And the Osc’Argo’s to… – Predictions for the 85th Academy Awards

85 Years of Oscars by ollymoss.com (click to enlarge)

Sunday night will see the usual meat parade of celebrities march down the red carpet at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, in their excessive ball gowns and ever-so-slightly personalised tuxedoes, before giving each other gold man-shaped pats on the back for being ever so special – or so the cynics would have you believe.

There are those amongst the cinephiles of this world who do feel the Academy Awards are a meaningless black hole of self-congratulation and commercialism, and they may be right in many respects. But they can’t take the fun away. For the more optimistic film fanatic, the Oscars provide the one night of the year where every person in the world (or so it seems) cares just as much about the movies as we do. Who cares if they cheapen it – at least they care!

The somewhat bold decision by the Academy to have the unpredictable and untested Seth MacFarlane host could well prove a trump card or a bright red self-destruct button. At the very least the quality of lampooning should be stepped up a notch from previous years. Other events of the night differ in the levels of excitement they inspire. A tribute to 50 years of James Bond should provide a quality showreel. A tribute to Hollywood musicals of the last 10 years will surely have less life in it than the roll call of the recently departed.

So how are the awards lining up? Well…

Best Picture

For a long time there this was anyone’s game. Les Misérables seemed a lock, before anyone saw how blandly it was shot. Lincoln was also an early call, which took a dip and then rose back up to the top of the charts. Zero Dark Thirty appears to have waterboarded its own Oscar hopes. Django Unchained has been greeted with bewildering raves from critics and audiences, but it is surely a little eccentric and excessive to warrant a win. Life of Pi and Silver Linings Playbook, both fine films warmly received, seem to have been pushed out by their more realistic and historically themed peers. Amour is the token nod to a master filmmaker, which is all-but-assured the Foreign Language Oscar. Beasts of the Southern Wild feels like a similar nod to a newly shining star in Benh Zeitlin, but don’t count it out completely – it’s been a huge hit with critics and would tickle the liberal hearts of Academy voters.

Have… have we won yet?: John Goodman, Alan Arkin and Ben Affleck in Argo

But realistically if anything is going to give Lincoln a run for its money it’s Argo. Ben Affleck’s light espionage drama has crept back into pole position after waltzing home with pretty much every best picture (or equivalent) award at every awards show thus far. Despite Affleck not being nominated for Best Director, it is unwise to count Argo out – with no best picture/director split since 2005, the Academy is well overdue such a discrepancy, although it would be the first film to win Best Picture with a directorial nod since Driving Miss Daisy in 1989. Evidently, stranger things have happened.

Should win: Beasts of the Southern Wild

Will win: Argo

Best Director

Making history: Steven Spielberg directing Lincoln

This seems an easier one to bite, what with Lincoln one of the top two Best Picture contenders. Steven Spielberg has already a Best Director statue without a Best Picture twin, for Saving Private Ryan, and his work on Lincoln is more than deserving. But so does Ang Lee, for Brokeback Mountain, and Life of Pi is assuredly the work of full-blooded auteur. David O. Russell seems an unlikely candidate, if only for the scale of his film, and that goes double for Michael Haneke. A Benh Zeitlin win would be a coup and a half. He should be very proud just to be there.

Should win: Ang Lee

Will win: Steven Spielberg

Best Actor

Abolition impossible: Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln

I won’t insult your intelligence by writing anything here. Other nominees include Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook), Joaquin Phoenix (The Master), Hugh Jackman (Les Mis) and Denzel Washington (Flight).

Should win: Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)

Will win: Daniel Day-Lewis

Best Actress

The Oscar Games: Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook

Now here’s a proper contest. So much to play for. Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook) and Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) are fighting to be crowned the new Queen of Hollywood. Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild) is fighting to be the new Princess. Emmanuelle Riva (Amour) is fighting for one last great honour. Naomi Watts (The Impossible) is fighting to stay in movies and not be condemned to television. The tide against Zero Dark Thirty seems to be squeezing Chastain’s hopes, and she will no doubt be back for more in the years to come. Lawrence is here a second time, and seems the likely winner. Riva and Wallis would both be record holders, oldest and youngest winners respectively. With a performance as strong as she gave in Silver Linings however, the same year her Hunger Games was such a surprise hit, Lawrence seems the best bet.

