Shortcomings

The Hobbit the book is a neat, concise grand adventure packed into 310 pages. An aperitif for the main event.  The Hobbit the film is another matter altogether. Sprawling and a tad long winded, it has more padding than Robin William’s fat suit in Mrs.Doubtfire.  

 

 

Running at 166mins might be acceptable if the whole tale was being told but those damn money grabbing, hand rubbing film execs have made it into a three parter. That’s right folks; you’re talking around about 9 hours to tell a story that is 310 pages long. Let’s do the movie maths. So going by the old rule of thumb that 1 page of script = 1 minute of running time (there are exceptions of course, but let’s say it’s a rough guideline) and let’s say the next two films will probably stay within the running time of 3 hours (180mins) sooooo countdown clocks at the ready, I’ll take 3 small and 2 big please Carol. It works out at 540 mins running time for all three movies, making the script at about the 540 page mark….really? REALLY? To tell a book, which with all its flourished and descriptive words, only runs in at 310 pages?

Sorry that was a tad long winded but a big pet peeve is directors that can’t trim the fat. And on that note another pet peeve is throwing in some gimmicky new technique for the hell of it. Peter Jackson has shot all the new Hobbit films on 48 frames per second, double the average frame speed of a regular movie. He done this in an attempt to counterbalance the 3D, to make the experience more immersive but it has nearly had the exact opposite effect. Making the viewer feel detached and giving the film an altogether cheap look and feel.  This Film Fryer- Upper went to a 3D HFR (higher frame rate) screening, which could be to blame for the bad taste left in my mouth after viewing. The masses seem to say the best way to watch this film is in the regular 2D setting.

Take away all the foibles and miss steps and you still can’t help but feel The Hobbit is lacking in something grander. Secondary characters aren’t well developed and even though the beginning is gripping, the pace is off kilter. In these altogether dark few months Film Fry Up’s advice is to don’t leave the house, turn on the telly, stick on any of The Lord of the Rings movies, eat all the Christmas Chocolate and enjoy a J.R.R. Tolkien story told right.

 

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Every Cloud, eh?

As the saying goes every cloud has a sliver lining, with that in mind and fingers crossed the trepidatious  cinephile sat down to view Silver Linings Playbook. And it was by no means an easy feat considering this one bloggers hatred of a certain middle of the road, punch face, smarmy Bradley Cooper. But let’s cast that loathing aside in an Oprah-esque fashion and get down to brass tacks.

Silver Linings Playbook, adapted from the book of the same name, is a story about finding love when you least expect it or maybe it’s about achieving your authentic life fulfilment or some other self-help book nonsense. On paper it sounds like the biggest saccharine sweet thing going but translated to screen it’s a pretty enjoyable way to spend two odd hours of your time. David 0. Russell handles the script brilliantly, submitting enough honest laughs to keep the pace light hearted but then allowing the actors to hit home with the dramatic sub plots. A wealth of topics is covered in Silver Linings and it’s directed perfectly.

Great acting performances from the leads help cement the loopy storyline. Oh yeah and that’s right hell has just frozen over, Bradley Cooper was actually quite good. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he had a rubbish bag on for half the movie or maybe Jennifer Lawrence is such a talent ( and a girl crush ) that I was blind to his uber punchable face.

Okay so it gets a little too cutesy and quirky for its own good sometimes but it treads the line quite nicely. Romantic, enjoyable and even with the topics of bipolar disorder, death, adultery and O.C.D being in the mix, it’s an altogether heart warmer.

 

P.S. watch out for this one come awards season!

 

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Open letter to Bill Condon.

 

 

 

 

Dear Bill,

I am writing this letter on behalf of my sanity. Having only watched The Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part 2 last night I was wondering if you could clear up some questions for me? Firstly why is the title of this movie so obnoxiously long, no really, couldn’t you have shortened it just a little bit, maybe taken off the pretentious “The Twilight Saga” part? Secondly who was responsible for the script? Was the lack of dialogue used to mask the horrible inadequacies of the cast or did you get a 10 year old to write it? Since we are on the lines of a 10 year old penning this tale who’s idea was the twist in the battle field scene? No please tell me, because I swear that’s how I used to write my way out of a corner in every short story I wrote in English class when I was 10.

Who did the special effects? Not only are the laughable and altogether quite poor, you seem to have made some bad calls as to where it should be used. C.G.I.ed baby, yeah don’t worry that won’t age badly at all. The fact that it looks past it’s sell by date already is nothing to do with it, right? Was it really that hard to just get a different baby for each time the demon spawn grew?

Does Robert Pattinson always have a bad smell under his nose or is that “acting”? Does Kirsten Stewart have only one emotion and if she where to try and show a different one she would explode?  Why does your makeup artist have a knack for taking perfectly attractive people and making then look like wig wearing corpses, something along the lines of Bruce Jenner? Oh and why is there never any blood or fangs? Really, REALLY??? It’s a movie about vampires, that’s like making a film with Matthew McConaughey and leaving out the no shirt wearing parts.

