As the pair flit around the Med, New York and London, staying in one grand house after another, their lives are as empty and vacuous as the film itself, while Moore gives a strangely stilted and mannered performance as if Barbara is a mannequin and not entirely human, before descending into mommy from hell mode.

Even the great supporting cast of Stephen Dillane and Hugh Dancy can’t lift the aura of ennui that settles on proceedings, which seem to last an eternity rather than the actual 94 minute running time.      Dee Pilgrim

Savage Grace

Regia: Tom Kalin

Cast: Julianne Moore, Eddie Redmayne, Stephen Dillane, Elena Anaya, Belen Rueda, Unax Ugalde, Hugh Dancy, Anne Reid, Barney Clark, Abel Folk

Distribuzione: BIM, Francia Spagna USA, 2007

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Tratto dal libro omonimo di Natalie Robins e Steven M.L. Aronson, il film racconta l'incredibile storia vera di Barbara Daly (Julianne Moore), ambiziosa ragazza di bassa estrazione sociale, modella e aspirante starlette, che sposa il magnate Brooks Baekeland (Stephen Dillane), aitante erede della fortuna accumulata dal nonno, Leo, inventore della bakelite. Barbara è bella, rossa e carismatica, ma disperatamente inadeguata alla classe sociale e al mondo del marito. La nascita dell'unico figlio della coppia, Tony (Eddie Redmayne), rischia di compromettere il precario equilibrio di questa unione di estremi. Crescendo, il ragazzo si sente un fallimento agli occhi del padre e sviluppa un rapporto sempre più simbiotico e morboso con la madre. La tragedia sarà inevitabile e terribile...

La famiglia Baekeland apparentemente ha tutto: ricchezza, amicizie importanti, possibilità di vivere in giro per il mondo (Parigi, Londra, New York, Maiorca, Cadaqués). Il piccolo Tony vive in questo mondo dorato ma ben presto iniziano i problemi: il matrimonio dei suoi genitori non è affatto felice e la madre riversa la sua frustrazione sul figlio, instaurando con lui un rapporto morboso e poco sano, allontanandolo di fatto dal padre. La voce narrante di Tony afferma che la madre ha fatto di lui il suo vero marito, cercando di ottenere da lui tutto quello che il coniuge non le concedeva: affetto, attenzione, devozione, amore...

In seguito all'abbandono della famiglia da parte di Brooks, i due vivranno ancora di più in simbiosi. Tony è dichiaratamente omosessuale e Barbara non esita a dividere il letto con lui e uno dei suoi amanti ( un ottimo Hugh Dancy)... Tale rapporto è destinato a finire in tragedia.

Tom Kalin mette in scena una tragedia in 6 atti, i cui eventi si dipanano tra il 1946 e il 1972.

Ci troviamo di fronte a personaggi malati, ossessionati, morbosi, fragili, insicuri, terribilmente complessi e assolutamente imprevedibili.

Julianne Moore e il giovane e sempre più quotato Eddie Redmayne (già visto e apprezzato nel thriller Symbiosis- Uniti per la morte) danno vita a una stupenda interpretazione, con dei ruoli indubbiamente ricchi di sfaccettature, in una sorta di Il laureato in chiave morbosa e incestuosa, nella quale i valori sono assenti o totalmente capovolti.

Un film che sconvolge, indigna persino in alcuni punti, e che indubbiamente fa riflettere sulle vie malate e insalubri che l'amore può percorrere.

Conclusione: Assolutamente da vedere.

Voto: 8

"A fantasia, em todas as suas formas, só tem utilidade se servir como uma reflexão do que pode ser construído para o futuro." (Kurt Vonnegut)

Muito embora o filme traga três personagens femininas, é do lado feminino de ser que cada um de nós temos, homens e mulheres, que ele mostra. E esse olhar feminino vem pelo poeta, justamente por um personagem masculino. Um jeito romântico de ser e de olhar o mundo. Lindo!

Aí ficam perguntas... Tudo tem que ser tão certinho? Tudo tem que sempre ser encarado dentro da normalidade, daquilo que já está pré-estabelecido? A mola do mundo também é movimenta por algo fora dos padrões, fora do convencional. Sempre teremos tempo de subverter a engrenagem. Ou não, pois o tempo não para. As horas voam... Onde estaria, melhor, onde ficaria o sonho, o desejo, a vontade em traçar seu próprio destino? Pois, levar uma vida dupla, onde a real é por pura obrigação, onde a de sonhos é escapismos, há de chegar uma hora que não aguentará mais. E ai...

