In the Mood for Podcast: Episode 26

EPISODE 26: A Little Bromance

[1:22:20]

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It's Episode 26 of In the Mood for Podcast, a British-based film podcast hosted by Calum Reed of Ultimate Addict and Pete Sheppard of In the Mood for Blog. This week we're warming up for awards with discussions of Oscar lineups from 1942, 1952, 1962, and 2003, as well as forecasting this year's nominees. The big release is David O'Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook," of which the focus is firmly on Jennifer Lawrence, while buddy-cop drama "End of Watch" has the job of setting this week's pulses racing. The girls of hotline comedy "For a Good Time, Call.." get our inner-chick mode going, before Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz strip for "Gambit."  A late squabble about Indian cinema sets Jake and Michael's bar-setting bromance down some notches, but this was a fun one...

Discussed on the podcast: 

Opening Segment: The contentious results of the Leeds Film Festival's audience votes, and championing films and performances that won’t make our year-end lists [2:05 - 14:00]

*Preconception Corner*

Reviews of: 

• "End of Watch"
• "For a Good Time, Call..."
• "Gambit"
• "Lawrence of Arabia" (50th anniversary re-release)

[18:20 - 57:55]

Closing Segment: David O'Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook": considering the awards chances of its cast, offering examples of actors Oscar-nominated for the wrong films, and predicting next week's New York Film Critics Circle prizes. [58:00 - 1:17:10]

*Shag, Marry or Kill?*
*The Watson Factor*
*The Poupaud Range*

Intro Music: New theme music!
Outro Music: Ellie Goulding, "Anything Can Happen"

The Black Stallion (1979)

The Black Stallion

Directed by Carroll Ballard

Starring: Kelly Reno, Mickey Rooney, Teri Garr

Grade: A - [83] 

A picture postcard of early adolescence, “The Black Stallion” is everything Spielberg’s “War Horse” should have been: majestic, effortless, forged with sentiment but rarely overflowing with it. It’s a beautiful story of a boy-horse bond that’s underpinned but, crucially, allowed to breathe, Ballard capturing the shipwrecked duo’s learned mutual trust with a ten-minute wordless sequence alive with grace and profound feeling. This somewhat simple journey takes a different shape when Oscar-nominated Mickey Rooney enters the picture, but in replacing the horse’s temporary purpose as a paternal figure, the film enlightens the adaptability of animals and our use of them to great effect. Despite the obvious similarities to “War Horse” it finds a depth and scope displayed infinitely better in Bresson’s “Au Hasard Balthazar,” and yet can be identified as a wonderful family movie, too.

Wanderlust (2012)

Wanderlust

Directed by David Wain

Starring: Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston, Justin Theroux, Kathryn Hahn, Malin Akerman, Alan Alda

Grade: C+ [53] 

”Wanderlust” is a comedy that works on a purely theoretical level: Cultural depictions take opposing extremes; identities and purposes get muddied and melded, and everyone lives happily ever after. The film manages to create humour without being offensive, amusing when approaching ideological inconsistencies and the flexible nature of liberation, and charming in the way that the theme-driven elements of the piece recall simple, old-fashioned funnies like “The Egg and I.” Still, while Wain’s social commentary is crystal clear, the mechanics around it are disingenuous and forced (perhaps that’s what comes with painting so many characters as bare-faced hypocrites?) and a dubious finale undoes some of the good work, too. It’s a pleasant change to see a basic conceit mined for all of its worth, but there isn’t really enough in “Wanderlust” to justify investment.

In the Mood for Podcast: Episode 25

EPISODE 25: Tricks of the Trade

[1:21:19]

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A mini milestone is passed in Episode 25 of In the Mood for Podcast, a British-based film podcast hosted by Calum Reed of Ultimate Addict and Pete Sheppard of In the Mood for Blog. This week our attentions are divided between nutritious world cinema and meaty awards chat, as The Hollywood Reporter's annual roundtables prompt us to gossip about the females of 2012. From there we move onto reviews of "Mental," "Jab Tak Hai Jaan," "Happy Happy," "A Better Life," and "On Air," before returning to process Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master," well-publicised as having sent critics spinning. We're less concerned with the weight of the film than Amy Adams' elbow grease, which proves just too rich a source of innuendo for some...

