Film Guide

The Reality
The problem with a movie like The Illusionist is that it was preceded by a movie called The Prestige. The Prestige entertained us with a fast moving story of two duelling magicians, trying to out do each other, whist paying each other back for a perceived wrong in their past.

Both The Prestige and The Illusionist are movies about magicians – showmen who use slight of hand and other optical tricks to wow the audience. But both movies are also very different.

Instead of a fast paced thriller, The Illusionist traveled the road of a character driven drama, where the viewer must be on the watch for signs of reality, because in essence, nothing is what it seems.

Of course a character driven drama meanders along at a more sedate pace and relies on great acting, rather than a thrilling plot. Three of the main characters pull off riveting performances; the ever pleasing Paul Giamatti plays the role of Chief Inspector Uhl, caught between what he wants to do, and what he needs to do; Edward Norton downplays his role as the illusionist himself, Eisenheim and creates a character who on the surface seems to care for nothing in life, but satisfies himself with the curiosity of others; Rufus Sewell plays dastardly with a convincing smile as the Crown Prince Leopold, a scheming wart of a man who is easy to despise.

And then there’s Jessica Biel. As the love interest of both Eisenheim and Leopold, Beil’s portrayal of Sophie should have brought some tension between the two opposing men, but instead her less than average acting probably made most viewers groan with despair.

Fortunately however, her role was mercifully less than the other three main characters, and the carefully crafted tale was well supported by some fine imagery and a beautiful score.

The ending however, the coup de main of most great movies, was handled as well as Biel’s acting and left a rather un appetising taste in the mouth.

Food for thought
The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. – Matthew 6:22-23

What we see depends on what we are looking for, and our ability to see the truth. If we’re not constantly looking for the truth, we’ll end up falling for the lie.

Reviewed by: Jonathan Read.
Rating: M – Contains Violence & Sexual References.
Duration: 109 mins.
Genre: Drama.
Actors: Edward Norton, Rufus Sewell, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel.
Director: Neil Burger.
Release Date: Available Now.

The Descent starts off looking like it’s going to be a very low budget affair, with some cheese and lots of predictability. But that’s just the start, a little bit of back history to set the scene.

Whilst not a big budget movie, The Descent’s director Neil Marshall has spent wisely putting the money into the most important shots, and crafting a tightly shot movie that manages to keep you freaked out and hugging the edge of your seat from the time things start to go wrong, right up until the credits roll.

Once we descend into the cave system, all thoughts of a budget slasher are gone, much like the hope of survival for the band of adventurous girls, who must now contend with more than just sub terrain dwelling creatures, but also paranoia, distrust and claustrophobia.

It’s these same feelings that the viewer goes through as the body count rises in what can only be described as one of the best survival horrors of recent times.

Neil Marshall has managed to exploit these emotions, and push every ounce of passion out of his crew of relatively unknown actors, to create a believable journey into the depths of fear, where you’ll find yourself grasping for breath as your brain tries in vain to keep up with the frantic pace of the story.

Visually dark and brooding, The Descent is not for the squeamish, as the celluloid soon becomes tinted with the blood of the hunters and well as the hunted, at times you’ll swear that the entire film stock has been tinted crimson.

But that’s not to say that Marshall has gone overboard with the splatter, it’s just that he’s tapped into the underlying human instinct for survival against all odds.

Food for thought
Trust is a commodity that is hard to acquire but easily lost.

Reviewed by: Jonathan Read.
Rating: R16 – Contains Violence, Offensive Language & Horror.
Duration: 99 mins.
Genre: Horror.
Actors: Alex Reid, Oliver Milburn, Natalie Mendoza, Saskia Mulder, Nora-Jane Noone, MyAnna Buring, Shauna Macdonald, Molly Kayll.
Director: Neil Marshall.
Release Date: Available Now.

When I read the synopsis for Over There I was thinking The Unit, but set in Iraq with a regular Army squad. Alas it was nothing like it.

Instead we get a series that is very hard to get into – the characters have no lovable traits to endear them to you until you’ve spent over half the season wondering why you’re still watching – had I been watching it weekly on TV, I wouldn’t have made it past week one or two. By the end of the season you do have an attachment to the characters, but even that isn’t enough to save the series from everything else that is wrong.

