For what it's worth...

Top Ten Films at the UK Box Office                

for the weekend of December 20-22, 2013: 
                 
1 (1) The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (12A) **
2 (new) Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (15) **
3 (2) Frozen (PG)
4 (new) Walking with Dinosaurs: The 3D Movie (PG)
5 (new) Dhoom 3 (12A) ***
6 (3) The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (12A) **
7 (new) The Harry Hill Movie (PG)
8 (new) Moshi Monsters: The Movie (U)
9 (4) Gravity (12A) *****
10 (5) Saving Mr. Banks (PG) ***

(source: Guardian.co.uk)

My top five:
1. All is Lost [above]
2. American Hustle
3. The Innocents
4. Cinema Paradiso
5. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

   
Top Ten DVD rentals: 
                 
1 (new) Now You See Me (12A)    
2 (1) Oblivion (12) *      
3 (3) World War Z (12) **    
4 (new) Monsters University (U) **     
5 (2) Behind the Candelabra (15) ***    
6 (new) Snitch (12) **    
7 (5) Cloud Atlas (15) ****    
8 (10) Hummingbird (15) **    
9 (7) Trance (15) ***    
10 (9) After Earth (12)        
     
(source: lovefilm.com)
                 
My top five:                
1. Wolf Children
2. Leviathan
3. Upstream Colour
4. Pain & Gain
5. I Am Nasrine

                  
Top five films on terrestrial TV this week:                  
1. Aliens (Thursday, C4, 10.50pm)
2. WALL-E (Monday, BBC1, 2.45pm)
3. Mary Poppins (Monday, BBC1, 4.15pm)
4. The Game (Monday, ITV1, 10.45pm)
5. The 'Burbs (New Year's Eve, ITV1, 1.05pm)

"47 Ronin" (The Guardian 26/12/13)

47 Ronin (12A) 119 mins **

Hollywood’s latest play for the growing Asian market revisits the ancient Japanese legend of self-sacrifice, hoping to offset its garbled narrative and grinding humourlessness with 3D and Keanu Reeves as a samurai Jesus. The VFX team have some fun with Rinko Kikuchi’s shapeshifting witch, but otherwise this is a terrible plod, hamstrung by rookie director Carl Rinsch’s inability to clearly describe four ronin, let alone 47. The kind of globalised blandout initiated by suits who understand algorithms and spreadsheets rather better than they do specific cultures: for all the authentic Eastern flavour it imparts, Rinsch’s film might have been shot around the Goole branch of Yo! Sushi.

