Showing posts with label Colin Farrell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Colin Farrell. Show all posts
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Seven Psychopaths (MA 15+)
WRITER’S block is a creative mind’s greatest fear. Knowing
that those flowing juices in the brain have disappeared in place of a general
void is usually a worrying sign for many, and then usually followed by the
conclusion it comes down to a lack of artistic stimulation around them. It can
come from anywhere and affect anyone whether it be for the purpose of words, a
painting, or a performance. But as Hollywood tells us, it’s those who live in
Tinseltown that are the ones under the most pressure in this life.
While that’s not always the case in reality (JK Rowling’s Harry Potter struggle in the UK circa
book 5 comes to mind), the choice many make to move to Los Angeles for a shot
at the big time can be a blessing or a curse. Irishman screenwriter Marty
(Colin Farrell) thinks it’s the latter when his agent continues to hassle him
about a non-existent script.
Trying to help Marty through his case of writer’s block is
best friend Billy (Sam Rockwell), an actor who runs a puppy kidnapping business
with friend Hans (Christopher Walken). When Marty suggests an initial idea of
creating a story about seven psychopaths, they help him by trying to recruit
potential case studies.
Sure enough, LA has its crazies. We meet the first
psychopath in the opening sequence as two mafia men discuss the situation
surrounding a soon-to-be-murdered woman. The film continues in a similar
fashion as the reveals come in quick succession. Characters don’t develop
overnight, but in Marty’s mind it’s a whirlwind.
Their turn for the worse (because in a film about writing a
script, there’s always a conundrum) comes as Hans and Billy’s alternative
business attracts a customer all sorts of wrong. Charlie (Woody Harrelson) is a
gangster with a faulty gun – but he will NOT rest until his dog Bonny is
returned to him.
The weird and crazy mind of Martin McDonagh returns for the
first time since debut In Bruges,
this time away from Europe to where dreams are made of. And some crazy serial
killers. The film unfolds to them as it does to us, made up as it’s gone along.
Billy is visibly the craziest of the trio, but in his head he knows where the
movie will continue to go. And he, as we do, gets all the excitement as
components of drama, action and a contemporary Western shootout are mashed
together in a ridiculously entertaining story.
Much of that comes from a great energy captured by McDonagh.
Collaborating with Farrell again after In
Bruges, he gets a spirited performance from his leading man as well as from
both Rockwell and Walken. They make a formidable trio… who may all have social
problems, but can sit around and just talk as friends. That’s what Marty wants,
and to some extent that’s what he gets.
Rating:
4/5*Published in the Daily Liberal (Dubbo), Western Advocate (Bathurst), Parkes Champion Post and Midstate Observer (Orange) from Saturday 10/11/2012
***
The English Patient (1996)
Michael Ondaatje’s sweeping lustful romance amid World War II is one of cinema’s modern classics, the Booker Prize-winning novel’s adaptation realised to widespread acclaim by critics and fans.
We come to know Count Laszlo de Almasy (Ralph Fiennes) after a plane crash renders him badly burned and transported to Italy. There, nurse Hana (Juliette Binoche) cares for him as the war comes to an end.
The film is a feast for the senses as the story of his time in Egypt as a mapmaker for England’s Royal Geographical Society unravels. He falls in love with married woman Katherine (Kristen Scott Thomas), doomed from the earliest day, but director Anthony Minghella treats it with sensitivity. That should be obvious – he wrote 20 drafts of the screenplay.
With an original running time of
four hours and 10 minutes, two and a half hours seems a pittance. But the
steady story lets us in to an indescribable world; a vivid faraway land where
love is hesitant because of outlying circumstance. Fiennes leads a strong cast,
all of balanced importance who come out with Minghella strong in having made a
thought-provoking and satisfying film.
MISSED LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS? See what I thought of Bachelorette and The Age of Innocence.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
I was meant to see Hope Springs this week but after waiting for it to start for 25 minutes they told us there were technical issues that couldn't be fixed. Went back two hours later to see this.
