The Common Critic

REVIEW: Troll Hunter

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 22:07:00 +0000

You have your mountain trolls and you have your forest trolls. The subgroups are ‘Raflegant’, ‘Tusseladd’, ‘Rimtusse’, ‘Dovregubben’ and ‘Harding.’ These pesky giant critters are the subject of André Øvredal’s Troll Hunter (Trolljegeren), a found-footage thriller given a cool Nordic touch.

Through ‘Michael Moore’ perseverance, journalism students Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud) and Johanna (Johanna Mørck) uncover the most shocking story to ever hit the fjords. While investigating a spate of bear killings they discover the ‘Trolljegeren’ (Otto Jespersen), a government-hired ex-marine whose sole mission it is to cull and contain the ‘stuff of fairytale’ tree-sized trolls and keep their existence a secret.

Weary of his unsung hero status the hunter agrees to let his new teammates film in the hope that the exposure will revolutionise the game. As we venture into his magical world, the troll encounters are delivered with a gathering pace – each time more flabbergasting than the next, our hero rains down death on any of the once mythical beasties who dare to stray beyond government imposed boundaries. It’s not quite all so gung-ho – although quintessentially a mercenary, the hunter could not seem any more an unlikely hero than he does - bearing more resemblance to Ray Mears than Rambo.

To fathom this odd treat consider the duck and dive action of Jurassic Park and the nosy visceral camera-play of The Blair Witch Project. Add a slice of Best In Show humour and you will have a fairly sure concept of what to expect. Seeing spectacular CGI on a shoestring budget fused with such a timely and wry comic glance is such a rarity that it’s a joy to witness. Some cack-handed plot inclusions, such as a conveniently inept power-line technician who struggles to explain a circular supply, are minor gripes that detract little from an otherwise precise humour. It’s blockbuster science fiction – Norwegian style.

Verdict: The happy marital bond of Øvredal’s Norsk humour and shaky-cam antics with old-fashioned Hollywood action thrills ensure this journey into the land of the troll is far from… droll.

Edinburgh International Film Festival Run-Down II

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 23:31:00 +0000

Meet Monica Velour: Kim Cattrall plays the title roll in this forgettable mediocrity that has already gone straight to DVD in the UK. I managed to put my general dislike of the woman to one side as I first sat down to watch... it promptly returned.

Enjoyment: 30%

Troll Hunter: Picture the duck and dive action of Jurassic Park combined with the nosy visceral camera play of The Blair Witch Project. Add a slice of Best In Show humour and you will have something close to this Norsk delight in mind.

Enjoyment: 84%

My Brothers: Thoroughly enjoyable irish roving road movie as three young laddies travel to an old seaside holiday destination to recover a wristwatch for their dying father. At times both heartfelt and hilarious it's a rites of passage romp in the classic form.

Enjoyment: 74%

Perfect Sense: Now I consider myself emotional divorced from the silver screen, well I watched and I wept. Performances from Eva Green and Ewan McGregor are flawed while David Mackenzie's direction is nothing to shout about. It seems not to matter and I can't wait to see it again in October.

Enjoyment: 97% (one point lost for each Green, McGregor and Mackenzie)

The Caller: A horror from the U.K that takes the best Asian and American influences to make for an enjoyable spine-tingler as Rachael Lefevre receives menacing calls from the past that meddle in her future.

Enjoyment: 70%

Weekender: A fair account of the rise of rave culture in the 90's starring Jack 'the lad' O'Connell. Tunes are good while the story stutters at the end. It's no Human Traffic.

Enjoyment 68%

Edinburgh International Film Festival Run-Down

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 19:45:00 +0000

Dear Blog,

I have been neglecting you again, I know - so I have a treat in store to make up for it.

The past 11 days have been spent 'playing journo' at the 65th annual Edinburgh International Film Festival as part of my postgrad. In that time I have taken in 22 films, some great, some good, some bad and some downright awful. Highlights included an interview with the directors of the worlds first Israeli horror Rabies, and a press conference in some rather swanky leather chairs at the Scotsman Hotel for Weekender starring Jack O'Connell of Skins fame. While the majority of the experience will be saved for paying customers and university papers I can treat you lot to a short run-down of the best and worst of the fest:

The Guard: Hilarious odd-ball cop comedy/fish out of water buddy-movie starring Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle. The first film I saw so the gags are fading in my memory but some very humorous images involving milkshakes and prostitutes remain. Gleeson is at his absolute best, he has never been and probably never will be this funny again.

Enjoyment: 76%

Tender Son: The Frankenstein Project: A Ukranian adaptation of the often neglected second half of Mary Shelley's classic. The story is given an air of realism - no bubbling jars or bolts of lightening here - more's the pity. Despite some painterly slow-mo in the snow shots, it's a bit of a snooze.

Enjoyment: 54%

Tomboy: Compassionate coming-of age tour de force from the French director of Water Lilies. With the difficult task of presenting a child's gender identity crisis, Céline Sciamma manages to make her film as warm as a petits-filous advert. Beautiful at times, Sciamma has a real understanding of the growing pains of youth.

Enjoyment: 79%

Our Day Will Come: Vincent Cassell and nihilism. Need I say more. I grew gradually more stunned as a philosophical GTA style romp unfolded. Ginger complexes. Albino's. Gangster Rapper's. 1980's Jew porshe's. Bar room brawls. Supermarket scooter rides. Pharmaceutical frenzies and pissing in jacuzzis. Thumps up.

Enjoyment: 80%

The Borrower Arrietty: Studio Ghibli infuse the well known story of the little people who pinch things with an Asian sentimentality. We watch as extinction threatens pocket-sized princess Arrietty while each frame is like a gallery of Ghibli's finest work. Enchanting.

Enjoyment: 78%

Page Eight: This well timed tale of MI5 misdemeanours is far from timeless. I was lost long before Rachael Weisz started chewing the face off Bill Nighy. Shudder.