Should win: Emmanuelle Riva or Quvenzhané Wallis

Will win: Jennifer Lawrence

Best Supporting Actor

Oscar, the grouch: Tommy Lee Jones in Lincoln

Coming out of the Golden Globes, Christoph Waltz has momentum behind him, but his character Dr. King Schultz, the highlight of Django Unchained, is perhaps a little too similar to Hans Landa, the character who previously won him this award for Inglourious Basterds. Alan Arkin already has his tokenistic Best Supporting award for Little Miss Sunshine, so he seems an ill-fit. Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook) gave his finest performance in over a decade, but it was hardly the finest supporting performance of the year. The disdain the Academy has shown for Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master will work against Philip Seymour Hoffman. This one has to go to Lincoln’s Tommy Lee Jones.

Should win: Philip Seymour Hoffman or Tommy Lee Jones

Will win: Tommy Lee Jones

Best Supporting Actress

Fantinetastic: Anne Hathaway in Les Misérables

There was a lot of talk early on about Sally Field’s performance in Lincoln making her a likely winner, but the performances of Day-Lewis and Jones (and Spader!) have undermined her hopes considerably. Amy Adams gave a chilling performance in The Master, but it is perhaps too dark (and complex) for the Academy’s tastes. Helen Hunt (The Sessions) is surely just delighted to back in the A-list. Jacki Weaver was definitely in Silver Linings Playbook, but I don’t remember a lot else about her performance. No, this is as assuredly Anne Hathaway’s win as anything could be. If Les Mis didn’t convince you of that, surely this video will.

Should win: Amy Adams

Will win: Anne Hathaway

Best Original Screenplay

Tarantino has already taken a few trophies for his Django Unchained script, a fact which continues to baffle me. Mark Boal will no doubt suffer the Zero Dark Thirty backlash. John Gatins (Flight) and Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola (Moonrise Kingdom) seem like seat fillers, but count neither out just yet, especially the latter. This is the one category where Amour could really step-out of the woodwork, and not just be another Best Foreign Language Picture winner and nothing more. Here’s hoping.

Should win: Michael Haneke

Will win: Michael Haneke

Best Adapted Screenplay

With so many exceptional adaptations this year, this could turn out to be the most exciting and unpredictable race of the lot. Chris Terrio (Argo), David Magee (Life of Pi) and Tony Kushner (Lincoln) have all done remarkable work in their adaptations, while David O. Russell has written a truly charming yet affecting work from Silver Linings Playbook. But in terms of transmogrifying a source material into a work of cinema, there seems no greater nominee than Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin’s script for Beasts of the Southern Wild, from Alibar’s one-person play Juicy and Delicious. But who the hell knows that the Academy wants!? Usually everyone, so why is this so hard to call?

Should win: Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin

Will win: Chris Terrio or David Magee

Best Animated Feature

Tall order: Wreck-It Ralph

Here’s another unpredictable little venture. DreamWorks’ confusing but beautiful Rise of the Guardians didn’t even make the grade, leaving an odd band of five vying for the Oscar here. Brave is decidedly a weaker entry in the Pixar canon, but it is at times breathtaking to behold. A respectful nod to the studio with a win, or a “must do better” note sent home to the parents? That would leave the major contenders Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie and Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph. The former has the artistry, the latter the ideas – but both suffer from weak third acts. ParaNorman could scrape in, but its poor box office makes it the most forgettable of the quintet to the untrained eye. That could leave Aardman’s superb The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists (I won’t be caught dead using its American title), but it has been largely overlooked in previous awards nominations. Another tough one to call, especially for one that film fans are so surprisingly passionate about.

Should win: The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists (aka Band of Misfits)

Will win: Wreck-It Ralph

Best Animated Short

Love-struck: Paperman

Disney’s utterly delighting Paperman goes up against the surprisingly sweet Simpsons short The Longest Daycare. Both feature playful acts of defenestration, but the former is surely the forerunner in this contest. That said, it would be nice to see PES’s remarkably inventive Fresh Guacamole win. I mean, just look at the damn thing!

Should win: Paperman

Will win: Paperman

Best Foreign Language Film

Waiting for the end: Jean-Louis Trintignant in Amour

Amour

Moving on.

