Avatar (2009, Dir: James Cameron)

James Cameron’s new film has been a long time in the making – twelve years after Titanic, his last full-length feature. All in all, it’s a gutsy remake of Dances With Wolves, only with more blue aliens and less Kevin Costner. In fact, the story is so similar to Costner’s film, that it’s tempting to think Cameron’s well had dried up when he wrote the first treatment back in 1994 (a mere four years after the release of Dances With Wolves). Titanic would have practically written itself too.

Still, once you get over the similarity to Costner’s film, Avatar is fantastic. It’s a bit like listening to Led Zeppelin – the core is ‘appropriated’ from elsewhere, but so much is brought to the table that it becomes a completely new beast.

We follow marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) to the alien planet of Pandora. Planet Earth has an energy crisis and the natives of Pandora are sitting on top of the solution. Worthington is excellent and just as watchable as his breakthrough role in Terminator Salvation, with the only criticism being his world-weary narration. Cameron’s choice to walk us through the exposition at the top of the film makes sense – it’s a long film as it is, and it pays to get everybody up to speed as fast as possible, but Worthington’s droll monosyllabic voice grates, echoing Harrison Ford’s narration in the original cut of Blade Runner.

The real star of the show is the special effects. Again Cameron shows us that it is he, and not George Lucas, who is pushing the envelope. In fact, the CGI is so good in Avatar, that it made me feel a bit sorry for Lucas – if the Star Wars prequels had been made with these special effects, then maybe the films wouldn’t have been as bad. Wishful thinking probably.

The visual effects in Cameron’s new film are so good, you can’t see the join. Shot using a motion picture stage six times larger than anything Hollywood has seen before, it genuinely looks like it was shot on an alien world. It definitely makes a difference to seeing Jar Jar Binks bob up and down in The Phantom Menace.

As far as 3D goes – and this is supposed to be the reason for such a long wait since Titanic – it’s not outstanding, and doesn’t offer anything we haven’t seen before in recent 3D releases. Anything moving and not completely in focus blurs much more than it would in standard 2D, and unless the object in focus is completely framed, the effect doesn’t really work.

It’s just a shame that such groundbreaking technology was wasted on such a familiar canvas. The tune might be different, but the song remains the same.

The Lovely Bones (2009, Dir: Peter Jackson)

Or The Lovely Boner, as I’m sure some film producer in Van Nuys is probably planning to call the x-rated remake...

Jackson’s latest film is a welcome step down after the excesses of King Kong. It still doesn’t hit the spot though. One reviewer has described the film as Heavenly Creatures meets Lord of The Rings, and while stylistically that’s true, it’s pretty limited to describe a film by just using the director’s earlier films (“yah, Roland Emmerich’s new film, 2012, falls somewhere between Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow” – duh!). If this film is like anything else, it’s like that crazily bad Robin Williams film about heaven (1998’s What Dreams May Come). But only just. And you can’t really compare it to any other films about serial child killers because, well, fortunately there aren’t too many of those out there.

While the other-worldly scenes in The Lovely Bones look impressive (as anything that Weta Digital touches usually does), they really jar against the early 1970’s period pieces. Maybe they remind me of my youth, but anything set in the 70’s and 80’s always looks good on the big screen. It’s probably the bad haircuts and dreadful fashions.

Speaking of bad haircuts, we’re treated to a pretty terrible one courtesy of Mark “Don’t you care about the bees?” Wahlburg. He plays the father of the murdered Suzie Salmon, and to give him his credit, isn’t as bad as he usually is. Aside from a few scenes where he falls back into his trademark ‘sniff the fart’ acting, he does a pretty good job of playing a broken father; his hobby, making ‘ships in bottles’ providing one of the more awesomely executed fantasy sequences.

Saoirse Ronan is just as watchable as she was in her few standout scenes in Atonement, and she definitely has a bright future ahead of her in film. The cast is rounded out by Rachel Weisz (sleepwalking mother), Susan Sarandon (hard-living Grandmother providing the only light relief in the film) and Stanley Tucci as the creepily realised serial killer.

The Lovely Bones really falls down (no pun intended) in the last 20 minutes. After an exciting cat and mouse sequence between Suzie’s killer and her younger sister, the ending falls flat and is simply frustrating. I’m not sure if Jackson has improved on the book (I haven’t read it) but apparently the ending was made more violent to please American test audiences. Like Saoirse Ronan’s previous film, I’d have been happy with some genuine atonement.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009, Dir: Wes Anderson)

I’ve been looking forward to this since the closing credits to The Darjeeling Limited. I have to admit I was sceptical at first – Anderson has such a trademark visual style, how would this translate into a stop-motion animation adaptation of a Roald Dahl children’s book? The answer is ‘very well’.

You have to bear in mind however, that this is a children’s film. There’s enough adult humour to keep people as interested as they would be in a Pixar film – but it’s a film for kids all the same. In fact, to give it very loose description I’d have to say it was somewhere close to Pixar meets Wallace & Gromit. Where Nick Park’s animation bears the thumb prints of its animators, Anderson’s team is far more precise. The animation on the human characters is sometimes better than the animals (take note, Pixar), with one very noteworthy effect being the cigarette flare on Farmer Bean’s darkened face during one the films more suspenseful sequences.

This marks the second of Anderson’s films not to be scored by Mark Mothersbaugh. You wouldn’t notice however - Alexandre Desplat’s score is very similar to what we have heard before on Rushmore, ...Tennebaums and The Life Aquatic, although not as rooted in classical as the heart of those scores. Still, we get some nice contemporary songs to give the film some pep where it needs it (The Rolling Stones’ Street Fighting Man has been long-overdue a revival) and it’s nice to get back to a fully Westernized soundtrack after the Eastern core of The Darjeeling Limited.

As for the players, with the exception of George Clooney and Merryl Streep, the film is nicely made up of ex-Anderson alumni, with Jason Schwartzman, Michael Gambon and Bill Murray all taking key roles; and Brian Cox, Owen Wilson and Willem Dafoe appearing in nice cameos.

If Anderson has done nothing more, he has created a piece of work reminiscent of the quality of such films as the Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971) or golden-era Disney, with enough humour and references to keep the whole family happy. At the end of the day, it’s a cussing good film.

Surrogates (2009, Dir: Jonathan Mostow)

Jonathan who? Ah, Jonathan Mostow. Last seen directing the third Terminator film back in 2003 – and suspiciously hasn’t done a thing since. It seems he’s determined to make a scary film where androids doggedly pursue humans – in his new film, a one-armed Bruce Willis in a really bad wig, chases a man relentlessly through a commune. Now that isn’t scary, it’s plain hilarious. Can you imagine Bruce Willis chasing you in any form?

