iPad Round-Up 1 - THE BIG YEAR

THE BIG YEAR is a charming, gentle comedy about the importance of family and following your dreams.  Jack Black stars as a guy in a dead-end job who has a passion for bird-watching, and defies his father's incredulity to do "the big year" - a challenge in which US birdwatchers compete to see the most species.  He's competing against Steve Martin's successful executive, who's about to retire and spend time with his loving family.  And both the Steve Martin and Jack Black character strike up a friendship in opposition to their common enemy - Owen Wilson's slick, hyper-competitive, incumbent title-holder - a man who has sacrificed his marriage to his obsession.

There are no big revelations in terms of the performance.  Jack Black plays his typical loveable loser character.  Steve Martin plays his typical loveable cool dad character.  Owen Wilson plays his typical loveable rogue.  The direction (David Frankel - MARLEY & ME) is workmanlike and the script (Howard Franklin - ANTITRUST) is efficient.  But the movie had a genuinely warm tone to it, it successfully conveyed the madness and the beauty of birdwatching, against all odds, and I had a good time with it.

THE BIG YEAR was released in Canada, the US, Ireland and the UK in 2011 and earlier this year in Malta, Australia, Portugal, Lithuania and Romania. It opens in Germany on June 14th and in France on September 19th. It is available to rent and own. 

Preview - THE NEXT THREE DAYS

THE NEXT THREE DAYS is a faithful remake of Fred Cafave's French thriller, POUR ELLE / ANYTHING FOR HER. It has been remade by the American writer/director Paul Haggis, famous for scripts and films that are, to my mind, over-long, over-elaborate, over-technical and lacking in real emotion. Unfortunately, THE NEXT THREE DAYS is no exception.

Russell Crowe stars as a schlubby loser who loves his wife and little kid. So, when she's locked up for apparently murdering her boss in a fit of rage, he's devastated. When the conventional legal channels are exhausted, and his despairing wife attempts suicide, poor Schlub has no choice but to plan a prison break-out. Apparently, this is quite easy. You interview a guy who's already written books how to do it; watch a couple of YouTube How To videos; and while you are basically a good guy, you discover hidden physical strengths. These include the ability to a) cold-bloodedly murder some drug-dealers b) drive a car at high speed in on-coming traffic and c) hold on to your wife while your car performs a triple lutz with its door open.

As you might tell from my facetious tone, I wasn't any more convinced of the reality of this film any more than I was by the original. In both versions, the film-makers attempts to ground the movie in reality with a detailed slow-build of research before the prison break fails to do its job. And while Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks are just fine in their roles, the basic concept is simply too incredible to buy into.

Worst still, Paul Haggis direction and script adaptation contrives to bring us out of the film rather than keep us in it. For instance, why make the guy who sells Schlub fake passports deaf? I have nothing against deaf people, but when the actor playing him first spoke you could hear the audience wondering what was going on, (some of them tittering - shame on them) and it was a distraction. Another example is where Schlub has done something bad but then counters by doing something that's meant to be sympathetic. But as his car pulls away and we still the shot of what he's done, it's just plain funny. The audience in my preview screening laughed AT the movie, rather than being impressed by the emotional confusion of the protagonist. Third Paul Haggis does his typical thing of dumbing everything down. Why does he need to play a childish game, teasing us with whether or not the wife really did murder her boss? At least the French flick had the maturity to make that a non-issue. And finally, this movie has more endings than LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING.

Overall, dull, banal, incredible (literally), and while decently acted, utterly forgettable. Save your money, save your time.

THE NEXT THREE DAYS is on release in the US, Belgium, Kazakhstan, Russia, Canada, Poland, Egypt, Kuwait, Singapore, Bulgaria, Finland, Norway and the Philippines. It opens next weekend in France, Greece and the Netherlands. It opens on December 24th in Brazil; on January 7th in the UK; on January 20th in Germany and Hungary.

RIGHTEOUS KILL - a thriller so devoid of thrills it is actually impossible to spoil the plot

RIGHTEOUS KILL is a lazy, lethargic, deeply dull "thriller" that will only succeed at the Box Office because of the residual respect audiences have for the early work of Robert de Niro and Al Pacino. We are so infatuated with movies like SCARFACE and THE GODFATHER that we refuse to admit the obvious: Pacino and De Niro are working to pay the bills: applying no quality control to the scripts that they accept; and falling into pastiche of their tough-guy foul-mouthed iconic performances.

