Movie reviews – from Sept 12 to 26

Movie reviews – from Sept 12 to 26

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Thu 12 Sep 2013 12:00 AM

Sept 12–16

THE SPIRIT OF ’45

Ken Loach’s documentary shows how the spirit of unity, which buoyed Britain during the war years, was carried through to the post-war period in systematically realised attempts to create a fairer, more united society. Plus how that radiant socialist vision and its practical applications have been eroded and all but lost to the privatisation mania.

 

The worst aspect was that this dismantling was undertaken by the very people who benefited most from those applications. ‘Loach’s film is openly, unashamedly polemical and partisan – an eloquent cry of rage and grief at what we once had and what we’ve allowed to be taken away from us… Loach challenges us to resist, to fight back against the forces of private greed and indifference… Loach is too intelligent a filmmaker to suggest that resistance will be easy – but too optimistic to say that it’s impossible’ (Sight & Sound). ‘The film works all at once as a lament, a celebration and a wake-up call to modern politicians and voters’ (Time Out).

 

Sept 17–18

WE’RE THE MILLERS

A small-time pot dealer has to fake a family—an ageing stripper for a wife and a pair of ragged teens—as part of a plan to move a huge shipment of weed from Mexico into the U.S. Predictable, crude comedy caper that thinks adding language and attitude (generally sexual) to the sitcom formula is a subversion of the genre.

 

Contrary to the rumours, Jennifer Aniston does not appear nude. ‘A likeable comedy that uses its greatest asset, its talented, funny cast, to good effect’ (Empire). ‘What really drives the movie is its own search for something to make fun of, and for a comic style that can feel credibly naughty while remaining ultimately safe and affirmative’ (New York Times). ‘Even a premise this stupidly contrived stands a fair chance of working if there are a few decent yuks to be had, but absent any such inspiration, We’re the Millers falls back on the sort of lazy but desperate, sexually fixated non sequiturs that have become de rigueur in studio comedies, jabbing repeatedly at the human groin in hopes of eventually hitting something funny’ (Variety).

 

Sept 19–20 and 25

ARTHUR NEWMAN

Wallace Avery (a bland Colin Firth) wants to change his life, so he fakes his own death, buys a new identity and hits the road as Arthur Newman. But his road trip is derailed when he meets Michaela (Emily Blunt)… Independent road movie comedy by a first-time director. ‘Arthur Newman is an old story and chronically, consistently uninvolving’ (USA Today). ‘Just because two people are miserable doesn’t mean they’re interesting’ (New York Post). ‘The glum, episodic and unbelievable Arthur Newman is the film equivalent of a dysfunctional computer sloppily assembled from discarded parts of other machines’ (New York Times). ‘The flat-out dullness of Arthur is the point of Dante Ariola’s debut feature, but it’s also its undoing’ (The Guardian).

 

 

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