'Post Mortem' review:

Chilean director Pablo Larrain's latest movie, 'Post Mortem', gets a limited UK release from today. This year's Venice Film Festival might be drawing to a close but this is one of those I saw last September on the Lido and reviewed it then for Obsessed with Film (now What Culture). I also sort of reviewed his first film 'Tony Manero' after seeing on TV last year. I highly recommend them both.

'Attenberg', Blu-ray reviews and 'The Skin I Live In' podcast...

Greek oddity 'Attenberg' is out now in the UK. I don't have much memory of it beyond the fact that it was jeered as the credits rolled in Venice last year, and you can read my review of it from last September on What Culture here. It wasn't all that bad I seem to recall (and I think the actress won a prize from the festival jury) but it just left me completely cold. It's a lot like an inferior version of 'Dogtooth' in form and theme, with childlike grown-ups whose unworldly naivete gives rise to some strangely expressed sexual curiosity and odd alternative dance. Nicely shot, mind.

Also up today, reviews of the Blu-ray editions of Jow Wright's stunning 'Hanna' and the Coen Brothers' seminal 'Miller's Crossing'.

Check back tomorrow for my take on Pedro Almodovar's thrilling, disturbing and beautifully realised 'The Skin I Live In' (released last Friday), which is also the subject of the most recent Splendor Cinema Podcast.

'Norwegian Wood' review and excuses...

Hey all. I have been very busy off late and haven't been able to give my full attention to the (very important) pass time that is blogging. Here is my review of 'Norwegian Wood', which was released on Friday in the UK. I wrote that back in Venice last year. It was one of the first reviews I wrote at that festival and I wasn't as good on the Blackberry back then. Also, I think I'm a bit better at writing now than I was then. Anyway, enough excuses.

My girlfriend and I are on holiday for the next week and then I'm starting a journalisty internship at a video games website, which I hope might lead to something more. I've also got tons of review copies of Blu-rays on my desk which need to be reviewed between now and the end of the month, plus I have some outstanding articles to write for a book on American independant cinema. So expect this blog to be a little low on meaningful content over the next month. But check back anyway in case that proves inaccurate.

Beames on Film is one year old!

Yesterday was the first birthday of this film blog, which I began a year and one day ago in order to have somewhere other than Facebook to shout my opinions at people over the internet. I just wanted to post a quick "thank you" to everyone who has read - or better still reads - my ramblings on cinema and hope that you stick with me over the next year, which I hope will include even more reviews and several visits to film festivals.

Here is some self-congratulatory stuff about how it's all been going.

2010 was quite eventful for me and saw me interview some big name Hollywood types (including Ricky Gervais, Darren Aronofsky and Oliver Stone) and write well over one hundred reviews, as well as lots of other stuff here and there - including one piece for the Sunday Telegraph. I have also become a regular contributor on one of the UK's best read daily film blogs Obsessed with Film and even once appeared as an "expert" on BBC Radio Sussex.

I did a lot more stuff than I ever expect to do in that first twelve months, but I can't yet rest on my laurels and I need to work to ensure that 2011 will be as big if not bigger for me (and by extension this blog). In mid-February I will be writing from the Berlin Film Festival, whilst I also hope to visit many others including a second trip to Venice later in the year (who knows, maybe even Cannes).

It's been fun, but also a lot of hard work - most of it (99.9% of it) unpaid. Thanks for supporting and encouraging me on my ramshackle journey to become a full-time film journalist. There aren't many comments left on the site, but Google Analytics ensures me you're out there. So sincerely: thank you. This coming year could prove make or break, so fingers crossed. I hope you are all still reading come January 2012!

To "sex up" this post a little with something tangentially relevant, here is my favourite scene about writing from one of my all-time favourite movies:

The last word on Venice...

This is the last post I imagine I'll post on the 2010 Venice Film Festival. I head off to work as a sub-editor in the festival daily in Cambridge from Thursday, so I'll be keeping very busy - and I'll have a new festival to bang on about here. But in the meantime, I wanted (pretty much for my own amusement) to hand out my own "awards" for the best of the 67th Venice International Film Festival. I more or less did this when discussing the actual awards in my last post here, as well as in a piece on Obsessed with Film, where I suggested my favourites as I looked at those actually rewarded by Tarantino's jury.

