JUROR #2****

I am not exactly sure why JUROR #2 slipped from view and made poor returns but it is a good old-fashioned, handsomely made, twisty courtroom drama. 

Nicholas Hoult (NOSFERATU) stars as Justin - a recovering alcoholic with a heavily pregnant wife.  Early into a criminal trial for murder Justin realises that the man on the stand is innocent of brutally bludgeoning his partner because it was actually Justin who was returning from a bar, having nearly relapsed, and thought he had hit a deer. He did get out of the car to investigate, but not finding anything, drove off.

So what should he do? Should he confess, knowing his history of DUIs will make his testimony unreliable? Should he agitate in the jury room for a mistrial?  And what of the prosecutor (Toni Colette), who needs a conviction for her re-election campaign?

The film works as a backward-induced whodunnit. Is the jury going to figure out what really happened?  It also works as case study of moral code, much as SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE will. How far has Justin truly reformed? 

As I said, there's nothing particularly new or inventive here, but the script was clever and tight, the performances solid, and I was thoroughly engaged throughout. It's kind of amazing that nonagenarian Clint Eastwood can still churn these things out.  It feels like a film that we used to make in the 80s - intelligent smart thrillers for adults. Maybe that's why it couldn't find its place at the Box Office.

JUROR #2 is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 114 minutes. It was released last month.

BIRDS OF PREY: AND THE FANTABULOUS EMANCIPATION OF ONE HARLEY QUINN

BIRDS OF PREY is another movie that should have still been in cinemas but is now available to stream because of Covid-19. It's a loose spin off of the risibly bad SUICIDE SQUAD, featuring the break-out star of that film - Margot Robbie (ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD) as Harley Quinn.  The demented former psychiatrist turned girlfriend of Joker starts the film dumped and "emancipated"- except without "Mr J"s protection every gangster she ever offended is after her.  So, she drums up a commission from local wannabe gangster-king, Roman Sionis (Ewan Macgregor) to find a little girl (Ella Jay Basco) who has stolen a super-valuable diamond.  Problem is - when Harley finds the kid, Cassandra Cain, she realises that she kind of likes being a big sister.  Harley also realises that Sionis is a total creep and she really doesn't want to hand Cain over to him and his knife-wielding sidekick Mr Zazz (Chris Messina).  So, Harley bands together in common cause with a bunch of women who have been after her for most of the film - the cop Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) - the wronged mafiosi child turned vengeful masker heroine The Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) - and the genuine superhero Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell).

I have to say that I enjoyed this film far more than I was expecting given my awful experience with SUICIDE SQUAD.  I had also suspected that Robbie's high-pitched infantilised Harley Quinn might grate over an uninterrupted two hour run-time.  But amazingly, Robbie showed some depth in the role, and I really loved her athleticism in some superbly choreographed hand-to-hand combat, as well as her genuinely nurturing role with Cain.  I also loved seeing so many thirty-something actresses get parts where they are truly kick-ass and agents of their own fate - with a particularly scene-stealing turn from Mary Elizabeth Winstead as the bizarrely preppy Sicilian vengeance-machine. I also loved Cathy Wan's kinetic direction and the ballsy use of a non-linear timeline and breaking the fourth wall.

The only let-down was casting Ewan Macgregor as Soinis. He really isn't that menacing, and this is a particular problem with a troubling scene where he humiliates a woman in his club.  I kept wondering where the actors were nowadays who could pull of that kind of funny creepy turn that Christopher Walken did so well in KING OF NEW YORK. Harley Quinn deserved a better antagonist. 

BIRDS OF PREY has a running time of 109 minutes and is rated R. It's available to rent and own.

MANGLEHORN

MANGLEHORN is a super low budget indie drama from director David Gordon Green (PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, UNDERTOW).  It stars Al Pacino as a long heart-broken local locksmith who finds late love with Holly Hunter's bank teller.

