Author: Rosalynn Try-Hane

What’s difference does 20 feet make? It makes all the difference on the stage as that is the distance between nameless and faceless back-up singer and the star. The “star” in question being Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Sting and Bruce Springsteen but to name but a few and there you are standing 20 feet from the spotlight and therefore 20 Feet From Stardom.

This is a documentary that focuses on the back-up singers with interviews with the stars mentioned above and what it takes to make that leap from back-up to being the main event and the name that everyone comes to see. Some people have successfully made the transition like Luther Vandross who started out as a back-up singer for David Bowie but what about the women. We meet Darlene Love who successful walked the 20 feet to stardom and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after 50 years in the industry.

The mastery of Morgan Neville’s 2013 Oscar nominated documentary is to shine a light on these women in the majority and find out what their story was. It doesn’t sugar coat the brutality of the industry and just what it takes to be a star or not. The documentary made it clear that not all back-up singers want to be stars as some are in it for the love of music and harmony and have no desire to be in the spotlight. It was particularly illuminating to see how in recent times back-up singers have been replaced by auto tuning with budget costs.

It certainly a must watch for music lovers and for those curious to see the pivotal role that back-up singers played in shaping pop and rock classics of the 60s and 70s.

The latest offering from the Nolan brothers – Jonathan and Christopher who co-wrote the script with the latter also directing – Interstellar. I am going to start this review by saying this film demands a second viewing. It is impossible to say whether this film is a modern masterpiece earning its’ place amongst the stars or a black hole that leaves the viewer lost in space.

The film starts with Cooper, played by Matthew McConaughey, a former space pilot now farmer on a futuristic earth that is in the final stages of death – terrible climate change, lack of food, hunger and disease ridden. Here we have the first of many messages from the Nolan brothers – we have to keep exploring. Thus our hero stumbles across NASA which has now been driven underground as transparent public spending on a space programme would have been frowned upon. Even the school is rewriting space history by saying space travel was just propaganda – people are resigned to dying. The second act, after discovering NASA, Cooper is asked by Dr Brand, played by Michael Caine to pilot the space ship to see whether the bravest human beings, 10 or so who were previously sent into space, have in fact found planets to support human life form. He is accompanied by Anne Hathaway, Wes Bentley and David Gyasi.

What is brilliant is the use of sound when we leave earth and enter space there is no sound or music, the soundtrack is provided by Hans Zimmer – we too feel weightlessness and the silence that space has to offer. The CGI imagery is astounding as well. Entering the wormhole is astonishing feast for the eyes. I liked the little nod to Star Wars with TARS and CASE as robots with the sarcasm of C-3PO. Jessica Chastain who plays Murphy, the adult daughter of Cooper, is luminous on screen and is crucial in tempering what could have turned into a melodramatic mess at moments during the film.

What is wrong with the movie – some of the messages are lathered on so thickly such as: duty before person desire, does love know no bounds and the human survival instinct yet the Nolan brothers assume that all viewers have a keen grasp of quantum physics, relativity, time dimensions and gravity. The latter I thought I knew what it was but this film just left me confused.

All there is to say is time is relative so if you have 2 hours 45 minutes and are feeling alert then go and see this film. If you are in any way tired or not feeling on top form then forget it as it is a film that commands and demands your attention if you want to avoid feeling lost in space.

Mommy is written and directed by Xavier Dolan which won the Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival 2014.

It tells the story of Diane ‘Die’ Després played exceptionally well by Anne Dorval, her very troubled son Steve and mysterious neighbour Kyla. The opening titles sets out Dolan’s quasi sci-fi political statement that in a future Canadian election would revoke the fictionalised S-14 law that allows parents to have their children sectioned without due process. The film starts with Die picking up her son from another institutionalised boarding school where he set fire to another child. In one of my favourite scenes from the film the outstanding Anne Dorval with deliciously wicked humour responds to the headmistress asking her does she actually speak French when she fails to show the appropriate reaction to the grave act her son has committed: “Yes I speak French maybe not French from France but I speak French”. She may not be dressed in a very maternal way but this is the tale of a woman who has lost everything including being widowed but she is not giving up on her son.

There is irony in the way Die and Steve’s oedipus type relationship is laid bare for all to see yet the converse is true of the mysterious neighbour Kyla who is on an enforced sabbatical from teaching due to a dark secret and her odd family situation that is never revealed.

The cinematography is majestic. The montage of what Die wishes for her son and the scene in which Steve wakes up in the car and the rain lashing against the window is wonderful storytelling with no use of words just the sound of rain to tell of the imminent foreboding – very Greek tragedy!

Like his previous films and I think of Les Amours Imaginaires – Dolan has created very strong alpha female characters so much so that the men look weak in comparison. It is a joy to see Anne Dorval and Suzanne Clément on screen giving life to these strong, interesting and interested female characters.

Xavier Dolan is still only 25 years old and his style is evolving and for some this film will be drama with a capital D and a little too much but for me it epitomises what film making truly is: storytelling, imagery and engaging the viewer’s heart and mind from start to finish.

The film about what happens when the wife confronts her husband’s mistress and in turn both team up together when they discover he is cheating on both of them with another woman.

The director Nick Cassavetes directed most probably the romantic more of the 00’s The Notebook. So what happens when you marry up a good director with a screenwriter and then someone decides the script is not good enough as is so, on the back of the Hangover and Bridesmaid, instead of telling a story of empowerment and what is like for a woman to support her husband we end up with slapstick, crass lewd jokes and Leslie Mann combining the characters she played in Knocked Up and This is 40.

If you want a film that you could watch on a rainy Sunday afternoon then why not but if you have a list of films that you have to watch then add to this the very end of that list if at all.

Out now to rent on DVD.

New York lawyer Carly Whitten (Cameron Diaz) lives by strict rules when it comes to romantic relationships, but when she falls for suave, handsome Mark King (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), she begins an affair with him. A surprise visit to Mark’s home reveals that he is married to devoted housewife Kate (Leslie Mann). Carly and Kate direct their hurt and anger toward Mark, and when they discover yet a third woman (Kate Upton) caught in his web of lies, the three join forces for revenge.

Nicole Kidman, Mark Strong and Colin Firth star in Before I Go To Sleep written and directed by Rowan Joffe based on the best selling novel by S.J Watson.

“As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I know today” – the words of the character Christine Lucas, admirably played by Nicole Kidman, a woman who has anterograde amnesia meaning that every day she wakes up and goes back to the same point in time. She is married to Ben Lucas, played by Colin Firth and along with the help of a psychologist, Dr Nash, played by the underrated Mark Strong, who is helping her to overcome her amnesia. However, as she starts to recall snippets of her memory so starts the question as to whether her reality and the people around her are all what they seem.

The film is reminiscent of Jonathan Nolan’s Memento however the reasons for the amnesia, film setting and the behaviour of the central character are quite different. The main link between the two films is that the use of photography plays a huge part in helping the central character to remember past events and ultimately who they are.

Does the film work and is the plot plausible? Not really and in my opinion the film is a tad long after the big reveal 20 mins before the end would have been a good place to wrap the movie. The ending does feel very Hollywoodesque. The principal three actors play their parts well and there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes, just leave all thoughts of comparison out of your mind, this is not Memento and nor does it need to be.