The Intouchables (Intouchable)

This week's film is our first with subtitles in a midweek slot for quite a while.  Does The Artist, as a silent film, really count?   Before this I can only think of Let The Right One In, and that was several years ago.

Anyway here are the notes:

The Intouchables (Intouchable)

France 2011                 113 minutes

Director:                      Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano

Starring:                        Francois Cluzet and Omar Sy

Awards and Nominations

• Nominated for Golden Globe (Best Foreign Language Film)
• A further 13 wins and 31 nominations including Best Actor Award for Omar Sy in the Cesar Awards in France

“The premise of Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano’s comic drama is not unlike The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and it, too, is based on a true story. Unlike Julian Schnabel’s rarefied exploration of paralysis, however, the film itself is as broad, accessible and trombonishly unsubtle as a subtitled Driving Miss Daisy.”

Robbie Collin

Philippe (Cluzet), a quadriplegic Parisian millionaire hires a strapping black immigrant from a broken home in the bainlieues as his live in career and the men strike up a mischievous camaraderie.

The film is based on a the true story of Philippe Pozzo di Borgo and Abdel Sellou depicted in the documentary film A la vie, a la mort.  

The Intouchables was an enormous box office and critical hit in France where Omar Sy unexpectedly won the Cesar for Best Actor rather Jean Dujardin for his role The Artist.  In September 2012 it was announced that the film had been selected as the French entry for the Best Foreign Language Film for the 2013 Academy Awards, but ultimately it was not included as one of the final nominees.

 

Here's the trailer:

 

 

 

Carnage

One of my jobs within our Film Club is to email our members to let them know what we will be screening and to send them copies of my notes to give them some background to the film.

My usual email title is [film title] at Village Hall but this week, as we're screening Carnage, I had to make sure I had inverted commas in the right places:

"Carnage" at the Village Hall

Here are my notes:

Carnage

USA 2011                    79minutes

Director:                      Roman Polanski

Starring:                        Christolph Waltz, Jodie Foster, John C Reilly and Kate Winslet

Awards and Nominations

• Nominated for two Golden Globes (Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet as Best Actress)
• A further four wins and 13 nominations

“Carnage is a film about four people who hate each other and are unable to leave the room. Sometimes they make it far as the door and once or twice to the lift, though on each occasion they are pulled back by the unfinished business of their exquisite loathing and bitter contempt. With this stealthy adaptation of the Yasmina Reza stage play, director Roman Polanski has rustled up a pitch-black farce of the charmless bourgeoisie that is indulgent, actorly and so unbearably tense I found myself gulping for air and praying for release. Hang on to your armrest and break out the scotch. These people are about to go off like Roman candles.”

Xan Brooks

Following an incident in  a playground in which one boy hits another with a stick and knocks out several of his teeth the two sets of parents meet up to discuss the matter.  Over the course of an evening the meeting disintegrates as each set seeks to assign guilt for an event that seems to have arisen as a result of an accident.

The film is based on the play God of Carnage by the French writer Yasmina Reza which won an Olivier Award for Best Play for its London production and a Tony for Best Play in 2009 following its production on Broadway.  Reza worked on the screenplay with Polanski who kept the American setting of the play, although the film was made entirely in Paris because of Polanski’s legal status: the script does not open out the original script and the main action takes place entirely in the apartment of Penelope and Michael Longstreet (Jodie Foster and John C Reilly).

It is interesting that Polanski has cast the film as a US actor couple versus a non-US actor couple, but all four performers are superb: Foster, Waltz and Winslet have all won Oscars and Reilly has been Oscar nominated, and in the course of a relatively short film Polanski allows all four actors to hurtle through a whole gamut of emotions.

At the age of 79 Polanski shows little signs of slowing down.  In the last ten years he has directed The Pianist (2002), Oliver Twist (2005), The Ghost (2010) and Carnage (2011).  Following the release of Carnage to wide critical acclaim he is currently filming Venus in Furs, based on a play by David Ives, in which a young actress tries to convince a director that she’d be perfect for a role in his forthcoming production.