These fake awards take on new significance today too (even if only in my own head), as many in the Italian press - and now influential American journalists have joined them - have accused the 'Pulp Fiction' director of favouritism, as many of the awards went to friends of his.

I don't know whether those charges are fair. Of course, Tarantino himself has been keen to insist that he picked the winners based on their merits and not on friendship. But in any case, here are my two cents, and my final word on the festival:

GOLDEN LION for Best Film:
BLACK SWAN - Darren Aronofsky (USA)
No doubt in my mind whatsoever here. Darren Aronofsky's 'Black Swan' was simply perfect. It played on the opening night of the festival and set a really high standard for all that followed. Really intense, it scared me, moved me and excited me. Really amazing. A film that reminded me why I love cinema.



SILVER LION for Best Director to:
13 ASSASSINS - Takeshi Mike (JAP)
Darren Aronofsky was the "best director" in fairness, but this award is traditionally give as a runner-up prize. And in that spirit I have given it my second favourite film, '13 Assassins'. In my review I compared it favourably to Kurosawa's 'Seven Samurai', so I could hardly not reward Mike if it is that good. The most fun and exciting film in competition, in terms of action. The battle in the last half hour is as good as any I've ever seen in the cinema. The film also deals with interesting themes, namely the contradictions between and evils of traditionalism and formal beauty in Japanese culture.



SPECIAL JURY PRIZE to:
NOI CREDEVAMO - Mario Martone (ITA)
I don't really know what this award is for. I suppose it's the award for "we wanted to give this film an award but it really wasn't the best at anything in particular". In that case, I will award it to the Italian nationalism epic, Noi credevamo - directed by Mario Martone. There was no trailer, so watch this clip (in Italian) to get a sense of how "well made" it is. It reminds me a little of 'Barry Lyndon' in terms of the lighting (and obviously the period). One of my favourite films from the festival and a rare three hour plus movie that doesn't feel overlong.



COPPA VOLPI
for Best Actor:
BARNEY'S VERSION - Paul Giamatti (USA)
If there was one award I didn't strongly disagree with the other night, it was the decision to give Vincent Gallo the best actor prize for his role in 'Essential Killing' - a damn good thriller with a brilliant central performance. However, I'm just going to be contrarian and go with the equally excellent Paul Giamatti, whose performance in Richard J. Lewis' 'Barney's Version' proved the festival's only real tearjerker. Giamatti's performance in this film, as he plays a man over three decades, is a masterclass. This trailer doesn't really do it justice, but here it is anyway.



COPPA VOLPI
for Best Actress:
BLACK SWAN - Natalie Portman (USA)
I don't know if I should gush about 'Black Swan' any more than I already have (at some length). I'll just say that Portman's dedication to this role - which required extensive ballet lessons - is matched by the intensity and emotional depth of her performance. I'll also say here (so I can post another trailer) that Michele Williams excelled in the fairly boring Western, 'Meek's Cutoff'.



MARCELLO MASTROIANNI AWARD
for Best Young Actor or Actress:
LA PECORA NERA - Luigi Fedele (ITA)
The 27 year old Mila Kunis won this award the other night, which was a little odd if you ask me. So instead I've plumbed for Luigi Fedele, a newcomer who really shone playing the childhood version of the central character in the charming Italian comedy La pecora nera. He's the kid on the left at the start of the clip below.



OSELLA for Best Cinematography to:
OVSYANKI (SILENT SOULS) - Mikhail Krichman (RUS)
I won't dare go against the grain here. The critics favourite movie here (at least based on aggregate scores taken for the festival's daily trade paper), 'Ovsyanki' is a remarkable Russian drama about an obscure, now forgotten burial ritual, directed by Aleksei Fedorchenko. Mikhail Krichman's cinematography is suburb here, especially in its treatment of bleak, yet beautiful Russian landscapes. Some of the shots in this film blew my mind.



