Archive for March, 2014

Need for Speed

Director: Scott Waugh

Starring: Aaron Paul, Dominic Cooper, Imogen Poots, Michael Keaton, Rami Malek, Dakota Johnson, Ramon Rodriguez, Harrison Gilbert

Former stunt co-ordinator turned director Scott Waugh brings the EA video game Need for Speed to the big screen in awe-inspiring 3D. Teaming up TV actor raspy voice blue eyed Aaron Paul with the sultry more accomplished British actor Dominic Cooper in this cross-country road race thriller is big on action, devoid of any significant plot, but great on visual effects. Paul and Cooper play rival road racers Tobey Marshall and Dino Brewster who after a horrific accident in upstate New York challenge each other in flashy sports cars to an exclusive cross country road race with the finale happening in fabulous California.

Down on his luck Marshall teams up with a sassy British companion Julia Maddon played by Imogen Poots as they race across America stopping in the Mecca of Motorcars, the now debt ridden Detroit before finally reaching their destination on the West Coast, San Francisco, where Marshall, a constant fugitive will race in a private sponsored event through Northern California in terrain remotely resembling Big Sur. Michael Keaton (Robocop) plays the techno sussed race coordinator Monarch and Rami Malek and Scott Mescudi team up as Marshall’s race team assistants Finn and Benny. Watching Need for Speed especially in 3-D is like driving full throttle in a Mustang on crack!

The stunts are tremendous, the storyline dire, but then again this narrative originated on a video game, which does not always guarantee a smooth transition to cinema. The chemistry between Aaron Paul and Imogen Poots is barely palatable, made worse by a winding narrative which could have been edited to at least 90 minutes.

Naturally Waugh as director pays tribute to the 1968 film Bullitt starring Steve McQueen and Jacqueline Bissett even featuring a film clip within Need for Speed – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lbs_nYW3-o . The biggest mystery besides the outlandish stunts performed in Need for Speed, is why an accomplished actor like Dominic Cooper would appear in such a popcorn film, but clearly there is a need for him to becoming better acquainted with American audiences. After Cooper’s superb turns in Lee Tamahori’s The Devil’s Double and opposite Keira Knightley in The Duchess, he perhaps needed to expand his action repertoire.

Need for Speed is clearly aimed at young male audiences and like the hugely successful The Fast and Furious franchise involves a lot of car chase sequences that no ordinary viewer should attempt on any suburban road.

Unlike The Fast and the Furious, whose buddy-action movie formula got better as the franchise progressed from Miami to Rio to London, The Need for Speed feels like one long video game in 3D without the emotional punch of Nicholas Winding Refn’s brilliant car chase thriller Drive. Waugh’s Need for Speed is simply  great surface entertainment without much character development, but the locations and stunts will surely keep any petrol head sated for a while. Dakota Johnson soon to be seen in Fifty Shades of Grey along with Harrison Gilbert and Ramon Rodriguez round off the cast.

The Paperboy

Director: Lee Daniels

Starring: Zac Efron, Nicole Kidman, David Oyelowo, Matthew McConaughey, Macy Gray, John Cusack, Scott Glenn, Ned Beatty

Before controversial director Lee Daniels become famous for his film about the American civil rights movement in The Butler, he tackled the big screen adaptation of American writer Pete Dexter’s 1995 novel The Paperboy about journalism, ethics and sultry desire in the humidity soaked state of Florida in the mid-sixties.

Matthew McConaughey’s conscious decision as an actor to shed his Rom-Com image and star in more controversial films is evident in this edgy thriller as he bravely  takes on the part of Ward Jansen, a hard-drinking Miami reporter who returns home to Moat County, Florida to investigate the gruesome death of the town Sheriff and the consequent arrest and incarceration of the chief suspect Hillary van Wetter, a rural swamp dwelling redneck, dangerously played by John Cusack.

Add to the explosive story of murder, lust and betrayal is Ward’s younger brother Jack Jansen the scantily clad swimmer played by Zac Efron and van Wetter’s supposed prison fiancé the trashy yet resourceful Charlotte Bless, in a surprisingly different turn by Oscar winner Nicole Kidman (The Hours) making The Paperboy an intoxicating mix of pulpy journalism, sacrifice, mystery and tragedy, all atmospherically played out in the sweltering summer of 1965 at the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

The Paperboy is not for sensitive viewers and contains some controversial scenes in this unusual yet absorbing thriller including a scene where Kidman’s character Bliss urinates on the writhing jellyfish stung torso of Jack on a Florida beach, in a sequence which even shocked hardened Cannes Film Festival audiences at its 2012 premiere.

