Short Film for BMW, USA, 7m
Directed by Guy Ritchie

BMW M5 and Madonna with Clive Owen as her driver.

There has been a lot of fun and excitement associated with the filming of Trust, the David Schwimmer movie starring Clive Owen and Catherine Keener.   I don’t know too many specifics, but quite a few scenes have been shot on the streets of our little town.

There are some other web sources regarding this, particularly some cool stuff on Facebook.  I’m hoping to gain permission to share some of that information here (since it was gathered by someone else’s hard work.)

UPDATE:  As of about 8 p.m. today (Wed., 11/25), it looked like there was shooting taking place in The Gathering.  The intersection of Union and Penniman, and in front of the Penn, were closed to traffic.

Max (Clive Owen) and Uncle Freddie (Ian McKellen)

Martin Sherman’s 1979 stage play Bent, which originally starred Ian McKellen in the West-End and Richard Gere in Broadway, is about a homosexual man sent to the Dachau concentration camp in 1930s Nazi Germany. The 1997 film version was adapted for the screen by Sherman and directed by actor and theatre director Sean Mathias. Finally getting a DVD release in Australia, Bent is an astonishing film not just for the incredibly powerful story it tells but for its remarkable production design. Mathias gave the film an intentionally theatrical look rather than attempting to disguise the film’s origins as a stage play. Factories and quarries are used to represent Berlin and Dachau and the whole film has a stylised feel to it that strongly evokes the cinema of Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway.

In this film version Clive Owen stars as the lead character Max and brings to the part the type of intensity and complexity that would later distinguish him in films such as Closer, Gosford Park and The Children of Men. Owen has always had a sort of icy charisma and slight sleaziness to him, which gives him an engaging and unpredictable quality that allows him to play likeable bad guys and dodgy good guys. In Bent our sympathies do lie with Max because he is the victim of one of the most horrific and systematic acts of persecution that humanity has ever endured, but he is nevertheless a highly flawed characters largely due to his opportunism. Nevertheless, over the course of the narrative Max does evolve into a more compassionate human being and it is his displays of empathy and connection with fellow homosexual prisoner Horst (Lothaire Bluteau from Jesus of Montreal) that provide wonderful moments of defiance to the dehumanising nature of the camp.

Bent is a remarkable film that is completely captivating. It is expertly crafted so that, not unlike Steve McQueen’s 2008 film Hunger, it is a film of incredible visual beauty that enhances the power of the bleak narrative rather than contrast against it. While the confronting subject matter of Bent may not be a huge motivation for people to seek it out, it is worth making the effort because it is one of the great films of the 1990s.

© Thomas Caldwell, 2009

Read more reviews at MRQE

The sounds of Sigur Rós feature prominently in The Boys Are Back, a new family drama from Shine director Scott Hicks that stars Clive Owen.

The soundtrack features seven Sigur Rós songs, primarily from their 2008 album Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, as well as Indian Summer from Jónsi & Alex’s Riceboy Sleeps project.

The extensive use of the Icelandic post-rock band’s music effectively provides a substitute for a conventional score.

Clive Owen in The Boys Are Back

As Hicks explains, “Initially, I used their songs as a temporary score, but it was working so perfectly that I decided to approach the band directly to see if we could licence the music. I was forewarned that they were extremely picky about what they would allow their music to be used for, but I went to Iceland to screen for them and they simply loved the film. Georg, the bass player, said, ‘There is an Icelandic word which I can’t translate which perfectly describes the experience of seeing this film.’ I said, ‘Well have a try’ and he said, ‘The word means you feel better for being alive having seen this film’ which I found was a profoundly moving thing to say.”

The Sigur Rós songs featured in the film are Illgresi, Festival, Fljótavík, Straumnes, Ára bátur, Inní mér syngur vitleysingur and Samskeyti.

The Boys Are Back is based on Simon Carr’s memoir of the same name and features Clive Owen as Joe Warr, a sports reporter who struggles to raise his son Artie following the death of his wife. With a parental style low on rules and high on anarchic fun, Artie enjoys an unconventional upbringing that’s accentuated with the arrival of Joe’s estranged son Harry. Joe’s loose approach to parenting, however, brings its own dangers.

I saw a beautiful movie last week with Clive Owen in it- it was called The Boys are Back.  Very sweet movie.  He plays a widower trying to re-connect with his children as well as deal with the loss of his wife.  He is a gorgeous man but usually plays really flawed characters.  This guy had some flaws as well but it was a change from his normal role.  A more gentle character, if you will.    When I think of him as a “Bad boy”  I think of some of his newer movies – like The International.  In that one, he was big and bad with a gun. 

He has also played in a few period pieces-  he could be my white knight anytime! 

Now, the next movie I’m going to mention may offend some of you but it is really a fantastic movie.  It is called Close My Eyes.  Clive was very young when he played in it.  He almost derailed his career (and yes, he was cute and tough in Derailed, too) over this movie.  It was quite controversial.  He played the brother of a married woman.  He and his sister had an affair.  It was very intense.   It really is a must see film.   There is also a scene of full frontal nudity of Clive.  You may want to close your own eyes with this last picture!    But look at how young he was-  a mere child!

