Flick of the Day: The Iceman

I like surprises. I especially like surprises when I go to the cinema. I like entering the theatre with little or no expectations and being pleasantly surprised by the two hour traffic of my stage. Of course such things are relatively rare in this age of endless interconnectivity and near constant reviews of everything that a human being can consume. Generally you know what to expect. Today was a nice exception.  

Michael Shannon has developed a career out of playing intense and often brooding characters to great effect. He was the crazed young man who is perhaps the only truly sane character in Revolutionary Road, he was the family man driven over the edge by his nightmares in Take Shelter and the crooked cop having a bad day in Premium Rush. Such is his talent that with the right roles he will surely become a star. Today he plays Richard Kuklinski, a real life Mafia hit-man who built a career on a pathological coldness yet maintained a relatively happy family life until his arrest in 1986.

Our tale opens in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1965, Richard is a quiet and brooding young man attempting to woo Deborah played by Winona Ryder. The pair fall in love and marry though Deborah remains unaware that Richard works as a pornography distributor on the fringes of the underworld.  He soon displays a propensity for great violence at the least provocation and comes to the attention of local boss Roy Demeo played with a vicious charm by Ray Liotta. Richard becomes a man who removes the little problems that Roy encounters. The years pass and the body count rises and meanwhile Richard and Deborah have  had two daughters who seem to worship the ground on which their father walks. Business has been good to Richard and he has become a wealthy man. He explains his largesse to his unsuspecting friends as being down to his skill as a foreign currency trader. Things are almost too good and so it proves as the actions of Roy's deadbeat friend Josh Rosenthal, played by an incredibly sleazy David Schwimmer, conspire to drive a wedge between Roy and Richard. Richard's life begins to spiral out of control and as his well appointed facade falls apart so does his grip on his psychosis.

What separates today's flick and indeed Michael Shannon's performance is that unlike so many films it does not in any way seek to glamorise the lives of what are deeply disturbed men. They do not live normal lives like the rest of us, they live violently. It is the violence and the underlying psychosis which anchor their lives. Richard Kuklinski is a very scary individual, always on the edge of violence. Yet so is Ray Liotta's Roy Demeo and Richard's fellow contract killer Mr. Freezy played by Chris Evans. They are men who hurt small animals, men who engage in domestic violence. They are in short, not to be admired or normalised in the manner so many gangsters are in hagiography-like biopics. 

The film is blessed to have a really excellent supporting cast with fine turns from the likes of Robert Davi as a Mafia boss, John Ventimiglia who is perhaps better known as Artie Bucco in The Sopranos and a blink and you will miss it turn from James Franco. All in all this is a very compelling look at a man consumed by violence. It manages to both detail his crimes and his love for his family which I don't doubt was genuine. Some of the most interesting scenes involve the interplay between Richard and his unassuming family. Shannon's performance makes you feel like anything could happen. 

Flick of the Day: Good Vibrations

 It can often be the case that history on screen can feel somewhat remote and detached from modern life, sometimes the frame of reference can be so different that it is difficult to take in the historical events playing out on screen. This is not always the case; the events depicted in Schindler’s List are as harrowing today as they no doubt were at the time.  For me, the events and happenings in Belfast during the Troubles of the 1970’s and 80’s can feel somewhat remote when played out on screen  given the long period of peace the people of Northern Ireland have enjoyed since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Today’s flick of the day however, Good Vibrations, manages to bring to life the difficult and often harrowing events of those times while also immersing us in the Belfast punk music scene through this fine tale of the life and times of Terri Hooley.

At the opening of the film we are introduced to a young Terri playing in his front garden where all is right with the world until after an exchange of words with some local children he gets a toy arrow to the face and requires a glass eye. At this point, I was slightly worried that the film might turn out to be a tad too grim to be enjoyable but it isn't the case. We fast forward in a bravura sequence of carefully edited news footage to Belfast in the 1970’s. Terri is a music fan and he saw all the greats come to Belfast in the 1960’s : Dylan, the Stones, Jimi Hendrix, the list goes on until of course they stopped coming because nobody went out at night anymore.

