Hey folks, Harry here... had a bit o back'n'forth with Edgar Wright this morning - and he's quite excited to be all set to be up and running on HOT FUZZ. However, even more cool is the top secret project that's all written, set-up and ready to go after that... but, he asked that I keep a lid on it till he's ready to get that project buggin'! Here ya go with our second AICN-UK report...
Hello again from really-fecking-freezing England!
It’s been a quiet-ish couple of weeks over here in Blighty, livened slightly by the small-scale celebrations from fans of British comedy who saw the wonderful Hugh Laurie pick up his Globe. It’s always nice to see one of our own making good over there, and even more so when it’s a comedian proving he can play it straight – and bloody well at that.
The British production sector spending figures looked a little grim last year, down some 31% on 2004, but with a new tax deal announced in December, hopes are high that the industry will rebound, with several big-budget flicks scheduled for filming on our shores including first in the HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy and Matthew Vaughn’s STARDUST.
Most exciting, perhaps, is Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg re-teaming for HOT FUZZ, which is scheduled to start filming in March, but there are several other British movies gearing up for production too, and not everyone is “pulling a Potter” and decamping to Prague. Look out for coverage and updates in future columns.
NEWS
The Constant Gardener is leading the BAFTA nominations list with 10, closely followed by Brokeback Mountain and Crash, both with 9. As Quint pointed out earlier in the week, it appears that the screener cock-up really shafted Munich, which didn’t receive a single nomination.
AWARDS AND FESTIVALS
The 2nd annual Glasgow Film Festival will open with James Marsh’s “gothic horror” THE KING on February 16. The 10-day fest also includes The Child, The Weather Man, Maderlay, Transamerica, The Matador and The Proposition, as well as a celebration of Sir Carol Reed’s work to mark his 100th birthday.
British actors Judi Dench and Rachel Weisz have both been nominated for SAG awards – the former for Lead Actress in MRS HENDERSON PRESENTS and the latter for supporting actress in THE CONSTANT GARDENER. Kenneth Branagh, Ian McShane and Hugh Laurie were also nominated for their respective recent TV work.
BOX OFFICE
Mendes’ new movie may not have been entirely well received by the critics, but it didn’t stop it topping out the charts on its first weekend on release. Kong made a surge back up into the top five after dropping out, and Geisha slipped in at a just-off-the-list number 6.
Jarhead
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Just Friends
Brokeback Mountain
King Kong
NEW RELEASES
Released this week:
Bee Season
Frozen
Munich
Rumour Has It
The New World (London only)
Next week, eyes open for:
Derailed
North Country
The Ice Harvest
The New World (nationwide expansion)
Walk The Line
Zathura
REGION 2 DVD
Released today:
Fist of Fury: Platinum Edition
Innocence
In My Country
Stealth
The Secret Lives of Dentists
Wishing Stairs
Next week, eyes open for:
Asylum
Cinderella Man
Forces of Evil
Four Brother
Me and You and Everyone We Know
On A Clear Day
Red Eye
The Aristocrats
The Business
The Mighty Celt
REVIEWS
BREAKFAST ON PLUTO
Neil Jordan has carved somewhat of a niche for himself turning out difficult-to-fund, actor-driven films which tell very human stories, often in an historical context. BREAKFAST ON PLUTO is just such a movie, and it’s just as engaging as THE CRYING GAME, INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, MICHAEL COLLINS, THE BUTCHER BOY and THE END OF THE AFFAIR were before it.
Jordan has once again collected a fantastic cast of actors including Liam Neeson, Brendan Gleeson and Stephen Rea as well as a host of British character talent. The film’s performances carry the audience through the tougher elements of the story and help to ground the story in a reality that, somehow, everyone can relate to.
The difficult part of this particular film is the protagonist, narrator and reflector of all the events around him. For Patrick “Kitten” Braden is not set for the small-town Irish life, discovering at an early age his penchant for dressing in women’s clothes and adorning himself in his adopted-mother’s make-up. Transvestites are not usually the stuff of Box Office gold – creating as they do a certain level of unease in an audience which no one has quite managed to nullify.
The movie, then, lives or dies on the central performance. And Cillian Murphy makes this story truly take flight. He is utterly mesmerising and entirely enfolded in his character. For an actor on the cusp of breaking into the Hollywood mainstream off the back of successful big-budget flicks like BATMAN BEGINS and RED EYE, this is an incredibly brave choice and one for which he should be commended. But once you see his performance, the idea of commending him for anything other than his truly remarkable turn seems churlish. The fact that this performance has been overlooked by nearly every major awards ceremony is either testament to the gob-smacking quality of this year’s crop of nominees, or the biggest travesty in recent awards history.
The film itself is good – at times, very good – but I’d recommend it to anyone on the strength of Murphy’s performance alone. It’s a sweet story, very well told, and serves to remind the money-men that’s its well worth putting your money wherever Neil Jordan’s camera is.
A COCK AND BULL STORY
I have a problem with this movie. And it’s more than just the fact that you have to sit through no less than 6 logos before the actual feature begins.
My problem is that the chestnut gag is almost entirely worth paying the price of admission for on its own. The real question being, would the movie still be as funny without the chestnut scene?
I’ve always been a fan of Steve Coogan, from his early The Day To Day work, through Alan Partridge, up to the hilarious Parole Officer (with the exception, perhaps, of Pauline Calf). But I was disappointed by him here. His portrayal of “Steve Coogan” in the film’s reality-based side-line charting the making of Tristram Shandy is just too much caricature for me – played entirely for the comedy, most of which fell flat on me.
In fairness to Michael Winterbottom (another man who’s work I generally adore) and the team, I must add that I saw the flick on my own and not surrounded with my usual comedy-going crowd, which always manages to dampen the comedic flair of a flick, but the emotional truisms of the story didn’t resonate enough with me to hold my interest over and above the comedy.
As an adaptation of an unfilmable book, it certainly succeeds where others have failed. As yet another lottery-funded British comedy, I can’t help but feel that it’s another one chalked on the list marked “Limited Appeal”.
Still, there’s always that chestnut scene...
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Ang Lee’s cowboy drama is expanding across the country this week, after opening in London two weeks ago and going wider last week, and I can’t urge you enough to go and see it.
It’s hard to add to the heap of praise that’s already been doled out to this film, so I won’t even try. I back up every other review you’ve read though – the cast is outstanding, to a man/woman and child, the story is beautifully, painfully told and the cinematography restrained and personal.
But above all, the thing that had me celebrating at the end of this movie was its intelligence and its assumption of intelligence from the audience. There’s no pandering to the lowest-common denominator with clunky title cards declaring the passage of time, or the development of an idea. Instead, Lee leaves the audience to connect the dots, to read the subtext and extract every possible nuance from the film. This is a movie you could watch again and again and get something different from each time.
Go see it now!
That’s all for now, but I’ll be back in two weeks to see which Brits are hoping for Oscar glory and what’s cooking in the Brit-flick metling-pot.
I tip my hat to you all,
Top Hat ‘n’ Tails