The Movie Overdose attempts to contain the apocalypse with a review of Roland Emmerich’s 2012. We chat about how we would change Eddie Murphy for the better, what kind of sequel we want for Star Trek and whether we are glad to see Sean Connery coming back, if only in voice form. Tom slightly dampens the praise given to An Education and Sam revels in the madness of Running Scared and the flawed ambition of Dogma. The conclusion involves a discussion of actors that, no matter what, we always look forward to seeing on screen.

Download The Movie Overdose Episode 42

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Cast: Clive Owen, Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman

Directed By: Mike Nichols
Written By: Patrick Marber
Cinematography By: Stephen Goldblatt
Editor: John Bloom & Antonia Van Drimmelen 

The beautiful thing about this movie is the words the language used which is both smart and cruel it’s amazing how sentences can hurt and destroy so much

This is not a film to watch if you are looking for action it’s more about Character , Drama and situations then anything else. This is just a adult relationship drama and everything here is beautiful.

This is a drama but feels more like a horror movie there are so many scenes of emotional violence that this is like watching a massacre. Since there are only four characters it’s easy to get to know the characters even though they don’t talk about there pasts much you get to know them so much that you feel the pain and despair that they do.

The Switching allegiances, mind games and harsh words make this like a british David Mamet film though you can tell the film is based on a play for it’s limited locations and exclusive intimate closed spaces that the action takes place in. Mike Nichols wisely knows how to open the film up to make it looks sumptuous.

Even though the cast is all good the person who walks away with the film is Natalie Portman this is what award winning acting is all about een thought she didn’t even get nominated it was a chance for her to escape her shackles of her teen and lightweight roles to show that she is not only grown but a fully sexual being. From her scene in the strip club where even though she is taking orders she is in total control while also letting herself be completely vulnerable by actually telling the truth for one of the first times in the film. To when she is being vulnerable when she is supposed to be running away with the love of her life. Mike Nichols also knows how to make this beautiful lady into a goddess with color, dress and showing just enough skin.

Cate Blanchett was originally cast in the Julia Roberts role she played the role in the play that Julia Roberts plays but she got pregnant and could not do the role so she was replaced by Julia Roberts who does pretty good in this role since this is really one of the few times where she plays a three dimensional character that is kind of like her usual self of being likeable but also capable of being hateful. There is no cutesy sweet girl we are used to here. Jude Law and Clive Owen were both also in the play but here they switched the roles they originally played. Both are too perfection.

The film also has a beautiful opening scene with the song the blower’s daughter by Damien rice that this movie seem to put on the charts for people to discover which in itself is a haunting song that hovers over the rest of the film     

A definite must see

We piggy-backed off my parents’ movie rental with this one. They told us that they really didn’t like it because it was too confusing. Well, typically those are the movies that we like the best, the confusing ones with twists and turns. But that wasn’t exactly the case with Duplicity.

Joel Says: Clive Owen and Julia Roberts play corporate spies that are  hired  to protect a multinational corporation’s internal secrets. However, the two lovers decide that it’s better to sell the company’s secrets than it is to protect them. The problem is that you don’t figure this out until about an hour into the movie, which would have been fine if I didn’t have the attention span of a third grader or if the movie was half as cool as the movie Memento. Unfortunately it’s not.

The movie was so predictably cast. Clive Owen plays James Bond, I mean, a spy. Julia Roberts’ character was pretty much Tess from Oceans Eleven. And, once again, Tom Wilkinson plays the emotionless authoritarian. It’s as if the actors just learned their lines and reprised old roles. Plus, I’m growing tired of the whole underlying anti-corporate rhetoric that Hollywood likes to spew. Big business is bad. CEOs are evil. Capitalism equals greed. We get it already.  Basically, Duplicity is a like a math problem that you can’t figure out. And when you finally do you feel like an idiot for wasting your time trying. Do you yourself a favor and pass on Duplicity.

Ashley Says: Um, what? What just happened? This movie had me completely lost the whole time. I kept thinking that I would understand everything at the end of the movie. But at the end I was still scratching my head.

It’s no secret that I love Julia Roberts. She was my celebrity look-a-like when I was a freshman at Iowa. Yeah, I don’t see it either, but who doesn’t want to look like Julia Roberts? And Clive Owen isn’t unfortunate-looking. But the cons conning the cons who are being conned by other cons story line went right over my head. I would only recommend renting this one if there really is nothing else.

Shooting for a David Schwimmer-directed film, Trust, starring Clive Owen and Catherine Keener, started tonight in town.  It will resume from Thursday afternoon to Friday morning and pick up again after Thanksgiving.

http://www.freep.com/article/20091117/ENT01/91117068/1320/Trust-us-Plymouth-streets-to-close-for-movie

Friends of mine have already gone downtown to do some stargazing and they’re posting pictures on Facebook.  Pretty exciting to have a film crew right in the heart of the city.

