The good star

Looking for Eric

    Eric Bishop is looking for something. In the first sequence of the film, we can see him turn and turn again in the wrong way around a roundabout. The crazy run ends at the hospital; nothing serious is happened but we can feel the despair and the loneliness of this man. No one manages to make him laugh, not even his postmen colleagues. Eric has a love injury, which threatens to open up again at any time. Further more, he has to take care of his two adolescent stepchildren since their mother has been sent in jail.
    When Eric’s best friend tries a self-coaching session, Eric decides to change his life according precepts of his idol, Eric Cantona. The Manchester star himself comes into his room, giving advice to Eric and especially his famous proverbs.

    Between fan film and social chronicle, Looking for Eric is both different and similar to the other films of Ken Loach. First, his title is two-way meaning and this ambiguity is very interesting because it uses the confusion between Eric the idol and Eric the fan. So Eric (Bishop) is looking for Eric (Cantona), but above all he is looking for himself, via Cantona’s help.
    Then, Cantona is more than a simple narrative pretext; his character allows Ken Loach to talk about the world of football and the fan phenomenon around it. For example, the game archives are used to show to Eric that Cantona’s best action wasn’t a goal… “It was a pass”. It’s a pretty metaphor about life and sharing – what Eric is going to apply with his sons and his first love.

    Ken Loach diversifies his work and is interested by comedy in his last films, but doesn’t abandon social drama for all that. The secondary plot of the movie is very captivating, and the gathering of the two stories the opportunity of the most hilarious scene of Looking for Eric; in the end, all the Manchester supporters costume themselves with Cantona masks to destroy the house of a bad guy who blackmailed Eric’s family! The tragic affair is transformed into a funny carnival through the mythical figure of Cantona.
    We can’t forget also the unbelievable sentences pronounced by Cantona in an inimitable English with the Marseilles accent : “When the seagulls follow the trawler, it s because I think the sardines will be thrown into the sea…”

Looking for Eric by Ken Loach, with Eric Cantona and Steve Evets. 2009.

The Meaning of life for 9,99$

    Adapted from short stories of a famous Israelite writer, Etgar Keret, the film calls out the spectator by its title: is it possible to know the true significance of life for such a small price? Actually, that catch line is the title of a ‘‘psychological’’ book that one of the characters buys to try to fight his lack of self-confidence. The search of one-self is the main preoccupation of all the characters which cross that both melancholic and satirical film.

    The first specificity of the movie is the visual used medium: frame per frame animation in modeling clay. This choice can seem surprising to relate the chronicle of a building and its inhabitants. A young adult hesitates between his girlfriend and his mates; a teenager are looking for a job while his brother falls in love with an anti-hair model; an old man meets a losing angel…

    The use of that technique allows to show different kinds of stories, even the more unrealistic or metaphorical one. However, we can be disappointed by the problem of realism of the characters, especially about faces: indeed, the resemblance is clearly requisite but not reached – the mouths are particularly failed. Contrary to Wallace & Gromit, made by the same process, here that lack of realism can prevent identification of the audience with the characters.
     In a narrative way, the idea of the building gathering the different stories and characters makes a good and effective link between Keret’s independent short stories. Finally, the film gives an impression of poetry and tenderness towards these Hebrew funny figures.

The Meaning of life for 9,99$, by Tatia Rosenthal, 2009.

Good Morning England

    In 1966, the BBC has the monopole of the radio transmission. However, dozens of pirate radios broadcast from boats settled in the North Sea.
Radio Rock is one of them. Whereas the BBC ignores the sixties pop-rock phenomenon, these radios are based on this music and broadcast it throughout the day. These radios are not illegal… for the moment! Indeed, the state and the Prime Minister want to stop them by law or by force.

    Carl, a teenager, is send by his mother on board Radio Rock boat in order to “learn life” with his godfather, the owner of the radio. The pitch is thin but effective: it is a simple pretext for discovering the boat, the different eccentric DJs and particularly the omnipresent pop music. Like in Richard Curtis’ last production, Love Actually, the soundtrack of the film is gorgeous and immerses us directly into the sixties.

