In Search of a Midnight Kiss

ACCORDING to the film’s narrator, the New Year’s Eve midnight kiss is a culmination of all our fortunes and failures for the year and the soothing hope of a fresh start.
With its striking black and white aesthetic and an overwrought emotional framework, at first glance the film seems to be in love with itself more than anything — but it somehow works.
Stylish but fairly realistic and reminscent of Before Sunrise, it is the tale of heartbroken and jobless Wilson whose loneliness takes him to a new level of low and fate takes him to Los Angeles — a city he loathes.

Determined to pick himself back up and find a someone to share New Year’s Eve with, he joins a dating site before receiving a call from the hot-headed and enigmatic Vivian...
The strength of In Search For A Midnight Kiss is its honest portrait of day-to-day life. The film may be in black and white but the characters are awash in technicolour.
It is a real character study spotlighting the highs and lows that we all go through every day and how we rely on each other for support. Even the ‘villains’ of the piece you feel sorry for.

Doomsday

MANY directors like to use scenes in their movies to pay homage to the classics that have influenced them as a filmmaker.
But, unless you are Quentin Tarantino, if you take this idea as the foundation of your story, it is bound to fold in on itself and lose focus.
Doomsday is a case in point. To name but a few, the film pays tribute to 28 Days Later, Mad Max 2, Escape From New York and Aliens and even incorporates some whimsical fantasy elements.
But director and writer Neil Marshall has paid so much attention to his influences that he seems to have left out any room for any character development or cohesive plot.
It is the story of a dystopic near-future where a deadly virus breaks out in Scotland. The Government’s only answer to the problem is containment and after a gigantic wall is constructed, the country is considered a dead zone.
But when the same virus breaks out in London decades later, an elite squad (including British B-movie legend Sean Pertwee) is sent to Scotland hoping to find a cure, only to stumble into a war with the savage, cliched survivors.
The trailer looked so absurd that it could be great...but sadly this was not the case.

Iron Man

IRON Man’s rocket-fuelled destiny was secured long before it hit the silver screen.
First there were whispers and rumours, then an unauthorised trailer was leaked onto the Internet — the lengths comic book nerds would go to plug a film they had no stake in was mindblowing.
But once again it proved that grassroots support is more effective than any PR exercise as audiences scrabbled for their seats in the opening weekend.
It is the story of billionaire phillantropist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr), who owns an innovative weapons company established by his father.
This allows for a clever little play on America’s domination of the world and its contradictory idea that stockpiling weapons of mass destruction creates a more peaceful world.
Stark lives the playboy lifestyle but things go awry when he demonstrates a Jericho missile to the US Air Force in Afghanistan (updated from Vietnam in the original comic).

After his vehicle is attacked, Stark is taken into captivity to construct the Jericho for terrorists.
Knowing his life is on the line he designs a metal suit for himself and escapes in a blaze of destruction.
A changed man with a renewed sense of morality he bids to design a better suit and return to Afghanistan to destroy the weapons that have fallen into wrong hands.
Like Batman’s Bruce Wayne, Stark is a super hero with no special powers which means we can relate to him (sort of) and Robert Downey Jr brings a wealth of charm to the character.
It is high octane blockbuster material throughout and is only let down by some poor pacing here and there and a cheesy final battle.

The Orphanage

PREPARE to be chilled to the bone if you watch this eerie movie by Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona.
Not since The Shining has a film come along that can frighten and enthral in equal measure and this is very refreshing when so many of the horror ilk often fail to hit the mark.
The main draw for most people though is that The Orphanage has been produced by Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo Del Toro.
And The Orphanage seems to continue the themes that the renowned filmmaker has explored, namely the darker side of our imagination through frightening fantasies.
Slightly reminiscent of the 2001’s The Others, it is the story of lost souls in a typically antiquainted and rickety old house.

Laura (Belén Rueda) returns to her childhood home to open an orphanage for sick children and it isn’t long before her son Simon starts playing with imaginary friends.
But her son’s games quickly become something much more disturbing when they start to hear strange noises, when things start appearing where they shouldn’t and when familiar faces from the past come into view.
There is no doubt that this is cliched stuff but it is executed with such skill that it will engulf you for the full running time.
The film mostly relies on tension and suggesion but when things start going really weird it will make your skin crawl...

