Please check out the links to the right, nice things are there and the unexplained ones are blogs, We Can Rebuild Him is particularly new so be gentle.
-
Last week I took it upon myself to go see one the 50 surprise screening that took place due to the London Film Fest. Every year they put on a film that is a surprise until the curtains open on the night, and every year (as far as I've heard) it is a fairly high-profile English language release.
Seeing films in general appeals to me, so the prospect of a surprise new film lights a little flame in me, and this year I had a much better chance getting tickets as the thing usually sells out before the tickets go public.
So Sunday night I made my way to Hampstead, to the very poncey but comfy Everyman to get my surprise.
I knew it would be in English, and that it would be something due out within the next couple of months. The giddy anticipation!
Anthony Minghella, the writer and director of some stuff walked out to the front, made a little speech about the BFI and how it wanted to bring film to the people and suchandsuch, and told us that even he didn't know what the film was going to be.
Of he went, the lights dimmed, the curtains drew back and the projector whirred into life.
Starter for Ten.
Starter for Ten.
Starter for fucking Ten.
Don't get me wrong, it's not a shit film. It's not even bad. What it is, though, is the dictionary definition of predictable.
All the genre staples of a coming of age film are there, taking in student life, a bit of comedy, a bit of romance. You can see everything coming from such a long way off it's like star gazing.
The acting is solid for the most part, the dialogue is okay despite the fact that you already know the gist before delivery and the mid-80s period detail is spot on, although this is rubbed in a little too hard when you have a new pop song on the soundtrack every 16 seconds so they can presumably release two volumes of the soundtrack.
It ambles along quite genially and you never really wish it ill will, but I personally rolled my eyes throughout when it became clear that they'd not tried anything new. It's a textbook case of the successful British film, shuffling along a well-worn path with a zombie-like gait, offering up the cozy and expected and no doubt it will be showered with undeserving praise as it reaps the dollars from the Americans cooing at the quaint English people and their shambling bashfulness.
If it weren't for the likes of Shane Meadows, Pawel Pawlikowski and the Pegg/Wright team I might be more accepting of the turgid beigeness of a lot of Brit flicks, but I know that it doesn't have to be that way.
Such is life.
I reckon that McAvoy chap is heir apparent to that other hopeless cunt of many a romantic-comedy, Hugh Grant. He just needs to work on his stutter and play less wheelchair bound life and souls of the party. If he does some comedy horror like schindlers list he'll end up as Tim Roth in ten years though. It's a fine line he's walking.
ReplyDelete