O Brother Where Art Thou
The Soggy Bottom Boys - Man of Constant Sorrow
If you need a laugh and something to make you feel really good then this is the movie for you. We all watched it at Les Grebies in March and laughed 'till our sides split. The sound track is fantastic, especially "Man of Constant Sorrow" in the clip above. And of course George Clooney is, as always, rather gorgeous! Amanda :)
The warmth and humour of "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" shines through not only in the characters, but also in the remarkable cinematography. It's a major star, every bit as handsome as George Clooney. The Coen Brothers turn as usual to their regular director of cinematography, Roger Deakins. Using digital processing, each frame of the movie is steeped in a rich sepia verve that's quite electrifying on disc. Autumnal shades dominate in a startlingly clear image that's bathed in detail and is a pleasure to watch.
The sound mix is every bit as intricate, and, as with the visuals, is designed to submerge you in the mood of the movie. Crickets, birdsong, and ruffles of wind tease the speakers around you in one of the few soundtracks that really envelops the viewer. The closeness of the effects is very atmospheric and when moments like the thunderstorm in chapter 11 hit you, they do so with real ferocity.
Almar Haflidason
BBC Film Reviews
Gran Torino
Don't mistake this film for something to do with the game of the same name as I did!
It is awesome....and make sure you have some tissues at the ready. Amanda :)
This is widower, retired car worker, military veteran and seething American patriot Walt Kowalski, played by Clint Eastwood. (Eastwood also directs and produces.) We join the story as the ageing Walt has just lost his wife. The neighbourhood has gone all to hell, too. The house next door is now owned by a Hmong family - a widespread South-east Asian minority - and Walt does not trouble to distinguish them from the Koreans he fought in the 1950s, of whom, we are later to learn, he despatched at least 13.
Eastwood's performance as Walt is a treat. No one could have animated the role like this and no one else could conceivably have got away with the racist tirades, reactionary arias and bigoted broadsides. He gets away with it because we know full well that he is eventually going to reveal that great big bruised and hurting heart-of-gold hidden under the faded grey T-shirt.
Eastwood, at the age of 78, can carry off the essentially comic combination of elderly mannerisms and cowboy menace. He has his belt hitched up high like an old geezer and his short-sleeved shirt reveals his wrinkly elbows, and his long senior-citizen forearms.
This is still an enjoyably big, brash, macho melodrama, saved from absurdity by Eastwood's cracking performance. But it is almost certainly Clint Eastwood's final acting appearance: a must-see on that account if nothing else.
Peter Bradshaw
The Guardian, Friday 20 February 2009
Article history
Atonement
The film, adapted from McEwan's novel by Christopher Hampton, begins on a hot summer’s day in 1935. A country-house beauty, Cecilia (played by Keira Knightley), is having a secret affair with the housekeeper’s son, Robbie (James McAvoy). But that’s not how it looks to 12-year-old Briony. This overexcited young girl, who likes writing stories and plays, uses her imagination to turn McAvoy’s innocent Robbie into a sexual monster.
This is cleverly done. Briony's evidence hinges on a handful of adult intimacies that tell a quite different story when viewed through the eyes of a child. McEwan’s novels are adept at laying these traps. Knightley’s tawny beauty is both victim and provocateur, depending on how Wright replays the scenes. She and McAvoy are like the forbidden lovers in Brief Encounter: all starched passion and brittle cut-glass accents. McAvoy’s shy advances and impeccable manners betray his lower social standing, while Knightley is the playful aristocratic tease who tempts him to go further.
Working with Wright has really opened up Knightley's acting: the range of her performance here means that she has a tilt, at least, at an Oscar nomination.
James Christopher at the Venice Film Festival
Times Online
August 29th 2007
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
An adaptation that stays true to Stieg Larsson's novel but isn't too cowed by the book’s popularity to spice up the story.
A disgraced middle-aged journalist teams up with a pierced, tattooed and aggressively antisocial computer hacker to investigate a disappearance and a dark family secret — the late Stieg Larsson put a 21st-century spin on the classic crime thriller and the result was one of the publishing success stories of the decade.
It’s a book that poses a formidable challenge to film-makers. How to cram a densely plotted 500-page crime thriller that spans decades, orchestrates scores of morally dubious characters and encompasses corporate malpractice on a global scale into one feature film? Add to this that fact that the book has sold more than 10 million copies and has the sort of feverish fanbase that would go for the jugular at the slightest hint of a narrative inconsistency or casting anomaly.
It’s to their credit, then, that the director Niels Arden Oplev and screenwriters Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg, employing an approach that approximates hurtling through the story on an out-of-control freight train, have succeeded in making a breathless, edgy, entertainingly pulpy genre picture. The adaptation stays true to the spirit of the novel but is not too cowed by the book’s popularity to spice up the story with the occasional high-tension setpiece.
The film fairly rattles through the story’s set-up, covering the investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist’s messy court case and subsequent public humiliation, and the bisexual hacker Lisbeth Salander’s woes with her court appointed guardian. The only time the film lingers, with a sticky-fingered salaciousness that is rather off-putting, is during a violent sexual attack on Salander. It’s one off-key note that jars in an otherwise pretty much pitch-perfect adaptation.
The film’s main asset is unquestionably Noomi Rapace, playing Lisbeth Salander. She’s a sullen, smoky-eyed goth who looks like a cross between Violet from The Incredibles and the contents of a hardware shop. The only thing steelier than her facial piercings is her glare. She’s a fascinating, enigmatic creation, a loner motivated by cold rage, disconnected sex and rifling through other people’s electronic secrets.
It’s hard to imagine an actress better suited to bringing Larsson’s abrasive, strong-minded protagonist to life. Rapace is as thin as a knife slash and attacks the role as if it challenged her to a fight. In contrast, Michael Nyqvist is suitably crumpled and careworn as the jaded idealist Blomkvist. It’s not a showy, ego-led performance, more a solid foundation of normality that counterpoints Rapace’s curious, almost reptilian sex appeal.
An American version of the book is currently in pre-production and, with Steve Zaillian (Schindler’s List) writing it, promises to be a quality project. Still, the melancholy grey-blue half-light of northern Sweden in winter and the scary savagery of Rapace are two elements that will inevitably be missing in any Hollywood remake.
Times Online
March 12, 2010