reference great cinema battles, but never cross the line into pastiche. There are moments of great humour - not least a chop stick fight over a dumpling between Po and Shifu. Jack Black does a great job and he has great chemistry with Dustin Hoffman as his master.

Having said that, KUNG FU PANDA isn't up there with the best of animation. It doesn't have the emotional depth, narrative complexity or visual style of a RATATOUILE or TOY STORY or MONSTERS INC. It feels rather thin. Aside from the relationship between Po and Shifu, the subsidiary characters - voiced by the likes of Angelina Jolie and Jackie Chan - are poorly developed. Basically this is a one-note story and it could've been 75 rather than 90 minutes long.

KUNG FU PANDA played Cannes 2008 and was released in June in Russia, South Korea, Ukraine, Estonia, the Philippines, Singapore, the USA, Egypt, Kuwait, Thailand, Indonesia, CHina, Mexico, Australia, Israel, New Zealand and the Hong. It opens on JUly 3rd in Iceland, Argentina, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Austria, Brazil, Poland, Romania, Turkey and the UK. It opens later in July in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Venezuela, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Japan. It opens in Finland on August 1st; in Italy on August 29th and in Greece on September 3rd.

There's just no escaping the fact that ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS are cute!

What can I say? This is a pretty formulaic kids morality tale. Cute little chipmunks land in the house of a failed song-writer called Dave. He provides them with a hit song and a father figure. They provide him with the motivation to take responsibility for his life and get the cute girl next door. Along the way an evil record producer tries to intervene, taking the Chipmunks away from Dave on a world tour in which, horror of horrors!, they lipsynch. It's all pretty shameless stuff - especially the bit where a big Hollywood studio has the temerity to mock the record industry. And Jason Lee is hopelessly upstaged and out-acted by his furry friends, of whom Justin Long is the only well-known voice-artist. Still, for all that, you can't deny that when those wonderfully CGI-rendered chipmunks start singing, they're cute as hell!

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS was released for Christmas 2007 and is available on DVD.