Fenwick's Review Thread

Hey guys,

Thought I may as well start up one of these review thingys to collect some of my assorted movie craps. They'll be capsule-sized craps though, don't you worry. If you have any questions on particular films or my reviews drop me a PM or ask me in this thread directly. Thanks!

Dream Lover

Nicholas Kazan/1993/James Spader, Mädchen Amick, Fred Lehne


Tame psychosexual thriller but nonetheless worth a gander. Twin Peaks star Amick's treasure-hunting seductress does not quite have the manipulative, femme fatal-ity of ultimate screen bitch Linda Fiorentino from The Last Seduction but has engaging rapport with serial erotocist Spader. Unfortunately, the circus-set, almost Lynchian, dream sequences distort rather than illuminate while the final act fizzles out to no conclusion.

Nice review mate look forward to reading more

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Cheers n3wt!

While i'm still around, here is another little one.



A Single Man

Tom Ford/2009/Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode, Nicholas Hoult, Jon Kortajarena

Gorgeous mood piece that may just be a little 'style over substance' for some. Fashionista turned filmmaker Tom Ford shoots through multiple layers of consciousness - a narcissitic frame of glass, mirrors and metallic surfaces that weave themselves into the very fabric of the film. At times, his reflexive visual vocab is too heavy-handed, but nevertheless, there is sophistication and potential here.

I liked A Single Man for the most part, but you nailed my issues with it in the first sentence.

Radio On

Chris Petit/1980/David Beames

Chris Petit's striking, recently re-released debut, stimulates on an audiovisual level but its unyielding vision of late 70's British life may explain its 30 year hibernation. Co-produced by road movie mogul Wim Wenders, Radio On shares the stark black and white photography of Kings of the Road, yet can never replicate that film's (or indeed that entire trilogy's) maturity and subtle humour. Instead, it revels in its own bleakness, for which a soundtrack of David Bowie and Kraftwerk provide no relief. Perhaps worth a watch for some (all too fleeting) patches of aesthetic beauty and a brief appearance by Sting, but this is a difficult, often unrewarding experience.

I have this recorded, but I'm yet to take a look yet. Thanks for the review.

It's been a few days since my last review, i've been too busy watching re-runs of Danny Rose's goal against Arsenal to write anything

Anyway, here's a quick one. I may expand it next week if I can get over my severe bout of lazybastarditis.



Still Walking

Kore-eda Hirokazu/2009/Hiroshi Abe, Yui Natsukawa, You, Kazuya Takahashi

I don't think one can pay a greater compliment to a filmmaker than to compare his work to that of Yasujiro Ozu. Kore-eda's family talkathon Still Walking however, implicitly recognises the generational conflict of Tokyo Story, taking Ozu's painstakingly composed domestic grids, bittersweet humour and impeccable pacing to craft an anti-melodrama worthy of the grandmaster. This film deserves more words than this reviewer will allow it, but in short, this is utterly essential and may just be the first great film i've seen in a cinema this decade.

Sounds interesting. I'll check it out....

Good work, Fenwick.

I'm enjoying the reviews and looking forward to more recommendations. I haven't seen any of the movies you mentioned so far, but keep them coming. I seem to recall you mentioning Oshima Nagisa before. If you have any thoughts/favorites or least favorites you can put into review form I'd love to read it.

Lines,

I like what i've seen of Oshima, Naked Youth and Night and Fog in Japan (although at points I found them both a little, well, for lack of a better word, neo-Godardian), but sadly that's all i've got to so far. I'm eager to catch A Sun's Burial, The Ceremony and some others, but I don't have a line on any of those as of yet. One that is in the pipeline is In the Realm of the Senses which i've been putting off for a while now (for obvious reasons), so i'll see how I get on with that.

In the meantime, here's another quick one:



Crazy Heart

Scott Cooper/2009/Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall

Jeff Bridges' Oscar winning turn as washed-up folk singer 'Bad Blake' is not far removed from his role as 'The Dude' in The Big Leb, his shirts are half done-up, his belts unbuckled, he just sings country tunes and drinks whiskey instead of a white russian. Cooper's film however, recalls the redemptive story of last year's The Wrestler, and like that film, is an affecting portrayal of loneliness and regret. Although perhaps more optimistic than Aronofsky's film, it misses that same spark and drifts into some frustrating cliches. With such a fantastic soundtrack and great performances though, this is definitely worth your time.

Good review Fenwick, keep em up-- I like discovering films like this--thanks!

