Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I'm obliged to post AICN-UK from here on out considering that New Zealand still has the Queen on all their money. I think they'll revoke my visa if I don't post the UK column. So, here it is this week's work from Top Hat'n'Tails. He mentioned a movie coming to UK DVD this week called FREAK OUT, which is a horror comedy. This film is a hoot. It's rough around the edges, but the guys making it obviously know their stuff and had a blast making it. I think they have a bright future ahead of them. So all you UKers give 'em a rent. Anyway, for the rest of the news from Ol' Blighty, here's Top Hat!!!
Hey-ho from almost-summery England, Top Hat’s back with another round up of the goings on our merry little side of the pond.
As I was compiling this week’s column, I had figured on leaving out my review of X3 on account of the fact that everybody and their dog has thrown in their two cents on the flick and would it really help for me to turn up slagging the whole thing off even more – it felt a little bit like kicking a guy when he’s down.
Then I actually saw the movie. And now I’m in a position where I feel guilty enough to have to write to apologise to Brett Ratner for doubting him quite so much.
Now, before I get into this, I’m not saying that X3 is a brilliant film. I think, overall, it’s a good, solid summer blockbuster, which actually fits quite nicely with the other two films in the trilogy. I’m with Moriarty on the idea that the studio could keep churning these babies out and printing money off the back of them for decades to come, and I’m sure they probably will (as any of you who stayed until the end of the credits will have seen).
The film certainly has flaws, the day-to-night being one of the most jarring, along with a few bits of dodgy effects work here and there, but for the most part, it’s pretty solid stuff. I can understand the comic fans’ aggravation at the speed and apparently ham-fisted tackling of the Phoenix saga, but I don’t have that baggage to bring into it, so I’m only going by what I’ve heard from the more hard-core fans I’ve spoken to.
But I went into this movie truly believing it was going to be God-awful. When Matthew Vaughn was attached, I was excited, I was enthused and I was awaiting a kick-arse end to the opening trilogy. When he left, I was deflated and shared the manifold concerns of the legion of X-fans, from the comics to the movies, who felt that 14 months just wasn’t going to be enough turnaround time, especially bringing a new director to the matierial. And when Ratner signed, I frankly lost all hope of a fitting sequel to X2.
I have an on-going battle with one of my friends who keeps coming to me with looks at all the stuff from SUPERMAN RETURNS and telling me how it’s going to suck. Since the very first Supes images got out there, I’ve been reassuring him that it’s going to be fine, while he mouths off 24/7 about how it just doesn’t look right. Trust in Singer is what I keep telling him, and still do keep telling him.
So imagine my embarrassment when, in the middle of X3 I started to really enjoy Beast, and hit upon the realisation that I had been behaving in the exact same way towards the Furball’s movie depiction as my mate towards Supes. All the pictures I thought were too human, Kelsey Grammer, although ideal voice-wise, seemed too insubstantial to fill out the role physically. But I was totally proved wrong. I love Grammer’s work on this, and I love the character of Beast. He’s human enough to provide a realistic bridge between the two communities, yet mutant enough to be tempted by the possibilities of a cure. My biggest complaint is that he didn’t get more screen time.
Anyway, that’s enough of that from me. Suffice to say that I shall from here on in be listening to my own advice and not judging a movie until I’ve seen it with my very own eyes. No more tirades against dodgy-looking sneek images and incomplete CG in the trailers. And no more dissing Brett Ratner till he gives me any more reason to.
NEWS
Production has begun on THE GOLDEN AGE, Shekhar Kapur’s follow-up to his 1998 ELIZABETH. Starring Cate Blanchett, Clive Owen and Geoffrey Rush, the movie covers the “tempestuous” relationship between Queen Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh. Filming is currently underway in Ely Cathedral until the end of the week, from where it continues through June. Thanks to Deep Red and Double-0 Ned for the heads up.
Film Four will be partnering with Intermedia to produce the film adaptation of BAGHDAD BLOG, which was first serialised in UK newspaper The Guardian and later published as a book. The Blog was written by Iraqi architect Salam Pax and covers his daily life in Baghdad throughout the invasion. TIGERLAND writer Ross Klaven is in charge of the adaptation, with SNOWCAKE’s Marc Evans taking directing duties.
The UK producers of MRS HENDERSON PRESENTS, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY and LOST IN LA MANCHA have announced the signatures of Cillian Murphy and Natalie Press, alongside Miarada Richardson and Sam Neill to Beyond Films’ TELEPATHY. The intriguing if somewhat hard-to-imagine premise of the movie concerns twin brothers who are engaged by the Russian Government in an experiment to test “the powers of telepathy as a viable form of communication between earth and outer space.” Shooting is due to begin in October.
Irvine Welsh, the author behind TRAINSPOTTING has announced his directorial debut, an adaptation of Alan Warner’s novel THE MAN WHO WALKS. Ewen Bremner is attached to star in the flick, which is being produced for Welsh’s own company 4Way Pictures by Catherine Aitken.
Hot British director Julian Richards, he behind DARKLANDS and THE LAST HORROR MOVIE has completed financing for his new sub-£1million flick, which will again star Kevin Howarth. Production will begin shortly, with the filmmaker pledging to have the movie ready for the AFM.
