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The Descendants
With an overly confusing subplot about land ownership, Alexander Payne’s latest was in severe danger of losing me in its opening minutes. Luckily the main plot, in which a father reconnects with his two daughters as he hunts down the man who has been sleeping with his comatose wife (the affair was pre-coma, this isn’t Talk to Her), has enough humour and charm to save the film. From my review last October, “after the muddle at the start and a few awkward metaphors The Descendants comes together as a touching and hilarious family dramedy.”

Like Crazy
With a beautiful aesthetic, great cast, and improvised dialogue, Like Crazy is a naturalistic portrayal of a long distance relationship falling apart in spite of the deluded efforts of those involved. Sadly the realism of Like Crazy is almost too much, and I found myself as frustrated by the on-screen couple as I would be by any couple who are excessively in love and making a hash of it. My personal issues aside, this is not a terrible film and worth a look to see the moment that Felicity Jones truly arrives as an actress. Read the full review for more words, sentences, etc.

The Grey
Two hours of Liam Neeson fighting off wolves in Alaska. I had to choose between seeing this and going to a pub quiz, I think I made the right choice. SPOILER ALERT: Sarah Palin saves the day in the end, shooting down the wolves in her helicopter before throwing Neeson over her shoulder and carrying him away.

A Monster in Paris
French animated film about a monster (or giant flea) who falls in love with a cabaret singer and develops his musical abilities.

Intruders (limited release)
I think this is a horror movie starring Clive Owen in which a monster from his childhood starts to harass his young daughter. I can’t be quite sure though as the synopses on IMDb and Wikipedia are vague and confusing. HANG ON! Thanks to the BBFC I can now confirm that Intruders, “is a contemporary horror film about a monster that steals children’s faces.” As someone whose worst phobia is people with no faces I don’t think I could take this film.

House of Tolerance (limited release)
Your sexy film quota is filled this week by a French film focussing on the dynamics between women working in a Parisian brothel in the early 20th century. Expect sex, subtitles and presumably some more sex.

Acts of Godfrey (special release)
Who cares about the plot when this is the first film to be written entirely in rhyming couplets? Sadly only showing at the Vue in Shepherds Bush, you’ll need to make a special trip to see this unique British film.

Patience (After Sebald) (limited release)
“Patience (After Sebald) is a multi-layered film essay on landscape, art, history, life and loss by the acclaimed documentary film-maker Grant Gee. It is an exploration of the work and influence of German writer WG Sebald, told via a long walk through coastal East Anglia tracking his most famous book The Rings of Saturn.”

Mercenaries (limited release)
“Andy Marlow, an ex British S.A.S serviceman turned mercenary, is sent into the Balkans after a military coup has arisen to rescue a U.S ambassador and his aide.”

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In case you haven’t been lucky enough to have me mumble at you about the 2012 Oscar nominations in person, I thought I’d share with you some of my gut reactions to this year’s list of films of actor types that may win a fancy gold statue. For the full list of nominees have a look on IMDb, it’ll save me a lot of copying, pasting, and messing around with italics.

Extremely Lame & Poorly Reviewed
Somewhere amongst the nine nominees for Best Motion Picture of the Year is Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, the family drama about a young boy searching for the lock to match a key left to him by his father, a victim of 9/11. What makes this film stand out, beyond its terrifying poster, is that it is the worst reviewed film to get nominated for this award for the past 10 years. At the time of writing this potential Oscar winner has just 47% positive reviews over at Rotten Tomatoes with a pretty damning consensus; “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close has a story worth telling, but it deserves better than the treacly and pretentious treatment director Stephen Daldry gives it.”

Albert Who?
Noticing that a film called Albert Nobbs had gathered three nominations I decided to look into it. Turns out that Albert Nobbs is a woman in 19th century Ireland pretending to be a man in order to survive, and is played by Glenn Close. Curious to see what Glenn Close would look like as a man I bravely Googled on.

Thanks Glenn, I didn’t need to sleep tonight anyway.

