I Twitter!

Thursday 23 February 2012

Film 2012...


Alright, I know I've been absent a bit.   Pretty vacant, really!

I've been working like a dog, sleeping like a (an insomniac log), and eating like a hog for days...

This week has been a pretty tough one, and I have an Intensive Weekend of creative skills practice and psychotherapy coming up.

Yesterday I treated myself, as I'd been working so hard, and I went to see The Descendants.


The fact that George Clooney was in it had nothing to do with me going to the cinema for only the second time this year!   I have a lot of catching up to do with movies when all this study is over...

Review:   I liked it.   I think it's too easy to knock popular, so-called middle-of-the-road movies that deal with the 'worried well' (because they don't have problems too?!).   I mean, what's two hours in the cinema unless you've had to labour over tragic socio-demographic mores and plundered your social conscience that we should all 'do more' to help others...?   Or you've managed to shoot up a couple of aliens, terrorists, or more?

This is a gentle film.   Relational, true to life, banal, if you like....   I read it described as tragi-comic - I laughed in parts, but managed not to sniffle my way through it - So the therapy must be working, right?

I loved the soundtrack, featuring real, beautiful and poignant Hawaiian music and musicians.  If it doesn't get best soundtrack for the Oscars (I don't even know if it's been short-listed), I'll eat my Buckingham Palace hat!    CLICKIE for a taster, and even more lovely CLICKIE HERE.

I enjoyed the little quirky touches - A goat tethered to a house-lawn, Clooney inelegantly schlepping half a mile to a friend's house in ill-fitting boat shoes, looking every inch the harried rich Dad that he portrays.   He seems to have slipped under the skin of his character.   He's not playing Clooney the Charmer here.

I loved the supporting cast, all brilliant, including a beach-bum cameo by Beau Bridges, one of my favourite actors.   Clooney's teenaged daughter, played by Shailene Woodley, will surely be tipped for even bigger things.


In other words, the first film I went to see this year was The Artist.

Would you be surprised if I said I loved it?   Perhaps you think me easily pleased.   Maybe I am.   There are some things about me I might not want to change.

The love of simple films is one of them.

Go see The Artist, if you haven't already.   Don't watch the trailer on YouTube - It gives the game away.   I hate it when a trailer does that - I prefer to keep my expectations suspended, as if in aspic.   I like to make my own mind up about a movie.

The Artist is a wonderful and beautiful film too, very French, very entertaining.   It pays lots of homage to earlier silents and even surrealist movies...

It's brilliant.   A classic.   Clever.   So redolent of the Thirties.   The stars are terribly talented, especially DuJardin who epitomises the stars of the era, like a cross between John Gilbert and Douglas Fairbanks Junior.  

The 'coat scene' with Berenice is truly moving.   I felt she came somewhere between Mary Pickford and Louise Brooks.   The dog, Uggie, is a true star, obviously.   I found it a very touching and unique movie.

It may sweep the red carpet at the Oscars.   J'adore Les Oscars.   CLICKIE.  

Remember, Fhina's Bloggy Oscar Give-away will be coming around soon!

Meantime, here is a little, behind the scenes vignette.   It's en Francais.   Gird yer loins!


10 comments:

Mac n' Janet said...

Good reviews, 2 films I plan to see, but probably not till the come out on Netflix. I love sweet, but not sentimental, gentle movies. And the occasional blown up space alien.

Vix said...

Great reviews. I don't go very often as it's rare my fleapit has anything other than Disney, Harry Potter and chavvy car chase films.
I love George Clooney, he's such a cool bloke, I can't imagine he'd be in a bad film. x

Scriptor Senex said...

Aha, i thought, a posting from Fhina, Oh goody. And then I found it was all about these things called films. You must take me to one some time so I can see what they are all about! Are they like books in pictures? Are they in colour? Do they move? :-)

Anonymous said...

Nice film review. I love the movies. I've got 2 weeks free rentals so I'm having a bit of a film fest at the mo.

Clippy Mat said...

ah man Fhi, I HATED (not even disliked) that Geo Clooney movie. (there's no accounting for taste and from what I can tell, I'm in the minority with my opinion.)
I did like The Ides of March tho' very much, which George wrote, directed and starred in! In fact I think that might have even been him who shone the torch and walked backwards selling the Kia-Ora at the intermission.
I am really looking forward to seeing The Artist tho. We for sure will agree on that.
Enjoy the Oscars.
:-))

Sueann said...

I have seen, Water for Elephants and Breaking Dawn, Part one. To name a few. Loved them both! And yes, I am a Twilight fan..,.Ha!!
Thanks to my granddaughters getting me hooked.
HUgs
SueAnn

Expat mum said...

It's so long since I saw a film that wasn't animated, I'm embarrassed. I always say I'm going to wait till I can download them (or whatever you do these days) and then I forget. Pathetic really.

Anonymous said...

You might like A Dangerous Method if you get the chance to see it. It looked as though it was going to be about the birth of talking therapies, but developed into an examination of the relationship between Freud and Jung. We enjoyed it and it provoked lots of discussion between us about the BA's chosen path (not that we need any excuse to discuss that).

Pull Your Socks Up! said...

I love your description of my secret husband plodding along in his floppy shoes ... he can do not wrong and from now on I will only believe your film reviews. Even though I've seen neither of the films yet fully intend to!!! The mere thought of sitting in the audience watching The Artist gives me goosebumps with excitement!! Hope you catch plenty of nana-naps on the sly to recharge your batteries:)).xoxo

BadPenny said...

Not seen either & probably should !!!

Something I wrote earlier...

Blog Widget by LinkWithin