I’m always curious as to why Bruce has ended up with this tough-guy-hero image. He’s great in Die Hard, but what has he done to maintain it since? Die Hard 2? Rubbish. Die Hard 3? Originally scripted to be a Lethal Weapon film (true story) and it reeks of it. Die Hard 4? Not bad, but still not perfect. Other than that?

Okay, he’s been in a few great films – Pulp Fiction and Twelve Monkeys come to mind, but I can’t think of anything else that’s anywhere close to classic status – so why is he supposed to be this big action hero? He’s nowhere near his Planet Hollywood buddies. With Stallone, you get Rocky and First Blood – both perfect – and that’s before you get to anything else (like the excellent Copland, and err...Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot). Schwarzenegger has a number of films that hit the spot – the first two Terminators go without saying, and there are a number of films (Total Recall, True Lies, Predator) that match anything from Bruce’s oeuvre. So why is Bruce supposed to be a hard man? He’s the cinematic equivalent of Danny Dyer. Only balder, 20 years older and less cockney.

Anyway, back to Surrogates. The first act is crazy – all the cast walk around in shiny make-up (and in Bruce’s case, one of the worst wigs this side of Norma Bates) – which, with the less-than-muted colour palette and neon lighting, make it eerily reminiscent of late 80s action flicks. There hasn’t been a murder in umpteen years, because everybody’s so happy living inside their robotic avatars, but what’s this? Aha, it’s a good old-fashioned murder. Somebody’s fried the eyes out of James Cromwell’s son, and Brucie’s on the case.

Surrogates could be a decent film. With a different director, and maybe a leading man who isn’t restricted to one facial expression (I like to call Bruce’s look “bewildered glow”), but at the end of the day, the concept is too big for the film to handle, especially with its 88 minute running time.

Try again Bruce.

The Damned United (2009, Dir: Tom Hooper)

...or Alienation & Earlobes, as it could be titled.

What does a world leader do with his time once he leaves office? Write a memoir? Tour the world, public-speaking? Venture into big business? If you’re Tony Blair, the answer is ‘none of the above’.

In his second film set in the 1970s, the former Prime Minister plays celebrated football manager Brian Clough, struggling through his doomed 44-day tenure at Leeds United in 1974. Adapted from David Peace’s ‘imagined’ novel, director Tom Hooper and screenwriter Peter Morgan have produced a cracking little film – a wonderfully realised period-piece set in the north of England, and featuring a great cast.

Hooper’s first shot is magnificent – an external shot of Elland Road on a dreary, overcast and drizzling day. Matching the weather, we see a lightning storm of flashbulbs explode inside as Don Revie resigns from Leeds to take the England Manager position, paving the way for Clough to succeed him. The non-linear narrative, matching the novel, then takes us back a few years to the start of Clough’s ascent at Derby County and the roots of his ambition to better Revie.

Timothy Spall, excellent as always, plays Clough’s right-hand man Peter Taylor, and we’re even treated to an appearance by Jim Broadbent as Derby chairman Sam Longson. Broadbent sleepwalks through his performance, probably weighted down by the oversized prosthetic old-man earlobes assigned to his character.

The film really evokes the magic of football, before the days of satellite television when games really did kick-off at 3pm on a Saturday. The scenes set at Derby’s Baseball Ground stadium are particularly nostalgic, with the smell of musty changing rooms wafting off the screen.

After a forced denouement (let off the hook for using Fleetwood Mac’s brilliant Man Of The World), a nice epilogue shows us a few real-life clips of Clough’s achievements following the events of the film. Thankfully it doesn’t show him drunk on television or assaulting fans.

(Seriously though, Michael Sheen is a fucking chameleon. Aside from a few lines when he seems to fall back into David Frost, he really gets under the skin of Clough. If this man does not win a Best Actor Oscar at some point in his career, there is no justice.)

An Education (2009, Dir: Lone Scherfig)

Carey Mulligan plays Jenny, a schoolgirl aged 16 going on 35, who takes a ride from a stranger one rainy day in 1961 London. She’s soaked to the bone and nursing a cello. Quite why she doesn’t just walk home is beyond me. Especially when she admits that she lives around the corner.

She accepts the ride from Peter Sarsgaard as well, and that’s just asking for trouble. Not only does he look a bit slimy, but he seems to be playing Robert Shaw’s English gentleman in From Russia With Love. It’s a good job that he doesn’t order the red wine with the fish – Jenny would have to punch him in the face.

Nick Hornby, presumably bored from writing about himself, treats us to the story of someone else’s childhood - journalist Lynn Barber. It seems Barber had an interesting childhood. Not only was Emma Thompson her headmistress, but Dr .Octopus was her father!

Desperate to make her escape from such a bizarre upbringing, Jenny begins a love affair with Sarsgaard. This makes sense. He’s friends with a Bond girl and one of the History Boys, they go to wicked parties, buy expensive art and generally provide a bit of swing to a pre-swinging London. Who wouldn’t want to be friends with them?

I’d hate to give too much away, but the good times don’t last. Wouldn’t be much of a story if they did, I suppose. Still, when your childhood’s that exciting, anything else is going to be a let-down.

Promoted with a trailer that shows far too much of the plot, An Education is a nice little film which probably won’t get the credit it deserves.

Up (2009, Dir: Pete Docter)

It’s hard to compare Pixar films as they’re always so different. You can’t compare Up to Wall-E - it isn’t fair on either film. For me, Pixar are always doing something right when they’re not aiming their films primarily at children. Cars was so forgettable that it still irks me that a sequel is slated for release in 2011 (when you consider that they’re still releasing new Cars merchandise all the time – from a film that was released 3 years ago - you get the sinking feeling that it’s probably Disney’s call to plunder McQueen and company for more adventures).

Up received a lot of criticism for being too adult. It’s lead character is a septuagenarian misanthrope, and the film’s heartbreaking opening strips away any innocence that you would expect from an animated film. Excellent!

But let’s rewind back to the beginning, and the short film – a tradition of Pixar’s - entitled Partly Cloudy, directed by Peter Sohn. Sitting somewhere between the tone of Boundin’ (2003) and earlier fare such as Red’s Dream (1987), the film features no dialogue (again a tradition of their original, pre-feature shorts) and is a delight to watch. In 3D, the whole picture looks fantastic, especially due to the aerial setting.

Partly Cloudy tugs at the heartstrings (more on this idiom later), but what really hits home is the opening 10 minutes of Up. Apparently, the tearful tale of Carl and Ellie’s marriage was a hit at Cannes, and it’s not hard to see why. Most films would struggle to inject the audience with empathy for it’s characters; Pete Docter’s film manages it in minutes.