Gary!
With Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy sadly missing out on a Best Picture nod it’s great to see Gary Oldman getting his first ever Best Actor nomination, and not for his role in Kung Fu Panda 2. In Tinker Oldman ably held together a weighty bit of British cinema and showed hipsters that some people actually wear oversized glasses for medical reasons. What a guy.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Mediocre Biopic
With Meryl Streep and Michelle Williams both getting nominated for Best Actress, it seems that it really doesn’t matter how lukewarm the reaction is to your film so long as you give a scarily accurate portrayal of an icon. In a way it’s reassuring to know that no matter how mediocre the film you’re in, there’s still a chance to act your way above the rest of the film.

Plummer!
It’s exciting enough that the little seen film Beginners might get some free press thanks to Christopher Plummer’s nomination, but the fact that Captain Von Trapp has been nominated for Best Supporting Actor twice out of the last three years is almost too much too handle. Excuse the hyperbole, I’m tired.

Woody’s Back
Woody Allen has another hit on his hands as Midnight in Paris garnered four nominations, and three of them are the kind that people actually care about. Shame I have 45 Woody Allen films to get through before I’m allowed to watch this one.

How Could They Leave Out ________?
For every nomination which warms the cockles of your heart there will be dozens of omissions which are completely outrageous and terribly short-sighted of the academy, only in your humble opinion of course. For me there’s not enough love for Drive and Olivia Colman has been robbed, robbed blind I say! I’m sure you have your own opinions, but how can they be as important as mine?

A Few Surprising Screenplays
The fact that fantastic Iranian film A Separation and delightful silent film The Artist are both nominated for Best Original Screenplay, a category normally filled with English scripts filled with dialogue, shows a fun bit of diverse nominating from the academy. It brings to mind the fact that the only time Buffy was nominated for a Golden Globe for writing was for the almost silent episode Hush. For anyone not sure why I’m rambling about Buffy, why not have a look at what the script for The Artist looks like, you can download it here.

The Difference Between Sound Mixing and Sound Editing is…
The same as the difference between Drive and Moneyball, apparently. These two categories, for Sound Mixing/Editing, have always baffled me and no more so than this year where they share a four-film-nominee-crossover.

Is the Animated Feature Oscar Just for Kids?
I had a theory that Best Animated Feature only goes to the most accessible end of the animated film genre. With a few “proper” animated films on the shortlist, Chico & Rita and A Cat in Paris among them, I look forward to being proven wrong. The absence of Cars 2 from the list gives me hope.

If nothing else, at least we’ll get to see this fella again (I hope):

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Last night I was invited along to a screening of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a film with a trailer so filled with British ‘National Treasures’ that I nearly fell over myself with excitement. As someone who only falls over themselves once a week, this was no mean feat. I can’t tell you whether I liked the film or not, but I can bore you with something interesting* I noticed over at the BBFC. Just try to stop me.

The BBFC has rated The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel as 12A and in their consumer advice say that the film “contains strong language, moderate sex references and racist remarks.” I was surprised to see racist remarks highlighted as a reason parents may not want their children to see a film, though I’m not sure why as racism is of course vile and reprehensible. I’m not afraid to take a widely supported and uncontroversial stand.

Digging deeper, as only someone with too much time on their hands does, I found over at the Parents BBFC website guidelines for what sort of language the BBFC will allow at 12A:

Discriminatory language may be present but will not be endorsed by the work as a whole. Aggressive use of discriminatory language (for example homophobic or racist terms) is unlikely to be acceptable at ‘12’ or ‘12A’ unless it is clearly condemned.

So there you have it, you can only hear racist slurs which are not clearly condemned when you are at least 15 years old. I suppose the aim is to not expose the nation’s children to endless streams of fully endorsed racism until they are old enough to feel sufficiently outraged. Makes sense to me.

Interesting* also to note that American History X, a film about neo-Nazis and filled with racism so strong it borders on the unwatchable, has no mention of racism in its consumer advice from the BBFC. Hmm.

There you have it, a series of facts strung together into something almost resembling a coherent dialogue. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go and wrestle with the Oscar Nomination live-stream again.