Enjoyment: 53%

Jack Goes Boating: Philip Seymour Hoffman is on both sides of the camera for this sweet oddball romance. Hoffman has no delusions of grandure over his directorial abilities and admits that he 'got through it.' That said, it's an accomplished first crack and with no one telling him what to do as an actor his true quality shines through with an awesome performance.

Enjoyment: 78%

Rabies: Extremely silly horror and a noble exercise in misdirection. Solid editing with a slew of Israeli talent performing. The directors are teacher and student in film studies and it shows. They pack influences and genre cliches in from every corner of the globe. As pioneers of the genre in their homeland you have to tip your cap. With plans to do a thriller in the same vein next it will be interesting to see if they can repeat the success.

Enjoyment: 69% (naturally)

American Translation: One way or the other, highly commendable performances from the young actors of this french tragedy for quite possibly the most challenging roles ever committed to celluloid. Nobody enjoys going THAT deep into the mind of a sociopath. I certainly didn't. Nudity was gratuitous and vulgar. It was far too sympathetic to the killer. Having been informed by real life serial killers the story was grounded in a horrible realism. For contemporary 'feel-bad' cinema like this to work effectively there needs to be a strong catharsis at the end but it was totally absent. There were walkouts aplenty. My advice is don't walk in. I went through it so you don't have to.

Enjoyment: 0.01% (leading actress was easy on the eye)

Stay tuned for more micro-reviews from the festival.

Best,

Adrian

REVIEW: Insidious

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Fri, 06 May 2011 15:18:00 +0000

The current hot Facebook trend is 'liking' pages that have some kind of factual or amusing significance to the user. For example; 'that weird feeling you get when you think someone is behind you' 292,559 people 'like' this; or 'Yes, hiding under the blankets WILL protect me from that freaky noise I heard' 46, 573 people 'like' this. The figures for these rather irrational fears are alarmingly high. That feeling we get that someone is behind us is an experience that almost everyone has had at one time or the other. It's that fear that James Wan's sinuous scare-fest, Insidious, demoniacally toys with. You know something is there, you look for it, but do you really want to see it?

Insidious is the latest in a line of what might be termed 'new horror.' The scruples have well and truly been let out the bag in recent years and producers are showing little (s)care for the physical health of their audience. With Paranormal Activity and Saw in particular, the bounds of what is acceptable and what we can handle as viewer's is being put to the test. Their sequels have been critical failures but every so often something comes along that has you genuinely cowering in your seat.

We follow the Lambert family in their relatively new Amityville archi-trived home: husband and and schoolteacher Josh (Patrick Wilson); wife and stay home songwriter Renai (Rose Byrne); and sons Dalton and Foster. Their youngest, a baby, balls and cries incessantly from the outset.

The poltergeistings don't waste any time in performing their rituals and racking up the tension with books falling off shelves, boxes inexplicably moving from room to room and strange whispering noises coming from the baby monitor. Evil starts to manifest itself in those knowing, clichéd and unerring ways. There is though, a higher order of horror at play here and as the nature of the haunting unravels, the manifestations become more and more terrifying and, admittedly, unwatchable for those of a more nervous composition.

Dalton suffers an accident in the attic, falling from a ladder and bumping his head - the next morning he doesn't wake. The doctors can't explain his condition, asserting that he is not suffering from a physical trauma and is not in any kind of recognised coma, his body is simply vacant. The family are at a loss and the hauntings in the house are becoming evermore unbearable.

Enough is enough and they move in with Josh's mom (Barbara Hershey). The hauntings get worse and it is time to seek help from the professionals to try and unearth the true nature of their torments.

Wan is more than comfortable portraying himself as the puppet master of our insecurities and phobias. He has even developed the auteurist bug of placing images from his past into his work: a drawing of the Saw puppet resting on a Josh's classroom chalkboard. His puppetry in the films finale does border on the cringeworthy as the tale becomes almost farcical in it's otherworldliness.

The best advice is to ride it out and by the truly heart stopping end, you will be genuinely looking over your shoulder, unlikely to 'like' one of those damned Facebook pages again.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't 'like' this post...

DVD REVIEW: Sex and the City 2

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 20:01:00 +0000

Whether you are considering sitting down to watch Sex and the City 2 or washing your contact lenses with bleach, the outcome will be the same – your eyes will never forgive you.

The three high class horse faced hookers and their demented granny are back in another zany cosmopolitan suckling adventure: so let’s dust off those Primark stilettos, cram our imitation Louis Vuitton handbags with ketamine and race down to the nearest beach to wait for the tide to come in. Strange it may seem for a man of my position to throw on women’s clothing, but trust me, it would be the more dignified way to go.

Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha (Kim Cattrall), Charlotte (Kristen Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) return to strut their diamond encrusted stuff in a way only New York women know how with the much anticipated sequel, Sex and the City 2, directed by Michael Parker King.

The critical failure of the last outing has done nothing to dissuade this franchise of lost feminist ideals to cease and desist.

We catch up with the girls two years on from Carrie and ‘Big’s’ wedding, suddenly Carrie ‘get’s to thinking’ that she doesn’t want to age gracefully in front of the TV with her long suffering, emasculated hubby in their plush New York apartment. Her life simply doesn’t have enough drama. Boo-hoo. Charlotte is fast becoming a failure as a mother: she bakes cakes and hides in cupboards. The witch. Samantha is popping pills to stave off the menopause. Gross. Finally, Miranda’s boss is just a big mean bully. Bless. Women everywhere, these are your role models? If that wasn’t enough, the girls decide the only tonic for their woes is to jet off to Abu-Dhabi to offend as much of the Middle East as possible with their ignorant gluttonous antics, aided by some ludicrously stereotypical Arabian nights misé-en-scene.

Carrie receives a bad review for her book on married life: a parable for the expected reception of the film… This film knows it’s bad. A male reviewer for The New Yorker pans her, and the articles illustration has her gaffer taped. Touché! Samantha’s response? “He is just a weak, intimidated male voice – you have a strong voice Carrie.” Laughable. Men will hate this film - women will hate this film. It’s offensively ill contrived and grotesquely aspirational. It encourages women to treat men like doormats, men to thank them for it and ignorant American’s to be more ignorant than they already are: Samantha captures it all as she performs a vile thrusting in the centre of a respectable flea market, screaming “I am a woman! I fuck!” She point blank refuses to respect foreign cultures.