Discussed on the podcast: 

Opening Segment: We chat at length about The Hollywood Reporter’s Actress Roundtable, the participants of which were Amy Adams, Marion Cotillard, Sally Field, Anne Hathaway, Helen Hunt, Naomi Watts, and Rachel Weisz. Who came off best, and which ladies are the frontrunners for awards? [2:40 - 18:10]

*Preconception Corner*

Reviews of: 

• "Mental"
• "Jab Tak Hai Jaan"
• "Happy Happy"
• "A Better Life"
• "On Air"

[21:10 - 51:55]

Closing Segment: Our thoughts on Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master,” and discussing the art of balancing double features. [52:00 - 1:11:35]

*Shag, Marry or Kill?*
*The Watson Factor*
*The Poupaud Range*

Intro Music: New theme music!
Outro Music: Missy Elliot, "One Minute Man"

Argo (2012)

Argo

Directed by Ben Affleck

Starring: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Scoot McNairy

Grade: C+ [55] 

For a film situated in the midst of a complex era for American-middle Eastern relations Affleck’s “Argo” bathes in simplicity, spurning insight into the period for a by-the-numbers rescue mission narrative. A ‘thriller’ without the thrills, it’s a sort of bedraggled descendant of Spielberg’s “Munich,” with less of the genuine peril or interesting character work which that film – for all of its faults – had in spades. Gleefully aware of its lack of earnestness and celebratory of Hollywood’s mysticism as a weapon against uniformity and protocol, the film-insider knowledge in the opening act works best in gaining a rapport for this lovingly novel conceit. It's less successful when becoming a primarily dramatic text, somehow underwhelming despite its sensationalist approach to a logistical, suspense-geared culmination, underserving both its audience and its intriguing real-life source material.

In the Mood for Podcast: Episode 24

EPISODE 24: Disrupt the Peace

[1:19:56]

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It's Episode 24 of In the Mood for Podcast, a British-based film podcast hosted by Calum Reed of Ultimate Addict and Pete Sheppard of In the Mood for Blog. This week Ben Affleck's awards juggernaut "Argo" lands on British shores, but does it live up to the considerable hype? "Transformers" scribe Alex Kurtzman is the latest to lure Michelle Pfeiffer back to the screen in the family drama "People Like Us," while the established pull of Chris O'Dowd is tested in Wayne Blair's "The Sapphires." Pete endures Kevin James in "Here Comes the Boom," and Cal sits in for daunting "Dogtooth" director Giorgos Lanthimos's eery follow-up, "Alps." All this, and an opening segment on Wong Kar-wai's upcoming "The Grandmasters," which goes a little awry when an unexpected intruder stymies Pete's reverent flow. Well, not everyone liked "My Blueberry Nights"...

On the podcast: 

Opening Segment: Discussing the week's news, reactions to the first trailer for Wong Kar-wai's "The Grandmasters," and some fond thoughts about the filmmaker's career thus far. [1:10 - 15:30]

*Preconception Corner*

Reviews of: 

• "The Sapphires"
• "People Like Us"
• "Here Comes the Boom"
• "Alps"

[18:50 - 54:25]

Closing Segment: Discussing "Argo," crazy real-life stories adapted for cinema, and looking at early betting odds for the Best Picture Oscar. [54:30 - 1:13:05]

*Shag, Marry or Kill?*
*The Watson Factor*
*The Poupaud Range*

Intro Music: Faye Wong, "Dream Person"
Outro Music: The Supremes, "The Happening"

Skyfall (2012)

Skyfall

Directed by Sam Mendes

Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris

Grade: B [71] 

