Film Review: Recount

Director: Jay Roach

An HBO film released in 2008 direct to their own TV channel, the film follows the 2000 US Presidential election and specifically the battle for the state of Florida that took place for over a month after the polls closed. The film was seen as controversial by some for depicting the Democrats in a positive light whilst showing the Republicans as ruthless and unethical in their pursuit of victory.

In 2000, the presidential election was a tight affair between George W. Bush and Al Gore with many analysts saying that whomever wins Florida will take the election. With Florida being given to Bush by a margin of less than 2,000 votes, Gore phones Bush to concede but then retracts his concession after allegations of voting irregularities are raised in the state. From there a legal battle is fought by both sides over the recount of votes in certain county's within the state.

Michael Whouley (Denis Leary) and Ron Klain (Kevin Spacey)

Many critics felt the film was biased but in depicting such a controversial and hotly debated topic it's impossible for a film to be impartial, in many cases certain scenes that were seen as showing the Republicans in a bad light for one person was construed as something very different by somebody else. In reality it shows that both were willing to do whatever it takes to get their man elected even if it wasn't strictly ethical. The over-riding theme is that the Republicans were very strong willed and organised while the Democrats were too worried about PR in the beginning and we're too self centered in thinking of their own careers (Joe Lieberman for example).

The acting in the film is incredibly sharp, especially from the likes of Kevin Spacey, Tom Wilkinson and Laura Dern. Both Spacey and Wilkinson play the incredibly driven leaders of each parties battle in Florida as they both look at ways of getting exactly what they want, from lawsuits to delaying the voting re-count. In the end, despite everything there is a begrudging respect displayed in one of the final scenes. It's a drama thats hard to look away from despite us all already knowing the result, I think as the film develops it almost scares you to remember that this actually happened and was the deciding factor in a US presidential election despite being an absolute farce.

3.5/4 Engrossing and beautifully pitched political drama

Film Preview: Lost River

The directorial debut of actor Ryan Gosling who also wrote and produced the film that was released earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival. It is a fantasy neo-noir film which features many people he has worked with before in his acting career with Christina Hendricks and Eva Mendes both starring. Unfortunately though for Gosling the film opened to poor critical reviews from the audience at the Cannes Festival so expectations are quite low ahead of the films cinematic release at the end of the year.

A single mother struggling for money gets into trouble whilst her son falls foul of the local bully which leads him to find a road to a strange underwater town in this fantasy drama.

Lost River is released in the UK on 30th November 2014 and the trailer is embedded below:

Film Review: Flightplan

Director: Robert Schwentke

A tense thriller which is based around a missing child inside an aeroplane where it is seemingly impossible for somebody to go missing. Released in 2005, it was co-written by Billy Ray who also worked on films like Shattered Glass before being a screenwriter for hugely successful films like The Hunger Games and Captain Phillips. It is loosely based on the 1938 movie The Lady Vanishes by Alfred Hitchcock. The Association of Professional Flight Attendants called for an official boycott of the film, which they say depicts flight attendants as rude, uncaring and indifferent (truly proving they have nothing better to do with their time).

Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) is flying back to America from Germany after her husband has died, she leaves with her daughter Julia (Marlene Lawston). On the large luxurious plane they settled down for the journey and then find some free seats at the back so they both fall asleep, when Kyle wakes up she realises that Julia is gone and can't find her as she searches the cabin. She informs the flight crew who fetch the captain but she still cannot be found and is now certain there is a conspiracy to kidnap her daughter.

Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) and Captain Marcus Rich (Sean Bean)

The initial idea is an intriguing one, how can Kyle's daughter disappear when she was clearly on board with her when the plane took off. It's impossible for her to have left the plane so what has happened? The film plays with different ideas of what has really happened and for a while it is a truly engrossing thriller. But as it progresses it struggles to stretch this thin plot over the running time required for a feature film and then produces a highly disappointing final act where we see what is truly happening. Jodie Foster becomes very irritating as the film progresses and has proven herself to be a better actress than this whilst Peter Sarsgaard is impressive in the sort of role he is renowned for.

1.5/4 Promising plot nosedives from the half way point

Best films from 2014 so far

With 6 months of the year already gone it's time for a look back at the best 5 films that have been released in the UK in 2014 so far. With many of the Oscar nominated films not released on this side of the pond until January it means that narrowing down the field can be quite tricky but only two Oscar nominated movies actually made the cut in the end, honourable mentions go to 22 Jump Street and The Edge of Tomorrow as good films that were close in consideration.

5. The LEGO Movie

An incredibly fun movie with easily the most catchy soundtrack of any film released this year. The comedy in the film is both clever and completely odd but it finds a way to make you really like it, a real surprise hit film of 2014.

4. Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier

As the Avengers series rumbles on towards the next big assemble type film with all the heroes in one film, Captain America produced a genuinely impressive sequel to the rather average opening film in the series. With an intense but intriguing storyline and some fantastic fighting scenes, we finally have an Avengers individual series to take over from Ironman. 

3. Inside Llewyn Davis

The Coen brothers latest film didn't make the waves many expected it to with it being mostly shunned during awards season but a beautiful soundtrack gives it a lovely folky feel. The story of a struggling singer still dealing with the death of his playing partner is sweetly yet oddly funny as it plays out and of course there's always room for a cameo from John Goodman.

2. Her

Spike Jonze takes a tale of love and loss but gives it a very futuristic feel as Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), who is s computer operating system. Throughout the film Theodore tries to discover what love real is and its a uniquely bittersweet view on love in an everchanging world.

1. The Raid 2: Berendal

The original film was a real surprise hit back in 2012 with a small budget but Gareth Evans finally got his wish to make a bigger film on a grander scale off the back of the original. Rama (Iko Uwais) returns after surviving the tower block and is enlisted to infiltrate a criminal gang in Jakarta with the intention of rooting out the corrupt cops in the city. The action is even more impressive than the original with some incredible martial-arts fighting and a brutal fight to the death in a kitchen is right up there as one of my favourite fighting scenes of all-time (alongside the brutal fight in the corridor scene from Oldboy). The plot is maybe slightly simplistic but everything else about the film is truly magnificent.

Film Review: Mistaken for Strangers

Director: Tom Berninger

For many years, the indie band The National were well favoured by the critics but struggled to match that success commercially. Following the 2010 album High Violet that appeared to change and as they embarked on a big tour, lead singer Matt Berninger agreed to lets his brother come on tour as a member of the crew to film the experience. Tom describes Matt appreciation of their music and the genre as "pretentious bullshit" so its a new experience for both brothers as Tom rarely spends time with the band.

It's a typically quirky look at a band touring, The National have never been a particularly conventional band and naturally this documentary of their tour is equally different. It's very much the sort of documentary that requires you to be a fan of the band itself so you are intrigued in the personalities behind the music. Despite a few interview with the lesser known band members, it's very much about the immature younger brother Tom and the older lead singer Matt.

Movie Poster

The filming itself by Tom is very poor which to be fair he admits as much but it gives you a decent idea of what happens behind the scenes on the days in the lead up to the gigs that we all see. The stress and strains of the constant travelling and logistical nightmare of everything that goes with the band everywhere they go. It's the side we often don't see or consider to any band's tour. You do often get the feel that Matt ended up filming a lot of the more random and inane moments rather than the more important scenes (although an interview with Aaron Dessner reveals a bust-up with Matt over the song Apartment Story). I was hoping for more actual band footage on stage but there are still some great small bits of footage.

2.5/4 Very much for hardcore fans of The National 

This week's releases

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: The sequel to the 2011 film Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the current re-booting of the franchise is enjoying the best reviews and box office figures of any re-incarnation of the original films. Gary Oldman and Jason Clarke stars as the humans Dreyfus and Malcolm whilst Andy Serkis is Caesar the leader of the apes.

And so it goes: Romantic comedy starring Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton. Douglas plays a selfish and unpopular estate agent is helped by his neighbour, played by Keaton, when he suddenly is lumbered with a granddaughter he never knew about.

Pudsey the Dog: A typical British movie about a stray dog in London who manages to escape his sad life for a more exciting adventure out in the countryside. The film stars the dog from Britain's Got Talent as well as a British cast including Olivia Colman.

Film Preview: Gone Girl

Gone Girl is an upcoming American mystery-thriller film based on the 2012 novel of same name written by Gillian Flynn, the film is being directed by David Fincher whose had great success recently with the TV series House of Cards. Aside from the main cast of Ben Affleck, Rosemund Pike and Neil Patrick Harris, Reese Witherspoon showed a big interest in the project from the outset and is one of the producers for the film. Trent Reznor announced that he and Atticus Ross would once again work with Fincher to provide the score much like they did in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Social Network. 

Ben Affleck as Nick Dunne

On his fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) finds out that his wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), has gone missing. Under pressure from the police and a growing media frenzy, Nick's portrait of a blissful union begins to crumble. Soon his deceits and strange behavior have everyone asking the same dark question: Did Nick Dunne kill his wife?

Gone Girl is released in the UK on 3rd October 2014 and the trailer is embedded below:

Film Review: Election

Director: Alexander Payne

A 1999 film by writer and director Alexander Payne which was adapted from the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta. The novel itself was inspired by two events: The first was the 1992 Bush vs. Clinton election campaign, in which Ross Perot entered as a third party candidate. The second was an incident at Memorial High School in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, in which a pregnant student was elected homecoming queen, but staff announced a different winner and burned the ballots to cover it up.

Paul Meltzer (Chris Klein) and Tracy Enid Flick (Reese Witherspoon)

Jim (Matthew Broderick) is a high school teacher in small town near Omaha, here he encounters the student class elections with over zealous student Tracy (Reese Witherspoon) who is the big favourite to win. Injured footballer Paul Meltzer (Chris Klein) is convinced to run by Jim so that Tracy has some competition and out of rejection from her female companion, who chooses Paul, Tammy (Jessica Campbell) also runs. The school becomes embroiled in underhand election tactics as well as questionable behaviour by some of the teachers.

Election does a great job of poking fun at the seriousness behind student elections and the people's perceptions of each other in school, where popularity is so important. It's a clever political satire with some touching moments of comedy usually at the expense of the characers, from the hapless Matthew Broderick to the far too eager Reese Witherspoon.

Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick)

It's one of the early works of Alexander Payne but it has a lot of his hallmarks, the character comedy inter-filled with sweet moments and the desperation of people living almost dead-ends lives knowing that they aren't happy but not doing anything about it. The film hasn't dated brilliantly, like many other films from this era of the 90's, but still provides entertainment. For me, its like many of Payne's films in being enjoyable without completely blowing you away.

3/4 Smarter high school comedy than the average

Film Review: Jeff Who Lives at Home

Director: Jay and Mark Duplass

A 2012 comedy film from the writing duo Jay and Mark Duplass (Mark is renowned for playing Pete in TV series The League and his wife Katie Aselton from the same show makes a cameo appearance). It's renowned for being part of the mumblecore aesthetic which normally uses only amateur actors but is known for giving the actors a share of writing credits due to the heavily improvised nature of the script and screenplay.

Jeff (Segel) is an unemployed stoner living in his mothers basement in Baton Rouge, his mum Sharon (Susan Sarandon) calls to ask him to go to Home Depot to pick up wood glue to fix a door shutter. Believing heavily in the importance of random occurrences, due to the movie Signs, he boards the bus and sees a man with a basketball jersey with the same name as the name asked for by a wrong number call earlier. This seemingly insignificant event sets up an important afternoon with his brother Pat (Helms)

Jeff (Jason Segel) and Pat (Ed Helms)

A slacker yet feel-good comedy does vaguely strain towards the territory of the Kevin Smith films with Jay and Silent Bob, although the comedy and script is possibly less vulgar and more innocent. Whilst the second comparison that immediately came to mind was with Mark Duplass' other project \The League where the characters get themselves into embarrassing scrapes. It's a feel good movie and Jason Segel is great at acting out characters that you just can't help rooting for, the ending is a little Hollywood but still a fun film.

2.5/4 Enjoyable and likeable comedy

Film Review: Valentine Road

Director: Marta Cunningham

A 2013 HBO documentary film that investigated the controversial shooting of Larry King by classmate Brandon McCarthy in 2008. The shooting happened in the small town of Oxnard, California and when Larry died two days later in hospital it became a national news story. Questions arose over the motive of the killer as it was revealed Larry was a homosexual and a cross-dresser who had shown an interest in Brandon who it was believed had allegiances to white supremacist groups and an obsession with Nazism. The story is told largely through interviews with students, teachers and the legal teams from the time.

Animated still from the film of Larry

The story itself is a heart-breaking one in more ways than one, Larry's bleak childhood was starting to improve after finding a stable legal guardian and his life was tragically cut short as he started to finally express his true self to the world. But Brandon the killer also had a very tough up-bringing with an abusive father and a drug addicted mother. In many ways both children were failed by the people around them and the system.

The film asks a lot of the right questions in its interviews with everybody involved at the time, with some of the reactions by the local community were shocking in their support of what Brandon did. Many mistakes were made in his trial but the fact that many would call Brandon the victim to what Larry was doing is incredulous. But the documentary itself whilst fascinating is quick to gloss over the childhood and up-bringing of the killer Brandon in favour of Larry, in trying to be impartial it did fail in this regard. As well as questions having been raised over the editing of interviews with some of the "fanatical" supporters of Brandon who said they were edited to look crazy and out of touch.

2.5/4 Intriguing documentary but not as impartial as it wishes it was

This week's releases

Begin Again: Gretta (Keira Knightley) splits with her boyfriend Dave (Adam Levine) after the temptation to cheat becomes too great after he becomes a famous singer/songwriter. But is her life about to move into the right direction when she meets disgraced music executive Dan (Mark Ruffalo)? Comedy drama from Irish director John Carney.