Não li o livro do qual o filme foi baseado. Como também ainda não li o livro de Virgínia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway" que faz parte do filme. Esse me motivou a mais em ler. Então, focarei o filme. E sem entrar muito na patologia da escritora, por não ser a minha praia. O filme mostra um dia ímpar na vida de algumas pessoas. Com ela, escrevendo os esboços de mais um livro. Que viria a ser seu último trabalho. Como também, anos depois (Em 1951 e em 2001; nos EUA.), vidas alteradas em alguns dos leitores desse mesmo livro. Um dia que ficará marcado para sempre.

O que me cativou de pronto foi o lance dela ficar buscando uma frase para então iniciar o texto. Sem nenhuma pretensão nessa comparação, lhes digo que eu era assim. Para qualquer texto que escrevia, mesmo para uma redação na escola, buscava por uma frase para iniciar. Após encontrá-la, o texto fluía naturalmente.

Nicole Kidman faz a Virgínia Woolf. Confesso a vocês que não a reconheci de imediato. Só fui mesmo notar quando outra pessoa comentou. Parabéns pela performance e pelo visual!

Virgínia, após encontrar a frase... Ótima por sinal! Eu adoro flores! ...pensa no rumo que dará aos personagens. Sua intenção inicial era matar a protagonista. Sua inquietude também por conta de sua doença a faz parar por algumas horas e olhar o mundinho que a cerca. De onde se deprime por saber que está presa ao seu problema. Gostaria que mais do que drogarem-na, que os médicos encontrassem uma solução. Durante esse correr do dia... Constata que sua casa funciona sem ela, pois as criadas tomam as decisões que deveriam vir dela. Talvez, numa de punir, faz a empregada ir comprar gengibre em Londres.

Depois, com a visita da irmã com os filhos, capta mais coisas. Visita essa que por terem chegado antes da hora, irrita o marido (Stephen Dillane). A irmã (Miranda Richardson) lhe diz que é uma privilegiada, por poder viver duas vidas: a real e a dos livros. Mas Virgínia queria mesmo viver outra vida. Até da irmã, já seria bem-vinda. E por conta de um cerimonial junto com a sobrinha para um pássaro à beira da morte... reflete mais agora também sobre a sua vida real.

Uma das passagens mais tocante é dela com o marido na estação de trem. (Algo sadio em qualquer relacionamento: o de discutir a relação.) O que cada um falou para o outro. Mas que deixou uma pergunta: Será que ambos ouviram o que o outro dizia de fato? Claro, que eles tentaram. (Atualmente, eu diria que num caso semelhante, precisariam da ajuda de um profissional.). Mas diante do quadro clínico dela e por Leonard ser meio avesso às mudanças repentinas, não houve o acesso até ela. Mesmo havendo amor entre eles, um não conseguia satisfazer o outro. Numa parte, quando ela diz estar entediada ali naquele lugar, ele lhe diz que ela sentia o mesmo na agitação da capital. Ele bem que tentou dentro do limite dele, do jeito dele, fez o que julgava estar certo e por amor a ela. Mais uma vez estava disposto a mudar a si próprio por ela. Mas não era isso que ela queria. Virgínia queria não apenas libertar-se, como também não manter ninguém preso a si. E eles não se entenderam.

As outras duas histórias, mesmo passadas em anos diferentes, irão se unir de fato nesse único dia. Não, não se trata de nenhuma viagem do tempo, vendo o filme irão entender melhor. Por hora, vou tentar contar sem estragar a surpresa de quem ainda não viu esse filme.

Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) leva a vida de uma dona de casa padrão. Casada. Mãe de um menino e encontra-se grávida de outro. No dia do aniversário do seu marido, Dan (John C. Reilly), algo acontece que a faz mudar radicalmente a sua vida. Pontua essa decisão não apenas a história do livro, mas a conversa com a amiga Kitty (Toni Collette). Essa, por estar na iminência de não mais poder gerar um filho considera a amiga uma privilegiada. Mas essa não é a vida que ela queria levar. Laura queria libertar-se. Mas como sair daquela engrenagem? O que seria do seu garotinho? Certo ou errado, Laura segiu com a sua decisão.

