Chronicle

Looking like the surprise hit of 2012 so far, Chronicle had every right to be terrible. Oooh kids who get super-powers – yawn, found-footage – blah, “with great power comes-” – leave it out, would you? But it turns out its totally brilliant. Which is great, mainly cos we’re getting a bit bored of talking about The Artist all the time.

Carnage

Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, Jodie Foster and John C Reilly – obviously Carnage is going to be great fun. A claustrophobic dark comedy about two sets of parents and one all-out domestic war, it’s indulgent good fun with an impeccable cast and trademark Polanski style.

Jack And Jill

You know how sometimes it can feel like you’ve got too many reasons to live? Well Adam Sandler’s latest tumour is here to redress the balance. It’s… it’s… oh just watch the damn thing and then we can get on with being filled with regret forever.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

I think we’ve all been wondering for a while now just when Michael Caine and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson would finally join forces. Well, that time is now. WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, MICHAEL CAINE? Tiny elephants, tinier t-shirts and her out of High School Musical, it’s safe to say that Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is going to completely ridiculous.

Man On A Ledge

Is it just us, or has Elizabeth Banks yet to prove herself? Enter Man On A Ledge, a heist movie with a high-rise, higher-stakes twist. Sam Worthington and Jamie Bell (why not eh?) join Miss Banks in a flick that looks full of swishy hair, sharp suits and serious eyebrows. Is he gonna jump? IS HE?

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Somehow managing to get over the hindrance of not one but two bloody awful sisters, Elizabeth Olsen explodes onto our screens this week in the utterly captivating Martha Marcy May Marlene. A tale of a dangerous cult, one girl’s escape and the psychological ramifications thereof, we can guarantee you’ll have your socks knocked off by not only the new girl on the screen, but the talented bloke behind the camera. Sean Durkin, we’re watching you.

Young Adult

No doubt you’re stuffed to the gills with Charlize Theron information having guzzled our Cheat Sheet, but if anything it only will have heightened your desire to see Young Adult. A dark comedy about a fading beauty determined to wreck havoc on her home town, it sounds like Miss Theron puts in an absolutely brilliant performance in yet another stonking Diablo Cody feature.

Which films are snuffling round your ankles? Talk to us before it’s horrible Monday once again!

Monday started as we are now accustomed to having all weeks start – with another public acknowledgement of The Artist‘s apparently limitless capacity to win awards. Director Michel Hazanavicius picked up the top prize at the Directors Guild of America Awards, traditionally a strong indicator of who will go on to win Best Director at the Oscars. Meanwhile, The Help won all the awards at the Screen Actors’ Guild because white people have a limitless capacity to beat themselves up, and Bilbo fed some dwarves. Oh, and SJP is taking over from Demi Moore in Lovelace! Presumably she’s playing some sort of feminist horse.

Tuesday

Tuesday was all about casting and collaboration. Top of the bill was the fantastic news that Matthew Vaughn will be directing a sequel to his excellent film X-Men: First Class, swiftly followed by Rooney Mara’s decision to join Steven Soderbergh’s newest film (seriously, when is he just going to do some painting) and Vera Farmiga’s addition to the cast of The Drummer as Fleetwood Mac member Christine McVie. Oh, and in case that wasn’t enough for you Tilda Swinton and John Hurt have totally signed up for a vampire film. You’re welcome.

Wednesday

It’s the longest day of the week, far enough from the weekend for you to have forgotten what you got up to and still two long days from Friday. So it’s only fitting that this Wednesday should have played host to a GRATUITOUS QUANTITY OF NEWS. We had the first official pic from Skyfall (it’s shit), a new teaser for The Avengers (it’s pointless), Mia Wasikowska joining Richard Ayoade’s The Double (they’re amazing), a new Drive poster (it’s gorgeous) and Adam Sandler making a Candyland film (twat). But forget all of that, because TAYLOR SWIFT ISN’T EPONINE! Sensible Tom Hooper has cast, like, a real actress instead.

