The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005)

Daniel Day-Lewis is one of those actors always worth watching. A 'method' actor who immerses himself totally in a role, to such an extent that one worries at times for his health and sanity, any film which features him is usually marked as something of an event.

In The Ballad of Jack and Rose Day-Lewis plays the part of Jack, an irascible, bitter character who lives on an abandoned island commune with his 16 year-old daughter, Rose, played by Camilla Belle. Property develpers are trying to move in at a time when Jack is becoming ill, and his daughter is changing from a child to a young woman. Jack allows his girlfriend and her two sons to move onto the island to join the couple, and the resultant change in the dynamics of the father-daughter relationship prove difficult for everyone.

Essentially an 'art house' picture about Rose's coming-of-age and about Jack's coming to terms with the disappointments of his life, there is little real meat to the story, and this is essentially a character piece. Although director Rebecca Miller is also credited as writer, one suspects that she had very little to do in terms of preparing a script - what we get here is a rather self-indulgent exercise in actor improvisation. Parts of it work rather well, but it's so slow moving, and so jarring in the way it's shot, that very early on in the film one stops caring about any of the characters and their bizarre lives. Hand-held camerawork too often comes across like bad home-movie footage, and while there's the occasional breathtaking natural beauty shot (Miller seems very good with plants and flowers) too often there are jarring cuts within a scene that make one wonder if someone maliciously cut a foot or two out of middle of the film reel, regardless of the fact it's mid-scene, to take as a souvenir.

Day-Lewis himself doesn't disappoint, adopting a convincing Scottish accent and Gypsy-like demeanour as a man whose simmering rage is always visible below the surface. The real surprise here is that Camilla Belle is able to rise to his level. She has to carry great, heavy long segments of the movie alone, and manages to do so, with a beauty and inner peace that is at times breath-taking. I would be surprised if we don't hear a lot more about this amazing new actress in the future.

Interestingly, for an 'art' or 'indie' film, the general public seem to like this a whole lot more than the critics one would normally expect to warm to this sort of thing. But if my 'borderline bad' rating seems harsh, check out the rottentomatoes critics rating of 46% which falls even lower to 41% when the 'cream of the crop' critics are averaged out instead. The Ballad of Jack and Rose isn't a BAD film, but it's a rather weak one that's too self-indulgent and slow-paced to be in any way enjoyable. It's a film to be admired, rather than liked, but somehow it fails even on that level.

The film is presented in anamorphic widescreen and the DVD itself is rather bare-bones, probably not surprising given the low budget and lack of box office success. What you get on the DVD is a trailer and about 20 minutes of sound bites. This latter feature is very rough with simple questions appearing on title cards as the only acknowledgement of any sort of editing having taken place. Nevertheless, getting an interview with the reclusive, and often difficult, Daniel Day-Lewis is more than one could have expected, particularly given the fact that he appears relaxed and even to be enjoying himself. All of the main characters and the actor/director are featured.

If you're channel hopping and The Ballad of Jack and Rose shows up one evening, it's probably worth sticking with for 10 to 15 minutes to see if you can cope with the snail-like pacing, and enjoy the film for its acting if not its script. Otherwise this is a DVD that's probably of little interest to most of us.

Pierrepoint (2005)

Pierrepoint, released under the title The Last Hangman in the States (even though, technically speaking, Pierrepoint WASN'T the LAST hangman) is a dark, sombre character piece that was originally intended for broadcast as an ITV drama special. Given a limited, but enthusiastically received cinema release, earlier this year it's out on DVD tomorrow (Monday).

The 'film' is split into three acts: the first showing hangman Albert Pierrepoint effectively learning his trade, determined to do as good a job as his father had before him, albeit anonymously; the second showing his public 'outing' after executing 48 Nazi criminals in Germany at Lord Montgomery's request; and the third focusing on what happens when he suddenly discovers that the person he has to hang is someone he knows and regards as a friend.

Timothy Spall, always a class act, carries the whole weight of the film on his shoulders with what would, for any other actor, probably be counted as a career-best performance, but for Spall is just par for the course. It's a wonderfully subtle, moving performance that conveys the changes the character goes through as his ability to separate his work from his life changes. Juliet Stevenson, perhaps a little TOO familiar to viewers through her appearances in what seems like every Granada TV production going, plays Albert's rather hard-nosed and ambitious wife. She turns in a strong performance as the woman who refuses to discuss what it is her husband does for a living, even when he makes it painfully obvious he needs someone to talk to about it. Many familiar faces from different Granada TV shows turn up in minor parts, and for British audiences this can be very distracting - eg I spent half the film trying to remember exactly where I'd seen Pierrepoint's German-based assistant before (it turned out to be in HBO's Rome, playing the part of Brutus) when really one should be following what's happening on screen.

