29 Friday Jun 2012
Director: Dan Scanlon
Voices: Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi
Plot: A look at the relationship between Mike and Sulley during their days at the University of Fear — when they weren’t necessarily the best of friends.
Release Dates: 21st June 2013 (USA), 12th July 2013 (UK)
28 Thursday Jun 2012
Director: Timo Vuorensola
Stars: Julia Dietze, Peta Sergeant, Kym Jackson
Plot: In 1945, the remaining Nazis fled to the Moon where they set up a secret base in preparation for an invasion in 2018.
It’s apparently so easy to make a World War 2 film from the Allies’ perspective. Throw in some everyman heroes, a few nasty stereotypical Nazis, some scenes with American flags flapping in the breeze to the strains of a French horn along with an array of gunfights and you’re onto a winner. From the German viewpoint however, there have been some classic films such as Das Boot (1981), Stalingrad (1993) and Downfall (2004), which have really broken down a few clichés and given us something to think about. Iron Sky goes one step further, presenting a very satirical take on not only the aforementioned National Socialist Party, but also modern politics.
Two American astronauts, one a black model named James Washington (Christopher Kirby) who has been personally selected by the President of the United States (Stephanie Paul) as a PR stunt, land on the dark side of the Moon in 2018, only to encounter a large group of Nazis who fled there and built a base in 1945. Washington is captured while his fellow astronaut is killed – he is examined by Nazi scientist Doktor Richter (Tilo Prückner), who discovers his smartphone and tries to integrate it into their space battleship, Götterdämmerung. Unfortunately, the battery promptly dies, just as Richter is displaying its power to his superiors who include the current Führer, Wolfgang Kortzfleisch (Udo Kier). Nazi commander Klaus Adler (Götz Otto) has decided to marry Richter’s daughter Renate (Dietze) and takes her to Earth in a spacecraft with Washington who has been Aryanized (his skin has been chemically turned white) by Richter.
Meanwhile on Earth, the President, who bears an uncanny resemblance to infamous ‘Hockey Mom’ Sarah Palin, needs a miracle to be re-elected. Once the three travellers arrive from the Moon, they immediately go to the White House and are presented by the President’s aide Vivian Wagner (Sergeant) as the answer to her prayers and transform her campaign Nazi-style, although Adler has secret designs on destroying the United States and overthrowing the current Führer. Three months later, Kortzfleisch appears to have figured out Adler’s plan. He sends a fleet of ships into the Earth’s orbit and confronts Adler, but his adversary kills him and takes his flying saucer. Renate finds Washington who is by now homeless and they work out what Adler’s intentions truly are and decide they must act. The United Nations meet to discuss the Nazi threat from above, but the President is thrilled to be having the war that will boost her ratings. A nuclear conflict begins to rage in Earth’s orbit, but can Renate and Washington get back to the Moon in time to thwart Alder from within?
Iron Sky has arguably one of the most random yet imaginative plots in recent years. Setting a battle with Nazis on the Moon instead of war-torn 1940s France is certainly a bold step (insert your Star Trek joke here). For such an odd premise, the only direction it can possibly go is for a zany comedy and that is exactly what we get. The Nazis themselves receive a barrage of mockery in this most satirical of films. They are perceived as being buffoons who are a long way behind their former neighbours on Earth, most notably when it comes to technology and developing their knowledge beyond the original doctrine of Adolf Hitler. The screenwriters couldn’t be any clearer as to conveying the Nazis’ blatant ignorance – this is shown no more so in a scene of schoolchildren watching a ten-minute clip of Charlie Chaplain’s The Great Dictator which they perceive to be glorifying Nazism, when the whole film would reveal completely the opposite. There are also references to Downfall in a mock-up of the famous bunker scene and Dr. Strangelove, with both a ‘war room’ and Washington’s fake ‘uncontrollable’ Nazi salute.