As for RIGHTEOUS KILL, this is a movie that declares its hand in the first five minutes. Pacino and De Niro are cops investigating a serial killer. De Niro is shown in flashback, confessing to the murders. He's a vigilante that goes after rapists and paedophiles who walked. These are "righteous kills".

Now, the audience is intelligent. We know we're watching a thriller. If a killer is presented to us inside the first ten minutes, we know he's probably innocent. And if Robert De Niro's character is innocent, and there's another heavyweight actor in the cast, it's going to be him. So after fifteen minutes, you know that De Niro's superficially angry cop is innocent; Al Pacino's superficially in-control cop is a vigilante; Carla Gugino as the CSI who likes rough sex is a red herring; and Fifty Cent is a tool.

Game over. Thank you for playing. Please slip into retirement and stop flushing your reputations down the toilet.

RIGHTEOUS KILL is on release in the UK, US, the Philippines, Greece, India, Romania, Israel, Russia, Taiwan, Estonia, Italy, Sweden and Turkey. It opens this weekend in Finland and Spain and next weekend in France, Denmark and Iceland. It opens later in October in Portugal, Belgium and Argentina. It opens on January 8th in the Netherlands.

On Samuel Huntington and RATATOUILLE

A lot of modern CGI animated films are top heavy with post-modern self-referential jokes. They are too light on old-fashioned story-telling and winning characters. Against such a back-drop of depressingly formulaic and lazy movies, RATATOUILLE comes as a welcome relief. It's a movie that feels a little bit old-fashioned in its willingness to spend time with its characters and watch them develop. And while it does have some funny movie references and witty one-liners, it's more of a relationship drama than an all-out comedy.

The movie has three main themes. The first is a clash between our hero, a small rat called Remy (Patton Oswalt), and his dad. The dad is a Huntingtonian who believes that rats and humans can only live in a state of war. He thinks Remy should stop apeing human ways and being snobby about the food he eats, and stick to his roots. Remy, on the other hand, believes that there has to be an alternative to conflict. To that end, Remy takes a chance on a poor talentless kitchen-hand called Linguini (Lou Romano), helping him to become the most celebrated chef in Paris. Linguini by turns throws off his prejudice against rats and takes Remy into his home.

This brings up the second big theme of the film: "anyone can cook". In other words, who you are and where you come from don't matter. Talent can come from anywhere and should be acknowledged regardless. This theme is embodied in the character of the late Chef Gusteau - a wonderfully warm, comic creation, voiced by Brad Garrett. Gusteau is nicely contrasted with Chef Skinner (Ian Holm) - a mean little elitist who tries to foil Linguini and Remy's plans.

By far my favourite character was the scary food critic, Anton Ego, voiced by a brilliantly condescending Peter O'Toole. Ego allows the movie to nicely comment on the relationship between critic and artist and brings a strange maturity and intelligence to a children's film. I quote his final speech, with which I heartily agree: "In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new."

RATATOUILLE has heart and intelligence and patience. Rare qualities indeed. But it is not without its longeurs. I also question the necessity of featuring so much gun violence early on (you could have made similar visual jokes with the old women throwing things at the rats). I was also rather surprised to find a major plot point in a kids film revolving around DNA testing. Perhaps I am too naive about what kids can handle?

RATATOUILLE opened in the US, Chile, Russia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Belgiu,, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Israel, Mexico, Paraguay, France, Japan, Peru, Uruguay the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Hong Kong, Hungary, Spain, Taiwan, Venezuela, Estonia, Australia, Iceland, Indonesia, Kuwait, Portugal, Malaysia, Slovenia, Egypt, India, Turkey, Lithuania, Singapore and Slovakia in summer 2007. It is currently playing in Norway and opens in Germany and Denmark next week. It opens in the UK on October 12th and in Italy, Finland and Sweden the following week. RATATOUILLE will be released on Region 1 DVD on November 6th 2007.