Author: BRWC

Set in rural France during the Belle Époque era, Casque D’or (1952) essentially depicts a love triangle revolving around gangster’s moll Marie (Simone Signoret).

The plot kicks off in a simple and elegantly shot scene in an open air dance hall where Manda (Serge Reggiani) watches Marie dance with Roland (William Sabatier). This scene in many ways sets up not only the story but also the style of the film and its central performances. Almost all the information the audience needs about the characters, their motivations and their feelings towards each other is communicated simply through looks and staging with dialogue kept to a minimum. This theme continues throughout the film and it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine that it could in fact, be silent and still convey the emotions of the characters thanks in no small part to astounding performances by Signoret and Reggiani.

Signoret’s Marie is in many respects an astonishing character both in the context of the film itself and in the world of cinema. The stunning beauty is able to show a remarkable range of emotions as Marie grows into a complicated and layered modern female film character, who seems to be trapped in the gender politics of the time.

Needles to say Marie’s story becomes more complicated in the films’ second act, with murder, crime and loyalty forming a dangerous backdrop to an ultimately doomed love affair between the beauty and the understated Manda.

The themes and style of the film bare more than a passing resemblance to 1942’s Casablanca and agreeably any fan of the American classic, which again sets a love story in a murky and dangerous world, will more than enjoy Casque D’or.

Like many films of the time the pace of the story can seem a little slow at times to a modern audience but all the groundwork laid in previous scenes both in terms of character development and plotting pays off in style in a brutally dark and heart-wrenching finale.

The new blu-ray version of the film enhances the experience. The crisp black and white photography looks incredibly sharp and in the all important closeups every subtle nuance of the performances can be seen in beautiful detail. The sound is also worth mentioning as the somewhat dated soundtrack never overpowers the minimal dialogue although both can be heard in perfect digital quality.

As a classic of its time, Casque D’or stands out, you’ve doubtless seen the story played out in many modern films, but here director Jacques Becker shows us how its done.

It was 1957 when Jack Kerouac’s novel On The Road was first published. Since then, probably every individual who has ever had the urge to leave all their present life behind and go out there to the unknown, has read the book. It has inspired people since the year it was released and seems like its influence is strong to this day.

No good story stays on the paper forever and this year director Walter Salles finally brought the great novel to the big screens.  Sam Riley (Control) playing Sal Paradise, the narrator of the story and Garrett Hedlund (Eragon, Thron) in the role of his carefree, adventurous friend Dean Moriarty. Some of the bigger names in the cast list are Kristen Stewart (The Twilight Saga) who plays Dean Moriarty’s wife and lover Marylou and Kristen Dunst (Melancholia) who is in the role of Dean’s next wife Camille.

The story itself is very simple – young struggling writer Sal Paradise meets Dean and his woman Marylou. Together they go travelling through the States, meeting many people on the road who influence the trip in their own way. The book is based on true events and shows Jack Kerouac’s life in the years of 1947-1950, although in the book he gave all the main characters pseudonyms.  The most interesting and vivid character is Dean Mariarty, who urges Sal to enjoy life to the fullest and  in real life probably inspired Jack Kerouac the most to finally put all his experiences on the road into a book.

It’s always a real challenge to turn a successful and loved book into a movie. And of course, there will always be people who say the book  is better than the film and those who declare the opposite. But me, having seen the movie and read the book few years ago think that what matters with this story  is the feeling that comes with it, not the fact that every little detail in the book would also be in the movie.

I remember reading the novel in my room meanwhile travelling to Denver, Colorado, San Fransisco and Mexico in my head – whatever the characters were doing in the book, I was doing it with them.  Jack Kerouac managed to create that urge in me for making my life a piece of art. To travel, be reckless, make mistakes,  to enjoy every little piece of the day you get and not worry about tomorrow. And back then when reading it, I really did change my life and got into some interesting adventures, always having the book in the back of my head. And I enjoyed the time a lot.

But as it always happens, as the years go by, you tend to forget the stories that you’ve read long time ago and become more what you see and do every day. Which in my case, is a life full of routine and rules. Going to work in the morning, you don’t think of the book that used to urge you to live to the fullest, instead you think of the next morning coffee and your lousy boss.

But seeing the movie and revisiting  Mexico, Denver, San Fransisco and New York all over again with the characters that changed me so much back then did it once again. Walter Salles managed to create the same feeling in me using Kerouac’s story  that the book created years ago.  The 1940’s soundtrack, the atmosphere, even the voice of Sam Riley was exactly what I imagined it to be when I read the book.  And now,  I was seeing it all in front of my eyes not only in my head.

Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart and Sam Riley is basically the trio of the movie and they deliver their characters essence really well. Tom Sturridge is also doing a great job with playing the slightly gay troubled writer friend. Kristen Dunst is playing Dean’s second wife, and although I have never liked her, I gotta give her credit for playing the role pretty well. Kristen Stewart, who is always criticized for looking emotionless and dull, takes her acting to a new level. She is dancing, laughing, crying and screaming and looks pretty good doing it. A little casting suprise comes from Steve Buscemi (Reservoir Dogs, Hotel Transylvania) who has a very small but quite important role and as in his case, always interesting.

Whatever your reason for watching this movie might be, be ready to enjoy the ride.  It will definitely offer you something new somehow. Whether it inspires you to go on a the road yourself and check out the unknown or you just wanted to take a look on topless Kristen Stewart (which, by the way, will be a little bit disappointing),  as long as you stop comparing every scene to the book and Kristen to the Twilight Saga, it will be great.  Otherwise don’t even be bothered. You will be very frustrated.

There is no point of comparing the movie to the book, because a film will always be a little different from the writing. But I think that the atmosphere and the point of the story that Kerouac told the world last century is shown to the people in the same way this century. You just gotta let yourself loose and enjoy the ride. If you manage to do that, it’s one helluva nice ride.

What a surprise! It turns out that Bradley Copper – ruggedly handsome man-meat from such forgettable nonsense as The A-Team, The Hangover and Limitless – can actually act. Perhaps he just wasn’t trying before, or perhaps he needed the superb direction of David O’Russell (credits include 2010’s excellent The Fighter). Whatever the cause, his performance in Silver Linings Playbook is subtle, moving and, in parts, hilarious; as is the film as a whole.

Cooper portrays Pat Solitano, who has spent the last eight months in a mental institution following a court insanity plea. The opening scene sees his mother Delores (Jacki Weaver) picking him up from the hospital against the advice of the doctors; the audience quickly comes to believe that the doctors may have had a point. Pat is convinced that his estranged wife Nikki will return to him (despite almost beating her lover to death after catching her cheating on him), but his plans are scuppered when he meets intriguing, sultry and depressed widow Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence). Tiffany promises to help Pat reunite with Nikki, but only if he helps her in return. Pat agrees to partner Tiffany at a dance competition, and along the way the pair realise that they probably won’t find anyone as simultaneously good-looking and socially inept as each other, and so a bond is formed. Aww.

The romantic plot of Silver Linings Playbook is on the whole quite generic, and there will be no prizes for guessing the ending. The charm of this film is the manner in which it presents the tried and tested boy-meets-girl formula. Although the leads are both hideously attractive, their characters are thankfully not from the clichéd, bland Katherine Heigl-esque rom-com mould – both have bleak histories and mental illnesses, not to mention a blunt way with words which gives the film many of its comic moments.

The skillful combination of dark subject matter and laugh out loud humour brings to mind 50/50, last year’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen “cancer comedy”. In the same way that 50/50 portrayed a mature, realistic outlook on cancer, so too does Silver Linings Playbook approach the issue of mental illness in a sympathetic and humanising light. Almost all the characters in the film have their own issues and symptoms, whether diagnosed or not, from Pat’s bipolar disorder to Tiffany’s depression and Pat’s best friend Ronnie’s pent-up stress. The film highlights the importance of finding helpful and positive strategies of dealing with these issues, rather than hiding them away or pretending they don’t exist.

The film is backed by Mirage Enterprises, who are also responsible for Margaret (2011) (reviewed by myself here) and highly-acclaimed The Reader (2008) – their trademark seems to be taking well-known actors from high-budget blockbuster movies and putting them in a far more artsy, indie setting. In this case the risk has paid off, and both Cooper and Lawrence put in great performances, although it might have been nice to see Lawrence smile a little more, if only to prevent her character falling into the “moody and mysterious girl” stereotype. Support from Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver also impress; de Niro portraying Pat’s father Pat Snr., who has his own issues with OCD and a history of violence, brought out by his obsession with the Philadelphia Eagles.

The witty, honest and well-paced script, combined with solid acting and subtle cinematography make this one of my favourite cinema releases of 2012. It is a shame that it only has limited UK screenings, as it has wide-ranging appeal: from those looking for a classic rom-com, to those who appreciate darker humour and mature themes.

Perhaps the debut entry in the Swedish-Musical-Cop-Comedy/Thriller genre, Sound of Noise was enjoyed at Cardiff’s SoundTrack Film Festival by as many as five people, as bad traffic and an even worse game of Rugby saw the majority of the city’s population elsewhere last Friday. And it’s a damn shame for them that they missed this little indie gem.

