127 HOURS: quite literally gripping stuff

It's testimony to the talent and creativity of 127 HOURS director Danny Boyle and his star James Franco that they succeed in making a film about a man with his arm trapped by a boulder in a crevasse for more than 5 days not just compelling but also Oscar worthy.

The true story of mountaineer Aron Ralston is so well known that it gives nothing away to reveal that faced with the choice of dying slowly from thirst and hunger or cutting off his own arm he chooses to do what most of us could never imagine doing. And even though we know from the very start what he will do it takes nothing away from the power of the story which unfolds. If anything it adds to the tension. We know he's going to do it but the question remains of just when will he reach the point when the suffering compels him to do the unimaginable.
To call Ralston an outdoor kind of guy is an understatement. He lives for climbing, hiking and mountainbiking. Anything that gets him closer to nature and further away from civilisation is what he lives for. He's also selfish and singleminded, something that becomes clearer as he flashes back over his life while trapped in the crevasse.
Boyle makes very creative and sparing use of the flashback to not only fill us in on what's lead Ralston to this point but also to get inside the climber's head as he reflects (probably for the first time in his life) on what's brought him to this life-changing moment. These are are complemented by Ralston's entries in the video diary he starts when he realises the hopelessness of his situation. His musings both serious and lighthearted are intended to be viewed by whoever finds his body.
Franco is mighty impressive in a part which requires him to do an awful lot with very little except his own resources.. It's a performance shorn of melodramatic theatrics and ego. Franco immerses himself entirely in the character of Ralston creating someone we can believe in as a flesh and blood human being rather than a star name playing a role.
Franco's up for a Golden Globe next weekend as is Boyle (for screenplay but not direction) and 'Sumdog Millionaire' composer A.R.Rahman for his incredible soundtrack. Each faces tough competition but would be deserving winners, and I'm looking forward to seeing their names featuring prominently when the Oscar nominations are announced at the end of this month.

JESUS CAMP: very creepy and disturbing campers

When I was a teenager I lived next door to a family of missionaries. They'd spent many years working overseas but they were now back in the UK and spreading the word on the streets of my hometown - literally on the streets. Each weekend the husband would set up his easel and paint pots in the town centre shopping precinct and preach to passing shoppers, using his easel and paints to illustrate his message. He was a very mild mannered man but the courage of his convictions gave him the strength to draw attention to himself in crowded places by talking at the top of his voice.

He and his wife had three young kids and family life revolved around religion. There were strict limits on what the children could and couldn't do. The eldest was a girl in her early teens and one evening I heard a noise coming from their backyard. It was her.. She was upset and storming around apparently after having a row with her parents. The noise was her shouting over and over "Bloody Jesus, bloody Jesus, bloody Jesus!"
Whatever the row was about had pushed her to lash out at the way of life and the message that had been imposed on her since birth.
I'm not a religious man but I pray that something similar happens to Tory, Rachel, Levi and the other poor brainwashed Midwestern kids we meet in JESUS CAMP.12 year old Levi (who claims he was 'saved' at the age of 5) is homeschooled by his Evangelical Christian mom who believes she can do a better job educating him than the godless public school system. He wants to be a preacher when he grows up so, as a treat, his family sends him to an Evangelical Christian summer camp called 'Kids on Fire' based at the ironically named Devil's Lake in North Dakota.
There, under the relentless hectoring and cajoling of Pastor Becky Fisher, Levi and his fellow campers are repeatedly reduced to tears as they admit their sins and pledge to become soldiers of Jesus. The scenes of children as young as four and five speaking in tongues and becoming hysterical with fear, guilt and who knows what else over their imagined sinfulness is truly disturbing, and one has to wonder at the sanity of the parents and other adults who believe this is a positive environment for impressionable young children.
Many of these children come across as prepubescent Stepford Wives, dutiful parroting their pastor and parents' views on global warming, the separation of church and state, abortion, atheists, and Darwinism which they can't possibly properly understand.
JESUS CAMP is billed as a documentary but it's clear where the sympathies of directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady lie, and it's not with the creepy Evangelicals they've somehow persuaded to let them into their world. The strength of their case is undermined by some careless editing which reveals sequences aren't always as contiguous as they appear, and by an over-reliance on one Christian radio talk show host to present the opposing viewpoint.
Even with its flaws this window on homegrown religious extremists is creepier and scarier than most horror films. Unlike those Hollywood concoctions this is real and it's happening here and now.

