Beames returns to March's Flick's Flicks...

Due to illness and injury I have again hosted an episode of Flick's Flicks. I don't mock TV presenters any more. Put me on The One Show and I'd be total rubbish.

Oscars 2011: 'The King's Speech'? Really?

If you don't already know all the results from Sunday night's Academy Awards show then I'd suggest you check out the full list on Deadline, but I'll summarise it for you here anyway. The night was dominated by the towering mediocrity that is 'The King's Speech', which scooped both of (what should be considered) the major gongs, bagging Best Picture and Best Director (for Tom Hooper). It also snared Colin Firth a well-deserved statuette for his eye-catching performance as the film's titular stammering monarch.

The plucky British film is certainly an amiable enough winner, with endearing lead performances and some deft repartee in its (now Oscar winning) screenplay. It is ridiculously popular too, having just broken the £40 million barrier at the UK box office - which is a huge sum - and earning long standing ovations wherever it has played (including 20-plus minutes in Berlin last month). I personally enjoyed the film too, albeit with reservations about its handling of history and romantic portrayal of the house of Windsor (as reluctant "indentured servants" serving an expectant, fawning public). But aren't award ceremonies supposed to reward "art" and not just pander to commerce? Isn't commerce its own reward?

OK, to clarify: I'm not suggesting 'The King's Speech' isn't "art" or that it only won because it has out-grossed its major rivals - 'The Social Network', 'Black Swan' and 'The Fighter' - and on a smaller budget (reportedly around £8 million). I'm just saying that the film is inoffensive, establishment fluff and that the virtuosity of its making pales in comparison with many of the other nominated movies. Possibly all nine of them. It's like a pleasant TV movie. It's like an HBO film that would quietly win a bunch of Golden Globes before disappearing into obscurity. Except it is apparently now considered the best piece of cinema of the last twelve months... and this makes me sad.

For instance, Darren Aronofsky's 'The Black Swan' is a more deserving candidate: a perfect synthesis of sound and image that cuts deeply into you emotionally and takes you to places you don't necessarily want to go. It's perfectly paced, with not a single unnecessary moment, as it manages to be both beautiful and horrifying in equal measure. Is Darren Aronofsky a better filmmaker than Tom Hooper? Almost certainly. At the very least, his next film will be interesting even if it is a 'Wolverine' sequel. Is there any guarantee that Hooper will ever again scale these heights? No. Yet he also beat David Fincher to the Best Director prize.

'The King's Speech' is a glossy, mum-pleaser of a film about an imagined past - in which Churchill was a staunch supporter of George VI and where Edward VIII pro-Nazi leanings can all be blamed on acceptable, establishment-sanctioned hate figure Wallis Simpson. But Fincher's 'The Social Network' is relevant and looks at the world we live in now. It justly won Best Adapted Screenplay for writer Aaron Sorkin, but it could and should have received so much more for its tightly handled, restrained camera work that turned a 'film about Facebook', mostly concerning nerds arguing with lawyers, into a dark and compelling thriller of Shakespearian proportions. I say with some certainty that filmmakers will still be referring to 'The Social Network' in several years time, whilst 'The King's Speech' will likely be consigned to mentions in dry academic books on heritage cinema.

It all reminds me of when 'Shakespeare in Love' beat 'Saving Private Ryan' to Best Picture in 1998. Spielberg's WWII movie, whatever you may think of it, will stand the test of time even if only for its jarring opening twenty minutes. Whereas nobody watches or talks about or even vaguely remembers the John Madden directed 'Shakespeare in Love' now, let alone in fifty or one hundred years. Incidentally 'Shakespeare in Love' and 'The King's Speech' have one major thing in common which could be said to account for the 'unlikely' success of both: the backing of Harvey Weinstein. A notoriously hard campaigner when it comes to winning Academy Awards with Miramax and now with The Weinstein Company, Harvey and his younger brother Bob have again fought to the last minute to lobby for votes in Hollywood. It is no exaggeration to say that without their backing 'The King's Speech' would not even have been on the radar of many voters.

