January Roundup
By Graham Taylor

January had a good assortment of films of both commercial and speciality releases (far ahead of last year’s wider appealing bunch.) Here’s my roundup of the seven films I caught this month, and my opinions on them.

NINE
Though a complete financial flop (and not popular with critics), Nine is a well acted, engaging musical that boasts a stellar turn from Daniel Day Lewis as Italian director Guido Contini, a man struggling to cope with the pressure of making a film that is destined to fail, as well as trying to juggles the demands of the numerous women in his life. The singing is good, but the acting is better. Marion Cotillard shines most as Guido’s long suffering wife, Luisa. Though the dialouge is not great in places, and the songs are forgettable, Nine is another flashy piece from Rob Marshall.
OVERALL GRADE: 7/10

DAYBREAKERS
Daybreakers is the perfect horror film; great storyline (vampires have taken over the world, but the blood supply is running out), good performances (Ethan Hawke finds a meaty role as lead research scientist Edward Dalton, looking for a blood substitute, or preferably a cure to the disease of being a vampire), super direction from Michael and Peter Spierig (look out for them in the future) and some good scares. For that, Daybreakers gets a 9/10 (the pacing is too flat in places.) As a personal preferrence, this isn’t tops on my list, as I don’t enjoy horror films much (too disgusting or too cliched, a bit of both with Daybreakers.) Still, this is the best horror film of in months and if you love horror, this is the film for you.
OVERALL GRADE: 6.5/10

IT’S COMPLICATED
Meryl Streep is a favourite of mine, but even she struggles to bring the laughs to It’s Complicated, an overly sentimental, ridiculously boring “comedy” from the queen of perfecction, Nancy Meyers. Streep plays Jane, an unhappily divorced woman who has a great life, nice house, good business etc. yet still wants more. After years of trying to avoid each other, Jane and her ex Jake (Alec Baldwin) reuinte and an affair begins. Things get complicated when Jane also falls for her architect Adam (a creepy Steve Martin.) The film is so unbelievable (everything in the world is beautiful, everyone has amazing skin despite being ancient etc.) and so misogynistic- can’t Jane stand on her own two feet forever without a man? There are odd funny moments, and Streep and John Kraninski are very good as Jane and her future her son in law. However, It’s another pompous, overlong, tedious piece from Meyers. A waste of some good talent.
OVERALL GRADE: 4.5/10

UP IN THE AIR
I wasn’t really looking forward to Up in the Air (mainly because Clooney disappointed in The Men who stare at Goats last November), but he excells with the super material here, playing Ryan Bingham, a corporate downsizer who is unwilling to let his flashy life go when his collegue, Natalie (Anna Kendrick) suggests they fire people over a conference call. Jason Reitman has mastered film making to perfection, and his knack of witty scripts is evident with Up in the Air; he and Sheldon Turner give an observant, raw screenplay that reflects the human side of an inhumane job. His directions skills continue to improve (the aerial shots are particularly breathtaking), yet it’s the cast who are the most worthy of the praise. Clooney is on exceptional form, and really deserves that Oscar, and Kendrick and Vera Farmiga also excell as the woman in Bingham’s life. This is an absolute treat.
OVERALL GRADE: 9/10

DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS?
The best way to describe Did you hear about the Morgans is entertaining trash; it’s terrible as a film (plot holes galore, cliches, pedestrian direction), yet it’s very moderate entertainment. Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker are both fun as a couple who are forced into a witness relocation programme to make sure that they are not seen by the person who just murdered their client. Fish out of water antics ensure, as they learn what really made them fall in love in the first place, having had some big difficulties in the relationship. You know what will happen in the end, and it’s not better than previous romantic comedies, but it isn’t the worst either. It’s not memorable, or particularly humorous, but the sarcastic feel is nice to see, and the cast look like they’re having a ball.
OVERALL GRADE: 6/10

THE ROAD
Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit McPhee are excellent as the Man and the Boy, a father and son heading for the South Coast of the USA to escape the post apocolyptic wasteland that the world has become. They must fend of the gangs, cannibals and starvation itself to keep themselves alive and stay together. The source material from Cormac McCarthy is such a fantasticaly visual novel, and the film captures that essence to perfection. Dark, macabre and yet hopeful in equal measure, this is never more than a captivating, if almost unbearably devastating film to watch. The film is something to be respected more than enjoy, and one viewing will certainly be enough to take, but this is a very good piece of storytelling.
OVERALL GRADE: 8/10

CRUDE
This documentary follows the case against Chevron, a fuel company who are involved in a $27bn court case against the indigenious population in Edcaudor who want compansation for all the damage Chevron allegedly did to these towns. The one aspect that makes Crude a good documentary is that it isn’t one sided. It’s obvious who the filmmakers favour, but they give Chevron the chance to have their say and prove their case. The thing that makes it a bad documentary is they’ve picked the most awful people to speak for Chevron. The film also seems to veer off into other directions from the central point a lot of the time, and with so many people to get to know, it’a difficult to warm to any fully, as you don’t really know them. The point of the documentary is to understand what these people have been through, yet it only scrapes the surface. But this is still very engaging and interesting to watch, as the trial continues today.
OVERALL GRADE: 6/10

Next month: Precious: Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, The Princess and the Frog, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Astro Boy, Invictus, Youth in Revolt, A Single Man, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Valentine’s Day, The Wolfman, Ponyo, The Last Station, Crazy Heart, From Paris with Love, MicMacs, Seraphine, A Prophet, The Lovely Bones and Leap Year are all released into cinemas.

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