Once we’re sugar-fed the exposition, Carl takes to the skies in his helium-balloon assisted house - unwittingly taking boy-scout Russell along for the ride – to find the paradise that he and Ellie always dreamed about. The balloons, reaching down the chimney and connected to the fireplace (tugging at the “hearth”-strings?), take the pair to South America, and everything is plain-sailing until a series of mishaps lands them at the mercy of adventurer Charles Muntz, voiced by Christopher Plummer.

And it is here that we meet what has to be – after 10 features and umpteen shorts – my favourite Pixar character, the loyal Dug – a talking dog. Again, Pixar’s knack for observational humour goes down a treat when we hear a dog vocalising about his feelings. The rest of the film is a joy, again with the aerial locale providing an eye-candy setting in 3D.

Enjoy this film while you can, as it’ll be the last original Pixar film to be released until The Bear And The Bow in 2011. Until then we’ll get 3D re-releases of Toy Story and Toy Story 2, the long-awaited Toy Story 3, and – groan – the less-than-anticipated Cars 2.

(500) Days Of Summer (2009, Dir: Marc Webb)

Hollywood seems to have a knack of scaring me recently. Not from the instant shock of horrors or thrillers, but from the cold portrayal of women in seemingly innocent films. Closer (2004) was instantly memorable for its enjoyable stripclub scene, but Natalie Portman’s character also provoked a certain degree of discomfort. Never before had a female character been so shrewdly written to show that amount of sexual power that women have over men.

(500) Days Of Summer provides more of the same, although this time it’s disguised as a bittersweet romantic comedy. Here we have Joseph Gordon-Levitt, making up for the dull misstep that was 2006’s Brick, and the lovely Zooey Deschanel, finally finding a leading role worthy of her talents.

Marc Webb’s film owes a certain debt to Zach Braff – it’s cut from the same cloth as Garden State in both tone, and tones. The soundtrack (Reginor Spektor, Simon & Garfunkel, The Smiths, etc) is heavily reminiscent of the sort of artists that pepper Braff’s films, whilst the general feelgood bohemia of (500) Days Of Summer isn’t a million miles away either.

The film tells of the rocky romance between Tom and Summer, with time shifting effortlessly between the halcyon days of their blossoming affair, and their troublesome later days. The comedy is spot-on and uniquely original (including one of the best Star Wars references I’ve ever seen), and Tom’s best-friend, played by The Ringer’s Geoffrey Arend (of “When the fuck did we get ice-cream?” fame) provides a heavy dose of light relief.

Deschanel is the perfect fit for the film’s titular character. I first noticed her in Almost Famous, but she hasn’t really stood out since. The last film I saw her in was M. Night Shyamalan’s abysmal The Happening. I can’t actually remember her being in that film, as I seem to have – fingers crossed - successfully wiped it from my memory, but I’m sure she added a bit of eye-candy as Mark Wahlberg walked around looking perplexed.

The film marks the feature debut of director Marc Webb, a veteran from over a hundred music videos. It’s easy to see his style coming through in the film, with several arty flourishes that would be considered too left-field for a more mainstream film. My favourite shot was in a short montage showing Tom and Summer growing up, in splitscreen. On one side, the young Summer blew a dandelion flower. On Tom’s side of the splitscreen, a bunch of bubbles are blown into view - a match-cut that surpasses Kurbrick’s bone/space-station anyday.

Above everything, Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber’s script really hits the spot. I left the cinema with a sinking feeling of despair. There was no masked killer in this film – just a shrewd and calculating femme fatale. I don’t know which one’s worse – what good is a heartbeat when the heart’s broken?

It Might Get Loud (2008, Dir: Davis Guggenheim)

It Might Get Loud opens with a shot of Jack White, in his Sunday-best, stood in a cow barn. He nails a few pieces of wood together, places a screw at each end, and links them with an old guitar string. An old coke bottle is placed underneath the string as a makeshift bridge, and finally an old, beaten pickup is attached. He plugs the contraption into an amplifier and switches it on, loud and distorted. “See?” he asks the camera, as the resident cows walk away from the noise. “You don’t need a guitar...”

Davis Guggenheim’s new documentary might not win many awards, but it hits the spot with its intended audience and any guitarist or rock fan will love it from start to finish. I did have reservations about the choice of guitarists involved – surely Jimmy Page is in a completely different league than The Edge and Jack White, but I can see how replacing them with Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck would turn into a complete bore-fest. Instead, we get three very different guitarists from three eras of rock music: Jimmy Page, the genius behind Led Zeppelin; The Edge, the technical mastermind behind U2; and Jack White, one half of The White Stripes and member of The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather.

The film is loosely based around one meeting of the 3 men, bizarrely on a sound stage in a Hollywood studio, and is interspersed with segments of each guitarist in their own environment. Jack White plays with his son, in his Tennessee farmhouse; The Edge tinkers around his Dublin rehearsal space and visits his old school; and Jimmy Page walks around Headley Grange - the recording location for many classic Zeppelin albums.

As you would expect, there’s a lot of humour to be found in the film – mainly from Jack White, but also surprisingly from Jimmy Page. The one sequence where he plays air-guitar to Link Wray’s Rumble is worth the admission fee alone. Although The Edge comes across as the more serious and reflective of the three, even he shines throughout - pausing at one point to give an amusing demonstration of one of his riffs (the intro to Elevation) minus his guitar effects.

But the film is about the music – The Edge attempts to teach Page and White the chords to A Sort Of Homecoming (much to Page’s amusement when he refuses to accept one chord in the progression); Page plays the cyclical riff of Ramble On in his rehearsal space, a look of smug satisfaction creeping across his face; and White composes a song on the spot whilst being interviewed (Fly Farm Blues, slated to be his first solo release).

I didn’t want this film to end, but unfortunately it had to. Here’s to a TV series!

Broken Embraces (2009, Dir: Pedro Almodóvar)

I’m still not quite sure what to make of Almodóvar. The first film of his I watched was Bad Education (2004), and that almost put me off him for life: a melodramatic tale about sex abuse and the roots of homosexuality, it’s an understatement to say that it didn’t really push my buttons. I then caught the likeable Volver (2006), a deeply dark and funny film with Penélope Cruz in the lead role. It seems Almodóvar likes Cruz, as he’s cast her again here in his latest film, their fourth collaboration.

Thematically, Broken Embraces falls somewhere between its two predecessors. We have another melodrama, played out in aching suspense with just a touch of Hitchcock; and two time-periods, with the events of the mid-1990s slowly explaining the unspoken circumstances of the present day.