Yet for all it’s intended satirical swiping, you feel that many of the targets such as Sarah Palin and US foreign policy are very old ground that has been lampooned countless times on Saturday Night Live, amongst many others. There are one or two gags that hit the mark, but mostly there’s a sense that most of the budget has been spent on the CGI which is rather basic by modern standards, but that’s perhaps part of its charm. The acting is fine if a little hammy. Julia Dietze is really the only one who shines throughout, mainly because of her looks rather than any witty lines she has been given. Christopher Kirby plays the manic Chris Rock/Eddie Murphy card in his performance and largely pulls it off, except there’s no real originality to be had here. Otto, Kier and Prückner plays their hammy Nazi roles to the letter but between them contrive to irritate at times. Stephanie Paul and Peta Sergeant inhabit their characters well, but even their performances are merely impersonations of well-known figures.
Iron Sky scores highly where inital imagination is concerned, but too often crosses the line between potentially cutting satire and silly, over-the-top, obvious gags. For all the misgivings of the screenplay, there’s still some charm left which just about merits a watch.
Rating: 
26 Tuesday Jun 2012
Director: Joe Wright
Stars: Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Johnson
Plot: Set in late-19th-century Russia high-society, the aristocrat Anna Karenina enters into a life-changing affair with the affluent Count Vronsky.
Release Dates: 7th September (UK), 9th November (USA)
25 Monday Jun 2012
Director: Roman Polanski
Stars: Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz
Plot: Two pairs of parents meet to discuss an incident involving their sons, but as the conversation becomes protracted, so the tension escalates.
One of the many challenges of parenting is dealing decisively with your offspring if they have a spat with a fellow pupil. This may involve a quick phone call to a teacher or, for more serious at-school incidents, a face-to-face meeting with the headteacher. But what happens if said incident happens outside school hours? Quite often it comes down to a friendly chat with the parents of the other child, where the intention is to have a civil conversation about the issue and nip any potential future conflict in the bud – but is it always as easy as it sounds?
Two 11-year-old boys, Zachary Cowan (Elvis Polanski) and Ethan Longstreet (Eliot Berger) have a confrontation in a Brooklyn park which results in Zachary hitting Ethan in the face with a stick, breaking one of his teeth. Their parents meet for what is supposed to be a cordial discussion about the circumstances surrounding their son’s set-to, but it turns into a chaotic slanging match which raises questions about who knows better about parenting than the other. Penelope (Foster) and Michael (John C. Reilly) Longstreet play host to Alan (Waltz) and Nancy (Winslet) Cowan so that they can sort out the situation. They begin formulating a letter to the school explaining what happened but when it comes to laying the blame, a whole can of worms is opened. Penelope is keen to point the finger squarely at Zachary, suggesting a brutal and unprovoked attack on her son – Nancy has other ideas and makes some suggestions as to how the letter should be edited to hint that Ethan must have said or done something to spark a reaction.
Initially intended to be a short meeting, Alan and Nancy find themselves holding the door handle (and indeed at one point are halfway into the lift) on a number of occasions, but are invited back in by Penelope and Michael to smooth over the friction that appears between them. The foursome’s careers provoke the first shots across the bows. Nancy, a wealth manager and Alan, a legal advisor currently dealing with a pharmaceutical company which is selling dodgy pills, are at odds with Penelope’s academic interest in Africa and Michael, who as a plumbing salesman has been forced into smartening up by his wife. Alan’s insistence on taking work calls before the conversation can get going, begins to seriously grate with Penelope especially, who takes offence when Alan jumps up to attend to his ill-fated Blackberry that ends up going for a paddle in a vase alongside a bunch of tulips. As the adults’ behaviour becomes increasingly childish, the chances of finding a resolution becomes ever more remote.
