Celeste and Jesse Forever: Blu Ray Review

Celeste and Jesse Forever: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Sony Home Entertainment

So, for 2013, a quirky and fresh rom com with a hipster twist.

Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg star as Celeste and Jesse, a couple who seem perfect for each other. They compliment and complement each other, seem to finish each other's sentences and work perfectly. The only problem is they were married and are now separated. But they still live in the same house and hang out every day, do dinner with friends and so forth.

But when a couple of their friends tell them they can't cope any longer with this closeness which seems unnatural after separation, cracks begin to form in Jesse and Celeste's relationship.

When Jesse starts dating someone else, Celeste starts to go off the rails and pretty soon, everything's heading for a total implosion. 

There's a truth which permeates this bittersweet rom com and both the leads, Jones and Samberg, encapsulate it perfectly. With each side veering between being back in love with the other, this could have been one of those cloying, deeply annoying and totally irritating films where everything's oh-so cutesy and it all works out in the end.

Thankfully, due to a very real (and borderline annoying in places) performance from Jones, this feels real. Jones herself even wrote the screen play and it benefits from the truth and veracity of someone who's clearly been through such real life events.

There's a rich vein of humour throughout as well which helps punctuate any pretentiousness on show. Of which, there is occasionally some. With moving camera work and a hipster OST, this does, very occasionally, try a little too hard to be too cool for school and there is a feeling towards the end that it's run over length and out of steam.

Celeste and Jesse Forever is a good, solid, quirky, offbeat romcom which really benefits from an honest script and strong performances. It captures the twilight of a relationship which neither party wants to sacrifice and chronicles the reality of life while avoiding many of the genre cliches. Fresh and original, with a hipster heart at its centre, some people will utterly adore this film.

Extras: Deleted scenes, commentaries and making of, plus red carpet premiere

Rating:

Class Comedians: Comedy Festival Review

The Class Comedians: Comedy Festival Review

It can’t be easy.

Being young, a bit precocious, and a bit of a loud mouth who thinks they are funny.

Yep, just your average teenager. But thanks to the Class Comedians initiative, these wannabe comics get to undergo training (and potentially counselling) from those in the know of treading the boards.

So the 2013 show sees six acts tread the boards, all consumed with the possibility that they could be on their way to big things.

MC Ravi, with his suit, grin and swagger is all nervous energy before launching into a piece about whether anyone has friends. His energy catches the audience off guard and despite dwelling on calculus, Ravi takes in the Irish accent as well. While some of his moments may be a little off, he’s certainly a competent MC.

Head boy at Long Bay College, Brad, who believes he was screwed over by poverty certainly garners and commands a confidence which is beyond his years. Replete with a gag on TapeFace, his send off with his “I’ve been Brad – and you’ve been adequate” shows a star potentially in the making.

Kate Fitzgibbon is next up and continues the trend of confident youngsters. Taking in a lot of the current youthful obsessions of selfies, being a Catholic school girl and racism, she’s got real potential as well with an eye for an off hand one liner and a clever grasp of comic timing.

Mily follows next – clad in an all over green lycra suit. Sure, it gets the visual interest going, but appears to have no direct point or pay off, other than to demonstrate how awkward her young life was. But then, her set lapses into some clever riffing on dancing and elevators, and takes you to unexpected places.

Suvi, the James Bindlah of the South African and Indian world proves to be a confident eye opener as well. With some well placed observations about dating and wingmen, he’s got enough nous to ensure that his future lies in this game too.

Final act is Dan, a surly and sulky type, whose tendency to drag people up on stage for a piece, doesn’t quite work as well as he’d be hoping, but his story telling does impress – even if the eventual punchline doesn’t quite hit the target as well as expected.

Overall, the Class Comedians show there’s a healthy bunch around for the future – and given that tastes change so quickly, you’d be smart to catch a glimpse of these graduates. They’re clearly marked for success and will, hopefully be around for a long time to come.

Parental Guidance: Blu Ray Review

Parental Guidance: Blu Ray Review

Rating: PG (The irony)
Released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

It's been a decade since Billy Crystal graced the screen with Analyze That and now he's back in this family comedy, along with Bette Midler.

Crystal plays Artie Decker, an ageing baseball announcer, whose time on the side of the field is called out by his bosses. When his estranged daughter Alice (Tomei) calls asking Artie and wife Diane (Midler) to babysit the kids for a week while she heads out of town, chaos ensues.


The reason? Alice is a strict parent who has rules and boundaries for her three children and whose political correctness version of parenting clashes directly with Artie and Diane's somewhat more liberal and relaxed approach to letting them do what they want....