Passados mais alguns anos... Conhecemos Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) que como na manhã da história do livro, sai para comprar flores. Também irá dar uma festa. Seu grande e inestimável amigo Richard (Ed Harris) ganharam um prêmio. Prêmio esse que o colocava na lista dos grandes poetas. Mas que para ele, viera mesmo por ele se declarar aidético. Ela já incorporou em seu dia-a-dia ir cuidar dele. O que o deprime. Tal qual Virgínia com o marido, ele também se desgosta em precisar desses cuidados. A ama demais para mantê-la presa a ele. Ela tem uma filha (Claire Daines), ela tem Sally (Allison Janney). Tem a sua própria vida.

Assim, ao final de um único dia... após fazerem um mergulho profundo dentro de si mesmo... após reverem seus fantasmas, ou seriam seus piores pesadelos? Dormem o sono dos justos. Para alguns, um novo amanhecer surgirar. E por conta disso, mesmo sendo um clichezão, repito: Enquanto há vida, há esperança. Eu fico triste quando vejo um final com o fim de certos personagens. Triste, mas respeitando a decisão.

Esse entrou para a minha lista de que vale a pena rever, sempre! Filmaço! Nota máxima!

Por: Valéria Miguez.

As Horas (The Hours). 2002. EUA. Direção: Stephen Daldry. Elenco: Nicole Kdman, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Ed Harris, John C. Relly, Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Miranda Richardson, Jeff Daniels, Stephen Dillane. Gênero: Drama. Duração: 114 minutos. Baseado no livro de Michael Cunningham.

"A child escapes from Poland during World War II and first heads to Greece before coming of age in Canada"

FRIDAY: 7:00, 9:10PM

SATURDAY: 7:00, 9:10PM

SUNDAY: 4:15, 7:00PM

MONDAY: CLOSED

TUESDAY: 7:00, 9:00PM

WEDNESDAY: 7:00, 9:00PM

THURSDAY: 7:00, 9:00PM

view trailer

My first movie with any sort of recognizable star was Savage Grace, staring Juliannne Moore. Admittedly I only skimmed the all important blurb (seriously, these things are a god send) so I only have myself to blame for my disappointment...well, and director Tom Kalin. Sure he's a recognized filmmaker straight from the learned heads of Columbia, but he can't relate to an audience.

Barbara Daly, played by Julianne Moore, is a former actress turned princess of high society. She has none other to thank than Brooks Baekeland (Stephen Dillane) of plastics riches. The film follows the Baekeland "family" through their demise. Brooks leaves, and the rest is just indulgent film making at it's worst. The musical accompaniment is nauseating by the first few minutes! Though beautiful, the words are merely lyrics to a musical montage. I can't imagine how this got in to Sundance other than Julianne Moore's name. Scene after scene shows her and her son engaging in hedonistic pleasures. This is a tutorial of why people shouldn't have too much money.

One thing I did enjoy very much in the film was the scenery. The plot moves from 1946-1972 in London, Paris, Cadques, Malloraca and New York. The recreation techniques were done well as was the period dress...but onwards with the rant!

Eddie Redmayne plays the grown up Tony, the son of Barbara and Brooks. He describes himself (in narration which I believe is completely unnecessary) as the "steam when hot and cold touch". Well he certainly creates a lot of friction. He makes moves on girls, guys, drugs, alcohol, he's basically a kid without a purpose. Now me, as a man of around his age, I'm sitting there frustrated. Never have we been able to connect to our main character (I'm assuming since he's narrating). He doesn't go to school, he's never had a job, he's just a fop and I don't care what happens to him. OK it's based on real events, then show us some real emotion! The "climatic" ending was ruined for me once I read the press materials but I would certainly skip this film.

Spoiler Alert...

Tony stabs his mother to death and then orders Chinese Food. After, he gets admitted to a loony bin only to be released in 1980. After his release he was flown to the US to spend the remainder of his day's with his grandmother (yes, the mother of his mother which he killed). Within the first week he stabbed her in an argument. He killed himself in Jail.

My last bit on this film is about Moore, who I usually adore. I think she's been looking at way too many Hillary Clinton videos because she just cackles her way through this part. I'm sure it was fun to play a crazy, sexy, pleasure obsessed mother, but her agent should have yanked this script from her hands. Kalin has one scene in particular that was uncomfortable for me, with Barbara, Sam (the "gay" lover they both she and her son have recently sexed) and her son naked in bed...yeah, that weird.