The Weinsteins know what they are doing and, although they are obsessively keen to promote themselves as producers of 'prestige' films, this Oscar payload will earn them and 'The King's Speech' many more millions. Especially after the heavy-weight producers (no strangers to feuds with the MPAA) agreed to cut some of the film's comedy upper-class swearing in order to facilitate a PG-13 certificate re-release stateside. And so whilst The Daily Mail heralded the film's Oscar success by saying "for once Oscars night belonged to a small budget, independent movie that was a labour of love", 'The King's Speech' is far more powerful and successful than the underdog-favouring British press would like to admit amongst all the self-congratulatory anti-Hollywood vitriol.

This brings me back to my "art vs. commerce" point. 'The King's Speech' is benefiting from sailing in that perfect storm of being inoffensive enough that it was universally liked, whilst also being a commercial success story. The fact that it's about kings and queens is also a bonus, of course. But shouldn't the Academy award films based on artistic merit alone? Well, I guess that's subjective in any case and you could, rightly, point out that the Academy did exactly that. Not everyone has to agree with me that 'The Social Network' and 'Black Swan' were far and away the superior examples of the art form. Yet I feel that is the case and quite strongly, with Sunday's result feeling to me like a depressing one for cinema.

It's also a depressing win for the British film industry as a whole. No it seriously is - or at least should be. 'The King's Speech' is one of the last films to have been backed by the now defunct UK Film Council and so it seems that this oh-so-establishment film is, ironically and quite accidentally, also one in the eye for the budget-cutting Tories. Some have even expressed concern that this might be the high-point before a long period of woe for British film. In any case, I think it's depressing for UK film for another reason entirely: 'The King's Speech' is arguably the single least relevant of the ten Best Picture nominees.

Consider the other nine. 'Winter's Bone' is the kind of 'gritty' social realism, about poverty and strife, that Britain used to be famous for. 'Inception' and 'Toy Story 3' are both examples of state of the art visual effects and exciting story telling on a huge (dare I say 'cinematic') scale. 'The Kids Are All Right' is a thoroughly modern story about something parts of America still has huge problems with, as it follows a homosexual couple raising their two children. '127 Hours', directed by another British Academy Award winner Danny Boyle, is also based on real-life events and yet it is a contemporary story filmed in an (in my opinion excessively) vibrant, high-octane, fast-cutting style.

Boxing biopic 'The Fighter', like 'Winter's Bone', also makes a feature of white American poverty oft-unseen in popular culture, whilst the Coen brother's Western 'True Grit' may be more firmly rooted in the past than 'The King's Speech' in terms of its setting, but its cinematography and production design is among the very best around. I've already made the case for 'Black Swan' and 'The Social Network'.

I bear 'The King's Speech' no ill will whatsoever; not that I fancy my ill will would be of the least concern to the film's makers in any case. It's a perfectly enjoyable Sunday afternoon kind of movie. "Nan is coming round" you may at some point say, "lets stick 'The King's Speech' on." It's 'nice'. It is, as James Franco said, 'safe'. But just don't expect me to believe that it's a peak example of the art form I love and that which the Academy Awards are supposed to celebrate.

Picturehouse Blog posts...

Apologies for the lack of updates since Berlin. I've haven't been resting on my laurels though. Here is a round-up of the non-competition films from the festival that I wrote today for the Picturehouse Blog. If you look at the entry before that one, you'll see another, even longer, round-up of the competition films.

Other than that I've had a job interview, which is potentially amazing, whilst I'm also preparing to again guest host Flick's Flicks tomorrow morning due to illness. I'm also on my usual slot on Radio Reverb tomorrow (9.15am) if anyone fancies tuning in.

I still intend to finish my review of 'True Grit', which I started writing at Berlin airport, but there haven't been enough hours in the day...

Back in Blighty. Here's the Berlin lowdown...

I'm back from the Berlin Film Festival now and glad to be able to update this blog again.

