Film Guide

Tom Hanks has wow-ed me in films like Philadelphia and Forest Gump and Julia Roberts definitely surprised me in Erin Brockovich. I thought these two Hollywood darlings could possibly be a recipe for one delicious night of romantic comedy.

Larry Crowne is a newly divorced, middle-aged man, working at the local U-Mart. He is called into the back office where he thinks he’s going to be made ‘Employee of the Month’ – again. As most of these stories go, what he thinks is going to happen, and what actually happens, are two entirely different outcomes. Because Crowne doesn’t have a college degree, the former navy-chef is ‘let go’. Larry, in debt and with a house creeping toward foreclosure, attempts to find a job, but to no avail. He decides to enroll in a local community college and get the degree that’s missing from his CV.  Read the rest of this entry »

AITA
Light and shadows in a crumbling mansion in the Basque countryside are the central players in this exquisite, painterly study of the passage of time. ‘History is slow, life is fast’ in this ancient place once traversed by pilgrims on the Way of Saint James. The building’s elderly caretaker and his friend, a priest, playfully ponder mortality while planes of light shimmer and the darkness reverberates with flickering images from bygone eras. Past momentarily haunts the present as images appear on a grainy wall-screen, as though emanating from the edifice’s very stones. Dilapidated splendour and illustrious heritage don’t beguile every visitor: young thieves ransack the place, destructively impervious to the radiance of shadows. — SR

“Its colorwork is as minute as the range of grey is meticulous and infinite, deep rubies popping out of a corner illuminated by a window and the whispered shock of shadowy green against the flat modernist palette produced from the combination of the old opulence and the current decay.” — Daniel Kasman, Mubi.com Read the rest of this entry »

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AT ELLEN’S AGE
“‘Promise me not to go all mad, OK?’ Ellen’s boyfriend Florian asks her before revealing that he’s going to have a child with another woman. But go a bit mad she does, ditching both home and her longtime flight attendant job and setting forth on an uncertain trajectory. Pia Marais’s modern fable of dislocation takes us down the rabbit hole, dropping into a variety of unnerving, oddly humorous and slightly surreal situations as Ellen searches for grounding in a rootless world. Adrift, broke and unused to being alone, Ellen attaches herself to a daisy chain of acquaintances and complete strangers. Her need to be with others results in some undignified hotel-room mornings before she falls in with a group of militant animal rights activists. Ellen is attracted to their passion, and perhaps to their endless discussion of rules, but it’s unclear whether they can provide the sense of purpose she’s seeking. Moving from anonymous hotel rooms, airports and lobbies to the chaotic warmth of a Frankfurt commune, where sleeping bodies lie in a jumble among semi-domesticated animals, At Ellen’s Age is filled with striking images: the red caps of a gaggle of airline attendants, a cheetah strolling regally across an airport tarmac, the otherworldly glow of a swarm of white lab rats running on black asphalt at night. Jeanne Balibar’s ethereal beauty and controlled performance accentuate Ellen’s standing as a perpetual stranger in a strange world, adding a distinctive center to a character and a film as mysterious and unpredictable as modern life.” — Rachel Rosen, San Francisco International Film Festival  Read the rest of this entry »

FilmJunk are starting the old Jurassic Park rumours again, beinging at a point last year when Joe Johnston hinted in an interview that the next movie would be the start of a whole new trilogy and “unlike anything you’ve seen.” Then moving to January this year, when Jurassic Park 4 mysteriously appeared on the shooting schedule for Universal Studios but it was quickly labeled a hoax. Now it seems that might Spielberg be taking an interest in the franchise again, and apparently held meetings with Mark Protosevich in order to brainstorm ideas for a new Jurassic Park film. The word “reboot” has apparently been used quite abit. According to Heat Vision, Spielberg and Protosevich have met twice so far, although there are no deals in place to actually start work on a new script. Protosevich’s credits include Poseidon, I Am Legend and Thor, although he was also working with Spielberg on an Oldboy remake, which ended up falling apart due to rights issues. There is a possibility they may be looking at a new trilogy that continues the story with different characters… perhaps something like Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.