    You doesn’t watch that movie for the story – which ends in a very improbable ‘‘Titanic’’ way – but for the rock spirit which is present in each shot: the very graphical set, the arrogant, ridiculous minister, and, last but not least, the sexual quest of the teenager. Love (and sex) is a main issue in Radio Rock, even if women are allowed on the boat only twice a month! The sex topic was taboo in the England of the sixties, and it is very striking to see how much it was in one of the sequences of the film, when The Comte, one of the Radio DJs, tries to say the F*** word during his broadcast. The French audience can here draw a parallel with the affair of the French “radios libres”, developed since the 80’s and based, like Radio Rock, on young music and language

Good Morning England, by Richard Curtis, with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rhys Ifans and Kenneth Branagh. 2009.

    In the 23rd century, men have conquered space and also discovered new world and new extraterrestrial species who live in peace and cooperation. Attacking the peaceful Starfleet and the Vulcan planet, a Romulian rebel ship threatens that prosperous stability. James Kirk, Mc Coy, Spock and Uhura, young student officers, will be the rescuers of the harmony of the galaxy.
The last movie of the Star Trek franchise is not only for the trekkies but for everyone, because it goes back to the genesis of the myth: the launch of the U.S.S Enterprise and the youth of the original protagonists, especially Captain Kirk and Spock.

   The amazing prologue immediately immerses the audience in the Star Trek universe, with its codes, its references (Starfleet, The Federation) and especially a large wind of adventure that takes us within the film.
The franchise exists since the 60’s and has generated 5 TV shows and now 11 movies. The challenge for the director JJ Abrams was to manage to make a new film from this universe that satisfies fans and also attires new spectators who doesn’t know the original series.

   Star trek 2009 is an old-fashioned space opera, with an utopian vision of future directly inspired by the sixties imagery: clothes, haircuts and decors… Even the film spirit has this kind of positivism which characterized the mood of the sixties! That makes the film very different from the other current Sci-Fi movies, much more dark and pessimistic. Despite the monsters and the destruction of the Vulcan planet, this film is like a feel-good movie with beautiful space images. For instance, the short moment on Earth is very funny, with another reference to the sixties with the old car stolen by the young Kirk.
In brief, a blockbuster highly recommendable to geeks and neophytes!

Star Trek, by J.J Abrams, with Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Eric Bana. 2009.

   In 1900’s, Paris is the city of luxury, of pleasure and adultery. Inside the capital, a microcosm of kept women live, love and grow old between themselves, isolated from the real world. One day, Lea de Lonval (Michelle Pfeiffer) takes an interest in Chéri, the son of another concubine, she had known as a child. With his mother’s agreement, she decided to entertain the melancholic twenty-year-old boy and to “educate” him (in a courtesan way).
After some pleasant years, the leisure has become love but the story goes wrong when Chéri’s mother decides to marry his son with a girl of his age. The difference of age between Lea and Cheri, which was not a problem up until now, provokes the end of the love story.

   Adapted from an eponym short story of Colette, this Stephen Frears movie looks too much like Dangerous liaisons by another French writer, Choderlos de Laclos and directed in 1988 by the same filmmaker. If the first one was a success, this one is a poor copy without the cruelty and the inspiration of his model. For the Anglo-Saxon cinema, France always seems paradise for upper-class people who dedicates all their time to luxury and love pleasures – even the decors, costumes, ambiance are meticulous but seem fake, like on a theater stage. The two main actors are sweet and nice, the “Chéri” is handsome, but that is not enough to make the film intense and striking, as Dangerous liaisons could have been.

   The main part of the film is based on conversations between the protagonists: the two old courtesans, Chéri and Lea, Chéri and Edmée, his very young wife. The language is subtle and precious; we can see how the words, spoken or written, were weapons in that society. The importance of correspondence is another common point with the Laclos novel; but here, the alternation of letters and duo conversations are too systematic to be very interesting.

   Finally, one of the stylistic interests of the film is its last shot. After she had definitively broken up with Chéri, Lea is looking at herself in a mirror - the camera -  and, thanks to a discreet but fine make-up, we can see her getting older and older in some minutes. Letting her last lover leave, Lea loses her status of loving and desirable woman. Despite the still present voice-over, the ageing and the loneliness of this from now on old lady manage to move us.

Chéri, by Stephen Frears, with Michelle Pfeiffer and Rupert Friend. 2009.

