Ain't Them Bodies Saints

By Moira Sullivan. 

David Lowery, Rooney Mara, and Casey Affleck - Photo Courtesy of Getty Images

On day five, La Semaine de la Critique featured David Lowery’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints with Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara. The introduction given by the organizers impressed even the director. Less impressive was the film, with a story that has been done before: an outlaw does prison time, breaks out, returns home to his wife and a child he has never seen, gets shot and finally meets his little girl. The tint and graininess of the film is what makes it stand out, setting a hazy tone in a poor part of Texas, with careful attention to lighting, costume, and set design. The grittiness here and the framing of the shots is excellent. It would be interesting to see a film with this kind of technical perfection be put to use with a more innovative story. The cinematography won a prize at Sundance where the film debuted. Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck and David Lowery were on hand at Cannes to present the film.

The Last of the Unjust was screened out of competition today by veteran filmmaker Claude Lanzmann. His three and half hour epic documentary about the last Jewish elder of a town given by Hitler to the Jews, the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia, is an important and challenging film to watch. Lanzmann refuses to simplify his work and make it comfortable for his audience, insisting that the length of his film is necessary to appreciate the history at hand. Most of the documentary consists of interviews from 1975 during one weekend in Rome with Lanzmann and Rabbi Benjamin Murmelstein. The rabbi worked for Adolf Eichmann from 1938 and was the person who worked out the logistics of the “Final Solution,” and the forced emigration of Austrian Jews from Vienna.

The Last of the Unjust

Murmelstein is an interesting interview subject. He demands total attention, cannot be interrupted, and often acts like Lanzmann’s questions get in the way of the story. At times, however, Murmelstein omits some of the necessary background for his anecdotes, like when he mentions, “Then the Danes came,” and Lanzmann wonders about the Danish Jews in Theresienstadt. Murmelstein helped to free hundreds of thousands of Jews but still was considered a traitor by victims of the holocaust, who demanded his public execution. He found this perplexing because even Hannah Arendt, the famous writer of Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963), had not asked for Eichmann to be hung.

Blind Detective

Tonight’s midnight screening at La Semaine de la Critique was Johnnie To’s Blind Detective, a comic thriller starring Andy Lau and Sammi Cheng, which unfortunately set itself apart with recurrent jokes about a lesbian cop named Susan. In the film, detective Chong See Tun (Lau) has suffered retinal damage and assumes that since his partner Ho Ka Tung (Cheng) is an excellent marksmen and martial artist, she must look like Susan. Meanwhile, Ho Ka Tung refers to Susan as a “buddy,” but is ashamed that she may look like Susan in Chong See Tun’s mind. Another patronizing comment is made about Minnie, a girl who has gone missing and one of several women murdered by a serial killer at large. At one point in the film, Chong See Tun hypothesizes that maybe she fell in love with a woman, which is normal at her age, signaling that being a lesbian is something one grows out of. There is also a woman who is a very tall basketball coach with large feet, likewise used as a source of ridicule. These flubs in the script are attributed to writer Ka-Fai Wai. Johnnie To has done exceptional work in mentoring young filmmakers in Hong Kong and hopefully their scripts will avoid some of the flaws found in Blind Detective.

Moira Sullivan is an accredited journalist at Cannes, member of FIPRESCI and served on the Queer Palm Jury 2012. She has a PhD in cinema studies at Stockholm University and studied filmmaking at San Francisco State University.

In the documentary The Iceman Tapes (1992), Assistant Attorney General Robert J. Carroll asserts that Richard Kuklinski was not a serial killer. And yet in adapting his story for a feature film, director Ariel Vroman and his co-writers wisely conceive the mob hitman’s story thus. Kuklinski, who died in 2006 while serving a life sentence in New Jersey, confessed to having killed somewhere between 100 and 200 people. His recollections reveal many means of murder, from shootings and stabbings to cyanide, airborne or planted in food.

