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Reviews
Sightseers (2012)
When Mike Leigh's Nuts in May met Terrence Malick's Badlands
If you fell asleep after watching a double bill of Mike Leigh's Nuts in May and Terrence Malick's Badlands, you might wake up with the idea for Sightseers, the latest film from Ben Wheatley, acclaimed director of Down Terrace and Kill List. Alice Lowe and Steve Oram play Tina and Chris, a couple who head out on a caravan tour of Yorkshire's Peak District, taking in such points of interest as the Crich Tramway Museum, Ribblehead Viaduct and the Keswick Pencil Museum. But Chris harbours a secret: he is a serial killer, with a tendency for sudden, explosive outbursts which result in the violent deaths of random strangers who have crossed, or simply inconvenienced him in some way. When the none-too-bright Tina finally cottons onto the fact that Chris has murdered at least two people since their sightseeing holiday began, she faces a stark choice between returning alone to her overbearing mother, or continuing to accompany her barmy boyfriend on his murderous spree – the option of shopping him to the authorities apparently not occurring to her.
Sightseers was dreamed up by Lowe and Oram as a logical extension of characters they have played on stage for several years, and as a work of character observation, Tina and Chris feel as real as any created by Mike Leigh, using a similar kind of improvisational character workshopping with his repertoire of actors. Here, such is the strength of the principal characters – in particular, Tina's vividly-drawn and expertly-played mother – it feels like a failure of imagination, or even a cop-out, when the killings begin. If this was a throwaway British horror flick like The Cottage or Revenge of Billy the Kid, it wouldn't matter, but Wheatley is clearly capable of delivering something far more incisive than a slasher flick, and would perhaps do well to make a film where nobody gets tortured, mutilated or murdered. After all, it takes a great deal more skill to make films like those of Leigh and Joanna Hogg – writer-director of Unrelated and Archipelago, two achingly painful films about dysfunctional English families on holiday – in which nobody gets killed, but everybody hurts.
The widespread critical acclaim which greeted Wheatley's Kill List, which began like a Mike Leigh film and ended like The Wicker Man, will guarantee that Sightseers will garner a great deal of attention. Horror fans will no doubt delight in the bloody direction Wheatley's black comedy takes, laughing with glee as each new murder is carried out and excused, in increasingly episodic fashion, with diminishing returns, until an ending is suddenly decided upon, seemingly for no better reason than the feature-length clock has run out. On sober reflection, however, even the most ardent Sightseers fan might be given to admit that a lack of bloody murder never hurt Nuts in May, and Badlands wouldn't have been improved by being played for laughs. and, if they're being really honest, that there's nothing much in Sightseers that doesn't feel like warmed-up leftovers from The League of Gentlemen or Nighty Night – except, perhaps, for the enduring symbol of crap British holidays, the caravan.
Nochnoy dozor (2004)
Sensational!!!
They finally have got ready the English subtitled version of this awesome Russian supernatural-horror-vampire epic, kind of like if Lord of the Rings was set in modern day Moscow!! It is supposed to be coming out in the UK in June. I saw the English version in Berlin and even though I'd seen it before on DVD it was like watching a new movie because (i) you could actually see what was going on, and (ii) you could understand what was going on!! This is the first great movie of 2005 in my opinion, even if it was made in 2004.
I almost feel sorry for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.
Almost!! :)
Brown Sugar (2002)
Some songs sound better when you discovery them yourself
You know how some songs sound better when you discover them yourself? That's kind of how this film is... at first glance, the marketing made it look like just another hip-hop romantic comedy - but it's subtler, deeper, sweeter, and more realistic than just about any other love story set in the black community - it really is the "When Harry Met Sally" of hip-hop. Right from the get-go the film startles and confounds, by opening with real life interviews with some of hip hops's biggest names and old school heroes, from De La Soul to Method Man, as it sets up the film's neat parallel lines of Dre's (Taye Diggs) and Sidney's (Sanaa Lathan) love of hip hop run parallel with their love of each other. Of course, there are a few concessions made to the conventions of romantic comedy, but at every turn the film surprises - except one: Mos Def, one of the most naturally gifted actors around, gives yet another nuanced performance as a would-be rapper with his eye on the film's other supporting actor, the indomitable Queen Latifah, here playing a nicely restrained spin on the typical "sassy best friend" which... ugh, just the thought of "Maid in Manhattan" makes me shudder. Bottom line? See this beautifully made movie and tell your friends about it - as I said up front, songs are so much better when you discover them yourself.