Les Misérables

I go into this blind, although not blindfolded (there’s a thought). I have no idea about the story, as I haven’t seen either the musical, any of the previous film versions or read Victor Hugo's book. Naturally I knew there was going to be a lot of singing in it or rather, as is often the case, elongated talking. Something I’ve experienced before, the awful Sweeney Todd springs to mind, but that is often better than sitting through a singing frenzy, like say Evita. OMG I’ve done so many musicals, I sound like an expert.

Set in post first Revolution France, the film tells the story of prisoner 24601 Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) who stole a piece of bread and got sent to do hard labour for 19 years. Well, it turned into 19 years after several escape attempts. He is then released on parole which he breaks. He then steals from the only man who wants to help him, a priest. He gets caught but the priest forgives him, tells him to keep his ill gotten gains, as long as he makes something of his life. We fast-forward in time and I reach for Wikipedia, I’m confused already because Hugh Jackman doesn’t look like Hugh Jackman.

That ‘making something of his life’ translates to taking in Anne Hathaway, which is way beyond the call of duty even for an ex-convict. Give that man a royal pardon please but no, he is set to be constantly hounded for the rest of his life by a rather jobsworth of a police inspector called Javert (Russell Crowe).

Hathaway’s character Fantine gets sacked from her job for reasons I didn't fully understand, then sells not only the desirable bits of her body but also her hair and teeth to feed her child. The really odd thing is that someone wanted to buy these. Becoming a prostitute for money I can understand, that's a service that sells, but hair and teeth? Hmmm. Is this just an excuse to get a teeth pulling scene in, which is a good analogy... Meanwhile I’m still trying to work out why the supposedly reformed Valjean was hanging around the red light district in the first place.

Thankfully within minutes of being on screen Hathaway has died, again not quite sure of what, without us even finding out anything of note about her. With her dying on his watch, Valjean’s task to make something of his life is already looking a bit ropey. This is why I guess he decided to take care of Fantine’s daughter Cosette.

Then we’re into the lesser known second French Revolution. Which I’m sure there must have been more to than some students piling a load of furniture up in a side street whilst they were between lecturers. Amongst them, and clearly lost in France, is a little street urchin kid with a worryingly broad Cockney accent.

Mid-Revolution the rather feeble Marius (Eddie Redmayne) sees Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) and instantly falls in love. They don’t actually speak, words are not necessary. Unbelievably Marius hasn’t noticed the far more gorgeous female beside him, her friend and his, Éponine (Samantha Barks). Who would opt for the incredibly plain Cosette over her, not me. It can’t be because of her personality because; well they still haven’t spoken to each other. No wonder Éponine is so upset. Forget him love, he’s into precious, boring, rich girls who wouldn’t be seen dead on the frontline, you’re too good for him girl.

Valjean is initially worried Marius is going to take his adopted Daughter away from him, for about twenty seconds that is, then clearly he realises how expensive Daughters are and changes his mind. Suddenly he is so intent on getting her married off that he carries the now wounded Marius through the sewers to safety.

Only to come up against the mad singing policeman again. Finally, having been shown mercy himself several times, Javert has a moment of enlightenment and lets them go. Then promptly throws himself off a bridge, still singing. You couldn’t make it up. Well clearly someone did, didn’t they Mr Hugo but I guess if you’d précised your own book, which clocks in at 57 hour 51 minutes on audiobook (I checked), you’d have perhaps done it a bit differently.

Moments later, Valjean dies too, not that we even knew he was ill and that’s the problem really. We don’t know much at all. Les Mis isn’t into character development and therefore we know jack all about everyone.

It’s a shame because I got the impression there was a really good story in there somewhere fighting to get out but there was so much plot missing that it simply didn’t make any sense. Clearly they expected people to know the story and/or had seen the musical. It's has, however, made me want to see one of the film versions (with no singing obviously) to find out more.

