Latest screening: Fame

I have to bring down the axe on this one.

There was a great line in Edward Porter’s review of the new Fame in the Sunday Times that said something along the lines of “Remember their names? I can barely remember their faces!”

This essential sums up all that is wrong with the new Fame movie. There is nothing memorable about it.

You would think that when making a film about a group of dramatic arts and music students you would seek out the most talented unknowns out their. There must be dozens of them surely. Which makes you wonder how on Earth they finished up with this bunch of no-hopers! There is only one kid with any discernible talent, the pianist-turned-singer who has a teen Jennifer Hudson vibe, amongst the young cast. The rest is filled with lousy singers, uninspired dancers and wooden actors.

It does serve to make the underused teaching staff (Kelsey Grammer, Megan Mullahy, Bebe Neuwirth, Charles S Dutton) stand out more but I doubt that was an intention. In fact the script and direction goes out of its way to underserve these actors. Mullahy is given a terrible song to sing at a karaoke bar which does nothing to serve her natural singing talent, serving instead to make her sound shrill. It does perhaps show why her character did not make it as a successful singer and is just a teacher but that would be giving the director far too much credit I suspect and, besides, just not explain the awed gawping of the students. Grammer crops up in this scene out of nowhere making you think he was maybe just shoved in to give him more screen time. While Dutton has an hilarious storyline where one “troubled” student is telling a story and, in the timeline of the movie, it takes Dutton 2 years to ask the logical response question. What have these guys been doing for 2 years?!

And that brings me to the script which has two huge problems. The first is the timeline. The film follows the students over 3 years at the school, but does so so swiftly that it allows no time for growth. Most of the scenes follow in an ordered logic that would work just as well in a film that spanned a single week as 3 whole years. There is no growth. From one year to the next none of the characters appear to have developed, to have learnt a single thing. Those that are morose and troubled in year one are the same in year three. Naïve on day one? Yup, naïve on graduation. And this equally serves to kill any possible chance of rooting for a character to succeed. You don’t see characters getting better. Suddenly you are just jumped to another year and lo and behold someone quitting because they have an acting or dancing gig and you not only wonder “how did that happen?” but “who is that anyway?” The script does such a poor job of setting the characters up that often a characters “big moment” seems to be their only moment, leaving the audience shrugging and looking at their watches.

The other problem is the phenomenal lack of tension and drama. There seriously is none. It appears to be a phenomenon in Hollywood films I’m noticing more and more that they are so determined to hit all bases and offend absolutely no one that there is an almost comical lack of drama. The recent “thriller” Obsessed was this way. It had zero thrills. Fame is the same and hint as possible drama through unhappy parents or disappointments is so instantly resolved that no tension had built. A scene with one character possibly suicidal I was audibly rooting for the guy to kill himself just to give the film some sort of drama, an element of edge, a moment of guts, but no. Nothing. The closest thing you get to anticipation watching Fame (2009) is hoping it may at some point actually have something to anticipate!

This is probably partly the problem with hiring a choreographer to direct the movie. A good director (like the original film’s Alan Parker) can hire a good choreographer to help him but I guess a choreographer can’t exactly hire another director for advice. This films screams “I have no sense of story and drama” and while much of the blame can clearly be assigned to the script and the awful casting a good director would have seen those problems and, at least casting wise, probably helped avoid or overcome them. The director here is massively out of his depth.

Fame’s worst offence though is the truly unrealistic view of the world it portrays. The original went some way to at least suggest the work that such students have to put in, though perhaps in this age of reality TV where any moron can become an instant star this would be an unteachable, untenable lesson. Here any success any of the students have comes seemingly by luck and “right-place right-time” factors or from outside help. The school doesn’t seem to have helped them at all. And on top of that none of these students would make it because they are so phenomenally devoid of talent. A cast of talented unknowns with a choreographer director proved what can be done in Disney’s High School Musical. Given the potential for revisiting Fame in a modern day setting everyone involved should be ashamed of what they’ve turned out here.

