Saturday, September 30, 2006

Hoodwinked

Ever since Disney made his first animated feature, Snow White, fairy tales have been a popular source for children's and family movies. Disney sanitised the original tales for the delicate minds of American children, (the same ones that have grown into killers, but that's another discussion for another place). Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm went some way to showing how dark fairy tales are, and Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolvesgave the story of Red Riding Hood a distinctly gothic and adult feel. Hoodwinked gives the same tale a more post-modern interpretation, which owes more to Shrek than anything else.


In this new animated version of the popular story, created and directed by Cory and Todd Edwards and Tony Leech, there is a thief that has been stealing the recipes from all the cooks of the forest, and Granny's collection is considered the best in the land. In order to stop it being stolen, Red decides to hide it in the bottom of a picnic basket and take it to her grandmother, who lives alone in the mountains. She is accompanied by a rabbit who has lost everything. Along the way they meet a wolf who wants to take away her basket, but Red escapes and eventually makes it to her grandma's cottage, where she finds the wolf disguised as her grandmother, while Granny is tied up in the closet. A bit of rough and tumble ensues until the axe-wielding woodsman crashes through the window. So far this sounds like the same old story except just at that moment the police arrive, lead by their Chief, Grizzly Bear and his assistants, the three little pigs (you see where this is going). The Chief is about to lock them all up when the suave, debonair frog detective, Nicky Flippers, arrives. Looking very much like a cartoon Poirot, but as everyone knows Poirot is Belgian and not a frog. Each of the suspects is interviewed and given a chance to tell their version of what happened up to the climactic moment, which leads Flippers to deduce who the real culprit is.

Like most contemporary Western animation this is of 3D CGI variety. Unfortunately it is not of a standard we have become used to from Pixar or Dreamworks, and it does look decidedly low-budget, along the lines of Jimmy Neutron. Saying that, I have seen some outstanding CGI animation that have been done on almost no budget, such as Rust Boy, which was made using cheap off-the-shelf software and a Mac.


Hoodwinked is saved by its script, and although the whole concept is not entirely original - there is a children's play called Wolfie that uses a very similar storyline - it does have some great moments of humour and plenty of film references to keep the adults amused. It also has a substantial voice cast including Anne Hathaway (Princess Diaries, Brokeback Mountain, Glenn Close (101 Dalmations, Mars Attacks, Jagged Edge, Jim Belushi (Red Heat) David Ogden Stiers ( MASH TV series) and Xzibit (MTV's Pimp My Ride) to deliver the gags.

It is flashy and fast-paced enough to keep kids entertained, with the dialogue being knowing enough to keep the adults amused. With the sometimes frenetic pace of the movie, the younger viewers aren't going to be too bothered by the quality of the animation.

It is an entertaining children's film, just not a highly original adaptation or with great animation. And that hyperactive squirrel seems somehow familiar.

Nina's Heavenly Delights


It seems not a year passes without a new British Asian feature film coming to the market, with varying degrees of success. Bend it Like Beckham and East is East are probably the best-known, along with My Beautiful Laundrette. These are all films about Indians and Pakistanis living and surviving in Britain, rather than films about the Raj, like Passage to India, with the British trying to survive in India. Let's face it, without its Asian population Britons would probably still be unable to buy bread and milk after five o'clock, or get a decent takeaway meal. Although some people's perceptions are that Indians only run corner shops or curry restaurants is completely misguided, it is a stereotype that Nina's Heavenly Delights plays on quite well.

Nina (Shelley Conn) is the prodigal daughter of a Glasgow Indian restaurant owner, who returns from London to her home for her father's funeral, only to find he has used his beloved family business, The New Taj, as collateral for a bet, which he lost. Nina also discovers that her father had entered the restaurant into the Best of the West Curry Competition, hoping to win the award for the third time in a row, but the new half-owner of the restaurant, Lisa (Laura Fraser) isn't immediately convinced about entering the competition until Nina persuades her it will increase the restaurant's value. And so the pair prepare for the competition with the help of family and friends.


The movie is filled with plenty of colourful characters that show the diversity of the British Asian community, except they are more caricatures and stereotypes than real people - the gay friend (Ronny Jhutti), the understanding mum (Veena Sood), the jolly aunty (Elaine C Smith), the suave adversary (Art Malik), the savvy, rebellious little sister (Zoe Henretty) – but this doesn't really matter because most Bollywood films have the same sorts of characters, and ultimately this is a British version of real Indian, much like the curries.