Still, it wasn’t as bad as I expected and although lightweight, it was broadly entertaining. Cast wise, my expectations of Russell Crowe were that low, I actually thought he did alright. Hugh Jackman was ok too, while Anne Hathaway was, as you’d expect, distinctly average. Helena Bonham-Carter was as brilliantly maniacal as ever and along with Sacha Baron Cohen brightened up the whole affair with their comical supporting roles. Ah Corgette, how we laughed. 

Both have musical previous of course, in the aforementioned Sweeney Todd and are much better in this. Meanwhile Eddie Redmayne looked simply lost, Amanda Seyfried was, shall we say, very hard on the ears and Samantha Barks, well, I’ll have nothing said against her.Cue gratuitous photo.

Singing wise, the men sang low which worked, the women sang high, which generally didn't. The street urchin child showed them all how to do it, albeit in Cockney. There were also a few actors who had done the stage show, good on you Sammy, and you could tell.

Clearly Les Misérables is a film you’ll either love or hate. If you aren't a fan of musicals, skip it. It’s a total mystery to me as to why the score has been such a hit. If you are a fan of a decent plot, err, I would definitely skip it too.

Overall I feel rather proud that I got through it and if they were selling ‘I survived Les Misérables’ t-shirts outside, I would have bought one.

Chasing Ice

'Chasing Ice’ is a documentary about a chap called James Balog and his Extreme Ice Survey team who go out to photograph the melting glaciers by using automatic cameras, set to take shots over a long period of time. The resulting time lapse scenes are as equally impressive as they are shocking, showing the rapid retreat of the glaciers.

The film does preach a bit about climate change and Balog has an obsession to document it. That as well as a passion for photography and a dodgy knee. He has my sympathy there. It’s a knee on which he’s had several operations. He ignores his physio too and we see him out on the ice on his crutches at one point. This along with the problems they had setting up the cameras in the harsh environments of Greenland, Alaska and Canada, make the film more interesting for me.

I suppose on the climate change front the film never really gets to grips with the issue, other than providing irrefutable photographic evidence that it exists but doesn’t prove that it is man-made. While, if it is, they don’t suggest anything to us that we can do about it. Cracking photography though.

Django Unchained

Set in the pre-Civil War Deep South, Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’ is a Western and the story of a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) who becomes, well, unchained. He is set free by a German dentist turned bounty hunter Dr. King Shultz (Christoph Waltz). He needs Django’s help to identify the three guys who are his next bounty and were Django’s previous owners. 

Schultz quickly discovers that Django has all the right attributes for the bounty hunting game, basically he’s good at killing people. So they team up and Shultz takes him under his wing. Shultz though makes Django a promise, that once the winter is over, together they will rescue Django’s wife from slavery too.

Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), Django's missus, is owned by Calvin J. Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) and works on his plantation home of Candieland. Which he is assisted in the running of by his head slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), who’s somewhat of a turncoat for the anti slavery cause.

Tarantino films of course, divide opinion. If you like Tarantino, you’ll like scenes like the one with the KKK arguing for a good ten minutes about not being able to see out of the holes in their pillow case masks before one member rides off in a huff because his wife made them all and feels it’s unappreciated. Or you won’t.

You’ll like the gratuitous, over the top bloodshed. Or you won’t. 

You’ll like the prodigious use of the word nigger, which I assume he gets away with because it’s relevant to the time period but then again he’s got previous with this, having used the word in most of his films, just less often. Or you won’t.

Obviously it’s also got his other trademarks. Such as a great musical score, great acting, a character driven plot and someone losing their testicles. So you’ll like all that as well. Or you won’t.

You might even like Dicaprio, who it has to be said plays probably his best role ever and he talks Tarantino-speak like he’s done it his entire career. Or you won’t. 

It’s still good to see him shot though. You’ll like that.