I also saw George A Romero's Diary of the Dead today. Look for the review sometime tomorrow (might be really really busy but I'll try) and I've picked my first film to review for my school newspaper! The Great Buck Howard starring John Malkovich, Colin, and Tom Hanks. I was very happy with this film and will be writing it up for The GW Hatchet.

Other News...

I saw Uma Thurman today. She is really tall and beautiful. I was in the super market and spotted her and a bunch of her sky high friends. I uttered her name and said I like your work. I'm off to see Merry Gentleman, Michael Keaton's directorial debut and my 4th film today. Later.

Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000)
Directed by Thaddeus O'Sullivan, written by Gerard Stembridge

Two films heading off in different directions, but both about Dublin crimelord Martin Cahill, known as 'The General' for the way he marshalled his gang and its activities.

In ODC the main character (played by Kevin Spacey) is renamed Michael Lynch as if to distance itself from the Boorman picture (with Brendan Gleeson in the lead), which came out whilst it was still in production as a more straight forward Cahill biopic, but even then it follows the same basic mythology. In both films Cahill/Lynch is shown as something of a romantic robber, stealing from the rich and making monkeys of the Gardai; he goes to great lengths to hide his face from reporters; he undertakes high profile, crowd-pleasing heists; he gets into conflict with the IRA; and he relates his earlier struggle against eviction from the condemned Hollyfield Buildings.

Oh yes, and in each film he suckles from the teat of both his wife and her sister - Maria Doyle Kennedy and Angeline Ball in The General, Linda Fiorentino and Helen Baxendale in ODC. All good, clean polyamorous fun.

Where the films diverge is in tone and in conclusion: the Boorman film presents a more conflicted, more morally ambiguous central character, whereas in the O'Sullivan version Lynch is essentially a cheeky chappy throughout, a master criminal planning evermore spectacular ways to show up the cops. The nearest we see him in morally ambiguous terms is when, whilst the polis are piling on the pressure, he snaps at his wife. Even when torturing a gang member to ascertain whether he had doublecrossed him, it's done in such a lovable way that the audience is chuckling away at it all. The Gleeson version, however, we see in much darker situations. He considers ratting on his compadres, his crimes affect not just the rich on high, and his violence is far less funny.

That's not to say that The General is a great film and that ODC isn't, though; I think both are strong works, trying to do different things with the same source material. The General is structured more as a tragedy, whereas ODC is a fairy tale, a folk myth, subjugating the blood and tears to the greater meaning of sticking it to The Man. The chutzpah with which O'Sullivan pulls together his plot and characters might be related to his being a comparatively youthful 53 against Boorman's 65 at the time of production; it was only his 6th feature, ten behind Boorman. But whatever way you slice this cheese, the pickle is different. ODC, whilst not sinking to the same son & lumière LCD depths of that wave of gangster BritFlicks of the late 90s/early 00s (Circus, Rancid Aluminium and all), still has a gurt big cartoon tiger in its tank powering it along. It's pedal-to-the-metal, roaring ahead to a happy ending and worrying about the moral implications afterwards. The General, by contrast, revels in the soul of its characters, in their struggles. Gleeson's Cahill is bloke-in-the-pub funny, but narky and scary with it. He dresses badly, he hurts people, and you're not sure you actually like him. Spacey's Lynch, on the other hand, is bright and breezy and oh-what-a-card.

Another way to look at it is to consider their principal nemeses. For Gleeson/Cahill, it's Jon Voight as Inspector Ned Kenny, for Spacey/Lynch, it's Stephen Dillane as Inspector Noel Quigley. Whereas Kenny is an assiduous investigator and morally driven, as well as being a hard bastard, Quigley is most definitely from the fuck-this-let's-shoot-the-cunts school of policing, and might well have been teamed up with Sean Pertwee from 51st State in a previous posting. Kenny tries to empathise with Cahill, tries to outthink him, tries to social engineer him into making mistakes; Quigley is a straight ahead, screws-on, pressure up jack. In The General the struggle between crook and cop is long-game, it's chess; in ODC it's brute force, badminton with explosive shuttlecocks.