For the record, this is how you use voiceover. You use it to indicate a man out of step with contemporary life, withdrawing into himself, and melancholy for a former love, Clara.  You use it as one of many layers of sounds showing his disconnect - the incessant yapping of a former little league player he coached (Harmony Korine) - the electronic dance music in the club he's mistakenly been lured into - the melancholy piano soundtrack - and his own disoriented thoughts.  David Gordon Green's direction mirrors this aural layering, with scenes being decomposed into Manglehorn's confused face against atomised youngsters going about their lives, blending into and onto a man waking alone in a house with his beloved cat, Fanny.

London Film Fest 2012 Day 12 - CELESTE & JESSE FOREVER

Following on from last night's sophisticated but essentially conventional genre piece, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, today we have another unusually intelligent but ultimately banal rom-com - CELESTE & JESSE FOREVER.  Both movies are a cut  above the norm, with an emotional insight and verbal with that is rare, but I can't really see what they're doing in a Film Festival that's supposed to be spotlighting pioneering and unconventional film-making.  

Anyways, enough of that grouchiness and back to the movie.  Rashida Jones (PARKS & RECREATION) and Andy Samberg (SNL) play Celeste and Jesse, two charming people who have remained best friends through their divorce.  This unhealthily amicable mock separation is kicked up a gear when Jesse  unexpectedly knocks up a one-night stand, and decides to make a go of it, forcing Celeste to confront the fact that she is really alone.  

A lot of the framework of the movie is clichéd. Jesse is the typical Apatow-esque manchild of the Seth Rogen or Jason Segel variety, and Celeste is the typical uptight career woman.  Indeed, one could see this movie as an attempt to replay KNOCKED UP or FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL from the perspective of the ambitious girlfriend that the schlubby manchild tries to forget.    Accordingly, the narrative journey involves the protagonist maturing and accepting that life goes on.  But instead of the manchild growing up, it's the woman who has to grow less controlling and judgemental. 

I really appreciated a lot of what the film was trying to do. It was refreshing to see the rom-com so firmly anchored on a female protagonist and, what's more, a woman who seemed real in her fears, frustrations and actions.  Kudos to Rashida Jones for co-writing the script and bringing a new perspective, as well as strong comedic timing, to film.  The problem is that although Jones and co-writer Will McCormack are trying to break the mould, too often the movie slips back into hackneyed set-ups and scenes.  A classic example is the inappropriately revealing but endearing wedding speech by the best man, or in this case, maid of honour.  The character of the popstar Riley, and the way in which her love-life is casually "fixed" is another case in point.

So a lot to like here, and some frustrations.  CELESTE & JESSE FOREVER is an entertaining watch, but I doubt I'll remember it in a week's time.

CELESTE & JESSE FOREVER played Sundance and London 2012. It was released earlier this year in the USA, Taiwan and Singapore. It opens in Argentina on December 6th and in Germany on February 14th 2013.

London Film Fest 2012 - Day 9 - ARGO

This time last year I called THE ARTIST for Best Oscar solely based on the grounds that Harvey Weinstein had personally introduced it at the London Film Festival, indicating that the Karl Rove of Academy campaigns was putting his not inconsiderable weight behind it.  It didn't, of course, hurt that the movie did the two things that Hollywood absolutely loves: a) cast a nostalgic eye back to its own history and b) make us laugh, make us cry but with a outer casing of Profundity to make us feel less superficial while we get our kicks.

This year, on the same logic, I'm calling ARGO for Best Film.  Harvey isn't involved this time, but they flew out EVERYBODY for the red carpet PR fest last night, not to mention the fact that The Hollywood Reporter is already running front cover articles on Ben Affleck's comeback.   And, per my second rule, this movie is an exceptionally well-made crowd-pleasing thriller.  But because it's based on real events in Iran, it makes us feel like we learned something too.  

In short, ARGO is not a film we're going to remember in ten year's time - it's not a movie that remakes the boundaries of the cinema.  But that's okay, we here at MOVIE REVIEWS FOR GREEDY CAPITALIST BASTARDS are all about genre movies that aren't ashamed of what they are, do the job well, and make piles of phat cash in the process.