OSELLA for Best Screenplay to:
LA PASSION - Umberto Contarello, Doriana Leondeff, Carlo Mazzacurati, Marco Pettenello (ITA)
This quirky little Italian comedy, about a film-maker who is roped into directing an amateur production of The Passion of Christ after he inadvertently destroys an old fresco, was really funny and took a delightfully irreverent look at Catholicism, film-making and acting. I doubt it'll get much distribution outside of Italy, which is a pitty.



SPECIAL LION FOR AN OVERALL WORK to:
The Chinese film industry
This award was made up by the jury in order to give a statue to Tarantino's mentor, Monte Hellman ('The Road Nowhere'). But I'm giving it to the Chinese film industry, which is giving Hollywood a run for its money. I saw around nine Chinese film's in Venice, ranging from a youth-orientated dance flick ('Showtime'), to martial arts movies ('Di Renjie' (below), 'Reign of Assassins' and 'Legend of the Fist'), to the gritty, realist historical drama 'The Ditch' - as well as one 3D animated short film, 'Space Guy'.

I didn't like all of them, but they were all pretty well made and interesting in their own way. What I reall admire is that there are so many. OK, I understand China is a pretty huge country, but all the same: there were no British films in competition at all. And the only British movies that did play at the festival were small, installation art pieces (like the dreary 'Robinson in Ruins') and not "entertainment" aimed at audiences. The British industry needs to order whatever the Chinese are drinking.


So there you have it! My picks of the best from Venice 2010.

Back in the UK! Final stuff from Venice...

Back from Venice now (finally) and there are a few more reviews I want to link to from my time there, including one I've written for the Sunday Telegraph. It is in today's paper:

The Tempest
Barney's Version
Drei

You may or may not know, but the winners this year were announced last night, and were as follows (copied from the official festival web page):

VENEZIA 67
The Venezia 67 Jury, chaired by Quentin Tarantino and comprised of Guillermo Arriaga, Ingeborga Dapkunaite, Arnaud Desplechin, Danny Elfman, Luca Guadagnino, Gabriele Salvatores, having viewed all twenty-four films in competition, has decided as follows:

GOLDEN LION for Best Film:
SOMEWHERE by Sofia COPPOLA (USA)

SILVER LION for Best Director to:
Álex de la Iglesia for the film BALADA TRISTE DE TROMPETA
(Spain, France)

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE to:
ESSENTIAL KILLINGby Jerzy SKOLIMOWSKI
(Poland, Norway, Hungary, Ireland)

COPPA VOLPI
for Best Actor:
Vincent GALLO
in the film ESSENTIAL KILLING by Jerzy SKOLIMOWSKI
(Poland, Norway, Hungary, Ireland)

COPPA VOLPI
for Best Actress:
Ariane LABED
in the film ATTENBERG by Athina Rachel TSANGARI (Greece)

MARCELLO MASTROIANNI AWARD
for Best Young Actor or Actress:
Mila KUNIS
in the film BLACK SWAN by Darren ARONOFSKY (USA)

OSELLA for Best Cinematography to:
MIKHAIL KRICHMAN
for the film SILENT SOULS (OVSYANKI) by Aleksei FEDORCHENKO (Russia)

OSELLA for Best Screenplay to:
Álex de la Iglesia
for the film BALADA TRISTE DE TROMPETA by Álex de la Iglesia
(Spain, France)

SPECIAL LION FOR AN OVERALL WORK to:
Monte HELLMAN

In brief summary, I am not too unhappy to see Sofia Coppola's 'Somewhere' win the award, although I would personally have liked to see 'Black Swan' emerge victorious. There was a rumour going around on the Saturday morning that the Russian film 'Ovsyanki' was going to win. Instead it took a deserved award for cinematography. It was the highest rated film at the festival, according to the festival daily's look at newspaper review scores ('Somewhere' is placed 9th on that list - but what do critics know?).