Pierrepoint is a film that's more about character than any real plot, and it raises some difficult questions about moral choices, and the price of those choices on the human soul. While the film doesn't make for comfortable viewing - focusing on Spall's 'work' for much of its duration - it's an impressive dramatic piece that's well scripted and, for the most part, well directed.

I'm not convinced it needed a theatrical release though and it does feel far more like a Sunday night 'two hour' (with adverts) drama series for the TV than a 'proper' film. There are some brave attempts in the cinematography at giving the small drama a 'big screen' feel, but I'm finding this recent obsession with over-use of desaturated film with ridiculously over-tinted green effect (did someone watch Capote when giving this film its final spit and polish?) irritating to the extreme. When white painted cell walls have a moss-coloured sheen and everything is so dark and murky it's hard to make anything out, things have gone too far. Viewers know they're watching a dark drama and really don't need everything to look dark green as some sort of designer's idea of 'subtly' conveying this in 'the movie's color palette design' (excuse my American spelling of 'color', but I think America is where a lot of this pretentious justification hails from!)

The British TV origins of the drama become evident when looking at the extra's - there aren't any. Not even a trailer, which given the rather high asking price, is taking the piss somewhat. One is forced to conclude that although this is an excellent piece well worth viewing, it would have been seen by more people if it had simply aired on terrestrial TV. As it is, my recommendation would be to avoid the over-priced vanilla DVD and either rent it if available cheaply or wait for the inevitable TV screening at some future date.

'Superman Returns' in 3D at the London IMAX

I went to see 'Superman Returns' in 3D at the IMAX down the road this evening. I always feel bad that I don't get out to the cinema more often (what with it supposedly 'dying' and all) because I really want to support it, but as always happens when I make the effort, the trip only served as a reminder as to why I much prefer to watch a film on DVD at home.

The IMAX itself was impressive, and in pretty much a first time experience for me, showed a print that was almost flawless with no signs of wear and tear. The seating was excellent too, with chairs stacked very high in vertical tiers so that you don't suffer from the 'irritating tall person blocking the screen' problems that plague most High Street cinemas. The surround sound was awesome during the big action scenes - if only I could get away with playing at that sort of volume at home I'd be in cinematic heaven. So, all good so far on the BFI Imax experience front.

But the ticketing arrangements are very poor. There's something wrong when you're charged an extra £1 for the 'privelege' of booking the ticket yourself online instead of tying up expensive staff on the phone, only to then arrive at the venue and find the queue for pre-booked tickets is four times as long as the queue for people who haven't bothered to pre-book and causes you a fifteen minute delay in getting to the main auditorium.

The 3D presentation was actually just for 20 minutes of the film, split across four separate scenes. For those who've seen the film, interested in knowing what's in 3D and what isn't, the 3D scenes are as follows: (1) Superman dreaming about his younger days as Clark Kent when he learnt to bound great distances and fly, (2) the airline action scene from the start of things going wrong right up to the baseball ground conclusion, (3) the boat drowning scene, and (4) the last 20 seconds-one minute of the film where our caped hero flies off into the stars before the credits roll. These 3D scenes were, for the most part, as good as, if not slightly better than, those you get at the Universal theme park in Los Angeles, and not uncomfortable to watch with polarised glasses rather than the old-fashioned headache-inducing green/red cellophane jobs they used for 3D movies in the old days. But there were a couple of places where the technology that somehow magically converts 2D film into 3D failed. If you go to see the 3D version check out Lex Luthor's girlfriend holding her dog in the helicopter (the 'boat drowning' scene) and you'll see that she is a flat 2D card-board cutout in a sort-of 3D space that really takes you out of the movie, as do too many of the 3D 'distance flying' shots which shout 'CGI' at you in a way none of the 2D scenes in the rest of the movie do. These minor flaws apart, the 3D scenes are well worth checking out, and the very, very large screen at the IMAX is a great way to see a big budget blockbuster like this, even if it works out at £13 a ticket for the experience (ouch!)