Unlike The Unit, where the wives left behind worked together as a team, looked after each other and made their own viable storyline, Over There’s spouses all have their own individual problems that create far too many differing stories lines and only creates a muddle of unnecessary distraction.

With the show being named Over There, the focus should have been kept over there – the presence of spouses left at home could have been hinted at, but just as the soldiers left them at home, so should the story writers.

But then it’s not as if the storyline does anything for the series, there a couple of interesting situations, but by far the majority of the season is wasted on pointless missions that make little sense and offer no real reason to stay tuned in. Whilst this may be more authentic to the situation in Iraq, it doesn’t make for good television drama.

And then there’s the first year film student, lets practice with interesting shots, montages and filters, coupled with the we don’t have the budget, lets use grainy tv news footage spliced between our actual scenes. There’s just no cohesive whole to this programme and it only highlights the bad story writing and clichéd shallow characters.

All in all, Over There had a lot of potential, but delivered next to nothing.

Food for thought
Is it ok to kill a few to save many?

Reviewed by: Jonathan Read.
Rating: R16 – Contains Violence & Sex Scenes.
Genre: Television Drama.
Actors: Erik Palladino, Keith Robinson, Josh Henderson, Luke MacFarlane, Kirk ‘Sticky’ Jones, Lizette Carrion.
Release Date: Available Now.

The real problem for Hannibal Rising is Silence of the Lambs, as with the sequel, Hannibal and the prequel, Red Dragon, all films that follow the screen character that is Hannibal Lecter will be compared to the 1991 original. As such, none have lived up to the Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins paring.

But Hannibal Rising has another problem, without Silence of the Lambs, it has no purpose. As a movie on it’s own it is a pointless waste of time. The viewer has to already know what Lecter will become.

As a study on the creation of a monster, it is of some interest, but the movie itself seems poorly executed, as if it is just a B-grade money grabber. One could almost assume that the studio that bank rolled the movie figured that they couldn’t compete with Silence, so why bother, just church out a quickie for profit and be done with it.

And that’s quite sad, because with a bit of refinement, more focus on certain scenes, and further exploration of the central themes and Rising could have rivaled even Silence.

The interesting themes that should have been given more attention would of course made it into a totally different film, with the focus being on the social problems that beset a group of soldiers running from a war lost, and desperate to stay alive, to a system of government that did nothing for it’s people, or those that it ‘inherited’.

The whole blood lust revenge thing could have been a side note at the end. We’d have had more empathy with Hannibal at that stage if we’d be given more time with his suffering.

As it is, he ends up being nothing more that a rich kid who had his toys stolen and his nose broken by the poor bully down the street, only to enact revenge some years later when the events of the past had been forgotten.

Food for thought
Does revenge ever bring happiness?

Reviewed by: Jonathan Read.
Rating: R18 – Contains Sadistic Violence.
Duration: 122 mins.
Genre: Suspense & Thriller.
Actors: Dominic West, Kevin McKidd, Rhys Ifans, Gong Li, Gaspard Ulliel, Richard Brake, Stephen Walters, Ivan Marevich.
Director: Peter Webber.
Release Date: Available Now.

Sheer genius. It’s been a while since a movie like this has come along, a movie that blows your mind in a kind of down to earth, matter of fact way. A comedy that isn’t laugh out loud funny, but very pleasing to watch, a comedy that makes you smile on the inside.

A story so outlandishly unique that most will call it stupid, but a select few will fall in love with it. A movie that will transport you back to other movies that have left you in a similar state of mind, such as the equally brilliant Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

But it is more than just a movie, it’s a timeless tale of mans desire to meet the person who is narrating his story, the person who created him. It’s about waking up to the possibility that there is another dimension to our lives, one in which the possibilities are endless.

It’s an awakening of the senses, a realisation that there is more to your life than you originally believed there to be.

Food for thought
Do you just exist, or are you actively listening to the narrators prompting?

Reviews by: Jonathan Read.
Rating: M – Contains Low Level Offensive Language.
Duration: 113 mins.
Genre: Comedy, Romance.
Actors: Dustin Hoffman, Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Queen Latifah, Emma Thompson, Tony Hale, Kristin Chenoweth.
Director: Marc Forster.
Release Date: Available Now.

Sophie Scholl takes a look at the final days of White Rose activist Sophie Scholl. We don’t really get to see any background on who she is, and we don’t need to. Everything we need is shown to us over the last 6 days of her life.

