FILM REVIEW: ‘The Boy In the Striped Pajamas’

Posted on September 11, 2008 by admin

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas x650By Ray Bennett

LONDON – The home life of the Nazi commandant of a World War Two concentration camp appears bizarrely serene in Mark Herman’s grave and powerful drama “The Boy In the Striped Pajamas,” but the innocent are bound to suffer when humanity is abandoned.

A fine adaptation of John Boyne’s novel, which was aimed at children, the film is more adult in its approach although its stern message remains important for youngsters. Set for a Miramax release in the United States on Nov. 7, it’s a tough-minded lesson for those who would perpetrate genocide and it should register strongly with a long afterlife on DVD.

Boyne’s tale is starkly cautionary and writer/director Herman handles a difficult topic with great sensitivity, drawing splendid performances from his young actors with David Thewlis and Vera Farmiga and the other grownups reliably efficient.

It’s the story of the unlikely friendship between two little boys. Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is the sheltered and entirely self-absorbed son of a Nazi officer (Thewlis) living in innocent luxury. Shmuel (Jack Scanlon) is a Jewish boy living behind barbed wire in the direst state of hunger and fear.

Bruno and his family – impressionable sister Gretel (Amber Beattie) and their gentle mother (Farmiga) – have just moved from Berlin to the countryside where strict but loving papa has taken up his new command running a prison camp.

The naïve and scatterbrained Bruno sort of knows that his father is a Nazi officer but he has no clue what it means. At the new house, a shuffling and obedient servant brought in from the camp, Pavel (David Hayman), cowers before brutal adjutant Lt. Kotler (Rupert Friend) but Bruno barely notices while Gretel develops a crush on the explosive young Nazi.

Bruno is deluded about what life is like at his father’s camp because faked videos that show its inhabitants happy and well-fed have been screened at home for visiting dignitaries and Red Cross inspectors.

Lonely and curious, he slips away from the house and finds Shmuel lurking in desperation by the fence. Deeply ignorant of the truth of Shmuel’s circumstances, Bruno adopts him as friend. It’s a friendship that leads to shocking revelations and a powerful conclusion that may cause many viewers to seriously question their assumptions.

Opens: Sept. 12 U.K. (Walt Disney); Cast: Asa Butterfield, Jack Scanlon, Amber Beattie, David Thewlis, Vera Farmiga, Rupert Friend, David Hayman; Director, screenwriter, executive producer: Mark Herman; Director of photography: Benoit Delhomme; Production designer: Martin Childs; Music: James Horner; Costume designer: Natalie Ward; Editor: Michael Ellis; Producer: David Heyman; Executive producer: Christine Langan; Production: Miramax Films, Heyday Films; Sales: Miramax Films; Rated PG-13; running time, 94 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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London Film Festival to have 15 world premieres

Posted on September 10, 2008 by admin

By Ray Bennett

The 52nd London Film Festival will feature 15 world premieres and just as many international and European debuts after it kicks off with Ron Howard’s screen version of Peter Morgan’s hit play “Frost/Nixon” on Oct. 15 including the new James Bond picture “Quantum of Solace”  before it wraps on Oct. 30.

The festival’s Artistic Director, Sandra Hebron announced the lineup at a launch Wednesday in London’s Odeon West End, calling the number of world premieres “unprecedented”.

penelope cruz vicky x325Hebron said that the London event’s status as an essentially non-competitive festival meant it had access to more films. “Our festival is in a different position in that we’re not constrained by being an A-grade competitive festival. I hope, like me, you feel that it gives us a great lineup,” she told a packed industry audience.

Other films to be given gala screenings include Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire” on closing night plus Oliver Stone’s portrait of US President George W. Bush titled “W.” and Michael Winterbottom’s tale of a British family in Italy, “Genova”, starring Colin Firth, Christine Keener and Hope Davis.

Woody Allen’s comedy “Vicky Christina Barcelona” with Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz (pictured) and Scarlet Johansson, which was well-received at the Festival de Cannes; Rian Johnson’s con-man movie “The Brothers Bloom” starring Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo; Richard Eyre’s romantic thriller “The Other Man” starring Liam Neeson, Laura Linney and Antonio Banderas; and Steven Soderbergh’s two-part biography of Che Guevera, titled “Che”, will also have gala nights.

