Fri, Sep 19, 2014 page10

• Movie releases

  • By Ian Bartholomew / Contributing reporter
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  Before I Go to Sleep

  We recently saw Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth together in the more than adequate drama about a soldier who returns to his Japanese POW camp to face his torturer in The Railway Man. The chemistry between Kidman and Firth was not particularly remarkable then, and this second run at igniting a spark falls equally flat. The British mystery thriller film directed and written by Rowan Joffe (who also adapted Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock), based on a page-turner of the same name by S. J. Watson, is once again more than adequate, with strong performances from all those involved, but the whole thing is just a little too chilly and humorless to really engage audiences. The story centers on Christine Lucas (Kidman), a woman wakes up every day, remembering nothing as a result of a traumatic accident. One day, memories emerge that force her to question everyone around her. It is all a little bit too much like Christopher Nolan’s Memento, which was a vastly superior treatment of the memory-loss theme. Kidman has made something of a specialty of playing emotionally repressed women, and while she does this with great skill, it really does not serve when her role should be the emotional heart of the story.

  Chef

  It is safe to say that there have been way too many bland and uninspired food films in recent years. Mostly they are little more than romantic comedies set in a kitchen and attempting, more or less successfully, to play off the sensuality of food. Few have really got to the heart of food as a part of our social fabric in the way of Ang Lee’s Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, or really got down to a celebration of food’s primal power in the way of Juzo Itami’s Tampopo. Jon Favreau, who has exchanged his indie street cred for some serious Hollywood presence (he executive produced and directed both Iron Man movies), has returned to a smaller canvas to create Chef, which may do for the taco truck what Sideways did for Pinot Noir. Favreau plays Carl Caspar, a talented chef with plenty of attitude that gets him fired from his restaurant job and forces him to reclaim his creative promise, along with his standing as a husband and father, by making the food he loves. A bouncy Latin inspired sound track, some lovely performances from a great cast including the likes of John Leguizamo, Scarlett Johansson and Robert Downey Jr, make sure that despite some pretty serious plot holes and a slapdash narrative line, Chef manages to bounce along in enjoyable and heartwarming fashion.

  Grazing the Sky

  Director Horacio Alcala is much associated with the ubiquitous Cirque du Soleil. His documentary film Grazing the Sky manages to get behind the artful staging and introduce us to the modern day circus performers who make groups like the Cirque du Soleil possible. Alcala follows eight different acrobats from all over the world, intercutting interviews with artfully staged footage of his subjects performing. Their backstories, their aspirations and their fear are all there, a backdrop almost more stunning than the amazing physical feats that they perform. The film travels through 11 countries, and takes a short look at the development of specialized schools for circus performers that are beginning to replace family apprenticeships. It makes the the trapeze a metaphor for life, given poignancy by the ever-present risk of a fall. The director unashamedly dramatizes these people who take a hard road of life-long discipline, but the mixture of beauty, danger, trust and dreams is a heady brew that is often more engaging than the confections that it all goes to create under the big top. It also makes an interesting double with Flex is King, a dance documentary that takes an intimate look at a particular style of street dance that takes its inspiration from the grittiness and crime of East New York.

  Joe

  Nicolas Cage is an actor who it is fun, and disappointingly easy, to hate. He has a way of getting himself involved in some real turkeys (National Treasure and Ghost Rider), and even in reasonably competent films such as Con Air, his frantic glowering, scowling, shouting anger gets old very quickly. In Joe, a film by David Gordon Green, his reputation as a fine actor regains some credibility. Playing the ex-con Joe, who has imposed a rigorous discipline on his violent nature to keep out of trouble with the law, he finds himself an unlikely role model for Gary (Tye Sheridan), a young boy who arrives in town looking for a job and a way out from his abusive family. Set in the backwoods of Mississippi, Green has set the scene of backwoods dilapidation with skill and confidence, and has allowed Cage to harness and use the intensity and wildness, which so often mar his movies, to spectacularly good effect. A superb supporting performance by Gary Poulter, a homeless man cast by Green (who is known for using location locals in his films) as Gary’s vicious alcoholic father, is an added bonus.

  This is Where I Leave You

  It’s a tough call to decide whether The Purge: Anarchy or This is Where I Leave You is the least appealing film of the week. For those who saw The Purge last year, it is probably worth noting that this second installment is not just bigger and badder, it is also better and smarter, and stars Frank Grillo as an added bonus. This is Where I Leave You, for all its many failings to get the feelings of messy grown up life onto the screen (this purports to be its main theme), it has occasional sparks, a competent script and solid performances. The story, as far as it goes, is about four grown siblings forced to return to their childhood home and live under the same roof together for a week, along with their mother and an assortment of spouses, exes and so on. Jane Fonda, as a mum with enhanced breasts, is a constant joy to watch on screen, while Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Adam Driver and others all seem to be doing sit-com TV. For all its amiable good humor, you cannot escape the feeling that all the performers deserve something better than this.
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