AWARDS AND FESTIVALS
The Edinburgh International Film Festival has announced a special extension this year to celebrate it’s 60th year. Usually 12 days in August, this years festival will be 2 days longer, running from 14-27 August and including a 1970s retrospective. The full programme for the festival will be announced on 12 July.
Another festival celebrating an Anniversary this year is the Times bfi London Film Festival, which will be celebrating it’s 50th from 18 October-2 November. As well as a special screening in Trafalgar Square at the foot of Nelson’s Column, the festival will see the world’s largest surprise film screening, as 50 venues across the city join together to show the same flick.
The UK’s new international documentary festival, Britdoc, which runs from 26-28 July in Oxford, has announced the inclusion of a documentary pitching-panel, moderated by Morgan Spurlock and including representatives from HBO, ITC, Sundance Insitute and Arte France. For more information, or to apply for a pitch, you have until 30 June and need to visit the festival’s website at www.britdoc.org/festival
BOX OFFICE
The summer movie season has well and truly arrived, with three out-and-out blockbuster heading the charts, a bank-holiday riding kids movie sneaking in and Bollywood enjoying it’s first foray into the top 5 this year. It’s all rather refreshing for us Brits, who have got used to the blockbuster season trundling into town in late June, nearly a month after our American fellows. But with more and more day-and-date releases, we’re starting to catch up, which is no bad thing.
1. X-Men: The Last Stand
2. The DaVinci Code
3. The Wild
4. Mission: Impossible III
5. Fanaa
NEW RELEASES
This week:
Ask the Dust
Benchwarmers
Poseidon
Things To Do Before Your 30
United 93
Wah-Wah
Next Week:
The Omen
Election (Hak She Wui)
RV
Secuestro Express
R2 DVD RELEASES
This Week:
Big Momma’s House 2
Feed
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – Bueller…Bueller…Edition
The Fly (Ultimate Collector’s Edition)
Freak Out
The Poseidon Adventure (2-disc SE)
Next Week:
Battle of the Bulge
Dirty
Escape To Victory (Limited Edition)
La Haine (3-Disc Ultimate Edition)
Memoirs of a Geisha
Mirrormask
North Country
Sympathy for the Devil
REVIEWS
BRICK
This is one of those rare movies that I managed to get in to see with almost no prior knowledge of the flick whatsoever. I’d seen a few cool pieces of poster art that had spread around the net, and I’d known that Joseph Gordon-Levitt was playing the lead and had a vague idea that it was set in a school and that was it.
What I got was a total surprise, and one that takes a while to digest. This is a whole new sub-genre of teen-angst films combined with old-school film noir. The plot and dialogue plays straight from a Saturday matinee noir title, all quick-fire salvos from the hard-talking detective who’s on the verge of breaking the case that’s been breaking his balls. But it’s played out against the background of your run-of-the-mill ups and downs of high-school life. The characters may be into something deeper than your average fair, but the situations they find themselves in aren’t beyond the realms of possibility, especially when you consider the recent rise in violence and knife-crime that’s been hitting British schools in the past few weeks.
Levitt plays Brendan, a regular high-school outcast who is sent on the trail of his dead ex-girlfriend’s killer. Warned off his hunt by numerous shady people along the way, he slowly unravels the tale and uncovers the uncomfortable truths lurking below the surface of the high school life.
The more time that passes and the more I think about this film, the more I like it. My biggest problem with it is tonally, as it seems to shift from dead-straight mystery/thriller to laughing at its own stretched reality from one moment to the next. The “deal making” scene following Brendan’s first exchange with The Pin is hilarious for it’s intrusion of every-day life on the “seedy underworld” of the player’s lives, but the comedy feels somewhat out of place here – as in other moments of the movie – when the rest of the flick seems to be taking itself so seriously.
This is definitely worth catching, though. It’s been on in London for a few weeks and prints are now making their way around the country, so keep your eyes peeled and catch it if you can. It’s quirky, but cool.
THE WILD
The same can’t be said for Disney’s latest animated adventure, which falls a long way short of the kind of family-friendly flicks we’ve got used to through their association with Pixar.
Granted, this film looks amazing, but the pseudo-naturalistic style of the animation doesn’t necessarily suit the story its telling or the characters it follows. MADAGASCAR, a movie this will undeniably be unfavourably compared with, presented a much more stylised representation of the animals, whereas THE WILD has gone for the “real” look. But the more real the characters look, and the more impressive the animation, the less you can get swept up in their adventures and believe that maybe a Lion really could learn how to pilot a boat.
Strangely, it appears to be a problem of which the filmmakers are all to aware, even commenting on it in the dialogue. Which leaves one to ponder why they didn’t think to change their approach at any point.
The only thing that redeems this from being a purely-for-kids time-filler on a rainy weekend is the vocal flourishes of the fantastic Eddie Izzard. It’s almost – almost – worth seeing for the “party hats of death” moment alone. Not quite, though.
If you need to occupy the sprogs for an hour and a half and there’s nothing else doing, this will keep them busy, I’m sure. If you want entertainment, head down your local Virgin and pick up Izzard’s Glorious on DVD: it’s the Koala, but in human form, and much, much funnier.
That’s all from over here for this week, but I’ll be back in a couple of weeks to check on how the summer season is progressing and check in on what’s shooting around the country through the summer months.
‘Til then, I tip my hat to you all,
Top Hat ‘n’ Tails
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