So far so good, but yet again it was the audience that totally ruined the whole experience for me. One day I'll go to a cinema, hear the repeated warnings about turning off mobile phones and NOT have the movie interrupted by an incessantly ringing mobile, but I suspect that day will only exist in my dreams. For this performance I had the added joys of restless kids crunching popcorn bags and chatting incessantly through the movie, making the dialogue inaudible for the first 20 minutes of the film. Then there was the kid in the row behind kicking the whole row of seats I was in incessantly to the drum beat of a record only he could hear, whilst his mother refused to admonish him despite the vocal complaints from all around her. And 20 minutes into the film (40 minutes AFTER the advertised start time) we missed parts of the film because the screen was blocked by latecomers being allowed to disrupt everyone to get to their seats. I know London congestion can delay people but when people show that part of the reason they've decided to selfishly ruin everybody else's experience is because even after they arrived late they felt they HAD to go and queue up for popcorn and coke first, I have no sympathy at all. People talk about how watching DVDs at home means you miss out on 'the experience of seeing a movie with an audience'. But tonight confirmed one more time that the audience experience is precisely WHY so many of of us are deserting the multiplexes and preferring to wait a few months to watch the inevitable DVD releases at home.

I'll review the movie itself when the DVD comes out in a few months time, but suffice to say now that although one patron tonight rubbished the film as 'having cost a million dollars a minute' at least this time round that money was, for the most part, right up there and visible on the screen.

Eight Below (2006)

Reviews of Eight Below have been somewhat mixed, although the critics' reviews at rottentomatoes.com and the public's reviews over at imdb.com appear to be roughly in line, until you realise that the 'Cream of the Crop' critics reviews drop the average grade to 53% and that a lot of Husky dog owners appear to have been swaying the vote over at imdb.

The truth is that this is almost a remake of The Incredible Journey, albeit with a pack of Husky dogs this time round. It's a classic, old-fashioned Disney movie, with all the baggage which that implies

One of the problems with a movie like this is that it's hard to get animals to 'act', but with those puppy-dog eyes, that furry tummy and 'come hug me' face, how could one resist? But enough about Paul Walker - the film thankfully features cute Husky dogs too!

Actually, I'm being mean to Walker, who isn't as bad an actor as so many working in the critical media would have you believe - he just seems to have lousy judgement when it comes to choosing the projects to become involved with. His last film, Running Scared, showed that he could successfully take on a gritty lead role, but alas here in Eight Below he's mainly back to playing his usual role: the male equivalent of 'dumb blonde bimbo' with not much acting required, and it's the dogs who are the true stars, despite adequate supporting performances from American Pie's Jason Biggs playing the 'comedy' friend, and Moon Bloodgood playing the love interest.

Walker plays surival guide Jerry, who finds himself having to leave behind his beloved working Husky dogs when a storm at the end of the Summer season arrives. The first 40 minutes of the film show the life Jerry has built, with some rather artificial 'action' scenes designed to show the bond that has developed between him and his dogs, with the remainder of the 115 minute movie being dedicated to showing how the dogs survive while their handler tries desperately to find a way back to the Antarctic to rescue them before the long, hard Winter really sets in.

The story is a heart-warming one, albeit featuring the biggest, cheesiest, most sentimental 'cheat' cop-out ending I've ever seen, and is targeted very much at the family audience. It's refreshing to see a film with no cuss words in it that still has some sense of reality to it (at least if you forget the saccharine ending and the way the film-makers cheat the viewer into believing one thing whilst quite clearly planning another), but there are scenes that shouldn't be considered suitable for young or sensitive children. Let's just say that not all the dogs make it to the end of the movie, and there are scenes where the dogs have to fight for survival that will make for uncomfortable viewing.

The cinematography is stunning, despite the fact that the film wasn't shot in Antarctica, but for the most part in northern Canada. A couple of scenes (particularly those on the boat) unfortunately stick out as being studio shots, but these are minor aberrations and the helocopter shots in particular are breath-taking.

It's becoming increasingly common these days for the advertised extra's on a disk's packaging to be incorrect (where are the Advertising Standards Authority when you need them?), but at least this time round the extra's exceed what is promised on the packaging. The 'trailer' is NOT on the disk, despite what the packaging may say, but two feature-length commentaries, which aren't mentioned, are. The first features the director and producer, while the second (the only one I listened to) whilst advertised on the menu as featuring the director and lead actor talking through the shoot, only feature Walker for 20 minutes before the cinematographer takes over. The director/actor section is an interesting listen with the director being worthy-but- dull and Walker balancing things out by being over-enthisiastic and naive. There are also several deleted scenes (I didn't count them all but there are certainly more than the 'three' that are advertised on the packaging), each with accompanying director's commentary. Unfortunately the 'Making of' featurette clocks in at a pitiful 10 minutes, and is mainly focused on how the dogs were trained and how Canada was substituted for Antarctica.