Parental Guidance is predictable family fare which will amuse the younger end of the audience more than the older. Certainly, with its fart gags and obvious humour and situations, it's going for low hanging fruit - and yet, its target will definitely love parts of it despite the fact we've seen it all before. And while it's great to see Crystal back on the screen, he's constrained by a film script which aims low and then manages to dig deeper everytime.

Somewhere in among all the misfires is a social commentary, waiting to rise to the surface; a look at how parenting values have changed over the years and how in some ways, the old methods of a sharp slap and rebuke are the best rather than having your child "use their words" to express their anger. But these oft-unspoken truths are lost among the deeply uninspiring and highly unoriginal story we've all seen before. Don't get me wrong, as a piece of holiday entertainment, families with young kids will be amused by the antics and the occasional slapstick.

However, on a personal level, Parental Guidance remains a disappointment for the return of Billy Crystal - how he could waste himself in such a cliched movie and deliver a performance which offers up more than the material given to him is a real headscratcher.

Extras: Commentary, deleted scenes and gag reel.

Rating:

Compliance: DVD Review

Compliance: DVD Review

Rating: R16
Released by Vendetta Films

Based on actual events, Compliance is an insidious watch.

It centres on a fast food chain in middle America - it's a busy store and one which is facing a hectic Friday night with the possibility of soiled stock, a secret shopper and plenty of customers. So, when manager Sandra (Ann Dowd) receives a call from an officer Daniels, telling her that one of her employees was believed to have stolen money from a customer, who was currently at the police station. With only a vague description of the employee, Sandra assumes it's the quiet Becky (Dreama Walker) and follows out the policeman's request to hold her in a back room until they get there.

And that's when things start to take a turn for the bizarre.

The officer tells them he won't be able to get there for a while - and they will have to strip search her for the cash. Gradually, the requests escalate into the utterly unbelievable - and the depraved.

Compliance is an uneasy, queasy watch.

There's revulsion that it is based on a real event (some 70 calls were made of a similar nature in America) and a sickening claustrophobia which pervades the whole thing. Using slow, swooping camera movements, Zobel manages to convey the atmosphere in the restaurant and the tense nature of the enclosed environment. Essentially, as you watch it unfold in a fixed space, it feels as if you are there - a fact made all the more uncomfortable in that actual CCTV footage exists of the real life incident.

Burrowing into your mind, Compliance taunts you with the nagging thought of "What would you do" as it unfolds - a surefire sign that the film works on a psychologically disturbing level and on a level which every instinct in your brain screams at you to deny.

A tangled mix of empowerment and ethical dilemmas, awash with a morally queasy investigation into why we don't question authority or what compels us to do what we do, Compliance demands you watch. But just don't be surprised if you feel like taking a wash afterwards thanks to its queasy and unsettling, but compelling nature.

Extras: None

Rating:

I Anna Director Barnaby Southcombe talks about the film-making process

I Anna Director Barnaby Southcombe talks about the film-making process

I Anna stars Charlotte Rampling and Gabriel Byrne as a pair of people locked in an investigation into a murder. She knows something and Gabriel Byrne's the cop who's investigating. But the pair are mysteriously drawn together. Director Barnaby Southcombe took some time to answer our questions about the film and the film-making process.

You’d been working as a director on a fair few TV series, how difficult was the transition to film? 

The way the film industry works, your TV experience doesn’t seem to count for anything. You may as well have worked as a butcher before – So I was grateful I managed to make this. I didn’t realise how long the process would be though. 4 years from start to finish and it’s still going!

What were the obstacles you faced and how did you overcome them?

Charlotte broke her wrist 3 days before we started filming and turned up for final costume fittings with a huge plaster cast. I had a choice: push the film and claim insurance but risk not getting all the actors back together again or go away and see if I could incorporate it into the story. In the end, I was a little upset that I hadn’t thought of it myself as I thought it added an interesting layer.

I’m imagining the biggest obstacle would have been getting your mother, Charlotte Rampling....?

I thought it would be a shoo­‐in, seeing as you know, we’re like... whanau, but she turned me down when I sent her a short treatment: thought the character was too dark. So I had to go away with my tail between my legs and actually write the script before she saw what it was I was trying to do. Thankfully she saw the light then.

How awkward were some of the grittier, darker scenes to direct with her?

Ah, she’s a pro. She’s done it before. I was the one who was beet-­‐red in the corner not knowing what to say. Her and Ralph Brown were great. They just took things in hand and said “right, shall we do this?”

What was her feedback like on set?