There are other equally gruesome and lurid scenes in The Paperboy, but the acting is topnotch especially from Kidman and McConaughey, the latter was clearly preparing for his groundbreaking Oscar winning performance in the recent Dallas Buyers Club. Whilst the narrative of The Paperboy is crude, shocking and ultimately tragic, what would audiences expect from the controversial director of Precious?

Unlike the superbly written and hugely stylish novel by Pete Dexter, the only criticism of Lee Daniels film version is that the ending is slightly altered. For those audiences that thought McConnaughey did a sudden transformation for Dallas Buyers Club, then its best to watch his more shocking performance in The Paperboy to see his ongoing evolution as an actor.

With a groovy retro soundtrack and a fabulous sixties, almost sultry Southern ambiance inspired by the more violent films like Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning set in the same period, The Paperboy is a gritty and brilliant thriller of one man’s desperate attempt to uncover the truth at all costs despite the damage it causes to himself and those around him for the sake of journalistic integrity. For in The Paperboy the Story becomes paramount despite the terrible cost of human sacrifice.

Pop star Macy Gray and David Oyelowo (also seen in The Butler) as the smooth talking Yardley Acheson round off the cast of The Paperboy which shows that teen heartthrob Zac Efron (Charlie St Cloud, Hairspray) can really hold his own onscreen against Oscar winners Kidman and McConnaughey. This Grand Floridian tale is recommended viewing but not for those easily offended.

August: Osage County

Director: John Wells

Starring: Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Juliette Lewis, Julianne Nicholson, Ewan McGregor, Dermot Mulroney, Chris Cooper, Margo Martindale, Benedict Cumberbatch, Abigail Breslin, Sam Shepard

The Pulitzer Prize winning play by Tracy Letts, August: Osage County comes to the big screen with a stunning ensemble cast headed by the incomparable and superb Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady, Devil Wears Prada) as the pill popping matriarch of the Oklahoma based Weston family, who all gather together when Violet Weston, a malevolent matriarch played by Streep alerts her clan to the sudden and inexplicable disappearance of her heavy drinking poet husband, Bev Weston, a brief appearance by Sam Shepard. Oscar winner Julia Roberts plays the feisty eldest daughter Barbara who drags her straitlaced husband Bill Fordham played by Ewan McGregor and their teenage daughter Jean played by Little Miss Sunshine star Abigail Breslin.

Incidentally the playwright Tracy Letts is also an actor who recently appeared on the Award winning show Homeland. His take on an all female dysfunctional family in his award winning play is both perceptive and wonderfully written with Streep and Roberts savouring some of the best lines like – “Bitch, eat your Fish!”

August: Osage County takes themes of addiction, inter-generational communication along with family secrets and rivalry to new heights as the entire Weston clan gather, but the plot is really anchored by the fierce exchanges between a disorientated Violet and her outspoken daughter Barbara, in a career best performance by Julia Roberts. Streep earned her 18^th Oscar nomination in 2014 for her almost tragic yet bitter performance of Violet Weston, a woman who clearly has not had an easy life on the mid-Western plans and has to cope with all the hardships including bringing up three daughters and an inebriated poet as a husband.

Julia Roberts (Erin Brokovich, Eat, Pray, Love) also earned a 2014 Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her brilliant performance as Barbara, a woman whose marriage is failing and is battling to cope with a rebellious teenage daughter, an uncooperative cheating husband and a matriarchal and incredibly demanding mother. The onscreen tension between Violet and Barbara is beautifully played out against the vast Oklahoma plains, with the landscape providing an emotional resonance to all the familial conflict that the Weston gathering produces where everyone’s own miserable secrets, faults and deceptions soon come to light amidst the hottest month of summer: August.

Director John Wells interweaves the chaotic scenes at the Weston mansion in rural Oklahoma with gorgeous shots of the mid-Western plains, giving a sense that these characters are grappling with not only their own turmoil but their unique identities apart from those prescribed by being part of a larger family group. And what a family it is.

Violet Weston’s two other daughters are the pacifying Ivy played by Julianne Nicholson and the free-spirited youngest Karen, played by Oscar nominee Juliette Lewis (Cape Fear) both of whom have to heed the dominance of their mother and eldest sister, along with the bitter rivalry which ensues.