47 Ronin opens in cinemas nationwide today.

For your consideration: my Critics' Circle award votes

Best Actor

1. Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips

2. Paul Rudd, Prince Avalanche

3. Richard Gere, Arbitrage

4. Toni Servillo, The Great Beauty

5. Fabrice Luchini, In the House

Best Actress

1. Paulina Garcia, Gloria

2. Émilie Dequenne, Our Children

3. Julie Delpy, Before Midnight

4. Sandra Bullock, The Heat and Gravity

5. Emma Thompson, Saving Mr. Banks

Best Supporting Actor

1. Søren Malling, A Hijacking

2. Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips

3. James Gandolfini, Enough Said

4. Emile Hirsch, Prince Avalanche

5. Matt Damon, Behind the Candelabra

Best Supporting Actress

1. Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle

2. Doona Bae, Cloud Atlas

3. Rosario Dawson, Trance

4. Oprah Winfrey, The Butler

5. Brit Marling, Arbitrage

Best British Actor

1. James McAvoy, Welcome to the Punch, Trance and Filth

2. Steve Coogan, The Look of Love, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa and Philomena

3. Jim Broadbent, Cloud Atlas and Le Week-end

4. Richard Dormer, Good Vibrations

5. Christian Bale, American Hustle

Best British Actress

1. Emma Thompson, Saving Mr. Banks

2. Judi Dench, Philomena

3. Lindsay Duncan, Le Week-end and Last Passenger

4. Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Kelly + Victor

5. Chloe Pirrie, Shell

Young British Performer

1. Conner Chapman, The Selfish Giant

2. Shaun Thomas, The Selfish Giant

3. Eloise Laurence, Broken

Best Director

1. Tobias Lindholm, A Hijacking

2. Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity

3. Alex Gibney, Mea Maxima Culpa, We Steal Secrets and The Armstrong Lie

4. David O. Russell, American Hustle

5. Lana and Andy Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, Cloud Atlas

Best Screenwriter

1. Julie Delpy, Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke, Before Midnight

2. Tobias Lindholm, A Hijacking

3. Nicholas Jarecki, Arbitrage

4. Francois Ozon, In the House

5. Lana and Andy Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, Cloud Atlas

British Breakthrough Filmmaker

1. Kieran Evans, Kelly + Victor

2. Tina Gharavi, I Am Nasrine

3. Scott Graham, Shell

4. Jon S. Baird, Filth

5. Omid Nooshin, Last Passenger

My lists of the year's best 20 and worst 10 films will follow here next week.

For what it's worth...

Top Ten Films at the UK Box Office                
for the weekend of December 13-15, 2013: 
                 
1 (new) The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (12A) **
2 (1) Frozen (PG)
3 (2) The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (12A) **
4 (3) Gravity (12A) *****
5 (4) Saving Mr. Banks (PG) ***
6 (new) Falstaff - Met Opera Live (uncertificated)
7 (5) Homefront (15) ***
8 (6) Free Birds (U)
9 (8) The Butler (12A) ***
10 (7) Carrie (15) ***

(source: Guardian.co.uk)

My top five:
1. All is Lost
2. American Hustle
3. The Innocents
4. Cinema Paradiso
5. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

   
Top Ten DVD rentals: 
                 
1 (new) Now You See Me (12A)    
2 (1) Oblivion (12) *      
3 (3) World War Z (12) **    
4 (new) Monsters University (U) **     
5 (2) Behind the Candelabra (15) ***    
6 (new) Snitch (12) **    
7 (5) Cloud Atlas (15) ****    
8 (10) Hummingbird (15) **    
9 (7) Trance (15) ***    
10 (9) After Earth (12)        
     
(source: lovefilm.com)
                 
My top five:                
1. Wolf Children
2. Leviathan
3. Pain & Gain
4. I Am Nasrine
5. Child's Pose

                  
Top five films on terrestrial TV this week:                  
1. A Matter of Life and Death (Christmas Day, C4, 3.05am)
2. The Wizard of Oz (Boxing Day, five, 5.15pm)
3. It's a Wonderful Life [above] (Christmas Eve, C4, 1.10pm)
4. Meet Me in St. Louis (Boxing Day, five, 2.55pm)
5. Finding Nemo (Christmas Eve, BBC1, 5.55pm)

From the archive: "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy"

These are good times for American comedy, and if Anchorman - the latest vehicle for Will Ferrell, the 21st century's Chevy Chase - isn't quite up there on a par with Dodgeball or Stuck on You, that's only an acknowledgement of just how high the bar has been set of late. Hard-drinking, smoking and womanising Ron Burgundy (Ferrell) is a stalwart of 70s local news, considering himself to be lord of the tiny part of San Diego he broadcasts to, when he's not out carousing with a parade of superlatively sleazy colleagues (Paul Rudd, David Koechner, Steve Carell) in terrible leisurewear. But Burgundy's eye is soon taken off the autocue, with the arrival of strident, ambitious female rival Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate, never quite shrugging off the poor-man's-Aniston tag).

A fun game to play during any entry in this comedy new wave is to try and guess exactly from where every bit of funny stuff derives: was it in the original script? Was it arrived at during rehearsal? Or, given such loose-limbed, improv-friendly performers, did it only happen once the cameras rolled, creasing up the gathered technicians? Anchorman suffers a little in the gags-per-minute stake for being released so soon after the relentless if scattershot Dodgeball, but what jokes there are - the reporters roaming the streets in armed gangs ("Back off, evening news team!"), Burgundy and Corningstone's deskbound bickering ("You're a smelly pirate hooker!") - certainly classify as funny.

