In the hands of a less talented and ambitious writer Monsieur Lazhar would have ended up looking strikingly like a more serene version of School of Rock. Both films centre on a teacher who is not really a teacher and what he can do to improve the lives of the children in his class. Aside from a worrying lack of background checks on the part of both schools that is where the similarities end. The raucously good fun School of Rock shows the awakening of a rebellious and imaginative spirit created by a rock musician posing as a teacher at a rather stuffy private school in the US. Monsieur Lazhar tells the story of a class in Montreal whose teacher committed suicide in the very classroom she used to teach her students. Algerian immigrant Bachir Lazhar (Fellag) is the only option the school headmistress can find willing to take over the stricken class. His past and relationship with the students become a tale of compassion and acceptance that emulates Frank Capra at his best.

Fleeing Algerian terrorism Bachir Lazhar decides to pose as a teacher to see if his experience can help these children adjust after the death of their teacher. His methods occasionally seem outdated probably due to his limited experience in the field, he is not necessarily what the children want but he is what they need. Someone who understands, who can empathise. His lack of knowledge of the rules of teaching in this case is an advantage, instead of hiding from the children and passing their questions onto the psychologists, he encourages them to speak, he may not know the curriculum but he knows the suffering of loss.

Lazhar connects especially well with young Alice (Sophie Nélisse), a bright young student who is dealing with the loss of her teacher with an astonishing maturity, albeit independently. He touches her life in a way that no teacher could have. His affable sensibility along with his desire to help the children goes a long way with troubled student Simon (Émilien Néron). Simon is finding the death of his teacher unbearable, acting out in violent and aggressive ways, other teachers at the school talk of a transfer but that is furthest from the mind of Lazhar. Subtly but effectively, Lazhar works on the children just as the affection is subtly coaxed from the audience.

Mohamed Fellag known simply as Fellag for this film is an inspired choice to play the pivotal character Lazhar and Philippe Falardeau knows exactly what to do with his magnetic star. An unshakeable optimism is exuded in his presence; on his face is a kind smile and gentle accepting eyes, yet there is a dark shadowy aspect to his demeanour when his past is mentioned. His face often centres in the frame but is blurred or blocked when he remembers his painful history. Fellag is a mesmerising performer and coupled with amazing performances from Nélisse and Néron completing the human drama.

The disillusioned young students and the shaken immigrant teacher are equally important to each other. The film is a remarkabletestament to the kindness of strangers and how the simplest of gestures can change lives. Monsieur Lazhar is the kind of film that makes the cinema worthwhile, romantic but realistic; it is a beautiful near flawless wonder.

Thanks go to the Filmhouse Edinburgh for press access

There is a line spoken early on in Dark Shadows by the youngest character that implies a fifteen year old girl masturbates. It’s an odd, callous moment, and such ‘humour’ is symptomatic of the film as a whole: it’s not especially funny; it doesn’t fit in with anything that has come before or after; it’s disconcertingly crude; it’s the start of largely terrible treatment towards women in the film that continues throughout; and it’s a moment that makes you wonder what the hell Tim Burton was thinking.

Dark Shadows‘ biggest issue is that it doesn’t know what it wants to be. The intro shows Sleepy Hollow era Burton trying desperately to break out, but this soon gives way to a fish out of water comedy as the 18th century vampire tries to grasp the strange world of 1970s America. Gothic horror and comedy can work well together, but instead of treading the line with finesse Burton flops wetly between the two, creating an awkward melange of high camp, low comedy and middling family saga and failing to be effective in any of these areas. One or two laughs are not enough to forgive a glut of dead weight jokes and non-entities of scenes that come from nowhere and go nowhere. The result is that the whole film is dull and plodding.

But, I hear you all cry, Tim Burton’s films are not about the plot, they are all about style! Such arguments do apply to the director’s finest work – Big Fish is a whimsical and light story that is brought to life by the sunny, fantastical way it is shot. Here, however, the style is as vague and undefined as the plot, the majority of scenes bathed in a grey murk, with occasional brightness from primary colours breaking in. There is no inventiveness here, nothing definitive or especially engaging about the aesthetic of the film. Whilst it is a refreshing break from the horrendous CGI gunk that was Alice in Wonderland, one longs for the offbeat beauty of Edward Scissorhands, or something a little more refined like Ed Wood. It’s not even ugly, it’s just totally forgettable.

The film as a whole would also be merely forgettable were it not for a hateful streak of misogyny that sticks uncomfortably in the mind after the credits have rolled. The aforementioned joke shows a worryingly mean streak towards Chloe Moretz’s Carolyn in particular (a character who is served especially poorly by the script), but it seems that every woman in the film is some kind of liar, witch or somehow deserving of death (that is, unless they are there for something sexual). This is possibly the work of writer Seth Grahame Smith, adding a vile aftertaste to an otherwise merely boring film. Either way, it is totally unwanted and unnecessary, particularly in something aimed at younger audiences.