With the future of femininity left in tatters, hopefully this is the last we see of these drama-guzzling vultures.

REVIEW: Scre4m... Scream 4

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 22:00:00 +0000

Voyeurism and slasher films have been merry bedfellows in cinema since the days of Peeping Tom and Rear Window, fearlessly fusing sex and death in urban harmony. Scream 4 takes its pleasures from keeping up to date with a new age of online voyeurism.

Sure in its whimsied meta opening sequence, the Facebook element is laughed off... yet the internet age is a clear inspiration for this decades installation of the horror-fan, slash and grab franchise. A tech-ed up array of web cam's, mini-cctv, and video phones litter the streets of Woodsboro - the original sleepy suburb where Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) first toiled with Munch's slack jawed bogeyman. Would you believe it, the dizzy cow is back in town to promote her new book, and on the anniversary of that notorious encounter - silly mare. The killer has fixed a camera on her and is ready to shoot, all live action and in colour.

With the stab vests at the ready a new series of murders start to toll up and the main targets once again offer up their modern audience perspectives - new decade, new rules. Regardless of the convenience and relative untruth of these new rules, i.e 'the unexpected is he new cliche' - they do allow for a certain creativity that rests comfortably enough in the hands of Mr Wes Craven. Re-invented the slasher though, he has not. In the many diversions and distractions from where the scares are coming from, who the killer is and what the motives are, the web becomes too tightly wound for its own good. Nobody likes a smart arse.

The best of the work is done, once again, in the penchant for pastiche. Both the misé-en-scene - littered with a respectable motley crew of contextually placed scary movie posters - and a further meta-text that includes the original Scream, help make for a trivia rich film buff enjoyment.

If you aren't privy to the genre or any of the previous releases then you might find yourself stabbing aimlessly in the dark with this certified fan pleaser of a flick.

Do You Like Scary Movies?

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 23:07:00 +0000

The history of the slasher film has a growing lineage that traces its line from transsexuals lurking in the dark corners of the shower room to burns victims stalking the nightmares of virginal teenagers. So where is it now? That’s the question Wes Craven’s Scream attempted to answer back in 1996 just as once again in 2011 the 4^th instalment of the series gets set to ask a new spawn of sex hungry excited schoolies, with no other outlet for their frustrations, the self same thing.

Scream shaped itself on giving away the secrets of the genre, so what has changed since 96? Well, to put it mildly… the field is pretty much the same. The genre has flip-flopped as violently as Paul Gascoigne’s mental state since then for sure, but it always has done.

Scream 4, or Scre-four-m as the new title has it, will peddle its new number one rule ‘the unexpected is the new cliché.’ How convenient. Virgins are fair game. The lead lady is fair game. It’s a fair game… Put the crack pipe down Gazza.

What the newest incumbent of the series is relying on here is that we buy it.

I’ll buy it! why not? So what we have in Scre-four-m is a playful exercise in cliché bending that, in all fairness, will help Craven rack up the suspense.

Neve Cambell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette will reprise their roles while a fresh bunch of dispensable shiny young starlets will don their ‘scream queen’ crowns and fight it out for screen time. Ladbrokes offer 100 to 1 on the three top commodities not making it to the end.

General release is Friday in the UK.

REVIEW: The Rite

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 22:12:00 +0000

"A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti... fth th th th th"

It seems a long time now since Sir Anthony Hopkins rasped his way through those chilling lines in The Silence of the Lambs to such effect. His unique ability to possess monstrous characters with deviant effortlessness could be unparalleled. While the ability remains, these days Hopkins is finding his possession turned on its head.

The Rite is a modernist revision of The Exorcist, the only real difference being the relative poignancy of its lead Michael Kovak's toiling faith in the modern world as a young priest in training. Aware of its inspiration Hopkins scoffs "What did you expect? Spinning heads and pea soup?" - perhaps not, but they might have scared more.

Mikael Hafstrom's direction does much to lay the foundations of Michael's inner struggle: poring over his childhood at the funeral home he grew up in. Confronted with death on a daily basis, Michael, played by Colin O'Donoghue, develops a cold front: O'Donoghue's brow unconvincingly furrowed for the duration - his character's experience of all things cold and dead somehow transmit themselves demonically into his performance. It truly is the work of the devil.

Michael is sent to Rome to attend Exorcist school in the hope he will rediscover his faith. He meets Father Lucas Trevant (Hopkins), an eccentric exorcist who nonchalantly dices with Beelzebub and co on a regular basis. Various levels of spinal contortions, eye rolling and latin chanting ensue.

The problem is that the entire film is simply building up to a very entertaining, but short, Hopkins masterclass in insanity: regrettably confined to one oppressive room - let the beast loose, for the love of God. O'Donoghue can't keep up with Hopkins as he launches off into the stratosphere: starstruck and left palpably flapping as his fixed brow continues to furrow through their first scene to their last.

Michael's eventual epiphany flounders to find believability as The Rite crashes and burns righteously.

DVD REVIEW: Almost Famous

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 22:59:00 +0000

Californian director Cameron Crowe takes us on a magical history tour as 15-year-old wannabe journo William Miller (Patrick Fugit) lands the dream assignment. Gifted the task of interviewing up and coming band Stillwater for Rolling Stone magazine, the plucky pubescent wordsmith is torn between his love for the group and his integrity as a journalist.

Crowe sets the 1970s scene perfectly. The music, the clothes and the love for everything that rocks: it’s all there. Painstakingly nuanced references are splashed across the screen – literally. As a car travels down the road, where the reflection of streetlights should be seen, the artwork for Pink Floyds ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ dances over the windscreen. The Grammy Award winning soundtrack is peppered with hits from Lynard Skynard (for the sunny and exited scenes) and Elton John (for the more contemplative scenes). In those moments, and as the bands bus travels from gig to gig, lead singer Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) fulfils the role of absent father; William’s clothes begin to mirror his idols and they form a sacred bond. An age of inspired musical creativity is rendered with craft and seamlessly infused into William’s journey of self-discovery.

