Jamie passion and passionfruit!

Not one of Woody Allen’s best.  It is watchable thanks to Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman.  Woody Allen is in character and irritating as the cheap magician and the story about a dead journalist who passes a scoop to a journalism major in life who then starts to investigate a serial killing is so far fetched that even though Allen clearly indicates it is supposed to be a spoof it doesn’t come off.  Nothing new and nothing very funny.  He has done it all much better before and I agree with the generally negative reviews.

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A biopic just like Ray Charles but featuring Edith Piaf this time.  For those who know the story her life was a tragic one – shunted back and forth between her parents and other minders when young, often living in brothels or a circus, discovered singing on the streets by an nightclub entrepreneur Louis Leplee (Gerard Depardieu) and then the rise to fame and the destruction at the hands of drugs and alcohol at the relatively early age of 47, looking like a wreck.  It is a sad and somewhat sordid story.  The huge plus in this film is the performance of Marion Cotillard who creates an excellent Piaf, rough, vulnerable, full of whims and with that inability to really cope with the fame she rose to – rather like Maradona, Monroe and others.  The other big plus is the music.  Despite these attractions, this film falls into much the same trap as many of its ilk – it is overlong, rather tedious in parts as it illustrates all sorts of details of her life – and her not so likeable character.  The best parts involve her affair with boxer Marcel Cerdan but other than that there is too much irritating jumping back and forth in time and a rather morbid amount of time spent on her last few years.  I was more than ready for the end when it came but there is no denying Cotillard’s performance.

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An unusual movie by indie director Darren Aronofsky which has some excellent features even if it does not quite come off.  Aronofsky takes the theme of death and the quest for eternal life and shows us three examples of a man trying to reach and keep his love. There is Tomás the Spanish conquistador searching for the elixir of life in a tree kept secret by the Mayans, a present day scientist trying to revert brain tumors in monkeys and with a wife terminally ill with the same illness, and a 26^th century pilgrim finding himself and eternity in a treespaceship!  In a way, the message is fairly obvious and at times too preachy or simplistic.  Nevertheless, what is fascinating is that we never quite know what will happen next or how the three stories will combine.  Unfortunately, the ending doesn’t really resolve this in anyway but a typical mystical ‘we are all light’ finish.  I liked Hugh Jackman’s acting a lot, Rachel Weisz has less to do and is all a bit of a cypher, while Ellen Burstyn has a nice appearance as a laboratory head.  The special effects and visuals are great – even if the choice of images (lots of corridors leading to the light) is a bit overdone.  The space sequences are great.  Clint Mansell’s music makes for a fine backdrop.  All in all it is an ambitious and thoughtful work which will not be many people’s cup of tea but does give us more to think about than much of what is on in the cinemas these days.

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A very very competent German film about the invasion of members of the Stasi secret police in the lives of a theatre director and his actress girlfriend in 1985 before the Wall fell.  As a portrayal of life in that period with its drab lifestyle and constant spying, it is a dar cry from Goodbye Lenin.  Director and writer Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has made a film that grabs you from the start and keeps you hooked to see what the outcomes and payoffs are.  Central to this tale is Wiesler (the impeturbable Ulrich Muhe) who plays your small man intelligence agent who is, in a way, playing out of his league but is skilled enough to do a good job.  And yet, he becomes fascinated with his targets George Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and top actress girlfriend Christa Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck) and his own humdrum life takes on more meaning.  Meanwhile his boss, Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur) and Hempf (Thomas Thieme), the Minister who is interested in Christa Maria are breathing down his neck  In a way all the characters are stuck in a game where there are no winners and the choices each of them make mark their future.  Apart from the flawless pacing and the sympathetic score by Gabriel Yared, the script is intelligent enough to let the audience work some things out for themselves and leads to a simple and excellent ending which is rather unexpected.  The acting is uniformly good with Muhe, Gedeck and Tukur all shining.  Nice to see a film that matches up all round and gives us a meaty watch.

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A second Romanian film for this year.  A wry and humourous look at Romania today as in a small town near Bucharest, a local radio announcer prepares a programme about the 16^th anniversary of the Revolution.  Let down by various locals he wishes to interview about their actions on the day, he ends up doing the show with a drunk history teacher whose memories of the day are not shared by various members of the public and by a local father Christmas who would rain on anyone’s parade, the hilarious Mircea Andreescu.  The film is more about our perception of the truth and of history and the roles we design for ourselves in all of this.  It is also about those that talk of revolution but whose own actions are not congruent with this.  There is no doubt that Corneliu Porumboiu’s first feature is a fine work of subtle scripting and attention.  I did tend to find it static despite the good dose of humour  and would probably have preferred a little more action.  There is no denying however that there is a lot of talent in the film and he is a director to watch.

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I finally got to see this Kiwi indie film about a group of students who squat in an abandoned house, discover a plantation of marijuana in the basement, sell it, then face the return of the owner who wants his money or his crop.  They decide to hold him prisoner in the basement and then all hell lets loose and it divides the five.  It is an enjoyable film with lots of amusing and light touches.  On the negative side is the rather far-fetched scenario, some cliched plot twists and a wimpy ending.  On the plus side – snappy cinematography, the great soundtrack of music from Dunedin’s Flying Nun records, Dunedin as a grey backdrop mixing brooding and clean innocence, decent acting and a good pace and script.  We can easily suspend belief and go along for the ride.  Duncan Sarkies wrote the script with his brother Robert, also the director.  Willa O’Neill heads an effective cast in which all 6 main leads perform well.  Gratifying to see a reasonable and fun NZ film

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