Best Documentary Feature

Due to unfortunate release schedules in these parts and unfortunate me schedules in my own life, I have not seen any of the nominees. Searching for Sugarman seems a firm bet based on word of mouth, but that’s all I can offer.

Best Documentary Short

See above, only shorter!

Best Original Score

This one could get interesting. Skyfall is a surprise nomination for Thomas Newman, and Dario Marianelli seems a wild card for Anna Karenina. Alexandre Desplat’s Argo score was one of the year’s better, while John Williams’s Lincoln was but a pleasant shadow of what the man used create in his prime. In terms of evoking a mood and sounding truly original, nothing should beat Mychael Danna’s Life of Pi score. Although the absence of both Beasts of the Southern Wild and Cloud Atlas from this category is definitely disconcerting.

Should win: Mychael Danna

Will win: Mychael Danna

Best Original Song

That Adele is so hot right now. Not much chance of that going any other way. Expect the manner in which Seth MacFarlane handles his nomination in this category (for ‘Everybody Needs a Best Friend’ from Ted) to be the making or breaking of his performance on the night.

Should win: ‘Skyfall’

Will win: ‘Skyfall’

Best Sound Editing/Mixing

Stop pretending you care.

But for what it’s worth I’m calling both for Life of Pi.

Best Production Design

As was the style at the time: Lincoln’s stellar production design

Another potential shocker that could turn up just about anything. Certainly Anna Karenina was intriguing to behold, and Life of Pi did some remarkable things with its visuals. But bigger is surely better in these sorts of categories, so The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Les Misérables and Lincoln seem the better calls.

Should win: Anna Karenina or The Hobbit

Will win: Lincoln

Best Cinematography

Shadow play: Roger Deakins’s cinematography in Skyfall

Roger Deakins has quite horrifyingly never won an Oscar, and while it would be unlikely for him to finally win for a Bond film, it isn’t impossible Skyfall could nab this one. Still, Seamus McGarvey’s luxuriant Anna Karenina and Claudio Miranda’s magisterial work on Life of Pi are almost too much for Deakins to counter. Janusz Kamiński’s bright yet dreary Lincoln looks real and beautiful, but is perhaps too drab for Academy tastes. Robert Richardson’s work on Django is more than anything what creates that film’s style, but away from its frankly gorgeous exteriors, it has not much to offer. Another tough one to call.

Should win: Roger Deakins or Claudio Miranda

Will win: Claudio Miranda

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

“It’s the beards”: The dwarves of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Oh right, this is still an award. Um… The Hobbit? Actually, going by traditional winners Hitchcock will probably nab this. But no, I’m saying The Hobbit. If only for making Christopher Lee look in his 60s (he’s 90!).

Should win: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Will win: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Best Costume Design

All dressed up and somewhere to go: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Michelle Dockery and Keira Knightley in Anna Karenina

2012 was the year of not one but two dreadful Snow White films, but both deserve a bit of credit for the costume work, and here that credit is. The late Eiko Ishioka could well receive a posthumous Oscar for her work on Mirror Mirror, but the film was so frankly despised it seems improbable. Snow White and the Huntsman seems even less likely a winner. With Les Mis vying for a top spot with Lincoln in terms of historical realism, the eye-melting costume work of Anna Karenina, by Jacqueline Durran, has a very good shot at stealing the title, especially if diamonds can count as costuming.

Should win: Anna Karenina or Mirror Mirror

Will win: Anna Karenina

Best Editing

There were no standout examples of editing nominated this year, and thinking back on 2012 it’s hard to think of anything exceptional that has been cut from the list, either. Zero Dark Thirty was the real disappointment, after the phenomenal editing Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker displayed. Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook were both edited efficiently but without flair. While Tim Squyres tied Life of Pi together beautifully, the energy created by William Goldernberg’s editing of the opening 10 minutes of Argo more than makes him deserving of the award.

Should win: Life of Pi or Argo

Will win: Argo

Best Visual Effects

Film school: Life of Pi’s astonishing whale

Snow White and the Huntsman gets another nod here, and will go home empty-handed and undeserving. The Avengers and Prometheus will cancel one another out, leaving this a battle of scale versus creativity. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey could win out through sheer force of everything, but it seems unlikely to beat Life of Pi’s controlled, fluid and never utterly in-your-face world building. All the orcish hordes of Middle Earth can’t compete against the colossal might of a leaping whale.