We find Terri, played by the excellent Richard Dormer, scratching out a living in Dylan Moran’s dive bar where he acts a DJ to an empty room.  There he meets Ruth played by an equally excellent Jodie Whittaker; he explains that once upon a time he had lots of friends, both Protestant and Catholic and that once the troubles started, they fell into opposing groups with Terri alone in the middle. We see how his former friends now despise him for not siding with either side. After marrying Ruth, they try and form a life together despite the maelstrom which is erupting around them.  However after Terri is the subject of an attempted kidnapping at gunpoint while walking home one night, he decides that he had to do something to foster peace and hits on the idea of a record shop. With the help of Ruth’s idealistic group of friends and a mortgage on his house, Terri sets up Good Vibrations. The story would have ended there but for the fact that Terri becomes drawn into, almost by accident, the emerging punk scene in Belfast. Despite being older than the young people that are the focus of this movement, Terri finds himself drawn to the energy of the music and a scene which is truly cross-cultural and without the infection of sectarianism. He sets out to try and bring as much press and airplay to the burgeoning scene and its various bands including most famously The Undertones and their anthem “Teenage Kicks”.

The real strength of this film is how it perfectly captures the raw energy and emotion of the punk movement and how influential it would prove despite its short initial lifespan.  Yet the film does not ignore the fact that punk was not the only game in town. In a poignant scene, Terri notes how talented musicians from the oft-maligned show band circuit kept the Belfast music scene alive.

The film displays a light touch with a period of Northern Ireland’s history which was grim to say the least and is to be commended for this. The casting of some of the young bands feels spot on, in particular Fergal Sharky of The Undertones. Ultimately the rise and fall of punk in Belfast did not bring about a sea change in relations between the two factions and it can’t be ignored that the Troubles thundered on for another 15 years with perhaps the darkest days in the 1980’s. Yet this film feels like a celebration of a time and place when change felt possible and one can’t help but be caught up in Terri Hooley’s story. As the man himself puts in the end: “When it comes to punk, New York may have the haircuts, London may have the trousers but Belfast has the reason”.

Flick of The Day: Lincoln

There are few historical figures more clothed in the endearing embrace of the passage of time than the 16^th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. Time makes saints of the worst of men and Lincoln was a statesman and leader for the ages in his own lifetime.  In the years since his death he has become an almost mythic figure, the great emancipator and a man who symbolised all that could be borne of political will. The greatness of the United States, if such a thing can be said to exist, is tied up in men and women like Lincoln. To attempt a biographical film on his life and times is a tall order and one which Hollywood has attempted on more than one occasion. That a film-maker of the calibre of Steven Spielberg combined with a stellar cast is behind this latest effort should be a cause for excitement among cine-philes everywhere.

Eschewing, correctly in my opinion, the approach of previous directors of attempting to tell the story of Lincoln’s life’s work in favour of a focus on a brief few months toward the end of the gruelling civil war, Spielberg’s film attempts to document the passage of the 13th Amendment which abolished once and for all the abomination that was and is human slavery. We meet Lincoln on the margins of a rainy battlefield as he talks jovially with a pair of young black soldiers fighting for the Union side in that most bitter conflict. From this one scene it becomes apparent what an incredible performance Daniel Day Lewis has once again drawn forth from within himself. He inhabits the role completely down to the gait of the President. From this conversation with pair of soldiers, Lincoln resolves to pass the amendment in the democrat controlled house of representatives no matter the cost to his personal prestige or relationship with his fellow republicans.

Despite the protests of his Secretary of State, an excellent David Strathairn and his much put upon wife, a fine Sally Field, he pushes on seeking to grasp by any means necessary the votes he requires. To accomplish this, he must do two things. Firstly he has to secure the votes of his own party led by an aged Hal Holbrook who demands that a negotiated peace be sought with the confederacy. This will lead inevitably to the defeat of the bill so it must be held off. Secondly, he must procure through the use of state favours, 20 democratic votes. To this end he hires a firm of lobbyists led by Mr W.N. Bilbo, a fantastically entertaining performance from James Spader to procure the necessary votes. Yet even at this point, the passage of the bill is not assured with Lincoln having to involve the noted radical and abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens, again another superb performance from Tommy Lee Jones. Were these political troubles not enough, he also suffers with a wife who grieves for her lost son and another son, Robert, played by Joseph Gordon Levitt who yearns to play his part on the battlefield. That he manages to walk this difficult personal and political path while also fighting a war along with his most trusted General, Ulysses Grant, played by the always watch-able Jared Harris, is a tale in and of itself.