Like Bad Education though, Broken Embraces didn’t really intrigue me, as I simply didn’t care enough about the characters. Cruz is perfect as Lena, as is Lluís Homar as the male lead who propels the story forward; but Almodóvar seems to work so hard at keeping certain details under wraps that he forgets to give the audience enough to go on. The net result is that instead of empathising with the characters, you’re just left feeling slightly dismayed. I felt like I had been overlooked by a friend when the introductions were made at a party.

Once we learn everybody’s motives – or at least who’s side everyone leans towards – the film steps up a notch. I’m not sure it was Almodóvar’s intention, but one of his darker characters, Ernesto Jr. (Rubén Ochandiano) caused so much amusement to the audience in the screening I saw, that every time he popped up in the 1990s scenes, his mere presence would induce fits of giggling around me.

Once Almodóvar finally gets around to his big reveal, and about time too, given that it’s his longest feature yet, you’re just overwhelmed by the nagging feeling that the journey just isn’t worth it. To say that Almodóvar makes a mountain out of a molehill is an exaggeration; it’s just that after such a long build-up, the pay-off is an anti-climax.

There is one thing worth watching Broken Embraces for, and that’s Penélope Cruz. This film adds to the arguement that her Spanish work beats her Hollywood output hands down. Almodóvar fleetingly puts her in a platinum wig at one point (a shot used heavily in the promotion for the film), and things definitely dazzle when she’s on screen.

Love Exposure (2008, Dir: Sion Sono)

Of the 17 films I saw at the recent International Film Festival in Auckland, this was my wild-card. The festival brochure described Love Exposure as having “what must be the most upskirt panty shots in history.” Sounds good.

Love Exposure is a very odd film. It’s Japanese, deals with an extremely odd subject matter, and it runs from 3 minutes shy of a full four hours. It’s also fantastic.

We spend the first hour being introduced to Yu (Takahiro Nishijima). Overlaid with Ravel’s Bolero – which adds to the oddness – Yu’s story involves his despair with life in general. He finds that the only way he can spend quality time with his Priest father is in the confession booth, and that means committing sins. Yu’s initial foray into committing sins are relatively innocent, until he meets a local gang who introduce him to the self-styled “King of Perverts”. It is here where Sono’s film turns hilarious. Yu is shown how to use the speed and agility of kung-fu to take upskirt photographs of oblivious Japanese girls – what the film calls ‘Peek-a-Panty’ shots. At this point the sold-out audience in the cinema was roaring with laughter. We’re treated to a fairly lengthy montage of Yu putting his new skills to the test – all kung-fu sound-effects and crash zooms onto his posturing face.

Around the one-hour mark, Sono treats us to something: the title of the film onscreen. I know some of those James Bond pre-credit sequences can be quite lengthy, but they’re nothing compared to this. After Yu’s story, we learn about the other leading characters: Yoko (Hikari Mitsushima), the subject of Yu’s affection and the cutest thing to grace the screen this side of Thirst’s Kim Ok-bin; and Aya (Sakura Ando), the budgie-loving leader of a local girl gang. There’s even a nice dose of situation comedy thrown in for good measure, with the three narrator’s stories coming together just at the point where Yu, to satisfy a bet, happens to be dressed as a woman.

Featuring an eclectic soundtrack of classical, Japanese pop and – inexplicably - obscure early Pink Floyd (the gentler acoustic songs off Atom Heart Mother’s B-side), Love Exposure is definitely a film to see. Four hours is a long time to spend in a cinema, so it should be welcomed on DVD where it can be broken down to the viewer’s satisfaction (to enjoy it thoroughly though, you really need to see it in one sitting). Sono claims that this cut represents the shortest version he could edit it down to. I strongly disagree as there are some sections towards the end of the film which play out far too long. Although every film has a lull, Love Exposure has a few – all occurring in the second half of the film.

Apparently the film has been a cult arthouse hit in Japan – hopefully it will reach something close to that in the west.

Tyson (2008, Dir: James Toback)

I remember my Dad waking me up in the middle of the night once so that we could listen to Mike Tyson beat – no, destroy – Frank Bruno on the radio. This was in 1989, and a lot has happened since. Tyson’s life fell apart and due to Sky TV there’s no need to listen to a boxing match on the radio anymore. Shame really.

Call me a sexist pig but I’m never quite sure what to believe when I hear about a famous person being accused of rape. It happens all the time in the UK with footballers and rugby players, and it just seems a bit too convenient that girls somehow willingly go into a hotel room with 4 or 5 drunken men and then cry rape afterwards. With Tyson though, I always thought that his rape conviction was probably true – he looks like a man who gets what he wants, whenever he wants and I wouldn’t put my money on a pretty lady managing to change his mind. Frank Bruno had trouble stopping him – what’s a 160lb female going to do?

With Toback’s film, Tyson really amazes. I used to be scared of him, just from seeing him fight (especially when he started using a black gum-shield) but it looks like he’s gone the way of George Foreman and turned into a lovable teddy-bear in the past few years. Well, a teddy-bear with a Maori tattoo on its face.

He comes across as an honest and respectable sportsman entering the autumn of his life, and even breaks down on camera a few times (a phenomenon that has to be seen to be believed, as he just emits a strange growling noise from the back of his throat before you realise he’s losing his composure). He even has a few choice words to say about his accuser (which I won’t repeat here as it’s the best line of what is a remarkably funny documentary).

The film seems to present 2 Tysons: the scary monster that destroys everything in its path; and the post-jail version that is humble and dignified. After his final bout, against Irishman Kevin McBride, Tyson gives a short speech to a TV journalist while still in the ring. In front of his opponent, his opponent’s entourage, the live audience and the television audience he concedes that he just doesn’t have the heart anymore to fight. "I was just fighting to pay off the bills," he says. "I'm not an animal anymore."

The really poignant aspect of Koback’s film is a short scene showing Tyson playing with his young daughter, presumably the same girl who strangled herself accidentally on his treadmill in May 2009. Once you watch the documentary, with a newfound respect for Tyson, it’s hard not to feel sorry for the man.

Paper Soldier (2009, Dir: Alexey German Jr.)

Can you remember watching films when you were a kid, and you had the horrible feeling that you were much too young to be watching them? I’m not talking about the uncomfortable feeling on Boxing Day, when you’re sat between your parents watching Sean Connery get off with some girl in You Only Live Twice. That’s pretty bad, but I’m talking more about films that go way over your head, on a completely intellectual level.

At the age of 6 or 7, I once begged my Grandmother to take me to see a film whilst we were on holiday in some English seaside town. I can’t remember why I wanted to see the film in question – which I can’t remember enough details about to investigate further – but I imagine that at some point I had seen the trailer for it and it looked exciting. I even remember my Grandmother raising her eyebrows and asking me again and again if I was really sure I wanted to see it.