The better gags, however, are - rather like Dodgeball's inexplicable pirate character - examples of truly leftfield comic thinking: consider, for a moment, the last-reel reconciliation achieved by a dog and a bear, or the decision to splice an outtake from Smokey and the Bandit 2 into the end credits. The supporting players and surprise cameos are more than up to scratch, and if the centre forms a less astute takedown of this particular media species than Half Man Half Biscuit's "Bob Wilson Anchorman", this Anchorman is, at the very least, a better fit for Ferrell's evolving screen persona than the somewhat icky man-child who found himself positioned at the heart of last year's Elf.

(September 2004)

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is available on DVD through Paramount Home Entertainment; a sequel, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, opens in cinemas nationwide today, and is reviewed here.

For what it's worth...

Top Ten Films at the UK Box Office                
for the weekend of December 6-8, 2013: 
                 
1 (new) Frozen (PG)
2 (1) The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (12A) **
3 (2) Gravity (12A) *****
4 (4) Saving Mr. Banks (PG) ***
5 (new) Homefront (15) ***
6 (3) Free Birds (U)
7 (5) Carrie (15) ***
8 (6) The Butler (12A) ***
9 (7) Thor: The Dark World (12A) **
10 (new) Nebraska (15) **
   
(source: Guardian.co.uk)

My top five:
1. The Innocents [above]
2. Cinema Paradiso
3. Fill the Void
4. Klown: The Movie
5. The Patience Stone

   
Top Ten DVD rentals: 
                 
1 (new) Now You See Me (12A)    
2 (1) Oblivion (12) *      
3 (3) World War Z (12) **    
4 (new) Monsters University (U) **     
5 (2) Behind the Candelabra (15) ***    
6 (new) Snitch (12) **    
7 (5) Cloud Atlas (15) ****    
8 (10) Hummingbird (15) **    
9 (7) Trance (15) ***    
10 (9) After Earth (12)        
     
(source: lovefilm.com)
                 
My top five:                
1. Leviathan
2. I Am Nasrine
3. Child's Pose
4. Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa
5. Man of Steel

                  
Top five films on terrestrial TV this week:                  
1. The Terminator (Wednesday, five, 10pm)
2. Animal Farm (Saturday, BBC2, 9.15am)
3. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Saturday, five, 10.50pm)
4. Adventureland (Sunday, BBC1, 11.35pm)
5. Black Death (Wednesday, BBC1, 11.55pm)

For what it's worth...

Top Ten Films at the UK Box Office                
for the weekend of November 29-December 1, 2013: 
                 
1 (1) The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (12A) **
2 (2) Gravity (12A) *****
3 (new) Free Birds (U)
4 (new) Saving Mr. Banks (PG) ***
5 (new) Carrie (15) ***
6 (5) The Butler (12A) ***
7 (4) Thor: The Dark World (12A) **
8 (6) Philomena (12A) ****
9 (7) Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (U) ***
10 (8) The Family (15) **
   
(source: Guardian.co.uk)

My top five:                
1. Gone with the Wind  
2. Jeune et Jolie
3. Leviathan
4. Klown: The Movie
5. The Patience Stone
 
   
Top Ten DVD rentals: 
                 
1 (new) Now You See Me (12A)    
2 (1) Oblivion (12) *      
3 (3) World War Z (12) **    
4 (new) Monsters University (U) **     
5 (2) Behind the Candelabra (15) ***    
6 (new) Snitch (12) **    
7 (5) Cloud Atlas (15) ****    
8 (10) Hummingbird (15) **    
9 (7) Trance (15) ***    
10 (9) After Earth (12)        
     
(source: lovefilm.com)
                 
My top five:                
1. Leviathan
2. Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa
3. Man of Steel
4. Looking for Hortense
5. Utopia
         
         
Top five films on terrestrial TV this week:                  
1. Babe [above] (Saturday, ITV1, 1.45pm)
2. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Sunday, five, 9pm)
3. Tyrannosaur (Tuesday, C4, 11.10pm)
4. NEDs (Saturday, C4, 11.20pm)
5. Julie & Julia (Friday, BBC2, 11.05pm)

"Homefront" (The Guardian 06/12/13)