The power of the piece flows from the personal connection. This is Crowe’s story. Like William, he wrote for Rolling Stone. The self-reference allows Crowe to approach those hormonally charged (w)rites of passage with a charming sentimentality. Casting young newcomers Patrick Fugit and Kate Hudson (Penny Lane), who plays the teen-groupie love interest, helps earmark the intention. Interaction between the two, while at times laboured, draws tidily on the theme.

With the California sun drenched setting and the sweet but not sickly story; Almost Famous has us donning the flares once more and pining for the good times. Rock on.

DVD REVIEW: Brief Encounter

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 22:53:00 +0000

A landmark in British film, Brief Encounter, directed by David Lean, dissects the emotion and thrill of the furtive affair with surgically precise technical aptitude.

The story, like a London bus route, is circular, both opening and closing with star-crossed lovers Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) and Dr. Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard) in the refreshment room at Milburn rail junction as they attempt their heartfelt goodbyes despite the untimely intrusion of tryingly talkative Dolly Messiter (Everley Gregg). Laura re-tells the affair in flashback, as the lovers meet every Thursday in the café; the impossibility of their romance unraveling with each new reel of film. The intrigue and opacity created by the opening scene is given clarity in an illuminating climax.

The terms of endearment are best captured as the would-be couple pause for thought on a countryside bridge. While their unity is made visual their precarious position is revealed. Neither here nor there, their love exists between worlds and will sink without swimming in the water below.

What remains is an ethereal voyage into traditional cinematic flirtations with love amidst the picture perfect black and white backdrop. As steam from passing trains engulf her emotions, Celia Johnson conveys the misery with her credible despair driven demeanour. Lean’s keen eye for detail is showcased in a fading darkness that surrounds her during moments of inner monologue.

With a screenplay written by Noel Coward, a solid home front is maintained through dialect. Despite much of that Cowardian upper class Englishness having long since set sail from British shores, the accents compliment the films dreamlike qualities.

To the score of Rachmaninov's 2nd piano concerto, Brief Encounter harmoniously harks back to a romantic idyll that one can only pray does not lose impact on contemporary realizations of love, where the entire story might be reduced to a poke on facebook.

DVD REVIEW: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 22:50:00 +0000

‘Timeless classic’ can be a dangerous expression to use when describing films from the past but Karl Reisz’s 1960 film Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is more than worthy of the ennobling epithet.

With days spent kidding around at the factory bench and nights spent in the local pubs or in bed with a colleague’s wife, Arthur Seaton (Albert Finney) struts through life without any consideration of consequence. He is the working class hero from Nottingham with an anti-authority attitude. Although not quite in the James Bond mould - men want to be him and women want to be with him. Arthur’s magnetic persona is enthralling.

Part of a British New Wave that embraced social realism, Reisz’s film is one which ages gracefully. Its dotage is cloaked in black and white and draped with enduring ‘kitchen sink’ drama. While the regional accents hint the history, they cut to the heart of an industrial age and provide well-situated social comment. A cliché perhaps, it’s a greater than average film for the average man.

Made at a pivotal point in the discourse that unravelled over the decade to come, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning crystallises the undercurrent of youthful rebellion and disillusionment with popular culture that was growing increasingly more prevalent in the factories, towns, villages and cities across Britain.

A live fast, die young, and make a pretty corpse attitude is unearthed by Finney’s convincing performance. His scenes as a blind drunk with a solid constitution mark the sure footedness of his rebellion. Never admitting to injury or bowing to any challenge of his masculinity, Arthur is as sure of himself as Reisz can be that he created a timeless classic.

DVD REVIEW: Tout Va Bien

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 22:43:00 +0000

Marking a turning point in the career of French director Jean-Luc Godard, Tout Va Bien, released in 1972, represents his first broadly commercial film since turning his back on mainstream cinema in 1968. With the help of co-director Jean-Pierre Gorin, the product of years of contemplation is paraded on screen. They chart the interim French national history both politically and cinematically.

Godard’s overloaded work examines the structure of film, journalism, capitalism, consumerism, revolution and romance - all through the relationship of a couple living in Paris. American journalist Susan DeWitt (Jane Fonda) and disillusioned film advertisement director Jacques (Yves Montand) form the nucleus for the films various ideologies. The bulk of the action surrounds Susan’s interview with the managing director of the Salumi factory.

Ever the iconoclast, Godard embarks upon a Brechtian bombardment of the brain and sets to the task with Stakhanovite graft. He bursts through ‘the fourth wall’ with such charge, that by the films end it comes as a surprise that he hasn’t punted a cockerel through it – squawking ‘vive la resistance.’

Regular direct-to-camera speeches are the centrepiece while other techniques of breaking with cinematic realism are deployed with rapier precision. Tout Va Bien draws attention to itself from the outset as numerous cheques, written to pay the various contributors, are given screen time: Godard’s attempt to apologise for the capitalist origins of his Marxist-Leninist film. With the crafty removal of the factories facade during its sequestration by the workers, Godard acutely displays the tensions and conflicts at play within the building in one concise shot.

The film as a whole is not so concise. It is, regrettably, another case of flawed genius. While Godard maintains his status as artisan, Tout Va Bien is a tiring watch. With so many themes jostling for position under the lens, there is simply too much going on.

DVD REVIEW: À ma soeur!

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 22:33:00 +0000

French director Catherine Brelliat’s À ma soeur! focuses on the sibling rivalry between sisters Anaïs (Anaïs Reboux) and Elena (Roxane Mesquida) as they quarrel over and act out their opposing views of teenage sexuality while on holiday with their parents.

Elena is beautiful yet recklessly flirtatious– she is determined to lose her virginity in an act of true love. Anaïs is fat and frumpy - she wants her first time to be a mere casual convenience. Brelliat explores teenage sexuality in a welcoming open forum through the sisters’ opposing experiences of adolescence.

