The subject of white male platonic bonding is as far from today’s film trends as you can possibly get. Even with its shortcomings, then, the heart of the matter in Michael Grandage’s star-studded Genius goes refreshingly against the grain. Add to that the look in the life of American author Thomas Wolfe (whom many, I suspect, readily forget in lieu of the William Faulkner’s and Ernest Hemingway’s of his time), and a shiny spotlight on the behind-closed-doors role of the editor, and there’s plenty to bite into here. Of course, with a cast featuring Colin Firth, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Laura Linney, and Guy Pearce, you walk in confident that if all else fails, at least the performances will keep you glued. And they do, but even beyond the curious choice of a dreary gray monochrome as the film’s primary palette, there’re a number of things that bog Genius down. The source is, as ever, the screenplay; in this case, John Logan’s adaption of A. Scott Berg’s biography Max Perkins: Editor of Genius. That said, Grandage takes the lion’s share of the blame for leaving the autopilot on his director’s chair and not trying something a little more enticing in way of presentation.

As it bizarrely shifts from black-and-white into colour, Genius opens with the famous editor of Charles Scribner’s Sons, Maxwell Perkins (Firth), receiving the bulbous first draft of what will eventually become “Look Homeward, Angel.” “Is it any good?” he asks, to which the deliveryman responds, “Good? No. But it’s unique.” That hooks him in. Of course, it turns out to be more than just good or unique, as we follow Max’ endearing routine of reading the manuscript until he reaches the end and gets that look—the title of Genius appearing to make sure there’s no confusion on our part either. During this routine, we get a passing glance at Max’s household, his wife Louise (Linney) and five daughters. Being surrounded by women all his life ends up playing a big part in the strong connection he develops with the erratic, enigmatic, and entirely insufferable Thomas Wolfe (Law).

Genius packs most of its meat into scenes featuring Wolfe and Perkins, as they bulldoze through Wolfe’s protracted manuscripts, first ‘Angel,’ and then—in a period of over 2 years!—Of Time and The River. Debating over how to cut down the chapter where his character falls in love with a blue-eyed girl is the film’s pinnacle; infinitely charming and richly insightful in the dynamic between ambitious author and economic editor. Threatening to steal the show from the two men, though, is Nicole Kidman, who pulls off a fiery and embittered turn as Aline Bernstein—a woman who left her husband and two children to be Wolfe’s full-time lover. Her whole life, it seems, revolves around this man who is too busy wrestling with his mountainous ego to return the love, and if the role weren’t so utterly thankless, Kidman surely would have soared even higher.

The two men’s flippant attitudes towards their respective other halves is never fully addressed (and, ironically enough, Max seems to care more about how much Mrs. Bernstein is suffering while completely ignoring his patronizing attitude toward his own wife). Among other issues that arise out of Logan’s screenplay are the peppered stings of obviousness throughout. The most articulate example comes when F. Scott Fitzgerald (Pearce) talks of “genius friendship,” and the double meaning of the title is neatly spoon-fed. There’s also Law’s exuberant performance as Wolfe. Showy, and something that must have been a lot of fun for the actor, but with just a bit too much pep in his step. This ultimately works against the film’s final moments.

It’s the prickly characterization of Thomas Wolfe that undoes Genius in the end. Whether by weighing the importance of the female characters (especially Kidman’s Aline, as Linney’s Louise is, sadly, much too minor to even mention) a bit more significantly, keeping Law’s performance in firmer check, or fine-tuning the screenplay so that the author’s moments of clarity have bigger impact; I feel Logan and Grandage could have handled it better. The fact that he’s not the main star leaves the film all the better for it. Firth’s mighty sensitive performance as the heart of the film keeps the strength of friendship resonating throughout, and is more than enough reason for a solid recommendation.