Boyhood: The latest ambitious project from director and writer Richard Linklater is a coming of age story which has been set and filmed across a 12 year period. It follows Mason (Ellar Coltrange) growing up from age 5 to 18 as he literally grows up infront of our eyes.

How to train your Dragon 2: The sequel to the successful animated action adventure with Jay Baruchel and Cate Blanchett lending their voices. The films budget came in at a whopping $145 million which seems a huge amount for an animated film.

Film Preview: Get On Up

With many biographical successes in recent years, especially the likes of Ray and Walk the Line, the next musician to be honored is James Brown. The project was announced in 2012 with Mick Jagger being involved as a producer for the film but will not actually feature in the film as the young version of him will be played by Nick Eversman. Chadwick Boseman takes up the lead role with Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer reuniting since their work on The Help. 

A biography of the life of James Brown (Chadwick Boseman), from his humble beginnings in a poor family to becoming one of the most iconic and revered musicians of all time.

Get On Up is released in the UK on 26th September 2014 and the trailer is embedded below:

This week's releases

The Anomaly: The latest film from British director Noel Clarke. A futuristic drama where a traumatized ex-soldier discovers that he can only experience life as himself in nine minute bursts every few days or so. Meaning he has very little time to figure out why it is happening and stop it.

Transformers: Age of Extinction: The fourth Transformers film to come from the utterly dreadful director Michael Bay, here he has re-booted his own franchise and brought back favourite actor Mark Wahlberg who continues to prove he's not really a serious actor. At 165mins you'd better hope Bay has found a decent script or plot from somewhere but I wouldn't hold your breath (same screenplay writer as previous two films).

Film Review: The Normal Heart

Director: Ryan Murphy

A 2014 American drama television film directed by Ryan Murphy and written by Larry Kramer, based on his own 1985 play of same name. Actor Jim Parsons, mostly known for playing Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory, Jim Mantello have supporting roles here but also starred in the play during a recent run on Broadway. Mark Ruffalo is the lead actor fighting for support in the AIDS epidemic. The TV film was aired on HBO on 25th May and received strong critical reviews.

Ned Weeks (Mark Ruffalo) with Felix Turner (Matt Bomer)

In the summer of 1981 the gay community is enjoying more freedom socially and sexually much to their delight but the epidemic of AIDS begins to take hold. At the time nobody knows what is causing so many gay men to collapse and die so quickly as well as cause others to slowly suffer before dying. Ned (Mark Ruffalo) believes that the government isn't recognising this epidemic due to it only affecting gay men so starts a Gay Health Clinic to help patients and their lovers come to terms with the disease whilst lobbying local and national government.

The acting performances in this movie are very strong, Mark Bomer lost around 40 lbs to play the role of Felix who becomes ravaged with AIDS, whilst Mark Ruffalo is impressive as the incredibly driven and argumentative Ned. Both actors provide real power to this drama with Ned being a rare hero who is also incredibly flawed in his personal and professional life. Whilst Jim Parsons and Taylor Kitsch are capable but not stand out performers, its actually Julia Roberts who seems rather forgettable except for one moment of passionate outrage.

Ned at a fundraiser with Bruce (Taylor Kitsch)

The film is uneven at times, it slowly reels you in rather than having you hooked from the opening scene. Director Ryan Murphy harks back to his American Horror Story roots with a bizarre Subway scene with flashing lights scaring Felix as he sees an AIDS patient in a much worse state than him. Jim Kramer's screenplay really bares its soul on numerous occasions at his outrage towards the lack of action by government's at the time, he channels his frustrations through the character of Ned who is more of a sledgehammer in his protesting style.

3/4 Heartbreaking character based AIDS drama

Film Preview: Fury

The pre-production for the film gave away Brad Pitt's latest movie role as he was seen driving a tank around rural Hertfordshire for rehearsals. It was actually filmed in Oxfordshire with Pinewood Studios sending warning letters to the villagers of Shirburn, Pyrton and Watlington stating that there would be some gunfire and explosions during the filming of Fury so not to be alarmed. Alongside Pitt, the film stars Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Jon Bernthal, Michael Peña, Jason Isaacs, and Scott Eastwood.

The main cast

A deadly mission behind enemy lines is ordered in April 1945 in Northern France. Army Sergeant Wardaddy (Pitt) commands his Sherman tank and its five crew on this mission to attack the Nazi's with almost no backup from other units in this brave advance.

Fury is scheduled to be released in the UK on 24th October 2014 and the new trailer is embedded below: