News & Reviews: June 2005
My Summer of Love (Review)
Polish-born director Pawel Pawlikowski brings us the story of two teenage girls and their swooning relationship. Set within the rolling hills of the Yorkshire Dales, the tale is told as a fresh, erotic and sometimes funny exploration of faith and manipulation.
Tamsin (Emily Blunt) has returned from boarding school for the summer and is rattling around her parent's mansion while Mona (Nathalie Press) is a local girl without parents or prospects for that matter; furthermore Mona roams the street to avoid her brother Phil (Paddy Considine) who is a reformed violent criminal and born-again Christian now pouring away the drink in the pub owned by their late parents.
My Summer of Love follows Tamsin and Mona's dream yet gritty relationship engulfed with sexual obsession, claustrophobia and despair which are elegantly resolved with a clever twist in the narrative tail.
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Million Dollar Baby (Review)
Clint Eastwood’s multi-Oscar-winning Million Dollar Baby is arguably his most impressive film to date. With a superbly tuned screenplay by Paul Haggis, it features Maggie (Hilary Swank), a gritty bad mannered wannabe boxer from a trailer trash background who is taught the ropes by washed-up boxing trainer - Frankie (Clint Eastwood) manager of a down-trodden LA gym. Frankie has his own internal battles to fight relating to his estranged daughter and his own Catholicism.
The story is narrated by Eddie (Morgan Freeman), who cleans the toilets in Frankie's gym and glares at Clint through his remaining eye.
It's a mainstream thriller, but it's littered with intrigue and loose ends. The performances and murky subdued photography are fantastic, and old pro Freeman carries the emotion with great aplomb.
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Team America: World Police (Review)
Team America: World Police consists of a team of all-American Thunderbirds who bomb the hell out of everything to defend the values of the land of the democratic free. Sound familiar?
The film opens with a wonderful sequence set in Paris where terrorists have infiltrated the city of love, and one of them happens to be carrying a WMD. The five-member Team America squad arrives just in time to stop the bad guys. They succeed, but at a price as one of the team is fatally wounded. The by-product of the battle is that the Eiffel Tower and Louvre are blown to pieces. Slightly unfortunate - yes. It's termed collateral damaged in war. But the important thing is that the terrorist group is eliminated. The film escalates further...
Created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park fame, it is a parody of how Americans view the world in their own inimitable myopic fashion (where South Korea is described as being 6000 miles west of America).
The sheer amount of wit and subversive humour packed into this film is mind boggling. This superhero satire, which has lots of serious, semi-serious, and not-at-all-serious things to say about the current state of the world, is however about an hour longer than it needs to be. All in all, it is exactly what we expected.
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4 Films by Lukas Moodysson (Review)
4 Films by Lukas Moodysson includes the films: Show Me Love, Together, Lilya 4-Ever and finally A Hole in My Heart. This is Moodysson's critically acclaimed debut and well worth viewing.
In true Swedish fashion, Show Me depicts a story of two provincial girls coming out, and hailed by Bergman as a masterpiece.
Together features Elisabeth who is tired of mundane, suburban mediocrity. She ditches her husband and takes her children to be with her brother Goran who live on a commune, where battered idealism and long hair reigns. And where discussion on politics, friendship and free sex prevail.
Lilya 4-Ever is a heart-rendering catalogue of a 16-year old Estonian's descent into sex slavery, and describes Lilya's friendship with 11-year old Volody, himself an outcast.
Finally, A Hole in My Heart depicts the degradations of amateur porn and where bedlam prevails as social codes are abandoned and cosmetic surgery, pop psychology, politics, alienation and human emotions are ground through the mill.
View further details on 4 Films by Lukas Moodysson
Layer Cake (Review)
Layer Cake sees Matthew Vaughn (producer Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Snatch) directing this British gangster film based on J.J. Connolly's book.
It stars Daniel Craig, a drug dealer smugly counting his assets, who decides to do one last sale before retiring. In theory it should be a doddle, but dealing with Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) unearths an array of new problems in the form of the notorious Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon).
To add insult to injury, the final drug deal in Holland goes drastically wrong when Duke (Jamie Foreman) decides to use the end of a gun as a negotiating tool. This in turn leads to a hitman flying to London in a bid to eradicate our protagonist.
With so many sub-plots running in parallel, Layer Cake certainly requires some concentration. However, its sense of depth and drama, and superb acting particularly from Daniel Craig makes it a very watchable gangster flick.
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Liverpool - Champions of Europe 2005 (Review)
Who can forget Liverpool Football Club's 2005 Champions League win over AC Milan? It is on a par with Jonny Wilkinson's last minute Rugby World cup drop goal for extreme nail biting moments.
This Champions League DVD features every goal from every game this season, highlights from the Carling Cup, and an extensive review of the Champions league, including footage from the spectacular match which contained every emotion for the watching millions, as AC Milan's half time lead was ripped from their grasp by the mighty Reds.
DVD Extras include: an interview with Rafael Benitez filmed straight after the Champions League final, interviews with Alonso, Carragher, Cisse and many more.
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Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (Review)
Featuring the talents of Jim Carrey (the nefarious and wicked Count Olaf), Billy Connolly (Uncle Monty), Meryl Streep (Aunt Josephine) and Jude Law (title character voiceover narrative), this film is a brilliantly art-directed children's story. Although Lemony Snicket books are second in popularity only to Harry Potter, the filmmakers have elected to cobble together elements from the first three Lemony Snicket tales (The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, and The Wide Window), resulting in a fast-paced but episodic motion picture.
Directed by Brad Silberling, the film is first and foremost a fantasy, but there are dark currents running just beneath the surface. Coupled with its fast pace, excellent performances and occasional cliffhangers, it is very much a candidate for an easy recommendation, regardless of whether you have read the Lemony Snicket books in the past.
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The Tube Vol 1: The Best of the First Series (Review)
If you fancy digesting some indulgent 80's nostalgia, now is the time to buy The Tube volume 1 which represents that decade's seminal music programme. Rich in live music, incompetent interviews and ordered chaos, this DVD displays presenters such as Muriel Gray, Jools Holland and Paula Yates as well as a myriad of bands and artists including: the Jam, Simple Minds, Robert Palmer, Thin Lizzy, Madness, U2, Aztec Camera, Franki Goes to Hollywood and many more.
It's good for a laugh. Crack open a beer and enjoy.
Release date: July 31, 2005.
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