Should win: Life of Pi

Will win: Life of Pi

And that’s the lot of them. How right I’ve been we’ll see on Sunday night. It’s the predictability of the Oscars that makes the upsets all the more shocking, and entertaining, so with any luck, for my sake at least, I’ve been very, very wrong.

If all goes to plan I’ll be live-blogging the event, so be sure to check back here, or follow my Twitter feed. It’s gonna be a long, fun night.

Well, maybe not fun. But long. Definitely long.

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Les Misérables – Life is a barricade, old chum, come to the barricade

Jean Valjean on the run (valrun)

“Do you hear the people see?

They’re seeing the film that’s Oscar bait?

It is the film made to please people

’Though it’s only good, not great!”

Few films in recent memory have screamed Oscar-bait more than Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables. When an Academy Award-winning filmmaker takes one of the world’s most beloved musicals based on one of the most powerful novels ever written and casts it with cream-of-the-crop performers, including a former Oscar host, an Oscar-winning actor and two Oscar-nominated actresses, how could it fail come February?

Well, with surprising ease, apparently. It takes quite a talent to so thoroughly slaughter this golden egg-laying musical goose, but Hooper has found a way. A masterful director of actors (check out The Damned United) who has been remarkably lucky with his script choices, never more so than for his multi-award-winning film The King’s Speech, Hooper has never been accused of having outstanding visual flair. Here, that lack of flair is downright unimaginative, and results in a lazily produced and bloated film that never manages to engage the eyes, even as it haunts and delights the ears.

Hooper’s misdirection has not been enough to block out the power of Victor Hugo’s story, or the arresting music and lyrics of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s 1980 musical, and Les Mis retains a certain magic.

Tony Award-winning musical performer and Wolverine Hugh Jackman stars as Jean Valjean, a beleaguered Frenchman in post-Napoleonic France, starving and unable to find work due to his status as an ex-con; he has just served 19 years for stealing a single loaf of bread. Daring to start a new life, he breaks parole and creates a new identity for himself, within years becoming a successful factory owner and mayor of a provincial town. Valjean’s past catches up with him in the form of Javert (Russell Crowe), the foreman of his former chain gang, now a high-ranking police inspector who views Valjean as the one who got away, and someone whom the law must punish once more.

Valjean’s life on the run from Javert is complicated by his adoption of Cosette, a sweet urchin whose prostitute mother (Anne Hathaway) was unable to take care of her. Years later, as revolution stirs once more in the streets of Paris, Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) finds herself besmitten with a young rebel named Marius (Eddie Redmayne), and is soon dragged with her father into the political tumult, pursued ravenously by Javert.

Amour: Amanda Seyfried and Eddie Redmayne

Hugo’s themes of persecution and faith echo wonderfully in the film’s finer songs. Anne Hathaway sobs her way through ‘I Dreamed a Dream’, her hair shorn and her cheeks bloodied, having just sold her locks, teeth and body. Jackman belts out “Who am I? I’m Jean Valjean!” as he decides to take responsibility for his actions in order to save another man. Samantha Barks, the only professional singer in the main cast, brings a mournful elegance to ‘On My Own’. Hooper’s insistence on using single-take close-ups throughout many of the numbers show off his actors’ talents well, but they are anything but cinematic, more akin to watching the big screen at a pop concert than a Hollywood musical. The only properly choreographed performance is ‘Master of the House’, a jaunty, nasty song that feels out of place in the midst of so much real drama.

Because of this, the musical numbers have no energy, and you would be forgiven for wishing Gene Kelly would burst onto the screen and roar “Gotta dance!” If only. It is not until well into the third act that the medley ‘One Day More’ properly electrifies the film, followed swiftly by the show-stopping ‘Do You Hear the People Sing’; but it’s too little too late. As the rebels set up barricades in a Parisian cul-de-sac so fake it looks like Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley, it’s hard to care anymore about the young lovers’ plight, let alone the attempted revolution. When the film reaches its apparent climax, there are still 20 minutes to go, although the overwhelming finale just about makes up for that drag.