Often explicit in her depiction, Brelliat asks uncomfortable questions of Elena as she loses her virginity. Under the legal age of sexual consent, Elena is groomed and coaxed into anal sex and fellatio by Italian Casanova and fleeting holiday romance Fernando (Libero De Rienzo). Anaïs bears unwilling witness to her sister’s bedtime follies with the young lothario as she finds little refuge in her own bed at the other end of the room. The framing of the scene accurately situates the sisters as polar opposites. Brelliat renders her central themes with a potent visual accuracy.

A potion of delicately meandering events set under the cloak of realism, leads to a wicked and decisive ending that offers one of the most unsympathetic yet acutely cathartic experiences. Elena’s indiscretions are unearthed and the family curtail the holiday to embark on a fraught journey home. The comfortable yet cold disquiet of the film reaches a tense crescendo as cars whiz past ominously on a busy motorway, driving in a rich squirming sense of foreboding.

The level of provocation is palatable and Brelliat’s feminine perspective of youth is delivered in a tidy yet mysterious package that, once opened, conveys her views with a garish but gutsy reveal.

The Oscars - Acting Awards

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:05:00 +0000

Having neglected my blogging duties for the past couple of weeks a deluge of great films and film facts to discuss have mounted at my door. With the 83rd annual Academy Awards Ceremony almost upon us, it's a perfect opportunity to rattle through the top performers, big hitters and noble competitors for the acting awards - play by play.

Actor in a Leading Role:

Javier Bardem in “Biutiful”

Jeff Bridges in “True Grit”

Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network”

Colin Firth in “The King's Speech”

James Franco in “127 Hours"

This award has Colin Firth written all over it, no surprises there. His performance is indeed career defining, he brings a humanity to the character that few had ever

imagined. Firth ticks the boxes for Oscar worthy status; a solid career, denied in a previous year, successful portrayal of a disability. Fine. No arguments.

James Franco is the only other possible winner. His profile has been rising for some time but it is probably too early for any Oscar recognition beyond his nomination for his performance as Arol Ralston. Franco did his homework on Ralston, he inhabits him physically and appears to have pin-pointed his dry sense of humour and adrenaline fuelled mentality. Franco brings the horror of the situation to within the realms of palatability.

Javier Bardem would be my personal choice. His character deals with the meaty subject of mortality in a story that has him as its nucleus. Bardem has the Biutiful world revolving around his dominant performance in a way that no other nominee truly achieves - for my money.

Actor in a Supporting Role:

Christian Bale in “The Fighter”

John Hawkes in “Winter's Bone”

Jeremy Renner in “The Town”

Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right”

Geoffrey Rush in “The King's Speech”

Christian Bale and Geoffrey Rush will fight this one out with the others just making up the numbers.

Bale is the favourite. His overstated performance can thank leading actor Mark Wahlberg's understated accompaniment for the success. Again Bale ticks boxes having undergone the statutory extreme weight loss Oscar diet. He is at his level best with a kinetic thrust throughout a good film. I rather thought he could be nominated for the leading actor award instead - such was his brilliance.

Rush is fantastic with a resolute portrayal of the King's speech-therapist. It's the delivery of his comic lines that have forced the success of film. He plays a joyous light relief through what is, fundamentally, a stiff subject for a film. His cinematic relationship releases the inherent stuffiness to make for a great film.

Actress in a Leading Role:

Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right”

Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole”

Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter's Bone”

Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”

Michelle Williams in "Blue Valentine"

Natalie Portman should have her acceptance speech written by now.

Michelle Williams is not quite Oscar material in Blue Valentine. A good film, but it really is just an exercise in performance acting, and not a particularly great challenge of her obvious ability.

The last time Annette Benning was great was in American Beauty - she bored me to a sleepy drool in The Kids Are All Right, Julianne Moore was the better leading actress.

Many are glad that Jennifer Lawrence was nominated, I am too . Some were surprised, I'm not. The talk of her nomination started back in the summer. It was always going to happen. She is a revelation in Winter's Bone and her performance is the most technically gifted of the nominees. She is an unknown with no recognised previous. She will be grateful for having received the nomination.

So Portman ticks the boxes (you can see it's all about ticking boxes). Good career. Bodily transformation. Compelling role. Enough said.... although Winona Ryder is the best actress in Black Swan for her manic but fleeting appearance.

Actress in a Supporting Role:

Amy Adams in “The Fighter”

Helena Bonham Carter in “The King's Speech”

Melissa Leo in “The Fighter”

Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”

Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom”

Helena Bonham Carter should continue her BAFTA winning form for this one. To The King's Speech she brings the much needed dignity to a toiling Royal family that the role requires.

Amy Adams is her closest competitor, and my favourite. She plays a tough brawling female support to Mark Wahlberg's Mickey, delivering her barbs to his thick skinned family with a viperous streetwise precision. She is both sultry and sexual while tough and dominant. If it wasn't for Christian Bale's accentuated performance, this would be her film.

The youthful Hailee Steinfeld has done her career no harm with a resolute performance in True Grit - but she is one for the future.

Edit: Then again Melissa Leo definitely deserves it.

REVIEW: Biutiful

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 23:22:00 +0000

Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men, Live Flesh) turns in yet another defining performance in Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu's latest cinematic master stroke, Biutiful. It's worth noting, he hasn't made a bad full length feature film yet.

With Bardem playing Uxbal, a man who's earthly existence is rapidly eroding, Iñarritu explores familiar territory - both in the Spanish city setting and the study of mortality that has loomed in his earlier films, from 21 Grams to Babel. Indeed, his assertion that life has a measurable quantity (21 Grams) is re-visited with the - "owls cough out fur-balls when they die" anecdote. The film itself is dedicated to Iñarritu's father and it tells that this is very personal fare; dealt with an admirable compassion that leaves an honest tear in the eye at the end.

Separated from his bi-polar wife and supporting two young children, Uxbal pays the rent by acting as the middle man between traffickers and the police - balancing the scales of the underworld. While embroiled in the seedy undercurrents of urban life, Uxbal is not the devil. He cares about the people in his life and never considers his position as exploitative. With his biological clock slowly ticking down to a permanent rest, Uxbal must tie up his affairs as best he can before he is gone forever. He serves his time in purgatory before finally checking out.

The acoustic guitar riffs that lace the soundtrack really help pull on the heart-strings. That's not to say this is weepy mush. Far from it. It's a mature rendition of death that, like Uxbal, does not seek to exploit - a la Nick Cassavettes. Again it is music that makes this a personal film to Iñarritu, having started his show-business career in 1984 as a DJ in Mexico and having composed music for Mexican features later in the 80's.

Iñarritu can be hailed as a modern day patriarch of the non-linear narrative but with Biutiful he has taken a step back into the traditional. He shows he is no stranger to a straight story. The 147mins coast past and leave you begging for more. The one auteuresque diversion is the looped ending, played at the start then the finish of the film with only a slight but sumptuously sly change in camera angle. This is where the beauty lies, seen at the start the scene has no meaning, there is no connection - at the end, the more personal angle broaches the empathy wall - It's ~~biutiful~~... beautiful.

Glasgow Film Festival 2011 Preview

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 20:37:00 +0000

The programme for the 7^th annual Glasgow Film Festival, curated with the help of Kick-Ass writer and graphic novel virtuoso Mark Millar, was released this week and it makes for kick-ass reading.

The festival is rapidly affirming itself as a key event in the countries cultural calendar. Held across fifteen venues in the city from 17-27 February, the Glasgow Film Festival 2011 is no exception to the rule, with highlights ranging the traditional to the innovative.

The centrepiece of events scheduled has to be the ‘Meryl Streep Retrospective.’ The range of Streep’s career certainly helps echo the festivals intent to cover everything from mainstream to arthouse – with screenings of The Devil Wears Prada and The French Lieutenants Wife, the span of her audience is ideal. The Deer Hunter will screen on the 17^th and 18^th of February, marking a chance to see a landmark, Oscar adorned masterpiece of American cinema that features some of the finest acting ever committed to celluloid.

The festival’s world premiere comes in the form of David Mackenzie’s rom-com You Instead. Celebrating the best of Scotland’s music scene, the film was set and filmed at ‘T in the Park 2010’ in real time – with a crowd of 85,000 in attendance, it is quite a feat and quite a treat.

This year’s programme is once again not short of innovation with the screening of a landmark 3D documentary by none other than Werner Herzog, with Cave of Forgotten Dreams – it’s a delight to see 3D being grasped back from the mainstream and used productively by one of our times most respected filmmakers.

Some further cherry-picked highlights include Argentinean director Pablo Trapero’s Carancho, which was up for Cannes Film Festivals ‘Un Certain Regard’ award and Cold Fish from Japanese provoke-auteur, Shion Sono (Suicide Club). Sono’s film represents a bit of a wildcard with its hyper-gore having failed to dazzle the critics at the Pusan and Toronto International Film Festivals – his style is always interesting nonetheless.

The inclusion of the Berlin Golden Bear nominated Submarino brings the opportunity to see the progressive work of dogme95 co-founder Thomas Vinterberg.

A rare cut of Richard Donner’s Superman II that includes never before seen footage of Marlon Brando is a sure fire winner for the mainstream festival patron

Now in its fourth year the Glasgow Short Film Festival (18-20 February) will showcase the very best in short filmmaking as part of the proceedings – boasting an international jury hoping to unearth the next Streep, Mackenzie, Herzog, Trapero, Vinterberg… or Sono.

With a ‘Naomi Kawase Focus’ the shorts festival presents the early work of the Japanese filmmaker who, in 1997, became the youngest ever winner of the Caméra d’Or at Cannes. With two programmes, ‘father’ and ‘mother,’ her films Embracing, Ky Ka Ra Ba A, Katatsumori, See, Heaven and Hi wa katabuki should all be of a suitably high standard.

Whether your interests are in the mainstream or the arthouse there is something there for everyone in a festival that is going from strength to strength. Now the perfect companion to Edinburgh's best at show in June, this years festival should be an event to remember.

REVIEW: The Way Back

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 01:27:00 +0000

Peter Weir makes a directorial return with his first film since 2003's Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World with his story based on polish exile Slavomir Rawicz's 1956 memoir The Long Walk, recollecting his arduous journey from Siberia to India with a band of fellow prisoners who escape a Soviet Gulag in search of refuge from the expansive communist empire.

From the squalor of the louse-ridden camp to the consuming frosty Siberian winds and the sapping sun-scorched desert sands, Weir renders the trekkers torment with Stakhanovite graft. Jim Sturgess (Janusz) brings a palpable motivation and drive to the ordeal while Ed Harris (Mr. Smith), with his weather beaten face, effortlessly negotiates the role of the nomad American - struggling far less than his character does as they traverse the hell-on-earth Gobi wasteland. Colin Farrell suits his muted role as the boorish and primal pragmatist, Valka, and Saorise Ronan (Irena) steals the show when she teams up with the men to bring a softer touch to the very carnal aspects of Weir's film.

The fine cast make the most of a poor script. For a film that has been on the cards for decades it is not only a shame but unbelievable how little it offers. The story is undoubtedly remarkable spirit elevation fodder - but delivers nothing by character development or moral epiphany. To follow the weary travellers for a buttock numbing 132minutes and 32 seconds - I counted - and discover nothing other than the impossible journey's pitfalls and it's terrible, unforgiving snow and desert dangers, verges on the sinful. Had the travellers remained in the Gulag we might have learnt a great deal more of their psychology - some journeys are closer to home.

Good performances, picturesque mise-en-scene but with a script skating on thin ice, there is no way back.

REVIEW: 127 Hours

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 01:41:00 +0000

SPOILER ALERT (better safe than sorry)

For a director, it takes a success like Slumdog Millionaire to be able to take your pick in what you do next. That's exactly what Danny Boyle has done with his latest film 127 Hours, in which he dissects (literally) the real life experience of Aron Ralston when his arm became trapped (and I apologise) between a rock and a hard place - maybe a chalk boulder and a rock face would describe it more accurately.

