Archive for January, 2015

The Imitation Game

Director: Morten Tyldum

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Charles Dance, Rory Kinnear, Alan Leech, Tom Goodman-Hill, Matthew Beard, James Northcote, Steven Waddington

Based upon the 1983 book by Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing: The Enigma and brilliantly adapted into an insightful screenplay by Graham Moore, The Imitation Game is a superb and evocative historical drama about the breaking of the enigma code at Bletchley Park during World War II.

Norwegian director Morten Tyldum elegantly weaves a very touching and tragic story of espionage, cryptography and sexuality extracting nuanced performances out of Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing and Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke, an odd couple who make up the mysterious collective which work on and break the seemingly impossible Nazi enigma code at the height of World War II. Using real war footage and blending in a fascinating portrayal of the mathematician Alan Turing whose genius has only recently been acknowledged.

Set between the years of 1928 and 1951, The Imitation Game paints a moving portrait of a very complicated man, whose brilliance was only threatened by the inherent violence of war which engulfed England during the 1940’s as well as the prejudice which followed regarding his latent homosexuality in the early 1950’s.

Cambridge mathematician graduate whose thesis was entitled the Imitation Game, Alan Turing was socially awkward, shy, bullied at an English prep school but the perfect sort of individual who had the foresight and intelligence to develop a machine which cracked the seemingly unbreakable enigma code, a daily Nazi signal which gave countless GPS co-ordinates of where they would be bombing next during World War II with a minimum of 29 million variations.

Naturally groomed by the newly formed MI6 by Stewart Menzies wonderfully played by Mark Strong, Turing is recognized for his potential and yet later vilified for his own sexuality in a moving portrait of one the 20^th century’s biggest injustices, his charge and subsequent punishment of chemical castration for being homosexual in 1952, when it was still criminalized in Great Britain.

This was despite the fact that Turing’s mathematical brilliance was the reason that the complicated machine which he called Christopher named after a schoolboy crush, manages to decipher this seemingly unbreakable code able to break the Nazi code and prevent World War II from continuing beyond 1945.

Historically there were lots of other reasons the War ended when it did, but The Imitation Game focuses on the people behind the scenes, the cryptanalysts and code-breaking who elusively assisted those fighting on the front line.

Widely regarded as the founding father of theoretical computer science Alan Turing’s life story http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing has only recently gained prominence following a Royal pardon and a highly publicized internet campaign to clear Turing’s name and bestow upon him the recognition he never received in his own lifetime.

With a suitably moving musical score by Alexandre Desplat, The Imitation Game is a poignant and superb historical drama of Turing and his band of men and one woman, Joan Clarke, featuring one of the best performances by Knightley (Atonement, Anna Karenina) in a race against time to save the world from tyranny. Turing’s genius as a mathematician came at a price, his apparent lack of emotional empathy yet despite the enormity of his task, he remained ironically detached from the brutal war which engulfed Europe and the world around him.

The Imitation Game is an intelligent historical drama, with universal themes of injustice and perseverance despite the prejudice and the odds against infuriating bureaucracy and time itself. Highly recommended for those viewers that enjoyed Atonement and Another Country.

65th Golden Globe Awards

The 65th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and television of 2007, were scheduled to be presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association on January 13, 2008. However, due to the Writers Guild of America strike, the traditional awards ceremony did not take place;^[1] instead, the winners were announced at a news conference at 6:00 pm PST on that day (02:00 January 14 UTC).

Golden Globe Winners in The Film Categories:

Best Film Drama: Atonement

Best Film Musical or Comedy: Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Best Actor Drama: Daniel Day-Lewis – There will be Blood

Best Actor Musical or Comedy: Johnny Depp – Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Best Actress Musical or Comedy: Marion Cotillard – La Vie en Rose

Best Actress Drama: Julie Christie – Away from Her

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem – No Country for Old Men

Best Supporting Actress : Cate Blanchett – I’m Not There

Best Director: Julian Schnabel – The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Best Foreign Language Film – The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (France, USA)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/65th_Golden_Globe_Awards

Birdman

Or

The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance

Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Cast: Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Amy Ryan, Emma Stone, Andrea Riseborough, Zach Galifianakis, Lindsay Duncan

Mexican film director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu whose previous films include the critically acclaimed Babel, Buitiful and 21 Grams, delivers another cinematic magic realist masterpiece in the electrifying film Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance about the crazy antics which occur backstage on a Broadway production of a play adapted from a Raymond Carver story.

Birdman is comical, fantastical and brilliantly acted by a great ensemble cast but particularly by Michael Keaton as the central character Riggan, a washed up 1990’s superhero film star who is desperate to revive his acting career on Broadway.