SKYLINE: a story in desperate need of an ending

As the final credits rolled on this sci-fi thriller my overwhelming sense was of having been conned out of the previous ninety minutes of my life.
The ending to SKYLINE is so utterly ludicrous that I did a mental double-take and momentarily wondered whether I’d actually been watching a heavily disguised spoof on the genre.

Up until the final few minutes this is a reasonably entertaining thriller focused on a rapidly shrinking group of twenty-somethings trapped in a penthouse apartment in Los Angeles as an invasion by murderous alien spacecraft wreaks death and destruction all around them.
What’s refreshing is the reaction of this group of tanned muscular hunks and almost alluring young ladies to the mortal threat they find themselves facing. There are no heroics or ingenious escape plans. These people are scared shitless and pretty clueless about what to do to stay alive. In other words, they have the same reaction as 99% of the viewing audience.
Their inability to figure out a way of getting out of the building without being reduced to mincemeat means the bulk of the action is restricted to the penthouse and the roof of the building. The money directors Colin and Greg Strause saved on sets they poured into special effects and it’s cash well spent. SKYLINE is a couple of hundred million dollars short of attaining blockbuster status but the fx are far from shabby. The only time the Strauses let their limited budget show are the brief shots of the oversize aliens stomping over LA. We only ever see one at a time and it’s clearly a crouching man in a monster suit trampling through a presumably miniature model of the City of Angels.
All this life or death tension building through the film has to lead to something – right? Either those left at the end will escape, giving us hope for the ultimate survival of mankind in the face of overwhelming odds, or they’ll go down fighting or at least while trying - heroically – to escape. There has to be a logical conclusion of some sort, doesn’t there?
Well no, apparently there doesn’t.
In the world of Colin and Greg Strause it’s perfectly acceptable to abandon the air of plausibility which has pervaded the entire story (plausible within the context of alien spaceships attacking Earth, that is) and offer up a conclusion which is so ridiculous and unbelievable that it must have been plucked from some parallel universe where the prosaic and the fantastic nestle comfortably cheek by jowl.
Either that or they simply ran out of ideas on how to end the story. Either way it's a bizarre way to go about making a movie.

THE FIGHTER: he could be a contender if his mom let him.

Watching Mark Wahlberg ace the role of hard luck Boston boxer Micky Ward it's hard to believe this is the same actor who was so miscast and non-descript in his last film outing "The Other Guys."

Ward is a part Wahlberg was born to play. He's gritty, working class and tough but with a sensitive interior beneath his muscular shell. He's not the sharpest tool in the box but he knows what he wants even if he needs help from others to articulate it.
Based on a true story THE FIGHTER charts Ward's slow and unsteady climb from punching bag mismanaged by his mom and older brother to genuine welterweight world championship material, but more than just another take on the American Dream this is a tale of family relationships and loyalties and how those that are closest and possessing of the most unqualified love are not always best for us.
Ward's older half-brother Dicky (Christian Bale) is a local legend, having knocked down Sugar Ray Robinson in a fight some years earlier. He's also a crack addict which makes him less than ideal as Micky's trainer. He's full of helpful advice but totally unreliable and, combined with their mom Alice (Melissa Leo) booking his fights with an eye on a quick buck rather than career progression, Micky's heading for Palookaville, and fast.