There must be something that entices filmmakers to explore the Outback. Whether it’s the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max, trying to survive in Walkabout, going on a journey to hell in Wake in Fright, or overcoming your personal demons in Tracks, the opportunities for stories in the dry landscapes of Australia seem to be as vast as the lands themselves. And now, first-time director Kim Farrant takes a stab at using the Outback as an all-encompassing setting in Strangerland. It’s a film that tries to compare the plight of characters in an intense crisis with the desert surrounding them, but it’s a connection that feels redundant; the film is as dry, empty and unwelcoming as the land it’s set in.

The Parker family are anything but perfect. Having recently moved from the city to the (fictional) rural town of Nathgari, it’s evident that some sort of scandal prompted their uprooting (the reason for their move turns out to be a total snooze). Catherine (Nicole Kidman) and Matthew (Joseph Fiennes) have a frayed marriage—they don’t sleep in the same bed, he refuses to have sex with her—while their two teenage children Tommy (Nicholas Hamilton) and Lily (Maddison Brown) love getting into trouble. Tommy has a tendency to walk around town in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep, but it’s 15-year-old Lily’s strong sexual appetite that causes the most friction between Catherine and (especially) Matthew. After a heated argument at the dinner table, Tommy and Lily wander off into the night, except neither of them come back the next day. With a giant dust storm coming through town Catherine panics, enlisting the help of local cop Rae (Hugo Weaving) to find her children, and Matthew channels his own concerns into seething, impotent rage.

As time goes on and the kids’ whereabouts remain unknown, it’s apparent that Farrant and screenwriters Fiona Seres and Michael Kinirons have taken a page out of Antonioni’s book (or, to keep it Australian, Peter Weir’s). The big question here is focused less on the “Where” and more on the “How”: how does the disappearance impact Catherine, Matthew and their marriage, along with the tight-knit community of Nathgari? Farrant explores the way pain and grief transforms people through two characters as penetrable as a slab of concrete. Seres and Kinirons’ screenplay prefers vague allusions over explanations (a single line by Matthew early on implies Catherine was just as promiscuous as Lily in her younger years), a choice that makes character motivations and actions murky and irrational. Farrant’s direction is quite lacking too, with a workmanlike quality that only conveys basic information when the film is all about complex emotions.

At least Farrant gathered quite the cast for her debut, even though they can’t elevate the material that much. Kidman hurls herself into her role, but while it’s easy to believe Catherine as a person, it’s much harder to believe in her actions; the latter half has Catherine behaving inexplicably, with Farrant assuming viewers will understand she’s distraught and fill in the blanks from there. Fiennes does what he can with his role as the archetypical emasculated patriarch, ready to pummel any man that might have slept with his daughter. The highlight is Hugo Weaving, the kind of thespian who puts the “support” in “supporting actor.” He actually has chemistry with Kidman, and a presence that makes his subplot—a relationship with an Aboriginal woman inadvertently related to the disappearance—more interesting than the main storyline. Strangerland amounts to little more than a turgid 2 hours with a pair of bland, lifeless characters. By the end, I was jealous of their missing kids. When they walked out of the film in the first act, I should have taken their lead.

Strangerland opens Friday, July 10th in select theatres, VOD and iTunes.

Based on S. J. Watson’s highly successful debut novel, Before I Go to Sleep follows the intriguing story of Christine (Nicole Kidman) who, suffering from an acute form of amnesia, wakes up every morning not knowing who she is, where she is, or who the strange man (Colin Firth) laying in the bed beside her is.

Cinema is a medium that has proven on many occasions to be adept at conveying the manipulation of memory. The editing of images and sounds, unsurprisingly lends itself to conveying the confusion that comes with memory disorders like amnesia. It’s also a brilliant template for a thriller, as films such as Christopher Nolan’s Memento have proven. With a strong cast led by Mark Strong and Colin Firth, still riding high after his success with The King’s Speech, director Rowan Joffe would seemingly have all the elements for a great film.

However, despite a promising start, Before I Go to Sleep is sadly let down by a number of flaws which stop it from lacking the sharp edge and depth that could have led to it’s success.

The most apparent of these flaws is an emphasis of plot over character. This may not be surprising considering the norms of the thriller genre, unfortunately it leaves the film feeling more like a Sunday tea-time melodrama, than the fascinating character thriller it could have been.