2012: New disaster film by Roland Emmerich the same director of The Day after Tomorrow. In many ways it is almost the same film as that and the standard disaster films. But the main reason for going to see this film is not for the plot but the very good special effects which you have to make the most of by seeing the film in the cinema. Other than that there is not much to mention apart from a few funny jokes from the fat Russian Billionaire. *Plot Spoiler* I would like to see in these big budget special effects more invention. For example i would like to see some main characters die instead of them all surviving and living happily ever after. 6/10

Children of Men: I finally got round to watching this film after it been recommended by many people and critics for many years. I really enjoyed it. It is fairly dark which I tend to prefer. Its director is Alfonso Cuaron who directed the darkest of the early Harry Potter Films ‘The Prisoner of Azkaban’. Clive Owen gives his best performance in a film I have seen and it was a performance that changed my mind about his abilities. It looks great set in and world twenty years from now but not over technological advanced like most Hollywood films portray the future as. It kept gripped throughout and left me wanting more at the end which is always a good sign 8/10

Die Hard 4: I watched on Channel 4 the other weekend with mates and it is a god, but nothing special, action film. i.e better than transformers but not as good as the Bourne films. I didn’t really rate Timothy Olyphant as the bad guy but apart from that is was fairly watch able although Bruce is getting a bit old for these films. 7/10

Today, I am in love with Australia not that I don’t most other days… but today felt special.  I was jogging home from work and randomly decided to see what was playing at the movies. Upon my arrival at the box office, the only movie playing at a convenient time had already started… but I felt like sitting still (which rarely happens) so I purchased a ticket for ‘The Boys Are Back’, starring Clive Owen.  What better way to spend a tuesday evening than watching a movie alone and eating popcorn for dinner.  The icing on the cake was, it took place in Australia – usually the movies showing here are from the US or UK.  The Aussie vibe was the perfect addition to my day… and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a heartwarming flick… even though it has something for everyone!

I’ve actually managed to watch three DVDs in the last couple of weeks – not bad going for me! – and some capsule reviews are in order.

10,000BC

Since the adverts for Roland Emmerich’s latest blockbuster 2012 are all over the place, I allowed myself to fall into the trap of watching his most recent previous film. 10,000BC is basically about a pre-historic tribe in the snowy frozen lands, who are raided by slave traders. The hero sets off to rescue his beloved from their clutches.

And, err, that’s it. Simple quest film from there. And quest films can be pretty successful – a large part of Fellowship of the Rings is nothing more than a quest story, after all. But that’s because Lord of the Rings had far more interesting things going on below the surface, and interesting well-developed characters that you cared for.

10,000BC has neither. There is no story, and the characters are non-existent. The dialogue is so bad it’ll make you long for it being done Apocalypto style (but leave out the subtitles) and the cast are interchangeable. Any modicum of interest in the plot (such as: who is the “God” figure? What was the hero’s father up to when he disappeared? What’s the significance of “the mark”?) are squelched and dismissed almost as if the film is embarrassed to even hint at being anything more than a brainless action and FX blockbuster.

Emmerich clearly has a major Ridley Scott crush, but he can’t be bothered to stick to the historial detail of a Gladiator or Kingdom of Heaven. So he tries to create a quasi-mythic world-before-time, something Tolkien-esque in setting up mythos for the modern times; only Tolkien was incredibly intelligent and detailed in how he did this, and Emmerich doesn’t have a clue. So the film falls between two stools – too absurd for a historical epic, and too bland and realistic for a fantasy film like LOTR/Narnia. It’s like the historical epics that came at the tail end of the 60s after the fad had died – and which helped to kill it off completely.

If the film has any saving grace, it’s that it looks good: Emmerich really shoots the scenes quite beautifully and the cinematography at times almost bears comparison with Ridley’s. And the CGI effects are really quite excellent and don’t look nearly as plastic and fake as a lot of the current CGI crop tend to.

That just about lifts it out of one-star territory, but really it’s a close shave.

Rating: a barely tolerable * and a half stars out of 5

Star Trek – The Motion Picture

Or “the slow motion picture” as it’s been dubbed. I was feeling poorly when I watched this, and for me this film is rather like comfort food – chicken soup or crumble and custard. Basically it was the first film for the Star Trek franchise in 1979, ten years after the original series’ cancellation: the crew are reassembled to intercept a massive alien vessel heading to Earth. Only they can stop it, naturally.

The film makes the mistake of being overly reverential towards its source, with everything treated with solemn pretentiousness. Considering that the basis of the TV series was to be light, fun and action-orientated, this sudden re-purposing of it as some kind of grand po-faced epic along the lines of 2001 – A Space Odyssey couldn’t have been less appropriate. Fans (Trekkers) loved it purely because it brought the old crew back together again, but everyone else was left yearning for the next Star Wars film instead; fortunately the producers learned from this misstep and the next film was The Wrath of Khan which did a far better job of reviving the TV series’ spirit and joie de vivre.

