Magic in the Moonlight.

How can the same man direct and write such an ultra award winning film like Blue Jasmine (2013) and then direct and write such “sugar coated claptrap” as Magic in the Moonlight (2014). I suppose it’s my fault expecting so much from Woody Allen’s new project, why was I so surprised that he had descended back to the level of the disappointing Midnight in Paris (2011) or his labouring farce You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010). Even the normally competent Colin Firth could not pull the amateur script out of its cheesy mire!

 

Even the beautiful settings can't save this dreadful film!

Set in 1928 the story involves a globally famous illusionist (Firth) who has been asked by a friend to expose a medium who has duped a very rich family who reside in indecent spender on the Cote d’Azur.  Both the son and his mother believe that Sophie Baker, a very weak Emma Stone, has supernatural powers, the son Brice, played by a ukulele strumming Hamish Linklater, offers to marry her and promises her personnel riches beyond her wildest dreams while mother Grace, a very disappointing performance by the normally excellent Jacki Weaver, promises Sophie the money to set up a school for psychics if she can put her in touch with her dead husband.  The story revolves around whether Sofie will be exposed and will she fall in love with the misanthrope who has been sent to unmask her. The real question is do we really care, none of Allen characters are anywhere near likable - even Sophie!

 

"Please don't cast me in another Woody Allen film"

The beautiful settings can’t disguise the weaknesses in this dreadful movie, I’m sure that you would get a far better production of this quite stagey narrative from your local amateur dramatic group at the church hall, the acting is as frightful as the weak script. Give this a miss!!

Silver Linings Playbook

The film provides great chemistry between Lawrence and Cooper. 

I must be getting old, why, I hear you say? Well, I actually went to see a romantic comedy with a happy ending and thoroughly enjoyed it!!!!  But before you all get too excited I’d better tell you that the director of the award winning The Fighter (2010) and the brilliant quirky comedy I Heart Huckabees (2004) David O Russell’s latest film Silver Linings Playbook (2012) does in fact deal with problems associated with mental illness, maybe not quite Family Life (1971) but a very agreeable picture all the same.

The film boasts a very talented cast that manages, with Russell’s directive powers, to walk the line between romance, comedy and a dark psychological drama. Based on the 2008 novel of the same name by Matthew Quick is stars Jennifer Lawrence (Winters Bone 2010) who plays Tiffany, the young widow of a police officer who was run down and killed by a car while helping a stranger change his wheel after a puncture. Unable to get over his death she suffers from an addictive dysfunction, which has resulted in her getting the sack from her job after having sex with all the staff, male and female!  Pat Solitano, played by the Hangover (2009) star Bradley Cooper, is a former school teacher who has spent the last eight months in a psychiatric hospital suffering from a bipolar disorder brought on when he came home from work early one afternoon and found his wife Nikki naked in the shower with a fellow teacher and severely beat the man. Discharged, he is sent home to live with his parents, Dolores (Australian actress Jacki Weaver best known as the gangland matriarch in Animal Kingdom (2010)) and his gambling addictive father Pat Senior (an on form Robert De Niro) with the proviso that he diligently takes his medication and does not enter the exclusion zone around his estranged wife. It’s when he meets Tiffany and she invites him to partner her in a dance completion, in aid of a police charity, that the psychological sparks begin to fly.

Mum (Jacki Weaver) and Dad (Robert De Nero)

The chemistry between Lawrence and Cooper forms the backbone of this hugely watchable movie, but all members of the cast, even the minor one’s are excellent. Russell is a director of some credit who is not afraid to tackle underlying serious subjects without being pretentious or depressing. A film that’s head and shoulders above the normal material found under the rom-com banner and for once I can sit through a feel good movie without requiring a sick bag. Could be in the running for an Oscar nomination?

Animal Kingdom

We come to the end of another eight-film season of the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club with the award winning Australian “family” crime drama Animal Kingdom (2010). Directed and written by David Michod, his debut feature film, its loosely inspired by the real life Pettingill family including their matriarch fondly known as “Granny Evil” Pettingill, Melbourne’s answer to Violet Kray, and also the Walsh Street police shootings that occurred in Melbourne in 1988. Michod film offers a look beyond the gloss of the city normal life to its criminal underbelly, and how well he does it.

Granny loves her boys.

This is a strong character movie that puts your in the mind of The Wire. The film opens with a women and a 17 year-old boy sitting in front of a TV, the women appears to be a sleep, then the medic’s arrive and we learn that this is the boys mother and she’s died from a heroin overdose. The boy, Joshua Cody, is very laid back about this tragedy and telephones his grandmother Janine ‘Smurf’ Cody, whom it appears he has had no contact for many years; she agrees to take the lad in. It’s at his “loving” granny’s that he eventually meets his three uncles. The eldest is Andrew Pope Cody a psychopath on the run from the law, drug dealing Craig Cody and the dim witted Darren along with their associate Barry Brown bank robber and dabbler in stocks and shares: all four are career criminals. The corrupt local law enforcement officers take the law into their own hands and kill Barry Brown in cold blood, it’s this action that triggers the chain of events that follows.   

Make no mistake about it, this is one superb Australian movie, one that will thrill and hold your attention. The main players are exceptional and the three that deserve a special mention are Jacki Weaver, who was nominated for a Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at this years Oscars for her portrayal of blond, brassy and slightly incestuous grandma. Ben Mendelsohn, who can be seen in Baz Luhrmann 2008 masterpiece Australia and the brilliant Beautiful Kate (2009), plays the evil Pope Cody. The best-known face is probably Guy Pearce who plays what seems to be the only honest cop in the film, Detective Nathan Leckie tasked with bringing in our criminal tribe. The violence is handled discreetly, music is sparingly used but the main reasons to make sure you don’t miss this movie is its strong story and Jacki Weavers performance.

Link to Beautiful Kate.

http://brianmatthews60.blogspot.com/search/label/Beautiful%20Kate