Recent Film Reviews by The Arts Desk
In this week's film reviews on The Arts Desk, we look at George Clooney's Golden Globe-winning performance in The Descendants. Meanwhile among film fans, all eyes are on the Oscar nominations, and what Ridley Scott will come up with next.
It's Thomas H Green who flags up Ridley Scott's much-anticipated return to sci-fi with Prometheus. The film is not released until 8 June so fans of Scott's sci-fi classics Alien and Blade Runner have a while to wait before finding out if Prometheus is up to scratch. There is cause for concern given Scott's disappointing recent offerings, Robin Hood and Body of Lies, and writer Damon Lindelof's recent turkeys including The Last Airbender and Cowboys & Aliens. But on the plus side the cast is decidedly strong, with man-of-the-moment Michael Fassbender alongside Charlize Theron, Noomi Rapace, Guy Pearce and Idris Elba, so for excited fans, surely there is hope.
In the latest of this week's film reviews, Emma Simmonds is won over by The Descendants, in which a lawyer of rich Hawaiian heritage, who ostensibly lives in paradise but is thrown into disarray when his wife is left in a coma by a powerboat accident, leaving him to look after his two precocious daughters. The crisis is compounded when he discovers his wife was cheating on him, leading him to turn amateur detective. Director Alexander Payne is edging ever closer to sentimentality here, but manages to resists a sugar-coating by creating a delicate balance between pathos and comedy, while George Clooney brings a likeable hint of mania to his skewed lead character. Once it hits its stride, it's a pleasing movie, and one that is already garnering awards.
Meanwhile Matt Wolf reported on the Oscar nominations that were announced this week, where the surprise omissions of Michael Fassbender for Shame and Tilda Swinton for We Need to Talk About Kevin has caused some consternation in the UK, though Brits were gratified to see Gary Oldman receive his first Best Actor nomination for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Martin Scorsese's Hugo just beat French silent movie The Artist by scoring 11 nominations to the latter's 10, though which film will be the big winner on the night remains anyone's guess €" Hugo, after all, has no nominations for acting, which would make it an unusual win for Best Picture.
Matt Wolf was also taken with Drake Doremus's sweet and unusual transatlantic love story, Like Crazy. Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin play the UK/US couple whose relationship doesn't quite fit the typical Hollywood mould, with the film intelligent and naturalistic enough to say more with images than words, and suggest that this couple may not in fact be ideal soul mates after all. The film is also carried by the engaging and naturally charming performances of its leading pair.
Jasper Rees was impressed to find in Johnny Daukes's Acts of Godfrey a script written entirely in rhyming couplets, which had a sustainable pleasing and novel effect. However, set in a motivational conference and featuring blameless performances from the likes of Simon Callow, Harry Enfield and Celia Imrie, it's the plot that lets this film down, and makes it an ill fit for the big screen.
And in DVD releases this week, Adam Sweeting found Kevin Smith's about-turn from indie film-maker to purveyor of full-blown provocative horror in Red State a compulsively watchable one, while Kieron Tyler found The Swedish Erotica Collection €" a box set of sex education films and bizarre feature films from the Sixties and Seventies €" dull and decidedly un-erotic respectively.
It's Thomas H Green who flags up Ridley Scott's much-anticipated return to sci-fi with Prometheus. The film is not released until 8 June so fans of Scott's sci-fi classics Alien and Blade Runner have a while to wait before finding out if Prometheus is up to scratch. There is cause for concern given Scott's disappointing recent offerings, Robin Hood and Body of Lies, and writer Damon Lindelof's recent turkeys including The Last Airbender and Cowboys & Aliens. But on the plus side the cast is decidedly strong, with man-of-the-moment Michael Fassbender alongside Charlize Theron, Noomi Rapace, Guy Pearce and Idris Elba, so for excited fans, surely there is hope.
In the latest of this week's film reviews, Emma Simmonds is won over by The Descendants, in which a lawyer of rich Hawaiian heritage, who ostensibly lives in paradise but is thrown into disarray when his wife is left in a coma by a powerboat accident, leaving him to look after his two precocious daughters. The crisis is compounded when he discovers his wife was cheating on him, leading him to turn amateur detective. Director Alexander Payne is edging ever closer to sentimentality here, but manages to resists a sugar-coating by creating a delicate balance between pathos and comedy, while George Clooney brings a likeable hint of mania to his skewed lead character. Once it hits its stride, it's a pleasing movie, and one that is already garnering awards.
Meanwhile Matt Wolf reported on the Oscar nominations that were announced this week, where the surprise omissions of Michael Fassbender for Shame and Tilda Swinton for We Need to Talk About Kevin has caused some consternation in the UK, though Brits were gratified to see Gary Oldman receive his first Best Actor nomination for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Martin Scorsese's Hugo just beat French silent movie The Artist by scoring 11 nominations to the latter's 10, though which film will be the big winner on the night remains anyone's guess €" Hugo, after all, has no nominations for acting, which would make it an unusual win for Best Picture.
Matt Wolf was also taken with Drake Doremus's sweet and unusual transatlantic love story, Like Crazy. Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin play the UK/US couple whose relationship doesn't quite fit the typical Hollywood mould, with the film intelligent and naturalistic enough to say more with images than words, and suggest that this couple may not in fact be ideal soul mates after all. The film is also carried by the engaging and naturally charming performances of its leading pair.
Jasper Rees was impressed to find in Johnny Daukes's Acts of Godfrey a script written entirely in rhyming couplets, which had a sustainable pleasing and novel effect. However, set in a motivational conference and featuring blameless performances from the likes of Simon Callow, Harry Enfield and Celia Imrie, it's the plot that lets this film down, and makes it an ill fit for the big screen.
And in DVD releases this week, Adam Sweeting found Kevin Smith's about-turn from indie film-maker to purveyor of full-blown provocative horror in Red State a compulsively watchable one, while Kieron Tyler found The Swedish Erotica Collection €" a box set of sex education films and bizarre feature films from the Sixties and Seventies €" dull and decidedly un-erotic respectively.