*Debatable

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Ryan Gosling is an unnamed driver making his living by fixing up cars or driving them for whoever is willing to pay regardless of any moral ambiguity involved. A quiet, almost childlike figure, Gosling’s naive driver becomes involved with his neighbour (Carey Mulligan) and finds himself embroiled with dangerous criminals and reacts in a horrifically violent manner.

When I first reviewed the film I called it, “a slow, gorgeous, and tense drama” and when declaring it the 4th Best Film of 2011 I described it as, “sleek and smooth, Drive lures you into a false sense of security with its tense yet relaxing atmosphere before erupting into shockingly graphic violence.” Obviously all of this remains true of the film on DVD, it looks stunning and the unique soundtrack sounds great. If you’re looking for a great new release filled with stellar performances, a surprising plot and stylish direction then look no further.

If you’re a film nerd looking for a DVD crammed with extras then sadly you’re out of luck.

The only special feature on the DVD worth writing home about (check the post Mum) is a 40 minute interview with director Nicolas Winding Refn, but there are no documentaries or commentaries in sight. If you are truly desperate for extra content, I’m afraid two trailers and a photo gallery are going to have to suffice. I know not everyone cares about the special features but for those that do this DVD is a disappointment, especially considering the US release is much more well-endowed.

In summary, Drive is a five star film and well worth owning despite a deficit of DVD extras. Drive is out on DVD and Blu-ray on January 30th 2012.

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Underworld: Awakening
I’m being strong and resisting making a cheap and obscure Coronation Street reference, you’re welcome. In the fourth of this series of vampire films I’ve never seen, Kate Beckinsale returns in tight black clothing to lead the battle against humankind.

J. Edgar
J. Edgar Hoover may or may not have been a transvestite but somehow I don’t think this Leonardo DiCaprio starring biopic directed by Clint Eastwood will feature him “wearing a fluffy pink dress with flounces and lace, stockings, high heels and a black curly wig” as Susan Rosenstiel claims he did over on Wikipedia. Beyond this odd bit of trivia this film does not interest me, sorry Clint.

W.E.
Possibly called W./E., this film is not making a name for itself by featuring bizarre levels of punctuation in its title, sadly the focus instead is on just how bad the whole ordeal is. Written and directed by Madonna, W.E. is so bad that BBC 2012‘s Danny Leigh said it made him want to set himself on fire. Grab some matches and get yourself down to your local cinema!

The Sitter (limited release)
Jonah Hill plays a suspended college student persuaded to babysit the kids next door. Madness ensues and Jonah Hill undoes all the good work he’s been doing in Allen Gregory.

L’Atalante (limited release)
This 1930′s French romantic drama has a tantalising write-up over at the BFI as they describe it as “funny, heart-rending, erotic, suspenseful, exhilaratingly inventive… Jean Vigo’s only full-length feature satisfies on so many levels, it’s no surprise it’s widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made.” They are the only cinema showing the film though, so can they be trusted? Yes, they’re the BFI.

Coriolanus (limited release)
A bold debut by Ralph Fiennes as a director as he tackles one of Shakespeare’s lesser known plays about a soldier turned politician turned soldier. A thoroughly modern setting gels well with the ancient text and the film has an interesting blend of modern warfare and Shakespearian speech. I gave it a relatively positive review and the coveted Mild Concern award for Best Use of Jon Snow. Still yet to see this poster on the underground, how odd.

The Nine Muses (limited release)
“Part documentary, part personal essay, this experimental film combines archive imagery with the striking wintry landscapes of Alaska to tell the story of immigrant experience coming into the UK from 1960 onwards.” I’ll be honest, I get nervous whenever I see the term, “part documentary, part personal essay”.

Red Light Revolution (limited release)
Chinese comedy set in Beijing about a man who starts a sexual revolution after opening a sex shop to make ends meet.

X: Night of Vengeance (limited release)
Sticking with the limited release sex films, we have a “sizzling adults-only thriller” about two prostitutes “racing through Sydney’s criminal underworld in an attempt to stay alive”. Expect lots of violence and lots of sex.

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