James Franco plays Ralston as his lonely predicament causes him to realise that no man is an island. Various attempts to shift the boulder come to no avail and as time creeps by, Ralston begins to consider the people he has taken for granted over the years in a dreamy sentimental acceptance of his fate, rendered tidily by Boyle, with dances of thought and memory that fleetingly dash across the screen.

The familiar, confined space - one man against the world drama, is now, although a fairly recent trend, nothing new, but 127 Hours is different to its obvious comparisons. In last years Buried and in Phone Booth back in 2002, the tension of the protagonists positions peak and trough in various climaxes and anti-climaxes. There is none of that here. It really is just Ralston and his thoughts for the duration, in an honest re-telling of a remarkable story of survival.

The cutting scene is the one true arresting moment in a film that loses its way in the dream after its initial plunge into the drama. Women who have suffered the pains of labour will probably recognise the cheek-sucking grimace that most will produce as Ralston goes to work with a dull blade. With the umbilical cord cut, Ralston is released by mother nature and re-born.

Not quite the roller-coaster you might expect, 127 Hours is a rewarding watch nonetheless with its rose tinted pay-off.

REVIEW: Monsters

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 19:39:00 +0000

Debutant director Gareth Edwards re-writes both the road movie and Sci-fi genres in one elegant swoop with his post-apocalyptic thriller starring Scoot McNairy (Calder) and Whitney Able (Samantha).

Paired together by circumstance, Monsters follows photographer Calder and the daughter of his editor Samantha as they make their difficult journey from Mexico back to the United States across a jungle wasteland inhabited by extraterrestrial lifeforms that arrived when a NASA space probe carrying their DNA broke up on re-entry to Earth.

Edwards' ability to genre bend is the pleasure of the piece. It's a road movie with a Sci-Fi twist and vice-versa. The Sci-Fi is cohesively understated. The Monsters, while terrifying, are soon enough revealed as victims of misfortune and their presence mirrors the sacred bond being fused between Samantha and Calder. The road movie is given a refreshing and invigorating ethereal re-vamp, breaking it from the strict rules and confines that have been under development since the days of Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider.

The brooding sense of doom that surrounds the couple’s travels is acutely rendered. A low-budget nod to his bigger budget Hollywood brothers, Edwards makes use of innumerable "Danger,' 'Infected Area' and 'Quarantine Zone' signs, saving the CGI effects for his glowing, pulsating, tentacular terrors.

Monsters is out now and well worth the ticket fare, catch it before it’s too late. The end is nigh.

To the Future!

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 00:22:00 +0000

Now seems like as good a time as any to have a quick look forward to see what's in store in the world of visual entertainment.

I don't often find anything on television worth writing about but with some of Channel 4's latest productions I find myself making an exception.

Big Brother, the decade spanning social science fare experiment, has come to an end. Although that's cause for celebration in itself there is further motive to pull on a party hat. Mercifully, a hefty budget has been freed up for the network to branch out some of its divisions. Those who appreciate good drama have many a treat in store over the course of the next year, or at least until the next reality show fad kicks in?

British bulldog, and director, Shane Meadows was given a share of the pot earlier in the year to expand on his 2006 film This Is England, about skinhead subculture. The result was a September run of This Is England 86.' Set 3 years after the original film the focus was on the same group of friends amid a mod revival and the World Cup in Mexico. The four episodes screened were unquestionably leaps and bounds ahead of Davina's big mouth and BBLB's... bollocks? In true Meadows style it was intense and compassionate drama at its best. Some of the more gritty scenes were truly haunting (I dare not offer any spoilers).

So what is my point? Well this Sunday sees the start of Any Human Heart. Four episodes written by William Boyd and adapted from his own best-selling epic novel about the life of fictional writer Logan Gonzago Mountstuart. The tale spans every decade of the twentieth century with its multitudinous historical events, all seen through the eyes of one man.

The cast would make even the celibate salivate lustfully. Jim Broadbent (Iris, Another Year), Matthew Mcfayden (Frost/Nixon, Criminal Justice) and Sam Claflin all take a turn at the lead role while Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City), Gillian Anderson (The Last King of Scotland), Tom Hollander (Gosford Park), Natasha Little (Mistresses), Julian Rhind-Tutt (Green Wing), Ed Stoppard and Samuel West do more than just make up the numbers.

Any Human Heart begins Sunday 21st November at 9pm on Channel 4.

REVIEW: Skyline*

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 19:36:00 +0000

Skyline, from 'The Brothers Strause,' is this year's high concept Sci-fi thriller in which alien ships descend on Los Angeles. Millions are drawn into the light like moths to a flame and vacuumed to their doom.

Many will find themselves drawn to this film in much the same way, that blue beam and its eerie powers most definitely pray on curiosity. Curiosity, however, killed the cat - and the cat got lucky. After the initial arresting first scene where our heroes Jarrod (Eric Balfour) and Elaine (Scottie Thompson) realize their predicament, trapped in a high-rise, all the tension is lost and never recovered. Interest fades as 'The Brothers Strause' fail to develop their concept. Most will find themselves clawing for the exits and dreaming of that feline fate as a drab script unravels.

Colin and Greg, a more humble title for the Strause duo, do at least show some knowledge of the genre. Sci-fi is known for its study of human fears. In Skyline, the fears are of patronage. To their horror, Jarrod and Elaine discover they are pregnant. Jarrod's fears are played out as he brutally beats one of the vaginally formed alien invaders to a pulp. That's about as genre savvy as it gets. In a bizarre example of paternal protection at the films close, Jarrod all but nails the coffin on what was an astute genre comment - baffling.

The problem is simple, what we are looking for is Independence Day, what we get is Shrove Tuesday. Where there should be a defiant sense of us against them and triumph over adversity, there is the all too fashionable apocalyptic humdrum with characters bickering over their banal existences and sinful shortcomings. Colin and Greg plum the holes in the story with fiddly details about our vacuous victims rather than imbuing any sense of heroism in them. Their ultimate demise is hardly surprising, given their desperate ineptitude. Let's hope this ineptitude does not leak into any future Colin and Greg features.