Thursday

Thursdays are all about retrospection, and this week we’re looking back all over the place – to the nineties, the fifties and the BCs. Colin Firth announced that he would be joining Devil’s Knot, a film about the West Memphis Three and a gruesome series of child murderers which shook America back in the nineties. Meanwhile, 88-year-old former gigolo Scotty Bowers has revealed that he used to get Katharine Hepburn a bit of minge once in a while, and Russell Crowe could be going Biblical to join Darren Aronofsky’s epic about Noah and the Flood. And it doesn’t quite count as nostalgia, but Takashi Shimizu is plagiarising like a motherbitch in this trailer for 7500.

Friday

Easing us gently into the weekend, Friday was the day of Not Very Much Happening. There were some crappy stills from Wrath of the Stupid Titans, a vague threat that the third Bridget Jones’ Diary film might not happen (we’re pretty unfussed at this stage, tbh) and some confusing news re: John Hawkes and Mos Def being cast as the young Robert DeNiro and Samuel L Jackson in The Switch, which is based on a book which is the prequel to the book that Jackie Brown’s based on. We think. And if all of that’s a bit too real, you can always relax with the twenty thousandth and final Hunger Games trailer!

What will you do with your new-found knowledge? Let us know below!

A lot of the shots are exactly the same – the bit at the Reaping, where Lawrence replaces her sister as Tribute, is much as it was, although we get to see her passing over the medallion which is also the film’s logo. Then it’s just a couple more training montages, a sparkly dress and we’re off!

…yep. That’s it. Don’t get us wrong, we like the trailer a lot – it’s just so similar to the one from November or whenever. We’re hoping that there’s so little new footage because any more would risk spectacular spoilers!

Will you be seeing The Hunger Games? Let us know below!

Take one sip…

Whenever you have an uncontrollable urge to kill Jar Jar Binks

This will happen whenever you see Jar Jar Binks. Or hear his name mentioned. Most people find the first film, fraught with Jar Jar appearances, to be the most damaging on the liver. However, many others have succumbed to acute alcohol poisoning when they discover that, midway through Episode 2, the hated Gungan has been made a senator. A SENATOR!

Sod it, down your drink. You deserve it after that distressing news bulletin…

Whenever Ewan McGregor has done something inexplicable to his hair

We get it Ewan. You’re a Jedi. WELL DONE YOU! But are Jedis famed for mad facial hair and horrifying rat-tail plaits? No, of course they bloody aren’t.

Alec Guinness never gave us any of this sh*t.

Whenever the gaping plotholes threaten to eat up your brain

Oh yes Lucas. We’re talking about the plotholes YOU made with YOUR stupid writing. Oh yeah, we get it; the droids have had their memories wiped. Poor C3P0 and R2D2. None of this is their fault. Blankly, they will greet Ben Kenobi in Episode IV and have absolutely no recollection of him… but he should remember them. He should, shouldn’t he? Because he hangs out with those droids from Padawan to Master and, let’s face it, you can’t mindwipe a Jedi. Those dudes are totally too focused for that.

On that note, maybe Darth Vader should recognise them too. Being as, I dunno, he built C3P0 from scratch. Himself. In the house he shared with his mother. The mother whose death tipped him over into the Dark Side. Yup. Crucial plotpoints don’t matter to Lucas; not when he can attempt to distract us with flashing lights and a wealth of special effects…

Whenever someone dies of something pathetic (like a broken heart)

Okay, okay. So this only happens once. But tell me it doesn’t set YOUR teeth on edge when Padmé Amidala, former Queen of Naboo, dies because she’s “given up on life”. What an idiot. Her hubby may have gone gone stark raving evil-mental, but she did just give birth to the awesome Skywalker twins.

Nothing to live for indeed. Pah!

Take two sips…

Whenever you see Anakin Skywalker

Whether child actor or Hayden Christensen, this guy just makes our blood boil. He’s more angsty than Harry Potter, a worse actor than the chimpanzee they used to use in the PG Tips adverts and so completely un-endearing that, when Obi-Wan casually leaves him to slowly burn alive, you cheer. You stand up, clink your drinks together and you cheer. That’s how much we hate you Anakin.

Whenever, in the Original Trilogy, someone LIES about the events of the prequels

Ah, we love the original trilogy. We know where we stand with the original trilogy. Lucas doesn’t get his characters to forcefeed us horrible lies… or does he?

They do, actually. Luke Skywalker, when ‘coming out’ to Princess Leia as her estranged brother (forgetting all that nasty incest), asks her to describe her mother.

“She was… very beautiful. Kind, but… sad.”

Aw Leia, so deep. So deep and poignant and full of utter BULLSH*T! You never met your mother. We saw what happened. You were scooped out of her by a robot and then she died. Because she “gave up on life”, remember? You’re lying. You’re lying to Luke and we don’t understand why. And now, every time we witness you not meeting your mother in Episode III, we require a stiff shot to calm our nerves.

Thanks for that.

Whenever a Jedi dies…

There used to be lots of Jedi, you know. In Episodes IV – VI, Yoda and Ben Kenobi are pretty much keeping the whole show alive as a duet – but in Episodes I – III, there were hundreds of them! From Mace Windu to the infinite supply of younglings in the Jedi Academy, it seemed as if nothing would ever bring down these guardians of the peace.

And then came order 66…

Did you see that? Those clones totally did one over on the Jedi. Bastards.

Whenever someone reacts badly to the death of a youngling

Weirdly, people seem far more upset by Anakin murdering a handful of children than they do the mass cull of adult Jedi. Every time someone mentions a youngling having been killed (and seems horrified) have two sips of delicious alcohol. An act of mourning or celebration? I guess it depends on whether you count yourself a Sith…

Whenever you recognise Keira Knightley under all that make-up

Keira Knightley is a little like Marmite; you either love her or you want to put her in the bin. Either way, you may be pleased (or disgusted) to discover that she plays Sabé, the decoy Queen of Naboo. She wears lots of silly make-up, has a thing for OTT costumes and, basically, comes across as a bit of a bitch. But it’s still her. If that’s not worthy of a drink, we don’t know what is.

Take three sips…

Whenever Liam Neelson’s death feels like a fitting punishment

Seriously, it’s true. Liam, you’re BETTER than all of this prequel nonsense. You should have said no to Lucas and all his promises of a wig worth fighting for. But all this we could have forgiven you. We forgave Ewan, after all. But when you rescue Jar Jar Binks from certain death, the little spot we saved for you in our hearts was destroyed. Darth Maul’s swift murder seems like a justifiable execution. Stay your hand Ewan… Maul did right.

Whenever the prequels infiltrate the classics

Remember that fateful day when the Blu-Ray collection of the Star Wars Saga was unleashed unto the public? And how we realised that EVERYTHING we hated about the prequels had seeped into the Originals, like an unstoppable disease?

It was a bad day for humankind.

Not only were the Ewoks now blinking like nobody’s business, but Anakin “We Hate You Hayden” Skywalker seems to have appeared at the very end of Episode VI. Take a gander:

I mean, seriously; where in the name of Skywalker has Sebastian Shaw gone? We loved him. That was the father Luke laid eyes upon. Luke has no idea who this sullen looking teen is; sure, he can guess, but why should he have to? It’s HIS hallucination. He should be allowed to hallucinate whoever the gungan he wants.

Whenever you forget that Natalie Portman is playing a cougar

Padmé Amidala and Anakin Skywalker; theirs was a romance that threatened to destroy the Republic as everyone knew it (and it did!) but remember their first ever meeting? Casual cougar behaviour…

It seems that she meets him aged 14 and then, as best as we BFFers can tell, remains 22 forevermore. Anakin, on the other hand, propels himself into manhood super quickly. Can you think of another tale where implausible ageing / non-ageing plays an integral part in a relationship?