Here is the trailer:

Moonrise Kingdom

Now that the distractions of Christmas and the New Year are finally over we can get back to the serious business of screening films - and this week's selection looks a real treat.

I'd missed the reviews of this when it came out, but then noted it when it appeared in the Top Ten Films of 2012 lists that many critics poduced last month.

Here are my notes:

Moonrise Kingdom

USA 2012                    94 minutes

Director:                      Wes Anderson

Starring:                        Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand, Harvey Keitel and Tilda Swinton

Awards and Nominations

• Nominated for 2013 Golden Globe (Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy)
• Nominated for Palme d’Or at 2012 Cannes Film Festival
• A further 11 wins and 27 nominations

 “The success of Moonrise Kingdom depends on its understated gravity.  None of the actors ever plays for laughs or puts sardonic spins on their material.  We don’t feel that they’re kidding.  Yes, we know these events are less than likely, and the film’s entire world is fantastical.  But what happens in a fantasy can be more involving than what happens in life, and thank goodness for that.”

Roger Ebert

In 1965, on a small island called New Penzance off the coast of New England, a young boy and girl fall in love, make a secret pact, and then run away together into the wilderness.  The people of the town are mobilised to search for them as a violent storm is brewing off-shore; as a result the peaceful community is turned upside down, which turns out not be a bad thing. 
The film is an original story by Wes Anderson who co-wrote on the script with Roman Coppola, who had also worked with Anderson on The Darjeeling Limited (2007), his previous film.  Anderson’s films often include an interesting and often surprising choice of music.  In Moonrise Kingdom young children listen to an extract from Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra in which the various instruments are separated and identified while the film closes with the fugue section that reunites all the instruments, suggesting the society being taken apart and then brought back together.  Meanwhile Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), the lonesome policeman listens to rueful country songs by Hank Williams while the romantic 12-year-old heroine loves the music of Françoise Hardy.

Wes Anderson made his name with the quirky comedy Rushmore (1998) and the comedy-drama The Royal Tenenbaums (2001).  In all his films he likes to work with the same cast and crew: amongst a number of regular players including Jason Schwartzman and Owen Wilson, Bill Murray has appeared in every film that Anderson has made to date and this has secured his reputation as a star of independent cinema. The current film also includes an eclectic cast list that includes such diverse talents as Bruce Willis, Frances McDormand (best known for her Oscar winning role in Fargo (1996)) and Tilda Swinton (who started her career by appearing in a number of films by Derek Jarman before moving to more mainstream films although still working with directors such as the Coen brothers in Burn After Reading (2008)).

The film received its world premier in competition at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.  It subsequently opened to unanimous critical praise from critics and appeared in many lists of the top ten films of 2012.

Here's a link to the trailer:

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

This is our last screening before Christmas.  I've not had a chance to read the book or to see the film so my notes - of necessity - are somewhat briefer than usual.  Hopefully they will provide enough of an incentive to bring in an audience.

 

Here are my notes:

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

UK 2011                      112minutes

Director:                      Lasse Halstrom

Starring:                        Amr Waked, Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor, Kristin Scott Thomas and Rachael Stirling

 

“Salmon Fishing in the Yemen has a similarly soft-tummied feel to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel; it’s perhaps best described as a second-tier Ealing Comedy shot by the Boden catalogue.”

Robbie Collins

 

Dr Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor), a salmon expert in the British fisheries is engaged by Sheikh Muhammed (Amr Waked) to introduce 10,000 salmon into a river in the Yemen so that he can go fly fishing in his own country.  Jones sets to work with Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt) a management consultant employed by the Sheikh, and as the project progresses they become emotionally entangled.

The screenplay by Simon Beaufoy is based on the debut novel by Paul Torday which was an unexpected best-seller in the UK.  However Beaufoy, who also wrote the scripts for The Full Monty (1997) and Slumdog Millionaire (2008) loses the eccentricity of the source novel and refashions the central relationship into one familiar from other romantic comedies: it is clear from their first meeting what is destined to happen between Jones and Chetwode-Talbot.