The basic history is that in 1979, the US embassy in Iran was stormed by pissed-off Iranian revolutionaries and the staff taken hostage.  The Khomeini revolutionaries wanted the despotic Shah of Iran returned from his asylum in the USA to face charges, which evidently wasn't going to happen.  Meanwhile, 6 embassy staff had managed to sneak out and were hiding out in the Canadian embassy. The CIA's specialist "exfiltrator" Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) created a cockamamie plan to get them out: create a real life Hollywood production company with a real life script and pretend the embassy staff were the film crew were scouting locations in Iran.  He flies in alone, gives them their cover stories, and flies out with them through an airport crawling with revolutionary guards.

The genius of a movie like ARGO is that, if done well, even though we know the ending, every time our band of civil servants goes up against a checkpoint, we are completely nervous about whether they're going to make it. This kind of tension relies upon perfect pacing and editing, and performances good enough that we like and care for the characters.   Moreover, with a movie like this, where the stakes are so high but the cover story so ludicrous, it takes a special kind of director who can keep the balance between laughs and tension.  

In this film, the ensemble cast is superb - with small parts for the likes of John Goodman, Alan Arkin and Bryan Cranston to name but a few.  It's a movie in which no-one carries the film, although I'd like to give special props to Scoot McNairy (KILLING THEM SOFTLY) who surprises his fictional colleagues and us with a last minute character turnaround that has us whooping with joy on the inside.   But really, the success of this movie is down to Ben Affleck's direction - his choices, his ability to handle the tonal shifts and intercut scenes of madcap Hollywood with absolutely grave images of hostages, his ability to make us care and have us on the edge of our seats.  The proof of that - if proof I needed - was when the plane took of Tehran airport and left Iranian airspace and the audience watching the movie burst into spontaneous applause.  That really is proof of how good this movie is.

Like I said, ARGO is "just" a factually based thriller.  But it's about as good of a thriller as you are likely to see. It shows the hidden courage and patriotic service of a handful of Hollywood insiders and CIA men, and the public courage of a handful of Canadians.  It makes us feel good about ourselves, and doesn't hide the contemporary relevance and grey shading as to why the Iranian revolutionaries were so angry at the Americans.  Kudos to all involved.

John Goodman, Ben Affleck and Bryan Cranston.

ARGO played Telluride, Toronto and London 2012 and is currently on release in the Ukraine, Canada, Colombia, the USA, Argentina, Serbia, Australia, New Zealnd, Russia, Singapore, Japan and Spain. It opens on November 2nd in Finland, on November 7th in Belgium, France, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Brazil, Ireland, Norway and the UK. It opens on November 15th in Hong Kong and Slovenia and on November 23rd in Sweden.

London Film Fest 2011 Day 4 - LIKE CRAZY

God I hated this movie. I hated it from the opening scene where kookily sweet English girl Anna (Felicity Jones) propositions  goofy, nerdy American boy Jacob (Anton Yelchin) with a quirkily, goofily, cutesy letter under his windscreen-wiper.  I hated the falling in love scenes - all reading each other's poetry and carving each other's names on a chair - adolescent crappiness - and the self-indulgent, stupid manner in which the girl screws up her visa application by over-staying her welcome.  I had no sympathy for the couple. She just seemed selfish and juvenile - he just seemed weedy and pathetic.  Her parents seemed unbelievably nice - why didn't they just slap them both round the face and tell them to get on with it?  And as for so-called honest insights about the problems with long-distance relationships - jealousy, cheating, feeling left out, expense - frankly, there's nothing more profound in this flick than in the mainstream rom-com GOING THE DISTANCE.  

Just because you film everything in a ramshackle indie style; give it a score by Dustin O'Halloran; and neither of the lead characters ever wash or comb their hair, doesn't make a movie authentic or interesting.  I really just don't get the hype it's receiving.  It struck me as juvenile, self-indulgent and banal - just like its milquetoast lead characters.  ENOUGH ALREADY!  

LIKE CRAZY played Sundance 2011 where it won the Grand Jury Prize - Dramatic beating TERRI, MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE and HERE. Felicity Jones won the Special Jury Prize for Acting.  The version shown at London 2011 has been cut to achieve a PG-13 rating.  LIKE CRAZY will be released in the US on October 28th and in the UK on February 3rd.

