Lincoln

Cecil says: OK, I have a confession to make. Within five minutes of the start of Lincoln I had fallen asleep and was apparently heard by Bea to be gently snoring (but only for a couple of breaths, honest).

Trouble was, it was very comfy in the Manly Cinema on Sydney’s North Shore, and the film did begin with a bunch of heavy dialogue by a lot of bearded blokes in black suits talking about very technical things to do, presumably, with the state of the American nation in the midst of the American Civil War.

I did wake up about 20 minutes in to the film and enjoyed the remainder, without any relapse into slumber or boredom.

But part of the problem throughout Lincoln is that it almost feels like part of a Sixth Form (or eleventh grade) multi-media syllabus. It almost needs the teacher to freeze frame now and then to point out who is who and what stage in history we are at.

We managed relatively well, having picked up a fair bit of Civil War history during our year in the States in 2010-11, but how would anybody watching from outside America cope with this film if really all they have as vague reference point is that Lincoln was the President who ended slavery?

Daniel Day-Lewis is, as always, fantastic in role: likeable on some levels, but also exasperatingly boring as he always has to sum up the situation he’s in with some anecdote from his past. Entertaining raconteur, some would say, but boring old buffoon who likes the sound of his own voice, others might have argued…

And I’d love to see some Democrat critique of the film. The Democrats in Congress come across as either scheming underhand politicos or spineless cowards fearful for their own career. Was this really what Democrats were like and if so, how on earth did they transform themselves into a party that could elect Obama? Was FDR the key to Democratic change?

I guess these aren’t the themes of Lincoln, but it might have been nice to get some sort of feel for WHY the Democrats were so opposed to the 13^th Amendment?

I liked this film overall, but I couldn’t help wondering if Spielberg was hoping for a gold star from his history teacher for the effort.

And I might need to see it again once I’ve genned up a bit on some of the key Civil War characters, but I won’t go at the end of a long day next time….

***.5

Bea says: Having spent a year living in Washington DC I was keen to see this film.  Prior to my stint as a docent at the historic American Red Cross headquarters there my knowledge of the American Civil War was based on Gone With the Wind!  Like Cecil, I wondered through the film how those without the benefit of an American education or an interest in the period would cope, and the film was certainly heavy, but I liked that about it - I was ready for it, I guess.

Daniel Day-Lewis was of course excellent in his performance, but the character of Lincoln was stiff and staid, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and grieving the death of his own son and the many, many sons who had died during the Civil War.  His anecdotes worked for me, they did lighten his character somewhat, as did his affection for his younger son.  I had a little knowledge (from a Smithsonian tour of the American History Museum) of the sadness Lincoln carried with him over his son's death, and of the difficulties that caused his marriage, so I was pleased to see the film address this, and it was certainly good to see Sally Field tackle the role of his wife.

In my opinion, the scene stealer in this film is the highly underrated Tommy Lee Jones, whose performance was shaded both light and dark and not just due to the character he portrayed - we have recently seen Jones in Hope Springs and he did the same thing there, moving me from laughter to tears in the space of a sentence.  He has not always been someone who chose roles well, but I am hoping to see much more of him after these two sterling performances.

One thing I was disappointed by - visiting a civil war hospital in DC and no mention made of Clara Barton?  Shame on you, Spielberg!

***.5

Lawless

Bea says:  As an ex-pat Australian, I always like to see other Australians doing well, so was pleased to see that this film featured not only Guy Pearce (in scarily pantomime baddie mode as the sadistic Charlie Rakes) but was written by the one and only Nick Cave, of whose work I have long been a fan.

Cecil and I have seen a few of these dark, thinking-person's Western-style films over the years (Get Low for example), and it is a genre that I really enjoy.  Of course, this is not really set in the West; the action takes place in Prohibition-era hillbilly Virginia as locals rake in the dough brewing moonshine in the hills to sell in the cities, when Rakes is sent in from Chicago to put a stop to it.

Our affections are quickly won by the moonshining Bondurant brothers, particularly man-of-few-words Forrest, and Rakes' stop at nothing tactics make him easy to dislike, with one scene so disturbing I felt physically ill. The Bondurant's operation is the last left standing when the final showdown between Rakes and the moonshiners occurs, but it is at great cost. However, the film is not altogether bleak.