Until that is he hooks up with the strong willed and assertive Charlene (Amy Adams). She gives him the strength to stand up to his mom, brother and nine sisters (collectively so unappealing they make Cinderella's Ugly Sisters look like Victoria's Secret models) and change the course of his life.
Wahlberg is superb but he's not alone. Equally deserving of an Oscar nomination are Bale and Leo for compelling portrayals of corrupted family love, while Amy Adams also impresses, not least for her willingness to pile on the pounds to give Charlene a figure befitting a young woman from a working class area of Boston.
Director David O. Russell ('Three Kings', 'I Heart Huckabees') - and no less than 13 producers (including Wahlberg) -keeps the entire project in balance giving every character an equal shot at redemption by letting them tell their story from their point of view.
Despite initial appearances there's no good guys and bad guys here, just a bunch of ordinary folk trying to do the best with the cards they've been dealt. Their story is both instructive and uplifting and - if there's any justice - worthy of a bunch of Golden Globes and Oscars.

UNSTOPPABLE: unremarkable but engaging

There's nothing particularly new about the plot to UNSTOPPABLE, and it certainly couldn't be accused of possessing depth or subtext but it does nonetheless offer 90 minutes of clenched fists, buttock squeezing, edge of the seat excitement.

Director Tony Scott has fashioned a rollercoaster ride out of the simple storyline of a runaway freight train and the veteran train driver (Denzel Washington) and his rookie conductor (Chris Pine) who must catch the half-mile long 'missile' and stop it before it comes off the rails in the middle of a Pennsylvania town and explodes, spraying its cargo of toxic chemicals into the atmosphere.
While Scott does pause long enough to give the two leads some back story - Washington has been fired by the train company whose ass he's trying to save, and Pine's fiery temper has estranged him from his wife and daughter - all that is irrelevant to the action that unfolds as the two trains barrel through the Pennsylvania countryside.
The climax is entirely predictable but that doesn't detract from the enjoyment to be had from the various distractions and mini-climaxes Scott sets up along the way, and the relationship that develops between the two main characters.
Suspend your disbelief, switch your critical faculties to the 'off' position, then sit back and enjoy the ride. UNSTOPPABLE is brainless entertainment at its best.

RABBIT HOLE: grown up storytelling at its best

RABBIT HOLE is a gutwrenchingly sad experience.

Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart give such powerful and compelling performances as a couple struggling to cope with the death of their young son in a road accident that it's impossible not to be drawn into their world of inconsolable pain.
Eckhart wants to let it all out while Kidman insists on keeping everything bottled up. It's a recipe for relationship disaster as both turn to people and pursuits outside of their marriage to help them get through the nightmare that their life has become.
It's obviously impossible to imagine what it must be like to face the loss of a young son or daughter but RABBIT HOLE gives us a pretty good idea.

THE TOWN: revisting a familiar neighborhood

Crime thriller THE TOWN comes off like Martin Scorsese-lite.
Set in the rough, apparently crime-riddled Boston neighborhood of Charlestown and populated by characters doing their damndest to get that distinctive Bohwston accent just right the film reminded me of a stripped down version of 'The Departed."
Writer-director-star Ben Affleck has gone for a much simpler take on the familiar cops and robbers genre. There's much less depth to the characters, their back stories and the plot than Scorsese achieved with his multiple Oscar winner.
And that's why 'The Departed' has stuck in my mind for years while THE TOWN is already a fading memory less than 24 hours after I watched it.

BLACK SWAN: look beneath the glossy surface

If BLACK SWAN sweeps the board in the upcoming awards season a terrible injustice will have been done.
Because this film is only half as fabulous as its supporters like to make out.
I don't blame them. It's easy to be taken in.
Firstly there's the reputation of the director, Darren Aronofsky. His impressive, if short, resume ("Requiem for a Dream", "The Fountain", "The Wrestler") has endowed him with the reputation of a stylish arthouse director, and he certainly has an engaging way of telling the story of characters who are chasing a dream.
Then there's the subject matter. Aronosky's succeeded in making the rarefied and most definitely artsy world of ballet interesting and accessible to a multiplex audience.. There's not been this much buzz about ballet on the big screen since Powell and Pressburger's 'The Red Shoes' way back in 1948.
And then there's Natalie Portman's performance as Nina Sayers - the ballerina who loses her mind in pursuit of perfection.
It all adds up to a mesmerizingly shiny surface which can blind one to the reality beneath. 
And the reality is that - at best - this is a good film but it's certainly not one of the great movies of 2010.
The idea of an artist striving too hard for perfection and finding themselves taken over by the character they're interpreting on stage is nothing new. Ronald Colman won the Best Actor Oscar in 1947 for doing something very similar in 'A Double Life.' The big difference now is that technology and a lack of censorship allows Aronofsky to create images that Colman could only dream about.
What did impress me about BLACK SWAN was Portman's performance. Her portrayal of the timid, virginal and repressed dancer who has the technique but not the passion to become a great ballerina is sensational. Her descent into darkness is genuinely disturbing, as she pushes herself beyond what she's capable of, constantly harangued by sadistic ballet company director Vincent Cassel, bullied by her domineering mother Barbara Hershey, and tormented  by the imagined rivalry with sexy uninhibited fellow dancer Mila Kunis.
If anyone connected with this project is deserving of awards it's Natalie Portman. BLACK SWAN is good but she is great.