Here is most of the stuff I wrote whilst I was away, as published over on Obsessed with Film:

Winner's Report

Reviews
The Mortician - UK/USA

Taxi Driver (re-release) - USA
The Guard - IRE/UK
The Forgiveness of Blood - USA/ALB
Unknown - GER/UK/FRA
Odem (Lipstick) - ISR/UK
Wer Wenn Nicht Wir (If Not Us, Who) - GER
Saranghanda, Saranghaji Anneunda (Come Rain, Come Shine) - ROK
Un Mundo Misterioso (A Mysterious World) - ARG/GER/URU
Mein Bester Feind (My Best Enemy) - AUS/LUX
Bizim Buyuk Caresizligimiz (Our Grand Despair) - TUR/GER
Jodaeiye Nader Az Simin (Nader and Simin, A Separation) - IRN
Tambian La Iluvia (Even the Rain) - SPA/FRA/MEX
A Torinoi Lo (The Turin Horse) - HUN
The Future - USA/GER
V Subbotu (Innocent Saturday) - RUS/UKR
Les Femmes Du 6eme Etage (Service Entrance) - FRA
Coriolanus - UK
Pina - GER/FRA
Les Contes De La Nuit (Tales of the Night) - FRA
Cave of Forgotten Dreams - USA/FRA
Yelling to the Sky - USA
Almanya - Welcome to Germany - GER/TUR
Schlafrankheit (Sleeping Sickness) - GER/FRA
Silver Bullets/Art History - USA
El Premio - ARG/MEX
Margin Call - USA

I've also written a full, detailed round-up of the competition for the Picturehouse Blog.

I'll post some more in-depth reflective stuff over the week, as well as my review of 'True Grit', which opened the festival but which I didn't need to review for OWF.

61st Berlin Film Festival

This is just a post to explain the relative lack of activity on this blog over the next two weeks. Tomorrow I'm flying off to spend 12 nights in Berlin so I can take in this year's film festival. I'll be writing multiple reviews every day which you will be able to find at Obsessed With Film, which will cover (hopefully) every single "in competition" film as well as a number of high profile premières. I add "hopefully" because I have no idea right now how this festival works. In Venice you just rock up to each screening, join the queue and wait to see the movie, though I've heard that Berlin requires you to get tickets in advance, which may complicate things. I'll see what happens and try my best to review every film I can.

There may be some articles and links to my work at OWF up here over the coming days, but I can't guarantee it as I'll be writing everything on my Blackberry (as in Venice) and I'll only be able to properly edit this blog if and when I get to a computer. Regardless, there will be lots of stuff up here about my experience of the festival when I return - so do remember to check back nearer the end of this month.

Until then, auf wiedersehen.

'The Mechanic' review:

Homo-erotic muscular toplessness? Manly scenes of unnecessary car maintenance? Evil South American drug lords? Homophobic, racist and sexist sub-text (and in many cases text)? A plot revolving around the theme of revenge? A lack of all humanity and compassion? A cruel sense of humour? Insanely violent and yet wonderfully creative martial artistry? It must be this month's Jason Statham actioner, this time 'Con Air' director Simon West's 'The Mechanic' - a remake of a 1972 Michael Winner movie starring Charles Bronson, which I have never heard of and will probably never see.

Like much of The Stath's output, 'The Mechanic' alternates between the intentionally and accidentally hilarious as its functionary plot serves to get its functionary leading man from set-piece to set-piece within a tidy 93 minute running time. The story is as follows: when the shady international assassination company he works for requires him to kill his friend and mentor (Donald Sutherland), "Mechanic" Arthur Bishop (Statham) attempts to soothe his crisis of conscience by adopting his mentor's bereaved son Steve (Ben Foster) and teaching him - in what seems like a couple of days - to become a world class contract killer. But will Steve find out who really killed his father? Will he be forced to kill his new found mentor and friend? Will the killing ever stop?!