Total Recall (2012)
CREATING memories from
advancements in technology could well be the pinnacle of existence for many
living in centuries to come. The concept of being able to live the life you
want, however you want, would surely fascinate even those most sceptical.
Philip K. Dick’s 1966 short story We Can
Remember It for You Wholesale has already been explored once on film with
Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1990, but a new generation and shifting economy called
for an updated recall.
There are stark differences between
the two, Len Wiseman’s version claiming to be more true to the original story.
That statement begs to differ as Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) doesn’t make his
way to Mars as he previously has but instead stays on Earth, which speaks much
more about the society of Generation Y with a political overtone. At the end of
the 21st century there’s been a third World War, destroying all
inhabitable space except for the United Federation of Britain (UFB) and The
Colony (formerly Australia).
Quaid and wife Lori (Kate
Beckinsale) live in The Colony, where Quaid questions his existence after
having strange dreams and decides to go to Rekall, a company that can provide
fantastical memories. But he is found out to be a spy; without any memory of
who he is claimed to be, Quaid manages to escape to the UFB and finds Melina
(Jessica Biel). She gets him to rebel fighter Matthias (Bill Nighy), rival to
Chancellor Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston), who Quaid/Carl Hauser worked for and
wants to create a large synthetic police force to wipe out The Colony’s
overcrowded population.
An overall
apocalyptic feel remains present as only a few remnants exist of the world we
know now; London Tube lines abandoned, Big Ben and the clock tower standing
alone. The Colony is the new Asia with an overwhelming Eastern
influence. The growing threat of terrorism looms even more in a world becoming
increasingly unsustainable, and questions about existence seem to be more
relevant then in a broken world then they do now.
Also executive producer, Wiseman has worked closely with
wife Beckinsale on the Underworld
series. He gets a total bitch out of her as Lori, complete with switching
accents to scare the daylights out of Farrell. He holds his ground as Quaid,
going along with the requirements as the film increases its action quota.
Cranston as baddie Cohaagen gives us more proof that he is one worth watching.
Like Verhoeven before him, Wiseman plays the film as
straight out sci-fi action, but here there isn’t any room for laughter. The
potential end of the world brings a much more serious tone to it and a lack of
cheer from the protagonists. It’s a chilling thought that conflict could go so
far as to destroy our world, but maybe if Mars was an option they wouldn’t be
so worried.
Rating: 3/5*Published in the Daily Liberal (Dubbo), Western Advocate (Bathurst), Parkes Champion Post and Midstate Observer (Orange) from Saturday 25/8/2012
***
Don't Look Now (1972)
The
now-famous sex scene, the duo’s first scene together, still has to be denied as
real by those there. But interest also comes from the general creepiness of the
film, and Sutherland and Christie’s great performances. It doesn't bring
many scares throughout, but with some smart flashbacks the film sets the audience up for a
very unexpected outcome.
Many of Daphne du Maurier’s novels
have been adapted for the big screen and most famously so by Alfred Hitchcock.
But this short story brought to cinema by English director Nicholas Roeg holds
just as big an appeal to audiences with a different style of filmmaking and a
cast not part of the Hitchcock clan.
Donald Sutherland and Julie
Christie were both at a high in their careers when taking on the roles of John
and Laura Baxter. The couple deals with the drowning of daughter Christine
(Sharon Williams) by moving to Venice and forging a new life among the canals.
Meeting a pair of elderly sisters,
one a psychic, they are swept into believing Christine is spiritually present
but terrible things are about to befall them. Amid the dark, winding alleys and
canals their paranoia increases to create high tension and general uncertainty.
*Published in the Mailbox Shopper (Dubbo) from Wednesday 22/8/2012
MISSED LAST WEEK'S REVIEW? See what I thought of The Bourne Legacy and Midnight Cowboy.
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