I am genuinely surprised that Natalie Portman didn't get the actress nod, although 'Black Swan' did get the award for the best young actor, which went to Mila Kunis (who is 27!). Instead the actress category was a real shock, with the unfancied 'Attenberg' taking it via Ariane Labed. Vincent Gallo is good value for his best actor award, for his silent part in 'Essential Killing' - as an Afghan man on the run from US forces. I would like to have seen Paul Giamatti rewarded for the title role in 'Barney's Version', but Gallo was my next choice.

I had mixed feelings about 'Balada triste de trompeta' but I don't begrudge Álex de la Iglesia his best director award, or the screenplay one. You need to see the film to understand, but it is unlike anything else I have seen.

On an non-Venice note, my review of Herzog's 'My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done?' is up at Obsessed with Film.

More from Venice...

This will be my last update from Italy. I should be back in the UK by now (originally I was due back on Thursday), but I have stayed after a UK national newspaper asked me to review a film playing Saturday morning. I feel nervous and excited about the whole thing, and will be writing it whilst dashing from the screening to the plane home, but it is a great opportunity and well worth delaying my return home for.

Since I last posted here, I wrote another Picturehouse blog entry and the following reviews have been submitted to Obsessed with Film:

I’m Still Here
Noi credevamo
Surviving Life
Balada triste de trompeta
Attenberg
Venus Noire
Promises Written in Water
The Town
La solitudine dei numeri primi
The Road Nowhere
13 Assassins

Just a quick Venice update...

Writing from the Venice press room in the Lidocasino, just to say that I haven't had very much time (at least not with an internet connection) in order to update the blog along with my other (paying) commitments. I'm planning on writing some more in-depth stuff on my Venetian adventure when I touch down back in Blighty. Probably more about my travels, as well as about the films. I'm also going to do my own awards for the festival. Which should be fun.

Whilst I've been away Jon and I have recorded two Splendor Podcasts (one of which is online now) and the latest Flick's Flicks has also been put online:



Anyhow, here is an easy summary of everything I've written elsewhere (so far):

Black Swan
Showtime
Legend of the Fist: the Return of Chen Zhen
Norwegian Wood
Happy Few
Miral
La pecora nera
Somewhere
Ovsyanki (Silent Souls)
Reign of Assassins
La passione
Potiche
Meek's Cutoff
Post Mortem
Essential Killing
Di Renjie zhi Tongtian diguo (Detective Dee and the Mystery of Phantom Flame)
I'm Still Here - Press conference
The Ditch

I have also contributed three fairly long-winded run-downs to the Picturehouse Blog:

First post
Second post
Third post

More Venice Adventures!

Ok! Little pushed for time, so here is a little update.

I posted a summary of the films so far on the Picturehouse Blog, as well as impressions of 'Showtime', 'Legend of the Fist: the Return of Chen Zhen' and my short, instant reaction to 'Black Swan', at Obsessed with Film. Jon and I also recorded a new podcast, which will be up soon (I hope).

Full reviews of 'Black Swan' and 'Miral' will be up later, along with summaries of 'Norwegian Wood' and 'Happy Few'. So check back later!

Travelling to Venice + Day One (so far)

I have never been abroad before now. Well, with the exception of a school ski trip over a decade ago. Nor have I been on an aeroplane. So it is no wonder I am excited – even by the short monorail journey to Gatwick airport's Terminal N. As I tuck into some scrambled egg on toast at the terminal's branch of Weatherspoon's, I feel like this is somehow the perfect wave goodbye to England. If only it were goodbye. I finish my meal to find my flight is delayed by an hour. Welcome to air travel, I guess.

When it is finally time to board the plane, a BA flight to Venice and the film festival, I glimpse the unfashionable lounges which feel like a frozen piece of the 1980's. They are in stark contrast to the sterile, modern mall above – where I was able to purchase a copy of Murakami's Norwegian Wood, in anticipation of the adaptation screening the next day. The deeper I go into the airport, the less “special” I feel. On the train from Brighton I was thinking “these people don't know I'm going to Venice.” When I first entered the airport, I though “sure, these people are going somewhere, but it won't be as good as Venice.” But now, waiting to board the plane, I am all to aware that everyone is going to Venice. Irrationally, I start to resent everyone around me.

