Film Shapes

A nice little day out a couple of weeks back. Belmont's Reading cinemas followed by lunch at Jamie's Italian in the city. The film was Arrival, helmed by a fella who is fast becoming one of my favourite directors, Denis Villeneuve. This is a film that can be seen through a few different prisms. The socio-political angle of multi-lateralism and rapprochement is summed up nicely by this exchange: "If I only gave you a hammer...." "...Everything's a nail." Contrast this with the personal angle of love, memory and loss, especially relating to motherhood (or even parenthood). Mix with a little non-linear time and squirt a thick layer of language as communication and meaning. That's a tasty cake you've got there. Though on the face of it, this film is about the need for calm communication to solve worldly problems (a soft kick in the nuts to the Trumpacide about to occur), I think it's actually more about the character of Louise and the import...

A weekend trip to Busselton enabled me and the wife to pop over to Orana Cinema to see Doctor Strange . This is apparently Marvel's 14th film and I reckon I'd place it mid-table - Everton or Liverpool. Pretty good but not great. It began with a nice surprise. Mads Mikkelsen pulling a mean glower. Didn't know he was going to be in it, innit? From there, the film sets up Cumberbatch as a proper twat, a personality level that he doesn't quite shake by the end of proceedings. He's quite good here, though his accent took some time to grow on me. I think I just prefer his English one. Parts of this film are like Inception on crack. The VFX teams (I counted more than 10 companies in the credits) have done a fine job stretching the city-scape folding stuff. And the scene where the Ancient One sends Strange on a magical mushroom tour is nice and trippy. Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One is top notch, flirting with winking panto one moment and almost eliciting...

Across the channel now. I'd planned to do a top ten but so many belters would miss out if that were the format. So here are my favourite twenty French films. Again, ordering was extremely tough. 20. Buffet froid  (Bertrand Blier - 1979) Proper bonkers this is. Depardieu when he was a powerhouse, compared to just a house. I remember watching this with my face all screwed up, thinking "Can they even make films like this?" but loving it all the same. 19. Baxter (Jerome Boivin - 1989) Another odd'un. Narrated by Baxter himself, a malevolent or maybe just dog-like bull terrier, this film follows his efforts to find a suitable home. Co-written by Jacques Audiard, who will appear later in this list. 18. Entre les murs [The Class] (Laurent Cantet - 2008) A great slice of Parisian life, almost a documentary as it's based on the experiences of Francois Begaudeau, who wrote the novel, co-wrote the film AND bloody well starred in it and al...

I started this post a few years ago and left it mouldering away until Empire Magazine's 100 Best British films turned up recently, which triggered my memory. I'm not about to claim 'best' but these are certainly my 20 favourite British films, and if any of you haven't seen them, I suggest you give yourself a quick rub down and do something about it. So here they are from 20 to 1 (and except for the top 2, the order was mecha-difficult).... 20. Welcome to Sarajevo (Michael Winterbottom - 1997) A real no-frills, even miserable, look at the war in the Balkans and the international journos who covered it. Typically earthy treatment from Winterbottom and Stannis Baratheon himself, Dillane. 19. Oliver! (Carol Reed - 1968) Not massively into musicals but this is up with the best of them, with great performances from Ron Moody (left) as Fagin and Oliver Reed as Sykes. Top notch sing-alongs too - "In this life, one thing counts. In the bank, large...

A birthday treat. Lunch in Leederville with the good wife (not the bad one) and then a choc-bomb assisted screening of Ben Wheatley's  High-Rise . In the smallest cinema I've ever been in - screen 4 at the Luna Leederville. And it's quite a trip. I'm not a big fan of Wheatley, disliking  Down Terrace  and  Kill List  but on the basis of  High-Rise , I'll most likely check out his other work too. The story, based on the novel by J.G. Ballard, is nominally of class strata and ultimately class warfare, with Tom Hiddlestone pitching in as a kind of middle class cypher - to begin with. There are some potty scenes within the titular high-rise, including a kids' party that ends in the drowning of a dog (cardinal sin of film - killing a dog). It sets things up really well in the first hour - characters are introduced with little fuss and some aplomb (Luke Evans and Jeremy Irons among them). The sets (and the poster) are reminiscent of  A Clockwork Ora...

Belmont. Sunday morning. Long ticket queue. Even longer pocket-shafting snack bar queue (not required, thank you suckers). Bouncy castle for screaming kids in foyer. BUT $10 TICKETS!!! I'll suffer all that for a tenner, no mistake. To see Jason Bourne , the 4th film in the Matt Damon Bourne series. Let's gloss over the Bourne Legacy , just as director Paul Greengrass and the other writer, editor Christopher Rouse, did. Poor old, marginalised Jeremy Renner. He's got to be the richest "poor man's Matt Damon" going around. This 4th Bourne, coming nearly 10 years after Damon did one into a river, manages to track down our battered and bruising protagonist pretty easily. Lots of neat tech on display here. Damon himself looks grizzled and serious as ever. Cards on the table here. I'm a big fan of the Bourne films (again, leaving aside Legacy ) so I brought some positive baggage into the cinema, and I wasn't disappointed with Jason . It's excitin...