His narrative requires a series of such events, and since the most bizarre aspect of the man was his normal family life, The Iceman also captures the mundane that frames the gruesome killings. The obvious reference point is John McNaughton’s Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, a film that shocks as much by revealing Henry’s quiet life, though his murders bring to him thrills (fueled partially by the involvement of his co-hort, Otis). No such pleasure comes to Kuklinski, played by a very reliable Michael Shannon. With no reaction to killing, Kuklinski heads a family in an attempt to find humanity in his deep void. From afar, this take on Kuklinski reflects the collective repression of the middle class, though the film remains subjective. Normal to him, his murderous routine is a delirium to us; for him, family is a fantasy he deceived his loved ones into believing.

Like Henry, the film includes an ironic romance, in the brief courtship of Richard and Deborah (Winona Rider). When pool-hall banter turns to insults against her (to underscore repression, the barbs concern her chastity), Kuklinski slices the offender’s throat without missing a step down an alleyway. The birth of his first child right after meets the previous scene a little too cutely, though dealt with swiftly before more of his notorious work. When his job in porn production ends, a mob boss in charge, Roy Demeo (Ray Liotta), lays off Kuklinski while noting the emptiness in his eyes. The pairing of a nervy Liotta and somber Shannon strikes a nice touch, noting the impulsiveness behind hits that are dealt effectively cold. With his hire as hitman, Kuklinski goes from routine servitude to honored service, thus becoming a knight bestowed with rights in an underworld kingdom. A sequence of killings to follow is, in itself, enough to please the serial killer fan base. We also feel Shakespeare’s “Out, Out” reminder through the varied efficiency of this assassin (even though the real Kuklinski thought the term too exotic for his work). Currency exchange is his cover to his wife, while he receives large sums for departing marks.

The “honor” to his family inspires a code against killing women and children, his reason for freeing a witness. When Demeo learns the news, he decommissions Kuklinski, making him into a knight errant. He then takes up with “Freezy” (Chris Evans), an ice cream truck driving hitman whose practice brings him his nickname. Presenting Kuklinski as a ronin of sorts, the script leaves him frail as his killings begin to overwhelm him. That this swelling mania, along with a fear for his family’s safety, leads to his fall serves the third act better than the well-known subject matter, who killed and killed again until one wrong turn. Convenient or not, the move extends the killer’s darkness, thanks largely to Shannon’s brilliance; he almost convinces us that the Iceman’s humanity was real.

Matthew Sorrento teaches film at Rutgers University in Camden, NJ. He is the author of The New American Crime Film (McFarland, 2012) and a contributor to the forthcoming Wiley-Blackwell Companion to the War Film.

By Moira Sullivan.

The Evolution of Cannes Part 2

It is not only different programming sections that have changed over time, but Cannes screening venues as well. Here is an interesting parallel: the “Great Gothic Cathedrals” in France, particularly the Notre Dame de Paris, took over 400 years to be completed. This year, the famous cathedral celebrated 850 years as a national treasure. There is a base foundation, and different languages carved in stone relevant for the time. Gargoyles and grotesques, images of alchemists and Christians, have all adorned Notre Dame. So too, the facades at the nationally revered Festival de Cannes have changed, an event that began in earnest in 1946 in an old Casino.

A little free paper called La Gazette Paulette, distributed in front of the Palais du Cinema, tells the story of the transformation of the festival grounds. In 1949, the festival quarters was located at 50 boulevard de la Croisette. However, the original Palais Croisette became the victim of its success and had to spread out to hotels in the 1950s. In 1978, Cannes commissioned another Palais and in 1983 a modern edifice was erected. It was demolished five years later and is now the JW Marriott Hotel. In 2012, the Palais was modernized as it stands today.

It must be noted that the current landscape at Cannes contributes to the chaos of my fourth day here. On a rainy afternoon, what better way to avoid the drizzle than inside a theater? However, queues and guards were particularly challenging. Nowhere was a media hierarchy more evident than with the admission of high priority badge holders (i.e. established media outlets), who waltzed into screenings at which accredited journalists had stood for hours in the rain. The scarcity of seats ignored the ‘first come, first served’ tradition, creating a mob behavior.

The oldest distributor of independent films in the USA, Troma, is calling attention to this hierarchy at Cannes with a demonstration in front of the Palais on May 20 at 2pm. Called the “Occupy Cannes” movement, Troma questions the corporate controlled film and media market. Similar to the aims of Truffaut and Godard, who established the Director’s Fortnight in 1969, Troma hopes to open up a dialogue about the current state of affairs at the festival.