Well, this is dragging on a touch, so a quick rundown of some of the other stuff: The General was apparently shot in colour, but released in both colour and black & white versions; having only seen the b&w one, I'd say that as with La Haine (also shot in colour but printed monochromatically) the loss of colour helps push the story along, removing a distraction. ODC is nicely edited together (by William M Anderson, whose journeyman career has taken in greats like Breaker Morant as well as rent-payers like, um, City Slickers II: The Legend Of Curly's Gold), and has a punchy rhythm to it which helps distract away from a more episodic structure. Gleeson, Kennedy and Ball capture the dynamic of an unconventional but tightly-knit family well, and Voight is excellent as Cahill's pursuer. There's also Adrian Dunbar giving good gangster as Cahill's main lieutenant. Over on ODC I'd say Spacey captures the right spirit for the film as a whole, but he does sometimes give in to standard Spacey mugging mode. Fiorentino does manage to imbue some sense of a person into her rather underwritten part, while Baxendale just seems to recite the lines. A shame, but then the whole family aspect of the story is somewhat neglected. Dillane isn't really called upon to do much more than shout and look immensely angry for most of the time, and he does that admirably. Similarly Patrick Malahide gets a nice payday as a comic boss cop, Commissioner Daly, but it's not really acting, is it? On the other hand, Peter Mullan and David Hayman are top notch as Lynch's oppos, providing a bit of traction for Spacey to work with; there's also an early Colin Farrell bit as one of the younger cohorts - again, good for what's there. And perhaps most tantalising of all, there's Vincent Regan as ex-IRA man Shay Kirby. All in all though The General has it over ODC on the acting onions. And there's a lot of plastic shillelagh accents on show in ODC

Anyway, if you've not seen either or both, do check them out, they are worth watching. And check out the directors' other stuff.

There's lots to recommend with Boorman - Point Blank, Hell In The Pacific, Deliverance, Excalibur, then there's the oddity that is a Mexican moustachioed Sean Connery in a nappy in Zardoz; I'd steer you towards his love poem to the Amazon, The Emerald Forest, but suggest you avoid the steaming shitpile that is Exorcist II: The Heretic. His wartime childhood flick Hope And Glory is better than its reviews might indicate, but Beyond Rangoon is an emotionally cheap journey into the democracy movement in 80s Burma, and doesn't compare well with similar films like The Killing Fields, Under Fire or The Year Of Living Dangerously. Oh, and of course there's his masterful Le Carré adaptation, The Tailor Of Panama, though that's pretty much down to the awesome performances IMO.

I'm much less familiar with O'Sullivan, but I'd definitely recommend Nothing Personal, which sort of plays as a Salò to 1970s Loyalism, or an Ulster Lacombe Lucien. It's dark in tone, rich in structure, and beats the crap out of Resurrection Man (though that film is a guilty pleasure of mine).

Durante un fin de semana, dos turbios hombres de negocios huyen a las islas Caimán para esquivar un proceso federal. Pero durante su escapada inician una cadena de trágicos acontecimientos en los que implicarán a un nativo británico para cometer  un crimen que cambiará sus vidas para siempre...

Productora: Yari Films Group y El Camino Pictures, Sindicate Films International

Director: Frank E. Flowers

I spoke to a senior theatre-goer last week over lunch, and he said - in the old days - the Royal Court would put on the plays that nobody else dared put on. When reading up on the two closing plays this week, it seems like this is still part true. Only, these days, any theatre seems to be able to put on whatever they like, but it appears the Royal Court still want to contain their we put on risky plays here profile. I say bravo.

For instance, "Drunk Enough To Say I Love You?" is a 45 minutes long fractious affair between two men from opposite sides of the world. One British guy Jack (Union Jack) and one American dude called Sam (Uncle Sam). Jack is a family man, Sam is a government official. You can imagine how the interaction between these two are going to be, right? "Aggressive" and "disagreeing" are two words that come to mind.

Then we have "Catch", that's about the Big Brother state Britain is in now. You can't step out to the shops without being caught on camera five times, you're not sure if your phone calls are being listened to, if your letters are being read or if you're under 24-Hour surveillance. And what for? Are we all criminals now, all of a sudden? Guilty until proven innocent? Nevermind those ID cards that will track your every step, every transaction... If you ever buy a porn mag or a vibrator with your credit card, the government is going to know. And will probably run a security check on you and establish whether such a pervert should be put in a test tube and studied.

So if you want to catch two plays that may make you think before embarking on your turkey dinners and Christmas puddings, catch these two.

"Catch" and "Drunk Enough To Say I Love You?" both end tomorrow at the Royal Court Theatre.