Now the film in question was, I believe, American – or possibly British. It involved a young Russian man, who had a horrible accident on an airplane. For some reason, he fell on the floor, the plane lurched forward and he was hit full-on by a heavily-laden drinks trolley. He recuperated, and the main action in the film then took place whereby the Russian man assisted by a black man, did something which involved climbing from window to window between two high buildings.

Now if that sounds like the drunken recollection of a bad dream, then just try and remember what it was like for me at the time – I’m sure my Grandmother unwittingly smuggled me in to see an 18-certificate film. The subject matter of the film was completely adult-oriented, with slightly more violent action sequences that what I was used to at the time. I even remember the bravado I employed, leaving the cinema with my questioning Grandmother, trying to pass off that not only did I understand the film completely, but that I quite enjoyed it even though it wasn’t as funny as the James Bond films.

So, that film - whatever it was called – was my first foray into a world of cinema I wasn’t ready for. There I was, at the age of 6 or 7, watching an 18-certificate film. I was therefore trying to comprehend a film aimed at somebody three times my age.

Fast forward a quarter of a century and I’m sitting in a cinema in a seaside town in New Zealand (well, Auckland is near the sea) and I’m watching Paper Soldier (which coincidentally is Russian). I’m now 31, and watching a film that is surely aimed at somebody three times my age.

Yes, to understand Paper Soldier you have to be 93 years old; and to enjoy it you have to be senile.

The Fantastic Mr Fox Trailer

My favourite working director is Wes Anderson, without a doubt. So I was a little dismayed a few years ago, when I heard that his next film after The Darjeeling Limited was going to be an animated version of Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr Fox.

How could he imprint his own trademark visual style onto something that isn't live-action?

Well, he's managed it, with ease. This looks amazing:

http://www.flicks.co.nz/trailer/the-fantastic-mr-fox/1382/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_content=629927556&utm_campaign=Film+Informant+August+6+Send+_+kjhuyk&utm_term=Fantastic+Mr+Fox

And the cast is amazing (mostly ex-Anderson alumni): George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Michael Gambon, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Willen Dafoe, Angelica Huston, Brian Cox and Adrien Brody.

Adventureland (2009, Dir: Greg Mottola)

I loved Greg Mottola’s last film, Superbad. It’s probably my favourite teen comedy. Mainly because it seems a hell of a lot more realistic than the usual way in which Hollywood handles teen culture – American Pie, Cruel Intentions, Ten Things I Hate About You, etc. In these slick light-hearted flicks, the kids are always rich with huge houses and new cars. Bad language is always moderate (to push for the lower age certificate) and sex is never a dirty thing. Thank heavens for the adventures of Seth, Evan and Fogell to put a bit of realism back in the genre.

Not only was Superbad hilarious, but it was highly believable and above all, it successfully captured that last fleeting teenage friendship before you start spending more time with the opposite sex.

All of this makes Mottola’s new film, Adventureland, all the more disappointing. There’s nothing specifically wrong with it, but there’s just nothing specifically right with it either. If Superbad was a house party with your friends on a Friday night, then Adventureland is stuck at home babysitting. It should be a worthy follow-up to Superbad, but even though it ticks all the right boxes, there’s just something missing.

The year is 1987. The leads are Jesse Eisenberg (likeable nerd) and Kristen Stewart ("Schwing!"). The location is a fun park (nice and sketchy). There are a few decent supporting roles (Bill Hader, Ryan Reynolds). The soundtrack’s great (Lou Reed, Bowie, The Cure). So what’s wrong?

Well, for a start it’s a very sober tale. After the excesses of Superbad, Adventureland feels very reined in, with the emphasis on the romance rather than the comedy. There’s a faint whiff of autobiography in the tale (Mottola also wrote the film), and this is where I think the film starts to fall down. Overly concerned with trying to recreate his memory of 1987, Mottola has forgotten to cater for anybody who didn’t turn 18 in that year.

The clever thing about Superbad was that for all its offensiveness, it was essentially a very sweet tale about two best-friends. Adventureland has all the tenderness, but none of the vulgarity. And just to prove this, when the credits rolled and the lights came back in the cinema, I noticed the row in-front was occupied by a group of 11- or 12-year old girls. Presumably, they were attracted by the light of Kristen Stewart’s Twilight fame, but the very fact that they could even get into the film speaks volumes about its content.

The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008, Dir: Uli Edel)

Waiting in the lobby of the Civic theatre during the Auckland film festival, I found myself sat next to a strange individual – a lonely middle-aged man, who turned around to me and asked if I was waiting to see The Baader Meinhof Complex. I told him I was. He then asked “When does it come out?” I wasn’t sure exactly what he meant. Did he mean the full cinema release, the DVD release, or something else entirely? I had to ask him to rephrase the question two or three times before I realised that he was asking what time the showing finished that night. He then tried to spark a conversation about terrorism during the 1970s, specifically The Professionals TV series. I took one last look at him, mindful that he might be trying to recruit me for his nail-bombing campaign of Australasia, made my excuses and left.

Selected as Germany’s official submission for the 2009 Academy Awards, Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (to give its German title) is an epic piece of cinema – a two and a half hour retelling of West German terrorist group The Red Army Faction (R.A.F.) from the late 1960s and into the late 1970s.

Moritz Bleibtreu (Run Lola Run, The Experiment, Munich) stars as Andreas Baader, thrust into the leadership of the R.A.F. following the attempted assassination of its popular student figurehead. Under Baader’s control, and legitimised in the press by the sympathetic Ulrike Meinhoff (Martina Gedeck), the R.A.F. embark on a terror campaign involving bombings, robberies, kidnappings and assassinations, to highlight the American imperialism creeping into post-war Germany.

Like Spielberg’s Munich, the film treads a fine line, unsure whether to depict the principle characters as Robin Hood-type everyman heroes, or callous evil criminals. Well-natured beginnings begin to crumble as their campaign intensifies and younger, more brutal members begin to join the cause.

The Baader Meinhof Complex is a very long film – probably exacerbated by the slow second half following such an exciting opening hour. The budget is on the level of a medium-sized Hollywood film, so the action sequences are perfectly executed; and as a period-piece the attention to detail is spot-on.

Bruno Ganz (Downfall, The Manchurian Candidate, The Reader) is restricted but notable in a small role as the head of the German police; but the film belongs to the young adults and their sense of disenfranchisement. It is a bloody film, and well worth a watch if only to understand the motives of a marginalised group, fighting back at what they perceive to be a fascist police state.

Thankfully, I left the cinema with all my limbs intact. My acquaintance in the lobby was just there to watch the film. Or was he?