With her fellow activists she strove to educate the German people of what was really going on around them, not just that Germany was going to loose the war, but that the atrocities propagated under nazism would bring world wide condemnation, and that the people needed to rise up and bring an end to the Nazi reign.

Of course, even the best-laid plans can go wrong, and Sophie and her brother are caught distributing pamphlets on campus, they are arrested and interrogated. It’s here that the movie really takes off, with a battle of whits between Sophie and her interrogator. Sophie is brave, sure of her convictions and able to stand firm with a passion that bewilders her captors.

With cunning use of simple music and a compelling script, the movie manages to keep the pace tight and the tension high.

It’s a unique film as it not only has a strong message to deliver, but it’s gripping style also makes it entertaining – in a strange way. It’s a message that at first seems a little like typical student anarchism, but with Sophie’s passionate arguments you soon realise that it goes far deeper than a motley group of students and gets to the core of what it is to be human.

The message, punctuated with positive religious hope and symbolism, is one of conscience. A conscience that the German people had lost under the heavy grip of National Socialism. A conscience that should have made them cry out when the disabled, the Jews, the undesirables were rounded up and simply disappeared. It’s a message of hope in a world lost in a sea of madness and desperation.

It’s about taking a stand for what you believe, for offering your life in place of another.

Visually Sophie Scholl is a mixture of dreary desperation and bright shining hope. The pallet is muted, with the German penchant for subdued colours and greys, forcing the focus on the dialogue that drives the movie, and the characters that give it it’s character and life.

It’s hard to miss the Christian message as Sophie gazes skyward with hope through any window she sees, as she petitions God in prayer, and accepts her fate with the grace and poise of one who knows with unwavering certainty where she is going.

A brilliant and moving story, Sophie Scholl encourages us to live for something, to stay strong, and that nothing done with the right motivation is ever wasted.

Food for thought
Is your world view based on popular opinion, or do you take the time to discover for yourself what the truth really is?

Reviewed by: Jonathan Read.
Rating: M – Contains Adult Themes.
Duration: 117 mins.
Genre: Foreign, German.
Actors: Julia Jentsch, Johanna Gastdorf, Gerald Alexander Held, Fabian Hinrichs, André Hennicke, Florian Stetter, Johannes Suhm, Maximilian Brückner.
Director: Marc Rothemund.
Release Date: Available Now.

To be honest I didn’t really want to watch Miss Potter – I had requested it mainly for my wife. A period drama about an eccentric children’s author and illustrator wasn’t going to have me on the edge of my seat for the evening, no, it would probably send me to sleep.

But early on in the movie, a painting of Peter Rabbit winked at me, and from that point on I was enchanted. It’s here that the strength of Miss Potter lies, in the filmmakers ability to easily allow the viewer to share Beatrix Potter’s vivid imagination. You see to Beatrix her pictures, the characters she invented were every bit as real as the people she had to endure in real life.

Miss-understood by her mother, and encouraged by her father, Beatrix Potter was destined to spend most of her life misunderstood by her own family. Fortunately she found a publisher who instantly saw the potential of her stories and illustrations, and rather than turn them into mindless copies of other children’s books, worked with Beatrix to create something special in her first book, and thus set the benchmark for all the other books she would create.

But even as fame and fortune found her, as did love, her mother never saw past her own prejudices to see what a remarkable talent her daughter had.

Through trial and tribulation, Beatrix Potter never let go of her own private world and allowed that world to influence every decision she made, which in the end lead her to leave a great legacy to the British people through both her books and her generosity.

Renee Zellweger excels as an eccentric Potter, taking to the role with an infectious passion, that along with the superbly animated insights to her creativity has created a movie that will leave you breathless.

As a story for older children (younger children will probably bore form it after a while) it excels in encouraging the imagination, and should be ample to fill their minds with endless possibilities.

A beautifully filmed fairytale based on reality.

Food for thought
It’s easy to dismiss people without getting to know them, but in doing so we may be missing out on something wonderful that hasn’t been given the chance to bloom. It pays to constantly remind ourselves that everyone we meet has been made in the image of God and therefore are worthy of our total attention.