Few of the film’s characters are given the time to breathe any life into what becomes a rather bland drama. This is particularly the case with Mark Strong’s Doctor Nash, who for all the depth the character is given might as well be called Dr Plot Exposition. Claire, who seems poised to be a significant character, is also frustratingly given very little screen time. The one character who is given life, thanks to a strong performance from Colin Firth, is Ben, Christine’s husband. Firth clearly relishes the chance to play against his reputation as the warm, cuddly, nice guy of cinema and he hits the mark brilliantly in most of his scenes. The scenes in which he reveals his dark side, and attempts to manipulate Christine are especially well-played, but his strong presence only seems to call attention to the weakness of Christine’s character, and gives him little to play off.

The film works best in the tense scenes approaching the film’s climax. Joffe, channeling Kubrick’s The Shining with long nightmarish shots of hotel corridors and dark shadows behind doors, brings the film to life in these scenes, awakening Before I Go To Sleep (if you will forgive the pun) from its slumber. Also, while Nicole Kidman may butcher romantic or complex scenes with a hacksaw with her often cringe-inducing melodramatic acting, she is clearly one of the best in the business at doing the kind of bug-eyed terror required for horror and this heightens the drama of these scenes. There is also some clever directing amongst the clumsy dialogue and thinly drawn characters. An example of this is the use of a digital camera to record Christine’s memories of her day before she forgets it all. It works well and is a clever way of representing her diary entries in the books.

The overriding feeling when watching this film is that too much of it has been left on the cutting room floor, it’s a film that feels rushed. As is often the case with thrillers, the best policy is to slowly drip-feed the film’s twists and turns, but Before I Go to Sleep fails in this department, often jumping the gun and leaving a series of revelations which drive the plot forward but lacking in the impact they could have had if Joffe was a little more patient. The film’s abrupt ending is also likely to leave many feeling cheated of a satisfying climax.

Overall it’s a watchable film and, in some places, even a pleasurable thriller, but too often it fails to rise above mediocre and that is its biggest downfall.

Imagine waking up everyday with no new memories. Your mind a complete blank slate except for everything you knew up until a traumatic accident. Until one day, someone reveals a new truth to you that forces you to investigate everything you had thought to be reliable. No, don’t say Memento, this isn’t Memento (probably); it’s Before I Go To Sleep, the new film from the writer of 28 Weeks Later and The American, Rowan Jaffe.

The upcoming mystery/thriller Before I Go To Sleep stars Nicole Kidman as the amnesiatic woman, and Colin Firth and Mark Strong as the other points on a love triangle. Before I Go To Sleep seems to have implemented a video camera device for Nicole’s character to leave herself messages, and likely preventing Kidman from needing to ink several body tattoos as notes-to-self. The movie is based on the novel of the same name, the first published by English author S. J. Watson.

Before I Go to Sleep will be released in the UK on September 5th and the US on September 12th, check out the trailer below:

Before I Go To Sleep trailer

Since Chan-wook Park emerged into the cinema scene with his critically acclaimed Vengeance Trilogy, he has been a director to pay close attention to. When it was announced that Stoker would be his first English-language film, naturally everyone’s ears perked. But going into Stoker with the exact same expectations based on his previous work would be ill-advised. The story here is more subdued and is slower paced than his previous work. In the film there is some violence (though much less is actually shown), incestuous suggestions, and good ol’ fashion that is often found in his work, everything is just more submissive here.

India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) is a peculiar girl who just lost her father on the arrival of her eighteenth birthday. This event makes the already bizarre and reserved teenager even more withdrawn as India was always very close to her father. Not making the matters any better is the fact that India has always been distance with her mother Evelyn Stoker (Nicole Kidman). What makes the story unsettling is the arrival of Uncle Charles (Matthew Goode), an odd mannered character himself, who India never even knew existed before the funeral.