Latest screening: Creation

A noble, if largely cerebral and often unengaging drama Creation has the problem of wanting to be about a moment more than a man; not quite biopic and not quite epiphanic story. This follows Darwin in the year leading up to the creation of Origin Of Species and its publication but deals more in the mental state of Darwin - his anxiety over writing and publishing a potentially incendiary theory; the conflict between his growing atheism, his wife's faith and his own weakness for wanting to avoid confrontation; and his dealing with the premature death of his (clearly favourite) child.

Of course this condences time and uses flashbacks to suggest all this conflict existed within Darwin as he pondered whether to write and publish his theory, and indeed if he were capable. But then dramatic licence is allowable, i don't believe biopics and true stories need be 100% accurate. Buy a book for God's sake!

But the main problem here is it's just not all that interesting watching Darwin spend 2 hours going over and over the same anxieties and issues. The drama feels forced because really you get the sense that in reality there's not much drama there.

It also doesn't help that as good as the supporting cast is they are barely in it, even Jennifer Connelly has next to nothing to do. She has more than the paltry single scene afforded Toby Jones or the couple of snippets for Jeremy Northam, and she is good when called upon - in a thankless role. It is at least impressive on her part that for a role that could so easily have come off as a cold woman you sense the care and love under her frustration and opposition to Darwin's atheism and self-obsession. Connelly has fallen into the seeming cold trap before and i suspect the underlying feelings achieved here and thanks in great part to the actual relationship she has with husband Paul Bettany.

Almost all the film sees Bettany either alone or interacting with a ghost/hallucation(?) of his dead daughter - acting as his conscience, his sounding-board, his only friend, his outlet and, of course, the only dramatic device the film has to avoid 90+ minutes of Darwin talking to himself. She's essentially Wilson the ball from Cast Away!

Despite the film's flaws Paul Bettany impresses. Doing more than you would think possible to make the film work it skates by on his performance, being just short enough that you don't lose all patience. He is engaging while the film fails to be and it raises the overall impact. Generally though this is a film that lives and dies on Bettany's shoulders.

Darwin may be a name remembered for centuries to come but it's doubtful memories of this film will continue much past leaving the theatre.

Latest screening: Toy Story 3D re-release

Is it possible for Toy Story (still Pixar's best film - and it has a heck of a competition - and one of the greatest animated films ever made) to be even better? Well, no - but it was fantastic to see it in 3D and back on the big screen.

Re-released in the UK for a one-week run a caught it twice. And it was glorious. I take nothing away from the 3D, it did look cool and on the first viewing it was almost impossible not to gaup for the first 5 minutes at the effect, but on reflection and the second viewing i realised it really only shows how brilliantly realised the Pixar worlds are already.

Many of the proponants of the new 3D talk about it being used to show depth and create a world instead of being a gimmick throwing things at you. The pluses and minuses of such an approach could not be more evident than here. This is film not made originally for 3D projection and therefore has none of the "gimmicks", so then the 3D is just adding the depth talked about. But then this is computer generated animation, it is and looks 3D regardless of the 3D projection. If the world has been thought out and created with care - and let's face it, it's Pixar so that's a given - then does the 3D projection add anything? I have to say no. If it had been re-released just as a standard re-release (like Disney always used to do with all their greats on a rota when i was a kid) i'd still have gone to see it twice.

But as said, it was still fun to see the effect applied even if it was largely unnecessary. For those who missed out look out for Toy Story 2 re-release coming to the UK on January 22. Let's hope now that these 3D prints have been paid for we'll see it cropping up back at cinemas a bit more often.

Latest screening: Me And Orson Welles

Orson Welles is alive and well and residing in the body of British actor Christian McKay!

McKay is simply stunning here as Welles - the look, the eye-brow, the mannerisms, the bounce, the voice - never have i seen Welles, as a character, better done. Many have tried few have succeeded (although i have a soft spot for Vincent D'Onofrio's Welles-cameo in Ed Wood. If you are a BAFTA voter you have to see this just for McKay, he's that good!

The same can be said in general for Richard Linklater's film in terms of featuring Welles and using the whole "putting on a show" theatrical device. I didn't like Oliver Parker's Fade To Black with Danny Huston hamming Welles. RKO 281 was solid and Tim Robbins' Cradle Will Rock was a noble, if unsatisfyingly drear effort. Aided by McKay's towering achievement, a (mostly) superb supporting cast and a deft lightness Linklater has delivered his best film in years.

