The Week in Review - Trailer Picks

Pick number one: Lone Survivor

Directed by: Peter Berg

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Ludwig

UK Release: February 21st, 2014.

Based on a real failed mission in 2005, Lone Survivor tells of the Navy SEAL team's mission to capture and kill a Taliban leader. With the potential to be a truly moving portrayal of a failed mission, I am really excited to see how the film is constructed, what aspects of the mission it will focus on and how the performance from lead actor Mark Wahlberg will be. 

Pick number two: American Hustle

Directed by: David O. Russell

Starring: Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams

UK Release: 26th December, 2013.

Styled brilliantly in their '70s attire, Bale, Cooper and Adams star in a film about New York con men who work with a fed agent in order to reveal other con artists and scammers such as themselves. With some big star names, this film will see crowds of people heading to the cinemas during the Christmas period, and I will be among them crowds.

Pick number three: Ender's Game

Directed by: Gavin Hood

Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, Asa Butterfield

UK Release: 25th October, 2013.

With Young Adult book adaptations taking the film world by storm in the past few years, the trailer for Ender's Game looks like the film will stand with the best. Boasting some good CGI and the king of sci-fi, Harrison Ford, this dystopian apocalyptic film will bring the enthusiasm of young adults to the cinema this autumn.

Pick number four: The Counselor

Directed by: Ridley Scott

Starring: Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem

UK Release: 15th November, 2013.

With some of the most prolific actors in Hollywood at the moment, this film follows a lawyer who gets caught up in the drug smuggling trade. With Ridley Scott as director, the film is my favourite of this list already, the trailer is exciting, the acting is obviously going to be amazing and my trust is fully in Ridley Scott to create the film of the year.

FAST & FURIOUS 6 REVIEW:

I have never seen a Fast & Furious film before.
I had never seen a Fast & Furious film before tonight.

I thought, going into this film with a couple of university friends, that I would hate it. Action is not my thing at all. The opening, lets say, twenty minutes were okay, followed by pretty much an hour of constant car chases and fight sequences. During this hour, it was almost impossible for someone like myself, who had never seen any of the previous films in the franchise, to get a grip on the characters, and who is who, who is fighting with each other & who is fighting against each other.
A very confusing car chase (the first one, for those who've seen it) had me confused, characters seemed to be shooting at each other without reason and I could not, for the life of me, tell who was fighting for what team. This car scene, along with the other fight scenes of the first hour, really made that experience almost unenjoyable.

After the first hour however, in what I like to call the 'second' part of the film, everything changed. These characters who I had only been introduced to an hour before had me hooked and the development in narrative was at a perfect pace. The mixture of comedy and drama in the story was enough to get my interests back in the film and the focus switched from these fast cars and hot women to a genuinely interesting plot.

The climax of the film comes with a really long scene in an army base. An aircraft carrier is involved and things get crazy. The use of CGI is mesmerising, with explosions happening every five seconds, but the thing that caught my attention the most in this scene was the most effective piece of camerawork in the whole film. A simple focus-shift of the camera shows vital piece of information (this is a no spoiler zone) and the audience of the cinema (which was surprisingly large for a 10.30pm showing over a week after the release of the film) gasped in amazement.

This is a short review, I don't feel I was emotionally involved enough with the film to write an in-depth analysis of it, however I will leave you with some closing comments.

If you go and see this film, stick with it for the first 45 minutes or so. As with the majority of films, it starts out slow, but the pace does pick up and you will find yourself being taken away with this whirlwind film. A fun, action-packed film that solidifies any doubt in your mind that family comes first over everything in the Fast & Furious franchise (hey, I did some research).

FLIGHT: A BATTLE BETWEEN PLOT AND THEME?:

I recently watched Robert Zemeckis' latest drama, Flight, featuring the wonderful Denzel Washington. I enjoyed the film a lot, I thought it had a really good plot, likeable characters and the lead role of Whip was played fantastically by Mr. Washington himself, however, I couldn't help but to be put off engaging with the story because of the constant use of religious phrases and terminology used throughout.

(possible spoilers to come, although I think everyone has a brief idea of what happens in the film due to trailers etc)

It was through the introduction of one of the flight crew that it started, an invitation given to Whip to join the cabin crew member at a church ceremony when the plane landed, however, we all knew that the plane, in fact, was not going to land and therefore this invitation was void to start with, I just wish that the preaching had crashed mid-air as well as the airplane.
It was all well and good (meaning I had accepted that religion was a part of the film) until Whip met his co-pilot in the hospital post-crash and his girlfriend/fiancé/wife blurted out "PRAISE JESUS" in the middle of a sentence..... twice. Being British, and seeing the film in a British cinema, the whole audience obviously burst out laughing. It was the most ridiculous thing ever. In what was an extremely crucial plot point, and a moment in defining the character of Whip, the religious outburst completely took away any attention the audience was paying to the sombre moment of the film, and made it comical.