MONKEY BUSINESS: a superstar just having fun

MONKEY BUSINESS is fun - lots of very silly fun - and the main reason for that is Cary Grant.
He's clearly having a ball playing a rather stodgy middle-aged research scientist who 'discovers' a fountain of youth elixir that causes him to behave like a teenager.

What makes this 1952 comedy so enjoyable is that the 48 year old Grant's impression of an 18 year old is just that - an impression. His teenager bears not the slightest resemblance to James Dean's tortured teen in 1955's 'Rebel Without a Cause.' It's a caricature of a stereotype that probably only ever existed in Hollywood films.
But let's face it. If Grant were going for authenticity he'd have essayed some Dean-like character and we'd have had a drama devoid of any belly laughs.
Grant's a gas and he's got some great support - from Charles Coburn as his exasperated boss with an eye for a pretty young lady; from a pre-superstar Marilyn Monroe as the pretty young thing who's not as ditzy as her boss would like; and from a chimp who follows direction so perfectly you'll be convinced it must be a midget in a monkey suit. The only square in this board of otherwise round pegs is Ginger Rogers as Grant's long suffering wife. When she finally chugs some of the magic water her transformation into an oversize kid is considerably more broad than it is amusing.
MONKEY BUSINESS reunites Grant with director Howard Hawks for the first time since the latter directed the former in the strained and not very funny 'I Was a Male War Bride' and the difference is like night and day.
If you're looking for proof that a film comedy can be genuinely funny without resorting to swearing, nudity, gratuitous violence, or gross-out stunts let me offer MONKEY BUSINESS as exhibit A. It's as silly as the title suggests.

CYRUS: not what you think but better

What I liked most about CYRUS is that it didn't do what I expected it to do.

Consider the facts. The film stars two comedians - John C.Reilly and Jonah Hill - in a story about John (Reilly), a middle aged loser in love who miraculously attracts an attractive single woman, Molly (Marisa Tomei) at a party. She falls hard and heavy for him and everything goes swimmingly until he discovers her guilty secret. She has a 21 year old son, Cyrus (Hill) still living at home and the two are - well - unnaturally close to one another. And Cyrus doesn't appreciate the new man in his mom's life.
It sounds like the perfect set up for a film full of slapstick comedy and gross-out incest jokes with John and Cyrus getting ever more physically violent with one another as they battle for Molly's affections. But that's not exactly what happens.
Directors Mark and Jay Duplass have created that rarest of creatures - a dramedy that keeps the viewer constantly off-balance by refusing to deliver what's expected of this scenario and offers up instead something entirely more satisfying.
I don't mean by this that the story veers off on some bizarre tangent because it doesn't. It really never strays from the straight and narrow, yet it remains unexpectedly fresh and subtly surprising. Both Reilly and Hill demonstrate a depth and restraint in their performances which allows us to believe in them as credible characters rather than simply comic creations. Neither of them exist just to get a laugh. Tomei also surprises as the mom who finds herself torn between her son and her beau. She resolutely refuses to do the things that mom's do when they find themselves in this situation in a Hollywood drama.
In short, nothing about CYRUS is predictable. If you're expecting a wacky comedy you'll be sorely disappointed, but if you're looking for a comedic breath of fresh air this is most definitely the film for you.