Like everything from 'The Transporter' to 'Crank', 'The Mechanic' is at once brilliantly brainless and utterly repugnant. Our oddly charismatic meat-puppet of a hero gruffly whispers what lines he is given and uses his full acting range, going from quite pensive to extremely pensive - often within the same scene. There is one amazing bit of shared screen time for Statham and Sutherland in which the former looks thoroughly confused and slightly disorientated by what amounts to standard fatherly chatter. But it's hard, nay impossible, not to like Statham. To quote Randy Newman, "he may be a fool but he's our fool" after all and I really enjoy watching this slightly naff, extremely ordinary looking British guy in American movies. He's like the Beverly Hills version of a Mitchell Brother, with his designer sunglasses and leather jacket.

The world of 'The Mechanic' is the stuff of reactionary right-wing tabloid fantasy. At one point Steve decides he wants to kill a car-jacker (don't ask) so he parks his car in a poor neighborhood for a few hours and waits until a black guy duly turns up and puts a gun to his head. One target is a super-hard rival hitman, but he has one weakness: he is a total gay. This means that all Steve needs to do is sit near him in a cafe and wait to be hit on. That is seriously the plan... and, in this twisted, paranoid reality, it works. Then there is the film's opening murder (sorry, I mean "job") which takes place in "Colombia, South America", as with last summer's 'The Expendables' and 'The A-Team' South Americans mean bad news. The cavalcade of stereotypes and thinly veiled bigotries doesn't end there. Every woman seen in the film immediately propositions our heroes and beds them within about ten seconds, usually for pay. (Yes, it really is shocking that those Sky Sports presenters were so backwardly sexist in this day and age - because most of our mainstream entertainment is so enlightened and mature, no?)



Arthur is (of course) a cultured killer though. We know this because he listens to classical music and has a swanky modern house. He has his own code and method of doing things (like every other hitman in the last hundred years of cinema before him) that stops him from being just a nasty murderer. Only, doesn't such cold methodology make him a psychopath? Not if you get paid for it, apparently: then it's just business. Maybe that's intended as a satirical comment on the inherent madness of an economic system that forsakes the spiritual and metaphysical for cold market forces... though probably not. It's probably just rubbish, hackneyed nonsense. But it's got tits in it and guns and explosions and The Stath. Got to love The Stath.

'The Mechanic' proves how sodding hard it is to get an '18' certificate from the BBFC these days. Statham threatens to put a young girl's arm in a food processor whilst interrogating her father - in a scene that was genuinely pretty frightening - and the film generally shows you the moments of violent impact most movies forgo in the name of sanitised palatability. We see a man get his head smashed in by an oncoming car. We see a man hit the ground after a fall. We see loads of blood coming out of each gunshot wound. Only it's strangely not particularly visceral or gory because it's all so silly and so clearly CGI. Maybe that's why they get away with the '15'.



For all my flipplantness, 'The Mechanic' is as solidly made - from a production value and direction point of view - a Jason Statham vehicle as there has ever been this side of 'Snatch'. Ben Foster and Donald Sutherland are both good to watch, although the latter isn't in the film for more than five minutes, and (as I've already said) the fight choreography is often impressive, even thrilling. I laughed a lot as I watched it, even if often for the wrong reasons and I was never bored. If you don't care whether a film's heart is in the right place and if you don't mind if the lead actor can't act on even the most basic level, then you might just end up loving the sheer lunacy of this latest explosive, stunt-filled Statham-fest.

'The Mechanic' is rated '15' by the BBFC and is out in the UK now.

'The Fighter' review:

It is easy to dismiss David O. Russell's boxing biopic 'The Fighter' as riddled with sports movie clichés. It's the story of an ageing boxer working towards his last shot after years of wasting his potential. Sounds more than a little like 'Rocky'. In fact, based on the original trailer, it seemed that the film was more than a little similar to Darren Aronofsky's 2008 film 'The Wrestler' too, with a similar grainy, documentary aesthetic and with Amy Adams replacing Marisa Tomei as the sexy "white trash" confidant of the fighter pushing himself to the physical limit. Seeing Aronofsky's name attached to the film as an executive producer did little to allay this fear that 'The Fighter' would be nothing more than a derivative (and probably inferior) version of a story we've all seen a thousand times before.