More so when they act as if it's entirely normal to hurtle 33,000 feet into the air in a metal cylinder. I'm looking out my window at the right wing, praying it doesn't explode, and then within minutes I am above the English channel, with the coasts of England and France within view. Yet the man in the seat in front hasn't looked up from The Spectator since we boarded the plane.

From the air, all Northern Europe looks identical: patchwork configurations of lush, green agricultural land, broken up by roads and the occasional river system. But it's spectacular. The pilot informs us of our course, saying we are flying over Luxembourg, heading towards Frankfurt, where we will make a right and head to Venice, passing over Stuttgart and Innsbruck and Verona. The the while, I am glued to the window and getting none of my reading done. Over Frankfurt, I can see what looks like a nuclear power station and a long, wide and winding river stretching off southwards as far as the eye can see, whilst over Stuttgart, the mighty football stadium is rendered laughably small, as are the autobahns. I feel like I bought tickets to a show called “Google Earth – LIVE!” and it's the best show I've ever seen.

Living in the city, you can come to imagine that we (humans) have destroyed the better part of our environment – paving it with concrete. When you travel by air you are reassuringly shown that this isn't the case. Which is not to say the landscapes were anything “natural” - obviously, the patches of farmland owe everything to the interference of man – but it is a comfort to know an aerial view of Europe is not yet grey. In fact, as things are, it is always a welcome sight to glimpse a city below.

Of course, capitalism does its best to ruin things – even this high above the clouds. British Airway's “High Life Shop” trolley comes around, offering the chance of duty free shopping whilst you fly (as if that time marooned at the airport, surrounded by digital cameras, perfume and cigarettes, wasn't enough). Quite why anyone would fancy buying a bottle of Channel No.5 or Grouse Whiskey from a cart on the plane, is anyone's guess. Sure, the alps are coming into view below, the majestic peaks of the mountains, breaching the clouds in a way I can only describe as painfully beautiful, but sure. Go shopping.

The alps are genuinely magnificent. Especially when we pass over a green, forested valley, with a lake at its center and now atop its peaks. For a time over the mountains, nothing is visible but the thickest clouds. But even this has its own beauty to it.

Landing in Venice, I was surprised to find how comforted I was by familiarity. Upon leaving the airport, I was greeted by a huge banner with the Barcelona football team – comprised of South Americans, Africans and Europeans - on it (advertising a Turkish airline in Italian – if ever there was a better example of internationalism: I haven't seen it). I saw a BMW dealership, a bus advertising Camp Rock 2 and, later in my hotel room, saw Maroon 5 on Italian MTV.

The overall theme seemed to be “we're all the same”. Of course, I'd always known that in a glib, liberal, humanist sort of way – but I was struck by how true it really is. Seeing everywhere from Kent to Venice, more or less looking the same from the air, was both disappointing and reassuring. As was seeing that Italian roadsides are no more glamorous than British ones and that Italian infants are no less annoying on public transport then our own. It was all curiously life affirming. I have a theory that if everyone was sent into space for ten minutes to look at, and contemplate, the earth: it would end all conflict. Maybe that's bullshit, but the farther you zoom out, surely the more trivial disputes come to seem and differences come to seem smaller too.

Anyway, enough sanctimonious preaching. After landing in Venice I was struck by the fact that in every direction and round every corner is something beautiful. Ridiculously beautiful. Take the most amazing building you've seen in London and surround it with a thousand more just as nice or nicer: this is Venice. I took a lot of photos at first (which annoyingly this notebook I am borrowing won't let me upload) but I had to stop. I realised, if I take pictures of every thing of beauty I encounter: I won't have time to do anything else.

So, first evening in Venice, thanks to the delay of the flight I missed the early showing of the new Donnie Yen movie, which I said I might try to see (though the next day I saw the man himself). Instead I caught up with Jon (Splendor Cinema) and drank strange and potent Lithuanian liquors with a array of beautiful people from all over Europe (I was the only Brit and the only person with only one language, among over 100 people). I took several Vaparetto rides around the city and saw the sunset over the domed skyline. Wonderful already.