So yes it’s a good film but I would say it’s not one of his cleverest and it’s a little too long. Certainly for our neighbours who had to make an awful lot of bathroom visits. The last half an hour seemed an unnecessary way of resolving things that could and should have already been resolved but perhaps Tarantino had forgotten to write himself into the script, so had to quickly fit his cameo in, as well as a bit more violence.

 

One final thought. Django is your typical deadeye movie gunman. He’s always first to the trigger and never gets shot no matter how many bullets are fired at him. He goes off on multiple killing sprees in the name of revenge, even if his victim’s association to him is tenuous. You would have thought that all this would have been on very dodgy ground considering several incidents worldwide in recent times including the most recent in Connecticut but no, apparently not. Just saying. You’ll like that. Or you won’t.

Sightseers

It’s very rare that I find a film funny but ‘Sightseers’ was murderously funny, literally. Tina (Alice Lowe) is a mummy’s girl but she steps out of her sheltered life when her new boyfriend Chris (Steve Oram) offers to show her his world, Yorkshire mainly, by caravan. She is thrilled, her mother is appalled. Her mother doesn’t approve of Chris; she doesn’t know how right she is.

So the two set off for a romantic sightseeing getaway, him supposedly for inspiration for a book he's writing, her to get over the death of her beloved terrier Poppy who met a grisly but accidental death, on the end of a knitting needle. First stop Crich Tramway Museum.

Then from there, the road trip continues to the delights of Blue John Cavern, the Ribblehead Viaduct and of course Keswick’s Pencil Museum. Whilst in the evenings their ‘erotic odyssey’ is consummated in a rocking caravan, for which Tina has knitted her own 'sexy' underwear. Yep it’s another Rom-Com.

The only problem is that Chris harbours an angry streak and a low tolerance of other people. When someone threatens to report Chris to the National Trust his response is swift, deadly and quite unsettling at first for the viewer but you soon get used to it as several folk quickly breach Chris’s low threshold for annoying habits. Some of the scenes are not for the faint hearted, particularly if you’re in charge of PR for the National Trust.

When Chris backs the caravan over someone who picked the wrong van to drop their ice cream wrapper by and subsequently has to wash the blood off the wheel arches, Tina cottons onto the fact that her new boyfriend literary ambitions are just a sideline to his serial killer ones.

She doesn’t seem unduly fazed by this discovery, declares herself his ‘muse’ and joins in; cue Soft Cell's 'Tainted Love' as the two of them leave a trail of dead bodies across several northern counties. Well it was either that or return to her overbearing mother. She even acquires herself a new dog to replace Poppy.

She does more than join in though, she takes over, which just has the effect of heightening Chris's insecurity which doesn’t aid the path of true love much and drives him into friendship with an equally weird chap who travels with a bicycle drawn ‘carapod’.

‘Sightseers’ is written by Oram and Lowe themselves both of who put in chillingly convincing performances. It’s full of understated dark humour, my favourite kind, with some of the most disturbing deaths you’ll ever see and it’s also very British.

Yes it's pulpy, doesn't really go anywhere and has only really one joke but some films are better that way. It’s also smart enough to know that once the joke has run its course its time to wind up the story, which is done with an equally blunt finale.

See this and you'll never be able to look a caravaner in the eye again. Loved it, film of the year so far... well ok, so it’s only 5th January.

Safety Not Guaranteed

This film is based around an actual classified ad about a chap looking for someone to travel back in time with him.

Presumably it was placed as a joke but the film has a journalist called Jeff (Jake Johnson) investigating the ad, to find out who is behind it but more importantly to find out how crazy they are. Jeff takes with him two less than eager interns Darius (Aubrey Plaza) and Arnau (Karan Soni).

They can do most of the leg work because Jeff's own interest is limited. He has an ulterior motive for going; he intends to go back in time himself because the town they are heading for is where his ex-girlfriend from college lives. He doesn't need a time machine to attempt to start up with her again, just a good excuse.

Once there the three of them take the odd approach of not actually replying to the ad but instead stalking the guy by finding out where he lives and works, then asking him outright if they can be his time travel partner. When Jeff has no success, Darius has a go.

Kenneth (Mark Duplass) is undoubtedly the local misfit but Darius finds him oddly appealing and the more time she spends with him, the more of a connection she forms with him. He's going back to 2001 to save a girlfriend who was killed in a car accident. Only she wasn't and as we find out, still lives nearby. Darius has her own reasons for wanting to travel back, to prevent the death of her Mother.

Meanwhile Jeff achieves his aim, gets to hook up with his ex, beds her and then falls out with her. Making it all a bit pointless plot wise. There's another sub-plot concerning Arnau. He's painted as your typical nerd in horned-rimmed glasses who is uncomfortable with women. So Jeff sets him up with some girls.

Although largely unnecessary these diversions follow the same sort of theme e.g. looking at relationships involving people who are quite different e.g. nerds, misfits/weirdoes, damaged females or annoying jerks in Jeff’s case, saying perhaps we should just accept people as they are. This does take screen time from the main story, which, to be honest, is the old one of where the damaged female falls for the misfit. Yep, I've just duped myself into seeing another RomCom.

This one though does have good characters. It's also better written and has more to offer than what you might expect. The time travel angle is more a façade for finding oneself and putting right past mistakes.

There is a time machine but we don't see it until the end. Thankfully. Which means the film doesn’t take too big a leap into the unbelievable. Kenneth stretches out his hand for Darius to join him aboard, asking her to decide whether he’s a genius or simply completely nuts... He may be both.

Finally kudos to Mark Duplass, who not only starred but co-produced and supplied the song to accompany the closing credits. A busy guy.

Silver Linings Playbook

We're at Cineworld tonight on a ‘2 for 1’. Not that it is easy to get. They won’t accept our e-tickets because their scanner is broke and send us on a second gym workout of the day around the helter skelter insides of the Cornerhouse. Bit of a farce really.

We get in eventually, late but far earlier than most of the other customers, many of which arrive up to half an hour after the advertised start. They are obviously more frequent Cineworld visitors than us because they know exactly how long the tedious adverts go on for.

Luckily tonight’s file ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ is well worth the wait. Written and directed by David O Russell, who made last year's memorable 'The Fighter', it is based on a book by Matthew Quick.

In it we follow Pat (Bradley Cooper) as he moves back in with his parents after spending eight months in a mental institution because of a violent outburst that occurred when he found a history teacher in his shower. Which isn't too outburst worthy until you realise this wife was in there too and their wedding song was playing on the stereo. A perfectly understandable reaction if you ask me.

Although now diagnosed as bipolar Pat is determined to get his life back on track and that includes reconciliation with his wife, Nikki (Brea Bee). There’s one major obstacle to this, she has taken out a restraining order against him. This though is something he thinks he can work round, just got to stay positive and look for the silver linings in life.

His recovery doesn’t seem to be going that well when he bursts into his parents’ bedroom at 4am ranting about Ernest Hemingway's failure to provide a happy ending to his novel ‘A Farewell to Arms’ before flinging the book through the (closed) bedroom window.

He may however be saner than his father (Robert De Niro), who himself has been prone to the odd violent outburst, getting himself banned from attending the Philadelphia Eagles games. He is totally OCD about the Eagles, bets on their games (he’s a bookie), wants his Pat to watch them with him as a good luck charm and to further Father-Son bonding.

A dinner party organised by his friend Ronnie, and Ronnie’s wife Veronica... introduces him to his saviour, although he wasn’t to know that then. This is the rather tasty Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence aka Katniss from The Hunger Games). She too has issues to deal with after the death of her husband. Seriously depressed by such a tragic event, her method of coping was to sleep her way through eleven colleagues at her office. That includes a woman, a fact that fascinates Pat. As he walks her back to her parents' converted garage where she lives, she offers him instant gratuitous sex but he is appalled and declines, one would assume because he's still hung up on his wife.

They forge a very unconventional friendship, often while jogging/arguing around the local neighbourhood. Him in his bin liner, her in an ever increasing selection of interesting Lycra. Though Pat maintains his distance, Tiffany is certainly looking for more than friendship and she agrees to deliver a letter to Nikki on Pat’s behalf if he helps her out... by agreeing to be her partner in a dance contest.

OMG, don’t do that, don’t dance. My partner will think I've brought her to a rom-com. They do though, Pat figures that not only will this enable him to communicate with his estranged wife; it will also impress her and show her how well he is recovering.

I thought this film would be complex but it isn't. The film is exactly what you would expect from one about bipolar men, depressed women, OCD fathers, American Football and ballroom dancing with a nod to Hemingway but I didn't expect it to be romantic. Well at least it’s ripped up the rom-com rule book. Then bugger, there's a happy ending as well, as these two damaged souls heal each other through their dancing... sounds dreadful doesn’t it.

It’s a great film though, great dialogue and some really great scenes. It just goes to show that despite everything, despite the dancing, there’s a silver lining in all of us, and never mind how quirky/complicated/weird the girl is, don’t worry about it (n.b. they’re all like that).

Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper are both terrific. They are two central characters neither of which you want to throttle, which is a rarity these days. You care about what happens to them. The supporting cast is good too and it’s especially good to Robert De Niro with a great performance still in him.

Like Russell’s ‘The Fighter’ this surely will also be up for a few awards.

Ginger And Rosa

Ginger And Rosa is the story of two girls who were born on the same day in the same hospital in 1945 as WWII ended. The film implies that this was possibly even the very day the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The pair grow up as inseparable friends until we get to 1962 when, now 17, teenage hormones have to via for attention with the Cuban missile crisis, as once again the smell of nuclear warfare hangs in the air.

Ginger (Elle Fanning) is the daughter of a conscientious objector, Roland (Alessandro Nivola). Typically he’s now a lecturer, a part-time author writing books about ‘Freedom’ and rather smugly left wing. Ginger takes this all on board, follows the politics of the Cold War and spends a lot of time worrying about how many days they all have left to live.

Meanwhile Roland’s marriage to Natalie (Christina Hendricks) is on the rocks, so it’s easy for Ginger to take sides if she wants to. She chooses her father’s more ‘bohemian’ side, she adores him but has little time for her more straightforward mother.

He’s not a great role model and nor are the other adults in the film. Oliver Platt and Annette Bening appear as an American couple who influence Ginger into joining CND, going protesting and then consequently getting arrested. At least I think they’re supposed to be American as they don’t attempt to hide their accents. Timothy Spall meanwhile, has no accent problems.

Her bestest friend though, Rosa (Alice Englert), is the complete opposite and her home is already broken. She turns to religion and boys rather than politics but adores Ginger’s father as much as Ginger herself does.

Seemingly equally charmed by Ginger’s dad, Rosa starts sleeping with him, which understandably shatters the close friendship of the girls a touch. Whether Ginger agrees with her self-indulged Father’s belief in the 60’s mantra of free love or not, perhaps even Ginger realises that practising this idealism so close to home is a tad selfish and maybe perhaps his other mantra, saving the world, could have waited until after he’d saved his family? Or it may have gone over her head.

Ginger and Rosa are basically two teenage girls that you want to slap, nothing unusual there then, and then of course there’s a husband you probably want to slap as well. Well slap might be a bit too kind.

It’s an interesting film but more of a film about growing up in turbulent times than an enlightening piece about the changes taking place in the world at that time, about which it says little.

The acting is generally pretty good though, if you ignore the annoying fact they’ve imported so many American actors and their accents into a British film. Elle Fanning, a 13 year old playing a 17 year old, is impressive.