Belated update

Since I've been slacking with updates since my laptop died (right after I promised to update regularly), here're some capsule reviews of a random selection of new films that I've seen since I last posted (not everything I've seen... I heartily recommend FANTASTIC MR. FOX and the soon-to-be-released French Film Festival selection THE FATHER OF MY CHILDREN, but couldn't think of anything to write about them). Here we are:

A SINGLE MAN – Fussily and schematically aestheticised to the max, as one would expect from A Tom Ford Film (framed behind bar-like patterns = HE’S TRAPPED! Sepia-to-regular tones = EMOSHUNAL CONNEKTIONZ!!!) but never less than heartfelt, like a good torch song spoiled by excessive autotune. Also, as suggested by Skins, Nicholas Hoult has evolved from the About a Boy cherub to a horrendous actor, almost cancelling out Firth’s justly-lauded revelation of a performance.

CRAZY HEART – Lovely opening scenes, full of nice spots of visual humor and room from Jeff Bridges to breathe and be his usual awesome self. Then Maggie Gyllenhaal turns up as ‘love interest’, Colin Farrel as ‘all-show-no-soul rival’, then Robert Duvall as ‘Robert Duvall’, and then a bunch of lame subplots, and finally Bridges singing ‘this ain’t no place for the weary kind…’ and dammit he got that right.

UP IN THE AIR - Expectedly watchable but entirely mediocre. A script full of insurance commercial platitudes, family values as a shorthand for ‘finding yourself’, and the misguided belief that there's no narrative dilemma a wistful Elliott Smith montage can't solve. Snoooooore. A few good scenes, mostly involving Clooney & Kendrick - the latter's character was all too recognisable for me, though her resolution was of a piece with the film's neatness and predictability.

PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL WITH A LESS OBNOXIOUS TITLE - For all this film's garishness, crassness, sordidness, and awkwardness of tone, I found it a fairly effective immersion into a damaged psyche. Granted, it often flails about queasily trying to achieve that, but I'll take its messiness and lack of good taste over what currently passes for Oscar-friendly filmmaking (in that regard, I'm surprised it's been embraced so warmly). The titular heroine is too flawed and specific a character to allow for audiences to project themselves onto, the ending isn’t so much a note of tacked on uplift as one of well-earned catharsis for her, and the scenes between Precious and her classmates are a spot-on in their depiction of rehabilitation through camaraderie. Deeply flawed, but not the vile work of manipulation that its detractors would lead one to believe.

SHUTTER ISLAND - Works best at literalising the trauma of Dicaprio's character in the form of floridly expressionist B-movie tropes, and the overt artificiality of the whole thing makes the rug-puller ending - which could've been a groaner in another context... perhaps the novel, anyone? - easier to swallow, even somewhat poignant. Many arresting images, enjoyably hammy performances from all, and I think it might even benefit from repeat viewings. Minor Scorsese but (hypothetically) major De Palma.

WILD GRASS - The subject of obsessive romantic love tends to bring out the most erratic sensibilities in major auteurs, and for Resnais this is no exception, as it seems to take place entirely in the same dimension as the dreamscape of Mulholland Drive; a garishly gleaming netherworld of impulsive behaviour and infinite possibility. A folly of a film that makes 99% of other films seem stiff and inert. Part of the French Film Festival, no release date, but apparently it has Australian distribution... I'm guessing because on the surface it resembles an Amelie-esque souffle, when it's actually as playfully weird as some of Resnais' own 60's landmarks like Last Year at Marienbad or Muriel.

ORPHAN - A complete trashterpiece; totally idiotic material played with epic conviction across the board and a keen sense of nightmare logic. Vera Farmiga is much better here than in her inexplicably Oscar-nominated Up in the Air turn. Gonna be keeping an eye on this Jaume Collet-Serra dude, whose sure hand also made the foredoomed House of Wax remake occasionally sublime.

BROKEN EMBRACES –Given my overall indifference to Almodovar (I know, soz), I was pleasantly surprised to find this end up being my favorite of his behind Talk to Her. Never felt the long-ish running time, full of exquisite scenes (Cruz lip-syncing the silent footage of herself, esp.), and its portrait of people living fuller lives through their art is surprisingly haunting.

DEAR JOHN – I will never see this movie.