Director Lasse Halstrom made his international name with My Life as a Dog (1985), made in his native Sweden, although prior to that he had directed more than 30 music videos for the pop group ABBA.  Following the success of My Life as a Dog Halstrom has worked in the US where his films have included The Cider House Rules (1999), from the novel by John Irving and Chocolat (2000) from the novel by Joanne Harris; both of these films received Oscar nominations for Best Film.  His next film is a thriller called The Hypnotist which is to be made in Sweden.

 

Here's the trailer:

 

 

Fargo

Apparently it is mandatory for every film society to show Fargo.  We fulfilled this obligation several years ago, and when I was researching for my notes I found the wonderful extract from a piece by David Thomson which I was able to quote in full:

 

Fargo

USA 1996       (98 minutes)

Director:          Joel Cohen

Starring:          Frances McDormand, William H. Macy and Steve Buscemi

 Awards and Nominations

Won                Oscar for Best Original Screenplay

                        Oscar for Leading Actress (Frances McDormand)

Nominated for five further Oscars

Won                BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay

Won                Best Director (Joel Coen)

Nominated for a further five baftas

Won                Best Director (Joel Coen) at Cannes Film Festival

Nominated for Golden Palm

An overall total of 49 wins and 19 nominations

In Minnesota a small-time business man with severe financial problems hires two inept hoodlums to kidnap his wife in an attempt to obtain ransom from his father-in-law.  However the plot goes murderously wrong and a heavily-pregnant sheriff arrives from Minneapolis to solve the string of unexpected deaths in her jurisdiction.

The film claims to be based on a true story, but in his introduction to the published screenplay Ethan Coen undermines this:

“The story that follows is about Minnesota.  It evokes the abstract landscape of our childhood – a bleak, windswept tundra, resembling Siberia except for its Ford dealerships and Hardee’s restaurants.  It aims to be homey and exotic, and pretends to be true.”

Subsequently it emerged that the Coens’ inspiration was a 1986 murder in Connecticut where a husband used a wood chipper to dispose of his wife’s body – the Coens moved the location to Minnesota because they had been born and brought up on the outskirts of Minneapolis. 
 
The film was launched to universal acclaim and secured many awards.  It has secured its place in cinema history and recently David Thompson included it as one of only three films released in 1996 in his book “Have You Seen?” A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films where he summarised its appeal as follows:

“Fargo is just 97 minutes long, compact and efficient (cost $7 million; earnings $24.5 million), a sort of “the gang’s all here” of American independent film, and a quiet knockout.  When the snow is that thick, you won’t hear a body or a Douglas fir fall, just the hush being underlined.  But the tonal range of the film is what is leaving puffs of breath in the air.  From one moment to the next this film is gruesome, bloody and “Oh no!” as well as so funny you wish those starchy voices would stop talking for a second.”

In a career of nearly 25 years the Coen brothers have produced a series of brilliant films that have been successful with both festival and multiplex audiences.  Fargo is arguably their greatest film and until No Country For Old Men (2007) it was their most successful in terms of nominations and awards.

 

In case you need any more encouragement, here's the trailer:

 

 

The Woman in Black

We seem to have established a tradition of showing a horror film around the time of Halloween.  In past years we've screen Let The Right One In and 30 Days of Night, and this year we're screening The Woman in Black.

 

My wife is a great fan of Susan Hill's writing and has seen the play (via school trips) more than a dozen times, so we decided to watch it at home.  We started the film quite late - inevitably - and were quite enjoying it.  Then just as we were getting to the scary part in Eel Marsh House there was a powercut.  Fortunately there was no rocking chair in a locked room upstairs and no visit from the Woman in Black herself.

 

Here are my notes:

 

The Woman in Black

UK 2011                      94 minutes

Director:                      James Watkins

Starring:                        Daniel Radcliffe, Ciaran Hinds, Janet McTeer, Roger Allam, Shaun Dooley, Sophie Stuckey

 “Her face, in its extreme pallor, her eyes, sunken but unnaturally bright, were burning with the concentration of passionate emotion which was within her and which streamed from her.  Whether or not this hatred and malevolence was directed towards me I had no means of telling – I had no reason at all to suppose that it could possibly have been, but at that moment I was far from able to base my reactions upon reason and logic.  For the combination of the peculiar, isolated place and the sudden appearance of the woman and the dreadfulness of her expression began to fill me with fear.”