(Hint: If you said something lame, like Twilight, you were totally right)

BECOME ONE WITH THE FORCE AND DOWN THAT DRINK!

When you suddenly realise that Yoda tastes of wasabi and it is the END OF THE WORLD!

Hungry? Why not have some classic Star Wars with your dinner?

So. Yoda tastes like wasabi. Who knew?

With this one line, it seems that Darth Lucas has fully embraced the Dark Side and is, in fact, happy to EAT his beloved creations if it means there’s a fat cheque in it for him. He literally doesn’t care anymore. Blinking Ewoks may prosper in the former splendour of Endor, orgasmic ducks can wail in Tatooine, Darth Vader can scream “NOOOOOO!!!” as loudly and for as long as he likes and people can, quite literally, eat f*cking Yoda.

Down your drink. Build up the confidence. And then, my dear Star Wars fans, you may as well pick up that blaster pistol, place it gently between your teeth and pull the trigger. There’s nothing left for us in this world now.

Do you like Star Wars, Episodes I – III? You DO!?! Have you or any of your family ever been diagnosed schizophrenic? Mentally incompetent? Are you habitually using drugs? Stimulants? Alcohol…?

1997′s Jackie Brown, starring DeNiro and Samuel L Jackson (alongside Pam Grier, Robert Forster, Bridget Fonda and Michael Keaton), was adapted by Tarantino from Leonard’s novel Rum Punch. Switch, which is set fifteen years before the events of Rum Punch, features DeNiro’s old character Louis Gara, a career criminal, and Jackson’s gun runner Ordell Robbie. Yasiin Bey (who apparently doesn’t want to be called Mos Def any more) is to take over the role of Robbie in Schechter’s adaptation, which is apparently keeping its name.

We don’t know much more about the film, but The Switch‘s Amazon entry has this to say:

Black Ordell Robbie and white Louis Gara have lots in common – time in the same gaol, convictions for auto theft, and a grand plan. They’re going to snatch the wife of a Detroit developer and collect some easy ransom money. At least that’s what they think…What they haven’t figured on is the fact that the husband has a secret mistress and has absolutely no desire to get his wife back. So now it’s time for Plan B. With the help of one seriously ticked-off housewife they are going to take the scumbag for everything he’s got…

That actually sounds quite good. We’ll read The Switch over the weekend and get back to you!

Have you read The Switch? What do you think of Hawkes’ and Bey’s casting? Let us know below!

According to Deadline Hugh Grant walked out of a script meeting after citing problems with the story, and it was looking less and less likely that shooting would begin at all after the film had been unceremoniously dumped by director Paul Feig. But to be honest, the core team is still pretty darn strong – it sounds like both Colin Firth and Renee Zellweger are still desperate to get started, and new director Peter Cattaneo (of The Full Monty fame) is actually a much better fit for the project anyway.

So when will we know for certain? Probably only when the cameras start to roll. Without a third novel to base the film on, (and considering the lack-lustre sequel), we’re still pretty wary of the idea of a third outing for Silly Bridget. At the end of the day, do we want to see yet another comedy fight between Oscar Winner Colin Firth and Best Days Are Behind Him Hugh Grant? Well… yes. We’re pretty easy to please, when it comes down to it.

The images show overrated meatsack Sam Worthington frowning in a variety of different lights, as well as Rosamund ‘I swear I used to be a proper actress’ Pike clutching desperately at a sword with the presumable intention of ramming it into her abdomen.

Click the pictures to make them endlessly, pointlessly bigger:

Well, that was underwhelming. Wrath of the Titans is out at some point this year, and if all you bastards hadn’t gone to see the last one despite it being utter garbage then maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Do you know what they’ve done to Bill Nighy? They’re making him play Hephaestus. Bill Nighy! Hephaestus! You make us sick.

See, the problem with Sound It Out’s attempt to accurately capture life within a specific area and a specific culture is that it’s done just that. By trying to show us the role music plays in our lives, it shows us that without music there are some people who would literally have nothing at all. By showing attempts to boost sales, we’re shown how depressingly hard they fail; an exclusive in-store gig by local-girl-done-good SaintSaviour is attended by a largely ambivalent audience of ten. And by presenting the unvarnished daily goings-on within a record shop’s walls, we learn that the only thing breaking up the tedium is all the desperation.

Even at 75 minutes, Sound It Out feels overstretched, with far too many scenes adding to nothing more than the monotony. There are multiple ‘nothing to do in Stockton’ and ‘no jobs in Stockton’ montages; if footage of chavs half-heartedly telling you they’re trying to get a job infuriates you, best give this one a miss altogether. Several scenes involve people coming in who can’t be served; a guy trying to sell a box of obviously stolen Makina, an insane/disturbed/crack-ed man after free records, and a woman trying to sell them her old VHS player.

Elements of Sound It Out do add up to genuine pathos. A young metal fan reveals that he’s made several attempts on his life, and thanks music (his ipod, technically, but SHHHH) for his continued existence. Shane reveals how prejudice towards ‘spastics’ has meant that his cerebral palsy, epilepsy and hydrocephalus left him a lonely, reclusive shelf-stacker. So, on that level, Sound It Out is effective. But it sure as hell won’t make you want to buy records. Sound It Out is pitched not as a trendy hangout or a gold mine for quality music, but as a last chance saloon for a community of lonely people with nowhere else to go. So where does that leave us? The message is ‘Save these places, or these guys will have nothing left!’ but how are we supposed to do that when buying records seems like such an unattractive proposition?

This film’s heart is firmly in the right place, with genuine sympathy and respect for its subjects. But by presenting it all in such an unvarnished fashion, it ends up as claustrophobic as Reservoir Dogs, twice as depressing as Naked and as likely to convince you to drop into Stockton-on-Tees as an airborne toxic event.

Based on a 1983 novel by Susan Hill, The Woman In Black is a deliciously traditional ghost story set in a deliciously traditional 19th century England. Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe) is still mourning the death of his young wife when he’s told in no uncertain terms by the solicitors he works for that he’s got one more chance to prove himself: an assignment in the small village of Crythin Gifford. A woman named Alice Drablow has passed away, and it’s up to Arthur to investigate the house, oversee the selling of the place and, in the great tradition of Vague Gothic Plot Devices, ‘go through all her papers’. Kissing his son goodbye, he boards the Hogwarts Exp train and it isn’t long before he’s decidedly unwelcomed by a village of dark-eyed, wary inhabitants. Every mention of his destination seems to cause fear, anger, and wobbly-lipped horror – and it’s only thanks to the friendly face of local man Mr Daily (Ciarán Hinds) that Kipps makes it onto the marshy road to the house at all.

Whispers of a malevolent spirit, a woman long dead and out for revenge draw in on Kipps thicker than the approaching fog, and by the time he’s finally trapped at Eel Marsh House with only a few candles, dark corridors and a rumours of a child-killing ghost for company, it’s clear that we’re not going to be in for a cosy evening.

In an age that seems to archly complicate every tale of the supernatural with “ITS ALL IN THE MIND, OR IS IT OH GOSH WE JUST DON’T-” preamble, it’s genuinely refreshing to watch a gothic story that wears its dark forces on its eerily fluttering sleeve. The Woman In Black is a ghost story, plain and simple – you’ve got your stormy nights, your imposing castle, your creaking floorboards and your jangling, juxtaposed wind-up toys, you’ve got your candlelight and you’ve got your ALL OF A SUDDEN THERE’S A THERE’S A OH MY oh wait it’s a crow. It might not be the most original story in the world, but settling down into the dark, dusty tropes and classic conventions of horror only heightens the enjoyment of Susan Hill’s traditional tale – noticeably tweaked for the tenser by Jane Goldman.