Well Mr.Condon you should be ashamed. It was never going to be an easy task but you seem to have handled it with a heavy hand. Maybe Catherine Hardwicke had the right idea at the time and got out after her beautifully shot Twilight but you Bill seem to have stuck around. Oh but your opening titles were nice, that’s a job done good I suppose.

Regards,

Ciara XXX

The lights are on but nobody's home

Thank god Cillian Murphy is a good actor or Red Lights would have been an altogether unbearable experience. The story of a team of academic debunkers who work in exposing frauds of the physic variety starring Sigourney Weaver, Robert De Niro and the aforementioned Mr.Murphy has all the makings of a great psychological thriller but falls flat about half way through its running time.

 

 

The subject matter of this film, that maybe there is no thing as physic ability, is a thought provoking concept. The controversial topic is interesting but the director Rodrigo Cortés, on top form with recent Buried, seems to not want to take a decisive stand point on the subject. Leaving the film with no real direction and seemingly no sense of purpose, it over stays it’s welcome.

The first half of Red Lights burns with anticipation as to its inevitable outcome but with a twist in the last five minutes like the ones that put M. Night Shyamalan’s career in its decline, leaves the viewer reeling with the crassness of it all.  De Niro and Weaver get barely enough screen time to work with the dire script and Murphy is left manning the helm of this sinking ship of a movie. He holds it together just about but the main thought after viewing is why did all these top notch actors sign up to such drivel?  A promising premise, a wealth of talent and a subject matter full of exploration and debate gets fed into the food processor of Hollywood and comes out looking like straight to T.V. unintelligent mush. Red Lights indicate stop

 

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La piel que habito

Pedro Almodóvar has some talent. Anyone else who tried to make a film like The Skin I Live In(2011)would have treaded heavily, fumbled and fallen with the oddness of it all. Antonio Banderas plays a brilliant plastic surgeon, with about as much baggage as Lady Gaga on a world tour, who invents and prefects an artificial skin with the aid of his human test subject.  This is really as much of the plot that can be given away without ruining a fine piece of cinema. The mystery to the story that opens up around the audience is a stroke of genius.

 

Almodovar has been quoted as saying that The Skin I Live In is “a horror story without screams or frights”. And my did he get it right. Maybe a little slow to start but once it gets going, it really gets going. Banderas is the linchpin in this tale, drawing the viewer in with a superb turn as the manic, once loving, surgeon. It could have easily all gone so wrong, a story verging on wacky and distasteful, it is beautifully played out with Almodovar at the helm.  A true horror story that will linger in your subconscious for quite some time after viewing. If you missed it in the cinema first time round, get it on D.V.D now. You won’t be disappointed.

 

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Chef's recommended dish of the month: October

Gus Van Sant, film marmite. Apart from Good Will Hunting the majority of his films polarise people’s opinions. His work is trademarked with lots of slow organic shots, minimal dialogue and a pace akin to the trudging of an auld wan on her way to the shops. Personally I think this month’s dish is a great piece of filmmaking but if that’s not your bag than stop reading right here. No really, just stop, I mean it. You’ll get angry at me if you watch it.

 

 

Severed up this month is Last Days (2005) the story of a musician dealing with depression, isolation and suicidal thoughts. And once I tell you that the plot is based on Kurt Cobain  you don’t need to be a genius to figure out how it all ends. Due to Courtney Love’s tight grasp on all things Nirvana the copyright and green light was never given so we have changed names and no nirvana music but it’s pretty blatant as to where Gus Van Sant has gotten his inspiration from.

Last Days works beautifully in the sense that it captures the feeling of voyeurism quite well. A fan of Nirvana will know that that was always an issue with Kurt, the fame that the band brought, the feeling of always being watched. Michael Pitt does a stellar job as the infamous frontman, even belting out a not too bad singing impression of the late musician. He has got the forlorn, disconnected thing down pat and his traipsing’s seem to come quite naturally. Some may argue that he spends the most part of the film hiding behind his hair and mumbling quite a bit but that strikes me as a familiar practice amongst angst ridden musicians anyways.

Michael Pitt has picked quite interesting roles in his career (see Funny Games, The Dreamers) after his dire turn on Dawson’s Creek. Looking like Leonardo DiCaprio’s weird younger brother that never leaves his room and spends all his time filming plastic bags floating in the wind he could have fizzled off to nothing but give this man time. With his recent exit from Boardwalk Empire I think he could be one to watch. At least one to entertain and shock.

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Just a little up the road, on the right...

