Family Plot (The Descendants, Alexander Payne, US, 2011, 115 mins) There are no dull Alexander Payne movies and the great news, following 2004’s Sideways, one of the best films of the last decade, is that there still aren’t. Payne’s eye for life’s idiosyncrasies is sharp; he sees the kook and pathos in an environment like [...]
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Cheyenne’s Autumn (This Must Be the Place, Paolo Sorrentino, US/It/Eire, 2011, 118 mins) Robert Smith: Nazi Hunter, might have been an alternative title for this Goth road movie; a charming oddity patterned on the eccentric and, befitting the musical genre suggested by his red lipstick, black eyeliner and explosion of midnight hair, introspective persona of [...]
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Much Ado About Nothing (Anonymous, Roland Emmerich, UK/Ger, 2011, 130 mins) Anonymous may focus on William Shakespeare (1564-1616) but John Orloff’s sub-literate plot is patterned on a contemporary scribe, 21st century bard Dan Brown. It quadruples as a posthumous libel, a Hey Nonny Nonny Royal Court soap opera, an Elizabethan caricature and a backhanded celebration [...]
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The bright side of death (Bernie, Richard Linklater, US, 2011, 104 mins) “It was fucking unbelievable”; that’s the judgement of one resident of Carthage, Texas, recalling the moment he heard that local Mortician and community mascot, Bernie Tiede, had been arrested for the murder of 81 year old Margaret Nugent. Eighty percent of the testimonials [...]
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Perchance to Dream (The Ides of March, George Clooney, US, 2011, 101 mins) [Warning: This review reveals a key plot point] George Clooney understands the tension between the ends and the means. He staked his integrity, dignity and professional reputation on a grab for movie stardom, accepting the lead role in Joel Schumacher’s Batman and [...]
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Mother’s Ruin (We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lynne Ramsay, UK, 2011, 112 mins) Since cinema’s formative years, the literati have looked at this fledgling art form with suspicion and a distinct lack of warmth, you might say like a parent sizing up an unwanted child. Photochemical narratology owes much to the novel, not materially [...]
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Manchild (Dark Horse, Todd Solondz, US, 2011, 84 mins) Jay and Mark Duplass did it better with last year’s Cyrus, but this is still a welcome, not to mention bleaker, addition to modern cinema’s passing interest in Generation X juvenilia. Hollywood’s reluctance to ridicule this cohort may stem from its near total reliance on them to [...]
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The illusion of closeness (Like Crazy, Drake Doremus, US, 2011, 90 mins) Forbidden love comes of age in this modern romantic drama that eschews old concerns about protective parents and the wrong partners, for a timely and globalised take on the long distance relationship. That the Internet and a less geographically tethered group of saplings [...]
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Broken Briton (Dreams of A Life, Carol Morley, UK, 2011, 90 mins) The tale of Joyce Carol Vincent is a particularly modern horror story. Society, we’re told, has fragmented; indeed our Prime Minister, despite enjoying strong community and family ties of his own, tells us it’s broken. The fear that comes with atomisation is the [...]
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Hard Times (Shame, Steve McQueen, UK, 2011, 99 mins) Few films sate an audience’s prurience like Shame, or provide a more acute character study and psychological mystery; few films are so adept at the act of looking as their protagonist looks; focalisation that apes total subordination to the sexual imperative; framing at waste height, focus [...]
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