Hooper’s decision to have the actors’ singing recorded live on set results in some very affecting performances that hammer the emotions through the songs; although this doesn’t always facilitate their hitting the right notes. Jackman makes a believable Valjean, but the boy from Oz rarely flexes the vocals (and not once the dance moves) that made him a Broadway darling. Russell Crowe, a rock ’n’ roll singer in his spare time, scoops his voice repeatedly to reach the notes required, but the effect is more Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia! than Michael Crawford. Due as much to some of Hooper’s more incomprehensible directorial decisions as to the Gladiator star’s miscasting, Crowe only manages to capture a fragment of the obsessive, sadistic and homoerotic nature of Javert that Charles Laughton mastered in the role nearly 80 years ago.

Last Man Standing: Russell Crowe

And fragments are all this film is; pieces of a glorious story, with moments of fine acting and superb songs brought low by excessive Dutch tilts and face-hugging close-ups. Not since Carl Th. Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc have expensive sets been this lost, buried out of focus, behind the faces of a film’s stars.

Yet it’s still hard not to recommend Les Mis, on some level. The story is timeless and the music resplendent, and Jackman and particularly Hathaway deserve to have their performances seen and heard. The un-cinematic quality of Hooper’s interpretation may yet lead to it finding a more respecting audience on the small screen, where the careless photography and in-your-face close-ups can cause less offence.

It could be worse. It could be Nine.

3/5

(originally published at http://www.filmireland.net)

The Lorax – Review

Absolutely stumped

Everybody loves Dr Seuss, right? The rhythm and rhyme-mastering children’s author is a legend unto himself, even if recent film adaptations of his fine works have been as much hit as miss. This latest adaptation, The Lorax, comes from the director of the witty and charming supervillain caper Despicable Me, Chris Renaud, who also worked on the last computer animated Seuss movie Horton Hears a Who!

Colourful, humorous and with an important if overly hammered-in moral at its centre, The Lorax is a guaranteed hit for young kids and will likely offend only the Grinchiest of adults. But it’s certainly not one of the best animated films of recent years, despite its charms.

The film opens in the town of Thneedville, a cheerful dystopia where everything is plastic, water is toxic and air is pay-per-breath, but everyone seems happy with it. With its futuristic engineering, Thneedville is a shining star amidst the barren landscape that surrounds it, a world after the last tree has been felled.

Determined to impress a girl whose dream is to see a real tree, 12-year-old Ted sneaks out of Thneedville into the grim wilderness beyond. Here he encounters the Once-ler, a mysterious figure who holds himself responsible for the state the world is in. The Once-ler begins to recount his tale of a time before fake plastic trees and bottled air. His story, which takes up at least half the movie, shows him as an ambitious youth, hoping to develop a revolutionary new product called a thneed, made from the nearby Seussian furry trees.

As soon as the young Once-ler chops a tree down, the Lorax appears, a magical moustached chicken nugget-shaped man who “speaks for the trees”. The Lorax pleads with the Once-ler (I can’t help but feel these names only work in Seuss’s particular writing style) to leave the trees be, and when that fails, he conspires with the local fauna to get rid of him. But in the end capitalism and greed win over. Can Ted make everything right again?

Very much a tale of two films, The Lorax intercuts between both with varying success. The flashbacks to the Looney Tunes-ish sparring between the Lorax and the Once-ler are far more entertaining than Ted’s efforts to win the girl and defeat the villainous Mr O’Hare, a tiny fat cat with a monopoly on oxygen. (Disappointingly it is never explained how O’Hare produces oxygen in a world without trees.)

The film’s central message, be nice to the trees, is a simple but pleasant one, and only the right wingingest of folk could disagree with it. It’s a shame however that for a film so opposed to artificiality, that it should feature such a plastic-looking animation style. Obviously Seuss’s drawings were always fantastical, but there’s no texture to the animation, and the real trees look as artificial as the inflatable ones in Thneedville. The look doesn’t match the tone.

And speaking of tone, an odd choice for the film was to insert a handful of music numbers, in the classic Disney style. Alas, none of these are very standout, and the dizzying visuals distract from the lyrics. One song, ‘How Bad Can I Be?’, features a few clever lines about the imagined moralities of capitalism, but also repeatedly insists on stretching out the word “bad” to four syllables. Tim Rice, this ain’t.

