Frank
“What goes on inside that head, inside that head?” Jon Burroughs (Domhnall Gleeson) to Frank (Michael Fassbender) What a bizarre music-biz comedy! Fans of Fassbender acting, immerse yourselves in a revelatory comedic performance. Fans of Fassbender visage, prepare yourselves for a cover up. In the vein of the excellent I’M NOT THERE, director Lenny Abrahamson and writers Jon Ronson and Peter Straughan have sidestepped the standard, trite muso biopic. Thankfully that hoary clichéd formula: rags-to-riches-to-addiction-to-fall-to-redemption is nowhere to be seen. Playing with comic persona Frank Sidebottom, alter ego to Chris Sievey, the team create a fictitious interpretation. [To read more, click here.] |
The Two Faces of January
“There’s a young guy in a grey shirt staring at me,” Chester MacFarland (Viggo Mortensen) to wife Colette MacFarland (Kirsten Dunst) ‘Old-fashioned’ as a label can be a positive remark, or perhaps a sign of unwillingness to grasp modern sensibility. In DRIVE, writer Hossein Amini fashioned an invigoratingly fresh crime flick, and his Thomas Hardy adaptation JUDE had an immediacy and tension rarely captured in period dramas. Amini’s scripting pedigree thus had one eagerly anticipating his directorial debut. THE TWO FACES OF JANUARY is retro in its tale of duplicity, but not satisfyingly so. [To read more, click here.] |
Benny & Jolene
“You’re looking at it like I’ve come on this trip just to get into your pants; I’ve come here to enjoy it and… both,” Benny (Craig Roberts) to Jolene (Charlotte Ritchie) Making it in the music industry has never been so in our faces, thanks to primetime television “talent” shows. Cinema over the last year has reflected the trend, through the likes of INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, CAN A SONG SAVE YOUR LIFE? and now BENNY & JOLENE. Coming at career aspiration from different genres, the above have gone for drama, romance and comedy respectively, to varying degrees of success. [To read more, click here.] |