As with all plays that are turned into film adaptation, much like the four character play Doubt, August: Osage County drives its narrative purely through an electrifying and barbed script, with Streep and Roberts delivering some vicious one-liners. The rest of the cast including Chris Cooper as Uncle Charlie and Margo Martindale, Benedict Cumberbatch (12 Years a Slave) and Dermot Mulroney provide a theatrical sounding board for the predominantly female driven story of rivalry, deception and loneliness.

What elevates August: Ossage County out of pure melodrama, although some aspects of the plot are questionable, is the groundbreaking and utterly absorbing performance of Streep and Roberts as mother and daughter Violet and Barbara fighting each other and their own apparent faults significant in the touching scene when they are both wondering aimlessly through an Oklahoma hayfield. This onscreen rivalry ironically is a reversal of Streep’s performance opposite Shirley Maclaine as Hollywood daughter and mother in the 1990 film about drug addiction, Postcards from the Edge based upon the best selling novel by Carrie Fisher of Star Wars fame.

August: Osage County is a compelling family drama, at times hysterical, at times poignant but a wonderful and incisive examination of a complex family dynamic which forces each member to  come to grips with their own flaws whilst becoming aware of a collective sense of misery, loss and impending loneliness. This film is a master class in ensemble acting and highly recommended viewing.

The Grandmaster

Director: Wong Kai Wai

Starring: Tony Leung, Ziyi Zhang, Jin Zhang, Chen Chang

Films about martial arts have a niche market audience, but in this beautifully orchestrated and visually rich tale of Ip Man, the Grandmaster of Kung Fu, director Wong Kai Wai provides an extraordinary blend of history, action and breathtaking beauty in his groundbreaking cinematic spectacle The Grandmaster.

Featuring Asian martial arts stars Tony Leung (Hero, Lust, Caution) as Ip Man and the poised and gorgeous Ziyi Zhang (Memoirs of a Geisha, House of Flying Daggers) as Gong Err two opposing grandmasters who first encounter each other in a lavish brothel, The Golden Pavilion and who display their unique Kung Fu skills and also an enduring love for each other. Gong Err has to contend with her father’s legacy and the rivalry of an adopted brother known as The Razor played by Chen Chang who threatens to usurp her position as head of the family home in 1930’s Foshan, China following the proverb of a tiger who never abandons his mountain. In this case honour trumps defeat.

As the action seamlessly follows these three characters, the historical narrative moves from Foshan in 1936 through the Japanese invasion of China to post-war Hong Kong which becomes the haven for contemporary Kung Fu in the 1950’s. Ip Man incidentally becomes the Grandmaster of Martial Arts star the legendary Bruce Lee who revolutionized martial arts films in the 1960’s and 70’s.

Director Wong Kai Wai’s sumptuous tale of the evolution of Kung Fu is gorgeously told in The Grandmaster with breathtaking cinematography by Philippe Le Sourd who deservedly got nominated for a 2014 Oscar but lost out to Alphonso Cuaron’s film Gravity. The intricate Oriental costumes of 1940’s China are superbly evoked in The Grandmaster which also got a nod for Best Costume Design but lost out to The Great Gatsby at the 2014 Oscars. One particularly memorable scene comes to mind when Gong Err is attending her father’s lavish funeral march as she encounters the followers of the Razor on the icy plains of Northeastern China all beautifully attired in crisp white funeral robes.

The Grandmaster is both a martial arts film but also a historical account of the fortunes of the two central Chinese characters as their lives are disrupted by the invading Japanese and both are forced to flee south to the safety of Hong Kong. Memorable scenes include the Chinese New Year fight sequence at a train station between the unflinching Gong Err and her adversary and the opening sequence of legendary Ip Man as he swiftly defeats a gang of rivals in a rain soaked Foshan alleyway.