Felicity Jones on the red carpet for the UK premiere
of LIKE CRAZY at the BFI London Film Festival

Overlooked DVD of the month - GREENBERG

Writer-director Noah Baumbach makes excruciatingly well-observed films about financially privileged, neurotic, unsympathetic middle-aged Americans. When his films work, they are masterpieces of razor-sharp dialogue and uncomfortable silences and fleeting moments of sympathy for the fundamentally unsympathetic. His latest film, GREENBERG, features a classic Baumbach character, brilliantly played by Ben Stiller. Roger Greenberg is the definition of the bi-coastal American mid-life crisis. He's a forty-something, neurotic failed pop star turned carpenter who spends his life feeling sorry for himself, using recreational drugs, hitting on younger women and basically being self-indulgent and whiny. He is a walking embarrassment - the Uncle who won't grow up - the brother who won't get himself together - the friend who won't admit to his failures. 

Greenberg comes to LA to house-sit his brother's house and, taking the family's cue, casually abuses the services of their au pair/social secretary/general all round skivvy Florence (Greta Gerwig). The interaction between the passive-aggressive Greenberg and the vulnerable, low-self-esteem Florence is fascinating. She is sympathetic but hopeless. Greenberg is simultaneously repelled by her openness, and inflated by the fact that he has finally found someone in such dire circumstances that even a loser like him can help her. (I've been rewatching the classic 1981 BRIDESHEAD REVISITED recently, and as far apart as these things are, I thought I recognised something of the relationship of Sebastian Flyte and Kurt in Greenberg's attraction to finally being of use.)

I liked GREENBERG. Or maybe it's a film that you don't so much like, or enjoy, but see as a reflection of people you know, and admire for its honesty in depicting a certain slice of life. Greenberg is a profoundly unsympathetic character, but I did care about his journey and find some satisfaction, if not redemption, in the final scenes of the movie. GREENBERG isn't as bitterly funny as THE SQUID AND THE WHALE, nor does it have as interesting a cast of characters. GREENBERG feels more like a character study - a closely drawn, almost claustrophobic, portrait of a man in a crisis. It felt real, and painful and sometimes infuriating. But I was happy to have spent time with its characters and bought into the relationships and narrative arc.

Baumbach is, like Nicole Holofcener, the great chronicler of our decadent, pampered lives. Of rich people who feel guilty for being rich, but want all that being rich gives them. Of emotionally unstable people self-sabotaging. Of people in their thirties and forties who refuse to grow up and take responsibility. Of emotional narcissism and the difficulty of connection. I am grateful that there is room for his kind of cinema, even if it is, by definition, a painful watch.

GREENBERG played Berlin 2010 and opened earlier this year. It is available on DVD and on iTunes.

JULIE & JULIA - boring and brilliant respectively

JULIE & JULIA has the dubious honour of being the first movie based on a blog - the blog of a thirty-year old failed writer called Julie, cooking her way through the legendary cookbook, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" by Julia Child. I say legendary, and there's even an SNL spoof by a young Dan Ackroyd showing how far this 6 foot 2, preppy woman had entered the American mainstream with her cooking show. I'd never heard of her.

The movie, written and directed by Nora Ephron of WHEN HARRY MET SALLY fame, is a bit of a mixed bag. To my surprise, I was utterly captivated by the story of Julia Child. Meryl Streep is absolutely enchanting as Julia - no-nonsense, up for any challenge, relentlessly optimistic, and yet hard-working too. In Paris after World War Two, she took Cordon Bleu courses designed for professionals and peopled by men. She studied hard, tested and tested recipes, honed her skills, and many years later received great success. All this with the unfailing support of her charming husband, Paul, a US diplomat, played by Stanley Tucci. They seemed to have a rather wonderful marriage, appreciating each other's eccentricities. Indeed, this is one of the most wonderful depictions of a happy marriage I have seen on screen (and stands in contrast to the mawkishness of AWAY WE GO.)

