Saturday was a day of exhibitions. Weapons of Mass Communication at the Imperial War Musuem and Cranach at the Royal Academy. I hadn't been to the IWM before so that was a treat in itself. I was shocked by how small a Spitfire is/was. I'd always assumed they were larger than that. I felt claustrophobic just looking at it. And *then* I went into the Trench ...
Anyway, the posters were interesting. Whereas most of the propaganda posters had a snappy or at least brief text, the post-Revolution Russian ones ended up with alarmingly long exhortations! I think my favourite poster was one from France, WWI, which actually looked more like a film poster for a 1950s sci-fi movie. There was nothing else like it.
I'd had a sneak peak of the catalogue for the Cranach exhibition so knew what to expect. The portraits were probably the most impressive although they don't approach Holbein levels of realism. The eyes and mouth tend to be very stylized which you only truly realize when you see a selection of them together. The figures of his (clothed) females also follow a pattern, and certain elements such as the apple tree and various animals reappear. Looking at the paintings, they almost seem to belong more to the preceding century.
Monday 31 March 2008
Friday 28 March 2008
DVD roundup March
HMV, your sales are evil. I have no willpower to resist whenever I set foot in the store. This month has been particularly bad for what little space I have left on my shelves.
Blade Runner: Final Cut - I'm not enough of a nerd to remember all the minute differences between the various cuts. However, this one does look nice and shiny and more to the point doesn't have that wretched voiceover. I realized that I don't much like the music apart from the main theme and that the sections with the replicants are far more interesting than the rest of the film. Another good Ridley Scott commentary too. He's always so proud of the way he reuses props and parts of the set!
Children of Men - Still works on a second viewing. Actually it feels even shorter. Michael Caine's performance is his best in years. Genuinely moving.
Tell No One - Again it still works despite now knowing what the various twists and turns will be. The performances are terrific and carry you across the more unlikely pieces of the plot, of which there are many!
Amazing Grace - What I like about this so much is the way it captures a genuine sense of friendship between Wilberforce and Pitt. You feel that they have indeed known each other for years. I also love the ramshackle air around Wilberforce's home, with all the rescued animals roaming around. It immediately makes you warm to the man. Plus it doesn't shy away from scenes of politics. It trusts the audience to actually listen.
Seraphim Falls - Almost a mixture of Anthony Mann and Clint Eastwood though it goes seriously odd (in a Dead Man kind of way) at the end. I do love a good Western, especially one that treats the genre with respect. Inventive ways of killing people also a plus.
Pathfinder - OK, my "I've had a rotten week" treat to myself. Every bit as daft as you would expect for Vikings vs. Native Americans, but who cares when there's a barely clothed Karl Urban to lift the spirits:)
Blade Runner: Final Cut - I'm not enough of a nerd to remember all the minute differences between the various cuts. However, this one does look nice and shiny and more to the point doesn't have that wretched voiceover. I realized that I don't much like the music apart from the main theme and that the sections with the replicants are far more interesting than the rest of the film. Another good Ridley Scott commentary too. He's always so proud of the way he reuses props and parts of the set!
Children of Men - Still works on a second viewing. Actually it feels even shorter. Michael Caine's performance is his best in years. Genuinely moving.
Tell No One - Again it still works despite now knowing what the various twists and turns will be. The performances are terrific and carry you across the more unlikely pieces of the plot, of which there are many!
Amazing Grace - What I like about this so much is the way it captures a genuine sense of friendship between Wilberforce and Pitt. You feel that they have indeed known each other for years. I also love the ramshackle air around Wilberforce's home, with all the rescued animals roaming around. It immediately makes you warm to the man. Plus it doesn't shy away from scenes of politics. It trusts the audience to actually listen.
Seraphim Falls - Almost a mixture of Anthony Mann and Clint Eastwood though it goes seriously odd (in a Dead Man kind of way) at the end. I do love a good Western, especially one that treats the genre with respect. Inventive ways of killing people also a plus.
Pathfinder - OK, my "I've had a rotten week" treat to myself. Every bit as daft as you would expect for Vikings vs. Native Americans, but who cares when there's a barely clothed Karl Urban to lift the spirits:)
Thursday 20 March 2008
Film roundup March
The bad:
The Other Boleyn Girl.
OK, so it was based on a book rather than history but just *where* did the Reformation go? Not exactly the sort of event that can be summed up in one sentence during a lovers' tiff. And how could anyone make the combination of Henry VIII and Eric Bana so dull?
10,000 BC.
I knew what I was letting myself in for so I can't complain. I'm a sucker for all things prehistoric, that's my excuse. Really bad sfx for the sabre tooth but the mammoths were ace. Overall it felt like about 5 different films jostling for attention, none of them that great.
