Cinema Rat - Sifting through the Garbage to bring you the GOOD STUFF

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Cinema Rat - August 2008

Control (2007)

Starring: Sam Riley, Samantha Morton, Alexandra Maria Lara, Joe Anderson,
Director: Anton Corbijn
Screenplay: Matt Greenhalgh

Running Time: 122 minutes

Ian Curtis was a tortured soul, whose legacy arguably surpassed his ability, but is important because his story was integral in launching New Order that in turn helped to start-up Manchester’s Factory Records.
Mid-seventies England wasn’t the brightest of landscapes to be brought up in, and its northern regions were downright depressing. Curtis left school and worked as a civil servant, but his ambition far outweighed the menial offerings office life gave him, and he a few mates started a band that would eventually become Joy Division.
Pic starts with the best intentions and is certainly intriguing at the get go. I know that a story needs a catalyst, and this one is driven by the relationship between Curtis and his wife Debbie. However, I’m dying to find a music biopic that sticks to the story of the musicians and the band. To be fair it is based on Debbie’s book, but it gets a bit tedious when even the well-made movies of this genre - Coal Miner’s Daughter, The Buddy Holly Story, Ray and even La Bamba - seem to use the spouse as the main ingredient in the film. I want to know the history of the band – how they got together, who wrote the songs, how they got their big break etc. This type of thing is far more interesting to me than the fact the rock star is cheating on his or her spouse, or that they have fights over them being on the road. Well, d’uh, they’re in a band ya know.
There are some redeeming features with this one, not least the nostalgic soundtrack (well, to these ancient ears), and Sam Riley playing Curtis gives the character more depth than the depressive person that we were lead to believe Curtis was in his short life.

3 of out 5 stars

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August 31st 2008 @ 12:24

Posted By: Mike Wheeler - Category: No Category

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The Brave One (2007)

Starring: Jodie Foster, Terrance Howard, Mary Steenburgen, Nicky Katt, Naveen Andrews, Blaze Foster
Director: Neil Jordan
Screenplay: Bruce Taylor, Roderick Taylor, Cynthia Mort

Running Time: 122 minutes

Seeing the premise, I thought I was about to watch another instalment of Charles Bronson’s Death Wish series with the talented Jodie Foster taking over the prime role created by the 1970's action star.
So, we start with the set up – happy professional couple radio host Erica Bain and her doctor boyfriend David (Foster and Neveen Andrews), about to start their life together in holy matrimony go for a walk in Central Park with their pet Alsatian. Cue thugs who kill the fiancé and beat the bejesus out of Foster, leaving her for dead.
Then we move onto the recovering Foster who no push over, who soon has thoughts of revenge surfacing in her mind as she recovers from her ordeal.
Thinking a formulatic tale of revenge was about to unfold, the thumb started hovering over the off button on the remote. The only thing that stopped the index finger putting an end to the whole show was knowing the class of director Neil Jordan and his leading lady Jody Foster would surely win out. As it turned out, the gut instincts were right, but Terrance Howard's contribution as Detective Mercer - a man going through some struggles of his own caught between feeling sympathy for the numb Bain and trying to fulfil his duty as a sworn officer of the law - should have also been taken into consideration.
What I liked most about this pic was the mood and cinematography created by Jordan, DP Philippe Rousselot and starring cast. Not only do the set pieces vary from the norm, but the change ups offered by the script keep interest high in what could be a boring movie.
A slight twist at the end initially led to thinking suspension of disbelief was being stretched, but after mulling it over, felt fit the end result. All in all, a good pic.

4 stars out of 5

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August 24th 2008 @ 12:16

Posted By: Mike Wheeler - Category: No Category

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The Golden Compass (2007)

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Dakota Blue Richards, Sam Elliott, Christopher Lee, Eva Green, Freddie Highmore (voice), Kathy Bates (voice)
Director: Chris Weitz
Screenplay: Chris Weitz

113 minutes

Based on the book Northern Lights, the first in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, The Golden Compass misses the boat in so many ways you’d be forgiven for thinking you might be on the set of a Project Greenlight production without the input of professionals. To be fair, the writers, director, actors – everybody in fact – was on a hiding to nothing making this. Having read the trilogy, to say it’s an understatement to say it was an ambitious project would be like saying Ronaldo knows his way around a footie field.
Seemingly abandoned at birth, Lyra (Richards) is a girl who lives with the scholars of Jordan College in Oxford, in a parallel universe to ours. Everybody’s soul, or spirit, is in the animal form of a daemon that is visible to all and sundry and both the human and animal are bonded from birth to death. The Magisterium (read Catholic Church) runs society on a tight leash, however things start going pear-shaped for the God botherers when the mysterious Lord Asriel (Craig) returns from a fact-finding mission to the Arctic. The explorer tries to persuade Jordan College to fund an expedition to find out more about dust – microscopic particles that will unite all the different universes, which in the long run, will make the Magisterium redundant. Of course, like all religions, the Magisterium doesn’t take too kindly to its power being usurped and will do anything to stop Asriel from being successful.
Lyra forms an important part of the story as, unbeknown to her, she is the main subject of of a long-established prophesy that will change the fabric of the many universes. She gets given an alethometer (the golden compass of the title), which gives her the ability to answer any question asked. Cue the introduction of the sinister Mrs Coulter (Kidman), and her spooky monkey daemon, and the pic starts to take on a life of its own as Lyra lurches from one adventure to the next. She runs into talking polar bears, witches, mad scientists, an aeronaut, lobotomised kids…the list goes on. That’s the premise, but what follows is a mish-mash of ideas and you really need to read the books to get a true feel of what Pullman was trying to say. His books sometimes came across as convoluted and this doesn’t help the movies. Weitz did well with About a Boy, and while he can’t take the whole blame for the pic, he can take some for even attempting it.
Maybe the pic’s box office failure was a blessing in disguise – God knows how they were going to make the other two books into intelligent movies – they’d make Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions look like Paint by Numbers. Sometimes books are best left alone to be, well, just books…

2.5 Stars out of 5