Lovely, evocative music - particularly the Amish/Mennonite church hymn - and spectacular scenery are added extras to this absorbing story - but not for the faint-hearted.
****

Cecil says: As Bea says, this is not one for the squeamish. Right from the opening scene, where youngest brother Jack hasn't the heart (or balls, in his brothers' eyes) to kill a pig on their farm (but another of them does...), this is full of moments that make you wince and cringe at the atrocities committed.

We grow to like these Bondurants: Forrest who stands by his principles; Howard who rages and roars, but also gets side-tracked at key moments; and little runt Jack, who narrates through the voiceover. I guess we are supposed to relate to this guy most closely, though for Brits watching this film, he'll surely remind us of Billy Mitchell in Eastenders, trying to prove himself next to his tough, bullying brothers.

Prohibition and the gang wars were a tough old time in US history, though I can't help thinking if I'd lived through that period, I'd have been more like the other farmers in the area, keeping my head down to avoid trouble, and only getting roused into reaction when the authorities go one step too far...

Good story, well told. Nick Cave screenplay brilliant, and only a shame he didn't write more of the songs that went with the storyline.

***.5

Hope Springs

Bea says: A friend staying for the weekend joined Cecil and me in seeing this fairly new release at our local cinema - billed as a comedy, and starring Meryl Streep, what could go wrong?

Well, nothing did go wrong, although it is worth saying that this "comedy" is really quite a bittersweet, and very character-driven, tale of the ups and downs of marriage - there were certainly times when the audience were roaring with laughter, but there were equally times when you could have heard a pin drop in the cinema, as some of the more painful moments of married life were explored.

Meryl Streep is always good, but Tommie Lee Jones was, if anything, better, with perfect timing and playing really well against Streep.  I was vaguely surprised by this, so checked out Jones' career on Wikipedia, to discover that he has a Broadway background - that explains that, then.

This film is definitely worth seeing - and not just if you have had a long relationship; this is thought-provoking stuff and gives plenty to think about.  Not much to critique here - well written from Vanessa Taylor, well directed and superbly acted from all three main characters - Streep, Jones and Steve Carell playing things a bit straighter as Dr Feld.
****

Cecil says: I agree with Bea, actually.

I didn't even know Steven Carell was the name of that diminutive actor who normally plays comic roles in rather second-rate movies, but he does a grand job here as the straight-faced therapist, cajoling Streep and Jones to explore what's gone wrong in their marriage and carry out various exercises aimed at getting things moving again.

I couldn't help wondering if the pin-drop silence Bea refers to in our cinema was down to the average age of the audience there that day: quite a few must have got to that 31 years' marriage stage, when things just trundle along in a rather mundane way and you can begin to question where now...

Although the couple spend most of the film way up north in Maine, Bea and I fancied we recognised the posh hotel they end up decamping to after they've had their fill of the cheap and dreary motel. Unless we're mistaken, it was the historic Griswold Inn in Essex, Connecticut. You can't be sure from the credits at the end, but we did remember that Meryl Streep's Mum lives about 5 miles away, so she must know the hotel well herself.

Funnily enough, I had to get Bea to remind me of the outcome of their relationship reviews; I had forgotten how the film ends. What lingers from this movie is a feel-good, but challenging mood.

Lovely film to see, though I wonder how I'd feel if my marriage wasn't working out too well...

***.5

Anna Karenina

Cecil says: Some of the billboards for this film refer to it as 'Joe Wright's Anna Karenina'. Hmmm, that sounded a note of warning in my mind. And once the film began, I just thought: What the...

What's with all the West End choreography? For goodness sake.

It's funny, though, isn't it? When we went to see Brief Encounter on the West End stage, and they combined film clips from the movie with the stage performance, it really worked.

But the ridiculous synchronised office staff, and frozen fixed dancers, who begin moving at a signal from somewhere off-stage. And the constant views of the stage ropes and stage floor.

What WAS he trying to do? A Brechtian distancing of the audience from the action on the screen? Maybe it was to distract away from the less-than-convincing acting on the stage...