There is not a single weak performance in what is an excellently assembled cast. I realize reading the above that I have yet to even praise actors of the calibre of John Hawkes, Jackie Earle Haley or Tim Blake Nelson. 

The real achievement of both Spielberg and Day Lewis is that on one hand they shake the dust off the mythic status of Lincoln and humanise him so that he may be viewed as an ordinary man with flaws and difficulties while on the other they manage to put his achievements in a proper light and eulogise them for how ground-breaking they truly were. This is proper old school Hollywood film-making on a grand scale and deserves to rewarded as such. It will be a surprise if it fails to win most of the main acting awards as the forthcoming Academy Awards and yet this is a fine year for cinema with a number of equally excellent rivals.

Flick of The Day: Walk the Line

Musical biographies are a tricky business at the best of times. Focus too much on the mythology of your average rock star and you end up with something endlessly turgid like Oliver Stone's The Doors and even when you are possessed with a good script, the film can hang solely on the performance of your leading actor. If he or she fails to capture the essence of a much loved loved star then the backlash can leave your film stillborn. Perhaps this is the reason for Martin Scorsese's long gestating Sinatra biopic failing to make it to the big screen as of yet. In any case, in terms of capturing a man and his career albeit only in snapshots then few have come close to 2005's Walk the Line which tells the life of country music legend Johnny Cash.

Walk the Line

Opening with Cash, played by Joaquin Phoenix, at the height of his fame and preparing to take the stage for his seminal Folsom Prison concert, we are soon in flashback mode for the rest of the film. We see Cash as a poverty stricken child toiling with his older brother in the fields under the eyes of their stern father, played by a man who has built a second career playing stern characters, Robert Patrick. Perhaps the defining event of his childhood is the death of his brother in a farm accident which his father blames him for. So far, so ho-hum and it is only when Phoenix arrives and screen that the film gets going. His taciturn take on Cash is spellbinding and holds the screen for the remainder of the film. Director James Mangold chooses to focus on Cash's rapid rise in the American country scene from recording for Sun Records to meeting Bob Dylan while chronicling his long term pursuit of his soul mate June Carter. Carter is given a witty souther charm by Reese Witherspoon and the chemistry with Phoenix works well. Both actors give all their own musical performances and the film is all the better for it.

Based on Cash's own autobiographies, the film doesn't shy away from portraying Cash as the flawed individual he was particularly focusing on the lost years of drug abuse and his poor treatment of his first wife. For all this, Joaquin Phoenix gives a measured and charismatic performance as Cash. He is perhaps the coolest character ever to populate the country music genre and consequently his fame transcends this.

Johnny Cash: [playing for the inmates at Folsom prison] Once in El Paso, I had this bag of... Oh... you heard about that? You been in El Paso, too? Well, anyways, I felt tough, you know?. Like I'd seen a thing or two, you know? Well, that was till a moment ago... 'cuz I got to tell you, my hat's off to you now, 'cuz I ain't never had to drink this yellow water you got here at Folsom!

Perhaps the strongest suit of the film is the decision to focus only on a small part of Cash's life concluding with the Folsom concert in 1968, something which really brought Cash to the mainstream. Taking on too much can lead to an over-long and under-detailed mess.

So that's that really, this is a well made biopic of a musical icon with a decent if not too cluttered script and fine performances from the leads. You don't have to be a lover of Cash's music to enjoy the film because there is much here to enjoy for the beginner. Both Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon would go on to Oscar nominations for their performances with Witherspoon carrying home the gong.

Flick of The Day: The People Vs Larry Flynt

Biographical films or Biopics are a very hit and miss affair, their success as a film depends greatly on the subject. There has to be an entertaining story to tell or else it can be a very dull affair, I'm thinking of the likes of Amadeus or Casino Jack. The subject need not be likeable, the success of Raging Bull attests to this, and today's flick of the day is just such a film, The People Vs Larry Flynt, telling the varied life and times of American pornographer, Larry Flynt.

The People vs. Larry Flynt [Blu-ray]

The film opens in 1953, in dirt poor rural Kentucky, where a young Larry brews and sells moonshine to help his family before moving forward to Cleveland in 1973, where Flynt is a small time strip club owner played in a career best performance by Woody Harrelson. Losing money hand over fist, he decides to create a newsletter to advertise his club, and Hustler magazine is born. A self styled down to earth alternative to Playboy, Flynt becomes a millionaire overnight. Along the way he meets and falls in love with a stripper named Althea, played with abandon by Courtney Love. In and of itself, this would not make for a compelling picture, however due to his ability to push the boundaries of good taste and an unwillingness to back down, he soon becomes the subject of a crusade from the Christian right to have him shut down, led by James Cromwell  as the kind of narcissistic book burner that could only be found in the American mid-west. Flynt becomes a devotee of his right to free speech and aided by his crusading lawyer played by Edward Norton, he travels the country defending his magazine in courtrooms and in the media. It is on one of these trips that he is the victim, along with his lawyer of an assassins bullet. This radically alters his life leaving him paralysed from the waist down, and his antics from thereon are a corollary of this. As the film moves to a conclusion, both in his life and his legal struggles, it is both heartfelt and moving at times and regardless of your opinion of the man, it makes for compelling viewing.

Director Milos Forman, perhaps best remembered for his film version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, has crafted a unique film here. A strong script is backed up by some very fine performances from Harrelson, Norton and particularly Courtney Love.

Blow Dried Jerk: Uh, Mr. Flynt? I don't wanna step on your toes but things have changed since you were actively running the company. I mean I look back at the stuff you did in the 70s and it was uh sorta racy and crazy. But the country is different now. Reagan has rebuilt America and the moral majority is gaining power. 

Larry Flynt: You're fired. 

Blow Dried Jerk: Excuse me? 

Larry Flynt: You get the fuck out of my building. Doug get him out of here. You blow dryed jerk mother fucker. Take him out of here and throw him in the incinerator, cut him to little pieces and feed him to the animals out there. Get out of here.

Ultimately though, the film is carried by Harrelson in a very entertaining performance. Perhaps it is favourable direction, but Flynt's no nonsense approach to life and his home spun patriotism make him a likeable if not endearing figure. 

If the First Amendment will protect a scumbag like me, it will protect all of you

An enjoyable and thought provoking film, anchored by some great acting, this is well worth a viewing regardless of your opinion of Larry Flynt. It garnered a number of Oscar nominations upon its release for Forman and Harrelson, it lost out in a year dominated by Anthony Minghella's The English Patient.

Flick of The Day: Man on the Moon

It is 27 years since celebrated American comedian and performer Andy Kaufman passed away aged 35. By an conventional measures, Kaufman was an oddity. Not really a comedian, indeed it was a tag Kaufman himself shunned, his often bizarre performances combined music and outlandish complex practical jokes that only he was in on. His life story was made into a film starring Jim Carrey, Man on the Moon, which is today's flick of the day.

Man on the Moon

It would be hard to find an actor more suited to portraying somebody as wilfully different as Kaufman than Jim Carrey. Carrey long known for his rubber faced comedic roles, gives his best performance in a serious role by becoming fully immersed in the all too brief life and times of this American icon. The film skirts all the major incidents in Kaufman's life, from his beginning as an improvisational stand up that didn't do jokes to his elevation to Saturday Night Live and the incredibly popular sitcom Taxi, a role incidentally which Kaufman detested. It is a classic tale of rise and fall, Kaufman was the kind of performer whose style boggled the minds of your average audience in the late 70's and early 80's and as his performances became more outlandish, his star waned. Perhaps best remembered for his wrestling matches and feud with Jerry "The King" Lawler, the film reveals that it was another one of Andy's in-jokes and that he and Lawler were firm friends. For a man so in love with life, it was a tragic end when he succumbed to cancer.

While Carrey's is a justly lauded performance, this is a fine cast all round. Courtney Love continues on from her fine work in The People Vs Larry Flynt as Kaufman's devoted partner, reminding us all that once upon a time she was more than the perpetually addled widow of Kurt Cobain. Kaufman's former Taxi colleague Danny DeVito is equally strong as the manager who made him a star while Paul Giamatti shines as his comrade in arms.

Andy Kaufman: You don't know the real me. 

Lynne Margulies: There isn't a real you. 

Andy Kaufman: Oh yeah, I forgot

The film eschews any attempt to get to the bottom of why Kaufman was man he was in favour of a run through of his life. This lack of insight lets down the hard work put in by Jim Carrey, though it is hard to critique too much given that he never wrote about himself or revealed very much during his life. 