Carnage has a vast array of subplots – and that’s even before we get to the screenplay. Roman Polanski’s fugitive status in the US forces him to make alternative arrangements when setting a film such as this, which is meant to be in New York but instead has been mostly created on a sound stage in Paris. The original play God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza (who takes a screenwriting credit alongside Polanski), is chock full of humour designed to display the descent into bewildering behaviour from the adults, but after a fraught half an hour or so, it dissipates all too early. The tension in the claustrophobic setting of an apartment is palpable, as the two couples discuss a range of subjects from Africa, careers and politics but all the while in the middle of the room, is an inescapable vortex which represents the question of whose son is to blame. After much toing and froing and building up the tension up to borderline unbearable, Kate Winslet’s character Nancy projectile vomits across the coffee table – from this point on the strain is also released and never quite manages to reach the levels as before.
There’s no shortage of acting calibre on show here though. Leading actresses Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet are pitted alongside perennial supporting actors John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz. Foster’s Penelope is the main protagonist to start with and you can get a real sense of the pride in her son being torn to shreds by these invaders in her home and their belittling of her principles. Winslet puts on her pseudo-American accent she used to much effect in Titanic, and it hasn’t changed one bit. She does however bring a snobbiness to her character Nancy, that grates to the right degree with her ‘lesser’ hosts. John C. Reilly provides most of the comic relief as Michael – his blasé attitude to placing the family pet hamster on the sidewalk because it makes too much noise in the middle of the night is one of the film’s highlights. It is Christoph Waltz who takes most of the plaudits however, for his portrayal of prickly Alan, who manages to rub Penelope and Michael up the wrong way with his telephone conversations and the fact that he is responsible for potentially finishing off Michael’s mother who is taking the pre-op pills in question.
The acting in Carnage is no doubt sublime, but the script does not buzz with the same vitriol and humour that the stage version intended. The switching of allegiances based on couples, genders and principles is well done, but for this to truly work, there needed to be a very fine line between spitting venom and spouting witty one-liners.
Rating: 
23 Saturday Jun 2012
Director: Bill Condon
Stars: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner
Plot: After the birth of Renesmee, the Cullens gather other vampire clans in order to protect the child from a false allegation that puts the family in front of the Volturi.
Release Date: 16th November (USA, UK)
22 Friday Jun 2012
Director: Woody Allen
Stars: Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest, Michael Caine
Plot: Relationships around one family become entangled, as Hannah’s husband falls in love with her sister Lee while her ex husband has a relationship with her other sister Holly.
For the last few years, Woody Allen’s European odyssey has been in full swing. Match Point (2005), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) Midnight in Paris (2011) and the upcoming To Rome With Love all display Allen’s trademark ensemble comedy, with touches of drama and/or sadness mixed in. Unrequited love is another of the themes that crop up in his films, with Hannah and Her Sisters being one of his classic stories set in his beloved New York City. With an all-star cast and a script brimming with one-liners, this is a film sometimes forgotten among the sublime Annie Hall (1977) and the towering Manhattan (1979).
Over a 24-month period between Thanksgiving dinners, the complicated love lives of Hannah (Farrow) and her two sisters Lee (Barbara Hershey) and Holly (Wiest) are followed. Hannah is married to Elliot (Caine), who has become gradually obsessed with Lee to the point that he is completely smitten. Elliot has begun to reject Hannah’s ability for self-sufficiency and emotional strength – he longs for Lee as she is more vulnerable. Lee has been living for five years with reclusive artist Frederick (Max von Sydow), who suspects that Elliot has an infatuation with her. After much internal agony, Elliot finally summons up the courage to tell Lee how he feels and although she initially rejects him, comes round to the idea and they start an affair. Over a year later, Lee grows tired of Elliot’s excuses as to why he is reluctant to end his marriage to Hannah and so she ends the relationship, declaring that she is now dating someone else.