Sound of Noise concerns itself with harried detective Amadeus Warnerbring (Bengt Nilsson) a man who despite growing up in a family of musical genii, is tone deaf. Clearly troubled by his parents’ disappointment over his lack of musicality, and his brother’s success as a master conductor, Warnerbring chose to join the police. Unfortunately for him, there are some musical criminals on the loose.

Heading up this group are Sanna and Magnus (Sanna Persson and Magnus Börjeson), who have recruited a motley crew of percussionists to take on Magnus’ opus – ‘Music for One City and Six Drummers. Broken into four movements, this composition is an elaborate work of auditory art that uses everyday objects and sounds throughout the city as instruments. In order to complete their concert, these six drummers aren’t afraid to break the law.

Points for originality then. The duo behind the film, Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stjärne Nilsson, are following up on their 2001 short Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers on a grander scale, with the musical miscreants using everything from JCB’s to hospital equipment (and a patient) to make their music. These scenes are by far the most memorable – expertly crafted to seem both ludicrous and somehow credible at the same time. When the gang hold up a bank, they use ink stamps as percussion and shred hundreds of Krona notes to create chords, even building the screams of a bank clerk into the melody as he watches the money destroyed in front of him.

Nilsson, as the troubled cop, is engaging even though he’s left with the far less fun job of chasing after the musicians, picking up discarded metronomes as clues along the way. The film begins to struggle a bit towards the finale, and unfortunately the last movement of the score is perhaps the least interesting, as the gang clamber up electrical pylons and use the cables as instrument strings. Despite it’s scale, this effort doesn’t quite live up to the first three musical sections. The combination of this and Warnerbring’s attempts to rid himself of music once and for all derail things somewhat as the film closes, but the ride there is worth the price of admission.

In 2007, two titans of modern cinema revived the Grindhouse genre of American drive in movie theatres and unleashed a double header of sleazy, trashy filth to cinemagoers. While Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof and (to a better extent) Planet Terror, from Robert Rodriguez, delivered a faithful homage to the video nasties of yesteryear, they maintained a cinematic style and gloss that just didn’t exist within true Grindhouse classics. Fortunately for those who favour the unapologetic shittiness of the genre, they do still exist, and Dear God No has spades upon spades of shittiness…but is that a good thing?

The film follows a group of murderous rampaging bearded bikers as they invade the family home of a disgraced Doctor only to find something sinister locked in his basement and an unspeakable beast in the surrounding woods. Simple? You bet your ass it’s simple, but the story isn’t the main facet of Dear God No, it’s the often-disgraceful depths writer/director James Bickert plunders to portray just how disgusting and low-life these bikers are. Before the film was shown to the colourful crowd that filled the screening I was in, Bickert himself delivered a recorded message and offered no apologies for what we were about to see. All he wanted was hollering, jeers and beers. He knows he’s not trying to make audience friendly movies you watch on a date with a Mormon; he thrives on the reactions of disgust and, as such, his latest effort demands to be enjoyed merely as a fun and grotesque crack at American Grindhouse cinema, and nothing more.

Make no bones about it, as a competent piece of filmmaking it’s awful, really really awful, yet somehow it manages to be hugely entertaining despite it’s glaring and frequent flaws.  Everything you would normally judge a film is just bad. The acting, shot selection, sound and editing is honestly some of the worst I’ve ever seen in a feature. The bad performances might be acceptable, and even expected, but awkward framing and overly noticeable audio cuts litter the film throughout. And while shoddy filmmaking is a staple of the Grindhouse movement, Bickert takes liberties with the quality of the final film and it just becomes lazy rather than quirky. The make up and effects are often great though and very much in line with an 80s video nasty. Heads come off, intestines become exposed and that’s just the mild stuff. Bickert isn’t afraid to go to some dark places, and a large part of Dear God No is in a pitch-black abyss of bad taste. If you’re easily offended then do not even entertain the idea of watching this film, but if, however, you find the humour and charm in the Grindhouse, then there’s a lot to like here. I often found myself laughing at just how ridiculous it got, but then that’s the whole point isn’t it?

It’s difficult to say whether Dear God No is a good film or not; it’s poorly made, poorly acted and completely ridiculous…but then that’s what Tarantino and Rodriguez honoured with their love letters to the genre. Dear God No is funny for the right reasons and entertaining in its preposterousness, but despite this, Bickert does threaten to overstep the limits of taste on a couple of occasions. That might be his goal, I don’t really know, but when 15 minutes of an 81 minute film is a topless dancer with a Richard Nixon mask on, you can be fairly certain he ran out of worthwhile ideas quite quickly.

Dear God No is released on DVD on the 14th of January