Diary of the Dead

"ZOMBIES don't run. They can't! Their ankles would snap. What did they do — wake from the dead and immediately join a health club?”
As the undisputed king of the zombie genre, it seems only fair that veteran filmmaker George A Romero is using the opportunity of his new film to take a pop at the pretenders to his throne.
He is referencing movies like 28 Days Later or more specifically Zack Snyder’s remake of his 1978 film Dawn of the Dead — where zombies dash at terrifying pace.
It’s now 40 years since Romero made his first zombie movie, the black and white Night of the Living Dead, and once again he is strictly keeping to the rules he established for the flesh eaters in 1968.
Although that’s not strictly true because this time, hot on the heels of Cloverfield, the action takes place as if it is happening on handheld camera with footage added from news feeds, CCTV cameras and Internet sources.

The protagonists, a group of students and a tutor, are making their own horror movie when a real breakout of the undead occurs.
After that, it’s the usual gory fight for survival, mixed with a touch of humour here and there and some very inventive zombie death scenes.
It’s certainly better than Romero’s last movie, 2005’s Land of the Dead and the handheld camera technique gives it a more personal feel.
But this time, the film’s social commentary is less subtle with Its parody of our multi-media society and reliance on technology clearly on the surface.
If you’re a fan of Romero or the zombie genre you’re in for a treat — otherwise it’s probably worth giving this one a wide berth.

Vantage Point

IT is a sad fact that often when something is tried differently in the creative industries it is either disregarded or doomed to failure.
Vantage Point seems to be a case in point. While it is far from a bad film it will hardly change the way we watch movies and seems to have split audiences across the country.
What is different about Vantage Point is that the narrative is told from eight different points of view as you gradually piece together the jigsaw puzzle of what has happened.
The film opens with an anti-terrorism summit in Spain and within moments the President of the United States is assasinated.
From the unique points of view of the TV crew and Secret Service to bystanders and those responsible, each segment of the film has a different take on what happened before time is literally rewound.
It pays tribute to 1950 Akira Kurosawa film Rashomon that pioneered this method of filmmaking but is a fairly new concept for western cinema.
And some viewers obviously didn’t have the patience for the technique as some people sighed and laughed as the clock continued to be rewound.
It is also quite telling that the best part of the film came in the form of a pulse racing car chase after time was reset for the last time — which was quite a relief after more than an hour of coincidences and unlikely twists.
As for the cast, Sigourney Weaver is excellent as a news producer, though Lost’s Matthew Fox seems to be a little out of his depth and the ever-talented Forest Whitaker could have done with a meatier role.
Although it doesn’t quite work, kudos goes to the filmmakers for trying something different.

There Will Be Blood

FOR the first 17 minutes, there is no dialogue. Just the vast expanse of the New Mexico wilderness and a man’s determination as he works his silver mine.
It is the turn of the 19th century and Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is hell bent on finding success and wealth as prospector in the early days of the trade.
In 1911, he meets the young, naive reverend Eli Sunday (Little Miss Sunshine’s Paul Dano in a strong supporting role) who tells Plainview of oil near his family ranch in Little Boston, California.
Sunday sees this as an opportunity to bring wealth to the impoverished area and spread the word of God but darker times are ahead.
In a stirring and dark Oscar-winning performance by Day-Lewis, Plainview wins the village folk over with a tidal wave of charisma, adopted son in tow to bolster his family man image.
But when the oil starts to flow, everything from his family to the safety of the workers is put on the sidelines.
The film is set over many years from 1898 to 1927 and cuts in and out at the important moments in the story.
And as time goes on, Plainview graudally descends into madness fuelled by ambition turned sour.
At 158 minutes, There Will Be Blood is a long haul and quite intense viewing matched with a hazy soundtrack by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood.
But if you want to see a rich story develop with some amazing performances, it is essential viewing.
Apparently Day-Lewis researched his role for years and you can tell.