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when Tim Burton became so rubbish – he’s not actually made many truly bad films, but you can see his decline into self parody round about the enjoyable Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Up until Alice in Wonderland, however, he was still churning out decent films that had stories and heart and were visually interesting. It perhaps pre-emptive to say that Burton has now hit rock bottom, but it is difficult to see how he could get any worse than this.

BACK WITH ADDED BITE!

To celebrate the release of True Blood Season 4 on Monday 21^st May, we’re giving you the chance to win the complete fourth season on DVD!

The sexy, spooky and wildly entertaining TV series returns with TRUE BLOOD: THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON released on DVD and Blu-ray on 21 MAY 2012, from HBO Home Entertainment. Bursting with even more charisma and allure, satisfy your addiction and get sucked in right from the very start as the Complete Season 1 – 4 box set is also released on both formats.

Mixing romance, suspense and mystery with a taste for humour, TRUE BLOOD: THE FOURTH SEASON takes place in the not-too-distant future. Vampires have ventured out of the coffin thanks to the invention of a synthetic blood drink meaning they no longer need humans as a nutritional source – but is that enough to stop everyone?

In the latest spell-binding series, Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) finds herself entangled in a supernatural love triangle where she must decide between Bill (Stephen Moyer), the new Vampire King of Mississippi and Eric (Alexander Skarsgård), who is not the Viking he once was. However, are there bigger dilemmas on the horizon? When a charismatic Witch named Marnie (Fiona Shaw) threatens to overpower the Vampires once and for all, her Coven of white witches and mediums tempt Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis), Tara (Rutina Wesley) and Jesus (Kevin Alejandro) with other worldly powers.

As old alliances crumble and new relationships form, Season 4 of True Blood proves that nobody’s safe when there’s magic in the air.

The fourth Season arrives on Blu-ray and DVD May 21^st. Available on iTunes.

For your chance to win, simply answer this question:

Season Four features a charismatic witch – what is her name?

A)     Marnie

B)      Carnie

C)      Armani

If you think you know just email your answer to alex@frontrowreviews.co.uk. Good luck!

View our competition Terms and Conditions. This competition closes on June 5th.

Richard Ayoade, Screenwriter/director/actor is working on his second feature film after 2011′s Submarine managed critical success if not box office. Ayoade begins filming ‘The Double’, a script he wrote with Avi Korine, on May 20th with stars Jesse Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska attached.

At the beginning of the Duplass brothers’ latest feature Jeff, who lives at home, Jeff Thompkins (Jason Segel) is philosophising. Speaking into a Dictaphone he contemplates the mysteries of the cosmos and worries when his fate will arrive. Finishing and clicking off the record button of the device Jeff smiles to himself, betraying a faint sense wisdom in a search for answers to the significant questions of his life. The camera then pulls out to reveal Jeff sitting on the toilet, in the midst of what seems to be a very long yet tranquil passing of his excrement. This scene sets the tone for the film, an ethereal and mystical wondering of fate and coincidence that is light hearted enough not to seem sanctimonious or indecently sanguine.

Much of the praise must be given to  Segel, he could appear self-importantly smug but he carries his performance deftly to achieve the aforementioned balance of profundity and humour. He is mellow enough to appear constantly stoned but becomes energised and effervescent when the mood, or sign, takes him. Segel has found a plain in which this is all very serious, pertaining to the fragile mind of his character that needs to be occupied in this way.

Jeff is a slacker who as the title suggests, still lives in his mother’s basement. He appears preoccupied with the movie Signslooking for significance in even the most incidental of occurrences. His ramblings are random and nonsensical until the revelation that his family lost their father when Jeff and his elder brother Pat (Ed Helms) were adolescents. Pat seems far more successful having a job, a wife and a Porsche but his life is far from perfect. Pat is the straight-laced ‘normal guy’ to Jeff’s lazy stoner, the two colliding and then working together in cataclysmic harmony.

Meanwhile the pair’s mother Sharon (Susan Sarandon) is having issues of her own. On top of the frustration of a son unable to shift an incumbent stupor and dealing with the death of her husband she now faces approaches from an unnamed source in her workplace. In the genius of the Duplass Brother’s story, this along with the brother’s fractious reconnection all happens in the space of one day in sun-kissed Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The script is filled with nuggets of gold, Pat’s awkward admission to buying a Porsche he can’t afford to his wife over the breakfast table is a testament to Helms’ ability to milk cringe worthy moments until the viewer feels the need to cower in the corner of the cinema, rocking back and forth calling for their mothers. Diggin’ a hole doesn’t begin to cover it.

The Duplass’ aren’t just ‘point and shoot’ merchants either. They capture the unfolding drama tenderly and voyeuristically with a nice mix of short zoom-ins and shaky drawing away from their characters to get the angle that captivates the tone in a single frame, if only for a split second. This style stops the film from collapsing under the weight of its messages, despite attempting to achieve a blissful awakening for its characters; it never comes off as being too high-minded.

While Jeff, who lives at home is not revelatory it proves that there is a niche that the Duplass’ could fill, an upbeat film that doesn’t run in the usual sickly sweet formula, one for the realists. In what is a strangely life affirming tale Jeff… manages to make such a simple trick as familial reconciliation seem refreshing and vital.

Thanks to the Cameo Picturehouse Edinburgh for press Access 

onedotzero is an international cultural agency at the forefront of contemporary, digital arts, design and entertainment delivering innovation across all forms of moving image, interactive and new media arts.

The organisation, founded in 1996, is known for representing a diverse array of artistic endeavour via the annual onedotzero_adventures in motion festival and associated touring. It has a cross media and collaborative approach attuned to technological advances and fast paced change within digital arts and the contemporary culture landscape.

Front Row Reviews have covered the last 2 festivals in depth – you can read our coverage here.

In addition to the festival and live events around the world, a series of dvd’s have been released over the years highlighting the best of the work from the festivals. Here’s a trailer for onedotzero_select dvd 5.

We have 1 boxset of the first 5 select dvds to give away!

Closing Date: Monday 28th May 2012, 5pm

To count yourself in with a chance of winning, join us on facebook and twitter – then just send us an email with your name, contact details and the answer to this simple question:

When was the first onedotzero select dvd released?
a) 1998
b) 2003
c) 2007

Email you answer to competitions@frontrowreviews.co.uk Good luck!

MORE INFO:
onedotzero – adventures in moving image website
onedotzero – facebook
onedotzero – twitter
onedotzero – vimeo

View our competition Terms and Conditions

In the distance a train cruises over elevated tracks.  A car drives down the A11 descending to ground level. To the left expressionless tower blocks, to the right a London that has so far survived the demolitions of the Olympic dream. This is the world of JG Ballard and it is here at Sugarhouse Studios that we find a screening of Chris Petit’s cult classic Radio On.

The film opens with the cold grandeur of David Bowie’s Heroes. We move though a house. As we come to the bathroom the singing switches from English to German and we discover a dead body no longer aware of the blaring radio.

Here is the catalyst for our lead character Robert B to embark upon a very British road trip across the concrete rainbow of London’s Westway and out into the abyss of motorways and time-warp B roads.

This is the 1970’s in inky black and white. The often stunning images show a world in limbo seen through the windscreen, a land of sparse landscapes dominated by the road.

Robert B is a blank faced biscuit factory DJ (what a job!) who uses music to accompany him on this solitary journey. From Stiff Record’s lo-fi wonders Ian Dury and Wreckless Eric to the pulsating futurism of Kraftwerk, the soundtrack propels this film and expresses the emotions that this man hides so deep.

A co-production with Wim Wenders company Road Movies Filmproduktion, Radio On also features German characters but is most notable in its European approach to the story with a similar contemplative beauty to Wenders own Alice in the Cities. There are other filmic touchstones in the dreamlike drive from Solaris and the epic jukeboxes of Chungking Express but Radio On stands alone.

As Petit explained in the illuminating post screening Q & A, his film was in part an ode to a Modernism ignored by British cinema. It now represents a one-off, a missed opportunity for homegrown film to embrace the director, to delve inside, and to look out on the lights of a sleeping city and see a sky full of stars.

Sugarhouse Studios are showing a series of films exploring British identity and mythology along with a smattering of American classics.

Very few successful writers of box office successes could veer so wildly off track without damaging their reputations but Dan O’Bannon does just that. The Alien screenwriter takes a breath from serious sci-fi horror to enjoy a low budget rampage with zombies in The Return of the Living Dead, one of those 80’s horrors that looks terrible, sounds worse but manages to come together with such a level of tongue in cheek humour that it becomes enjoyable.

O’Bannon’s zombie romp is sound-tracked by the inimitable The Cramps securing its place in punk gorefest history, one of the definitive movies of its genre; it has a suitably contrived set up to boot. When clumsy warehouse workers Frank (James Karen) and trainee Freddy (Thom Matthews) crack open a strange container sent by the US military they are sent choking and coughing to the floor. Little did they know that this mysterious gas has the power to wake the dead, and make them hungry for brains, the two along with warehouse owner Bert (Clu Gulager), crematorium worker Ernie (Don Calfa) and a group of local misfit youths must find a way to kill something that is already dead. How do you do that you may ask? It’s not a bad question Bert.

Clu Gulager shows his zombie-killing chops, though not as insatiably bad-ass as Woody Harrelson in Zombieland, he can still send an undead head flying with the use of his trusty baseball bat. He is the one that keeps a cool head when faced with a growing armada of zombies intent on supping of his cerebellum. The dialogue is deliciously funny, O’Bannon knows full well that this is not a serious affair but with Gulager taking every measure necessary to rid the world of this plague of the undead the laughs come thick and fast. A heavy dose of cartoonish violence with a sprinkling of witty jokes mean that this film can be enjoyed by more than just genre lovers, but it will be far more enjoyable without a cinephile stick in the bum.

The new DVD release comes complete with hours of bonus features including a conversation with the maestro himself, Dan O’Bannon, a look at the origins of the living dead with John A. Russo and a discussion about the effects used in the making of the living dead.

The Return of the Living Dead is released on DVD on 4^th June 2012 courtesy of Second Sight

Your enjoyment of The Raid may well depend upon your tolerance for violence, and as such this review is very much the opinion of this writer – any number of readers are likely to enjoy it far more than I did: I am, perhaps, just a little too squeamish. For The Raid is one of the most relentlessly violent, action packed films ever to explode onto a cinema screen, throwing the viewer right into the mêlée within the first 15 minutes. And once it gets going, it doesn’t really stop, moving at a (literally, in some cases) breakneck pace that only slows up once or twice to let you catch your breath. Although don’t rest easy, as more violence is just around the corner.

The good news is that if you like your action movies hardcore it doesn’t get any better than this. Director Gareth Evans, along with choreographer and star Iko Uwais, have upped the ante on every fight scene ever with the sheer inventiveness and variety with which they approach the many, many brawls featured. Smashed light bulbs, truncheons, barrels and shattered doors are all used as weapons at various points, not to mention gravity which often proves to be deadliest. But this is not Jackie Chan slapstick: every punch, slice and rip hurts, not a single move feels arbitrary. Using the dilapidated old tower block itself as a character, the variety of settings – a drug den, a cramped corridor and two rooms on top of each other – ensures that although the film consists almost entirely of fighting, it rarely feels repetitive or unoriginal.

Part of the appeal of these scenes is the enigmatic figure of Iko Uwais. Playing probably the most badass rookie cop ever, his young, innocent face and restrained performance somehow add power to the violence he is able to accomplish. Also, as the one beacon of light in a tower block full of darkness, it’s essential for the film’s survival to have someone to root for. There’s not a whole lot of ACTING for him to do, but he handles his few scenes where he isn’t kneeing someone to death well.

Yet at the end of the day this film is just one big fight, and lots of people end up dead. Some readers may be salivating with anticipation at the thought of a 100 minute battle between cops and drug lords, for others it could just end up being nauseating. It is a fight (mostly) of good versus bad, but that barely takes away from the fact that our entertainment is being provided by people being hurt in several inventive ways. It’s at times incredibly difficult to stomach, and it is so unrelenting that one begins to question if there is a purpose to it all. It feels remarkably shallow and exploitative to craft a film entirely around people dying in a variety of ways, and whilst many will not have a problem with that, I found it impossible to enjoy. By around about the thirty seventh stabbing (probably somewhere like twenty minutes in) I began to wonder what the point of it all was. 80 minutes later I was still in the dark.

To celebrate the release of Jean Renoir’s LA GRANDE ILLUSION, out now on Blu-ray and DVD, we’ve got 3 copies of the beautiful new 75th Anniversary Edition DVD to give away courtesy of StudioCanal. La Grande Illusion continues to be one of the greatest deconstructions of war ever committed to the screen and is a poetic and poignant meditation on class, the nature of conflict and the death of the old European order.

Aristocratic Captain de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay), mechanic Lieutenant Marechal (Jean Gabin) and wealthy Jewish banker Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio) are all thrown together, despite their vastly different backgrounds, as prisoners of the Germans in World War I. Separated by a successful escape, they are recaptured and reunited in an imposing fortress commanded by German aristocrat Van Rauffenstein (Erich Von Stroheim). Boeldieu and Rauffenstein strike up a friendship that reflects their belonging to a cultural and social elite that they both know is on the way out. However this rapport soon confuses loyalties and threatens Boeldieu’s allegiances to the others, with tragic consequences.

To be in with a chance of winning just tell us who directed La Grande Illusion?

a) François Truffaut

b) Jean Renoir

c) Michael Bay

If you think you know just email your answer to alex@frontrowreviews.co.uk. Good luck!

View our competition Terms and Conditions. This competition closes on May 30th.