Perhaps the most poignant moment of the film is the night when Saturday Night Live hold a phone poll to decide whether Andy would be allowed to return to the who and he loses. The film-makers play around with history, with the implication being that his fellow cast members did not want him back though as Eddie Murphy put it on the night:

"Now Andy Kaufman is a friend of mine. Keep that in mind when you call. I don't want to have to punch nobody in America in the face"

Ultimately this is a tale of regret, of a life cut short in the prime. Those who burn brightest, burn the shortest. That said, the film is genuinely funny and at times I felt baffled by the audiences who would stare agog at Kaufman's antics and not see the joke in front of them. Perhaps he would have found a deeper and longer lasting fame in the modern world where increasingly bizarre is the new normal.

A worthy film about the life of an extraordinary man, this is definitely worthy of your time for the performances alone. Of the man himself, perhaps comedian Richard Lewis summed him up best:

"No one has ever done what Andy did, and did it as well, and no one will ever. Because he did it first. So did Buster Keaton, so did Andy"

Flick of The Day: 127 Hours

In April 2003, Aron Ralston, an American mountain climber and all round adventurer set off on a Saturday afternoon hike into Blue John Canyon in Wayne County, Utah. He would emerge 127 hours later, bloodied, battered and without the use of his right arm. Today's film, 127 Hours, is his story.

127 Hours

James Franco, in a tour de force performance, portrays Ralston as an arrogant adventurer with a devil may care attitude towards both his own safety and others. As the film opens, he is pounding around his home, throwing various items of kit in a backpack while a family member leaves what sounds like yet another voicemail. Crucially, he forgets his Swiss Army Knife, his hand passing over it in a dark cupboard. Soon he is on the road, travelling at night across the urban detritus that litters middle America. Neon brands polluting the night sky until eventually we reach the sparse desert landscape. The next day Aron sets off on his fateful hike, meeting two girls along the way and taking them cave diving. All the while, he exudes self assured cockiness, tripping along the canyons with abandon while listening to music and documenting his every thought on camera. The fall, when it comes, is not telegraphed and you can't help but feeling he had it coming. Those familiar with is tale will know he falls in such a way as his arm becomes trapped beneath a large rock. So begins 127 hours of struggling and fighting for survival.

This film lives or dies depending on the performance of Franco, much like Tom Hanks in Cast Away. Thankfully, like Hanks classic performance, Franco is tremendous. He carries the film with a performance that travels from arrogant ass to acceptance of his own mortality to realizing that the situation he finds himself in is entirely of his own making. Real character development like that is so rare over the course of a ninety minute or two hour film. It is to Danny Boyle's credit that he draws this performance out of Franco by keeping the camera on him and in his face for as much as possible. This is Boyle's first film since the epic and all conquering Slumdog Millionaire. It is a fine follow up and doesn't shy away from the more gruesome aspects of Ralston's escape. The amputation when it comes is gritty and brutal but very real, not at all gratuitous and credit must be given to the make-up effects artists. Everything that leads up to that point makes it obvious that there is no other choice, it is his last resort and we empathise as an audience with his loss. Contrast this with the irritating man who opened the film, it shows real growth that by the end you care for his loss.

All in all, this is an excellent and suspenseful ride into a real life adventure. Danny Boyle once again proves himself to be one of the finest directors of his generation and James Franco finally lives up to the promise of his earlier career with an excellent performance. Well worth the price of a cinema ticket.

Flick of The Day: American Splendor

On July 12th 2010, the American underground comic book writer and music critic Harvey Pekar passed away, aged 70. He worked most of his adult life as a filing clerk in a veterans hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. He was of course better known for his creation of American Splendor, a series of comics which documented his day to day struggles and achievements on the streets of Cleveland.

American Splendor

The film stars the ever brilliant Paul Giamatti as Harvey, documenting his life and his thought and how he came to write an autobiographical comic about an average life. The film is narrated by Harvey himself and is interspersed with archive and modern footage of Harvey and his friends and colleagues and interviews he gave for the film. While jarring at first, it quickly grows on you because you get to see all of the weird and wonderful people in the flesh and compare them to the actor playing them. It is a minor triumph. It quickly becomes apparent, even if you are unfamiliar with Harvey's work, that he is a morose and naturally depressive character, even in his own words.