To my mind he can be hit (Dazed & Confused, Before Sunrise) and miss (A Scanner Darkly, Fast Food Nation), but this is firmly in the hit category.

Other non-Welles films, such as Kenneth Branagh's In The Bleak Mid-Winter, have failed in their attempts to have fun at "putting on a show" format because they are too in love with moments that haver that "you just had to be there" element. Christopher Guest made a go of it in Waiting For Guffman, but then he was mocking the pretentions so many others embrace as part of the scene. Somehow McKay's (as Welles) enormous personality and Linklater's breezy "makes it look so easy" style make you feel like you are there in Me & Orson Welles and it works to great effect - tantalising the viewer with moments and flashes of the play to come without giving it to you until the right time. The 'Me' of the title really becomes the viewer. You are sweft along me both filmmaker and Orson (and it really does feel like Orson. After a few moments i never doubted the Linklater had somehow resurrected Welles and saddled him with Zac Efron!)

And this brings me the film's one real problem (and surely a marketing nightmare for the distributors!) Now i'm no Efron hater, i haven't seen any of the HSM movies, but he was fine in both Hairspray and 17 Again but here he has to register in a fantastic ensemble of actors and he simply doesn't. Admittedly he is hamstrung a little by the role. Since the story and Linklater's direction make the viewer feel like 'Me' observing Welles as he creates his legendary production of Julius Caesar and the Mercury theatre company it is easy to kind of forget about Efron's Richard, or at least to dismiss him as Welles so often does. He just makes no impression at all. He's not bad he's just not really significant.

This leads to the inevitable problem that as we reach the films final act, once the play is done and Welles is off screen you feel like the movie is over. You've seen everything there is to see here, it is time to move along. But no, because Efron's story is unresolved so we get another 10 minutes of him and his ending. But you simply don't care. Once McKay/Welles had gone off with his supporting cast the movie was over, it just didn't know it!

Amongst the supporting cast Claire Danes continues in display as easy charm, effortlessly likeable and curiously beautiful in her quirky angular way. Zoe Kazan (last seen in Revolutionary Road) is a delight as the underused other woman in Efron's life (although if she'd been used more it would have meant more Efron, less Welles so maybe that's a blessing in disguise). James Tupper is excellent as Joseph Cotten, a great match for McKay's Welles. If they ever (God forbid) remake The Third Man they have the cast! Ben Chaplin is also marvellous as George Couloris. I'm constantly impressed by Chaplin and have no idea why he isn't a bigger name. Kelly Reilly doesn't have much to do but look gorgeous, which, naturally, she does with ease. Eddie Marsan seems miscast as John Houseman. I like Marsan but he didn't fit the bill for me here.

Ultimately this is McKay's show. He gives an electrifying performance at the center of a movie that while it is about Welles efforts to put on Julius Caesar is a charming, funny and swift-paced joy; but unfortunately it also has to make space for Zac Efron and his own storyline and there-in lie the flaws.

How you market this i don't know! I can't imagine Efron fans getting excited about a film set in the 1930s about the creation of an historic theatrical production staged by a man who's been dead for 25 years! And on the flipside i nearly didn't see it because i dismissed it, on first awareness, as a Zac Efron movie and so not for me. Only on a second invitation did i notice it was directed by Linklater (always interesting, if not always successful) which charged my want to see it.

Ultimately though if you want to see it because you're an Efron fan, well go see it because your guy's in it and because you'll get to see something a bit different from what you're used it. And maybe you'll like it. If you're not an Efron fan, never fear, you can all but forget he's there and just enjoy Linklater at his breezy best and the best performance of Welles on screen since the great man departed this earth (and took possession of McKay!)

Latest screening: The Invention Of Lying

Oh dear! I had high hopes for this Ricky Gervais comedy. He's never proven himself on film, but here he was writing, directing, producing. He had come up with a great, funny concept. This was his chance to shine.

Unfortunately the light at the end of this tunnel is the train coming to run us down.