The 15 days of the festival will feature 119 UK and 20 European premieres with films from 43 countries and two nights of open-air screenings in London’s Trafalgar Square. In addition there will special events including screen talks, master classes, and panel discussions featuring filmmakers Danny Boyle and Charlie Kaufman (“Synecdoche, New York”), actors Robert Carlyle and Michael Sheen, and writer Peter Morgan (“The Queen”, “Frost/Nixon”).

This story appeared in Cue Entertainment.

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Silent screen beauty Anita Page dies at 98

Posted on September 9, 2008 by admin

anita460

This is how Anita Page’s obituary begins in The Guardian:

When Gene Kelly sang You Were Meant for Me to Debbie Reynolds in Singin’ in the Rain (1952), there was an echo of the first time this romantic ballad was performed on screen.

The song was composed by Arthur Freed (lyrics) and Nacio Herb Brown (music) for The Broadway Melody (1929) with sexy blonde Anita Page in mind.

It was sung to Page, who has died aged 98, by Charles King, and again to her in Hollywood Revue of 1929. It became a hit, and Page and Brown were briefly married in 1934.

Page had successfully made the transition from silent films to talkies with The Broadway Melody, the first “100% all-talking, all-singing, all-dancing” movie. The tenuous plot involved Page and Bessie Love as small-town vaudevillian sisters who both fall for the same Broadway song’n’dance man, King.

The sisters deliver a number called Harmony Babies, before Page gets her man. The film won the best picture Oscar and Page seemed set for the same fame as her contemporary and fellow MGM contractee, Joan Crawford.

Read the full obituary, a profile and more

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VENICE: Guillermo Arriaga worries about ‘The Burning Plain’

Posted on September 8, 2008 by admin

65th+Venice+Film+Festival+Burning+Plain+Photocall+39mNBXLc-bDlBy Ray Bennett

VENICE – Veteran screenwriter and first-time director Guillermo Arriaga sat by the pool at a hotel on the Venice Lido and confessed that he was not calm, not calm at all.

He completed his film “The Burning Plain” just one week ahead of the Venice International Film Festival, where it screened in Competition. Chances look slim for the $15 million film, which Paramount will release in the UK on March 13 and the Weinstein Co. will release in Latin America, as there is still no sign of a US distributor.

Arriaga said, “I take nothing for granted. I have a saying: ‘You don’t know until you know, and when you know, you don’t know.’ I will be calm when the film opens and is well received by the audience and the critics.”

He knows that Hollywood is dealing with difficult conditions with a potential strike and the dire state of the economy but said he hoped there remained room for grownup pictures: “I wish we had distribution already set. Hollywood cannot only release blockbusters. People tell me they don’t want to see only teenage movies.”

the burning plain x650“The Burning Plain” uses techniques familiar from Arriaga’s earlier scripts such as “Babel,” “21 Grams,” and “Amores Perros,” directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Tommy Lee Jones’s “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,” which won the best screenplay award at the 2005 Festival de Cannes.

Produced by Walter Parkes and Laurie Macdonald with finance arranged by 2929 Productions, the new film stars Charlize Theron as an Oregon restaurateur dealing with a troubled past and her difficult relationship with her mother, played by Kim Basinger (pictured), as she grew up in New Mexico.

Jennifer Lawrence veniceThe story is related in flashbacks with a central mystery that involves two deaths and the identity of a key character. Theron and Basinger do good work and the film features standout performances by J.D. Pardo and Jennifer Lawrence (pictured with Theron and Arriaga) as two youngsters caught up in a family tragedy. Lawrence won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for young performers at the festival (left).

Arriaga said that, even though he wrote the screenplay, he was one of several candidates on the list to direct the film: “I fought hard for it and pitched for what I wanted to do. We sacrificed a lot for the locations we used in Los Cruces, NM, and the Oregon coastline. But I had a permanent smile on my face having actors like the ones we had. I wanted new actors too. I always like cinema to present new things.”

Arriaga, who said he does not have any other projects lined up as writer or director, is based in Mexico City but spends much time in Los Angeles where he and executive producer Nic Clainos have set up a company to produce films in the $2 million to $5 million range: “We’re not a bank. We want to be involved in developing and creating a range of smaller pictures.”