It wasn’t particularly reassuring when Sam Mendes became the latest A-lister to tackle the Bond franchise, his failure to register a worthy follow-up to debut smash “American Beauty” having lasted for more than a decade now. Thankfully, “Skyfall” is a return to form for the British filmmaker, its flag-waving patriotism omnipresent but on this occasion diluted with the dense, loaded political context of a Christopher Nolan film (Mendes himself has admitted Nolan’s influence), and an inherently personal motive for its villain beyond megalomania and terrorism. Like “Quantum of Solace” this feels like a transitory entrant in the 007 series (one would hope that the next installment be considerably more fun) but the use of literary roots adds dimension to an otherwise excellently-staged action adventure, and Craig continues to impress in his stint as the agent. It feels as though the character badly needs a boost, but in the stakes of entertainment “Skyfall” is yet another slam dunk for fans of this ever-adapting world of espionage.

Rust and Bone (2012)

Rust and Bone

Directed by Jacques Audiard

Starring: Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts, Corinne Masiero

Grade: B [69] 

For a film about drawing strength from physical adversity, “Rust and Bone” isn’t half as uplifting a time as its slushy, aquatic trailer would have you believe. It’s rare that a romance comes along so eager to purge its characters of traditional forms of grace, and still express the rich, interdependent courage that exists between them. The imposing performances of Cotillard and Schoenaerts punctuate Audiard’s themes well, and the coarseness of their romance lends something uniquely powerful to the experience. It’s somewhat soured when some heavy-handed plotting sweeps in to enforce an epiphany in the final act, but the effect is more dispiriting than ruinous. When even Katy Perry’s “Firework” is utilised to profoundly moving effect, you have to figure that this is a somewhat successful exercise in spinning straw into gold.

Silent Hill: Revelation (2012)

Silent Hill: Revelation

Directed by Michael J. Bassett

Starring: Adelaide Clemens, Kit Harrington, Sean Bean, Radha Mitchell

Grade: D [22] 

After Christophe Gans’s artistic prowess loomed assuredly over 2006’s initial adaptation of the popular video game, this sequel is content to replace practical effects with characterless technological frippery, and pack oodles of badly-written, baffling back-story onto an already obscurely-plotted series. Discussion of spirituality is shelved for a minor romance, a vague kidnap plot, and mostly worthless attempts at cheap thrills, while Mitchell and Bean are consigned to bit-parts around the vapid figures of Clemens and Harrington. Somewhere along the way the unique qualities of this grand horror-of-the-unknown have been muddied and lost, either by rashly conceiving of a follow-up designed to make a quick buck at the box-office, or by the limitations of the material itself. I’m inclined to go with the former.

Beyond the Hills (2012)

Beyond the Hills

Directed by Christian Mungiu

Starring: Cosmina Stratan, Cristina Flutur, Valeriu Andriuta, Dana Tapalaga

Grade: C [48] 

While Mungiu’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days” exposed backstreet abortion as a harrowing, exploitative ordeal, it at least brought to light the stigma of social issues with a powerful realism relatively unseen in Romanian cinema of the time. Beautifully shot and thoroughly engrossing in its first half, this story of nuns in rural Romania is provocative in the way that his previous films have been, but in dealing with the trials and tribulations within fundamentalist Christianity he makes fewer observations about society than he does insinuations, and cynically muddies religion in brazen, simple terms. Even as an Atheist it’s difficult to condone the contemptuous techniques at play here, burying a love story underneath what is essentially “The Passion of Joan of Arc,” played out in terribly repetitive terms over two-and-a-half gruelling hours. His social commentary only really becomes apparent in the final scenes of the film, capped by a final shot which serves to heighten the distaste. This is grubby business.