The whole food part is my biggest complaint about the movie. It is the central conceit of the film and a vital part of the story and even though it is supposed to be a fantasy it does need some grounding in reality to help with the all-important suspension of disbelief. Maybe I am just being hypercritical but many of the cooking sequences lacked authenticity. For a start the two girls never wore proper kitchen apparel, never mind aprons. Cooking Indian food without an apron is a recipe for disaster, especially working with spices. And speaking of spices, an award-winning restaurant would use freshly ground spices, not keep large plastic jars of "Madras Curry Powder" on the work bench. Non-stick aluminium pans on electric hobs – definitely not on. And for a diet that is primarily vegetarian the menus were decidedly non-veg. But, like I said, I am just being picky.

Culinary disasters aside, the movie has some nice moments of comedy and some emotional ones too, which do tend towards sentimental, but Bollywood is never afraid to reduce its audiences to tears, and this movie manages to squeeze in a few misty moments of its own. Yes, it is predictable and clichéd but it is entertaining and will especially appeal to British Asians and even a wider general audience. Just like the local curries, it is Bollywood adapted to cater for the British palate.

The director, Pratibha Parmar, and her crew have created some lush imagery to enhance the fairytale nature of the story, which is even more impressive given it was shot on HD video. The music is a good mixture of Bollywood classics and contemporary British songs, including an interesting remix of the Nolan Sisters, which enhances the cross-cultural references.

Overall, it is a fun piece of undemanding light entertainment, but not really one for younger kids, in spite of its PG rating - unless you are prepared to explain why the two lead actresses are putting their tongues in each other's mouths.

NINA'S HEAVENLY DELIGHTS is on general release from September 29.

Brothers of the Head

The mockumentary format has been around for quite some time now and is usually associated with comedy or satire. For some reason music, and rock in particular, has been the inspiration for some of the best of the genre. This is Spinal Tap is the film most people think of when mockumentary is mentioned, and so it should as it is a highly original piece of comedy that highlights the excesses and nonsense of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. Brothers of the Head takes the rock/mockumentary format and uses it to stunning dramatic effect.


The story, taken from a novel by science fiction writer Brian Aldiss, revolves around conjoined brothers who have been living in isolation on the east coast of England until a music impresario decides he needs singing Siamese twins on his books. The story is told by a documentary filmmaker and through interviews with people who knew the brothers, Tom and Barry Howe (played in bravura performances by Harry and Luke Treadaway), during their heyday. The majority of the film is made up of "archival" footage of the twins as they learn to play music and develop into the punk band "The Bang Bang", complete with rehearsals and gig footage, then their inevitable demise as they get caught up in the world of sex and drugs and record company demands.

Apart from the amazing performances from the two leads, what makes this film work is total believability of the footage. Directed by Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, best known for their two documentaries on Terry Gilliam, The Hamster Factor and Lost in La Mancha, who use their experience and skills at the format to full effect. Even though it is a fictional drama, adapted by another Gilliam collaborator Tony Grisoni (Fear and Loathing, Tideland), it has the feeling of something that is spontaneous and unscripted. This is further enhanced by the cinematography of Anthony Dod Mantle, who is best known for his DV work with Lars von Trier and on Danny Boyle's Twenty Eight Days Later. The "archive" footage really does look like it was shot in the 70s, which is why it seems so believable. And the appearance of Ken Russell, as himself, further bolsters the illusion.


The movie might not be to everyone's taste but there is no denying it is a fantastic piece of filmmaking. It perfectly captures the essence of the era of the rise of punk, as well as being an indictment of the manipulative nature of the music industry, and its ability to destroy lives. With great writing, direction, cinematography and acting it is definitely worth seeing.

Brothers of the Head won the Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature Film at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival. It is on general release from October 6

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Children of Men


Fictional views of the future, and particularly the near future, are usually devised by the writer taking the contemporary socio-political situation and creating a logical path they consider events will follow. This is usually dictated by the author's general disposition. The pessimist creates a dystopian future and the optimist a utopian one. The dystopian vision, while bleak, does better to serve as a warning as to where we could head if we don't stay alert. Orwell's 1984 is a prime example, and although he may have missed the mark by some twenty years, his vision of the future is a much truer reality than most would care to admit. From the fascist government disguising itself as a caring socialist party, to the endless surveillance cameras and erosion of civil liberties, and many other correlations Orwell's future is very much here.