Reviewed by: Jonathan Read.
Rating: G – Suitable for General Audiences.
Duration: 88 mins.
Genre: Drama, Biography.
Actors: Ewan McGregor, Emily Watson, Renee Zellweger, Lloyd Owen.
Director: Chris Noonan.
Release Date: Available Now.

I’ll be honest with you; I wasn’t looking forward to reviewing Wild Hogs. A road trip movie about four middle-aged men, played by two has-beens (Allen & Travolta), an un-funny comedian (Lawrence) and the occasionally interesting Macy. It was going to stink.

A friend tried to tell me that I was wrong, and that Wild Hogs was the funniest movie she’d seen for some time.

I was about to be proven wrong. Wild Hogs is slap-stick comedy at it’s finest. When the gags are of a physical slapstick nature, the movie works beautifully. When the writers try and give Allen a one liner it often falls flat. Fortunately there is enough slap-stick to carry this movie through its 99 minute runtime, and an ending that will have you laughing for the rest of the night.

Basically the movie goes like this, three middle-aged men, friends since school all love going for short weekend rides on their bikes, around town. Then they decide to have one last hurrah before they get too old, and decide to do a road trip to the coast. Three of them are confident bikers; buy Macy’s character Dudley is a tad uncoordinated and pretty much carries the movies winning slap-stick elements.

Nothing goes to plan on the road trip and they soon run afoul of the law, then a group of real bikers. But along the way they learn that it’s not the destination, but whom you ride with.

Whilst the acting may leave a lot to be desired, the laughter will be with you for days to come.

Food for thought
Lying will only get you deeper into trouble – be upfront and honest and let your friends help you out if you get in a jam.

Reviewed by: Jonathan Read.
Rating: M – Contains Medium Level Violence.
Duration: 99 mins.
Genre: Comedy.
Actors: Ray Liotta, William H. Macy, John Travolta, Marisa Tomei, Martin Lawrence, Tim Allen, Jill Hennessy.
Director: Walter Becker.
Release Date: Available Now.

It ain’t over ‘till it’s over. That’s the punch line for Stallone’s latest flick, and the resurrection of his most loved character, Rocky Balboa.

To be honest I wasn’t expecting much from this movie, Stallone is really past his prime as an actor, and going back to try and re-live past glories seemed just a little desperate. But then I pretty much thought the same of Bruce Willis when Die Hard 4 was announced, but ending up thoroughly enjoying it.

So what does Rocky Balboa offer us some 30 years after the original? He offers us a story driven by characters and compassion. Rocky Balboa isn’t a story so much about boxing as it is about life. A life lived to the fullest, a life where you put others first, a life where you never give up on your dreams or your passion.

It’s about having time for people, for keeping a humble perspective, and about doing what is right.

Rocky Balboa is also a movie about God. Whilst it may never be considered a gospel movie, Rocky’s character is a great role model and offers a beacon of hope to a world that has lost faith.

Now Rocky Balboa isn’t a movie that’s going to set the world on fire, it does have some serious cheese, especially in the climatic scenes, but this is to be expected, and if you allow yourself to be swept up in the moment, the cheese will pass by, possibly without you even noticing. It’s an underdog story that defies reality, but is written just right that you don’t care about the implausibility of the whole situation.

It’s a feel good movie that deserved to be made. It doesn’t trump the original classic, but probably cements itself as one of Stallone’s best movies ever.

Food for thought
Loving your neighbour and going the extra mile are biblical concepts that Rocky Balboa lives in everyday life. What do these concepts mean to you, and do they have residence in your life?

Special Features (not reviewed)
• Audio Commentary with Sylvesta Stallone
• Making of.
• Filming Rocky’s final fight
• Boxing Bloopers
• Seven Deleted Scenes
• Alternate ending.

Reviewed by: Jonathan Read.
Rating: M – Contains Medium Level Violence.
Duration: 102 mins.
Genre: Sports Drama, Boxing.
Actors: Burt Young, Sylvester Stallone, Milo Ventimiglia, Geraldine Hughes, Max Kellerman, Jim Lampley, James Francis Kelly, Larry Merchant, Bert Sugar, Antonio Tarver, Tony Burton.
Director: Sylvester Stallone.
Release Date: Available Now.

Welcome to the new look Film Guide.  We hope you like the change and will stay around to see what we’ve got in store for the rest of the year.  We’ll be having an official launch later, once we’ve ironed out any issues that may come up over the next few weeks.

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