Saying all of this, however, I did really, really enjoy the film. It was a lot better than I imagined, and although I think there are factors that could be improved (the ending being a key one, surely there's a better way to get his relationship with his son back on track that that), altogether I had a good two hours whilst watching it and would definitely recommend it!

A REVIEW OF TOM HOOPER'S 'LES MISERABLES':

Now, my primary new years resolution was to visit the cinema more often, as throughout 2012 I can count the amount of times I went on both hands. Although this resolution has made me sit through the dire and laughable 'Texas Chainsaw 3D', something which made me almost reconsider my degree, passion & life in general (I joke.. kind of), tonight, I went to a viewing of the new Les Mis, a film that I have seen both positive and negative reviews for. I have one word to sum the film up: WOW.

If i'm correct, the film came out a few weeks back in the US, but tonight, the 11th, was the premiere night over here in the UK. The stage-musical sensation brought all kinds of people to the packed out cinema, and I've never seen so many people bawling at the same time.

To start with, an honorable mention is needed for the child actors in this film. Both Cosette & Gavroche  provided performances that moved the entire audience. The brilliance of their performance and the passion that is visible in both of these young actors is something that makes me hopeful for the future of cinema, something which I have been thinking about a lot recently, after reading numerous articles about Hollywood's movement away from the 35mm.

Anne Hathaway's performance as Fantine is something bound to earn her the Best Supporting Actress award at this year's Oscars, and was something that absolutely distraught me. The portrayal was just right. There is nothing more any words can add to it.
Now, the only thing I was sceptical about was Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter's roles in the movie. Both respective actors in their own right (questionable for one of the pair, but.. let's leave personal opinions aside..), although I was slightly perplexed as to where they would fit in this adaptation that I really wanted to be so, so good, and thought that they could possibly bring a negative to the musical. My fears were completely pushed aside when we were first introduced to them, however, and I see the roles they were given and why they were given them, a sort-of emphasis on their lack of passion for anything moral, contrasting them to the rest of the cast's constant moral dilemmas.

One final point to stick in your mind, is the question of whether the film is good in cinematic terms, as opposed to simply an adaptation of an absolutely incredible story. In my opinion, the film is extremely good in both of these terms, and the heartbreakingly beautiful storyline compliments the artistic use of the camera throughout the film.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE COBBLER IN ROMAN POLANSKI'S 'CARNAGE':

While waiting on an arrival of dvds to be shipped from hmv.com (worst delivery time ever, fyi, 9 days & counting..), I figured I would head into my local DVD store and pick out a few films to keep me occupied for the few days I have left at home before heading back to university. While my local DVD store is, to say the least, lacking in anything other than romantic comedies, I was lucky to come across a cheap copy of 'Carnage', a 2011 film by Roman Polanski.

After a brief (just over one hour..) viewing of the movie last night, I could not stop thinking about how effective the film was. Polanski makes an apartment in New York City, the only set of the film (apart from the opening and closing credits), the least claustrophobic place in the world. The film's overall execution is something to be applauded in itself, play-to-screen adaptations can often find themselves lacking in substance, so I have found, and although I wasn't expecting that from this film after reading reviews and hearing from word-of-mouth how good the film is, I was not expecting it to be of the level it is.

It struck me, about halfway through the film, shortly after the projectile vomiting, how the apple and pear cobbler is of much more importance than at first thought. The apple and pear (a classic combination, as said by Penelope) cobbler can be used as a metaphor to describe the whole situation of the film. We first start off with the cobbler being misplaced in the fridge, something which Penelope is unhappy with, showing it is not going to be as good as it could have been if it were out of the fridge. This can represent the meeting between the two couples. The original aim was to solve an issue between their two children, however the bitterness of both of the couples and the constant passive aggression shows that from the outset, the meeting is not going to solve anything and is going to get.. messy (quite literally..). This shows that if the cobbler was not put in the fridge, it would have been much tastier and satisfying, almost like if both of the couples did not have this bitterness and passive aggression, the problem between their children would have been solved.

This short piece of analysis of the.. cake (definitely NOT a pie, right Penelope?) can speak for the whole film, the vomiting being a result of too much anger and that is the only way it can be output effectively, the alcohol representing what the cobbler did, everybody wants a big but some can not handle it, showing their lack of ability to communicate their strong feelings in an effective manner.

The film is amazing, Polanski outdid himself again, and his cameo as a confused apartment owner towards the end of the film was the cherry on a most wonderful cake.