And although the writers of MAX HEADROOM only looked twenty minutes into the future, it was already 1985 when that show first hit the airwaves with its prescient view of a world of haves and have-nots controlled by television and media conglomerates. So the reality of our present world sees the collision of these two future-visions where Big Brother is watching us and we are watching Big Brother. And while we are living in the media-controlled illusion of a great Britain, the reality that this country is fast becoming a third world country devoid of industry and resources is being hidden from us. The Britain created by Alfonso Cuarón for his adaptation of P.D. James' novel CHILDREN OF MEN is also bleak but, under current conditions, one that is entirely feasible.

The film is set in 2027 in a world where humanity's survival seems impossible: women have stopped bearing children. The last child born is a global celebrity, who is assassinated in the film's opening, which really does start with a bang. Britain is one of the few countries that is surviving the global meltdown thanks to its military might and its brutal and totalitarian treatment of refugees by incarcerating them detainment camps for deportation (sound familiar?)

Our hero, Theo (Clive Owen), a former activist turned bureaucrat has steeled himself against his painful past and the reality of a senseless future by simply ceasing to care. Owen is a perfect choice for the lead as he has knack for delivering lines devoid of emotion. His only pleasure is visits to his friend, Jasper (Michael Caine), an old hippy who lives in self-sufficient hideaway miles from London. Caine, looking like an old John Lennon, seems to relish the role and is a great counter-balance to the morose Owen.


The action kicks off when Theo is bundle into the back of a van and taken to meet Julian (Julianne Moore), his ex-partner in both love and war, as they not only shared a bed but a passion for rebellion. Julian is still a revolutionary and wants her ex to help her get transit papers for Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), a young woman who she needs to get safely out of the country, because as it transpires she is eight months pregnant.

So begins the race against time and an assortment of organisations with a vested interest in getting their hands on Kee and her baby. Knowing whom to trust becomes harder and harder as they battle their way to a rendezvous with an almost mythical group called the Human Project.

This film is very much Cuarón's, with his vision and direction dominating. His vision of future Britain is really not that far removed from our present reality, complete with fields of cattle being incinerated. The action pieces are brilliantly executed, especially towards the end, with some amazing handheld camerawork that gives it a real sense of a battlefront documentary. There are a lot of long takes, which along with grainy photography, further enhances the documentary feel. A lot of British films have a flat grey look to them, which reflects the general climate, however this film is dark but contrasty, which seems to highlight the bleak mood of the piece.

Apart from Theo and Kee, characters come and go and very little empathy is attached to them, with the exception of Caine's character. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a character almost as nasty as the one in SERENITY, but not quite as cold, calculating or ruthless, but close.

Clive Owen's emotionless performance aside, this is a powerful and thought-provoking movie that will keep you engrossed. It also has some moments of humour, even if they are of a schadenfreude nature, such as when Theo has to escape shoeless. As is fitting for a film of this type it does not have a happy ending but rather one that is open and undetermined, although resolved and with hope. Definitely worth seeing.

CHILDREN OF MEN opens nationwide September 22.

Official website

Monday, September 11, 2006

Allegro

Denmark's biggest contribution to contemporary filmmaking is undoubtedly Dogme 95, von Trier's and Vinterberg's philosophy, or rules, on how to purify filmmaking. It was an interesting idea, although one that didn't always produce particularly enjoyable films. It did, however, give independent filmmakers a sense of freedom to make movies that didn't conform to the demands of the Hollywood studio-dominated film industry. The 10-point Vow of Chastity was meant to be a reaction to the megaliths, and as with Moses' Ten Commandments, very few people follow the rules to the letter, but the basic tenets have created a much freer approach to filmmaking.

Of course Denmark's other major exports have made inroads into the film world. Bacon and pastries are a staple of early morning location calls, and Carlsberg has been known to turn up during the evenings. Lego has been endorsed by Spielberg and used by Michel Gondry (ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF A SPOTLESS MIND) for a White Stripes video.


Apart from the aforementioned Dogme 95, Danish films rarely make it to the screens outside their homeland, as with many other northern European productions, with Viggo Mortenson being the country's best-known actor (Brigitte Nielsen doesn't really count). Now international super-model, and former Miss Denmark, Helena Christensen has joined the acting world in a new Danish sci-fi film, ALLEGRO.


Directed and co-written by Christoffer Boe, ALLEGRO is the story of a famous, technically perfect but rather soulless Danish pianist Zetterstrøm (Ulrich Thomsen), who has an idiosyncrasy of playing hidden from public view. After ten years in New York he is enticed back to his native Copenhagen to give a gala recital. He is also allured by an invitation from a person within the mysterious, impenetrable off-limits area known as "The Zone", where he is confronted by his forgotten past and his love for the captivating Andrea (Helena Christensen).