For no real apparent reason it is suddenly decided that Charles will be staying at the mansion with family for an undetermined amount of time. From the very beginning India had an uneasy feeling toward her father’s brother, but her mother’s eerily attraction towards him only added fuel to the fire. Her suspicions about him keep adding up the longer he is around and the film does a great job of filling the viewer with those same uncertainties.

The story is not entirely cohesive as it starts down several paths but does not quite finish on any of them. This can be off-putting to some people as the film seemingly cannot make up its mind on where to go, but the intention is to keep everyone involved guessing. The frustrating part is the end result is not as interesting as some of the other possibilities that it explored. That, and it builds itself up to be a mystery, but it is solved well before the conclusion.

All three leads do a great job with what their role demanded. The weakest of the bunch would probably have to go to Nicole Kidman, but only because her character is the least interesting. Mia Wasikowska is simply outstanding as the dark introvert who discovers some sinister secrets about her family. Then there is Matthew Goode, who at first seems awkwardly out of place, but then ends up nailing the role brilliantly as his character develops.

The camera techniques in Stoker are incredibly well-crafted and original, just what you would come to expect from the acclaimed filmmaker. Most of the shots had to be meticulously planned out and synced together. A great example of this is when the film cuts back and forth between two different characters in different locations walking out of doors and opening others in perfect rhythm. All of that happens while the same nature documentary on the television, which talks about sibling rivalry and is therefore relevant to the story, plays in the background in each of their locations.

Considering Park’s previous work, some might be a little disappointed that Stoker tells a much more conventional story with a final payoff is not as grand as Oldboy’s was. But the way the story is displayed is certainly as artful and poetic as anything Park has done to date. His sense of style is evident in the very beginning when the opening credits playfully interact with what is happening on the screen. For example, the text of the credits may be placed beside a rock on screen and when the character moves the rock, the text moves along with it. While the style does outweigh the story, Stoker is a welcoming first English-language film from Park that I hope is not his last.

Stoker is Available on Blu-ray and DVD on June 18th

Ever since Park Chan-wook’s breakthrough hit Oldboy premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004, he has exploded onto everyone’s radar as a director to follow. His latest film, Stoker, is the director’s first film in English and stars some big-named American celebrities; Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska, and Matthew Goode, just to name a few. It was announced today that Stoker will be available on Blu-ray and DVD on June 18th.

Official Synopsis

Following the tragic death of her father on her eighteenth birthday, India Stoker (Wasikowska) meets Charlie (Goode), her charismatic uncle, whom she never knew existed. When Charlie moves in with India and her unstable mother (Kidman), both are drawn to his charming and calming demeanor. But it soon becomes clear that Charlie’s arrival was no coincidence, and that the shocking secrets of his past could affect India’s future…or shatter it completely.

Blu- ray Special Features

• An Exclusive Look: A Filmmakers Journey
• Deleted Scenes
• Theatrical Behind the Scenes: Mysterious Characters, Designing the Look, Creating the Music
• Red Carpet Premiere: Emily Wells’ performance of “Becomes the Color”
• Free Song Download of “Becomes the Color” by Emily Wells
• UltraViolet
• Hypnotherapy
• Image Galleries and more!

STOKER Blu-ray & DVD Specs

Street Date: June 18, 2013
Prebook Date: May 22, 2013
Screen Format: Widescreen 2.40:1
Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD MA / 5.1 Dolby Digital DVD, English 5.1 Descriptive Audio, Spanish: 5.1 Dolby Digital / 2.0 Surround Dolby Digital DVD, French: 5.1 Dolby Digital / 2.0 Surround Dolby Digital DVD
Subtitles: English, Spanish
U.S. Rating: R
Total Run Time: 99 minutes
Closed Captioned: Yes

Rabbit Hole is a raw and painful filled domestic drama that was based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by David Lindsay-Abaire. Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart put on great performances playing characters that have flaws and vulnerabilities. The story is one that is found on day-time television daily, but none are nearly as well done as this.

