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.