Mickey (Woody Allen), Hannah’s ex husband, is a hypochondriac television producer, who spends more time at the doctors than anywhere else. Their marriage is shown in flashback, as we learn that it was plagued by infertility and Mickey’s difficulties in being a father to his surrogate children. In the present, Mickey has an existential crisis that is due to a near-death experience (he thinks he has a brain tumour but receives the all-clear) that forces him to firstly embrace Catholicism without success and then Krishna Consciousness. An unsuccessful suicide attempt leads him to see the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup at the cinema – having had a horrific first date with Holly, he suddenly realises that life is to be enjoyed and so is much more agreeable the second time round. Holly herself, is a former cocaine addict who has an unsuccessful acting career – she sets up a catering business with April (Carrie Fisher) and vies for the attention of dashing architect David (Sam Waterston). As conflicts come to a head and some are resolved, can each sister find happiness despite everything that has happened?
Hannah and Her Sisters is one of Woody Allen’s best ensemble comedies. Those who find him a little too whiny will probably think about giving this a wide berth, given that his character is a hypochondriac and has his usual self-exploration that lasts quite a while. However, Allen has some of the best lines in the entire film, which has a script that positively buzzes with terrific observations and witty gags. The screenplay gives the narrative a very natural feel as we move from one sister to the next – but each is so closely connected by the men in their lives, it never loses momentum. As a screenwriter, Woody Allen knows his subjects extremely well, meshing together stories that not only make you laugh but also really empathise with the characters that inhibit his world. As director too, you can see the subtle but unmistakable trademark touches he gives to the streets of New York – even though this is over 25 years ago, there’s a real sense of the familiar.
The cast is superb, with an even spread of screen time for each of the main protagonists. Mia Farrow’s headstrong Hannah is one of her best performances and the ever dependable Dianne Wiest (an underrated actress, which is terribly ironic here) once again excels. But both Farrow, Wiest and even Allen are overshadowed by the central characters brought to life by Michael Caine and Barbara Hershey. As Elliot and Lee’s secret relationship is the main event, the actor and actress playing the respective parts have to be perfectly cast and this is thankfully the case. Caine portrays the “grass is greener” attitude of Elliot with the right amount of emotion and wit. Hershey’s Lee is mostly a straight role, a foil for Elliot’s doe-eyed affection and she delivers the kind of performance for Caine to bounce off. With small but significant roles for Max von Sydow, Sam Waterston and Daniel Stern, you would have to say that Allen has got the cast right down to a tee.
Hannah and Her Sisters may not have the wistful, nostalgic artistry of Manhattan, but there’s a lot to enjoy. With a fantastic script featuring a mixture of laughs and cringeworthy moments, this is classic Allen. If you want to see an array of star names in one place at the height of their game, then look no further.
Rating: 
20 Wednesday Jun 2012
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Stars: Rachel Weisz, Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins
Plot: A dramatic thriller that weaves together the stories of an array of people from disparate social backgrounds through their intersecting relationships.
Release Dates: 3rd August (USA), 10th August (UK)
19 Tuesday Jun 2012
Director: James Bobin
Stars: Amy Adams, Jason Segel, Chris Cooper
Plot: Now disbanded, The Muppets are re-united with the help of three fans to save their old theatre from an oil tycoon.
As far as Muppet movies are concerned, our foamy friends have travelled around quite a bit, both through time and space. Since breaking onto the big screen in 1979 with The Muppet Movie, they went to Manhattan in 1984, back to Victorian times in The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), sailed the high seas in Muppet Treasure Island (1996) and went high above the earth in Muppets from Space (1999). Commercial success has been hard to come by so, after a break of twelve years, has the franchise finally been revitalised?