Read my Hollywood Reporter colleague Deborah Young‘s Venice review of ‘The Burning Plain’

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VENICE: ‘The Wrestler’ wins the Golden Lion

Posted on September 6, 2008 by admin

the-wrestler x650By Ray Bennett

U.S. movie “The Wrestler” won the Golden Lion for best picture at the Venice International Film Festival on Saturday at the close of the 11-day competition on the Lido.

The film stars Mickey Rourke as an ageing star of the ring trying to make a comeback, and costars Evan Rachel Wood (pictured with Rourke) and Marisa Tomei. The film is directed by British director Darren Aronofsky with music by his regular composer, England’s Clint Mansell.

The Silver Lion for best director was won by Russia’s Alexei German Jr. for “Paper Soldier”. The best actor award went to Italy’s Silvio Orlando for his role in “Il Papa di Giovanna” (“Giovanna’s Father”), and the best actress prize was awarded to Dominique Blanc in “L’Autre” (“The Other One”).

Haile Gerima’s epic about Ethiopia, “Teza,” won the Grand Jury and best screenplay awards and Jennifer Lawrence (pictured below) won the prize for best young performer for her performance in Guillermo Arriaga’s “The Burning Plain.”

Jennifer_LawrencBurning Plain x650

Full list of winners:

PRIZES OF THE 65TH VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION JURY

GOLDEN LION “The Wrestler,” (Darren Aronofsky, US)

SILVER LION “Paper Soldier” (Aleksey German Jr., Russia)

GRAND JURY PRIZE “Teza,” (Haile Gerima, Ethiopia-Germany-France)

ACTOR Silvio Orlando (“Il Papa di Giovanna,” Italy)

ACTRESS Dominique Blanc (“L’Autre,” France)

BEST SCREENPLAY Haile Gerima (“Teza,” Ethiopia-Germany-France)

TECHNICAL CONTRIBUTION (Cinematography) Alisher Khamidhodjev, Maxim Drozdov (“Paper Soldier,” Russia)

MARCELLO MASTROIANNI PRIZE FOR YOUNG PERFORMER Jennifer Lawrence (“The Burning Plain,” US)

SPECIAL LION FOR BODY OF WORK Werner Schroeter (Germany)

OTHER JURIES

LUIGI DE LAURENTIIS LION OF THE FUTURE “Pranzo di Ferragosto,” (Gianni Di Gregorio, Italy)

VENICE HORIZONS “Melancholia” (Lav Diaz, Philippines)

VENICE HORIZONS DUCUMENTARY “Below Sea Level,” (Aleksey Fedortchenko, Russia)

VENICE HORIZONS SPECIAL MENTION “Un Lac,” (Philippe Grandrieux, France)

VENICE HORIZONS SECOND SPECIAL MENTION “Women,” (Huang Wenhai, China-Switzerland)

Label Europa Cinemas – Venice Days 2008 Prize ““Machan,” (Uberto Pasolini, Sri Lanka-Germany-Italy)

FIPRESCI (INTL. CRITIC’S ASSN) COMPETITION PRIZE “Gabbla” (“Inland”) (Tariq Teguia, Algeria)

FIPRESCI HORIZONS AND CRITICS’ WEEK PRIZE “Goodbye Solo” (Ramin Bahrani, US)

SHORTS

Corto Cortissimo Prize “Tierra Y Pan,” (Carlos Armella, Mexico)

Corto Cortissimo Special Mention “The Dinner,” (Karchi Perlmann, Hungary)

UIP Prize for Best European Short “The Altruists,” Koen Dejaegher (Belgium)

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Cheech and Chong still toking after all these years

Posted on September 6, 2008 by admin

Cheech and Chong x650By Ray Bennett

My old TV Guide mate Bill Brioux has a pretty good interview in The Toronto Star today with Cheech and Chong, the great seventies tokers, who are back on tour in North America for the first time in ages. This is how the article begins:

Isn’t it high time for a Cheech and Chong reunion?

After decades of bitterness and one memorable bust, those counter-culture comedians – Richard (Cheech) Marin and Tommy Chong – are ready for another joint venture.

They’ve smoked the peace pipe and are reuniting for a giant comedy tour – their first in 25 years – which kicks off tonight at their favourite performance venue in the world, Toronto’s Massey Hall.

Read Bill’s full interview

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VENICE FILM REVIEW: Gerardo Naranjo’s ‘I’m Gonna Explode’

Posted on September 4, 2008 by admin

I'm gonna explode x650By Ray Bennett

VENICE – Two restless teenagers decide to run away together but do it by camping out on the roof of the boy’s rich father’s hilltop villa in Mexican filmmaker Gerardo Naranjo’s effervescent thriller “I’m Gonna Explode.”

