Showing posts with label Klaus Kinski. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Klaus Kinski. Show all posts
Saturday, June 02, 2012
Review of the Week: What To Expect When You're Expecting (plus Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night)
0 comments Posted by Katina at 9:05 PMIn this week's film news, I'm watching through the Alien quadrilogy ahead of Prometheus opening on Thursday. Today I took advantage of a rainy day and stayed in, getting through one and two. As a request from my workmate I've already prebooked my ticket for opening night with her and we've now made it an out-of-work gathering open to everyone. It's nice going to the movies with a group sometimes as opposed to by yourself like I'm so used to doing :)
But for this week...
What To Expect When
You’re Expecting (M)
In yet another ensemble film to hit our screens, Hollywood
has returned to the self-help guides for inspiration following He’s Just Not That Into You (2009) with
a film about the differences in pregnancy women experience and the love it
brings to couples and supportive friends. It seems reading is not enough in
this age; the comedy and the tragedy make for fine viewing but a mother-to-be
would hardly benefit from that if this film was her easy way of research.
Wendy (Elizabeth Banks) and Gary (Ben Falcone) fall pregnant
after years of trying only to find out Gary’s father Ramsey (Dennis Quaid) is
having twins with new, much younger partner Skyler (Brooklyn Decker).
Meanwhile, Holly (Jennifer Lopez) and Alex (Rodrigo Santoro) look to adopt, but
as part of an internal freakout Alex joins a ‘dudes group’ to learn about being
a dad.
There’s also Rosie (Anna Kendrick) who falls pregnant after
a brief encounter with Marco (Chace Crawford) and fitness guru Jules (Cameron
Diaz) who has a similar occurrence with her partner from a celebrity dance show
Evan (Matthew Morrison). Their lives have been made to intertwine as suggestion
that different experiences of the same process aren’t far off.
Many women go through difficult pregnancies and some can not
give birth, so when the perfect yummy mummy (to-be) comes along with no
problems they just want to give her a kick in the pants. Here, that’s directed
towards Skyler, who can’t help but be energetic and wear six-inch heels without
breaking a sweat. As any pregnant woman does.
There’s no stone left unturned as the most affecting
elements of a pregnancy are brought to the table. But it’s the dudes group that
manages to stand out from all of this as something different, with hilarity that
hopefully would not translate to real life from the likes of Craig (Thomas
Lennon), Vic (Chris Rock) and his son Jordan (Reginald and Resan Womack). It’s
their dealings of being dads and their fascination with their envisioned hot
daddy Davis (Joe Manganiello) that are most entertaining.
Of the ladies, Banks is the most ‘normal’ and is
portrayed as such, the comedian so relaxed at finding the nine months a pain in
the arse and having a public breakdown. Her chemistry with Rebel Wilson as
employee Janice is fun, Wilson continuing her Hollywood run with another
peculiar character.
The film acknowledges pop culture like YouTube and the book
on which it was based, described by some as “the Bible of American pregnancy”.
Why a film needed to be made using a base that a large portion of the USA
female population has read is surely lost on some, but director Kirk Jones has
done well to keep a mix of the aforementioned comedy and tragedy.
His fourth film (following 2009’s underrated Everybody’s Fine) drags leading into the
final half an hour, but the target female audience will appreciate the homage
to childbirth. It largely brings what’s expected, but with a predominantly
solid cast the film pulls its weight within the rankings of its ensemble
cousins.
Rating: 3/5*Published in the Daily Liberal (Dubbo), Western Advocate (Bathurst), Parkes Champion Post and Midstate Observer (Orange) from Saturday 2/6/2012
***
Nosferatu: Phantom of
the Night (1979)
As fate would have it, I was to pick another Werner Herzog
film for my column this edition; it was random as it is every week, I promise
you!
The second of five collaborations between Herzog and actor
Klaus Kinski, the West German film also released in an English version as Nosferatu the Vampyre was a direct
homage to F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, A
Symphony of Terror. Herzog regarded Murnau’s 1922 film as the best
production ever to come out of Germany and felt he could bring it to a new
generation.
Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz) is an estate agent sent from
his home of Wismar, Germany, to Transylvania to show plans for a house to
prospective buyer Count Dracula (Kinski). The superstitions Johnathan was
warned about become true one by one before Count Dracula makes his way to
Wismar with plague-infected rats and the
knowledge Johnathan’s wife Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) will be near.
Kinski’s Count Dracula is one that longs for love and is
almost pitiful before he unleashes his evil in the shadows. Apparently Kinski (surprisingly)
got on rather well with his makeup artist over their daily four-hour routine.
That’s lucky for Herzog - the rat-faced villain looks positively creepy.