Michael Keaton delivers a crackling performance as the erratic Riggan, an aging actor on the verge of a nervous breakdown, whose alter ego the superhero film character Birdman keeps whispering in his ear that he should not be taking to the stage but rather resuscitating his failed film career. Riggan also seems to be constantly hounded by a multitude of neurotic woman throughout the film which feeds his own performance anxiety.

Joining the energetic Keaton who just won the 2015 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy is an impressive ensemble cast including the hugely underrated Edward Norton as Mike Shiner a younger more precocious actor, Emma Stone as Riggan’s snappy daughter Sam, Andrea Riseborough as Riggan’s neurotic girlfriend Laura, Amy Ryan as Riggan’s ex-wife and stabilizing influence on his life, Sylvia. The Hangover star Zach Galifianakis as the exasperated bearded theatre producer Jake and Naomi Watts as a drama queen Lesley.

What makes Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance so utterly absorbing and in parts quite delirious is that Inarritu chooses to film the entire movie as one long tracking shot which keeps the momentum of this frenetic story alive and fresh. Besides the extraordinary direction, a very witty script, there is of course the superb performances by the entire cast who really excelled in a very difficult and strenuous acting stretch reminiscent of Luigi Pirandello’s play Six Characters In Search of an Author with a massive dash of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Magic Realism thrown in.

Visual clues abound along with multiple references to the 21^st century super saturated media world of the 21^st century. In one of the best scenes of the film Sam (superbly played by Emma Stone) tells her father Riggan that he has lost touch with the world, he does not even have a Facebook Page or a Twitter account and is rarely on social media. As Birdman progresses and in a hilarious sequence with Riggan running through New York’s Times Square dressed only in white underpants, which is naturally captured on YouTube, his digital success changes instantly.

Then after a near meltdown with a bottle of Whisky and after Riggan tells the influential theatre critic Tabitha (a superb cameo by Lindsay Duncan) that he should be taken seriously as a stage actor, the opening night of the play arrives and no one can anticipate the final reaction or the review in the New York Times theatre page entitled The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance.

For anyone that has studied drama or been in a stage production, Birdman is a must see film, as Inarritu expertly captures the confidence, chaos and utter lack of self-consciousness of the wild and crazy cast of this production, as they strip for scene changes, fight with their fellow actors and generally are quite debauched in all sorts of ways unique to the Theatre world.

Birdman imaginatively emphasizes that despite all the social media around especially in 21^st century contemporary America, there is nothing quite as exciting as Live Theatre.

Keaton, Norton and Stone are absolutely superb and this film is highly recommended viewing, worthy of all the attention it is currently receiving, much like what every actor in the world constantly craves: rave reviews and becoming a celebrity!

64th Golden Globe Awards

Took place on Sunday 15th January 2007 hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Golden Globe Winners in The Film Categories:

Best Film Drama – Babel

Best Director: Martin Scorsese – The Departed

Best Film Musical or Comedy: Dreamgirls

Best Actor Drama: Forest Whitaker – The Last King of Scotland

Best Actress Drama: Helen Mirren – The Queen

Best Actor Musical or Comedy: Sacha Baron Cohen – Borat

Best Actress Musical or Comedy: Meryl Streep – The Devil Wears Prada

Best Supporting Actor: Eddie Murphy – Dreamgirls

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson – Dreamgirls

Best Foreign Language Film: Letters from Iwo Jima (Japan/USA)

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64th_Golden_Globe_Awards

63rd Golden Globe Awards

Took place on Sunday  16th January 2006 hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Golden Globe Winners in The Film Categories:

Best Film Drama: Brokeback Mountain

Best Film Musical or Comedy: Walk the Line

Best Actor Drama: Philip Seymour Hoffman – Capote

Best Actress Drama: Felicity Huffman – TransAmerica
Best Actor Musical or Comedy: Joaquin Phoenix – Walk the Line
Best Actress Musical or Comedy: Reese Witherspoon – Walk the Line

Best Supporting Actor: George Clooney – Syriana

Best Supporting Actress :Rachel Weisz – The Constant Gardener
Best Director: Ang Lee – Brokeback Mountain

Best Foreign Language Film: Paradise Now (Palestine)

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/63rd_Golden_Globe_Awards

Foxcatcher

Director: Bennett Miller

Cast: Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo, Vanessa Redgrave, Sienna Miller, Anthony Michael Hall

Capote and Moneyball director Bennett Miller returns to the more sinister side of American life: wealth, competitiveness and guns in his new film Foxcatcher.