She’s very trusting in her directors. It takes her a while to gauge whether she’s going to agree to a film but once she’s made that decision she hands over responsibility– it’s kind of liberating for her because then she’s prepared to go anywhere emotionally, there’s no safety net. It’s what makes her still such an exciting actress. So it’s a very collaborative relationship.

A noir thriller is quite a debut – and with quite an auspicious cast as well?

Noir isn’t what we necessarily associate with British films and so I was keen to set the story here. The book on which this is based is set in New York and I wanted to bring a European flavour to this familiar hard boiled scenario. I knew casting Charlotte and Gabriel would bring this feeling of displacement, as they are more familiar in French and American cinema. I liked the idea of these two lost souls, searching for love in this foreign looking city and finding each other.

It’s rare to see an older cast these days in a film like this?

Yes that’s true, and certainly it was when I was trying to pull the film together, but now it seems films are starting to come out with older cast and finding an audience too, which is great. Marigold Hotel and Quartet are testaments to that. The baby boomers are such an iconic and successful generation, whose cinematic legacy in front and behind the camera is so defining, who wouldn’t want to make films with them?

What was the best part of shooting this?

The German catering. We had to shoot a few of the interiors of the movie in Germany for financing reasons and the on-set food was simply the best I have ever had.

Looking back on the film, what would you do differently and what did you do that actually surprised you?

Sounds a bit smug but I wouldn’t change anything. I’m sure this film has many weaknesses but I like them as they are. I’d like to think I would direct this very differently if I had another crack at it but only because I wouldn’t want to repeat myself. I hope I’ve learnt a lot. It’s too early to tell. It’s certainly been a hell of an emotional ride.

What’s next for you?I’m writing at the moment. I’ll let you know when I finish... promise.

I Anna is out now on DVD from Transmission Films.

New Wolverine trailer

New Wolverine trailer

A brand new Wolverine trailer is here.

Footage of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine has been released from CinemaCon. It gives a little more away about the Silver Samurai too....


And there's also a brand new The Wolverine poster out as well.

The brand new full length The Wolverine trailer is also here

The Company You Keep: Movie Review

The Company You Keep: Movie Review

Cast: Robert Redford, Shia LaBeouf, Susan Sarandon, Julie Christie
Director: Robert Redford

Based on the novel by Neil Gordon, Robert Redford directs and stars in this film about the Weather Underground, a radical protest group in America back in the late 60s plotted to overthrow the government.

When a former member of the group, Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon) hands herself into the FBI after 30 years in hiding following a bank robbery in which one person was murdered, local journalist Ben Shepard (LaBeouf) finds his interest piqued.

A series of clues and a tip off from the FBI leads Shepard to uncover Jim Grant (Robert Redford) a former Weatherman who's wanted for murder. But when the web starts to get closer to netting Grant, he goes on the run.

However, Shepard doesn't believe he's guilty of the crime he's accused of...

The Company You Keep is a solid, if unspectacular thriller which benefits from a truly great ensemble cast.

The likes of Stanley Tucci, Richard Jenkins, Chris Cooper, Terrence Howard, Anna Kendrick, Sarandon, Brendan Gleeson and Nick Nolte to name but a few show the depth of the cast which can give a story the venerability and reliance it needs as it unspools. It's a mix of putting 1960s idealism into a modern day setting while muddying the waters with old age - and it works well with the likes of Robert Redford at the helm. Occasionally though, it feels like these actors are simply rolled out, with little to work with - a series of extended cameos if you will. Certainly, Howard's Cornelius, an agent in charge of the hunt, seems to do little other than bark out traditional FBI cliches - and Anna Kendrick is woefully underused.

And yet, it never fully seems to grasp the mettle of thriller and give you as much tension or suspense as you'd expect as it chops and changes back and forth to Redford being on the run and Shepard doing the research.

There's a real lack of suspense as the story unfolds despite some killer scenes. One of those sees Sarandon's Solarz in a cell with LaBeouf's reporter as she espouses some regret for what happened but not at the cost of her principles. Sarandon plays it with such clarity of vision and purpose, that it's one of a handful of scenes which linger on in the memory after this worthy film's done.

LaBeouf displays moments of cockiness and punkish arrogance as Shepard investigates, but his character somewhat sits at odds with the quieter and more thoughtful elements of the film. Brit Marling's impressive as the daughter with ties to what's happened but it's primarily the constant parade of elder actors who appear which really give this the impetus the messy story needs as its slightly overlong running time edges closer to the end.

Restrained and reasonable, The Company You Keep is a great movie for an afternoon's viewing indoors on the small screen with its knotty conundrum of moral principles years down the line. While not quintessentially gripping Redford, it's just a shame that the source material hasn't transcribed better to the big screen, given the fact there's such a stunning cast involved.

Rating: