Milk (2008)

Milk (US 2008 - 128min.)   Directed by Gus van Sant, written by Dustin Lance Black.

"His life changed history. His courage changed lives."

Milk" is a biopic of Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), a gay activist who became engaged with the political process and ultimately rose to the position of power in San Francisco before meeting an untimely death at the age of 48 in 1978.

The film follows only the last eight years of his life when, having relocated to the West Coast from New York, Milk opens a shop that becomes a hang-out, information exchange and talking shop for the local gay community. He becomes an organiser and social campaigner (not just for Gay Rights but as representative of all excluded people), runs for city office unsuccessfully several times before finally becoming elected as a City supervisor on the same day as his nemesis, the arch-conservative Dan White (Josh Brolin).

 

van Sant cleverly mixes archive footage of the United States at the time and of the real Harvey Milk with the scripted portions of the film, giving it a feel closer to a documentary than a drama ; he opens with newsreel of late fifties and early sixties police persecution of gay men (and women) - busting up their drinking places and herding them into paddy wagons in the style of a thirties Speakeasy bust.

 

It then roles into Penn as Milk living a closeted life in New York. Unhappy and unfulfilled a chance encounter provides the catalyst for a move to San Francisco where the action of the remainder of the film is played out.

 

Despite the obvious input that van Sant has to the look and feel it's Sean Penn's film from beginning to end - he is in practically every scene and makes Milk a believable real life figure.

As he transforms and evolves from wild-eyed idealist into mainstream political animal not only does the superficial aspect of his appearance (clothes, hair etc.) change so does Penn's physical portrayal - he becomes "bigger" as he emerges from his safety zone and into the larger world. His mannerisms and speech patterns change; the transformation is complete in the final section of the film where Milk has become the establishment figure and the role of fire-brand wielding tyro is passed to others.

 

A confident, poised and fully engaged Milk emerges from Penn's performance - striding up the steps of the Town Hall to address protesters in conciliatory terms rather than the language of defiance and opposition that he was using earlier.

 

It's a film with an obvious message but it's delivered in a non-hectoring style; placing the Gay Rights movement within the context of the ongoing civil rights campaign in the United States and delivering a piece of filmed social history that has it's faults (mainly caused by the need to reduce a story with massive scope to a highlights package) but is entertaining, humane, warm and uplifting.

Freeview (UK) film of the day : saturday 6th of July

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010 112min.) [C4 10.00pm&+1]
Freeview premiere

Action comedy from the director of Shaun of the Dead, starring Michael Cera and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Despite having a high-school girlfriend, wannabe rock star Scott Pilgrim can't help falling for the woman of his dreams, the enigmatic Ramona Flowers. But Ramona comes with baggage in the shape of seven ex-lovers that Scott must do battle with in order to win her heart.

Director Edgar Wright attempts to bring the style of the series of graphic novels on which the film is based to the screen; he uses a wide variety of visual styles, camera tricks and moves and attempts to create a hightened reality for his characters to live in.

He's not always succesful and some may find the film irritating for it's seeming inability to sit still for five minutes and there's a growing sense of deja vu as the hero attempts to complete his series of tasks - rather like boss levels in video games the action sometimes seems to be repeating itself but against a different backdrop.

At the heart of the film though there's charming performances by Cera and Winstead which contrast nicely with the turmoil surrounding them.

A flawed but interesting attempt to do something different with a comic book adaptation.

Freeview film of the day : thursday 4th of July

Kill List (2011 91min.) [Film4 11.05pm &+1]

Horror starring Neil Maskell and MyAnna Buring. Ex-soldier-turned-contract killer Jay is talked into doing one last job by friend and fellow hitman Gal. But as the bodies pile up, it soon becomes apparent the pair have become involved in a situation beyond their control.

Terrific British low budget thriller/horror film that casts back to the glory days of Hammer for its inspired air of creepy menace and moments of genuine shock.

Superly directed by Ben Wheatley, off the back of the equally striking Down Terrace, it's a mixture of gangster film, Mike Leigh style improvised domesticity and grand guignol horror.

A thoroughly engaging and satisfying film from beginning to end.

A Prophet (2009 148min.) [Film4 1.00am friday & +1]

A 19-year-old Arab petty crook is sentenced to six months behind bars, serving his time in a prison dominated by rival Corsican and Muslim gangs. When he agrees to commit murder for a Corsican leader, he wins the respect of his fellow inmates and starts putting plans in motion for forming his own crime syndicate. Drama, with Tahar Rahim and Niels Arestrup. In French, Arabic and Corsican.

Superb - easily one of the best ten films released anywhere in the world in 2009.

Thieves Like Us (1974)

Thieves Like Us (US 1974 - 117min.) 

 Directed by Robert Altman; written by Altman, Joan Tewkesbury and Calder Willingham.

"Robbing 36 banks was easy. Watch what happens when they hit the 37th. "

The story is derived from Edward Anderson's novel of the same name which was also the source of Nicolas Ray's noir classic "They Live By Night" (1948) - Altman, however, opts not to shoot the film in a neo-noir style but instead presents the story as a period drama; in much the same way as his earlier "McCabe And Mrs. Miller" (1971) was a 'western' only in terms of time and place of it's setting.

The story revolves around a trio of fugitives (Keith Carradine, Bert Remsen, and John Schuck) who rob banks in Mississippi while trying to stay out of the hands of the law; meanwhile, Carradine develops a crush on a gas station attendant (Shelly Duvall), Remsen falls for a blonde beauty school student (Ann Lathan), and Schuck shows increasingly violent tendencies.

Viewed as a period drama (like Arthur Penn's 1967 "Bonnie And Clyde") this is a beautifully constructed and photographed film - d.p. Jean Boffety gives it a warm and alive tone, a lived in look and the sense of hyper-realism is added to by the attention to the minutest detail in the set construction, costumes and props.
It's like a very violent Merchant Ivory production.

The same level of care is taken with the story. At it's heart there are two (possibly three) love stories and it's here that the focus of the film falls - only one of the bank robberies is shown in any detail, the death of one of the central characters happens off-screen.

Instead Altman immerses us in the human relationships : Carradine is a man in love who just happens to rob banks for a living. The mechanics of his work life are a commonplace to him, the driving force in his life is his desire to spend every waking moment with Duvall.

It's a beautifully told story that unfolds on screen, as with all Altman's best work he engages the viewer and makes you care enough about the characters that you really do want to know how things work out for each of them.

Perfectly cast and almost flawlessly delivered it's a real shame that "Thieves Like Us" has ended up in the 'neglected gem' file. Well worthy of your time and of critical re-evaluation.

Freeview (UK) film of the day ; wednesday 3rd of July

Down Terrace (2009 89min.) [Film4 10.50pm &+1]

Crime comedy drama starring Robert Hill and Robin Hill. Small-time criminals Bill and his son Karl deal drugs from the family home in Brighton, but when suspicions arise about an informant in their midst, things take a turn for the worse.

A low budget British film that's short, snappy and well balanced between the comedy and drama elements. It's a bit like a cross between a UK version of The Sopranos and The Royle Family as everday mundanity and sudden, brutal violence meet - all laced through with an atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia.

This was writer-director Ben Wheatley's first full length film and he demonstrates the skill that made his subsequent Kill List (2011)and Sightseers (2012) such watchable films.

There's a strong cast of little known British character actors with an outstanding performance by Julia Deakin as the materfamilias of the criminal dynasty.

Children Of The Revolution (1996)

Children Of The Revolution (Australia 1996 101min.)  Directed and written by Peter Duncan

"What do you do when your father is no ordinary Joe?"

Political comedy drama starring Judy Davis, Sam Neill and Richard Roxburgh. Joan is a fanatical Australian communist whose devotion to the party is rewarded when she is invited to meet her hero, Josef Stalin. The two have a brief affair which produces "Little Joe", who, in his later life, demonstrates serious political ambitions of his own.

Another in the chain of small, charming, comedy drama films that emerged from Australia during the mid and late nineties. Very much mining the same vein as the likes of Muriel's Wedding (1994) , Diana & Me (1997) and The Dish (2000) .

Judy Davis plays a young woman living in 1940's Australia besotted with the idea of bringing Russian-style worker's revolution to her homeland. She's pursued romantically by Geoffrey Rush, who has no love of revolutionary politics but feigns an interest in the course of his wooing.

She's also of interest to Sam Neill as an Australian secret service agent with a secret or two of his own to keep.

After being invited to Russia to meet Stalin she returns to Australia and, nine months later, there's a rather surprising addition to her life.

It's a very slight and sound plot, more of a stage play than a cinematic experience, but the performances are all so adept that the shortcomings are easily covered over and the film moves along smartly to it's predictable but still well handled conclusion.

Davis and Neill are both excellent and there's sure handed work among the support cast from Rachel Griffiths as a pseudo S&M clad police officer and the always fine F.Murray Abraham as Joe Stalin.

The scenes within the Kremlin before and during Davis's visit are clever and funny by turn, the "disappearance" of several of Stalin's secretaries for unspecified crimes against the state is especially amusing.

Duncan cleverly cuts newsreel footage (both real and doctored) into his film and has a fluid style (although this sometimes runs away from him leaving shots hanging in mid-air) and it never quite lives up to it's satirical ambitions.

Despite this the film cracks along at a sprightly pace, has some moments of genuine comedy and farce and scores with a few of it's satirical points.

An enjoyable, if lightweight, film.

Scream Of Fear (1961) aka Taste Of Fear

Scream Of Fear (UK 1961 82min.)  Directed by Seth Holt, written by Jimmy Sangster.


"For maximum thrill . . . we earnestly urge you to see this motion picture from the start!"

Following a tragic accident in which she came close to drowning, a wheelchair-using woman decides to take a vacation in the French Riviera, but finds herself haunted by the corpse of her father. Psychological horror, starring Susan Strasberg, Ronald Lewis, Ann Todd and Christopher Lee also star.

When you think of the UK's Hammer Studio you tend to associate it with their "monster movie" quickies, the Dracula and Frankenstein series for example. They were, however, equally adept at the more calculated psychological thriller and produced many fine examples of the genre throughout the sixties and in to the early seventies.

This, though, is their finest moment in the field. Released within a year of the first showing of Hitchcock's Psycho it's clearly learned the lesson that a top class horror film doesn't require buckets of gore and severed limbs to be effective.

Jimmy Sangster's script is a beautifully realised thing : in a pre-credits sequence we see police in an unnamed European country removing the body of a dead young woman from a lake. We then meet Susan Strasberg (career best performance) arriving at the south of France home of her step-mother (Ann Todd) and father, who has left suddenly for a business trip.

Feeling alone in the strange house she befriends Robert(Ronald Lewis), her father's driver, and shares oddly staged meals with her step-mother and a local doctor friend of her father (Christopher Lee, best Robert Blanc French accent at the ready).

A series of strange and unusual events and meetings then unfold and the story seems to be taking us down the path of "driving her insane to claim her inheritance" path which has long been a staple of this branch of the old dark house story.

It's then that Sangster's script really shifts up a gear and the final third of the film brilliantly opens up the story to reveal that absolutely nothing is as we assumed it was. It's one of those films that bear a repeated viewing shortly afterwards in order to watch the pieces of the story being manipulated and moved into place.

A word for Seth Holt's direction as well, which is precise and effective throughout and throws in two very, very good underwater sequences.