Sunday, November 30, 2008

Nov 29th
Waltz with Bashir** (18)

















Phoenix Cinema, East Finchley

Israel/Fra/Ger/US/Japan/Fin/Belgium/Australia 2008. Bridgit Folman Gang/Les Films D'Ici/Razor Film/Arte France/ITVS International. 90m.

An Israeli film maker stuggles to reconcile his memories of the siege of Beirut in 1982 with friends and fellow witnesses.
Compelling animated docudrama which conveys certain potent images that would be harder (and more painful) to recreate in live action form. Grim, and rather subjective, but very imaginatively told.

Written and Directed by: Ari Folman.
Producers: Ari Folman, Serge Lalou, Yael Nahlieli, Gerhard Meixner, Roman Paul.
Animation: Yoni Goodman.
Music: Max Richter.


Labels: , ,

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Nov 25th
Carve Her Name with Pride**
GB 1958. Rank. 119m. bw

Adventures in WWII of Violette Szabo, who helped organise the French Resistance leading up to D-Day.
Moderately romanticised biopic with some good character scenes, an interesting sister piece to Reach for the Sky: a female variation on the old stiff upper lip, made on a typically restrained British low budget.

Written by: Vernon Harris, Lewis Gilbert, from the book by R.J. Minney.
Producer: Daniel M. Angel.
Director: Lewis Gilbert.
Starring: Virgina McKenna, Paul Scofield, Jack Warner, Alain Saury, Denise Gray, Sydney Taffler, Noel Willman, Bill Owen, William Mervyn, Billie Whitelaw.
Photography: John Wilcox.
Music: William Alwyn.

Labels:

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Nov 20th
Quantum of Solace* (12A)
Hollywood Film Theatre, Ipswich

James Bond follows the trail of an international criminal organisation with friends in high places, which leads to a Bolivian entrepreneur.
Action-driven sequel to Casino Royale, of which most of the action is unintelligible, as also is the story (with a plot that vaguely resembles Licence to Kill - another "tougher" Bond - in its second act.) A hotchpotch of Bonds old and new, with one interesting Hitchcock-style set piece at the Vienna opera, and the star is as mean and moody as before.

d: Marc Forster.
s: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench, Gemma Arterton, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini, Jesper Christensen, Tim Pigott-Smith.
Titles: MK12.

Preceded by:
Elevator Music*
(Virgin Media Shorts) (d: Serdar Ferit.)

Labels:

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Nov 18th
W.** (15)
Odeon Colchester

George W. Bush is kicked out of college and several jobs in the shadow of his father, but in time manages to follow him into The White House and authorises the illegal war in Iraq.
Commendable serio-comic biopic with added elements of Greek tragedy, which could hardly be any more satirical than the real thing, but gets it political points across well enough, and manages to cut through some of the stereotypes to portray something like a rounded portrait - although it omits certain key events such as September 11th and the two Presidential elections (particularly the cheated first one.) By this director's standards, he's soft pedalling.

d: Oliver Stone
s: Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, James Cromwell, Richard Dreyfuss, Scott Glenn, Toby Jones, Stacy Keach, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Ellen Burstyn, Ioan Gruffudd.

Labels:

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Nov 12th
Blood of the Vampire*
GB 1958. Universal/Artistes Alliance. 85m.

A vampiric doctor runs an asylum where he experiments on the patients to try and cure him of his own blood disease.
Moderately effective regurgitation of the Hammer style, using some of the same talents, with a distinguished doyen of the stage (who was later satirised in the film Theatre of Blood) in a rare film leading role. The rest of the cast is interesting too, although production-wise it's rather loosely assembled in certain departments, and with a weak finale.

Written by: Jimmy Sangster.
Producers: Robert S. Baker, Monty Berman.
Director: Henry Cass.
Starring: Donald Wolfit, Vincent Ball, Barbara Shelley, Victor Maddern, William Devlin, Andrew Faulds, Bryan Coleman, John Le Mesurier, Bernard Bresslaw.
Photography: Monty Berman.
Music: Stanley Black.
Art Direction: John Elphick.

Labels: