Nora Ephron RIP
It’s sad to hear about the passing of Nora Ephron, as you’d imagine she’s not the sort of filmmaker or talent that naturally gravitates to my cinematic peccadilloes, but I’m not completely dead inside (yet) and like many I have had a very small crush on the likes of When Harry Met Sally and dare I say it, Sleepless In Seattle;
Didn’t realise that she’d been married to both Carl ‘Watergate’ Bernstien and Nicholas ‘Goodfellas’ Pileggi, that makes for some interesting dinner party discussions. Whatever my personal reservations for her brand of movies she’s an iconic role model for women in the film business, managing a long, productive and successful career which must have been doubly difficult in such a male dominated industry, and for that she should be simultaneously mourned and celebrated.
Snow White & The Huntsman (2012) & Red Lights (2012)
It’s time for a quick couple of capsule reviews. Y’know, when I started this blog almost six years ago I set myself a personal goal, to write a review of every single film I saw at the flicks, without exception. Contrary to popular opinion I’m not perfect, and can count the number of films that have failed to achieve this lofty proposition on the fingers of one hand, including awarding myself one free veto on every London Film Festival of the past three years (the others were Sunshine and Fantastic Four 2 if you’re interested) as when you’re ploughing through twenty reviews in two weeks it helps if you can drop a three star, minor profile move in order to alleviate the pressure. It’s the existence of such three star movies that brings us to this evenings menu, as such a median rating pretty much sums up the morsels on offer, films which I’d struggle to carve out anything more than some cursory observations and opinions, as the ingredients I’m working with are limited in both quantity and quality. So let’s begin;
Snow White & The Hunstmen takes the 1812 Grimm’s brothers fairy tale and does exactly what we always hoped they’d do – give it the $175 million budget, CGI inflected, star marque treatment in this recent addition to the fantasy movie pantheon. Sarcasm aside Snow White (Kristen Stewart, indifferent and absent in demeanour as always) is the outcast heir to some unspecific medieval fiefdom after her father is seduced, ensnared and slain by the Evil Wicked Witch a mere 24 hours after his wife and her mother falls prey to a sickness – I mean I know that she’s played by the symmetrically beautiful Charlize Theron but damn, that’s fast work. Escaping from the fetid castle dungeons Snow White embarks on a quest to restore her rightful kingdom, enlisting the succor of the Huntsmen (Chris ‘Don’t call me Asgard’ Hemsworth) and of course the support of a heptad of diminutive fellows who must have had the UK casting agent community Hi-Ho, Hi-Hoing all the way to the bank. Fantastical elements creep into the tale with hints of Snow White’s mythical destiny as the guardian of the kingdom, but the necrotic Báthoryesque enchantress has a fine line in venom laden fruit that may disrupt the course of history….
What I don’t quite understand about this $175 million movie is quite how it cost $175 million to produce, I don’t want to be one of those bloggers who is constantly going on about box office and budgets but sometimes those elements do inform the final products artistic merit, and this did not look like such treasures had been thrown at a serviceable, but ultimately rather bland update on the classic tale. It’s easy to see why it was greenlit – Alice In Wonderland’s ten figure magical haul a couple of years ago and I think both projects share producers – although the lucrative budget evidently couldn’t stretch to get David Thewlis in to play the Witch’s brother and henchmen ‘Finn’ in a typecast role he has made his own (the part was eventually played by Sam Spruell). Kristen Stewart has the usual distant aura of preferring she was somewhere else and Charlize plays the Witch as a shrieking, overwrought harpy when a more malevolent, discrete succubi would have been far more effective. Having read nothing about this I was pleasantly surprised to witness the emergence of the seven dwarves on-screen, a revelation which utilises some of the best blended CGI since Captain America transformed Chris Evans from diminutive weed to American idol last year, whilst their introduction raises unflattering comparisons with Time Bandits the British guild of Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Toby Young, Nick Frost, Eddie Marsan and Ray ‘fackin cant’ Winstone did manage to successfully evade potential film destroying ridiculousness through some impressive and persuasive SFX. Some of the genuine location work is refreshing in today’s green screen saturated world and there are a couple of well mounted scenes – the faerie lake and troll encounter were nicely designed and arranged – but it’s difficult to care when the film shifts into its final act due to its fairly limp world building, plotting and pacing. As much as I loathe the Twilight movies as much as the next nerd I have nothing against Stewart, in films such as Adventureland and The Runaways she was a pretty fine young actress, (she’s also the daughter in Panic Room, aaahhh) but she’s miscast in this and no empathy for your central protagonist nor any credibility as such a mythical figure yields mediocre returns. One for a washed out Sunday afternoon Blu Ray in a couple of years.
From Grimm’s fairy tales to a fairly grim tale (cymbal crash), Red Lights is a supernaturally divined, psychological thriller starring Cillian Murphy as Tom Buckley, the university assistant of Dr. Margaret Matheson (a solid Sigourney Weaver), parapsychologist and professional sceptic whose career is almost pathologically driven by the exposure of fraudulent mediums and falsified haunting, powered by an overwhelming disbelief in any article of faith that falls apart under empirical observation due to the adolescent illness of her son deteriorating under a decades long coma induced by an indifferent and cruel deity. Enter the David Blaine / Uru Geller hybrid Simon Silver (Robert De Niro), a blind prestidigitator of miraculous healings and uncertified psychic practitioner, having withdrawn from public life twenty years ago after the mysterious sudden death of an investigative journalist who may have uncovered some embarrassing truths he’s back from his self-imposed Siberia with his icy agent (Joely Richardson) in tow to reignite his career and bring unexplained phenomenon back to the mainstream masses. With Murphy’s love interest materializing as the wasted Mary Olsen (who has depressingly already graduated from her brilliant performance in Martha Marcy May Marlene to second tier girlfriend in this or screaming victim in Silent House), the film pursues the sceptics battle with the malicious forces of faith, as things start to go bump in the night and freak accidents occur, it seems that both the pious and pagan have some surprises for each other….
For the first half this heathen chiller is perfectly palatable fare, as Rodrigo Cortés steps up to a higher class of director division following the critical praise of his previous stifler Buried from whom he has retained many of his core crew and technicians, in this unusual Spanish /American co-production. The film is shot in deep shadow and crimson putrescence, and an eerie atmosphere is deftly amplified until a certain crest, then the film goes completely off the rails on its final decent into plot contrivances, clichéd jump scares and elderly overacting. Murphy is always watchable but he needs a new agent, post Nolan he is cropping up in a few of these genre attuned duds, see also (or rather don’t) In Time and Retreat. As usual these days De Niro is rather hokey, with his silver maned, over the top screen presence transforming into a Max Cady shouting clone in the final denouement with a couple of twists – one guessable in the trailer, the other throughly underwhelming and pointless – saluting a poorly edited resolution to a film which could have contained a potent clash between faith and science which arms much of our present cultural and climate wars. I’m not the first critic to think of this but the warning is in the title folks…..
Minty's Menagerie 
Recent Comments