We all have guilty pleasures. Maybe it’s a penchant for Taylor Swift, a love for Party of Five or even an unhealthy obsession with A.C Slater. Lying under the surface of every good movie fan is a much watched D.V.D that they would rather you didn’t know about.  Me, I’ve got too many to count. Growing up on a diet of a dime a dozen trashy teen slashers, I sure as hell love a good horror/thriller.  Oh and when I mean a “good” horror/thriller, I mean a BAD one.  Case in point, The House at the End of the Street.

 

 

 Jennifer Lawrence stars in this tawdry horror ( could you even call it a horror, when I’ve gotten more scared looking in the mirror in the mornings? ) about her next door neighbours mysterious house, where, lets just say a lot of bad things happened. Sounds familiar? Well it probably is. The plot reads like the back of every Point Horror book you read growing up.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you it’s a good movie because it isn’t. There are more movie cliché’s in say ten minutes of it’s running time than you could shake a stick at. Jennifer Lawrence is much better than this fodder, the acting is woeful and the dialogue even worse.  Not to mention the “twists” that are telegraphed worse than smoke signals. But I just can’t help but love it. Its tacky, trashy and thoroughly entertaining.  You have be warned though. Its bad, REAL bad.

Can be found labelled “Guilty Pleasure”, filed beside Dawson’s Creek boxset and Channing Tatum back catalogue.

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Moonshine madness

 

Prohibition is a hot topic in Hollywood these days. Unless you have been living in a cave for the last few years you will have undoubtedly heard about the smash HBO show Boardwalk Empire, set in Atlantic City in the early years of prohibition. Running with the popularity of the show, Matt Bondurant’s 2008 novel The Wettest County in the World has been adapted by musician Nick Cave for the big screen. Lawless, as it’s called, stars Shia La Boeuf, Tom Hardy and Guy Pearce to name but a few. Set mostly in 1931 it tells the tale of three country brothers who run a moonshine business. 

And well, that about sums it up.  The casting is strong and the main performers make this film an enjoyable watch but somewhere along the way you can’t help but feel it could have been something more. Guy Pearce has an excellent turn as an old fashioned baddie and Tom Hardy (cardigan and all) puts in another great performance to add to the list but Shia La Boeuf gets lost in a muddle of mumbling lines and unlikability.

 Fans of the HBO show will have an altogether too familiar feeling watching Lawless, we have been there and seen it all before. Not that that’s a bad thing but it lacks the bright lights big city feeling that Boardwalk Empire is so good at capturing. Lawless is perfectly good entertainment, well shot and beautifully made but it’s a bit on the throwaway side of things. Nothing new is brought to the table and certain facets of the story aren’t as well explored as they should be. But if it’s a good old-fashioned story you’re after then Lawless is your man. 

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All Killer No Filler

A film starring Matthew Mc Conaughey AND Emilie Hirsch slipping under my radar is not something that happens all too often but it did when it came to Killer Joe. Maybe it had something to do with Mr. Mc Conaughey’s other film that hit theatres on the same week, Magic Mike. And lets face it strippers sell a little better than graphic scenes of violence. Killer Joe having the latter in abundance.

Telling the story of a father and son’s plot to hire someone to kill their mother for insurance money, Killer Joe is a refreshing and darkly entertaining return to form for William Freidkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection). Hugely shocking in parts and not for your average film goer but if you have the stomach to stick this one out, it’s a rewarding work of cinema.

Mc Conaughey’s Joe is magnetic to watch. Having spent the most part of the last ten years of his career taking his top off its great to see him step up to the plate and bat a curve ball. Showing flickers of Bale’s Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, Mc Conaughey gives this film a central character that is a triumph worthy of some awards attention.

But be warned this film won’t please everyone, I’m nearly sure most of the audience at my screening left shaking their heads or had to pick their jaws up off the floor after the lights came on. Its shocking, brilliant, disturbing and funny. Not many films can thread that line so easily. Tightly paced, filled with top notch acting and its sleazily entertaining, they need to make more films like this. Oh and you will definitely never ever look at fried chicken the same way again…you have been told….

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Hungry for more?

So its beaten a lot of records, big ones to be precise. Gaining $155 million in the box office in a very short time, its debut only having been beaten by Harry Potter and The Dark Knight.  Many people, apart from the teen audience, are scratching their heads wondering what the Hunger Games is really all about and why has there been such a fuss made over it.

Set in a future America called Panem, it tells the story of how each year 24 “tributes” (boys and girls aged between 12 and 18) are picked to duke it out in a hellish arena until only one of them survives. Pretty morbid right?

It would have been easy for the studio to get someone to make a play by play retelling of the book but they haven’t. Fair enough it doesn’t stray too far away from its original source material but this is a film with style, substance and heart unlike the Twilight franchise which has the feel of a T.V. movie.
Gary Ross uses hand held excellently during the gorier parts to keep the suspense going,  craftily helping it escape a 15 rating making it more accessible to a younger audience. 