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Another one from the cinema:



The Ghost

The Ghost Writer (USA)/Roman Polanski/2010/Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, Olivia Williams, Tom Wilkinson

If Still Walking had the virtues of Ozu, then The Ghost has the craft of Hitchcock. Roman Polanski's newest film, a taut political thriller that also serves as a none-to-discreet mini-allegory on the Anglo-American political sphere, stars the brilliant Ewan McGregor, ghost writer to Pierce Brosnan's smarmy former prime minister Adam Lang. Equally adept at the Yank pandering and grandiloquent platitudes of Tony Blair, he is also a surrogate for Polanski himself, in that he is unable to cross borders in fear of arrest. Polanski is too good however to be sidelined by the looming spectre of politics and allegory, this is captivating from first frame to last, and the work of a master in complete command of his medium.

Thanks for the review, Fenwick. This is something I've been looking forward to seeing for a while.

Glad to see you liked it so much. I enjoyed it a lot, too.

Thanks for all the responses guys!

One of my favourite parts about The Ghost, Justin, that I didn't mention in my review, was that sense of open-aired anxiety if you know what I mean. That open plan post-modern pad, the desolate seclusion of the island etc. It had all the claustrophobia of Repulsion, The Tenant and Rosemary's Baby yet was much more free. Can't wait to buy the DVD when it comes out, it was as good a genre film as i've seen in the cinema this year.

Hey again people!

Haven't managed to get anything down in a while as i've been up to my eyeballs in other stuff. I have found myself in the cinema a few times though.



The Headless Woman

La Mujer sin Cabeza/Lucrecia Martel/2008/Maria Onetto, Claudia Cantero, Cesar Bordon

The 'New Argentinian Cinema' has become one of the most consistent and prolific national cinemas in the Spanish-speaking world and Lucrecia Martel one of its most talented filmmakers. After La Cienaga and The Holy Girl comes The Headless Woman, according to Peter Bradshaw amongst others, one of the seminal works about guilt from this century. The opening is stunning and misleading - stunning in its use of small details, such as a hand print that changes places between cuts - and misleading because the film peaks early, unable to reach these dreamlike heights again. Martel dallies around middle-aged paranoia and if anything, the film appeals to a Bunuelian critique of the bouregoisie.




Hot Tub Time Machine

Steve Pink/2010/John Cusack, Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry, Clark Duke

Better than its title suggests, Hot Tub Time Machine marks the third collaboration of producer/director Steve Pink and greatest-actor-ever John Cusack. It's cock-filled canon of gross-out gags comes closer to the 'guy' ethos of the Apatow crew than Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity (both of which Pink didn't direct but penned and produced). Pink however, does get some mileage out of the time travel stuff, and particularly refreshing is his carefree handling of the space-time continuum and all its myriad inconsistencies, playing it for laughs rather than the intergerlactic mumbo-jumbo that often comes with it.




The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Man som Hatar Kvinnor/Niels Arden Oplev/2009/Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace

The success of Steig Larsson's 'Millenium Trilogy' both at home and across-the-pond made a big-budget screen adaptation a matter of time. The first of three already-made films, this one directed by Niels Arden Oplev, the others by the easier-to-spell Daniel Alfredson, it copies pretty much verbatim from the source material, which'll no doubt keep the novels' fans in-check (by-the-by, I have never read the books but plan to do so). Quality-wise, the film resembles the last thriller I reviewed, The Ghost - it's fast-paced, gruesomely affecting and shows an impressive attention to detail. Almost ineveitably when the build-up is so good, the payoff comes as a bit of a let down but the film is never less than enthralling, all throughout its 150-minute running time. And may I add, that in the unconventionally gorgeous Noomi Rapace, Oplev and Larsson uncover one of the most intriguing heroines in a long while.

I'm going to attempt to revive this thread, although i'm unsure if this is the film to do it with! Anyway after a month or so out, here goes:



24 City - 二十四城記

Er shi si cheng ji/Jia Zhang-ke/2008/Joan Chen, Lu Luping

Jia Zhang-ke's latest film, a fiction-nonfiction hybrid that charts China's rampant sociopolitical evolution, from precapitalism and Mao to its post-Western consumer-driven present, through the residents of a formerly state-owned factory, brings the industrial cityscapes of Platform, Unknown Pleasures, The World and Still Life into a very real context. Unjudgmental as Jia is, this is no history lesson; instead he counts the human cost of the changes. Focusing solidly on eight interviewees, some genuine, others played by actors (Joan Chen appears in a bizzarely reflexive segment, the closest 24 City comes to Still Life's UFO), Jia shirks half-hearted criticism of aestheticisation; that his elegaic compositions beautify the futureshock of New China. My criticisms are much simpler however; his work is difficult, only moderately diverting at the best of times, especially to a pampered Westerner like myself, but the second half of this film in particular palpitates with emotions that are transnational. And thanks to some oddly sentimental musical interludes and universally appealing poetry, this may be Jia's most accessible film; it is certainly the one to start with if you are new to him.

Nice reviews Fenny Thanks

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Enjoyed reading your review Fenny. Keep em coming