In The Loop (2009, Dir: Armando Iannucci)

In The Loop is a farcical satire, a spin-off – or rather, an extension of – the British television comedy The Thick Of It. Directed by Armando Iannucci, co-writer of such gems as On The Hour, The Day Today, The Friday/Saturday Night Armistice and I’m Alan Partridge, the film is also written by a team of writers led by Iannucci.

The only returning character from the TV series, the Prime Minister’s ‘enforcer’ Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) is shown arriving at his Downing Street office. Tucker is a wonderful character – a destructive combination of anger, fury and swear words – and his first task of the day, to listen to a radio interview with the bumbling Secretary of State for International Development Simon Foster (Tom Hollander), sets him off for the duration of the film.

Foster, a Tim-nice-but-dim type, is an eight year-old trapped in the body of a politician, and has accidentally declared on BBC Radio 4 that war in the Middle East is ‘unforeseeable’. This blunder sparks a chain of events involving both British and American governments, with lines blurred and motives questionable throughout.

It’s very easy to get lost in Iannucci’s film – most of the principle characters are lost within their own ambitions – and there’s no such thing as plot; just one mishandled faux pas and a chain of resulting consequences. The action takes us from London to Washington DC, and just when Foster starts to get a handle on the situation, a local constituent (a nice cameo from Steve Coogan) brings him back down to earth with complaints about a council wall falling down in his mother’s back-garden.

It’s hard to tell how accurate this film is in portraying the world of politics. Obviously the back-stabbing and grandstanding is highly believable, but one wonders whether any politician in the real world would restrict himself to watching a documentary on sharks in his hotel room, reasoning that he doesn’t want the porn channel to show on the room’s billing invoice (and recent news stories in the UK would back this up).

In The Loop is therefore a strange breed – a farce that doesn’t stray too far from plausibility. At one point, when the word ‘war’ starts to be muttered by the Americans, General Miller (James Gandolfini) is taken to one side at a house party in Washington. Karen Clark (Mimi Kennedy), mindful of the gaffe that has travelled across the Atlantic from Downing Street, is after some advice from the military. They retreat to a child’s bedroom for privacy, and Miller resorts to using the room’s bright pink calculator – with cartoonish sound effects – to prove how unlikely military action will be due to the low number of soldiers in the region. It’s not too far a stretch to imagine George W. Bush using such technology to order the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Soul Power (2008, Dir: Jeff Levy-Hinte)

The opening credits of Soul Power play over a black background, with the sound of James Brown teasing the audience (and his band) with the well known introduction to Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine. Eventually, we are shown Brown, resplendent in a blue jumpsuit, step away from the microphone for an instant. He drops like a dead-weight onto the stage floor into the splits, and springs back up again like a jack-in-the-box. The band takes this as the cue to start the song. It is jaw-dropping.

Soul Power is a documentary film about the Zaire ’74 music festival which preceded the ‘Rumble In The Jungle’ between Mohammed Ali and George Foreman. It works perfectly as a companion piece to Leon Gast’s 1996 Oscar-winning documentary When We Were Kings (it was assembled from the 125 hours of outtakes from that film). But where Gast’s film focused on the boxing and Ali in particular, Soul Power is all about the music. James Brown shines here, headlining a music festival that also includes BB King, Bill Withers, The Crusaders and several African artists.

Although we get snippets of Ali being interviewed, it’s never enough and leaves you wanting more. The lengthiest interview shows him too slow to swat a fly on his leg, and in response launches into an amusing explanation that African flies are faster than American flies – because they don’t eat as much. Aside from this, the funniest segment is a sparring match between Ali and Philippé Wynne - the lead singer of vocal group The Spinners. Wynne and his entourage take the opportunity to play the occasion for laughs, with Wynne aping Ali’s footwork, and the rest of the band making him out to be a heavyweight contender. However, as soon as Wynne enters the ring, one hit from Ali puts him in his place, cowering much to the amusement of his audience.

Although promoter Stewart Levine came across as a dope-smoking mess in When We Were Kings, he is in contrast extremely alert in Soul Power, holding the fort with a telephone constantly lodged between his face and shoulder. In this film, it is a Stephen Merchant look-a-like who takes the reins as the film’s token ‘out of place white man in suit’.

Many years ago I was thrilled to find that the DVD of When We Were Kings contained the entire ‘Rumble In The Jungle’ and ‘Thriller In Manilla’ fight telecasts as bonus features. Hopefully when Soul Power is released onto DVD, the extras will contain a wealth of musical performances left out to counter for the obligatory one-song-per-artist limitation that burdens such concert films.

In the end, Soul Power leaves you with the same feeling that Mohammed Ali proclaims to a smiling James Brown in Zaire in 1974. He might get the lyric slightly wrong, but the feeling is still there:

“I got ants in my pants - I gotta dance!”

Thirst (2009, Dir: Park Chan-wook)

Thirst, or Bakjwi to give its original Korean title, is the new film by Park Chan-wook, the renowned director of the Vengeance trilogy. It is a dark comedic tale of a priest, Sang-hyun (Song Kang-ho), who is rapidly losing his faith. Deciding to take the ultimate sacrifice, he volunteers to take part in an experiment to find a vaccine for a deadly virus.

Sang-hyun is a fine player of the recorder, and when not using the instrument as a self-flagellation tool on his thighs to keep feelings of desire at bay, he sits and plays tunes in his bedroom. Once he is infected with the deadly virus, it is during one of these musical moments that Chan-wook shows us what kind of film Thirst is going to be. We pan around Sang-hyun as a river of blood falls out the end of the recorder.

Fans of Park Chan-wook would expect something like this. His Vengeance trilogy is a visual feast, with a taste for the extreme, and Thirst doesn’t disappoint. Once Sang-hyun leaves the hospital, covered in bandages – seemingly unaffected by the virus – the film takes a left turn and begins to head towards the genre it’s directed at.

You see, Thirst is a vampire film. Or at least it’s been described as reinventing the vampire genre. I’m told that Twilight has recently done that, but I’m not a 14-year old girl so I wouldn’t know. In fact, I wouldn’t mind watching Twilight – I’m a huge fan of Kristen Stewart, for all the wrong reasons. She’s hardly Oscar-material, but always good to watch.

Speaking of eye-candy, Thirst has a beauty of its own in Kim Ok-bin as Tae-ju, the love interest of Sang-hyun. She lights up every scene and steals the show from Kang-ho, a veteran of Korean cinema. Once our hero begins to realise he’s a vampire, he meets Tae-ju and everything starts to unravel. Desperate to remain a good person, Sang-hyun tries to feed his thirst for blood not by killing people, but by sucking blood from an obese coma-patient in the local hospital. Inevitably, Tae-ju becomes infected, and from that point on things really do take a turn for the worse.