In some interesting casting choices, Miller assembles comedian Steve Carell along with action star Channing Tatum (GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra, Magic Mike) and the talented Mark Ruffalo in a three man drama about a truly bizarre actual series of events which occurred between the mid 1980’s to the mid 1990’s in Pennsylvania, America.

Foxcatcher is the true story of heir to the multi-million dollar Du Pont Family fortune, John E. Du Pont, creepily played against type by Carell whose wealth and influence entices the young Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz, who has won gold at the 1984 summer Olympics in Los Angeles to train at the Foxcatcher Farm.

Du Pont was an eccentric man, living on the vast estate in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, known as Foxcatcher Farms, heir to the incredible Du Pont family fortune, whose money was made in chemicals and ammunition manufacturing over two and a half centuries in America since the family first arrived in the States from France at the beginning of the 19^th Century. This is old American money, built up over generations, in the tradition of the Gettys, the Hiltons, the Astors and the Vanderbilts.

John E. Dupont, heir to a $100 million family fortune has always been overshadowed by his disapproving mother Jean Du Pont, coldly played by a rarely seen Vanessa Redgrave (Howard’s End), who even paid people to be friends with him. To state that he never quite fitted in was an understatement. Du Pont was an ornithologist, an avid philatelist (stamp collector), a gun collector and oddly enough, an ambitious coach of male wrestling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Eleuth%C3%A8re_du_Pont.

On the other end of the spectrum is the young and impressionable Schultz, expertly played by Channing Tatum in one of his best screen performances ever, who has trouble articulating for a public speech, who is battling for money and is desperately trying to escape the shadow of his older brother, a fellow wrestler and family man, Dave Schultz, wonderfully underplayed by Mark Ruffalo (The Kids are Alright, The Normal Heart).

Du Pont invites Mark Schultz to train at his Foxcatcher Farm in Newtown, Pennsylvania, a vast estate, in preparation for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. He also would like the older more responsible Dave to be there, but in a rare glimpse of rivalry, Mark tells Du Pont that his brother cannot be bought, not realizing that with this type of wealth anybody can be bought.

Soon Mark Schultz is socially seduced by the eerie Du Pont and invited to stay at the Foxcatcher farm to become part of team Foxcatcher. The younger Schultz even gets introduced to East Coast high society in a bizarre scene whereby Du Pont offers him cocaine in his private helicopter on the way to a glamorous charity event in Washington D. C.

What Miller does so well is set up this strange but surreal dichotomy between the eccentric and hugely influential Du Pont and the weird intensely physical world of male wrestling, which is part bravado and more homo-erotic than spectators care to admit.

Du Pont creates a haven for USA Wrestling to flourish in his own private dominion soon enticing both the Schultz brothers into Team Foxcatcher in an effort to recapture their glory at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

In a rare scene between Carell and Redgrave, wealthy mother and renegade heir apparent, she tells him that his infatuation with male wrestling is low. This sets the stage for an even more devastating end to the sinister relations between Du Pont and the Schultz brothers.

In re-imagining a truly bizarre encounter with the superrich, Miller does not captivate the viewer in Foxcatcher, like director Barbet Schroeder did so brilliantly in a similar eighties true life drama Reversal of Fortune with the Claus von Bulow case, but then again Steve Carell is not quite Oscar winner Jeremy Irons.

Director Miller instead downplays the historical aspects of the actual events and leaves the viewer hungry for more details, not to mention motive. The end result is a deeply disturbing film, excellently acted especially by Tatum and Carell, but nevertheless wanting for more. After all Foxcatcher isn’t as fine a film as Capote or as tightly directed even though Miller did win the Palm d’Or for Best Director at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.

If viewers have not researched the actual story behind Du Pont’s involvement with the Schultz’s brothers, Foxcatcher could appear as bizarrely fictional as it is actually real. Nevertheless the lingering sense of suspense and unease is perfectly captured against the raw aggression and male physicality of competitive wrestling, a sport as old as the Olympic Games itself. Recommended viewing for those that like All Good Things and Reversal of Fortune.

Into the Woods

Director: Rob Marshall

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Emily Blunt, Meryl Streep, James Corden, Chris Pine, Johnny Depp, Tracey Ullman, Christine Baranski, Lucy Punch, Tammy Blanchard, Daniel Huttlestone, Lilla Crawford, Billy Magnussen, Mackenzie Murzy

Memoirs of a Geisha and Chicago director Rob Marshall strikes gold with this cinematic adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical Into The Woods featuring a fabulous ensemble cast made all the better by Meryl Streep playing the meddling Witch.