The film is more of a surreal fantasy than science-fiction, bringing to mind the quirkiness of BEING JOHN MALKOVICH in the way that Zetterstrøm moves between the two worlds. There are some obvious Dogme influences with the use of handheld cameras, existing light and the sense of almost impromptu performances (Thomsen starred in the Dogme classic FESTEN). The whole movie has a dark, grainy look, probably due to most of it being set at night-time, or indoors, which does enhance the overall surreal feeling of the movie.

It is by no means a gripping action-packed story, but a subtler one that leads you, almost trance-like, to its conclusion, as Zetterstrøm solves the mystery of "The Zone" and his lost memories. There is some imaginative use of line animation to thread the elements together and explain what is happening.

For those that like their sci-fi/fantasy films to have European art house sensibilities then you should catch this now.

ALLEGRO is showing at the ICA in London from September 15. There will be a Q&A with the director, Christoffer Boe, on the opening night. The film will show at cinemas nationwide later.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Snow Cake

Director: Marc Evans
Starring: Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver, Carrie-Anne Moss
Rated: 15

Movies about human drama are nearly always traumatic affairs filled with angst and a full gamut of other emotions that invariably involve shouting and crying. It takes a certain frame of mind to go and watch people suffering for an hour and a half (or more), but it's a mindset that appeals to people who give out movie awards and justifiably so. A well-written drama will stretch the actor and if they are not up to the task it will be patently obvious.

There is one such film that should be appearing on all the upcoming award nominations, just on the strength of its leads performances, and that film is SNOW CAKE with Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman.

Rickman plays Alex, a jaded and taciturn Englishman, a role that comes effortlessly to him, who is driving across Canada to visit the mother of a deceased son he never knew. On the way he meets a young goth girl, who is hitchhiking to a small town called Wawa, to visit her mother. On the girl's insistence, and against his better judgement, he gives her a lift. They are involved in an accident (stunningly executed on film) and the girl is killed. Filled with remorse, Alex takes the gifts the girl had bought for her mother, in the hope of somehow consoling her and absolving himself of blame. But when he arrives he discovers that her mother, Linda, is autistic. Wanting to help her with the funeral arrangements, he convinces Linda to let him stay with her, and a funny, bittersweet relationship starts to develop between them, within the confines of Linda's condition. At the same time Alex has fallen for Linda's neighbour Maggie, played by the thinking man's sex symbol, Carrie-Ann Moss (THE MATRIX). Within the the short period of time he is in the small town, the two complex relationships open Alex's heart and get him to face his inner demons.


The dramatic scope of the story is fairly limited, compared to other similar films, but this tends to ground it more in reality, especially given the personalities of the three main characters. Rickman is good but hardly stretched and the sardonic wit he does so well is put to good use. Moss is still sexy without her skintight leather and shows that she is a diverse actress whose skills were underused in that sci-fi trilogy. But it is Sigourney Weaver who steals the film, capturing, with great subtly, the childlike innocence and obsessive behaviour that characterises autism. When we first discover her autism it comes as surprise and Weaver continues to surprise throughout the film. It is hard to believe this is the same actress that played the alien-conquering Ripley.


Even if this type of dramatic film is not usually to your taste, go and see it just for Sigourney Weaver's performance and then be surprised at how good the whole film is.

On general release from September 8.

Little Miss Sunshine

Dir: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
Starring: Greg Kinnear, Steve Carrell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin, Alan Arkin
Rated: 15

Hollywood, and its movies, has always been about the American Dream; the freedom to do and be what you want. Come the Sixties and Seventies and the new generation realised that the dream was going bad and set off to look for America and for themselves. First in literature with Kerouac and Thompson, then with films like EASY RIDER came the start of the road movies (not to be confused the Crosby and Hope films). As the youth were off in search of the truth and a new dream they found that family units were breaking down or were simply becoming dysfunctional, and creating a new sub-genre to be explored in writing and film, whether as drama or comedy. LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE takes all these elements and rolls them up into a funny, dysfunctional family, road movie about the American Dream.


Douglas Coupland wrote a book called All Families are Psychotic and the Hoover family of this film certainly fit into that category. From the heroin-snorting, foul-mouthed grandfather, brilliantly portrayed by Alan Arkin, to his eternally optimistic son Richard, the motivational speaker (Greg Kinnear) to Richard's own son Dwayne, a typical sullen, angry teenager who reads Nietzsche and has taken a vow of silence until he achieves his goal of getting into the Air Force. Richard's wife Sheryl (Toni Collete) tries to keep the family together with her open, honesty policy, whilst trying to hide the fact that her Proust-scholar brother (Steve Carell) tried to commit suicide after being rejected by his gay lover. Perhaps the only bit of sanity is the youngest of the family, Olive, a plump, spectacle-wearing girl with dreams of becoming a beauty queen. It is her dream that is the driving force behind the movie.