Personally I’ve always really liked the first film too: it helps if you see it more like 2001 than the TV show. But there’s no doubt about how slow it is. The first half hour is full of sequences where four establishing shots are used when one would be almost too much. Considering that they’re meant to be racing the clock to stop an alien invader from reaching Earth, you’d think that some of that pace would have transferred to the film.

The FX get too much screen time, but at least they are very good effects – the journey through the alien vessel being comparable with the final sequences of 2001 and delivered by the top FX guys of the period. And the music (by the incomparable Jerry Goldsmith) is left to carry the film through long sequences of inactivity, and almost pulls it off. You’ll recognise the film’s main theme as the one that Star Trek – The Next Generation appropriated for use some years later, it’s that good.

The DVD I was watching was a new remastered version, and it looks wonderful – as good quality as any film just released in cinemas. Alas, they could only remaster the theatrical cut which means that many well-known sequences from TV and director’s edition versions are missing, which feels rather odd, but apparently these were never completed in high definition film and so can’t be remastered, which is a shame. Just occasionally the film looks as though someone’s gone overboard on the color rebalancing – the scenes on the Klingon bridge and on Vulcan look suspiciously neutral – but that’s a minor quibble to an overall excellent restoration.

The film’s faults are still there for all to see, but if you like the film then you’ll love the new version.

Rating: a well-restored *** out of 5.

Duplicity

This is essentially a con or heist film with a screwball romantic comedy plot involving Clive Owen and Julia Roberts as two spies collaborating (or competing?) in a plot to steal a company’s industrial secrets.

I’d expected this to be a light and fluffy film with little substance, but found I enjoyed it much more than that. Clearly influenced by the likes of Oceans 11 (or the TV series Hustle) this film puts a similar emphasis on style and fun over any serious substance. But if you liked the Ocean films of the classic double-crossing David Mamet puzzlers then there’s no reason why you won’t like this just as much.

This is a smart, stylish film with a fantastic visual sense to it – the title sequence punch-up between Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson is especially stunning, and the writer-director Tony Gilroy is fond of the split screen technique we haven’t seen since the 60s. He’s also supplied his stars with some crackling dialogue reminiscent of the type that Grant and Hepburn used to snap back and forth, and while Owen and Roberts don’t have quite that class they do pretty well with it nonetheless.

If there’s a complaint, it’s that the film is just too complex to be fun: there are wheels within wheels within wheels just to get to the start of the enigma wrapped in a puzzle. No one could figure this one out until very late in the day, and you could well prove to be exasperated by the whole affair. The best con/heist films are the ones that look really simple – you’re sure you know what’s going on right until the moment the film pulls the rug out from under your feet and shows you how you were conned from the very start and nothing was as you assumed. But instead, this film takes pains to remind you at every opportunity by flashbacks and dialogue that no one has a clue who is doing what to whom or who can be trusted, and that can leave you feeling a bit tired and frustrated rather than entertained.

But if you let it slide past you, accept that you have no idea what’s going on, and just drink in the intelligent script and gorgeous locations, then there’s certainly a rewarding payoff at the end, with unexpectedly deep characters for such an initially frothy-seeming piece of fluff.

Rating: a generous **** out of 5.

Ende Oktober war der erste Teil der Kurzfilmreihe erschienen. Nun sind Teil 2 & 3 verfügbar. Auch die zwei weiteren Teile sind genau so wie Teil eins auf einem sehr hohen Niveau, sowohl von den Animationen (Hintergründe) als auch der ganzen Atmosphäre. Habt viel Spaß:

Teil 2:

Teil 3:

Boa história, boa jogada da empresa que seria a vítima, bom final.

Un film del 2010, regia di Frank Miller, con Mickey Rourke / Clive Owen / Brittany Murphy / Rosario Dawson. Prodotto da ()

Azione / Poliziesco / Thriller

Nei bassifondi di Sin City, Dwight medita vendetta nei confronti di Ava Lord, la donna che l’ha tradito e incastrato. Intanto Nancy cerca di venire a capo del suo dolore per la morte del detective Hartigan.

Un film del 2010, regia di Frank Miller, con Mickey Rourke / Clive Owen / Brittany Murphy / Rosario Dawson. Prodotto da ()

Azione / Poliziesco / Thriller

Nei bassifondi di Sin City, Dwight medita vendetta nei confronti di Ava Lord, la donna che l’ha tradito e incastrato. Intanto Nancy cerca di venire a capo del suo dolore per la morte del detective Hartigan.