I will now go downstairs and have my first Italian breakfast at my hotel. Which is run by an Indian bloke called Roy, who is fluent in Indian, Italian, English, German, Spanish and French, no less....

... that was this morning's entry, but I couldn't post it (no internet for me unless I'm in the press area at the Lidocasino). Since then I have seen the amazing 'Black Swan' - the new film by Darren Aronofsky's new film. It blew me away totally. I wrote a quick-fire first impression on my blackberry and sent it to my editor at Obsessed with Film and he put it up. It then got quoted by another site pretty soon afterwards! Anyway, full review to follow. I then went to the press conference with the director and stars Natalie Portman and Vincent Cassel, which I will also write up later for OWF.

After that: the perfect antidote for 'Black Swan'. A really naff Chinese comedy called 'Showtime'. It was a light-hearted film with one eye on the 'Step Up'/'Street Dance' audience, an obvious influence in the direction and choreography. Very weird, involving time travel and super powers of some kind. I really didn't understand it, I guess. But most people seemed to share that feeling, with a packed auditorium being way under half full by the film's end, with walk outs visible throughout. I hope director, Stanley Kwan, wasn't there!

Now I'm off to see if I can score some 'Machete' tickets for midnight's world premiere. Wish me luck!

67th Venice International Film Festival

Tomorrow I set off for Venice to attend this year's Film Festival which runs from September 1st to 11th. On behalf of Obsessed With Film and the Picturehouse Blog, I am going to be reporting from the festival, writing reviews and hopefully interviewing people too. My Splendor Cinema podcast co-host, Jon Barrenechea, is also there on separate business, so we should also be recording a couple of new episodes whilst there. As a big Kurosawa fan, I can't wait to attend (for the first time) the festival which is so often credited with bringing him - and Japanese cinema in general - to wider Western attention, after they famously awarded 'Rashomon' the prestigious Golden Lion award in 1951. Last year's recipient was Sam Maoz for the superior Israeli war film 'Lebanon'.

Among the big films competing for this year's Golden Lion are Sophia Coppola's 'Somewhere' (pictured above), Takeshi Mike's '13 Assassins' (which screens the day I leave - on the 9th!), Tom Tykwer's 'Drei' (which plays after I have left) and Darren Aronofsky's 'Black Swan'. Though, after the little-fancied Thai film 'Uncle Boonmee' was picked as the surprise winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes earlier in the year, it is hard to say who the Quentin Tarantino led jury will plumb for. Possibly something similarly oblique will be crowned the winner - such as the Japanese drama 'Norwegian Wood' (pictured below), adapted from the best selling novel by Haruki Murakami. This is one of the reasons why I am going to try to see every 'in competition' film I am able to. I'm probably going to see four to five films a day as I try to avoid missing THE film.



I will try to see a few 'out of competition' movies as well though. 'I'm Still Here', Casey Affleck's much-anticipated documentary/mocumentary about the transition from actor to rapper of Joaquin Phoenix. It isn't really known how serious this film is as of yet (is it a joke? Is Phoenix serious?) and, I have to admit, I've been sucked into the hype on this one. Ever since the 'Gladiator' stars's bizarre interview on Letterman I've been curious. Elsewhere, Casey's older brother, Ben, is debuting crime thriller, 'The Town', which he directs and stars in alongside Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall and Jon Hamm. Whilst, the late Dennis Hopper is being honoured with a screening of his little seen follow-up to 'Easy Rider', 1971's ill-fated 'The Last Movie'. It is on at midnight so provided I can still get a boat back to the city after the screening, I would very much like to see that one too.

For whatever reason, some of the 'out of competition' films are showing the evening I arrive, before the festival officially kicks off. So I may see the Andrew Lau ('Young and Dangerous') directed 'Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen', starring Donnie Yen, tomorrow. If I get settled in ok and can find the cinema! I will probably miss the retrospective on Italian comedy, the celebratory screenings of the work of John Woo (who is being honoured this year) and the short films - but I will try to fit in anything I can. So check back here, and on those other sites I mentioned, to get the latest from the 67th Venice International Film Festival.