Engaging and often funny but always with the suggestion that something could go badly and violently wrong at any moment, the film contains two wonderfully fresh performances by Maria Deschamps and Juan Pablo di Santiago (pictured) as the teenagers and an infectious score by Georges Delerue.

Bound to do well in Spanish-language territories, the film could also find receptive audiences in other markets. Its young stars, along with second-time director Naranjo, will no doubt be heard from again.

Roman (Di Santiago) is a right-wing congressman’s son who rebels against just about everything. He calls his sketch in the school revue “See You in Hell” and fakes his own hanging. He has a passion for guns and the early scenes suggest that he’s keen to use them.

Maru (Deschamps) is a schoolmate from a middle-class family, an introverted misfit who can’t understand why she doesn’t fit in and isn’t sure she wants to. Impressed by Roman’s cavalier ways, she falls for him and responds eagerly when he reveals his plan.

Roman’s father and mother meet in the house below with various aides and commence a frantic search in the belief that the boy has kidnapped Maru. Frightened of a violent outcome, the politician refuses to alert the police, especially as the teenagers send misleading messages about where they have gone. The grownup scenes, however, are played mostly for laughs.

Meanwhile, the youngsters are ensconced happily in a tent on the roof, slipping down to the house for food and supplies, including a barbecue and DVD player, when the house is empty.

Naranjo uses narration, mostly by Maru, to place the events in the past with the suggestion all along that the kids’ prank ends in misadventure so taking pleasure in the pair’s fun has an undercurrent of foreboding.

The conclusion is the least satisfying element of the film but along the way, the energy of the two young leads and the bright way Naranjo tells his story make it a winning tale.

Venue: Venice International Film Festival, Horizons; Cast: Maria Deschamps, Juan Pablo di Santiago, Daniel Gimenez Cacho, Rebecca Jones, Martha Claudia, Moreno; Director, screenwriter, producer: Gerardo Naranjo; Director of photography: Tobias Datum; Production designer: Claudio Castelli; Music: Georges Delerue, Zoot Woman, Bright Eyes; Costume designers: Annai Ramos Maza, Amanda Carcamo; Editor: Yibran Asuad; Producers: Pablo Cruz, Hunter Gray, Alain de la Mata; Production: Canana; Sales: Elle Driver; Not rated; running time, 106 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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VENICE FILM REVIEW: Bohdan Slama’s ‘A Country Teacher’

Posted on September 4, 2008 by admin

country teacher x650By Ray Bennett

VENICE – A big-city natural history teacher arrives at a small rural Czech school and makes a great impression until his unresolved emotions about being homosexual threaten to ruin his life in Bohdan Slama’s absorbing drama.

An intelligent story, well-crafted performances and a pleasing absence of stereotypes give the drama universal relevance and will propel the film beyond festivals and art houses in key territories.

Pavel Liska gives a warm and sensitive performance as Peter, a gifted and well-mannered but conflicted teacher who quits his job at a high-profile prep school in Prague because his mother runs the place. He has not told her of his sexual orientation and he also keeps it a secret when his new principal suggests that taking the poorly paid country job means he must be running away from something.

Gregarious in a shy kind of way, Peter befriends an older local woman, Marie (Zuzana Bydzovska) who keeps a herd of milk cows with her restless son Lada (Ladislav Sedivy). When she makes a pass at the teacher and he demurs, she assumes it’s because he thinks she’s too old for him.

Peter’s new life is disrupted when an old lover comes to visit refusing to accept that things are finished. But it gets worse when a chance situation brings Peter’s loneliness and sexual frustration to the surface and he does something he immediately regrets. How the teacher, the boy and his mother deal with this turn of events makes up the rest of the film.

Writer-director Slama uses natural history to good effect in relating the story and weaves in the woman’s family background and Peter’s parents. The bookish Liska underplays Peter’s conflicts and changing emotions with touching conviction, and the wry Bydzovska and energetic Sedivy make telling contributions.

If the ending is too pat it also appears heartfelt and the sense of village community that the film creates is something that people in many places will relate to.

