Cinema 2011 #56: Last Night

Last Night, from Iranian-American writer-director Massy Tadjedin, is a film with as much artistic integrity as an IKEA catalogue. It is the glossy story of four impossibly beautiful people, living unreasonably fabulous lives in preposterously huge loft apartments in New York’s Upper East Side. Wedded couple Joanna and Michael, played by Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington, spend a day and a half wrestling with doubts over their hasty post-university marriage, while Eva Mendes and Guillaume Canet do their best to knowingly tempt them into infidelity.

Cinema 2011 #55: Kung Fu Panda 2

Kung Fu Panda was something of a surprise hit back in 2008, with very few industry insiders expecting the kiddie-friendly story of an American-sounding martial-artistic bear in a cutesy critter China to become the 50th top grossing film of all time. And yet, against the odds, Po the panda’s quest for self-fulfillment struck a gong with audiences everywhere, especially in China, where its Sino-styled riffs on Asian legends and kung-fu cinema went down a treat. And in one fell chop, DreamWorks established a new franchise to rival Pixar’s dominance of the computer animated cartoon. 

Cinema 2011 #54: X-Men: First Class

It’s been over a decade since Bryan Singer’s X-Men effectively relaunched the cinematic superhero as a viable movie commodity. While remaining loyal to 40 years of increasingly outlandish source material, Singer centred his mutants around the usual suspects of the Marvel universe, following the popular kids of the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters and their suped-up adventures in upstate New York. With some slick CGI, Halle Berry in skintight leather and two gravitas growling British thesps to lend it some weight, his solidly entertaining origins flick unleashed a new wave of spandex-clad superstars upon an audience of financially flush Generation X-ers ready to relive Saturday morning cartoons on the silver screen. 10 years and three sequels later, the X-Men franchise was looking distinctly X-pired, after the critical acclaim of number two (X2) was tarnished by a disappointing third (The Last Stand) and ill-advised spinoff for Hugh Jackman’s rascally poster-boy, X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

But after the success of JJ Abrams retro Star Trek redux, that boldly went back to the drawing board where 10 films and 30 years of cinema had gone before, there was new-found interest in Stan Lee’s wunderkinder. As mutants by their very nature are adaptations of the norm, we get X-Men: First Class, a genetic blend of prequel, retrograde revision and swingin’ 60s origins tale, under the eyes of Matthew Vaughn’s direction. Vaughn is very much in vogue after striking big with the last year’s riotous Kick Ass, and together with writing sidekick Jane Goldman, knows something about bringing a fresh appeal to the very crowded market of costumed heroes. And while their efforts fly high, they never quite reach first class.

Magneto was pretty adamant that paper did in fact cover rock

Their story involves the beginnings of the bumpy relationship between the two leaders of mutantkind, James McAvoy’s mind-bending Charles Xavier and Michael Fassbender’s metal-morphing Erik Lehnsherr. We begin with a young Erik displaying his metalwork in a concentration camp in Poland, watched by Kevin Bacon’s sadistic Sebastian Shaw, a mutant who’ll go to any length to develop the boy’s powers, and finding rage to be a potent trigger. On the other side of the world, Charles is living an affluent life in the family mansion, but already showing altruistic intent as he welcomes the shapeshifting Raven into his home. A speedy cut to 20 years later and the grown-up Chuck is finishing his PhD in groovy Oxford, chatting up girls, chug chug chugging pints between punts and ignoring Jennifer Lawrence’s filled-out Raven’s romantic pinings. Erik is still disgruntled with his lot and jetsetting around the globe, on the hunt for Shaw and taking out Nazis with his linguistic prowess, metallic abilities and impeccably tailored suits.

Cinema 2011 #53: The Hangover Part II

The Hangover Part II is everything you’d expect it to be, and nothing more. Fans of the raucous original will undoubtedly howl with laughter at the booze-fueled antics of Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms’ Wolf Pack, as they waver episodically up a muddled memory lane, piecing together just what happened the night before. And those fans mean serious business, given the worldwide gross of $467 million, and Golden Globe, earned by the original, the sleeper hit and critical darling of the 2009. Those less inclined, however, to Todd Philips’ particular brand of American Arsehole Anarchy™ – Old School, Due Date, Road Trip – where grown men make self-serving choices and jokes at the expense of the poor, the aged, women, the disabled, homosexuals, ethnic minorities and anyone else who isn’t a upper middle-class dude, will also get everything they’d expect, and nothing more.