Comedy is supplied mostly by supporting characters, especially the bears, birds and amphibious singing fish from the Once-ler’s flashbacks. Kids should be in stitches, and there are definitely one or two just-for-the-parents gags in there too. Voicework is largely fine, with Danny DeVito playing his classic grumpy but loveable role as the Lorax. The Hangover’s Ed Helms gets across the hopes and broken dreams of the Once-ler well, while Betty White has great fun in the recording booth voicing Ted’s excitable grandmother. Zac Efron however is an odd choice for Ted, given the High School Musical star’s character never sings. Also, voicing a 12-year-old with an adult voice makes one less concerned about the bottled air or what’s wrong with the water, and more worried about what hormones are in their food!

The Lorax is a sweet movie that is sadly less than the sum of its parts, mostly due to its cheap-looking animation (although 3D fans will be happy to know lots of stuff pokes out from the screen). But it’s short and its message is a nice one, so in the end it’s hard to feel anything other than a little bit smiley. Nothing wrong with a nice movie every now and again.

2/5

The Lorax is released in cinemas across the UK and Ireland this Friday.

The Lorax was released in the US like freakin’ ages ago.

(originally published at http://www.filmireland.net)

Where Do We Go Now? – Review

Dance, tragic dance

A sectarian struggle between Christians and Muslims lies at the centre of this intermittently serious and slight comedy/drama/semi-musical. Lebanese auteure Nadine Labaki has upped the stakes for her second feature film, and the director of Caramel has this time perhaps bit off more than she can chew.

The set-up appears simple. A small town in rural Lebanon has been cut off from the rest of the country following years of civil strife – it is surrounded by landmines on all sides and the only bridge out of town is crumbling and wrapped in barbwire, too dangerous for many to cross. Within its social vacuum, the town has found an almost soap operatic level of fraternity, with Christians and Muslims co-existing peaceably.

This peace is disturbed when the town’s clever youths manage to get a TV signal atop a nearby hill, and arrange for a town viewing, à la the local cinema in times gone by. But when the TV brings news of turmoil between Muslims and Christians from across the country, ancient rivalries are rekindled and a cold war is drawn between men on either side. “Elsewhere is elsewhere,” insists the imam, but the message does not take. Soon pranks are committed against church and mosque alike, leading to an iconoclasm that threatens an outbreak of violence. It is up to the women – mothers and wives, Muslim and Christian – to keep the peace. Unwilling to sacrifice their friendships with one another and fearful of losing any more of their young men to fruitless bloodshed, they aim to settle the matter with a few pranks of their own.

Labaki, a truly feminist filmmaker, works on the old adage that if women ruled the world there would be no war, and spins a fun, sometimes harrowing, tale from it. The women’s attempt to calm the tidal wave of testosterone by inviting exotic dancers to visit the village plays like classic 1950s Hollywood comedy. But when tragedy strikes and the tone shifts, the film’s balance is upended – one can’t but feel Where Do We Go Now? wants to have its cake and eat it.

Where does this go now?

The film also struggles through Labaki’s decision (as well as directing she co-wrote the film, and fills the lead role) to make the film a musical… well, barely. Opening promisingly with a Pina Bausch-esque march of mourning by the town’s women to the local cemetery, where the throughway bisects the Christian and Muslim plots, the film manages to squeeze in only three more songs into its 110-minute running time. One wonders why they bothered, especially when two of those songs are related to Labaki’s character’s forbidden romance with a local Muslim, which becomes less and less the focus of the film as time passes, and is sadly never acceptably resolved.

But for all these problems, Labaki’s film is very sweet and well-meaning. Its message is all too simple, but it is very cleverly put forward, and the finale is quite the treat. Labaki gets solid performances across the board from her cast of dozens, and does not save all the best scenes for herself. Like Caramel before it, Where Do We Go Now? is shot in sumptuous browns, blues and yellows, and is always beautiful to watch.

Let down by its convolutions and ambitions, this remains a strong, powerful movie, and further secures Lakaki’s reputation as one of the most talented female filmmakers working today.

3/5

(originally published at http://www.filmireland.net)

Mamma Mia! – Review

It’s been a funny couple of years for the Hollywood musical. Moulin Rouge! was the film that made the change, in that it made mainstream pop music usable in musicals, as well as making it acceptable for famous actors who don’t have strong singing voices to give it a try without being dubbed over. Both of these things are debatably good.