After winning, by default, the local round of a pre-pubescent beauty competition, the titular Little Miss Sunshine, Olive has to go to California, from Albuquerque, but financial and familial situations dictate that the whole family have to go together in their car, a tired, old VW Kombi bus, which becomes as much a star of the show as the actors. As they try to race the clock to arrive on time for the pageant, whatever could possibly go wrong does, to create a great, almost farcical, comedy tinged with moments of powerful emotion.


There have been a string of disastrous family, road movie comedies recently (ARE WE THERE YET, R.V.), but LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE absolves those sins by being smart and funny. Although it is a movie about a family it is by no means a family movie (it has a 15 certificate). And it has a particularly disturbing ending in that it shows to what a low level American society has sunk to with the junior beauty pageants. Luckily Olive's routine restores some balance.

Just the film to renew your faith in humanity, with lots of laughs to boot.

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE is on general release from September 8.

Clerks II: The Second Coming

Director/writer: Kevin Smith
Starring: Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Rosario Dawson, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith, Trevor Fehrman, Jennifer Swalbach
Rated: 18


Ten years after Kevin Smith's debut film CLERKS made him darling of the independent film world, he has carved himself a nice little niche in New Jersey-based movies that feature a motley crew of reprobates, including his alter ego Silent Bob and his (non-gay) partner Jay (Jason Mewes). CLERKS was so successful it even spawned an animated series and a comic book (comics being one of Smith's passions). After the original film, Smith produced a bunch moderately successful follow-ups, which peaked creatively with DOGMA, a film that showed his writing had reached a new maturity and depth. The movie created a lot of anger among the religious right, which can't be a bad thing.

Wanting to break away from stock in trade dick and fart jokes he made JERSEY GIRL, which was a critical, and some say a total, failure. It was partly because of this that the director reassessed the type of films he really wanted to make.


CLERKS II: THE SECOND COMING is a return to his roots, a movie with plenty of talking and potty-mouth humour, but tempered with his new writing maturity, with profundity among the profanity. In this latest outing for Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson), the two fan-boy slackers have to take a new job at a Mooby's takeaway (the same fast food chain that felt the wrath of Loki in DOGMA), after the film's opening scene of Dante's inferno. Although some things haven't changed, (Jay and Silent Bob are still hanging out in front of the store), Dante is engaged and planning to move to Florida with his new bride-to-be. Randal is upset with this, but still plans to give his best buddy an unforgettable send off, involving inter-species erotica. This new story introduces two other characters into the dynamic, if you can call what these slackers do as dynamic. Apart from the Mrs Hicks-to-be (Jennifer Scwalbach - the real life Mrs Smith), the first is Elias (Trevor Ferhman), a geeky and totally naive Christian, who is a fan of TRANSFORMERS and LORD OF THE RINGS. The other is Becky (Rosario Dawson), the manager of the Mooby, with whom Dante has developed a strong friendship that goes beyond a standard employer/employee relationship.


It is these two new characters that act as the catalyst for the film's best moments of humour and emotion. Yes, there is emotional content in a Kevin Smith film! It was something he explored in JERSEY GIRL and CHASING AMY, but slipping it in between the dick jokes it doesn't get a chance to get mawkish, not even the rooftop dance sequence. There are also some philosophical discussions, the likes of which made DOGMA such a great film. And of course there are plenty of fanboy debates (the battle of the trilogies is priceless), which no View Askew project would be complete without. Askew alumni Ben Affleck and Jason Lee (and his onscreen Hickey brother, Ethan Suplee) make cameo appearances.


In some parts of the film I laughed till I had tears in my eyes, which seemed to hang around for some of the other scenes (that's my story and I'm sticking with it). It's not a film to everyone's taste, with some of it guaranteed to upset people who think what happens in movies is real. Kevin Smith fans will definitely not be disappointed. For those unfamiliar with the Askew universe this is a good place to jump in, Smith's writing and direction are assured and matured and once you accept his juvenile brand of humour, it is a lot of fun, but definitely not for those who are easily offended.

On general release from September 22 through UIP

Check the official website.


CLERKS II won the Standard Life Audience Award at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival, with almost 70% of the votes. The Award was presented to UIP by film legend Sir Sean Connery.