With
similar haunting music to that of Aguirre:The Wrath of God, Herzog makes his telling
of the Dracula tale a mysterious one. As a horror, he doesn’t rely on blood or
physical torture but instead the painstakingly slow movement of the story. But
the most intriguing element of this film remains the leading couple’s
helplessness at the hands of the monster.*Published in the Mailbox Shopper (Dubbo) from Wednesday 30/5/2012
MISSED LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS? See what I thought of Men In Black 3 3D and Marnie.
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*I have two photos entered in the current Qatar Reflections competition. Please show your support for me by voting for either photo! Short backstory and links here.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Review of the Week: The Dictator (plus Aguirre, The Wrath of God)
0 comments Posted by Katina at 7:30 PMThe Dictator (MA15+)
When a film is presented in loving memory of former North
Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, previously parodied in films like Team America: World Police, it’s an
amusing foreshadow of what’s to come. In the year since both Jong-Il and Osama
bin Laden died, the surprise of seeing their names disgraced in the eyes of
comedy once more is minimal. But, luckily for them, they have the fearless
tyrant of Wadiya knocking on heaven’s door to comfort them.
Sacha Baron Cohen takes on a new mantle as the dictator of
the fictional North African country, a man used to power from a very young age
but with a more idiotic disposition than some of his counterparts. He sleeps
with celebrities but wants cuddles they don’t give him and executes nuclear
researchers for making bomb heads round instead of pointy.
Agreeing to go to the United States on for diplomatic
discussions with the United Nations, Admiral General Aladeen (ha, geddit?) gets
cast onto the streets after some dastardly work by baddie Tamir (Ben Kingsley)
and finds himself with his complete opposite. Eco-friendly and a major in
feminist literature, Zoe (Anna Faris) takes him to her organic store believing
he’s a foreign dissident.
There’s a fair bit thrown around throughout the film, an
anti-Arab joke here, picking up a bit of Yiddish around the place there. It
addresses some of the bigger stereotypes, playing along with them rather than
breaking them, but always maintaining a comical nature. There’s a bit of sexual
conduct as expected, but again in a typical Baron Cohen way of the more
outlandish kind.
Aladeen is a man with more than one side, but even a pretty
face would be hard pressed to change every one of his thoughts. His struggles
with roughing it out on the streets of New York and dealing in a normal manner
with people is similar to those in film and TV elsewhere; no doubt influences
were pulled from characters like Seinfeld’s
The Soup Nazi.
Structured with an actual storyline, Baron Cohen’s latest
project steers clear of the mockumentaries that made Borat and Bruno centre
stage. Aladeen’s story has most of the puzzle pieces to it (some go missing
when his and the audience’s mind do), taking the journey through strong
beginnings, a messed-up middle and a somewhat solid conclusion.
Plenty made use of the opportunity to work with the comedian
– Megan Fox was happy to parody herself as a celebrity prostitute, Ed Norton
the same… and Ben Kingsley’s inclusion seems strange although his diverse projects
aren’t a secret. Faris, however, fits well trying to see the good in a man who
is instantly terribly rude to her. As Zoe she’s crazy but not nearly as dumb as
she could be. Well, except for the whole not recognising him thing.
Smartly kept short at 83 minutes, the film still creeps
along over the course of the story’s three-day timeframe. With short but
frequent bursts of reasons to at least smile, it’s not the Englishman’s best
work, but remains a timely look at the view of dictatorship from Western
society.
Rating: 3/5
*Published in the Daily Liberal (Dubbo), Western Advocate (Bathurst), Parkes Champion Post and Midstate Observer (Orange) from Saturday 19/5/2012
***
Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972)
The first of five Werner Herzog-Klaus Kinski collaborations, the story of a Spanish expedition to claim the riches of El Dorado is an unsettling one. Don Lope de Aguirre (Kinski) exerts a demanding presence on the party making their way through Peruvian terrain, outing the chosen commander, Ursua (Ruy Guerra), in favour of self-glory and fortune.
Their one-week quest to find El Dorado comes at a cost early, but Aguirre defies those waiting for them to continue on. Even with his own daughter and Ursua’s mistress in their midst, both impeccably dressed.
It’s narrated through the diary of accompanying monk Gaspar de Carvajal (Del Negro), who himself seems to forget true moral thought as the expedition becomes increasingly difficult. As part of the New German cinema era with the likes of Wim Wenders, the film seems trivial with events like a trial for Ursua but quickly turns frightening when the numbers of the party slowly start to thin.
The backstory to this West German film is priceless. Kinski told Herzog he was leaving the film with only a few scenes to shoot. Herzog threatened (well enough) to shoot him dead, so he came back. And he’s ruthless in his role, with the swagger of Mick Jagger and preposterous ideas for glory. This is an eerily intriguing film, the progressive music haunting to make it the story of one man’s growing madness.
*Published in the Mailbox Shopper (Dubbo) from Wednesday 16/5/2012
MISSED LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS? See what I thought of Dark Shadows and Gandhi.
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