But for all its silliness Moulin Rouge! took itself far too seriously. As did Across the Universe, Dreamgirls and the abominable Chicago. Hairspray did also, perhaps, but had the talent and style behind it to make it work. Mamma Mia! on the other hand is something entirely different.

No film has revelled in its own preposterousness as much as Mamma Mia! since Crank. It is absurd, it is silly and it is camp as can be, but it is entertaining as hell from start to finish.

The setting is a Greek island. A young woman, raised by her single parent workaholic mother, is getting married, somewhat in defiance of her strong-willed mother, and invites the three men from her mother’s past who could be her father to the wedding. When they get there, situation comedy breaks out, with music and lyrics by Abba.

Meryl Streep is on typical likable diva form as Donna, now a struggling entrepreneur, formerly of a suspiciously Abba-esque pop band: Donna and the Dynamos. Her two former back up singers, played by the odd but amusing pairing of Julie Walters and Christine Baranski, bring the fun and plenty of sexual innuendo. Walters has the time of her life with the role of Rosie, while Baranski’s Tanya is the best she’s been onscreen since Cybill ended, playing admittedly a similar role to her Maryanne.

Meanwhile the three men, played with excessive energy by Colin Firth (formerly rebellious, now prim and prissy), Stellan Skarsgård (formerly mysterious, still mysterious) and Pierce Brosnan (formerly dreamy, now perfect) steal the whole show.

Amanda Seyfried, who played the borderline brain-dead Karen in Meangirls, radiates here (perhaps easy in the gorgeous Grecian sunlight) as bride-to-be Sophie, an unrecognisably different character. She is sweet and lovable as one would expect from the female lead of a romantic musical (take note, Nicole Kidman). Her fiancé, named Sky (a name, apparently), is played by Dominic Cooper, most memorable from The History Boys and here little more than handsome young padding.

The eye-catching Greek backdrop is all very pleasant, but what about the music. Well, Abba really are pop personified. A pure shot of liquid pop would no doubt cause spontaneous outbursts of ‘Dancing Queen’. While I could imagine someone preferring countless bands to Abba, to genuinely dislike Abba would require a Scroogean heart of stone. Since the lyrics are more or less unchanged from their original forms, they only barely make sense half the time, but that is some of the fun, catching when a song is likely to be played.

Some don’t quite work. The first full number, ‘Honey, Honey’, falls a tad flat, as Sophie and her generic girlie friends discuss her mother’s sex life. Apparently ellipses are synonymous with intercourse. I’m not sure what I’m implying by this sentence then…

‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ is a touch too Madonna video, as Sky and Sophie roll in the sand before a macho brigade of lads perform a flamboyant dance on a jetty – easily the film’s most heterosexually alienating sequence.

Streep’s power ballad delivery of ‘The Winner Takes It All’ is simply too much, and pales in comparison to her blind duet with Brosnan of ‘S.O.S.’, where the two sing to one another without the other hearing them singing as well – providing a smart irony to the lyrics “So when you’re near me darling can’t you hear me?”

‘Money, Money, Money’ just about works, but a puerile fantasy sequence in the middle of it nearly kills it. It’s up to songs like ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘Mamma Mia’ and ‘Take a Chance On Me’ to really up the ante, which admittedly they do. Tanya’s version of ‘Does Your Mother Know’, to a much younger suitor, includes one of the cleverest fellatio jokes you’re likely to see this year.

The camp cannot be contained, and this film is rolling in it. Brosnan relishes the chance to ham it up in a non-Bond-like role, Firth gets the film’s best and gayest line, while Skarsgård, who would normally be more at a home in a hard-hitting drama about a woman whose addiction to Abba music was slowly killing her and estranging her from her family, slips into this silly role perfectly.

If musicals aren’t your thing then of course this will not be for you, but this much unbridled fun rarely makes its way into cinema screens. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have once again struck gold producing a camptastic stage show for the big screen. Even if it is more flamboyant than an Orlando gay pride festival, Mamma Mia! is the most harmless film that is utterly self-aware of its ridiculousness that you will see for some time. The (unmissable) performances over the end credits really do say it all – this looks like it was even more fun to make than it is to watch.

4/5