But the real star of the show is Jennifer Lawrence. I would hate to think what this film would be like with a different actress playing the title role. Her portrayal of the hardened hunter girl Katniss Everdeen is spot on. You can see the reflections of her character in Winters Bone which she gained an Oscar Nod for.  She pulls the film together brilliantly helped with great performances from Woody Harrelson as her drunken mentor and Donald Sutherland as the wise and deadly President Snow.

What resonates most about this film is the fact that it plays with the idea of the reality show culture that is so strong in today’s society.  From the overly vapid and colourful people of the Capitol (a futuristic L.A.) to the Game makers ( Directors of  the televised Hunger Games “show” )  it makes the idea of this future seem realistic and altogether frightening.  This film will linger in your mind long after viewing. It might not be the perfect movie, those are hard to find, but the main concept behind it is original and thought provoking.  Don’t get fooled into thinking this is one for the teens,  everyone would enjoy The Hunger Games. Well maybe not your 85 year old Grandmother, maybe best not to bring her to it.

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Irish News Review

So here's the scoop....

I've started writing for The Irish News Review too. Be ever so nice and read my shizz there too.

http://irishnewsreview.net/

Thanks Ya'll! Here is a completely gratuitous Ryan Gosling Meme for your troubles...probably my favourite....

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Back in Black

Okay so slap me on the wrist, this review is a tad past its due date but hey better late then never, right? RIGHT?

The Woman in Black is the first film released under the brand spanking new reopening of the classic production house Hammer Studios and my is it a good one. Its the type of film that takes you back to remembering why you first fell in love with the horror genre. It feels like a campfire story, like a short novella found on the yellowing pages of a dusty tome.

Daniel "don't mention a Harry Potter based pun" Radcliffe plays a young widow sent to settle the estate of a rich if badly troubled couple. Once there he quickly realises that the case isn't as straight forward as he was expecting.

There are so many beautiful things right about this film. The set and costume design is enough to keep anyone entertained but throw in the imaginative and breathtaking cinematography and you have yourself a pretty amazing foundation for a film. Every shot could be a promotional still, not one inch of the screen is wasted.
The suspense built right from the start and carried on throughout keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat and Radcilffe's performance as a haunted man dealing with his own grief ain't half bad either.

There is a downside to all this Gothic brilliance and it comes in the form of a  lack luster ending. It will leave you with a slightly bitter aftertaste in your mouth, feeling like you have been pick pocketed by a Victorian street urchin. But don't let it fool you, this film will linger in your subconscious. It will stay vivid in your mind. And at the end of the day if a horror movie can do that, then its done its job.

A beautiful movie with an ugly ending...hey perfection ain't all that easy!

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"To making it count"

So I'm a bit slow on the whole new years thing. I'm aware that its nearly the end of the month and most peoples new years resolutions have begun to slowly sink into the tar pit of neglect only to be resurrected like a raptor claw by the hands of Sam Neill in another 11 months time but I thought that I would impart some resolutions to my limited reader audience. Filmed based resolutions that is.

1. Become acquainted with the works of Sam Rockwell. From Choke to Confessions of a Dangerous Mind to Moon, the man rarely sets a foot wrong. But even when he does it stills turns out to not be a complete disaster, normally saved by a bit of Rockwell screen time, see Charlies Angels and Iron Man 2.

2. Remember that first and foremost Ryan Gosling is a great actor. The market in the past year has become over saturated with the Gos and even though I never thought I'd say this....I'm well, getting a little bored. If you worry you could be close to having an O.D. of the Ryan variety fear not. Just pop on Lars and the Real Girl or Half Nelson and your faith in the Church of Gosling will soon be restored.

3. While on the Ryan note, don't go to see a Ryan Reynolds movie just because "He is in it". I have fallen many a time into this trap, sometimes it works (The Proposal) sometimes Reynolds just ain't enough to save a sinking Titanic of a movie (Green Lantern)

4. Don't get excited about the Hunger Games movie. I was and then had to stop myself along the way. It looks cheap, badly adapted and apart from Jennifer Lawrence, badly cast. Gawd I hope I'm wrong because the last thing I think anyone wants to see is a much loved book getting ripped apart for an hour or two. Well at least they can't be as badly made as the Twilight films, a monkey with a camera phone could have done a better job. (Sorry Catherine Hardwicke, if I'd have had it my way you would have made them all)

5. Get excited about The Dark Knight Rises, like totally, like everyone is so like do the same. Its not out until the 20th July but like just make a calender and mark the days or something like....okay okay I'm looking forward to it but in fairness I highly doubt it will have a patch on the past two even if Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the lovely Marion Cotillard are all new additions.

Oh and by the way that truly terrible film starring John Cusack has given us warning. If we have been taught anything its that movies never lie. So here's to a great 2012,  by the looks of things its our last one!

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