Filed under: Travel pieces | Tags: Berlin, Berlin International Film Festival, Brucke Museum, Grunewald Baumgarten, travel Berlin
Berlin in the summer is absolutely and completely wonderful – warm, bikes to rent with your cell phone on each corner, then leave on any corner when you’re done, the Tiergarten and zoo next to the Zoo Station, the Potsdammer Platz for wide boulevards of shopping, and if you go west along it all the way, you’ll come to the old expatriate zone (during WWII), AND also, there’s Grunewald Baumgarten, where you can walk/ride a bike, and also visit the great collection of Modern art – small, but fine – called the Brucke Museum (David Bowie’s favorite, as he and Iggy Pop spent a lot of time in Berlin in the 70’s), Prinz Lauer Berg for hipster boutiques, parks, cafes and bars, (including where you pay for your wine after you’ve drunk it on an honor system), and ‘rotating’ dance/club nights – one of which I went to there were Russ Myer films playing on a reel, a Mariachi band playing Doobie Brothers tunes, and a bucking bull with a prize of a tequila with a worm. Also in Prinz Lauer Berg is the best curry wurst stand in all of Berlin. So many cultural events on offer to the public every day it’s hard to keep track of. There are lakes just outside of the city – maybe 20 minutes by car – to swim in, the Brandenburg Gate and Friedrichstrasse, where there is also “Checkpoint Charlie”, a few associated museums around that, there are man made ‘beaches’ all along Museum Isle (where the national, new national museums are and are gorgeous and contrasting architectural types), where you sit on beach chairs in the sand, buy crepes, beer or wine or coffee and sunbathe on the water looking at the Reichstag (for pete’s sake), and there’s the new (ish) Sony Center and Palast theatre, near the Grand Hyatt, which is also the center for the Berlin Film Festival and European Film Market, and the new (ish) Holocaust Museum whose building is as much a part of the exhibition as the exhibition itself (very eerie, really wonderful).
Filed under: Published film reviews | Tags: film review, Johnny Depp, The Doors, Tom DiCillo, When You're Strange
This big screen documentary follows the band The Doors from their formation in 1965 to Jim Morrison’s death in Paris in 1971 (he’s buried in the world famous Pere Lachaise Cemetery).
Writer-director Tom DiCillo (JOHNNY SUEDE, LIVING IN OBLIVION) avoids talking heads retrospective interviews, with contemporary footage and still images throughout and a wry commentary read by Johnny Depp. It’s amazing that so much footage of The Doors at work and play exists (rare in the 1960’s), and there are even sequences from an unfinished underground film Morrison starred in.
Di Cillo covers the bad behaviour many rock bands are famous for, but his focus is on the music and he even takes the trouble to analyse The Doors’ unique sound (no bass, extra keyboards) and to assess what other members of the band contributed to the mix.
Ultimately, WHEN YOU’RE STRANGE is an essential film for Doors fans, but it’s enlightening to the uninitiated, too. Not only is there great music, it’s a compelling story of a troubled creator whose charisma was preternatural, and it captures a moment in time that will never be replicated.
Filed under: Published film reviews
The story is about three sisters’ search for happiness: Trish is separated from her incarcerated paedophile husband Bill, and hoping for a new life with Harvey, when her husband is released from prison; virginal Joy is haunted by ghosts of her dead lovers; while Helen lives a life of empty Hollywood wealth with her lover.
Director Todd Solodz drew on his New Jersey upbringing to craft dark social comedies that gave voice to America’s forgotten suburbanites and their lonely, isolated lives in his previous films Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness. In Life During Wartime, Solodz extends these stories and covers topics such as paedophilia, abortion, and the Holocaust; the moral being that trauma can prompt a person to change their identity.
A dark and surreal film, this is a brave venture for Solodz. The cast is competent across the board, with Allison Janey (Juno, The West Wing) and Ciaran Hinds (Harry Potter, Road to Perdition) giving exceptional performances (UK 15).
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Filed under: Press releases | Tags: Adventure Film Festival, Boulder film, Chamonix, French Alps
With the success of its first year in Chamonix, the 2nd annual Adventure Film Festival will be taking place again this year on August 20 & 21st at Le Majestic, Centre de Congres, Chamonix Mont Blanc. Dedicated to independent short films featuring adventure and an environmental conscientiousness, the theme is Make Your Own Legends.
Embracing the unknown, taking risks, making sacrifices, appreciating nature and the power of the human spirit, the Adventure Film Festival has found an ideal home in Chamonix – the birthplace of Alpinism, a winter sports Mecca, and the international playground for extreme sport.
Created in 2004 by adventurers and filmmakers in Boulder, Colorado, the Adventure Film Festival now shares the spirit of passion and activism inherent in outdoor adventure, by holding an annual festival in Santiago, Chile as well as Chamonix and Boulder. The festival reviews more than 200 films submissions each year, and this year brings you another amazing program of short films.
From a gorgeous film about a Bangladesh Surf Club that will bring tears to your eyes and a smile to your lips as they create a community through surfing, to a beautifully shot film about an arborist in Oregon who climbs massive trees and lives his philosophy on the role of trees in culture, to recovered footage of the fatal climb of Mt Edgar’s eastern face by climbers Jonny Copp, Micah Dash and Wade Johnson, this year’s festival promises you thrills.
Come join us at the Adventure Film Festival over the two days it visits Chamonix, and share with others the power, poignancy, challenges and humour of some of the best and most inspiring adventure films from around the world.
Adventure Film Festival is made possible by sponsorship from Patagonia, and in partnership with Mairie de Chamonix Mont Blanc and the Office of Tourism, Chamonix Mont Blanc.
Because Adventure Film Festival’s missions and direction coincide with the organisation Leave No Trace, an international non-profit dedicated to conscious recreation and environmental education, we are promoting “Activism through Adventure.”