The real heart of the movie and what makes it a little gem, is that while Harvey is a depressive grouch, he  comes to realize that it is the little moments of ordinary life that make it worthwhile. This is what he sought to portray in his work, the ordinary struggles of an everyday man just to live. In his own words:

"Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff"

American Splendor, the comic, is unlike anything else out there. Its real, there are no super heroes who will save the day. Indeed, Harvey went on to document his struggles with cancer which I think was a particularly brave move. The scenes with his wife and collaborator, are touching and at times very funny. They seem to have been made for each other, though of course they had their ups and downs and this is borne out by the interview with the two of them in the film and Hope Davis is excellent as Joyce, portraying her. as somebody who was half frustrated, half in love with Harvey. The funniest scenes are between the two of them with Giamatti delivering some great deadpan lines.

I have to say I loved this film. Harvey Pekar was a very engaging character and Paul Giamatti captures him perfectly by all accounts. He captured the simple nobility in living an ordinary life, working hard and hoping that something good will come of it. Though even at the end, Harvey refuses to see the bright side of life, but then I suppose that's what made him how he was, made American Splendor what it was. As the man said:

"The theme is about staying alive. Getting a job, finding a mate, having a place to live, finding a creative outlet. Life is a war of attrition. You have to stay active on all fronts. It's one thing after another. I've tried to control a chaotic universe. And it's a losing battle. But I can't let go. I've tried, but I can't"

Flick of The Day: My Left Foot

So often in cinema, the disabled are shown to be helpless and almost always without any flaws or vices, they fight the good fight and try and live a life of quiet dignity. This is flawed thinking. People, no matter what the ability of their body, want to live life to the fullest, to enjoy it regardless of the consequences. Christy Brown no different and this film attempts to portray it all.

My Left Foot (Special Edition)

Daniel Day-Lewis gives a career best performance as Christy, showing his frustration and inability to come to terms with his disability. Possessed of a deep intellect but without a body to convey it, Christy struggled his whole life and that in and of itself would be an interesting tale but what makes this film different is we see his human side, his love of a drink, how he could be obnoxious if he didn't get what he wanted. Day-Lewis portrays all of this incredibly. A special mention must also go to the young actor who plays Christy as a child, Hugh O'Conor. 

It is easy to forget that Jim Sheridan was a rookie director when he made this, having worked in theatre previously. His direction shows a lightness of touch that hints of great things to come and the script perfectly encapsulates the inner city Dublin that Christy grew up in, with a language and rhythm all of its own. An outstanding film, with a remarkable performance from Day-Lewis, it is at times deeply affecting and hard going but so very worth it.

Flick of The Day: The King's Speech

I was initially wary of seeing this film, even though it has been nominated for 12 Oscars, mainly because it struck me as another one of those film's which keep the British film industry alive, being as it is the sick man of European cinema. It ticks all the boxes of such a film. Historical? Check. The Royal Family? Check. Classically trained actors in all the major roles? Check. Its got Jacobi and Gambon!

However, I was drawn to see it, based on word of mouth regarding the performance of Colin Firth as King George VI, Bertie to his friends and the King of the title. In a deeply affecting performance, he manages to capture the fear and frustration of those with a speech impediment. Watching him struggle to simply form sentences is difficult, for is speech not one of the fundamental abilities that makes humans as we are?

When we eventually get to the root of Bertie's ailment, you can only come to the conclusion that he suffered a very terrible childhood. The kind you would not wish on anyone and that it made him the flawed adult he was.

In one scene, he finds peace in simply making model aeroplanes, something he was forbidden to do as a child.

Firth is the main reason to see this movie but he is not the only reason. As I've said, there are fine actors scattered throughout. Helena Bonham Carter has great fun with the role of Bertie's wife and Geoffrey Rush brings his natural charm to the role of the speech therapist. He believes quite deeply that a speech impediment is something that can be overcome. through his unorthodox methods.

The film is to my knowledge largely historically accurate, though the idea of Guy Pearce as Colin Firth's older brother is laughable. The only criticism that might be levelled at the film is the implication that appeasement was only practiced by Neville Chamberlain and Edward VIII. It was a widespread view, particularly in the Royal Family. Winston Churchill was very much the outsider.

