33 Postcards

I thought we were up for another immigration struggle here as 16 year-old orphan Mei Mei, conductor of the orphanage choir, takes advantage of a cultural trip to Australia to find the man who has been sponsoring her for so long.  She soon discovers that he is in jail awaiting parole for murder and that all his postcards of being a happily married forest ranger are lies and that he is more than a bit crazy.  Mei Mei is not so quick on the uptake (read language and cultural gaps) and she is determined to stay and get her father back on the rails even if it means going underground.  Although she finds friends she is soon in the middle of the very car theft ring that got Dean (Guy Pearce) in the clink in the first place.

So, the cast are up against it with an implausible plot full of holes that never get any explanation and a genre that lurches between tear jerker, thriller and legal drama.  No one sensible seems capable of saying stop before the mayhem gets worse.  Zhu Lin does what she can as the lead and Pearce has some presence and acting chops which seem wrongly employed here.  The rest is cliché and sloppiness, best avoided.

★+

Toast

Strangely effective and yet small bio of food writer and chef Nigel Slater.  Born in Wolverhampton, an only child, he lost his mother at 9 to asthma and is left with an unsympathetic father and a cleaner turned stepmother who ends up being his enemy. Eventually, he manages to escape via his love of cooking and becomes a chef’s apprentice in a big hotel, his first step towards subsequent fame.  The tone of the film fits in with this resentment of his upbringing but it is also a story of the rejection of circumstances producing the springboard to get out and make it.

The film carefully recreates the 60’s and the photography of this period and of the food is excellent.  So, while it could be accused that the film is rather biased it is well made.  Helena Bonham Carter is her usual excellent self as Mrs Potter, Ken Stott is effective as the father and I preferred Oscar Kennedy, the Young Nigel to his adolescent version. Watchable and somewhat moving.

★★★

Someday this pain will be useful to you

Sure, this film has its clichéd side and in the end it is not much of a story but I thought that on the whole it was a very enjoyable movie with many good features.

It tells the story of a sensitive teenager (James Sveck played excellently by Toby Regbo) about to go to college who feels ill-adjusted to life.  As his life coach, Lucy Liu later says, in fact there’s nothing much wrong with him, especially given the family he comes from.  Marcia Gay Harden is his mother – an art shop owner on her third failed marriage and some eccentric beliefs, Peter Gallagher is his go-getter father and both act very well.  His sister is dating a much older Polish professor, he has a charming Grandmother who used to be a chorus line dancer which Ellen Burstyn plays very well despite the clichés of the part

 

Robert Faenza and Dahlia Heyman do a very good job of creating a humorous lightly ironic script and manage the drama well.  This film is nothing new in terms of theme but is entertaining to watch.

Sure, this film has its clichéd side and in the end it is not much of a story but I thought that on the whole it was a very enjoyable movie with many good features.

It tells the story of a sensitive teenager (James Sveck played excellently by Toby Regbo) about to go to college who feels ill-adjusted to life.  As his life coach, Lucy Liu later says, in fact there’s nothing much wrong with him, especially given the family he comes from.  Marcia Gay Harden is his mother – an art shop owner on her third failed marriage and some eccentric beliefs, Peter Gallagher is his go-getter father and both act very well.  His sister is dating a much older Polish professor, he has a charming Grandmother who used to be a chorus line dancer which Ellen Burstyn plays very well despite the clichés of the part

Robert Faenza and Dahlia Heyman do a very good job of creating a humorous lightly ironic script and manage the drama well.  This film is nothing new in terms of theme but is entertaining to watch.

★★★+

Mixed Kebab

This Belgian film takes the life of a young man of Turkish descent who is trying to balance the contradictions of his life.  He is gay and has a new young blond boyfriend.  His parents don’t know about this and have arranged a marriage for him back in Turkey which he agrees to go along with seemingly to help the girl in question get out of her village and away from the attentions of a local. Meanwhile, his brother who is involved in petty crime ends up in bigger trouble and to flee it goes straight into the arms of a radical extremist Islamic group.  Other family members have their priorities too.  There are light moments but mostly the film shows how we complicate our lives with cultural and religious beliefs and how many of the second or third generation immigrants have such a tough job reconciling it all.  Good quality production with adequate acting, the film nevertheless fades away quite quickly.

★★★

To Rome with Love

Very hard to sum this one up.  The good thing is that there is less of the neurotic Woody Allen here, some quite unusual ideas, not entirely original – like the opera singer who can only sing well in a shower, a big cast and 4 main stories to keep us involved and a sort of homage to Italian music and cinema and the city itself throughout.  There are good moments – Judy Davis as Woody Allen’s wife does a great job, Jesse Eisenberg and Alec Baldwin (as his angel) make a good team and I didn’t mind the Roberto Benigni satire on reality shows and TV giving people 15 minutes of fame.  But somewhere along the line most of the stories peter out and while it is pleasant enough to watch, we realize that there is not that much satisfaction here – some good photography, the odd line or look and the hope that you can recognize the references here and there.

★★ +

Balibo

This almost overdue film starts to document what life in East Timor must have been like during the Indonesian invasion.  It does so by telling the story of the Balibo 5, five Australian journalists who went missing and were killed during the invasion and a sixth, Roger East who followed their trail to try to find them. The film tends to dwell on these issues and the relationship of Jose Ramos Horta, future President who was one of the freedom fighters for the Timorese.  What we get to see of the life of the ordinary people, beautifully photographed is telling enough but definitely background.  The action scenes work well, the journalists did seem rather naïve but then the chaos of war often results in the wrong decisions being made.  What seems to be an almost documentalized drama starts to really kick in the last quarter with East fighting Horta and ending up finding the murder site alone.  His return to Dili and immense sadness followed by his own execution is extremely moving and beautifully underplayed by Anthony Lapaglia confirming his tremendous talent.  Oscar Isaac is fine as Horta and the supporting cast all perform well.  Lisa Gerrard’s music and local vocalists singing Timorese songs add to the mix.

It ends up as an important film, for its message and it seems to have, with the book it is based on, galvanized people into action to find out more concerning the Balibo 5 and what actually happened.  The Indonesians are not best pleased.  Is it a good film artistically?  It gets there but the slowish build up perhaps prevents it from being better than a competent work.

★★★ +