Venice International Film Festival, Venice Days; Cast: Pavel Lilska, Zuzana Bydzovska, Ladislav Sedivy; Director, screenwriter: Bohdan Slama; Producers: Pavel Strnad, Petr Oukropec; Director of photography: Divis Marek; Production designers: Vaclav Novak, Petr Pistek, Martin Micka; Music: Vladimir Godar; Costume designer: Zuzana Krejzkova; Editor: Jan Danhel; Production company: Negativ; Sales: Wild Bunch; Not rated; running time, 113 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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VENICE FILM REVIEW: Sallie Aprahamian’s ‘Broken Lines’

Posted on September 4, 2008 by admin

broken lines x650By Ray Bennett

VENICE – Sallie Aprahamian’s film is a dour romance involving a man conflicted following the death of his domineering father and a woman who feels trapped having to look after a disabled partner.

Written by leads Dan Fredenburgh and Doraly Rosa, the story is set in England amidst the Jewish community of North London but aside from some local color, that has little to do with it. Dreary characters and an indifferent storyline will keep the film within British borders and not make much of a mark there either.

Jake (Fredenburgh) is gloomy about his conflicts with his late father and restless in his five-year engagement to Zoe (Olivia Williams). After the funeral, he wanders into a cafe where a waitress, Becca (Rosa), prevents his wallet being stolen.

When he goes back to thank her, Jake is smitten and pursues her while she grapples with the by now thankless task of taking care of boyfriend Chester (Paul Bettany), an ex-boxer who has had a severe stroke.

The story plays out conventionally, with time spent at the dead man’s atmospheric and soon to be sold bespoke tailor shop, the woman’s cafe, where Rita Tushingham shows up as a concerned relative, and Chester suffering at home.

There is little in the filmmaking to distinguish the picture, although Bettany impresses as the wounded athlete and Rosa is an attractive screen presence, but otherwise the characters and their fate foster little interest.

Venice International Film Festival, Venice Days; Cast: Dan Fredenburgh, Doraly Rosa, Paul Bettany, Olivia Williams, Rita Tushingham; Director: Sallie Aprahamian; Screenwriters: Dan Fredenburgh, Doraly Rosa; Director of photography: Jean-Louis Bompoint; Production designer: Michael Kane; Music: Laura Rossi; Costume designer: Caroline Harris; Editor: Brand Thumin; Producer: Douglas Cummins; Production companies: Axiom Films, Cinema Two; Sales: Maximum; Not rated running time, 112 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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VENICE FILM REVIEW: Coen Bros’ ‘Burn After Reading’

Posted on September 4, 2008 by admin

Burn After Reading Clooney McDormand x650By Ray Bennett

VENICE – When Randy Newman was writing the score for the Mel Gibson western “Maverick,” director Richard Donner asked him if he could write some funny music. “Funny music? What’s funny music?” asked Newman. “I could stick a trumpet up my ass and blow it that way, if you think that’s funny.”

It’s too bad Carter Burwell didn’t say that to the Coen Bros. as his frantic and overbearing score to their lazy new movie “Burn After Reading” shows every sign of trying desperately to be funny.

It’s one more disappointment in an unfunny blackmail caper that involves assorted Washington nitwits. The Coens show that even accomplished performers such as George Clooney and Frances McDormand (pictured), John Malkovich, Brad Pitt and Richard Jenkins can be made to look like over-acting amateurs when filmmakers are too self-satisfied and smug to care.

Some critics have have given the film which debuted in Venice and will now play at the Toronto International Film Festival, a bye as it’s the Coen Bros. But anyone who rates “Raising Arizona” as one of the best film comedies of the last 50 years, as I do, or has fondness for “The Big Lebowski” or even “The Hudsucker Proxy,” as I do, will wonder if the Oscar hasn’t gone to their heads. This film looks as if it was written in haste and filmed with utter disdain for the pair’s many loyal fans.

Venue: Venice International Film Festival; Cast: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins, Elizabeth Marvel, J.K. Simmons; Writers, directors, editors, producers: Ethan and Joel Coen; Director of photography: Emmanuel Lubezki; Production designer: Jess Gonchor; Music: Carter Burwell; Costume designer: Mary Gophers; Executive producers: Tim Bevan, David Diliberto, Eric Fellner, Robert Graf; Production: Focus Features presents, in association with StudioCanal, Relativity Media, Working Tirle, Mike Zoss Productions; Running time, 96 minutes.

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