Happily this prejudice, whilst not completely unfounded, only tells part of the story: 'The Fighter', it turns out, is a terrifically good film. It can't escape the trappings of the genre narratively or formally (as felt keenest in the obligatory training montage), but the acting is of such a high standard that you overlook its minor trespasses and enjoy what is an entirely entertaining yarn. The film follows the true story of welterweight boxer "Irish" Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and we witness the highs and lows of his relationship with his older half-brother Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale), a drug-addicted former pro and Micky's trainer. It is the web of relationships between Micky, his brother, his mother (Melissa Leo) and his girlfriend (Adams) that is the focus of this drama, which spends comparatively little time in the boxing ring.



This is probably a wise decision as it is outside of the ring that the interest lies as we see Ward pulled between the different forces in his life who all project their hopes and aspirations on the meek and sensitive brawler. Wahlberg is superb in the main role, playing a character so painfully reluctant to express himself or fight his own corner, but the more obvious show-stopper is Bale. Christian Bale not only took himself to the physical limit to embody the part, again losing a lot of weight as he had for roles in 'Rescue Dawn' and 'The Machinist', but he completely loses himself in the character. At times he could seem close to going too far, but he never does and the film's most tragic, poignant moments of emotional honesty fall to him - none more effecting than his realisation that he no longer his brother's idol.

Melissa Leo is also impressive as a terrifying matriarch who holds an uncomfortable sway over her nine adult children and who transparently favours her eldest son - the town hero due to his former glory. The film doesn't judge its characters, all of whom are varying degrees of messed up, but if anything it gives Leo's character an easy ride. She assaults her husband in an act of domestic abuse that is played as slightly comic - in a way that would be unthinkable were roles reversed - and there is more than a suggestion that she is willing to put Micky in harms way if she can make money from it (it appears that Micky's bouts pay for his mother's upkeep) though she is never held to account for that, or even shown to be especially apologetic. Yet Leo imbues the role with flashes of vulnerability - or at least self-delusion - to ensure that she is much more than just a monster.



Amy Adams, as Micky's girlfriend, is equally brilliant in the opposite regard. Her character Charlene is for most of the film a positive counterpoint to Micky's possessive family: she helps him to break away from them and act in his own interests. Yet there is more than a hint in Adams' performance - and in the film's screenplay - that she is potentially just as damaging and manipulative a force in his life. The relationship drama at the heart of this movie isn't about good and bad or right and wrong, but about reconciliation between both sides. Micky, in eventually asserting himself, tries to bring everybody together rather than abandon his family for Charlene or go it alone - a more emotionally mature and complex resolution than we are used to seeing, though it may spring more from the fact that the film is based on real life events than the ingenuity of the writers.

The writers do deserve a lot of credit though, as there are some smart and funny lines in the film. Such as when Eklund tries to con a family of Cambodians with a pyramid scheme and is defended against the charge of racism by a friend who says, assures them that "white people do over white people all the time". There is a really nice and subtle exchange between Micky and Charlene too after he picks up on her talking about a former roommate by saying "the army?" before she corrects him with "college" - the idea that someone from his poor neighborhood could go to college being so unexpected. It's a piece of social commentary in a film that makes a feature of America's oft-derided white poor whilst never becoming mawkish or condescending.



'The Fighter' warrants its Oscar nominations, though it justly only stands a chance at winning in the supporting actor categories, where Bale and Leo are surely favourites to win. It is a fairly generic film enlivened by its committed cast, but in some ways that is its principle joy: it is a straightforward, comforting underdog story during which you'll want to punch your fist into the air and cheer on the hero.

'The Fighter' is out now in the UK and has been certified '12A' by the BBFC.