Walter (voice by Peter Linz), a Muppet, lives with his human brother Gary (Segel) in Smalltown. They both became huge fans of The Muppet Show and while Gary grows from a child into a man, Walter stays exactly the same. After ten years dating his girlfriend Mary (Adams), Gary decides to take Mary to Los Angeles to celebrate their anniversary but he also invites Walter along so he can tour the Muppets’ former studio – Mary feels alienated by Gary’s insistence on putting Walter before her. When they reach their destination, Gary, Mary and Walter take a tour of the studio but while there, Walter sneaks into one of the offices and overhears Statler and Waldorf agreeing to sell the plot to Tex Richman (Cooper), a greedy oil magnate, who wants to destroy the Muppets’ former home and drill for the proverbial ‘black gold’ underneath. Walter also learns that $10 million would save the theatre from Richman’s clutches – he tells Gary and Mary and they go to find Kermit the Frog’s mansion.
The intrepid three tell Kermit about Tex’s plans and he decides to rally the troops and get the old gang back together, organising a telethon to raise the money. Firstly, they find Fozzie Bear who is working in Reno with tribute act, The Moopets. Next is Gonzo, who is now a plumbing magnate and then Animal, who is taking anger management sessions with Jack Black. To save time finding everyone else, the primary Muppets are re-united using a montage, with Rowlf the Dog and Miss Piggy the last to be found – the latter of whom is working as Vogue Paris’ “plus-sized” fashion editor. The Muppets pitch their idea for a new TV show to various networks but are turned down each time until they go to CDE’s executive Veronica (Rashida Jones), who initially rejects them for being passé, but when popular programme Punch Teacher is forcibly cancelled because of complaints, she gives them the green light. Now, with the gang ready to thrust themselves back into the limelight, they must hope the public respond and help them save the studio once and for all.
The Muppets is undeniably fun and there is a nostalgic mood that engulfs the film, especially when those familiar, (mostly) furry faces begin to assemble. Not only do we get to see our old favourite Muppets playing themselves for a change – past films have seen them mainly taking on different personas – we also see a modern take on Jim Henson’s creations, which should hopefully win them a new generation of fans. Screenwriters Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller have fashioned a plot that never lets up and manages to incorporate some witty one-liners as Kermit, Gary, Mary and Walter visit each of the original gang to persuade them to come out of retirement. There’s a strong emphasis on entertaining adult audiences with a few ‘knowing’ references mixed in with the real-life concerns, but children can just sit back and enjoy the manic Muppets themselves and the catchy musical numbers which will stay in your head for a while afterwards.
With the Muppets providing a ready-made cast, it is down to the humans to ensure that there is a good support and a dazzling array of cameos. Segel’s Gary, Adams’ Mary and Linz’s Walter are a great trio to follow and are very likeable. Jason Segel and Walter form a superb double-act and although Amy Adams is rather sidelined for most of the film, she gets into the spirit of the proceedings when she gets the opportunity with a song and dance. Jack Black is the star of the show, with perhaps his best role (as himself) since The School of Rock (2003) – having him as Animal’s anger management sponsor and then being forced to participate in the telethon whilst tied to a chair is pure genius. Alan Arkin, Zach Galifianakis, Emily Blunt (as Miss Piggy’s secretary in a nod to her role in The Devil Wears Prada) Whoopi Goldberg and Dave Grohl are just a few of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearances.
If there’s one major criticism of The Muppets, it’s the sudden lapses into cheesy High School Musical territory, particularly with the final number Life’s a Happy Song which is a touch nauseating and Chris Cooper’s rendition of Let’s Talk About Me which is frankly cringeworthy. These quibbles aside though, this is a welcome entry in the Muppets’ cannon that should breathe new life into a previously faltering franchise.
Rating:
17 Sunday Jun 2012
Tags
2012, Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Peter Jackson, Richard Armitage, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Director: Peter Jackson
Stars: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage
Plot: A curious Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, journeys to the Lonely Mountain with a vigorous group of Dwarves to reclaim a treasure stolen from them by the dragon Smaug.
Release Date: 14th December (US, UK)
16 Saturday Jun 2012
Director: Scott Hicks
Stars: Geoffrey Rush, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Justin Braine
Plot: David Helfgott, under the guidance of his father, becomes an accomplished pianist as a child, but suffers a mental breakdown which shatters his professional career.
Geoffrey Rush’s career is predominantly made up of supporting roles. As Sir Francis Walsingham in Elizabeth (1998), Lionel Logue in The King’s Speech (2010), but perhaps most famously Barbossa in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Rush is the dependable crutch upon which a lead character can easily rely. Every now and then however, he is cast at the top of the bill and shows just how good he can be in the spotlight. His performance in biographical drama Shine was arguably his breakthrough, even though he doesn’t have an awful lot of screen time to make an impact.
A man (Rush) runs through a rainstorm of a small town in Australia, apparently trying to find help. Despite the fact that his speech is impaired, he manages to convey to the restaurant owner that his name is David Helfgott and he is staying a local hotel. She takes him back and, although David appears to have an extensive aptitude for music that he wants to share with her, she leaves. We then jump back to David’s childhood (played by Alex Rafalowicz), where it is revealed that he had a particularly difficult time, as he was dominated by his Polish-Jewish father Peter (Mueller-Stahl), who was obsessed by teaching David the piano and had no room for failure or disobedience. David is noticed by local piano teacher Ben Rosen (Nicholas Bell), who rejects Peter’s insistence that David should be playing Rachmaninoff’s difficult 3rd Concerto, a piece that Peter has drummed into him.
As a teenager, David (Noah Taylor) wins the state musical championship and is invited to study in America by prominent violinist Isaac Stern. Despite plans being made and his father giving his blessing, David suddenly finds that Peter has changed his mind because he believes that him leaving would destroy the family. David then befriends local novelist and co-founder of the Communist Party of Australia Katherine Susannah Prichard (Googie Withers) – he loses a national musician competition but wins a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London which accepts, much to the dismay of father, but with Katherine’s encouragement. David arrives in England and enters a Concerto competition and wins by playing Rachmaninoff’s 3rd, but at the same time suffers a mental breakdown on stage which sees him admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Ten years later and with his career over, David returns to Australia but now he must try to find a resolution with his father whilst rediscovering a love for music once more.
Shine is one of those films that just cries out for an Oscar – and the Academy duly obliged, with Geoffrey Rush getting a gong for Best Actor. Strangely enough though, it would have been arguably more fitting for his teenage alter ego Noah Taylor to have won more praise for his performance, as he takes up the bulk of David’s portrayal. While Rush is no doubt terrific in conveying David’s struggle with schizoaffective disorder, it is Taylor who takes the character from adolescent right through to student – and he does this very well indeed. Mental illness is a very difficult subject to approach in a film, as both accuracy and understanding of the condition in question is required. Geoffrey Rush gets all the trailer money shots, muttering to himself with moments of clarity including a genius scene in a restaurant where he plays an amazing rendition of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee, much to the delight of the diners.
Director Scott Hicks’ excellent direction is evident in both the intense and more genteel moments. The scene that really sticks in the mind afterwards is the concert that David gives, in which he plays Rachmaninov’s 3rd to huge applause before promptly collapsing to the ground. This most significant part of the film prompts David’s mental downfall and is simply stunning. The one area in which the plot falters is in explaining the reason for David’s breakdown – is it down to his father’s brutal treatment of him (actually denied by David’s sister who saw the film) or the aspiration of attaining musical perfection for his own personal validation? The result is a gaping hole which could have been satisfied by a short monologue or a satisfying dramatic showdown with his father to find the answer – sadly we get neither. There are some great performances from the supporting cast, most notably Armin Mueller-Stahl as David’s father and the late, great Googie Withers and Lynn Redgrave.
Shine is wonderful at times, especially when combining David Helfgott’s mental strains with those of the beautiful music. Even though we are told that the film is more about how David regained his life with help from his wife Gillian instead of his decline, it would have made for a more enlightening experience had we been given the opportunity to discover his personal take on the reason behind it.
Rating:
