Werner Herzog has been working in documentaries lately and returns to feature films with this biopic of Gertrude Bell, a single British woman who roamed the Arabian deserts at the time of Lawrence of Arabia in the early part of the 20th century. She was instrumental in the drawing up of borders between Arabian tribes to form Jordan, Iraq and other countries and seems to have been genuinely liked by many tribes. So, an interesting and important historical character.
I wish I could say the same about the film. It’s main saving grace is beautiful photography and a look at a different world in the past.
It is, however, ploddingly slow and bereft of any dramatic tension. The emphasis given to her love life, or efforts not to have one also drag on pointlessly when we would have been more interested in her political influence in the area. Those scenes also tend to be clichéd. Nicole Kidman is pretty vapid 
as she usually is in these types of roles, she’s more miss than hit in my opinion. James Franco 
as her first pretender and Robert Pattinson as T E Lawrence are both miscast in my opinion 
and only Damian Lewis as a lovestruck consul gets closer to a satisfying portrayal. It could have been much more but Herzog’s direction and script weigh this down so heavily it sinks fast. That’s what you get for trying to do David Lean and Merchant Ivory together.
★★
, they land in France and set about on their task which leads to lots of gunfights and deaths in different settings around Paris
and in the countryside. It’s well-paced and keeps you hooked even if the film seems far from authentic. Sure, they ratchet up the blood but their ability to reorganize themselves and outfits from one moment to another defies belief and several other plot holes serve only to advance the story. Moritz Bleibtrau 
is a solid Heindrich and Julie Depardieu 
and Marie Gillain are good supports. Entertaining in a sort of female James Bond WW2 type of way.
in the outback of Australia to right some wrongs and discover why she was driven from the town years previously.
She finds her drunk mother Molly, barely surviving, abandoned to her fate by small town prejudice. The locals are a bunch of eccentrics engaged in small town activities as you would be in 1951.
Along comes Teddy (Liam Hemsworth)
as the love interest determined to rescue Tilly and Hugo Weaving adds his usual talents to the role of the local cop. Julia Blake and other well-known cast members do their bit but frankly as Molly, it is Judy Davis who gives us most pleasure.
It is basically a sci-fi film involving a thought transfer experiment between a comatose girl and Lukas, one of the workers at the laboratory who was volunteered to take part in the tests.
From very early on he connects with the girl and seems to become part of her thoughts which lead him to discover how she came to be in hospital. In the process he falls in love with this girl because of the dream state experiences 
and this also causes problems with his girlfriend Lina. For that reason he also lies about what he has seen in dream state, which becomes increasingly intense. Mariusz Jampolskas and Jurga Jutaite are convincing in the lead roles 
and there are some good cameos in smaller parts even though the scientists seem wooden. What really lifts the film is very good camerawork, the fine music of Peter van Poehl and the vision of the director who has created a film
that lures you in and keeps you fascinated even in longish dream scenes.
plays an alien who ends up driving around Glasgow and the countryside picking up lonely men and basically killing them.
Not that this is apparent from the beginning. You have to keep piecing the puzzle together. What transpires by the end is that she is a sort of observer of our life,
and in her curiosity wants to experience our food, our emotions, etc.
What makes the film work is Mica Levi’s spooky music, a direction that is unpredictable and the still presence of Scarlett
in the lead role. Unusual, drags in patches but is ultimately quite haunting.
won’t let him experiment. So, after an online spat with top food critic (Oliver Platt)
, he quits his job and the need to earn money sees him go to Miami where his ex-wife’s second husband fixes up a food truck for him
(Robert Downey Jnr in another cameo). With his sous-chef (John Leguizamo) and his son Percy (cute and competent Emjay Anthony), they set off across America tasting local specialties
and selling from the truck, with Percy tweeting and promoting his dad’s work all the way. Ex-wife Inés (Sofia Vergara) even joins in.
Casper has time for a father-son relationship and gets balance in his professional career, the success of the food truck predictably leads him to his own restaurant.
Some very amusing scenes added to by good camerawork, a mood and setting that could be anywhere from the 50’s to now
and some original twists on old coming of age stories all make for a very promising debut. However, it could do with some editing – the build-up is rather slow – and it peters out towards the end with a lack of ideas, though some like the underwater scenes are classic.
Emile Hirsch adds a good turn as the swanky American neighbor and despite the clichés
, the supporting cast are good. Roberts himself does a great deadpan nerd. Nice to see Wales on the cinema map!
inadvertently overlooks a child sleeping in the bus when she shuts up for the night. Next day he is discovered almost dead with extreme hypothermia. This unleashes a chain of reactions in Lesley, who feels guilt and distress, her family (husband John Slattery has been told his logging company is closing) and daughter Paula is at that typical teenage age of being somewhat lost. The boy’s mother is also a lost soul, spending her time on drugs, alcohol and men and the grandmother Crystal (Margo Martindale) is about the only one holding things together.
Amy Morton is excellent as Lesley in an almost wordless role, Slattery is good support as her husband and both Louisa Krause 
and Emily Meade as Marla (boy’s mother) and Paula (daughter)
give subtle performances, Excellent bleak photography too by Jodi Lee Lipes. But, my reservation is that its slow dark monotonous rhythm plays against it in the long run compared to something like Frozen River. Still, a good film on how isolated we can be as humans once misfortune strikes.
and keeps up the suspense as an American family try to save themselves from angry citizens of an Asian country.
On the other hand it is pretty xenophobic and pro-American and has loads of holes in the plot. Owen Wilson makes a good action lead, Lake Bell 
is suitably anguished as his wife, there are two typically spoilt daughters
and Pierce Brosnan with a Michael Caine accent as some sort of mysterious agent.
Lots of political clichés and international generalisations. The Year of Living Dangerously and other films have done it far better before.
She makes the same mistakes over and over again but she has spunk and her determination is endearing. The series of films are also about society because Bridget is a girl who wants to fit in but can’t. So there are plenty of commentaries about society. Happily this, the third film in the series, is back in the hands of Sharon Maguire and has an ace script with Dan Mazer and Emma Thompson adding to Helen Feilding’s original.
It cracks along at a good pace and even if there are some old jokes, they are over so quick and we are on to something new before you know it. As before, the slapstick is a feature here and well enough done considering there is so little these days on film.
Colin Firth and Patrick Dempsey do the male rivalry well enough,
Renee Zellweger proves that this role is the role of her career. Who takes the top prize here is Emma Thompson as the midwife with some devastatingly funny lines.
All in all, it is a slick and witty production and of course, at times, you have to suspend belief, but it works.
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