As the opening film of the 2013 Berlin Film Festival http://www.davidrwalker.co.za/2013/05/2013-berlinale/ The Grandmaster  is authentic Asian cinema at its best, with Chinese dialogue and English subtitles along with flawless visuals and wonderfully elegant fight sequences to rival directors Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern) and Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Lust Caution). This is highly recommended viewing especially for film enthusiasts and lovers of authentic martial arts cinema in the tradition of Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

300: Rise of an Empire

Director: Noam Murro

Starring: Eva Green, Sullivan Stapleton, Rodrigo Santoro, Lena Headey, Callan Mulvey, Jack O’Connell, David Wenham

300: Rise of an Empire lacks the visual punch of the original 300 directed by Zach Snyder which made himself and its star Gerard Butler enormously famous. In this follow up sequel, 300 Rise of an Empire looks at the fortunes of the God King Xerxes, a fabulously gold clad Rodrigo Santoro as he attempts to invade the Greek Isles and its major city states. It shows the ruthless of the invading Persians in nautical battles which took place almost simultaneously to the battle of Thermopylae when 300 Spartans saved Greece by becoming martyrs. In 300: Rise of an Empire, audiences can expect a necrophiliac lustful and sexy naval commander Artemisia wonderfully overplayed by Eva Green (The Dreamers, Casino Royale) getting off on decapitations and drowning of her own sailors as she viciously commands the Persian fleet ordering them to defeat the Greek ships at all costs. The Greeks in this case are represented by muscle bound Themistocles who just happened to be the daring soldier that killed Xerxes father King Darius with a fateful arrow that changed the course of these two ancient civilizations.

Lena Headey (now famous in the HBO Series Game of Thrones) reprises her role as Queen Gorgo of the Spartans who not only narrates the entire ancient diatribe but also features as a plot device for avenging the death of Leonidas in 300 against the invading Persians. What makes 300: Rise of an Empire worth watching is brutal sex scene bordering on sadomasochism between Artemisa and Themistocles on board a Persian vessel reminding audiences of the tangible psychological link between sex and death.

Unfortunately the blood visuals and excessive gore featured in 3D in this sequel detracts stylistically from what could have been a really fascinating narrative about ancient civilizations battling it out on turbulent Mediterranean seas. Australian actor Sullivan Stapleton could not rival Gerard Butler in screen presence with the only redeeming feature being the audacious Eva Green making the most of her bloodthirsty and vengeful role as the kinky and sadistic Artemisia, a tragic Greek woman who has turned on her own nation after her family was brutally slaughtered.

Ancient history buffs will enjoy 300: Rise of an Empire but this is an unworthy sequel to the fabulously dazzling and original film and will land up being regarded as mere popcorn viewing. 300 Rise of an Empire is fun, sexy and slightly disturbing but not fantastic and definitely not worth it in 3D especially as Israeli director Noam Murro chose gore and bloodlust over historical accuracy. Callan Mulvey and Jack O’Connell also star as father and son team Scyllias and Calisto valiantly fighting the Persians and providing a less than emotional subplot to the real Aegean drama of the nautical battle between Persians and Ancient Greeks.

2014 Berlin International Film Festival Winners

The 64th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from February 6 to 16, 2014

The Berlin International Film Festival known as the Berlinale takes places annually in February and is regarded as one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world.

The Opening Night film was The Grand Hotel Budapest directed by Wes Anderson

Winners of the five main prizes at the 2014 Berlin Film Festival were as follows: –

Golden Bear (Best Film) – Black Coal, Thin Ice directed by Diao Yinan

Silver Bear (Best Director) – Richard Linklater for Boyhood starring Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane & Lorelei Linklater

Best Actor – Liao Fan for Black Coal, Thin Ice

Best Actress – Haru Kuroki for The Little House

Silver Bear for Best Screenplay – Stations of the Cross written by Dietrich Brüggemann

Source: – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64th_Berlin_International_Film_Festival

Dallas Buyers Club

Director: Jean-Marc Vallee

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Jennifer Garner, Denis O’Hare, Griffin Dunne, Steve Zahn, Dallas Roberts

The Young Victoria French Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallee tackles the AIDS pandemic in the gritty but superbly told critically acclaimed film Dallas Buyers Club.

The film which opens with reckless rodeo hand and electrician Ron Woodruff having a cocaine fuelled orgy in a rodeo pen on the outskirts of Dallas, showing a glimpse of a hard living reckless Texan drifter. The narrative is firmly placed in the summer of 1985, at the height of the pandemic as audiences see an emaciated Woodruff recovering from a binge in his trailer park with a Budweiser as he reads a newspaper article about Hollywood star Rock Hudson collapsing in a Ritz Hotel room in Paris in July 1985 due to an AIDS related illness, shocking the world with a disease that the famous film star took pains to keep hidden – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Hudson.

This is a precursor to Woodroof’s own less glamorous story of a far more determined battle with the disease and the monolithic Federal Drug Administration (FDA) of America, which approved the relevant anti-retro virals (ARV’s), namely AZT first used on unsuspecting HIV patients alternating with a placebo in human drug trials.