Rachel getting married

   Kim, a young addict ex-model, is going back home from her rehab to be there on her sister’s wedding. All the family, friends and fiancé relatives are there, in the family house, to this huge event. Kim feels lonely and in discrepancy with this atmosphere of joy. With his parents and his sister in particular, the young woman is very rude and almost jealous when she hasn’t all the attention she expected.

   Like in the Danish movie Festen, the drama can only happen in the middle of all the family - without the audience, Kim’s repentance speech would not have the same intensity and the same impact. She doesn’t really want to repent toward her father or her sister, but just tries to draw the attention of all the guests, because she needs it.
   During three days, Kim takes advantage of the wedding to try to rebuild herself after the rehab treatment, in a kind of an accelerate process. This is not a film about Rachel, not a film about the wedding; these elements are simple pretexts and their presence in the title behaves like a deception.
The beginning of the film is also based on that idea of trompe-l’oeil: a lot of unidentified characters, a big place with lots of corners and rooms, and a camera which follows the protagonists from behind without ever preceding them.

   The film would not be the same without the incessant world music which accompanies almost all the sequences and gives the film a such special atmosphere, between happiness (of the wedding) and despair (of the family). The family is white, the stepfamily is black, the wedding is Indian and the rest of the guests represent all the nationalities and genres. More than a simple psychological drama, Rachel getting married is a melting pot movie, quite messy but deep and moving.

Rachel getting married, by Jonathan Demme, with Anne Hathaway. 2009.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist

  If you like indie rock, if you loved Juno and Little Miss Sunshine, if you enjoy romantic movies… that movie is made for you !

    Despite the awful and useless French title (“Une nuit à New York”), I was charmed by this unpretentious US indie production, not extraordinary but pretty nice and fun.
A secret concert of “Where is Fluffy ?” band is supposed to be organized… somewhere in New York – but where ? Groups of friends are looking for it, and teenagers are going to meet and meet again, especially Nick, a young dreamy musician, his bitchy ex-girlfriend Tris and Norah, another quiet brunette.
   

   From the five first minutes of the film, we know how it will finish. However, it doesn’t matter: here, the great point is the way, the “love road” between the two young people which will run all along the night. Fortunately, the two sentimental heroes – cute but a little vapid - are counterbalanced by politically incorrect, refreshing supporting roles: Caroline, the drunk friend who can’t leave her bubblegum and, on Nick’s side, a gay band, composed by three very freaky but funny guys. They are unexpected protagonists who bring to this classic teen movie a new wind of originality and youth.

   Thanks to the trendy soundtrack and to the pleasant actors, Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist is a nice film and we’d almost like to extend the moment… to infinity !

Nick and Norah's infinite playlist, by Peter Sollett, with Michael Cera and Kat Dennings, 2009.

 Yes, we want: Sean Penn manages to take us on with him in his political and sexual trip. Performing the part of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in San Francisco in 1977, Sean Penn  IS Harvey Milk. No one could deny him his Academy Award, won last February.

Gus Van Sant chooses, for his last mainstream production, to tell about the neglected story of this political leader and defender of the gay rights in the USA in the seventies. Committed, the director both follows his stylistic work and also reinvents the way of filmmaking the traditional biopic.

Indeed, there are some main ellipses, which suspend the narration in a very soft way: for example, between the meeting with Scott (James Franco) and their moving in San Francisco, we don’t see what happened – but we can imagine it. Besides, the use of film archives transcends the usual way: here, they are completely integrated into the film, not in the proper story but in the theme, in the place, in the time…

The 70’s reconstitution of the Castro, the San Francisco gay and underground area, is also very striking and effective; decor, hair, clothes, each detail is important and contributes to involve the viewer in the good atmosphere. 

Fortunately, the film is more than a simple historic picture; all the characters - Harvey Milk, his lovers, his enemy - are extremely moving. That brings about a complex feeling, both nostalgia and revolt towards that society, which engendered – but also killed – a character as strong as Harvey Milk.

Harvey Milk, directed by Gus Van Sant, with Sean Penn, James Franco and Emile Hirsch, 2009.

Welcome in my new blog about cinema, cinema and cinema again !
I plan to write about recent movies I've seen in theaters.

Each week = one movie review !