For tickets, schedule and details of events and films, please visit www.adventurefilm.org or contact Zoe Hart at zoe@adventurefilm.org
Filed under: Published film reviews | Tags: film review, Ridley Scott, Robin des Bois, Russell Crowe
Richard The Lionheart and his right-hand man, Loxley, are slain in France when returning from the Third Crusade (1199). It’s left to one of their archers, Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe), to return Richard’s crown to London and Loxley’s sword to Nottingham. There, compelled to pose as Loxley, Longstride finds himself embroiled in politics and tackling a French plot that’s abetted by the traitorous Sir Godfrey.
It’s been a long time since there’s been a summer release that feels like an event film, and this is it. Darkly shot and Medieval in feel, Director Ridley Scott’s (GLADIATOR) film is a huge production that’s simply fun. It cost $200 million dollars to make and it’s already earned this money back in its release in the states and the UK alone.
While Crowe’s accent meanders (though never as bad as Kevin Costner’s, nor is there a mullet in sight), his often-seen scowl is replaced, here, with a twinkle in his eye and a sense of bonhomie. As an aside, Crowe spent four months learning how to shoot a bow and arrow, and can hit a target from 45m.
This film is action-packed but not juvenile – grown up without taking itself too seriously – and a summer ‘event film’ release that leaves you wanting more. (12A)
Filed under: Published film reviews | Tags: Chris Cooper, film review, Lena Olin, Pierce Brosnan, Remember Me, Robert Pattinson
Rebellious and sensitive New York rich kid Tyler (Robert Pattinson, Twilight) picks up Ally, a working class kid from Queens, on a dare. Little does he know that he’ll fall madly in love with her, creating a situation that will force their respective family traumas to the surface.
Despite their different upbringing, each has serious father issues: he thinks his big shot father doesn’t give a damn, and she’s burdened by an overprotective father who’s a city cop. And both of them have serious trauma from their past: for him, the suicide of his brother, and for her, the murder of her mother.
With a few months free from acting as the agonised teenage vampire Edward Cullen, Pattinson undoubtedly wants to prove himself in a more serious film. Whatever your opinion is of The Twilight Saga, there is much in this film to be impressed about, though Pattinson may not be at the forefront of your mind – he plays the role well in the sense that he’s mopey and distant, but he’s pretty much the same character as when he plays the vampire. That aside, while the story is arguably clichéd, it’s played with conviction, and it’s a loving tour of both the wealthy lanes and the seedier branches of New York City.
Filed under: Published film reviews | Tags: film review, Green Zone, Matt Damon, Paul Greengrass
Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) is posted to Iraq to justify the US invasion by finding weapons of mass destruction. When his search proves fruitless, he begins asking tricky questions, and soon even his own side are out to kill him.
Director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum) has always had an eye for hot topics: in the 80’s he wrote a book about an inside story of the M15 so explosive that Thatcher tried to ban it. In this film, Greengrass has combined politics and popcorn – the film provokes thoughts while it thrills with breakneck-speed action. Damon is perfectly cast; he’s playing a patriot, not a left-leaning hand wringer, but a soldier trying to do his duty and struggling with the malice and incompetence around him; and he shows not just the blows to his body, but also to his mind.
This is an honest and smart blockbuster that dares to deliver on several levels.
Filed under: Published film reviews
Jenny is pretty, doing well at school, and set to land a place at Oxford. Then she meets David, an older man who dazzles her with the world beyond her ’60s suburban life, and soon a very different destiny opens up before her.
An Education is a movie that is gently engaging. Danish director Lone Scherfig never feels the need to hit the drama button for the sake of hammering home any moral points.
While this film has an easy charm that will leave you thinking that it was a “lovely” film, (though not necessarily cinematic as one could watch it on the telly or on DVD and be quite happy about it) its primary pull is through the strong performances, particularly the new starlet Carey Mulligan who plays “Jenny,” and who is deeply convincing as a young woman who is intellectually a step ahead of the rest, but experentially three steps behind. (Cert 12A)
Filed under: Published film reviews
When the daughter of veteran Boston detective Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson) is killed in front of him, police assume he was the target. But Craven begins to suspect it’s to do with the ‘dodgy’ businessman she was working for.
Craven is “damaged goods,” attacked by inner demons and haunted by grief — literally, as he hears the voice of his late daughter and imagines her there, as a little girl, during his exploration of her killing.
The original story is by the late Troy Kennedy Martin, fuelled by his frustration at a Thatcherite Britain in thrall to American interests. This film, directed by Martin Campbell (Golden Eye, Casino Royale, The Mask of Zorro) is similarly suspicious of government and big business.
Mel Gibson’s excellent comeback performance is worth seeing – the Lethal Weapon hasn’t lost it. (Cert 15)
Filed under: Published film reviews | Tags: Heartbreaker, L'Arnacoeur, Pascal Chaumeil, Romain Duris, Vanessa Paradis
Silver-tongued seducteur-for-hire Alex (Romain Duris) earns his living using his wiles to break up couples. But he’s met his match in gorgeous Juliette (Vanessa Paradis) and her charming English fiancé (Andrew Lincoln).
Director Pascal Chaumeil’s romantic comedy may have a silly premise in the seducer paid to break up couples, and the challenging rich heiress as his latest assignment – yet his debut feature surprises and enchants at every turn.
An expert screenplay that favours dry wit over sentiment is fleshed out by wonderful performances and perfect physical comedy from its two leads (Duris & Paradis). This film has a true heart at its centre and is simply funny. It’s a romantic comedy that packs warmth and humour in every moment and is an unexpected delight. Set in the luxuriant locales of Monte Carlo and Paris, it’s also gorgeous to watch.
Victoria Jelinek 