I would have loved a proper biopic of Julia Child. But, the price we pay for this new-found interest in Julia Child is dealing with Julie Powell, the blogger. Now I know that there is no little criticism of Julie Powell on the blogosphere - that she exploited Julia Child for fame* - but that strikes me as partly envious of her ensuing book deal, and overlooking the naive and casual ways in which most of us start blogging. Okay, she didn't study like Julia, and so maybe didn't deserve her success as much. But she never claimed to be a master chef. No, my objection to Julie Powell is more simple. She takes time away from Julia Child. A mousy Brooklyn wife, who can't really cook and throws temper tantrums and moans about how poor she is really isn't any competition for Julia Child - a pioneer, self-taught expert and true-life eccentric.

The result is a movie that's still worth watching, purely for the Streep-Tucci segments, but which is boring during the Amy Adams segments. My only other criticism is that, unlike BIG NIGHT, this movie never had me drooling over the food, and surely that's a must?

*Judith Jones, senior editor and vice president at Alfred A. Knopf, and Child's editor and friend, shared Child's sentiments with Publisher's Weekly: "Julia said, 'I don't think she's a serious cook.' ... Flinging around four-letter words when cooking isn't attractive, to me or Julia," Jones said. "She didn't want to endorse it. What came through on the blog was somebody who was doing it almost for the sake of a stunt."

JULIE & JULIA was released earlier this year in Canada, the USA, Germany and Austria. It is currently on release in the UK, France and Argentina. It is released next week in the Czech Republic and Estonia. It opens on October 2nd in Finland and Norway. It opens on October 9th in Australia, Bulgaria, Poland and Sweden. It opens on October 15th in Belgium, Hungary, the Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, the Ukraine, Brazil, Denmark, Romania and Taiwan. It opens on October 22nd in Greece, New Zealand, Iceland and Italy. It opens on October 30th in Croatia and Mexico. It opens on November 6th in Spain, on November 19th in Portugal and on November 28th in Japan.

London Film Festival Day 11 - VICKY, CRISTINA, BARCELONA

VICKY, CRISTINA, BARCELONA is a superficial film about superficial people. It has the surface polish of all Woody Allen films - sun-dappled, beautiful people in beautiful houses - but none of the moral bite or emotional imsight of a MANHATTAN or CRIMES and MISDEMEANORS. It slips down easily thanks to the pretty faces and the witty dialogue, but frankly there is no reason for this movie to exist nor for you to waste ninety minutes on it.

The movie opens with two classic Woody Allen tony yanks arriving in Barcelona for the summer. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is Sense and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) is Sensibility. Both are propositioned for a weekend of culture and casual sex by free-thinking painter Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem). They accept - Vicky reluctantly, Cristina happil - but of course its sensible, engaged Vicky who ends up in the sack. Back in Barcelona, Cristina moves in with Juan Antonio and enters into a menage a trois with him and his dramatic ex-wife Maria-Elena (Penelope Cruz). As the summer ends, serially dissatisfied Cristina writes it all off as a phase and leaves, along with Vicky who condemns herself to a life of boring marriage to a safe investment banker.

Have we learned anything? Woody Allen is down on love. Sensible girls end up with the safe life and the cash. Flighty girls end up being disatisfied. Sexual bombshells are a complete fucking nightmare. Everyone is self-involved - everyone ends up unhappy. The fact that this is all set in beautiful, sunny Barcelona should not fool you as to the deeply nihilistic message at the core.

As to the quality of the production, certainly the film and the actors look beautiful, and even when Woody Allen isn't saying anything new or interesting, he still says it with some style. The big problem is that Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz act Scarlett Johansson off the screen. The even bigger problem is that Allen never really explores or gets under the skin of the emotional and sexual dynamics of the menage-a-trois as Christophe Honore did in LES CHANSONS D'AMOUR.

VICKY, CRISTINA, BARCELONA played Cannes and London 2008. It was released earlier this year in the US, Norway, Spain, Singapore, France, Taiwan, Italy, Israel, Belgium and Finland. It opens in December in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Russia and Australia. It opens in Argentina on February 5th.