So what happens when it's late and you're flipping through channels. You sometimes get hooked on a film that you can't stop watching, and before you know it the film is finished, and you're smiling because there is good content on them there channels after all.
That's how I saw Pawel Pawlikowski's neat little film My Summer of Love. I was intrigued by the characters Mona played by Nathalie Press and Tamsin played beautifully by Emily Blunt. It is a simple tale of two young women spending the summer together and who happen to fall in love. Now before you say anything I like to point out the two great performances that Ms Press and Ms Blunt give. Pawlikowski doesn't go for the exploitable nuances of the story of two women falling in love. He instead shows how the two are drawn together by their similarities and differences in character. Mona is the village girl who lives with her brother who has become a born again Christian. She misses her old brother played nicely by Paddy Considine who can be seen now in theaters in the The Bourne Ultimatum. Tamsin is the wealthy girl who is carrying the guilt and love of her dead sister, and her dysfunctional family. I bought the relationship, and really enjoyed the photography of Ryszard Lenczewski. A lot of the film seems to be shot hand-held, and I liked that, but sometimes I wondered if putting a wide lens on would have been better and using a dolly. The close-ups are in your face, and what the actors do without uttering a word is an example of how a director can usefully use the frame to his or her advantage.
What ultimately sells this film is its performances. Blunt & Press are extremely well liked, and we want to see how this relationship is going to end. The story is based on the novel by Helen Cross, and the screenplay is written by Pawel Pawlikowski along with Michael Wynne as collaborating writer.
I'm now interested in more of Pawlikowski films, and have in mind to seek out his debut film "Last Resort". If you don't like character studies, and are not interested in good acting don't bother seeing the above, but I always like finding little gems like this film. It both restores my belief that good cinema can be made, and is being made by artists who care about their professions. See My Summer of Love, and I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Layer Cake is an ingenious crime drama with layers of complexity that lifts it out of the regular standard crime drama scenario. Matthew Vaughn directs from a script by J.J. Connolly who wrote the novel also. It stars Daniel Craig as XXXX. Yes that's right Craig's character has no name. The name is never mentioned, and in the end it is suppose to mean something to us as the author uses irony to eventually show us the characters downfall. I had no problem with this film. It is complex and a bit hard to understand due to the accents, but it did feel very authentic. Daniel Craig does an outstanding performance as a cocaine drug dealer who we sort of like, and that's the beauty of this movie. Who would think or even care about a character like XXXX, but we do. Colm Meaney is also in this film, and he does a great job as a guy with both shoes in the criminal an the legit world. George Harris as Morty also gives an interesting performance that is quite believable, and that...
Not for Nothing is a indie film with heart. If feels like Philly and it all takes place in South Philadelphia, which is a strong character in itself. I've been interested in this film since way back when they were filming it here in. Philly. I never got a chance to see it when it played here at the Philadelphia film festival, nor did I catch it when it played in some theaters here in Philly, but after many hurtles they found distribution from Buffalo 8 and it is playing on various streaming platforms. I saw it on Verizon, and it's on Amazon Prime as well. It's good and if you're from Philly it just feels right. All the mannerisms, and accents are authentic because it was made by South Philly people. Some have compared this to Goodfellas, but I'd like to compare it to those serials from the past such as "Our Gang", or "The Bowery Boys". The story is simple after a girl that our crew knew dies of an overdose our gang tries ...
Maggie Gyllenh aal's "The Bride" is a unique film that tries to tie female rage against the Patriarchy along with Mary Shelly's spirit who is angry & rage filled. It is the films framing piece that I have trouble with. By making Mary Shelly a vengeful sprit who is angry at the whole patriarch and who possesses the Bride and makes her lash out at the world seems to do a disservice to Mary Shelly's memory and her works that she accomplished. Such poems like: "To love in Solitude & mystery", "Absence", and "Ode to Ignorance" seem to have been combined with her book "Frankenstein". That is the way it feels to me, and one who is unfamiliar with her work could surmise that this is how Shelly felt and so her possessing the Bride would be of unrequited love and anger towards men, and truly that's the filmmaker's prerogative, but I'd prefer my B movies less heady and just plain simple. Frankenstein is lonel...
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