Cinema 2011 #52: WinWin

Thomas McCarthy is his name. You didn’t know this. Don’t feel too bad though, I didn’t either. And I’m just a try-hard with the IMDb app. You don’t know his name because Thomas McCarthy belongs to that rare genus of Hollywood actors, the “that guy, who’s in loads of things, you know him, with the glasses, and the hair. You know him, honestly.” And trust me, when I say you do know him, because his everyman qualities have been right there, on display for all to see, in such diverse fare as Meet the Parents, Good Night… and Good Luck, Syriana, Baby Mama and 2012. Ringing any bells? Probably not, but campanology generally occurs when people learn of his role as dodgy journalist Scott Templeton in the final season of HBO’s The Wire. Yeah, that guy. Ironically, however, despite the failure of his name to register with his on screen skills, McCarthy has been making quite the name for himself behind it.

He's that guy!

There’s his Academy Award nomination for his script to Pixar’s tearjerker Up. Not to mention his 2003 BAFTA for the screenplay to his directorial debut, The Station Agent. His follow up, The Visitor, nabbed an acting nomination from Oscar for Richard (another “that guy, you know him”) Jenkins in 2007, and along with new movie WinWin, his trinity of indie darlings has been earning bracketed stamps for promotional posters from film festivals in every corner of the globe.

Which is why it’s a shame that WinWin just didn’t  win me over.

Cinema 2011 #51: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Oh dear, landlubbers, thar she blows.

It becomes blatantly apparent from the beginning of Rob Marshall’s bloated mess Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides that this film has been scraping the bottom of the poop deck to cash in on the residual goodwill of audiences to modern cinema’s favourite corsair. Treading water after two already unwelcome sequels to a surprise critical hit that turned Johnny Depp into a box-office behemoth back in 2003, On Stranger Tides suffers from the basic misunderstanding of the entertainment tenet: leave them wanting more. Little chance of that happening with a swollen 136-minute runtime, redundant 3D rendering and more unnecessary character threads than a Cat o’ Nine Tails.

This time round, rascal of the seven seas Captain Jack Sparrow is inexplicably on the quest for the mythical Fountain of Youth, after former flame and feisty Latina lover Angelica, played as an irritable Iberian stereotype by Penélope Cruz, offers to help him reclaim his beloved ship, the Black Pearl. Of course, they’ll first have to beat the Spanish navy’s mission to reach said font first, in order to destroy it and save all that is pure in Christendom from the power to rival God’s divine mastery of mortality. Oh, and they’ll have to best Ian McShane’s Blackbeard, the most dreaded pirate on the oceans, at least since that last most dreaded one Capn’ Jack pissed off in the last movie. And… then there’s also the other relic of the first three flicks, Sparrow’s rival Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), who’s now working for King George II and in command of a Royal Navy frigate – he’s there too, dowsing rod whipped out. Oh, and there’s another subplot involving a missionary and mermaid as well, for good measure, in case the friggin’ feisty-fountain-fiend-frigate fandango wasn’t enough.

Cinema 2011 #50: Julia's Eyes

Spain – the land of sun, sangria and hair-raising screams. At least that’s what the country’s film directors would have you believe based on the successive supply of high-concept horrors to hit our screens care of the Costa del Sol. There have been gothic fantasies with unpleasant goats, documentaries of the undead with a recording SteadiCam, and now even Almodovar, Spanish cinema’s auteur, is jumping out of his skin to get in on the blood-curdling action. Julia’s Eyes, from writer-director Guillem Morales, is the latest addition to the Iberian nasties and reunites him with Guillermo del Toro, on producing duty, and star Belén Rueda, who’d previously cowered behind Morales’ castanets in 2007’s The Orphanage.

Rueda is Julia, an astronomer suffering from a degenerative disease slowly robbing her of her sight. When her equally plighted twin Sara takes her own life, Julia begins to suspect foul play and investigates her sister’s romance with a man nobody can seem to recall. Things take a distinct turn for the sinister and it’s not long before Julia undergoes an experimental transplant surgery to restore her eyesight. Cared for by nurse Iván in her sister’s gloomy home, Julia will have to hone her remaining senses to figure out just what’s going bump in the night.