What I'm Watching: November

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 00:10:00 +0000

Mulholland Drive (2001) *****
Almost Famous (2000) ****
Lust for a Vampire (1971) **
Red Road (2006) ****
Ils (2006) ***
The Vampire Lovers (1970) **
Into the Wild (2007)****
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt1 (2010) *
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) ****
The Bounty Hunter (2010) **
Couples Retreat (2009) *
We Are What We Are (2010) ****
Hostel (2005) **
Mr. Nice (2010) ***
Skyline (2010)*
24 Hour Party People (2002) ***
Due Date (2010) **
Killers (2010) *
Donkeys (2010) **
Bride of Frankenstein (1935) ****
Jackass 3D (2010) ****
Frankenstein (1931) ****
Brick Lane (2007) ***
The Kids Are All Right (2010) ***
Africa United (2010) ***
Another Year (2010) ****
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) ***

What I'm Watching: October

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 13:00:00 +0000

I can't review everything I watch nor do I necessarily want to so here's a list I will keep up to date of everything I view each month, for posterity:

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) *
The Witches (1990) ***
The Omen (1976) *****
Tout Va Bien (1972) ***
Buried (2010) *****
Easy A (2010) ****
Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) ***
Body & Soul (1947) ***
All That Heaven Allows (1955) **
Afterlife (2009) *
The Social Network (2010) ***
Despicable Me 3D (2010) ****
Flight of the Navigator (1986) ***
Brief Encounter (1945) ***
Psycho (1960) *****
The Birds (1963) *****
Life As We Know It (2010) **
Salesman (1968) ***
Field of Dreams (1989) ***
Devil (2010) **
The Other Guys (2010) ***
Eat, Pray, Love (2010) **
Romance (1999) ***
Poltergeist (1982) **

REVIEW: Paranormal Activity 2

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 03:17:00 +0000

The much anticipated prequel/sequel is released this week just in time for halloween, delivering more night time chills and packing a terror driven punch as Director Tod Williams picks up Oren Peli's original big brother/blair witch fly-on the wall style: cctv and shaky handheld night vision cameras.

Set several months prior to the events of surprise box office smash Paranormal Activity, this time the attention turns to Kristi (Sprague Grayden) and her partner Dan (Brian Boland), for more noises in the dark, slamming doors and eerie events. Sister Katie (Katie Featherston) and husband Micah (Micah Sloat) reappear sporadically to provide a link to the first film and an air of intrigue. Kristi's toddler son Hunter becomes the centre of supernatural attentions while step-daughter Ali (Molly Ephraim) drives the inquisition, adding a useful teen perspective.

Given the overall visual similarities between the two films it is unbelievable to conceive the difference in budget, leaping from $15,000 to $3 million. Of course higher profile directors, actors, marketing and production values inevitably lead to holes in pockets but the cheery idyl of the low budget film swinging punches with the big guns is lost - along with one of the major charms of the original.

In truth the effects are better - a child slowly hovering out the cot, cupboards exploding open simultaneously, children's toys that come to life. There are innumerable weird moments, that, while fancy and technical, fail to revive the slow seat wriggling tension drummed up by the droned anticipation that was once so unerringly prevalent.

Paranormal Activity 2 has somewhat sold out. Any production company worth a dime knows that their audience is no longer the discerning enthusiast who initially helped drive the low-budget original into the public eye. The new audience is the global market and the sequel must pander to the masses. The result is an initially tongue in cheek, faux laughter storyline as Dan poo-poo's any notion of demon involvement in his house and cracks the jokes the audience want, about wind blowing doors shut and the helpful pool vacuum that wants to clean the patio too. This does nothing to lull an audience into a false sense of security, it is a bore and a rather sad and patronising cliche. During the busy screening I attended, audience members were comfortable talking amongst themselves and generally found it an amusing group exercise in false tension, with caricatured screams rife throughout the theatre. Frankly I don't blame or resent them for it, I felt the same way too. The first half was forgettable.

The budget blasting moments come almost as a relief from the nullifying gaffery that goes on prior. Finally after all the tiring and laboured build-up, things kick into gear. The twists, actor performances, and attention grabbing shift from prequel to sequel drive the film to an exciting conclusion. If ever the phrase 'it's a game of two halves' was more appropriate.

Lacking any cohesively constructed screw twisting, a final blast of the cash saves the day to produce a mixed bag of a film. It can be said with some confidence that this is the best halloween has to offer, with torture porn Saw 72 (PLEASE BOYCOTT) the only other competitor, but don' be too concerned if you turn up late.

DVD REVIEW: After.Life

noreply@blogger.com (Adrian Paul Turner) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 00:42:00 +0000

Few films can claim to have in their title what you might be praying for by the time you have finished viewing, but Agnieskza Wojotovicz-Vosloo's 2009 film, After.Life, starring Christina Ricci and Liam Neeson, does just that.

After.Life is the story (that appears to have been written on the back of a beer mat) of young primary teacher Anna Taylor (Ricci), who, after a fatal car crash, finds herself caught between life and death, as her undead body is prepared in the morgue by Eliot Deacon (Neeson) a mortician and unwilling afterlife intermediary.

Its a bizarre concept and expectations would surely be to breach an intellectualisation of the process of passing away or the process of grieving. Wrong. Spiritual education does not feature as a defining character trait on the tombstone of this film. Wojotovicz-Vosloo careens from one depressing and cold detachment from life to the next.

Rigour mortis sets in to Ricci's performance long before her character dies. Her nudity is baffling, it can only be assumed that it was added to the script once Wojotovicz-Vosloo finished reading it, in a desperate attempt to attract an audience. Neeson suffers from a fate similar to death himself, with his awkward union of disenchanted mumblings and frustrated outbursts that only serve to irritate.

Not only is it a miserable experience watching After.Life die slowly, it's a miserable experience re-living After.Life in a review. So that is as much as you are getting.