Rabbit Hole is about a young married couple who are trying their best to cope with the fact they had lost their 4-year-old son, Danny, who had chased their dog into the street and was hit by a car. The couple find it difficult to talk about the subject to each other, let alone friends and family. So instead, they avoid bringing that subject up, which we all know is never the best solution but it is the easiest.

Admitting you have a problem is always the first step, this is something Becca (Nicole Kidman) does not understand. When she and her husband Howie (Aaron Eckhart) go to a support group for parents that have lost their child, it becomes apparent she is ignorant about the situation. She has this sort of passive aggressive attitude about losing her child but eventually she lashes out at a couple who claims God took their child because He needed another angel. Her argument, which is valid but obviously highly inappropriate, is why did He not just make another angel if He needed one?

Going to the support group was only one way they attempted to cope with situation. Howie brings up the fact they have not had sex for eight months now and maybe a new baby is what they need. Becca does not go for that idea but does realize something drastic needs to change.

Becca seems to avoid eating with others frequently, this may be due to the fact she knows the subject will eventually come up about Danny. At the very beginning of the film, a neighbor asks if she wanted to come over for dinner, to which she pretends she already had dinner plans. In a scene shortly later, she rejects her own mom’s offering of cake after her sister refused her offer of Danny’s clothes for her newborn.

As a school bus passes Becca one morning, she gets a glimpse of a boy who we can assume she thinks is her kid. Even red-lights do not stop her in following the bus as she eagerly wants to get a better look. He eventually gets off the bus and enters his home, but that is not the last time she follows that bus. The next time the boy gets off the bus he is off to return a book to the library. She not only follows him into the library but even checks out the same book he returned. The book was appropriately titled, “Parallel Universes” which is both ironic and fitting. Is she just latching one to someone who represents her lost child?

One of the best scenes of the film comes in at about the half-way point, when the two finally explode. It is an incredibly emotional and powerful scene where the stop holding in all the things that have been bothering them. They talk about things that they have avoided to speak about in the first place, mostly pointing fingers on the cause of their child’s death.

The result of that fight puts in perspective how differently the two deal with the loss. Howie is trying to hold on to the memories of Danny. He relishes old videos he took of him and keeps his car-seat in his car. On the other side, Becca is trying to get rid of the things that remind her of Danny. She dreads seeing his fingerprints on the glass door or school paintings that were done by him up on the fridge.

What they do have in common is they both wrongfully take the blame out on other people. They do this both physically and vocally. The scenes these take place are done well enough to evoke emotion as you start to feel for them.You start finding yourself rooting for these characters as they expose themselves with their raw emotional outbursts.

Another thing they share in common is each of them has their own secrets. Howie smokes pot with a lady from the support group and Becca is spending time with the boy she follows from school. Both end up finding out about each other’s secrets and realize it was yet another way of them dealing with the pain.

They both tried so hard to change their lives in hopes that the pain would just go away. They found out that does not work. The moral of the story is that it does not go away, you will carry the memory around. It is something that you just need to accept and try to move on with in life.

Kidman and Eckhart do nothing short of spectacular work here. The interactions between them seem as natural as they would from a young married couple in their situation. Where they excel most at are the most difficult parts, subtle details. The way Kidman’s character seems so passive before she snaps slightly. Her performance led to a well-deserved Oscar nomination for Best Actress as well as a Golden Globe nomination.

For me, the best part about Rabbit Hole is how it showed each of the characters coping differently yet at the same time how similar their behaviors were became. Not only that, but showing the characters putting on their brave face but then also exposed with their guard down was fantastically done. Because the general story is not at all interesting, Rabbit Hole is surprisingly better than you might expect.

Joel McHale will host the 26th Film Independent’s Spirit Awards show and the list of presenters for this year’s ceremony has been announced. Some good surprises are Will Arnett and Rainn Wilson.

See the full list of nominations

Here is the list of presenters:
Will Arnett
Jesse Eisenberg
Terrence Howard
Nicole Kidman
Diego Luna
Craig Robinson
Rainn Wilson
Paul Rudd
Mark Ruffalo
Zoe Saldana
Kerry Washington
Mia Wasikowska