Like Someone In Love (2012)

Like Someone In Love 

Directed by Abbas Kiarostami

Starring: Rin Takahashi, Tadashi Okuno, Ryo Kase, Denden

Grade: A- [87] 

After Kiarostami’s last film, “Certified Copy,” explored the uncertainty of relationships so briskly, his latest is a tender companion piece with similar themes. The emphasis here is more on how we (particularly young people) approach issues of love and commitment, told through the striking Rin Takahashi’s chance encounter with older man Tadashi Okuno. I found much to relate to in the film’s depiction of the inherent confidence of youth when approaching cross-generational matters of romance (that comes from being more virile and attractive), even as that confidence is often a brittle façade. The film is rarely sexual but nevertheless remains about how sexuality colours our view of relationships, ageing, and overall purpose. Does monogamy seem like an unattainable, unthinkable goal? Okuno does an excellent job of buffering this discussion as an on-screen voice of author Kiarostami, and as a curious respondent to young romance at its most tempestuous and doomed.

Fill the Void (2012)

Fill the Void
Directed by Rama Burshtein
Starring: Hadas Yaron, Yiftach Klein, Irit Sheleg
Grade: B [71]

Despite its deployment of age-old commentary Rama Burshtein’s drama about arranged marriages in orthodox Jewish religion integrates its Austen-derived brand of feminity with a remarkably non-judgemental insight into faith and custom. As a participant of the Jewish faith Burshtein fails to shy away from the difficult pressures of marriage as a confluence of morality, duty, necessity -- and, yes, love -- but does so by revealing how these elements can be shaped into making a decision wise for one’s own future both logically and emotionally. I’m a long way from believing that commitment should stem from anything more than it should stem from love, but this film offers an uncommon, ingrained viewpoint by which to consider the issue more closely. Dramatically repetitive but thematically rich, it’s a film which compels discussion more than most I’ve seen this year.

Barbara (2012)

Barbara
Directed by Christian Petzold
Starring: Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Jasna Fritzi Bauer, Rainer Bock, Mark Waschke
Grade: B+ [79]

The prime example of what a festival film should be, “Barbara” is best viewed with no prior knowledge, its independence of operation as a filtration of characterisation and context piercing in a way that, say, Schleinzer’s “Michael” isn't.  This is a character study by title and design, surely structuring an arc for Barbara but nevertheless encouraging the freedom of its lead actress to ruminate about her character’s motives to quite compelling lengths. Hoss is as great here as she was in Petzold’s Yella five years ago; brooding, tense, judgemental,  withholding a sense of injustice beneath layers of duty and hostility. It’s a case of an actress elevating material that’s strong but vacant and occasionally contrived; what shouldn't work here half-works through the emotion and strength of the performer. Zehrfeld deserves some of the plaudits, too.

Quartet (2012)

Quartet

Directed by Dustin Hoffman

Starring: Dame Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins, Billy Connolly, Sheridan Smith, Michael Gambon

Grade: C+ [56]

“Quartet”is also a film desperate for us to laugh at old people behaving less than appropriately to each other, the key difference being that – for at least the first half – it’s consistently hilarious, with Billy Connolly in particular flaunting the comic chops we've known he's had for decades now, and Dame Maggie doing what she so often does well, in perhaps as sullen, loaded and nonexclusively comedic a way as she has done for quite some time. Harwood manages to keep this story ticking along well for the first two acts, until M. Smith’s diva is required to vehemently defend her instincts, and then abandon them, in what feels like a really sloppily-conceived chain of events. We know where this is going early, but that doesn’t prevent the last act feeling like such a shoehorned retread of the film’s opening establishing jokes and celebration of old age as a precious, self-evaluating phase in life. There’s a touch of cloying sadness lumped in there, too, but the film has developed so much goodwill by then that it’s difficult to say that the wheels fall off entirely. On this evidence Hoffman is unsurprisingly an actors' director: this cast is having a ball, and they're resoundingly infectious.

Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)

Hyde Park on Hudson

Directed by Roger Michell

Starring: Laura Linney, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams, Olivia Colman, Samuel West, Elizabeth Wilson

Grade: D+ [28]

Loitering somewhere between “The Bridges of Madison County” and “An Education,” yet nowhere near as good as either, Hyde Park is the essence of poor middlebrow filmmaking. Two decades too late, it’s the self-important, voice-over-infested project you’re more likely to see Joan Plowright or Ellen Burstyn starring in these days than poor Laura Linney, and, to my memory, it’s the least Linney has ever impressed. It isn’t an indictment of her so much, given that, of the cast, only Olivia Williams attempts to elevate her first lady-character above besieged-by-the-time twaddle. But that might be because she’s playing the only person who isn’t swept away by the alluded charms of Bill Murray’s President Roosevelt, who’s written to captivate but has precious little on the page to enliven. We’re once again supposed to be amused by King George VI’s awkward demeanour, and the cheap standoff between Anglo-American relations as a brittle opposition of polite decorum and brash self-sufficiency. This isn’t a portrait of history so much as a comment-section cartoon, with cutting satire replaced by pandering bourgeois humour. Those will laugh, those won't; None of us will remember this film in six months’ time, so what does it matter?

Taken 2 (2012)

Taken 2

Directed by Olivier Megaton

Starring: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen

Grade: C [47]

I don’t know how much of a compliment it is to opine that Megaton’s sequel is better than Morel’s original, given that the 2008 film hammered us over the head with conservative paternal knowhow, while finding a way to bookend its turgid misadventures with Holly Valance as a rich-bitch-turned-Samaritan. What’s presented here is just as ludicrous, but far more straightforward, with a rounded sense of location and eminently more personal motive helping to offer some accessibility. But the absurd plot points override most of what’s going on here: casual terrorism is an orienteering exercise; slapdash city-roaming is a supposed logistic marvel. The parody here is too pallid to suggest genuine self-awareness, making this seem all the more unnecessary an addition to Liam Neeson’s portfolio of mediocre action movies.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Directed by Stephen Chbosky

Starring: Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, Ezra Miller

Grade: B+ [79]

In a world of exaggerated, simplified archetypes in cinematic portrayals of high school, it’s thoroughly refreshing to watch a film whereby students are expressed as actual human beings. This is the case with ‘Wallflower,’ which, with the help of confident performances from Watson and Miller, and a knockout leading turn from Lerman, details the interdependence of friendship through the tentative, personal annals of self-worth. While it’s true that the film’s structure feels as if its burdened central character is being heaped upon (as well as the audience) the beautifully layered routes toward connection ingratiate this sprawling sense of 90s youth with “Dazed and Confused”-style incision. Films with this much feeling simply aren't made anymore.

Holy Matrimony (1943)

Holy Matrimony

Directed by John M. Stahl

Starring: Monty Woolley, Gracie Fields, Laird Cregar

Grade: B- [61]

One expects this comedy about an artist feigning his own death read more concisely than it plays out on screen, but Monty Woolley was a savant at making the stuffy seem worthwhile, and the situation’s no different here. There are points lost for ending a modest running time with a tepidly-played courtroom exchange (as was the trend in the ‘30s and ‘40s) but the Oscar-nominated script so ably details the dilemmas of the noble classes in this time, through the nobility of its central character himself,  that the plucky insight atones for oversights in plotting. It navigates that “Random Harvest” brand of rescue-through-cultural-escapism comedy jauntily, and that was surely the aim.

In the Mood for a Catchup?

While it's true that I've been very quiet on the writing front (I hope to remedy this soon!) my podcast with Pete Sheppard of In the Mood for Blog is still up and running. 