Like the Vengeance trilogy, Thirst is all over the place in terms of pacing. My only criticism is that the film is slightly overlong, and takes a good while to get going. Watching it with a festival crowd, most of the audience knew what to expect and were happy to wait for the pieces to fall into place. A wider international audience would not be as forgiving, and you can almost predict the film’s future as a cult classic.

Bright Star (2009, Dir: Jane Campion)

I first saw Ben Whishaw in the television comedy Nathan Barley, as the long-suffering Pingu. He then starred in the lead role in 2006’s Perfume: The Story of A Murderer - a literary adaptation that was accidentally hilarious. Now if you’ve never seen this film before, you really must. It just about happens to be one of the funniest films ever. For all the wrong reasons.

After Perfume..., he turned up as one of the more interesting Bob Dylan characters in I’m Not There. It says something that he shares the spotlight here with Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere and Heath Ledger. Somebody out there has a lot of faith in him, and rightly so - he’s a bloody good actor.

So it’s a good thing that he’s the lead in Jane Campion’s new film Bright Star. Whishaw plays Keats, famous to his friends but generally an unknown quantity. The film tells of his romance with local seamstress Fanny Brawne (the exquisite Abbie Cornish). If that all sounds as depressing as hell, don’t worry – there’s plenty to enjoy.

I was quite worried myself, when the opening credits played over a close-up of somebody sewing. It was like a nightmare coming true: a period romantic drama, about sewing. So I seriously considered falling asleep. Can you even escape a nightmare by falling asleep? Thankfully, I didn’t have to find out.

From the first scene, Brawne’s relationship with Keats’ best-friend Charles Brown (Paul Schneider) is hilarious. Brown takes every opportunity to snipe at Brawne, whilst Brawne gives as good as she gets with expert retorts. Their interplay alone is enough to make this film watchable, and that’s before you throw Whishaw into the mix.

Even when the two leads fall in love, the film doesn’t drag. Their childlike infatuation with each other – a pairing made impossible due to Keats’ lack of funds and stature – is sweet to watch, and definitely a welcome change from the sickly saccharine romances that usually litter period dramas. Campion’s keen script keeps everything moving along nicely, and she doesn’t mire the dialogue with reams and reams of Oldspeak.

The end of the film (which you can see coming if you know anything about Keats) is a sad thing to watch. Let’s just say that when I left the cinema, I made sure to put my coat on.

Looking For Eric (2008, Dir: Ken Loach)

I was forced to watch Kes at school. I haven’t seen a Ken Loach film since. On the basis of Looking For Eric, maybe I’ve been missing out on a lot.

It’s a nice little British film, set in Manchester, about a postman called Eric whose life is going down the drain. He manages to get back on track, mainly through the guidance and advice of his imaginary friend: one Eric Cantona, in fine form.

I managed to watch this film in a very bizarre frame of mind. On my way into the cinema, in Auckland, New Zealand, I bumped into an old friend – a guy I used to know around 6 or 7 years ago, in Manchester, England. So that’s weird enough. Then we go into the cinema and begin to watch this kitchen-sink drama filmed in Manchester – on a huge screen in a really opulent theatre – and some of the settings start to look familiar. Turns out the film was shot in Chorlton – the corner of Manchester where I used to live before shipping out down under.

Anyway, back to the film. There’s some fine humour here – humour that probably wouldn’t translate around the world, especially to American audiences – but for everybody else, it’s a riot. John Henshaw (Early Doors) and Justin Moorhouse (Phoenix Nights) round out the cast and provide a nice bit of support to Steve Evets – former bass player for The Fall – as Eric the postman.

As with a lot of social realism, the laughs only really pay off because life looks so damn miserable. Eric the postman’s main problem is that he doesn’t know how to reconnect with his estranged ex-wife, and his stepson is mixed up with a local gangster. A couple of joints later, and a few visits from ‘King Eric’, and everything starts to get back on track.

It’s an odd choice for a plot device, and the film would probably have worked without him, but Cantona’s appearance elevates the film to somewhere special. He also lends something to the finale of the film, which is an absolute joy to watch from start to finish. I always respect a filmmaker who leaves something important out of the trailer and its accompanying promotional campaign. It restores my faith in cinema; that it’s not all just dollars and cents and doing whatever it takes to get people through the doors.

It is for most filmmakers – but thankfully not all of them.

Che (2008, Dir: Steven Soderbergh)

Che is a two-part biopic of Che Guevara, directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Benecio del Toro as the revolutionary hero. The two films, separately titled The Argentine and Guerrilla, total almost four and half hours - a mammoth piece of filmmaking.

Of the two, The Argentine is a masterpiece. The film starts with the first meeting between Guevara and Fidel Castro in Mexico, after which we are thrust straight onto a boat headed for Cuba. Intercut with the main narrative are flash-forwards to a 1964 visit by Guevara to the United Nations; and an interview in the same year, which plays as an intermittent voiceover throughout.

We follow Guevara through his journey from combat medic to Commandante, and from the jungles of Cuba down into the cities. Along the way, he exhibits a degree of humanity that instantly warms him to everyone he meets. We’ve seen this side of him before, of course: as portrayed by Gael García Bernal in 2004’s The Motorcycle Diaries (adapted from Guevara’s diaries, as are Soderbergh’s films), and it is this attribute of Guevara’s that is key to understanding his effect on others.

Del Toro is amazing in the title role, and it’s a travesty that he – or for that fact any other contribution to the film – was not up for anything at the last Academy Awards. Perhaps it was due to the Spanish, the overall length or the fact that it was split into two – but not even any nominations? Apparently Sean Penn made reference to this when he picked up his Best Actor award for Milk, and rightly so.

It’s also nice to see Soderbergh doing something to stretch his legs after the yawnfest that was the Ocean’s 11 films. I felt violated after Ocean’s 12 – to the extent that I can’t even bring myself to watch the third one. Much to my amusement, he brings in Matt Damon for a very brief cameo during Guerrilla, as a German priest. Thankfully, George Clooney and Brad Pitt don’t appear as Bolivian peasants.

Aside from another brief cameo by Lou Diamond Phillips (yes, you read that correctly), Guerrilla doesn’t really offer much in the way of interest, at least during its first half. Guevara attempts to take his ideals to Central America, but the Bolivians don’t appear to be interested in a revolution. He hints at this during The Argentine when he says “Revolutions are not transferable,” but tragically doesn’t heed his own advice.

The ends of each film couldn’t be any more different. The Argentine ends in triumph after the battle of Santa Clara (but still with Havana to take); whilst Guerrilla closes with a muted telling of Guevara’s inevitable capture and subsequent execution. Unfortunately for me, in the final few frames of the film as Guevara’s body rises into the air strapped onto a helicopter, an inconsiderate female sat behind me decided to answer a phone call.