The DVD transfer is excellent, and this is certainly worth a rental, but unless you're a big Husky dog fan or have kids who love seeing films over and over again this isn't really a 'must buy' purchase.

Grey's Anatomy (Season 1) (2006)

If the sleeve notes on Grey's Anatomy - The Complete First Series are to be believed, The Daily Telegraph thinks this new hospital drama series is "better than ER ever was".

Errm, sorry to disagree, but NO!

ER was original and often unpredictable. Grey's Anatomy is neither of those things.

What the series DOES have going for it is this: a central core of strong characters, around which the all-too-familiar stories can be told; a gentle sense of humour that will appeal to fans of the superior The Gilmore Girls; and high production values that put most British drama series to shame.

Earlier this week Grey's Anatomy was nominated for an Emmy (or maybe even a couple - I'm too lazy and disinterested to go check!) In a year that didn't see the similarly medically-themed House nominated, this seems an odd lapse of judgement on the part of those responsible for deciding such things.

The series is full of the usual 'pretty' leads. The 'Grey' of the title is Meredith, who's single and slutty, and sleeps with her boss, the over-worked but somehow still buffed-up, Doctor Shepherd, the night before she starts work (before she realises he is her boss). Her fellow interns comprise stock characters guaranteed to be useful for future storylines. There's the hard-working ethnic girl who seems harsh on the surface but is kind-hearted underneath. There's the pretty but stupid jock character who everyone dislikes, but turns out to have come from an abusive home and been misunderstood. There's the stunningly attractive underwear model who we're expected to believe is actually 'trailer trash' forced to do those underwear 'glamour' ads to get money to pay her way through medical school. There's the 'nerd' guy with the heart of gold who hangs out with the women all the time and just wants the lead character to fall in love with him. There's.... well you get the picture! True-to-life this isn't, true-to-previous-cliches it is!

What disappoints most about each episode of this 'Ally McBeal meets ER' soap is that the writing never goes anywhere unexpected. It's as if the whole series was put together by a computer programme. Even the direction, whilst conforming to the functional, if predictable style of most 'prime time' US TV shows, comes across as tired and cliched. Just how many TV series do we need to see where each episode's act is book-ended by helicopter shots of the city at night? Why do shows HAVE to have a common theme for each episode so that eg where one character has a 'break up' with their partner, every other character has a break up of some sort (only to be miraculously reunited at the end) at the same time too? This is 'safe' programming of the worst not-true-to-life-at-all kind.

In the appallingly sparse 'Extras' the writers and producers talk about their big 'shock' reveal half way into the 14-episode 45-minute run, a reveal so 'surprising' I'd seen it coming in the very first episode. The season finale 'cliffhanger' is equally predictable and couldn't have been more clearly sign-posted if the opening credits each week had stated 'Someone has to choose between two people they're equally in love with - and can't'. This has all been done so many times before, and while the same old soap storylines are executed well here - does anybody REALLY need 14 more hours of what they've already seen countless times over? Grey's Anatomy is an easy watch, a way to unwind after a bad day at the office, and relatively enjoyable if you want to disengage the brain for 45 minutes at a time. But it's nothing more, and with a cast this strong, and production values this high, it all feels like a wasted opportunity.

Unlike House, which was massacred in its Region 2 DVD 4:3 'square' format release, Grey's Anatomy is at least presented in its originally transmitted widescreen format, with a clean anamorphic transfer. There's thankfully none of the murky, 'barely better than VHS' NTSC darkness and lack of contrast that other American shows like The West Wing have shown on DVD release. The price is reasonable too, although the packaging is poor - three DVD disks crammed onto a single spindle and of course not so much as an episode index. The menu's are particularly irritating with no more than two or three items ever appearing on a single menu screen so that you spend forever trying to navigate the few deleted scenes or episodes there are. A very short 'Making of' featurette is mainly an excuse to reshow clips from the series with just a few sound bites from the cast and crew, and an advertised 'Anatomy of a Pilot' appears to be just rough cut highlights of the aired episode spliced together without any introduction or commentary. Any modern 'prime time' TV series knows it's going to be eventually released on DVD and the makers should have been able to give us a lot more than they've given us here.

If you're an avid viewer of the likes of ER, Holby City or Casualty and missed this when it aired on cable, this is definitely worth checking out as a rental. For the rest of us, it's more a case of 'Nothing (new) to see here. Move along please'.