Imagine Little Red Riding Hood teaming up with Jack the Giant Slayer, Cinderella and a forlorn Rapunzel, that is Into The Woods, a wonderful mixture of all the classic fairy tales thrown together in a delightful musical which is hinged with darkness and loaded with metaphors and familial moral codes about life’s unpredictability.

Director Marshall brings out the best in his cast including a superb performance by Emily Blunt as the barren Bakers Wife along with the irrepressible Meryl Streep as the evil Witch who asks the Baker, played by British actor James Corden to collect Cinderella’s golden slipper, a white cow, a lock of Rapunzel’s hair and a red cape naturally belonging to Red Riding Hood.

Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick (Up in The Air) holds her own as the doomed Cinderella who is wooed by a shameless prince played by Chris Pine (Jack Ryan, Shadow Recruit, Horrible Bosses 2). Cinderella’s evil stepmother is superbly played by Christine Baranski of The Good Wife fame and The Birdcage. Audiences should also watch out for British comedian Tracey Ullman who plays Jack’s exasperated mother. Child stars Daniel Huttlestone and Lilla Crawford are amazing as Jack the Giant Slayer and Little Red Riding Hood.

Three times Oscar winner Meryl Streep reunites with her Devil Wears Prada co-star Emily Blunt, and it is clear that both these actresses keep this wonderful musical firmly rooted in brilliance. Blunt is absolutely amazing, delivering some quick witted lines and belting out some wonderful songs while Streep relishes the chance to play the blue haired vain and selfish Witch who is desperate to reclaim her lost beauty by reversing a curse placed on her. The Witch also incidentally holds her daughter Rapunzel played by Mackenzie Murzy hostage in a tower and much to her horror, has fallen for a young but clumsy prince played by the gorgeous newcomer Billy Magnussen.

Oscar nominee Johnny Depp who was spine chillingly excellent in another Sondheim musical film, Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street makes a brief appearance as the cross dressing wolf who terrorizes Little Red Riding Hood.

Even though Into The Woods is aimed at children, there are certainly slightly darker adult undertones to this extraordinary film as unlike the fairy tales, not everyone lives happily ever after. For those that enjoy expertly directed and acted big screen musicals, like Chicago, Les Miserables and Hairspray, then Into The Woods is definitely recommended viewing.

Stephen Sondheim’s Into The Woods is a truly imaginative, witty and fabulous fable sure to enchant both adults and children alike and as a stage production it would be equally extraordinary to watch.

62nd Golden Globe Awards

Took place on Sunday 16th January 2005 hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Golden Globe Winners in The Film Categories:

Best Film Drama: The Aviator

Best Film Musical or Comedy: Sideways

Best Director: Clint Eastwood – Million Dollar Baby

Best Actor Drama: Leonardo DiCaprio – The Aviator

Best Actress Drama: Hilary Swank – Million Dollar Baby

Best Actor Musical or Comedy: Jamie Foxx – Ray

Best Actress Musical or Comedy: Annette Bening – Being Julia

Best Supporting Actor: Clive Owen – Closer

Best Supporting Actress: Natalie Portman – Closer

Best Foreign Language Film – The Sea Inside (Spain)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/62nd_Golden_Globe_Awards

The 61st Golden Globe Awards

Took place on Sunday 25th January 2004 hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Golden Globe Winners in The Film Categories:

Best Film Drama: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Best Film Musical or Comedy : Lost in Translation

Best Actor Drama: Sean Penn – Mystic River

Best Actress Drama: Charlize Theron – Monster

Best Actor Musical or Comedy: Bill Murray – Lost in Translation

Best Actress  Musical or Comedy: Diane Keaton – Something’s Gotta Give

Best Supporting Actor: Tim Robbins – Mystic River

Best Supporting Actress: Renee Zellweger – Cold Mountain

Best Director: Peter Jackson – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Best Foreign Language Film – Osama (Afghanistan)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/61st_Golden_Globe_Awards

The 60th Golden Globe Awards

Took place on Sunday 19th January 2003 hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Golden Globe Winners in The Film Categories:

Best Film Drama: The Hours

Best Film Musical or Comedy: Chicago

Best Actor Drama: Jack Nicholson – About Schmidt

Best Actress Drama: Nicole Kidman – The Hours

Best Actor Musical or Comedy: Richard Gere – Chicago

Best Actress Musical or Comedy: Renee Zellweger – Chicago

Best Director: Martin Scorsese – Gangs of New York

Best Supporting Actor: Chris Cooper – Adaptation

Best Supporting Actress: Meryl Streep – Adaptation

Best Foreign Language Film: Talk To Her (Spain)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/60th_Golden_Globe_Awards