Susan Hill: The Woman in Black

 Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe), a young solicitor, visits the remote coastal village of Crythin Gifford to obtain the paperwork to sell the remote, bleak and desolate Eel March House after the death of Mrs Drablow, an elderly client of his firm.  While staying at the house, Kipps sees the mysterious figure of a woman dressed in black and from letters he discovers he finds out who she is.  From the locals he learns that the appearance of the Woman in Black always leads to the death of a child.

 The film is based on the classic novel by Susan Hill which was previously filmed in 1989 with a screenplay by Nigel Kneale (of Quatermass fame), which has also been dramatised for the stage and has been running in London for more than 20 years.  The novel consciously echoes the style of the great ghost stories of M R James (one of the chapters has the title “Whistle and I’ll Come to You”), but the skillful adaptation by Jane Goodman, while retaining the key elements of Hill’s novel and remaining true to its spirit, reorders and compresses them to make them more immediate – and more chilling.

 The film received much publicity through the astute casting of Daniel Radcliffe in his first post-Potter role, with his performance as the young solicitor receiving generally good reviews.  It is also worth noting that the film is the most successful production to date of the relaunched Hammer Film Productions, the company dominated the horror film market from the mid-1950s to the 1970s with innumerable cycles of films featuring Dracula, Frankenstein and the Mummy. 

The Woman in Black has been the most successful Hammer film ever in the USA as well as the highest grossing UK horror film for 20 years. Hammer Films has subsequently announced that there will be a sequel to the film, currently called The Woman in Black: Angels of Death.  Susan Hill will provide an original story set during the Second World War: Eel Marsh House has been converted to a military mental hospital and the arrival of disturbed soldiers re-awakes its darkest inhabitant.

 

Here's the trailer:

 

 

The Descendants

Our plan was to screen The Descendants, but a mix up over the DVD meant that we had to screen an alternative.  The screening of a film with George Clooney had attracted a certain demographic, so we offered everyone a freee glass of wind and screened The American instead.

We will screen The Descendants at a later date, but here are my notes anyway:

The Descendants

USA 2011                    115minutes

Director:                      Alexander Payne

Starring:                        George Clooney, Amara Miller, Beau Bridges, Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard, Michael Ontkean, Nick Krause, Robert Forster, Shailene Woodley

Awards and Nominations

·         Won Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay and four further nominations including Best Director, Best Film and Best Actor (George Clooney).

·         BAFTA nominations for Best Film, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor (George Clooney).

·         A further 47 wins and 66 nominations.

“Nothing gives me more pleasure than to welcome a new film by the gifted writer-director Alexander Payne, especially as The Descendants, his first movie since Sideways eight years ago, is so good, and in so many ways.”

 Philip French

After his wife has been left comatose by an accident while water skiing Matt King (George Clooney), a rich landowner in Hawaii, discovers that she has been having an affair.  The accident forces him to face up to his responsibilities as a (failed) husband and father and he sets off on a scenic tour of his life.

The film received its first screenings at the Telluride, Toronto and New York film festivals and was then scheduled to have a limited release in December 2011.  However the positive critical response from its initial screenings resulted in its release date being brought forward.    The film subsequently appeared in many critics’ lists of the best films of 2011 and won many awards for George Clooney, Alexander Payne (as writer and director) and as Best Film.

 In his four star review of the film Roger Ebert was particularly impressed by George Clooney:

 “And George Clooney? What essence does Payne see in him? I believe it is intelligence. Some actors may not be smart enough to sound convincing; the wrong actor in this role couldn't convince us that he understands the issues involved. Clooney strikes me as manifestly the kind of actor who does. We see him thinking, we share his thoughts, and at the end of The Descendants, we've all come to his conclusions together.”

Alexander Payne made his name as Director/Screenwriter of films such as Election (1999), About Schmidt (2002) and Sideways (2004).  George Clooney lobbied Alexander Payne unsuccessfully for a part in this latter film, being turned down by Payne on the basis that he was too big a star for a role in such an ensemble cast.

	Here's the trailer: