16 Saturday Mar 2013
Director: Chris Wedge
Voices: Amanda Seyfried, Josh Hutcherson, Beyoncé Knowles
Plot: A teenager finds herself transported to a deep forest setting where a battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil is taking place. She bands together with a rag-tag group characters in order to save their world — and ours.
Release Dates: 24th May (USA, UK)
10 Sunday Mar 2013
Director: Todd Phillips
Stars: Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms
Plot: This time, there’s no wedding. No bachelor party. What could go wrong, right? But when the Wolfpack hits the road, all bets are off.
Release Dates: 24th May (USA, UK)
04 Monday Mar 2013
Tags
2013, Anna Faris, Bill Hader, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, Cody Cameron, Kris Pearn, Will Forte
Directors: Cody Cameron, Kris Pearn
Stars: Bill Hader, Anna Faris, Will Forte
Plot: Flint Lockwood now works at The Live Corp Company for his idol Chester V. But he’s forced to leave his post when he learns that his most infamous machine is still operational and is churning out menacing food-animal hybrids.
Release Dates: 27th September (USA), 25th October (UK)
24 Sunday Feb 2013
Director: Justin Zackham
Stars: Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Katherine Heigl
Plot: A long-divorced couple fakes being married as their family unites for a wedding.
Release Dates: 26th April (USA), 31st May (UK)
12 Tuesday Feb 2013
Director: Shawn Levy
Stars: Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Rose Byrne
Plot: Two recently laid-off men in their 40s try to make it as interns at a successful internet company where their managers are in their 20s.
Release Dates: 7th June (USA), 4th July (UK)
27 Sunday Jan 2013
Director: Paul Weitz
Stars: Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Nat Wolff
Plot: A Princeton admissions officer who is up for a major promotion takes a professional risk after she meets a college-bound alternative school kid who just might be the son she gave up years ago in a secret adoption.
Release Dates: 22nd March (USA), TBC (UK)
23 Wednesday Jan 2013
Directors: Olivier Nakache, Éric Toledano
Stars: François Cluzet, Omar Sy, Anne Le Ny
Plot: A rich quadriplegic decides to hire a caretaker, but ignores the candidates with experience and training to employ a young man from the projects.
Films about disability have enjoyed a renaissance in recent years. Inside I’m Dancing, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and The Sea Inside have shown that there are stories to be told that can be utterly convincing without resorting to schmaltz or sentimentality on an epic scale. Not only this, but French cinema in general is now enjoying increasing success abroad following the release of award-laden The Artist and it is The Weinstein Company who brings us Untouchable, a charming fish-out-of-water story with a twist.
One night in Paris, Driss (Sy) is driving Philippe (Cluzet) around the city in the latter’s Maserati Quattroporte at high-speed, when they are pulled over by the police. Driss makes a bet with his passenger that he can get an escort – Philippe pretends to have a stroke and they are guided to the local hospital, at which point Driss waits for the police to leave and promptly drives away. We then flashback to their first meeting; Philippe is sitting in a wheelchair, while he and his assistant Magalie (Audrey Fleurot) conduct interviews for the position of caretaker at his mansion. After a number of frankly dull interviewees who fail to capture the imagination, Driss walks in with the intention of merely obtaining a signature to prove that he applied for the job so he can get his state benefits, but he is initially rejected and told to come back the next day.
Driss returns to his small Parisian apartment he shares with his family, but his aunt tells him to leave, having not heard from him in six months. He goes back to the mansion for the signature and finds to his surprise that Philippe has employed him on a trial basis as a live-in carer. Driss is shocked to learn about the extent of Philippe’s disability and the amount of care that he has to give his employer. A friend of Philippe warns him that Driss has a criminal record, but he dismisses these concerns as his new charge doesn’t show him any pity – and that’s exactly what Philippe needs. As the pair become closer over time, Philippe reveals that his wife died of a terminal illness and he became quadriplegic following a paragliding accident. Driss also discovers that Philippe has been corresponding with a mystery woman from Dunkirk and goes about trying to get him to meet her in person and hopefully get some semblance of normality back into his life.
Untouchable has a formula that is nothing new. Two completely separate worlds collide as rich and poor come together in a friendship which changes the outlook of both protagonists. There’s a sense that Trading Places forms the basis for the plot, with Omar Sy’s Driss playing the Eddie Murphy character as he enters completely unfamiliar surroundings, while François Cluzet represents the token stark contrast as a Dan Aykroyd equivalent – the two join forces in a similar manner to defy the establishment. There’s also an exaggeration in the obligatory ‘based on a true story’ foreword shown at the beginning of the film; the real-life Omar (actually named Abdel Sellou) is Algerian as opposed to the portrayed Senegalese – this is evidently an attempt to highlight the differences in not only class and culture, but also race, in the name of manipulation. That aside, great credit is due to writer/director duo of Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, who have a script which is buzzing with very witty one-liners and has genuine moments of hilarity that tread the fine line with poignancy and tragedy.
Perhaps the most marked aspect of the film is that it is so accessible. The opening few scenes crackle along at a furious pace (with a neat but short car chase to start with) – if you think that watching a foreign film with subtitles is a drag, then welcome to the film that will surely change your mind. The level of humour is mostly focused on Driss’ wisecracks, mixed with a touch of slapstick, but this enhances proceedings rather than detracting from the superb screenplay. Omar Sy’s charisma shines through his character Driss, making him instantly likeable. For the film to work, it is essential for Driss to be played by an actor with a strong screen presence and Sy fulfils this requirement and then some. His witty one-liners are not just confined to the French sense of humour – they will be appreciated by even the most cynical os drôle. François Cluzet, France’s answer to Dustin Hoffman (surely look out for a ready-made trans-Atlantic twin drama/comedy in the making) once again excels, here as Philippe. His efforts ensure that there is no mawkishness or sentimentality surrounding his paraplegic character, even though his character’s disability is plain to see, Cluzet injects enough humour into his physical performance to help us to enjoy the relationship between him and Driss.
Reports suggest that there’s a Hollywood remake of Untouchable in the works – and it’s clear to see why. However, it’s difficult to comprehend how the makers of the new version will be able to replicate the fantastic chemistry that Cluzet and Sy have throughout this terrific original. Clichéd and predictable it may be, but at the heart of everything is a touching yet most importantly hilariously comic look at how friendships can happen in the most unlikely of places and under the oddest circumstances.
Rating: 
19 Saturday Jan 2013
Director: Dean Parisot
Stars: Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren John Malkovich
Plot: Frank Moses and his motley crew of retired assassins return for a second outing.
Release Dates: 2nd August (USA, UK)
09 Wednesday Jan 2013
Director: Seth Gordon
Stars: Jason Bateman, Melissa McCarthy, John Cho
Plot: When a mild-mannered businessman learns his identity has been stolen, he hits the road in an attempt to foil the thief — a trip that puts him in the path of a deceptively harmless-looking woman.
Release Dates: 8th February (USA), 1st March (UK)
30 Sunday Dec 2012
Director: Wes Anderson
Stars: Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Bruce Willis
Plot: Two kids cause a scandal in their New England community by running away together, but a search party is not far behind.
Wes Anderson films can be an acquired taste if you find his quirky style hard to swallow. He packs his casts with star names, usually Bill Murray (and at least one of the Wilson brothers), his screenplays are full of knowing references and the characters’ lines are often made up of a string of one-liners. So you could say that Moonrise Kingdom, which is probably the least revealing title of a film plot ever, is the archetypal Anderson film, which bears all the hallmarks of the elements that make his films so unique and instantly recognisable.
On a New England island called New Penzance in 1965, orphan Sam Shakusky (Gilman) attends a ‘Khaki Scout’ summer camp led by Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton). Suzy Bishop (Hayward) lives on the island with her guardians Walt (Bill Murray) and Laura (Frances McDormand) and her three younger brothers. Sam and Suzy had met the previous summer during a church performance of Noye’s Fludde and have corresponded ever since as pen-pals, during which time they make a pact to run away together. Sam escapes from the camp and brings his camping equipment with him, while Suzy carries her cat, a number of books and a record player. They happen upon a secluded cove, where they decide to stay for a while – and call it ‘Moonrise Kingdom’.
Meanwhile, the New Penzance community start frantically searching for the intrepid pair of adventurers, led by Police Captain Sharp (Willis). Eventually, after a few days of much fretting and angst, Sam and Suzy are finally discovered in their tent on a beach. Sam goes to stay with Captain Sharp awaiting the arrival of Social Services (Tilda Swinton), who is due to place him within a ‘juvenile refuge’, as his foster parents have refused to have him back. Sam’s fellow scouts, who barely warmed to him initially, decide to help him and Suzy to run away again. Suzy, Sam and the scouts seek the help of Cousin Ben (Jason Schwartzman), who works at a larger camp called Fort Lebanon. When disaster strikes, the two young delinquents find their path to true love in danger of being thwarted by nature itself.
Wes Anderson has really outdone himself this time with Moonrise Kingdom. Not only is the plot about as cringe worthily twee as is possible to get, for the entire running time there’s chock loads of deadpan humour which is fine at first, but after half an hour or so it gets far too tedious. Anderson’s style is well-documented, but you need to be in the right frame of mind to sit through one of his films (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is a classic example) and, once again, Moonrise is no exception. If you look at a film such as Groundhog Day, which stars Anderson stalwart Bill Murray, the straight humour worked extremely well, because the superbly crafted screenplay held everything together and didn’t feature a fatal overdose of ‘knowing’ references and nods or winks to the audience. You could easily say that the emotional detachment on view in many of Anderson’s films is his undoing – how are we possibly meant to have empathy for characters who spout one-liners like a stand-up comedian who just goes for the punch lines, one after another? Deliberately placing a pause at which point we are supposed to laugh (certain radio DJs are guilty of this too) may work occasionally, but irritation sets in all too easily for it to be an enjoyable experience throughout.
On the plus side, the cast is a stellar one. Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton roll off the tongue like a dream even though pretty much all of them are playing completely against type. Willis is the real stand-out as a dour-faced cop who appears bewildered that he actually has to do something instead of sitting around. Swinton appears towards the end in an inspired piece of characterisation – her antithesis of Mary Poppins as ‘Social Services’ serves to at least lighten the mood when it is very much-needed. The two runaways, played by film debutants Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, are terrific in their roles as the film’s heart and soul. They are definitely ones to watch for the future, especially Hayward, who steals every single scene in which she features. Wes Anderson’s direction and Robert Yeoman’s cinematography also deserve a lot of credit. The landscape of New Penzance (aka Rhode Island) is beautifully filmed, but there is also a fantastic attention to detail in recreating an idyllic 1960s paradise, in which many a childhood will be remembered.
If you enjoyed similarly quirky films such as Son of Rambow and Submarine, then Moonrise Kingdom is sure to satisfy. Unfortunately, for those who like their humour to be much more relaxed and natural rather than forced, almost to the point of snobbery, then you’re better off giving this a miss. If Wes Anderson is going to win over more fans, he is going to have to concentrate on making his films more accessible than blood in the proverbial stone.
Rating: 