Honestly, for one the best, most passionate pieces of literature ever, this was contrived nonsense.

Where it stuck to 'normal' cinematic bits, I got engaged with it. It's hard to ruin totally such a fantastic plot and such amazing characters. But Joe Wright did his best to (and it surely wasn't Tom Stoppard's screenplay?).

I didn't really care about any of the characters; I didn't feel much empathy for any of it.

Oh dear, the whole charade made me want to read the book again just to take away the image of Keira Knightley as Anna...

**.5

Bea says:  I have been waiting for the right moment in my life to read this classic work of literature.  After seeing this, I think that time might be now.  I wonder if I had read it, this would have been an easier film to watch - but according to Cecil it made no difference at all.

In some ways I didn't mind the whole theatrical premise - it was very opulent and beautiful to look at certainly.  But it was - distracting.  And it did make me not enter the characters and their situation quite in the way I might have if it had been more conventionally told.  But maybe that was also the somewhat wooden acting of Keira Knightley, who has her place but it is not really this.  I just don't think she acts well enough - my emotions weren't really hooked at all as Anna moves further and further down the path of self-destruction, and I didn't care enough about her.  I wasn't too sure about Matthew MacFadyen either - both he and Knightley seemed to have been told to ham up their Britishness, which was frankly odd in Imperial Russia.

I did enjoy some of the subplots and the actors involved in those - particularly Domhnall Gleeson as Levin, who we have just recently seen in Shadow Dancer, and perhaps I am being too fanciful but there were some references to Dr Zhivago too, or was it just Imperial Russia, steam trains and steppes?

Nice to look at, but if you want to really get caught up in the story, you might be better off buying the book.

**.5

Shadow Dancer

Cecil says: We'd just been to Northern Ireland earlier this summer, so were keen to see this film. On one level, it's historical: beginning with a sectarian killing in the early 1970s but then picking up the threads and the characters some 20 years later, just as peace talks began to make some headway. On another level, it's what the French would term a 'drame psychologique', with issues of trust, loyalty, tribalism, community which never really go away.

Northern Ireland is a better place now than it was 20 years ago, though there are still tensions and a sense of the tribal in some parts even today.

It was a tough place to grow up in, though. And this film does a good job of showing the underlying tension around every aspect of life. I think I'm right in saying that nobody laughs even once throughout the 100 minutes of the film - it's grim. But it's good drama.

Andrea Riseborough stars as the sister of the little boy, shot in a 1970s sectarian attack. She's good, interracting with Mac from MI5, and her family, itself torn apart by conflicting loyalties and demands. Kevin of the IRA is an ever-present sinister character, making sure 'his' people don't stray.

No spoilers in this review. Just to say that, for me, the only weakness in the storyline comes right at the end, when someone acts without the due caution you'd surely be used to taking after years in a place like Northern Ireland.

Interestingly, among the key actors in the film, only Brid Brennan - playing Ma - seems to be from Northern Ireland herself (there's even Gillian Anderson playing the top MI5 bod), and maybe that's why she gets her part across so well.

This is good drama, but no barrel of laughs.

***

Bea says:  Grim, gritty, and as Cecil says, not a whole lot of laughs, but a good, suspense-filled thriller plot as we follow the story of a family who are deeply involved in the Troubles, and their complex relationship with both the IRA and MI5.   Set in London and Belfast in the early 1990s, I enjoyed the focus of the film on the life and choices of a young woman during that period of history (although I didn't think all of the costuming was entirely accurate).  I didn't guess all the twists, and if you enjoy Spooks, you'll like this.

***

360

Cecil says: We saw this a couple of weeks ago at the Queens Film Theatre in Belfast (a rather extraordinary Georgian looking townhouse from the front, but with a Tardis-like super-modern cinema inside).

Leaving a film so long before reviewing it can mean it fades into insignificance, especially if it was fairly mediocre or dull. One of the local papers, the Irish News, had given 360 a 'boring' label, so we weren't sure what to expect, although the plot sounded intriguing and the cast rather good.

Well, we certainly didn't find it boring. But, when I came to recall my impressions for this review, the odd thing is that the character that came back most strongly was the one played by Anthony Hopkins. This is by no means the main character, but Hopkins played the man so convincingly that his story stayed in my mind much more clearly than all the others.