Homefront (15) 100 mins ***

The success of The Expendables has apparently encouraged Sylvester Stallone to resume the (underrated) screenwriting career he launched with Rocky. Here, Sly’s fashioned a role for Jason Statham that he might once have taken himself: that of Phil Broker, a retired DEA agent whose quiet life in rural Louisiana comes under threat from expansionist methheads. If it’s initially distracting that these tweakers are played by slumming Ivy Leaguers (James Franco, Kate Bosworth), director Gary Fleder – a dab hand with knotty, workable pulp (Kiss the Girls, Runaway Jury) – proves admirably patient in revealing character and place, and it helps that those laying siege to our hero’s self-timbered abode never quite react in the way expected of goons in a Jason Statham movie. Back on comfortable terrain after Hummingbird’s ambitious misstep, the star has some nice, relaxed moments with onscreen daughter Izabela Vidovic, and gets to fulfil half his audience’s fantasies in wiping the smirk from James Franco’s face.

Homefront opens in cinemas nationwide today.

"Big Bad Wolves" (The Guardian 06/12/13)

Big Bad Wolves (18) 110 mins ***

This confidently handled horror-thriller from Israeli writer-directors Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado provides a somewhat glib retort to September’s ponderous Prisoners, adopting a queasily black-comic tone in setting out its own three-hander involving a rogue cop, a suspected pederast, and the vengeful father of a dead young girl. We soon fear the worst, and are suckered into staying by some semi-clever delaying tactics: early exteriors concealing the fact everyone’s heading towards a single-set torture dungeon, phonecalls that dispatch the characters on wild goose chases just as fingernails are set to be extracted. The actors lend it a sick heft, and there are droll, region-specific footnotes – like the estate agent keen to sell the dungeon cheap as it backs onto Arab land – but one senses the sniggering filmmakers playing variably funny games with our phobia of paedophiles, rather than having anything lasting to say about it.

 

Big Bad Wolves opens in selected cinemas from today.

"Powder Room" (The Guardian 06/12/13)

Powder Room (15) 86 mins **

Oh, here we go: the semi-inevitable, semi-inevitably cackhanded British attempt to summon up one-gazillionth of the interest generated by Bridesmaids or Girls. MJ Delaney’s film explores various resistible ways of opening out Rachel Hirons’ stageplay “When Women Wee”, set over one evening in a Croydon nightclub’s loos: attitudinous musical interludes, in-yer-face puking inserts, cutaways to Kate Nash snorting coke to the accompaniment of a comedy bugle. When the pottymouthing stops, it emerges Hirons has points to make about female status anxiety – but Powder Room is still only as empowering as anything else that might go out on ITV2 after the watershed.

 

Powder Room opens in selected cinemas from today.

"Black Nativity" (The Guardian 06/12/13)

                
Black Nativity (PG) 93 mins **

An eccentric one, this: writer-director Kasi Lemmons has deployed Langston Hughes’ off-Broadway pageant as the centrepiece of a contemporary musical about a delinquent teen enduring Christmas in New York. Beneath middling songs – walloped out in the artless, post-Cowell manner – there’s something faintly touching about its vision of broken homes; it’s when our boy is forcibly shown the light that the gap between heavenly ambition and desultory execution becomes too vast for a simple leap of faith to bridge. Points for dogged credulity: whether trying to pass off Times Square as Judea or Tyrese Fast & Furious Gibson as the Angel Gabriel, it sincerely believes it. You, of course, are at liberty not to.

 

Black Nativity opens in selected cinemas from today.

"Getaway" (The Guardian 06/12/13)

Getaway (12A) 90 mins **

There were, undoubtedly, ways of improving Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive – but reshooting it in Bulgaria, with a 12A certificate and Selena Gomez as a carjacker probably weren’t among them. Ethan Hawke is the former race driver obliged to take satnavved directions from the nogoodnik who’s kidnapped his wife; Gomez the hacker conveniently assuming the passenger seat. Stuck for better ideas, director Courtney Solomon (Dungeons & Dragons) waves the stuntguys through to total as many Bulgarian panda cars as the budget will allow. You watch the resultant, wholly bloodless carnage with brain in neutral and eyes glazing over, as you would a re-run of Police, Camera, Action! at two in the morning. 

Getaway opens in cinemas nationwide today.