Monthly Archives: April 2013

It’s Kind of a Funny Story – Film Review

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ItsKindofaFunnyStory

It’s Kind of a Funny Story
Written and directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck
Review by Thomas W. Campbell

On September 14, 2010 I did a Q & A with cast and crew of It’s Kind of a Funny Story. The filmmaking partners Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck were young, sharp, engaging and fun and Emma Roberts, of Nancy Drew fame, was engaging as well. Zack Galifianakis came in late (others have done it, we’re just glad to have you here) and then pretended to fall asleep the moment he sat down. It was perplexing, and extra fun when he finally woke up. They cared about the small film and we discussed the research and character work that were part of the film experience.

Link to original NBR review

It’s Kind of a Funny Story is kind of a comedy about a subject that isn’t easy to find the humor in. The main characters – Craig, a suicidal 16 year old boy, Bobby, a suicidal 40-something man, and Noelle, a 17 year old girl with her own problems – find each other in a Brooklyn psychiatric ward where their lives become intertwined. Based on a novel by Ned Vizzini, who ended up in a psychiatric ward himself because of the pressures to repeat the success of his first book, Funny Story is the third feature film written and directed by the filmmaking team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck.

As in Boden and Fleck’s previous features, Half-Nelson and Sugar, the theme is one of discovery and overcoming odds. The story is told from the point-of-view of Craig, who checks himself into a mental hospital only to discover that the youth ward is closed to renovation and he will have to stay with the adults. Craig is a middle class boy with too much pressure on his shoulders. Surprised and overwhelmed to have been accepted into the most elite private school in Manhattan he has become an outsider among his own friends. Adding to his angst, the girl he likes has become his best friend’s girlfriend and his father relentlessly pressures him about career achievement. And he seems to have a chemical imbalance for which he has stopped taking his medication.
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Let Me In – Film Review

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Let Me In

Let Me In
Directed by Matt Reeves
Review by Thomas W. Campbell

Directed and adapted by Matt Reeves (who worked in television before directing Cloverfield in 2008), Let Me In (2010) is an inspired and faithful remake of Tomas Alfredson’s exceptional 2008 film Let The Right One In. Based on the book and original screenplay by John Ajvide Lindqvist, the new film tells the story of two 12 year olds who live in a small town, alienated from everyone else. Owen, played by Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road) has lived there his whole life and just seems “different” -; he is quiet, rail-thin, and extremely private. Of course this makes him a perfect target for school bullies and one boy in particular is determined to make Owen’s life one of fear and dread. Chloe Moretz (Kick-Ass) plays Abby, a shy twelve year old, who moves into the apartment next to Owen. They meet one night in the snowy courtyard -; her bare feet the first sign that something is seriously different about her. When Owen discovers that his new friend is a vampire who must drink human blood he’s already in too deep to drop her as a friend.

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Fair Game – Film Review

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FairGame

Fair Game
Directed by Doug Liman
Review by Thomas W. Campbell

I did a Q and A with Doug Liman following the National Board of Review screening of
Fair Game on October 28, 2010. Liman is sharp and was open to discussing the political real-life story that his film took on and technical/creative aspects of production – specifically the cinematography and editing.

Link to original review at NBR website

In Fair Game, director Doug Liman and his script writers (Chez and John-Henry Butterworth) take on the architects of the war with Iraq and lay bare the facts of an American betrayal in their dramatic retelling of the experiences faced by CIA agent Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) and her husband Joe Wilson (Sean Penn), the former United States ambassador to Niger. Fair Game is a classic “based on real events” story that works for all the right reasons. Hoping to find the missing ingredient to rationalize an invasion of Iraq following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Bush Administration turned to Ambassador Joe Wilson, who faced down Saddam Hussein in a successful effort to evacuate Americans and other foreigners during the first Gulf war. This time the mission was to find evidence of uranium sales by the Nigerian government to Iraq – to prove that Saddam Hussein was still actively building weapons of mass destruction even though his nuclear capability was dismantled after the Kuwait conflict. This would be the smoking gun to complete the swagger of those in the highest level of power in the Bush administration. Wilson’s trip to Niger, a region he had great first-hand familiarity with, was the great hope of those who were already planning the next American war. Unfortunately for the administration it was a dead end. Even more unfortunate, though, was what happened next.
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The Disappearance of Alice Creed – Film Review

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The Disappearance of Alice Creed
Directed by J. Blakeson
Review by Thomas W. Campbell
Link to original review at the National Board of Review

The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2010) is a low budget exercise in minimalism that hangs its quirkiness on a mysterious kidnapping.  It is the first feature film written and directed by J. Blakeson, and was shot on Isle of Man in Great Britain by Philipp Blaubach (The Escapist).

The story, which opens as a mystery then settles into a creepy and suspenseful thriller, is completely restricted to the lives of three people: Vic, the head kidnapper (Eddie Marsan), Danny, the second kidnapper (Martin Compston), and Alice, the victim (Gemma Arterton). Tension builds as secrets are revealed that ramp up the danger–turning an “ordinary” abduction into a continuously evolving series of confrontations.

The roots of the film are obviously in the theater–with only three characters and at least 80 percent of the action taking place in an apartment. The simplicity of the film’s style, though, becomes its greatest strength. There are no elaborate camera movements–it is shot in a matter-of-fact way that lets the acting take precedence. The film’s stylistic control mirrors the attempts by each of the characters to stay in command of their feelings even as their careful plans fall apart. Blakeson pulls it off in a way that makes the story work on an emotional level with only a few locations and no special effects. Like the films and theater of David Mamet, Blakeson uses an almost abstract way of portraying the competitiveness and frustration of the male species through elliptical and repetitive dialogue. We are made to wonder from the beginning what exactly is going on and who are these odd men who act with such precision, calculation and undefined rage bubbling so close to the surface.
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Babies – Film Review

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Babies

I met with cinematographer and director Thomas Balmés following an April 26, 2010 National Board of Review screening of his new film Babies. Traveling the world to document the lives of four babies, who are developing in front of your eyes, is a unusual job. It was a lot of hard work, as Balmés graciously explained.

Babies
Directed by Thomas Balmés
Review by Thomas W. Campbell
Link to original NBR review

Babies (2010) is a delightful and unusual documentary that follows a year or so in the lives of four children -; without commentary, interviews or text (except for the names of the children, which we see only once). It’s a mesmerizing and nearly flawless film -; created in a strictly observational style using the “direct cinema/cinema verité” techniques of pioneering filmmakers Frederick Wiseman and the Maysles brothers. Wiseman became famous for making films that unsparingly chronicled the inner workings of institutions -;with intentionally generic sounding names like Hospital, Basic Training, High School, Central Par. The Maysles (cinematographer Albert and sound recordist David) made films that often focused on unusual individuals, events or artists (Salesman, Grey Gardens, Christo in Paris). Wiseman and Albert Maysles are still alive and making films and Babies is firmly in the tradition of their best work.

Babies is directed and shot by Thomas Balmés, who’s past work includes A Decent Factory (2004), in which he investigates how a Nokia Cell phone factory is run in China, and How Much is you Life Worth? (2007), which follows the internal workings of a personal injury law firm. Balmés spent a great deal of time in preproduction searching for the right families to follow and ultimately chose four stable nurturing sets of parents who would provide the supportive care he felt was central to the theme of the film. The film intercuts between four babies on four continents: Mari (Tokyo), Hattie (San Francisco), Bayar (Namibia) and Ponijao (Mongolia).
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