You see this film is all about our different journeys through life, how they intertwine or connect, and how sometimes the decisions we take don't end up leading to the result we expect.

Hopkins, for example, plays an ageing alcoholic, whose daughter disappeared years ago. Every time he hears on the news of a young woman's body being found, he travels miles, sometimes across oceans, to check it isn't her.

On this particular journey, he meets a young Brazilian woman on the plane; now, she has just split up from her photographer boyfriend; but she also gets chatting to this recently-released sex offender...

I know, I know, it's all sounding rather convoluted, and I haven't even mentioned the Russian mafia or the Slovakian prostitutes, or the British car dealer...

But it is a very engaging film, and what's nice about it, for someone like me who has travelled a lot, is that it portrays travel and movement, and crossing borders as a very normal, run-of-the-mill business. Coincidences and chance encounters are now global.

On some levels it's a bit clichéd, but on others it's quite subtle, and I liked the way 'bad' people and situations are not ALL bad, through and through.

Whatever you make of it, it's not boring. And go to see Anthony Hopkins just for the great acting.

***

Bea says: 
I also liked the travel/movement theme to this bittersweet film - but for me it was really about the twists and turns that present themselves to us in life; about the opportunities we take, and the ones that we don't.  All the performances were good, although few can match Hopkins in a good role, and the writing was very good indeed - multi-story plot lines can be hard to pull off but this did it effortlessly without any of the "who's that again?"/"what's going on" that can plague them.

But above all, and it happens so rarely in film, TV and books now, this film made me happy, despite numerous very sad story lines, and made me think of the Sheenagh Pugh poem Sometimes - Sometimes, things don't go, after all, from bad to worse.... And that was a priceless feeling for a Saturday night in Belfast.
***1/2

Cosmopolis

Bea says: It's been a while since I've watched a Cronenberg film, but not too much has changed since I did. Still very avant-garde, but also very beautiful, and still obsessed with bodily functions.

The action of Cosmopolis mostly takes place inside a limousine, in a kind of not-too-distant, dispossessed future which is actually very scarily like our present world (currency collapse, the occupy movement etc). A series of guests visit our beautiful, young protagonist (last seen in Twilight!), the head of a multinational corporation, as he drives through the streets of a large city, protected, and cut off, by his bodyguards and the armoured vehicle he is in, and it is only towards the end of the film that he leaves it to meet two people important to his life in different ways.

This film has some of the clearest, most interesting and perfect dialogue I have ever heard, and reminded me of some of the old playwrights I have read - Brecht, or Beckett perhaps. I saw from the credits that it is an adaptation of a novel, and it feels like it.  It is something so sharp, so different, that holds up a mirror to our lives. If you like Cronenberg, see it. If you don't, well, maybe it would be hard going; nothing really happens, but actually lots does, all at the same time, but you might just find it stays with you.

What do I mean??
***

Cecil says: At first I thought this modern, arty cinema in Inverness had a fantastic sound system; but then, as the dialogue of the film continued in the crisp, clear tones Bea described, I wasn't sure whether it was the intention of the director or whether the Eden Court had a super acoustic. Thing is, I have no intention of going to see this film again anywhere else to find out...

It's not to say that it was a bad a film or even that I wriggled in my seat in a 'help-get-me-out-of-here' kind of way. But it wasn't a lot of fun, let's face it. I actually didn't really know who Cronenberg was, and maybe if I had realised, I might have chosen a different film.

That said, Bea and I did find ourselves talking about the film for some hours afterwards over dinner, so it was thought-provoking and challenging.

Bea's right that it felt a lot like a Brechtian play, with characters not quite talking to the camera, but certainly making comments on the world, the situation, life. But it also felt a lot as if it was trying to do for the 21st century what Metropolis did in the 1920s. A questioning of the way society is going and where we'll all end up.

Juliette Binoche intrigued me, as ever. She does sex on film incredibly well, but is it erotic? For some reason, not, but is THAT intentional?

I also liked the lead bodyguard - was he Danish? And rather disappointed as his fate...But I'll say no more or that might spoil the shocks...

**.5