The good:
Les chansons d'amour.
Films where characters break into song instead of dialogue don't usually appeal to me but this was very endearing. The French pop songs were surprisingly catchy and it helped no end that the singing was good rather than showstopping. And a very French pragmatic attitude to sex!
The Edge of Heaven.
Possibly a few too many coincidences for it's own good, but it still packs a powerful emotional punch. Somehow knowing just who is going to die in the first two sections makes their interaction with the other characters far more poignant.
Charlie Wilson' War.
Much better than I expected though the ending was a total copout. Really, this is what put the weapons into the hands of the people who are now the new enemy. The film manages to duck out of getting that point across. On the plus side, every time Philip Seymour Hoffman was on screen the film was hilarious - especially the whisky bottle scene.
The excellent:
The Diving Bell and The Butterfly.
A real tour de force. It was quite a trick to make a visually interesting film from such a limited POV. Far more funny than one would expect too. I loved the irony of this womaniser now surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women seeing to his every need and he can't take advantage of it. "It's not fair" indeed.
Lars and the Real Girl.
This could have been awful. Introverted male plus sex doll. Not an encouraging pitch. However, suspend disbelief and be drawn in by the sheer good-natured tone. I haven't seen a funnier film all year, and the unsung hero is Paul Schneider. Priceless reaction shots. It's the attention to detail that impresses i.e. the tiny holes in Lars' jumpers. An absolute joy.
The Orphanage.
Yet more proof than a film can be far scarier when it doesn't use violence and gore. I didn't think it was quite as good as The Devil's Backbone which had so many layers to it's tale of a child ghost but certainly FAR better than anything from Hollywood. Two genuine "jump" moments, an eerie masked child and that totally heartbreaking ending.
Out of the Blue.
So glad I made the effort to track this down at the *one* cinema in London where it's showing. It benefits hugely from the slow build up. You get to know the characters and that makes it far worse when the shooting starts. You can feel the loss. rather than the dead being disposable extras. Most heartrending scene: Karl Urban talking to the badly wounded little girl while his partner cradles her dead playmate. Early contender for the top 10 of the year.
The Other Boleyn Girl.
OK, so it was based on a book rather than history but just *where* did the Reformation go? Not exactly the sort of event that can be summed up in one sentence during a lovers' tiff. And how could anyone make the combination of Henry VIII and Eric Bana so dull?
10,000 BC.
I knew what I was letting myself in for so I can't complain. I'm a sucker for all things prehistoric, that's my excuse. Really bad sfx for the sabre tooth but the mammoths were ace. Overall it felt like about 5 different films jostling for attention, none of them that great.
The good:
Les chansons d'amour.
Films where characters break into song instead of dialogue don't usually appeal to me but this was very endearing. The French pop songs were surprisingly catchy and it helped no end that the singing was good rather than showstopping. And a very French pragmatic attitude to sex!
The Edge of Heaven.
Possibly a few too many coincidences for it's own good, but it still packs a powerful emotional punch. Somehow knowing just who is going to die in the first two sections makes their interaction with the other characters far more poignant.
Charlie Wilson' War.
Much better than I expected though the ending was a total copout. Really, this is what put the weapons into the hands of the people who are now the new enemy. The film manages to duck out of getting that point across. On the plus side, every time Philip Seymour Hoffman was on screen the film was hilarious - especially the whisky bottle scene.
The excellent:
The Diving Bell and The Butterfly.
A real tour de force. It was quite a trick to make a visually interesting film from such a limited POV. Far more funny than one would expect too. I loved the irony of this womaniser now surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women seeing to his every need and he can't take advantage of it. "It's not fair" indeed.
Lars and the Real Girl.
This could have been awful. Introverted male plus sex doll. Not an encouraging pitch. However, suspend disbelief and be drawn in by the sheer good-natured tone. I haven't seen a funnier film all year, and the unsung hero is Paul Schneider. Priceless reaction shots. It's the attention to detail that impresses i.e. the tiny holes in Lars' jumpers. An absolute joy.
The Orphanage.
Yet more proof than a film can be far scarier when it doesn't use violence and gore. I didn't think it was quite as good as The Devil's Backbone which had so many layers to it's tale of a child ghost but certainly FAR better than anything from Hollywood. Two genuine "jump" moments, an eerie masked child and that totally heartbreaking ending.
Out of the Blue.
So glad I made the effort to track this down at the *one* cinema in London where it's showing. It benefits hugely from the slow build up. You get to know the characters and that makes it far worse when the shooting starts. You can feel the loss. rather than the dead being disposable extras. Most heartrending scene: Karl Urban talking to the badly wounded little girl while his partner cradles her dead playmate. Early contender for the top 10 of the year.
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