DVD Top 10.
Bestsellerliste der Woche
von Illuminati bis State of Play

Illuminati:
Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) entdeckt Beweise, dass die mächtigste Untergrundbewegung der Geschichte, ein uralter konspirativer Geheimbund, den man als ‘Die Illuminati’ kennt, wiederauferstanden ist. Kurz darauf wird er damit konfrontiert, dass die katholische Kirche, der zutiefst verhasste Erzfeind der Illuminaten, einer tödlichen, existenzvernichtenden Bedrohung ausgesetzt ist…

Nachts im Museum 2:
Seine Tage als Museumswärter sind passé: Larry Daley ist als Erfinder nutzloser Dinge erfolgreich, kehrt jedoch ins Museum zurück, als er erfährt, dass die seinerzeit zu Leben erwachten Ausstellungsstücke in den Keller des Smithsonian in New York verfrachtet werden sollen. Ruhe ist allerdings auch dort nicht angesagt, weil auch die mystische Tafel von Akhmenrah, die den Exponaten Leben einhaucht, versehentlich zum neuen Ausstellungsort transportiert wurde. Nun bricht dort das Chaos aus, und Larry muss für Ordnung sorgen…

Slumdog Millionär:
Glauben Sie an das Schicksal? Für Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) ist es der größte Tag seines bisherigen Lebens. Nur noch eine Frage trennt ihn vom 20 Millionen Rupien-Hauptgewinn in Indiens TV- Show ‘Wer wird Millionär?’

Der Womanizer:
Der Junggeselle Connor Mead (Matthew McConaughey) gehört zu den Typen, die drei Freundinnen den Laufpass geben. Gleichzeitig. Per Telefonkonferenz. Auf der Hochzeitsfeier seines Bruders hat er also nur ein Ziel: Er will die einzige Brautjungfer herumkriegen, die er bisher irgendwie übersehen hat. Doch der Geist seines verstorbenen Onkels Wayne (Michael Douglas) – der Connor beigebracht hat, die Frauen zu wechseln wie die Hemden – verfolgt ein ganz anderes Ziel…

Star Trek – Die Zukunft hat begonnen:
James T. Kirk ist ein rebellischer Hitzkopf im amerikanischen Niemandsland, der nie den Tod seines Vaters bei einem Angriff eines romulanischen Raumschiffs verkraftet hat. Nach einer seiner Prügeleien fordert ihn Captain Pike, einst ein Freund seines verstorbenen Vaters, auf, der Sternenflotte beizutreten. Dort macht sich Kirk zunächst keine Freunde, bis ihn eine Mission zwingt, endlich Verantwortung zu übernehmen: der Romulaner Nero bedroht Vulkan, den Heimatplaneten von Kirks späterem Weggefährten Spock…

Transformers 2:
Nachdem Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) die Welt mit Hilfe der gutmütigen Autobots vor den bösartigen Decepticons gerettet hat, freut er sich auf ein normales Leben. Als er aufs College geht, lässt er nicht nur Freundin Mikaela (Megan Fox) zurück…

X-Men Origins: Wolverine:
Hugh Jackman schlüpft wieder in die Rolle, die ihn zum Superstar machte: Wolverine – der Mann mit den unverkennbaren Stahlklingen, bemerkenswerten Selbstheilungskräften, ruppigem Charme und einer gehörigen Portion trockenem Humor. ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ erzählt die Vorgeschichte Logans mit Augenmerk auf seine mysteriöse Vergangenheit, seine komplexe Beziehung zu Victor Creed (Liev Schreiber) und das ominöse Weapon X-Programm. Der Zuschauer erfährt, wer Wolverine wirklich ist…

Duplicity:
CIA-Offizier Claire Stenwick (Julia Roberts) und MI6-Agent Ray Koval (Clive Owen) standen früher im Geheimdienst ihrer Regierungen. Derzeit haben sie in die Privatwirtschaft gewechselt, um mit lukrativen Verträgen das meiste aus dem Kalten Krieg herauszuholen. Beide jagen jeweils für ihre Bosse Tully (Tom Wilkinson) und Garsik (Paul Giamatti) einem milliardenschweren Patent nach. Keiner ahnt, dass sie eine heimliche Affäre und eigene Pläne haben…

Männersache:
Tagsüber arbeitet Paul (Mario Barth) in einer Berliner Zoohandlung und abends an seiner Karriere als Komiker. Zugegeben, seine Auftritte laufen mies… bis Paul anfängt, Witze über seinen besten Freund Hotte (Dieter Tappert) und dessen Freundin Susi (Anja Kling) zu reißen. Auf einmal läuft es auf der Bühne: Pauls Gags über Hottes Beziehungsgeschichten, nicht enden wollende Shopping-Orgien von Susi und den Pärchen Kaffeeklatsch bei den Schwiegereltern sind ein Renner…

State of Play – Stand der Dinge:
Ein junger aufstrebender Politiker und ein Washingtoner Enthüllungsreporter finden sich mitten im Epizentrum einer Reihe von Morden wieder, die nur scheinbar nichts miteinander zu tun haben. Der Kongressabgeordnete Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) ist Hoffnung und Zukunft seiner Partei – ein aussichtsreicher und ehrenhafter Newcomer, unter anderem im Vorsitz des Komitees für Verteidigungsausgaben…

Weitere Informationen, auch Top 100 Liste, erhalten Sie hier

Artie (Nicholas McAnulty) and Joe Warr (Clive Owen)

Shine and Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts director Scott Hicks returns to Australia with this UK/Australian production based on Simon Carr’s memoir The Boys Are Back In Town. Clive Owen plays Joe Warr, an English sportswriter living with his family in Australia in what the early stages of the film depict as an almost completely idyllic domestic bliss. After the death of his wife, Joe is left to raise his 6-year-old son Artie (Nicholas McAnulty) and then also Harry (George MacKay), his 14-year-old son from a previous marriage. Joe copes with his loss, fatherhood and his new responsibilities by adopting a “Just Say Yes” policy of no rule making. The almost complete lack of discipline results in a home environment that is partially wickedly anarchic and fun but also increasingly unsettling in its recklessness and declining standards.

The Boys are Back is a film that peaks very early with a truly astonishing portrayal of a family responding to the decline and then death of a loved one. Scott avoids repetitive scenes of weeping and wailing so that when characters do breakdown it is at moments where it really counts. Owen plays Joe perfectly, embodying a man who is trying to appear strong and stoic while his world collapses around him. He is a man with avoidance issues who is emotionally distant from his sons but has a genuine desire to connect with them, despite the debatable methods that he uses to do so. His lack of concern for the safety of his sons will traumatise some audience members while delighting others.

Unfortunately as The Boys are Back develops it never manages to sustain the same intense engagement that the opening scenes commanded. There is an interesting dynamic between Joe, Artie and Nicholas but it never amounts to anything truly substantial. The characters evolve adequately and the film contains its necessary crisis points but it feels all a bit too safely played out. A romantic subplot goes nowhere and some of the secondary characters lack depth. Joe’s mother-in-law Barbara (Julia Blake), in particular, does little but act disapprovingly in true stereotypical mother-in-law fashion.

The Boys are Back is a good film but it is frustrating that it is not a great film. As well as the very strong opening and its mostly strong performances, it is beautifully shot by cinematographer Greig Fraser (Last Ride) and the use of the heartbreaking songs by the Icelandic group Sigur Rós is inspired. In fact, while Sigur Rós have featured on other soundtracks before, you do wonder why no other filmamaker had thought about using their very emotive and cinematic music so extensively. The Boys are Back is a good drama but it does leaving you feeling like it could have been so much better.

© Thomas Caldwell, 2009

Joe Warr and his sons Artie and Harry live in a house with few rules in "The Boys are Back".

(Scott Hicks, 2009)

November 8, 2009

by Joel Crary

“The Boys are Back” is a surprisingly effective melodrama about the loss of a loved one. It feels like familiar territory but is so understated, so void of cliché and so nice to look at. It is directed with care by Scott Hicks, known widely for 1996’s “Shine”, which earned him a couple of Oscar nominations. His recent documentary on Philip Glass should be seen by more people.

“The Boys are Back” is based on a memoir by Simon Carr, a sports writer and columnist, whose young wife passed away in 1994 after a battle with cancer, leaving Carr with a six-year-old son to take care of. Joe Warr is masterfully played by Clive Owen. Having never fully matured, Joe is at odds with any maternal instincts that his wife Katy (Laura Fraser) may have influenced. There is the obligatory scene where Joe sits with his young son Artie (Nicholas McAnulty) to explain his mother’s inevitable passing, but look at how the scene is played for authenticity over saccharine dramatic impact. Artie swings a monkey around his head, asking if she’ll be dead by dinnertime.

A wordsmith by profession, Joe notes via an opening narration that the map of a child’s mind is chaotic and ever-revolving. Artie runs around the house after his mother’s funeral, playing with an airplane. Such behaviour draws unimpressed stares and sympathetic protests, but Joe allows it. It is never voiced, but there is a guilt over his shoddy abilities as a father swimming in his heart. Katy picked flowers from the garden, he explains. She took care of the chores, knew her son’s teacher and cut the crusts from his sandwiches. All Joe did was watch.

Eventually, Joe finds his niche. The motto of his household becomes “Just say yes.” To assuage Artie’s temperament, Joe lets him get away with things that send the community’s mothers into shock. He lets Artie take the wheel on rainy nights to douse the car with water. Football in the house becomes commonplace. “It’s what he needs,” Joe tells Laura (Emma Booth), a single mother who wonders if he is simply taking the easy way out.

Just when Joe seems to have established a parenting rhythm, the dynamic is disrupted. In the film’s second act, we are introduced to his teenage son Harry (George MacKay), a child from a former marriage who carries feelings of abandonment. The film is tightly paced thanks to the evolving relationships shared by the principal male roles. Joe’s home begins to look and feel like paradise, but until Joe finally matures and sees the need his sons have for some real direction, their lives with each other will ultimately be crushed by the weight of their mother’s absence.

Hicks dwells on the romantic, hilly coastal landscapes of Australia as the wind caresses wheat fields, trading such shots in for the light of dingy street lamps shining through rain collecting on car windows to suit the emotion of his scenes. This is all complimented by a score performed by Sigur Ros, who refrain from meeting the film’s most dramatic moments with customary bombastic string movements, painting them instead with light and fitting melancholy accents.

What separates “The Boys are Back” from similar melodramas is Clive Owen’s tender performance. He has visions of his deceased wife at the grocery store and other places. They engage in conversation as he appeals to her memory for help. In another film, these scenes might have felt too ham-handed, but Owen plays them just right as a man desperately trying to do the right thing for his family, and for himself.

The film recognizes the small moments that comprise father-son relationships. Not being a father myself, I nevertheless identified with the depth of Joe’s hurt as his son tells him that he wants to live elsewhere, and the response of Artie to Joe’s every decision and action. Whether he likes it or not, Joe is an exemplar to his sons in most facets of their development into young men. Harry offers Joe the opportunity to recognize that a young life is processional, not static. His sons will grow up one day. He’d better make sure he gets there first.

“The Boys are Back” is showing at the Bytowne Cinema through Thursday, November 12th.

Filme que assisti quinta:

O procurado

Engraçado… me lembro de quando esse filme saiu. Fiquei louca porque eu AMO a Angelina Jolie e o James McAvoy. Assim que saiu a versão em boa qualidade na internet, eu baixei. Tomei o maior susto da minha vida. Tah, eu sabia que seria filme de ação e já estava esperando algo ao mesmo patamar que Tomb Raider. Afinal de contas, a Angelina adora essas porcarias. Quer a verdade? Achei pior. O filme é chato. Não tenho nada contra ação, gosto de alguns filmes até, mas esse ai… Pior que o James McAvoy decidiu fazer isso? Gente! Ele é o JAMES MCAVOY. Ele não precisa disso, a arte corre nas veias dele. As vezes ele precisava de satisfazer um desejo de menino ou sei lá o que… OK… estou tentando achar uma desculpa para justificar a presença dele no filme… não consegui. Com a Angelina eu até me acostumei. Ela faz 3 filmes horríveis para  fazer um bom. Infelizmente… ela é tão talentosa… acho que poderia aproveitar mais seu talento. Este dai, tirando algumas partes beeeem hilárias, não presta nenhum pouco. Recomendo para quem gosta de filmes como Star Wars e esses filmes com bons efeitos gráficos. (Aliás, esse dai realmente neste ponto é show de bola!)

Título original: “The wanted” (2008)

Filmes que assisti sexta:

Ressaca de amor

Ok… não dava nada por este filme. Na verdade, ele não é lá essas coisas. Mas a história é até legal. Me critiquem, mas eu acho o hilário! E não o acho hilário só por causa do filme. Ele tem uma cara de maluquinho e quando mistura aquele sotaque britânico com aquela vozinha dele. Eu me mato de tanto rir. Reparei também em como a Mila Kunis é bonita. Gente, é de dar inveja. Acho que o ponto alto do filme (e eu me leembro de teram comentado isso na net até mesmo antes de lançamento) é o Jason Segel. Na verdade, não é bem ele e sim os predicados dele! Isso mesmo! Ele mostrou tuuuuudoooo. Bem dotado o garoto, eu diria. Bom, pra quem gosta de comédia, tá aí um filme legal e sem besteirol… Não é do tipo de filme que amo, mas também não é do tipo que odeio!

Título original: “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” (2008)

Elizabeth: a era de ouro

Confesso que não gostava da Cate Blanchett, mas aprendi a respeitá-la. Ela é realmente uma excelente atriz. O filme tem Clive Owen, que é bom ator, mas eu, sei lá… toda vez que olho pra ele acho que´ele está sujo. Hahahahah…. coisas da minha cabeça! Alguém dê banho neeeeleeee!!!!  Ok… voltando para o filme, não pe tão bom quanto o primeiro. Nele tem informações que poderiam conter em 2 filmes! Eu adoro história e fiquei muito empolgada para assistir, e, como já sei esta história de cabo a rabo, já esperava me decepcionar… sabe aquela história de “o livro ser sempre melhor que o filme?”. Eu acho que, neste caso, o diretor tentou colocar tudo da história e, como disse, muita informação para um filme só. Recomendo o filme  e também recomendo que se informem sobre a era  de ouro da rainha Elizabeth I (wikipédia está de bom tamanho) e que assistam o filme de 1998 (este sim, muuuuuiiiiitoooo bom!) antes de assistir este.

Título original: “Elizabeth: the golden age” (2007)

My name is Dalton Russell. Pay strict attention to what I say because I choose my words carefully and I never repeat myself. I’ve told you my name: that’s the Who. The Where could most readily be described as a prison cell. But there’s a vast difference between being stuck in a tiny cell and being in prison…

– Dalton Russell

Considered Spike Lee’s most critically and commercially successful movie of his career, Inside Man is not your average bank heist movie. I own this movie on DVD for a while, but I never cracked it open and watched it. I have given it to former co-workers to watch, but I never did because it came out of a subscription I had with Columbia House a couple of years ago. Watching it now, I don’t know why I waited this long.

At first, you think that this would be a typical bank robbery, but it’s not. A masterful criminal, Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) and his crew holds up a Manhattan Trust Bank disguising themselves as painters armed with AK-47s and smoke bombs.

Det. Fraizer, (Denzel Washington), a hostage negotiator that is in some hot water over a drug dealer, check cashing and $100 thousand missing dollars is assigned to the case with his partner, Det. Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejiofor). They rendezvous with Capt. Darius (Willem Dafoe) to let the duo know about what is going on.

The robbers usher to the hostages to the bank vault level to confiscate their keys, cell phones and clothes. The hostages are asked to change into the identical painter coveralls the robbers have on. These are not your ordinary robbers.

With all the news coverage about the robbery spreads to the news, the chairman of the bank, Mr. Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer) calls a “fixer” Madeline White (Jodie Foster) to protect special items in his safety deposit box.

They all come together to try to diffuse the situation. There are more layers to the movie when Dalton strings Frazier along like a puppet. He always stays one step ahead of him. It’s a cat and mouse game.

Nothing is what it seems to be when the purpose of the robbers is not about money, but it’s about a person getting their due justice. It’s a morality play that is reminiscent of the legend of Robin Hood.

The performances were solid across the board. The dialogue is quick and biting. The action keeps you on your toes with twists and turns.

The only gripe I have about the film is that the film wrapped up to nice and neat with any loose ends are solved. Nothing is left to the imagination of the audience to think about when the end credits begin.

Judgment: A solid psychological thriller that keeps you on your toes.

Rating: ****

Acabei de ver “Trama Internacional”. Filme interessante até, mais inteligente que a média dos filmes de ação. Em suma, dupla de promotores busca a verdade por trás de um banco envolvido em transações com armas. Sinopse pouco tentadora para quem não é fissurado em filmes do gênero, mas que acaba se revelando satisfatória. O tiroteio no Museu Guggenheim é absurdo, quase dez minutos de projéteis que não acabam nunca no coração de Nova Iorque.Acaba empalidecendo o resto do filme, o que é uma pena. Mas de qualquer forma a obra vale a locação, mas se você quer ver um filme realmente bom e divertido, que tenha o Clive Owen e uma trama de espionagem, alugue “Duplicidade”.

Escrevo sobre o filme por dois outros motivos. Não sei se vocês conhecem o livro “Ilícito”, de Moisés Naim (editor da sempre divertida e informativa Foreign Policy), e caso não, deveriam. O autor delineia sempre com muitos exemplos e uma análise apurada o mundo da criminalidade transnacional hodierna, chegando à conclusão de que a grande parte dos lucros hoje fica com o atravessador, cujas habilidades são precisas, mas adaptáveis a qualquer tipo de mercadoria. A arraia miúda nunca lucrou, obviamente. Mas antes os grandes capos e barões das drogas ou armas ficavam com o grosso do lucro. Hoje são os gerentes, que levam, buscam ou entram em contato quanto a qualquer produto, é que mandam na história. O atravessador que hoje traz diamantes extraídos ilegalmente de Serra Leoa é o que amanhã estará levando armas igualmente traficadas para o nordeste do Congo – onde a situação está bem crítica, por sinal. E o grande vilão do filme é justamente um banco que serve de atravessador de armas, sendo assim bastante ilustrativo quanto à hipótese de Naím. Os compradores nem chegam a aparecer, como seria de se esperar, e os fornecedores são coadjuvantes, cabendo ao grande administrador o papel principal, e a um prestador de serviços, General Wexler, a força motriz tanto do ataque quanto do contra-ataque. “Cassino Royale” possui uma perspectiva semelhante, sendo Le Chiffre o gerente e grande mentecapto da história, e ainda é feita uma ligação com a constante reciclagem de dinheiro na subtrama das ações de uma empresa aérea. Vale à pena uma sessão dupla para os aficionados pela criminalidade transnacional.

Motivo segundo, a incapacidade de lidar com a África. Em “Trama Internacional” o banco é de Luxemburgo, reconhecido paraíso fiscal no mundo real. A fábrica fornecedora do material bélico é italiana, ponto também próximo da realidade, já que a Itália possui um nada desprezível parque industrial militar. Os fabricantes de armas leves são chineses, os compradores sírios e iranianos. Então por quê os africanos, representados por um general golpista, têm de ser de um país fictício?! Seria pedir muito que Estados famosos pela instabilidade fossem nomeados uma só vez? Todos que acompanham a política internacional sabem que exemplos por lá não faltam, basta ver os casos de Serra Leoa, Libéria, República Democrática do Congo, Guiné, e por aí vai. Suponho duas causas. Apesar de bastante improvável, pode ser rabo preso dos estúdios, que sustentados por dinheiro sujo, omitem o nome dos países que dividem a fonte de ilicitude. A outra, bem mais possível e tão perversa quanto, é mais um ilógico ataque do terrível surto do politicamente correto. Enquanto é permitido comentar sobre os podres dos países europeus, é errado falar dos podres da África, que tanto sofreu nas mãos dos primeiros. Aí tome uma enxurrada de países falsos em “Trama Internacional”, “A Intérprete”, “Cassino Royale”…