Hopefully, when the revolution reaches New Zealand, one of the first things to be addressed will be cinema etiquette.

Moon (2009, Dir: Duncan Jones)

In 1969, David Bowie released the song Space Oddity – about a lone astronaut in space. 40 years later, Bowie’s son has directed a film about a lone astronaut on the moon. God knows how Bowie’s grandchild will extend this concept further in 2049...

Moon, directed by Duncan Jones (or Zowie Bowie, as fans of rock trivia may know him) tells the story of Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), a jobbing space-worker stationed on the far side of the moon to harvest helium. Bell’s only companion is a robot named Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey), and that’s about it.

In terms of construction, this film isn’t entirely original. It’s assembled from parts of Alien, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Dark Star, to name just a few. But at least it’s shameless in its influences: the set looks like a side room inside the Nostromo, Bell’s conversations with Gerty reek of the interplay between Dave and Hal; and there’s more than a shed of Sgt. Pinback in the insanity of Sam Bell.

It’s strange – after waiting for decades for a decent British sci-fi to come along, two turn up at once. But where 2007’s Sunshine was a relatively glossy affair, Moon is starkly minimalistic in comparison. We’re not talking Prisoner: Cell Block H production values here – the special effects are awesome, but it’s pretty clear they were reeled off by someone proficient enough to know what they were doing, without resorting to Hollywood-style CGI overkill.

But it’s Sam Rockwell’s film from start to finish. He delivers a powerhouse performance, and with no other actors to bounce off, he’s left with just himself and his android pal to talk to. Rockwell has been a joy to watch in everything he’s been in since he turned up in The Green Mile (however my favourite performance has got to be in Galaxy Quest, as a bit-part actor convinced of his inevitable demise) but Moon gives him the chance to shine, and he takes up the opportunity with relish.

I had the pleasure of watching it with a splitting headache, and I believe this added to the film’s perplexing effect. We’re given subtle clues to the true state of affairs throughout, and as a result you end up connecting the dots at the same time Bell does. It’s also a film that demands a second viewing.

Is there life on Mars? Don’t know but there’s definitely something fishy happening on the moon.

A Conversation With Louie Psihoyos‏

You know how it is: you start a film blog, email the first review to the director of the film, and he emails you straight back. Result!

My email:

15 July 2009 - 21:08

Hi Louie,

Saw The Cove in Auckland on Saturday 11th July and was completely blown away - a tremendous acheivement. Well done.

Apologies you had such a small audience on the Saturday - I was kind of surprised at that myself - but I hear that around 600 attended the second showing so I hope Auckland wasn't such a disappointment for you.

Well, I'll be pushing the film on as many of my friends and acquaintances as possible so I hope you manage to secure a general release over here.

Congratulations again on making a film of such power. I'm sure you're sick of reading reviews, but here's my two cents: http://popcornlogic.blogspot.com/

Take care,

Johnny

And his reply:

15 July 2009 - 21:55

Nice review Johnny, many thanks for the support. I was disappointed with the Saturday attendance but I am always aware that even an audience of one is an opportunity to....just had an earthquake here in Wellington... I'm not use to this...pretty cool.. hotel room is rocking....wooowwww.. as I was saying....every screening is an opportunity to shake someone up.

At the Saturday screening was Katy from the NZ television station and several reviewers, including yourself. You never know where or when change will occur, but if you put a good film out there my hope is it will build an audience and then multiply.

At the second screening was the head of Greenpeace New Zealand, we had drinks for an hour or so afterwards and enjoyed each others company with some other NGO's and then she split - I had no idea who she was until somebody said, "Do you know who that was?" I heard from friends of friends she was moved and my hope she will tell her friends as you told yours...so the screening last night was a great success because this is a word of mouth film and now we have exponentially more mouths to tell the story of their experience.

Frederick Briand, the IWC delegate from Monaco, who in the film says, "Don't say you don't know about it - you know about it!" wrote me last week after he had seen The Cove at a special screening at the lWC and paid the film one of the best compliments I've heard, he told me, "The Cove is worth a thousand speeches," and this from a man who has written some of the finest speeches I've heard at the IWC. I'm going to have to start trusting those words next week when we go into theatrical release in America and I can no longer be at every screening...

Onward,

Louie














(Hopefully you won't mind me reprinting your words Louie - I'm desperate for content and it's not every day I get an email from a film director in the middle of an earthquake registering 6.6 on the richter scale!)

The Cove (2009, Dir: Louie Psihoyos)

Back in the 1960s, Ric O’Barry trained dolphins for the Flipper television show. He now blames himself for single-handedly kick-starting the worldwide ‘dolphin-arium’ business: “I’ve spent 10 years building this industry up, and the last 35 trying to tear it down.” But O’Barry doesn’t target the large American tourism giants like Seaworld – his focus is almost exclusively on one small fishing village in Japan by the name of Taiji.

Enter former National Geographic photographer and first-time filmmaker Louise Psihoyos. Once aware of the importance of the film’s titular location, Psihoyos assembles a crack-team of specialists to head to Taiji with a view to documenting and exposing some unsettling and horrific events. At one stage even Industrial Light & Magic are enlisted to create covert cameras to assist Psihoyos’ team (a sequence featuring a brief behind-the-scenes look at George Lucas’ special effect studio, and - much to my amusement - a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glimpse of the ‘Vigo the Carpathian’ painting from Ghostbusters II, propped up against the wall of a junkyard).

Psihoyos’ film plays like an environmental espionage thriller, and there are definite echoes to James Marsh’s 2008 Oscar-winning documentary Man On Wire - another film where the thrill of the chase is almost the equal of the catch. However, Marsh’s film was hampered by its dramatic re-enactments, and further still on the (unfortunate but beautifully handled) reliance of still photographs to reveal Philippe Petit's final glory over the World Trade Centre. Psihoyos doesn’t have any such limitations, and The Cove is a far more visceral experience as a result.

Where Man On Wire was careful to avoid direct reference to the man-made atrocities surrounding the location of Petit’s tightrope climax, The Cove pulls no punches in showing us the brutal and unsettling horrors that a small Japanese community undertake to supply the world’s aquariums with dolphins and the uninformed Japanese people with what they believe to be whale-meat.

The Cove is not an easy film to watch – in fact, it’s terrifying – and due to Japan’s stance on whaling, it looks unlikely that the practices unearthed here will change at any time in the immediate future. Only with a snowball effect by way of word-of-mouth can the film reach a larger audience, and only then can any action be hoped for. Critics may argue that there are far larger issues to deal with, but as Psihoyos himself points out, “how can we expect the bigger stuff to get sorted out if we let things like this happen?”

Pass it on.