Director James Watkins confidently steers us through set piece after set piece with an innate sense of when to shock us, when to tease us and when to let the tension hang, resulting in an expertly crafted chiller that is all the more enjoyable for its knowing indulgence in the genre. Goldman does well to widen the narrative to include characters outside the imposing house, creating a tale of not only personal vengeance, but its affect on a doomed village and its families. The change makes the story feel justifiably cinematic; no mean feat considering the mega-success of the two-man theatrical adaptation.

Don’t get me wrong, The Woman In Black is not a perfect film. At times the air of gothic melodrama is at odds with the fairly naturalistic dialogue, with Radcliffe’s trademark stilted earnestness threatening to derail the tension altogether. The ending too feels a little anticlimactic after such a adrenaline-filled ride, with the final reveal of the woman herself never really hoping to live up to the horrors that lurk in our imaginations. If there is a critique to be made of James Watkins, is that he does more than he needs to – after dragging us through the teeth-crushingly tense walkways of Eel Marsh House, the unseen horrors he hints at in every frame are far more chilling than the triumphant shots of the fiend herself.

Still, these are but quibbles. It might be that the lead role should have gone to someone with a little more gravitas than Radcliffe, that the story falters in its ending moments and that at times the script tosses together an odd mix of knowing humour and earnest scare-mongering, but The Woman In Black is certainly a film that does its job. After all, when you have to remind yourself to keep your whimpering soundless whilst chanting ‘it’s only a 12, for God’s sake, it’s only a 12′ into your own hands, it can’t be denied that you’re watching a ghostly tale with solid punch.

Pascal (Auteil), an ageing widower, is father to six beautiful daughters. The most beautiful, without a doubt, is the eighteen-year-old Patricia (Bergès-Frisbey); a saintly girl, she goes above and beyond her daughterly duties, caring for her many sisters and her father as a mother and wife would. It is unsurprising (and nice enough) that she has captured the romantic intentions of the endearingly humble Félipe, a middle-aged well-digger in employment of her father; but it isn’t until a chance encounter with Jacques (Duvauchelle), a handsome pilot with a roaring motorbike permanently straddled between his thighs, that Patricia really begins to feel the first stirrings of love.

Unused as she is to the world of men, Patricia doesn’t notice anything amiss when her new admirer insists on taking her back to his room. Patricia rejects his advances, despite Jacques’ protestations of love, and runs tearfully back to town. However a second encounter under a full moon sees her weaken under his touch and, before we know it, she has given herself to him completely. He promises to meet her for a third time but fate interjects; Jacques is dispatched to the front line, leaving Patricia pregnant and utterly ruined.

Whilst the love story between Jacques and Patricia is, without a doubt, captivating, it is the relationship between her and her father which truly captures our attention. Fatherly indulgence for his most favoured child turns to disappointment. Disappointment gives way to cold fury, as he sends her away to live with an aunt. Stubbornness leads him to try to forget all about her and, eventually, we see him overcome his judgement and set out to fetch her home.

The superior French landscape lends itself perfectly to every shot; rustling fields, golden sunshine, dappled woodlands and sultry winds create an utterly tangible and always picturesque world for our characters to evolve in. The threat of war, whilst never physically shown, is always present on the edge of the tranquil setting. Soldiers board trains, posters call men to action, radios pipe out news from the front; like the novel before it, this film helps to hold a mirror up to the side of the war we rarely see and helps us appreciate what it was like for those left behind at home.

So what if the ending is just a little too perfect? Panned by the majority of critics as sitting on the wrong side of saccharine, I feel the conclusion seems perfectly in keeping with this unhurried tale of love. It’s the ending we hope for as an audience. No; it’s the ending that, as an audience invested in these characters, we deserve.

Joyful, uplifting and thought-provoking, Auteuil has created a quiet masterpiece; do not overlook it.