Like so many "high concept" comedies this is a concept in desperate, futile search of a plot... and some funnier lines.

It's no disaster. There are some funny bits. It starts well (or at least does after a hideously misguided voice-over explanation of the basic plot set-up) but the joke that everyone not only can't lie (lying doesn't exist you see, hence the title - obvious, right? So why the voice over explanation Ricky, why, oh, why!) but volunteers the truth, no matter how harsh, at every occasion quickly wears thin. He gets about 20 minutes out of it and some people handle it better than others. Curiously it is often the straight actors (like Jennifer Garner) that play it better and the comedians (like Tina Fey) who sound too much like they are delivering calculated lines to get a laugh - and therefore don't. I love Fey but every line of hers fell flat for me here while Garner sold the hell out of it. Perhaps it's the less comedic actors lose themselves more in the character and world and aren't trying for the gag, the laugh, just trusting in the script, etc. I don't know but it's noticeable time and again here.

A risky (for some American audiences) plot element involving his inadvertent creation of religion and the spiralling outcome of this is also amusing, but again it's funnier as an idea than in execution. Out-staying its welcome.

There are also some dynamite cameos, including two that had my laughing simply by their presence. A bar tender that joins Gervais and the excellent Louis C.K. in a scene is both funny by presence and in his dynamite delivery. I'm not going to say who plays it because if you're going to watch the film it was one of the highlights for me.

As was another cameo by a usually fairly serious actor (although he has shown a comedic side on occasion) as a traffic cop. Again just his presence is funny from the moment he walks on screen and the voice (cause you won't instantly recognise him) gives him away.

A scene with two Extras regulars is fun but feels out of place in the film, almost playing like an afterthought put in for faithful fans.

Amongst the other leads Garner triumphs and Louis C.K. is very funny, but Jonah Hill is underused and never hits the high notes he achieved in Funny People, while Tina Fey doesn't bring it (and i so wanted her to) and Rob Lowe really fails in an update of his Wayne's World character.

But ultimately this descends into sentiment and lacks resolve or real drama. It often feels like a string of stand-up one-liners extended into plot devices (as there is no lying movies are a guy -nice touch cameo from Christopher Guest as one such - reading a book on camera) that work once but then are repeated over and over, beating the gag into submission. Ideas like the use of lying to make people feel better are similarly used once to affecting and comedic effect but then overplayed.

And before you know it you're bogged down in a film about perception of others and looking beyond the surface that could have been reached by any number of devices, making the lying thing irrelevant!

Like Bruce Almighty the concept can only get the film so far before you notice you have almost no interest in the characters, there is no discernable plot and we're going to descend into sentimentality without passing through palpable drama or achieving any resolve.

Disappointing is the only appropriate word.

New Studio Ghibli!

A new Studio Ghibli movie is always a reason to celebrate (even if we in the UK are left waiting 18 months + between the Japanese release and appearance on our shores!) and news came this week that the legendary animation house's next prject will see the return of director Isao Takahata (Graveyard Of The Fireflies, Only Yesterday) for the first time in a decade. Takahata co-founded Ghibli with the more famous (to Western audiences) face of the company Hayao Miyazaki and many consider Graveyard Of The Fireflies to be one the the greatest animated films of all-time.

The new film will be based on one of Japan's oldest folktales, which dates from the 10th century, The Tale Of The Bamboo Cutter.

Added to this the news the Ghibli blog reports Miyazaki-san is setting up two more features to do himself in the next 3 years. For a man who announced his retirement with Howl's Moving Castle, way before Ponyo was headed our way, this can only delight his fans.

2 New Trailers: Men Who... and Inception

Men Who Stare At Goats - okay the combination of George Clooney and Jeff Bridges in a daft-as-brushes comedy is enough to get me into a theatre regardless but this does look damn funny, and Kevin Spacey gets the best trailer moment with the wedding scenes.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/themenwhostareatgoats/

Inception - only a teaser for Chris Nolan's new mind-bender but it looks intriguing and let's face it the man has never made a bad movie and he has a cast including Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard and past Nolan collaborators Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy and Michael Caine so surely this'll be a winner.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810099246/video/15201197