All in all, I enjoyed this film, though I don't feel it will be remembered as one of the great achievement's in cinema but Colin Firth's performance stands alone as one of the finest of the year. I hope he wins.

Flick of The Day: Fitzcarraldo

In 1982, film-maker Werner Herzog set out into the Peruvian jungle to tell his story of Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, the Fitzcarraldo of the title, based on the true life tale of rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald. It was to be a mammoth shoot, the likes of which have never been seen and will probably never be seen again in terms of sheer spectacle.

Fitzcarraldo

Brian "Fitzcarraldo" Fitzgerald was a man with a dream, to bring an Opera House to the Amazonian jungle and to have Enrico Caruso sing at its opening. To pay for such a grand dream, he decides to set off up the river to the uncharted jungles rich in rubber trees to make his fortune in an old riverboat. To get to this, he must drag his ship over the mountains to the other side. An obsessive, Fitzcarraldo goes beyond all reason to achieve his dreams.

Some films are famed for the travails of their production, Fitzcarraldo is just such a film. Essentially a true life tale of the hubris of blind ambition without reason, its production became such a tale. Choosing to work without Studios and with no special effects, this film was a personal odyssey for Herzog. With Jason Robards originally cast as Fitzgerald and Mick Jagger as his assistant, the film was 40% complete when Robards fell ill with dysentery and had to leave the production. Jagger's role was written out of the film and filming started again from the beginning with the notoriously erratic Klaus Kinski in the title role. The troubles of the production are documented in Les Blanks "Burden Of Dreams" who followed the production from begging to end.

Burden of Dreams - Criterion Collection

The really epic thing about this film is that there are no special effects. They really do drag that ship over the mountain. Those Indians did toil on the mountainside for days on end. Even more amazing is that in the real life story upon which the film is based, the boat weighed only 30 tons not the 300 ton behemoth of the film and it was never dragged over the mountain, merely taken apart and reassembled on the other side. By Herzog's own admission, this is unlikely to be attempted again. You may wonder while watching it, what possessed him to attempt it. Was it hubris? Regardless, it makes for gripping viewing and that along with the magnificent imagery of the Amazon make an epic film. Perhaps the answer for Herzog's vision lies in a line from the film spoken by Claudia Cardinale:

"Its only the dreamers who move mountains"

Flick of The Day: The Life & Death Of Peter Sellers

A studied portrait of a very unpleasant man. That could sum up any number of biographical pictures but it seems most apt for this, the life of the incomparable Peter Sellers. 

It is difficult to judge a man based on a film but whatever genius Sellers had as a performer, it was surely outweighed by how poorly he treated those in his life. Geoffrey Rush is magnificent in this role however, Sellers seems not to be a real adult at all, but a small child with no sense of his own personality, forever playing a character. Something which Sellers himself admits midway through. At various points in the film, Rush breaks the fourth wall and talks to the audience as various characters from Sellers life such as his hen pecked Father. 

Emily Watson gives another dignified performance as Sellers first wife, whom he left in an attempt to woo Sophia Lauren. Unfortunately, this is just one of a number of incidents which leave you in no doubt that Sellers is a bit of a cad. The film does however attempt to get to the bottom of why Sellers was that way. An overbearing mother undoubtedly played its part. In one particularly cruel scene, his father lies dying in hospital for a week before Sellers is told, lest it affect his career.

The Pink Panther does of course play a pivotal role in the film, for it was the role of Inspector Clouseau which came to define Sellers, though he seemed to take no joy from it. This is quite a running theme throughout his life. An inability to be happy with anything be it success or affairs of the heart. Indeed, as times move on, his depression and demons overtake him, and at the end, there is nothing left. Not to over emphasis a cliché, but his greatest gift, his ability to inhabit a role to perfection, was also his greatest flaw. It ate away whatever personality he had to begin with.

Ultimately a sad tale of a complex and at times not very nice man, though a fascinating one all the same. It's really worth your time because for all his many flaws, he was a truly entertaining character and the film is filled with little incidents and anecdotes that keep it moving along; his development of the Clouseau character into a major role, his relationship with his directors, giants of the age such as Blake Edwards and Stanley Kubrick. 

Often the man makes the role, for Peter Sellers, the man was the role.