Woodroof is  the central character in Dallas Buyers Club, a homophobic, drug addicted hard-partying electrician who bets on the Texas rodeo to maintain a hedonistic lifestyle which abruptly changes after an industrial accident at a Texaco oil field, superbly played by Matthew McConaughey (The Lincoln Lawyer, Magic Mike), who lost 21 kilograms to authenticate the role, which recently earned him the 2014 best actor Oscar. McConaughey is now hot property in the acting stakes after shedding his rom-com image (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days) and taking part in increasingly edgier, morally dubious parts such as in Lee Daniel’s The Paperboy and the recent HBO series True Detective.

In the Dallas Mercy hospital, a severely gaunt looking Woodroof is told that he is HIV positive and only has 30 days to live by Dr Sevard, (Denis O’Hare) and the sympathetic Dr Eve Saks, played by Jennifer Garner. Refusing to accept defeat and not willing to wait for the proposed clinical trials of the newly developed antiretroviral AZT, Woodroof embarks on a mission to source the best possible ARVs to keep him alive. After an initial phase of denial, anger and stigmatisation from fellow co-workers and those he previously cavorted with at the Dallas rodeos, the determined Woodruff embarks on a mission to save his life even if it means illegally.

He embarks on an illicit journey to Mexico where he meets Dr Vass played by Griffin Dunne who supplies him with a regimen of FDA unapproved drugs to sustain his survival. Ever the drifter, Woordoof makes his way back into Texas, ironically dressed as priest with a stash of ARVs which he needs to distribute under the radar to fellow sufferers.

However his pervasive illness lands him back in hospital where he meets the fabulously tragic transsexual Rayon, an utterly breathtaking transformation by Jared Leto (American Psycho, Requiem for a Dream, Alexander), who also received an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor at the 2014 Academy Awards. The gorgeous, fatally destructive Rayon is the perfect foil to break down Woodruff’s preconceived notions of homosexuality and homophobia as his biggest clients, the city’s largely excluded homosexual community soon become paying members of the lucrative, yet life saving Dallas Buyers Club.

What director Jean-Marc Vallee does, is never hold these characters in judgement but superbly lifts a mirror up to their desperate and unconventional forms of survival in mid-1980’s America when the knowledge of AIDS and the correct dosage of ARVs was certainly not as advanced as it is today, almost 20 years later.

It is McConaughey and Leto’s staggering transformation with the former losing an incredible amount of weight and really bringing pathos and layers of emotion to a complex role while Leto is simply incredible as the sultry and tragic Rayon who eventually has to forgo the charade and in one touching scene he bravely confronts his sexuality and illness with his conservative Texan father.

Both actors deserved to win these Oscars and while Dallas Buyers Club is heavy on subject matter, it is a supremely balanced account of one man’s incredible and courageous journey of survival both in America and through procuring foreign drugs internationally to prolong his life at a time when advances in medical science were only grappling to come to terms with the scale of a truly worldwide AIDS pandemic.

Powerful, emotional and brilliant, Dallas Buyers Club follows the trials of Woodroof and Rayon as cowboys in the rodeo ring, dodging the inevitability of being thrown off the proverbial bull while the clowns provide a tragic distraction, the film’s poignant central motif.

The 86th Academy Awards / The Oscars

Sunday 2nd March 2014

OSCAR WINNERS AT THE 86TH ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS

Best Picture/Film: 12 Years a Slave

Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron – Gravity

Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey – Dallas Buyers Club

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett – Blue Jasmine

Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto – Dallas Buyers Club

Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong’o – 12 Years a Slave

Best Adapted Screenplay: John Ridley – 12 Years a Slave

Best Original Screenplay: Spike Jonze – Her

Best Foreign Language Film: The Great Beauty (Italy) directed by Paolo Sorrentino –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Beauty

Best Documentary Film: 20 Feet from Stardom – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_Feet_from_Stardom

Best Animated Feature: Frozen

Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki – Gravity

Best Editing: Alfonso Cuaron and Mark Sanger – Gravity

Best Hair and Make-up: Robin Matthews – Dallas Buyers Club

Best Original Score: Steven Price – Gravity

Best Production Design: Catherine Martin – The Great Gatsby

Best Costume Design: Catherine Martin – The Great Gatsby

Best Visual Effects: Gravity

Source: http://www.oscars.org/