Here are links to the twelve episodes we have recorded so far:


Episode 1: In Search of Structure [Prometheus/The Avengers/Dark Shadows]
Episode 2: Why So Serious? [Django Unchained/The Pact/Snow White]
Episode 3: Listen To Your Prostate [Cosmopolis/Rock Of Ages/Red Lights]
Episode 4: The Female of the Species [Anna Karenina; Lay the Favourite; Five Year Engagement]
Episode 5: The Moral Spectrum [Amazing Spider-Man; Killer Joe; Friends with Kids]
Episode 6: We All Want Glory [The Hunter; Best Exotic Marigold; God Bless America]
Episode 7: Injecting the Payload [Magic Mike; Seeking a Friend; Ice Age]
Episode 8: Fifty Shades of Hype [The Dark Knight Rises; The Lorax; Chris Nolan Retrospective]
Episode 9: Rants of a Summer Night [Olympics; Bergman; Antonioni]
Episode 10: Intolerance [Ted; Skyfall; Flowers of War]
Episode 11: Courage Of Conviction [Brave; 360; Truth or Dare]
Episode 12: Testosterone and Triangles [Bourne Legacy; Expendables; Take This Waltz]

If you don't fancy delving into an 80-90 minute recording, why not try listening to one of the three trailers we have up?

REVIEW: Hysteria

Hysteria
Directed by Tanya Wexler
Starring: Hugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jonathan Pryce, Felicity Jones, Sheridan Smith, Rupert Everett
Grade: C


A film about the invention of the vibrator, “Hysteria” may seem like a project tailor-made for female lead Maggie Gyllenhaal, a proven savant in sexualized roles—as a BDSM-loving subordinate in Steven Shainberg’s “Secretary” and as a promiscuous gold-digger in dry ensemble comedy “Happy Endings." But if you’re looking for “Hysteria” to push Gyllenhaal to new limits of, er, stimulation then allay those expectations; her fleety Charlotte Dalrymple is held in tepid admiration by male onlookers rather than fetishized, a character about as liberal as Ali MacGraw’s in “Love Story” was anti-establishment.

“Hysteria” is barely about Dalrymple anyway; it's much more concerned with the story of Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy), a budding physician serving under the watchful eye of Charlotte’s doctor-father. Involved in the stimulating massage therapy designed to give female patients relief through orgasm, Granville comes up with an instrument capable of replicating that sensation and revolutionizing the practices of sex in the process. While his breakthrough initially ruffles feathers among the more conservative members of London’s Hippocratic elite, he tempers the grouchy obstinacy of Dalrymple Snr. (Jonathan Pryce), with whom he affiliates himself both professionally and personally. An understudy and guest in the Dalrymple household, Granville begins to court his boss' youngest, Emily (Felicity Jones), a considerably meeker prospect than Gyllenhaal’s Charlotte.

This 1880s-set tale recalls the Freudian politics of David Cronenberg’s recent “A Dangerous Method,” but the results are hardly as jaw-jutting (“Hysteria” purposefully downplays its racy topic by making tongue-in-cheek humor a chief concern during its ethical face-offs between the old and new generations of medical science). Scribe Stephen Dyer opts for the route “The King’s Speech” may well have taken had it tempered its angsty royal hangups with more pandering middle-class humor. With well-to-do women crying “Tallyho!” at sexual climax and young maids being brought out of their reserved servitude by a ‘happy ending,’ much of “Hysteria” is gunning for chortles, leaving it completely disposable.

But “Hysteria” does at least offers the sensitive notion that there were men concerned with helping women achieve pleasure—pioneering an instrument which has the potential to render the phallus redundant—even in a Victorian era where female sexuality was treated as sinister and perverse. A winsome Hugh Dancy offers a pleasant, well-meaning buffer against all the sordid tales of masturbation, while Gyllenhaal tries her utmost to morph into Emma Thompson, ably imitating effortless swooping Estuary English tones and an all-knowing glare. The tentative central romance between bumbling sap and would-be Jane Austen heroine remains admirably unforced, the ease with which it unfurls free from the commonplace meanderings of most literary romances between inherently noble folk. But nevertheless this a limp union of people barely willing to shed grace through rebellion.

Read the rest of this review at InRO