 Film Highlights on Day 4

The Congress

The Director’s Fortnight world premiere of The Congress, directed by Ari Folman, was screened outdoors tonight to an audience bearing umbrellas. The Congress looks at the transformation of acting roles in the film business, particularly for women over 30. Robin Wright, who acts as both producer and star in the film, plays a women in her forties who can only act by allowing her face and body to be scanned for use in synthetically created films, an advanced stage of motion capture.

Leos Carax first called attention to the growth of motion capture in live action film in Holy Motors (2012), which played at Cannes last year. In the film, one of the multiple identities assumed by Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavan) is an actor in a body suit covered with reflective markers for a role in a sci-fi film. For Carax, motion capture signifies “the death of cinema” and The Congress nails this.

Robin Wright, who plays herself in the film, is forced to choose between being scanned for motion capture for all future film roles or becoming obsolete in the industry. As a condition of her contract, she is also forbidden from acting anywhere else. She signs, nudged by her agent played by Harvey Keitel. Meanwhile, Wright’s decision to raise her children amidst her acting career angers the head of Miramount Theatres (Danny Huston). Twenty years in the future, people either live as their “avatar” or age and experience natural death – “on the other side” of the fantasy world. Wright appears at a “Miramount-Nagasaki Congress” and affirms that her children are foremost in her life. The foreboding futuristic message of The Congress is created through animation and live action.

Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya

Earlier on the Croisette, Thai Cinema Night took place with Thailand’s Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya acting as guest of honor. The Princess, who is an established actress herself, entered the room to standing audience who did not sit down until she took settled on her throne. Then, Princess Rajakanya delivered a speech that was difficult to hear and hosted a series of trailers for upcoming Thai cinema. One Thai film to look for is The Protector 2 starring Tony Jaa and produced by Prachya Pinkaew, the talented director/producer behind Ong Bak 2 (2008), The Protector (2005), and Chocolate (2008).

Moira Sullivan is an accredited journalist at Cannes, and served on the Queer Palm Jury 2012. She is a member of FIPRESCI with a doctorate in cinema studies from Stockholm University and graduate studies in film at San Francisco State University.

L’Inconnu du Lac (Strangers by the Lake)

By Moira Sullivan. 

The Evolution of Cannes

The Cannes Film Festival continues to be one of the most exciting manifestations of cinema in the world. Fortunately, the event is not only a cascade of film stars and legends, the Red Carpet, and the parties that the media promotes. There are sidebar film venues, which have all come about historically from the foundation of what we know today as the Festival de Cannes.

Marché du Film was created in 1959 for the Cannes market, confirming that cinema should be promoted by commerce. Meanwhile, two parallel but independent events were established in the 1960s to address just how far commerce should impact cinema as an art form. Semaine Internationale la Critique began in 1961, for the purpose of promoting films overlooked by the production companies. Similarly, Quinzaine des réalisateurs (Directors Fortnight) began in 1969 as a protest of young directors under the banner ”Cinema at Liberty”.

ACID Cinema (Association du Cinéma Indépendant) is another parallel event created in 1992, which fosters dialogue between the public and independent filmmakers. Finally, Gilles Jacob, the General Delegate of Festival de Cannes at the time, added Un Certain Regard and the Camera d’Or for first features in 1978 and the Cinéfoundation in 1998 for short and medium films. The Cannes Short Festival was next in 2010, and in 2011 the Queer Palm was created to award films that address lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender themes. These parallel events are what make Cannes a rich experience. For the mediated Cannes, the official selection is what garnishes the most attention, and is of the utmost interest to the media conglomerates.  The festival attracts a multitude of talent and creates a magnificent aura and must expand to remain relevant by listening to the artisans of the field.

Film Highlights on Day 3 

Un Certain Regard

L’Inconnu du Lac (Stranger by the Lake)

The extremely well received L’Inconnu du Lac (Stranger by the Lake), by Alain Guiraudie, is set in a gay cruising spot on a lake in France during a single summer. While Guiraudie is free in showing the sexual relations between his male characters, he also authenticates and legitimizes this culture for audiences so that by the end of the film it becomes as worthy of introspection as other cultural gatherings in society. The theme of the film is not cruising but homophobia. When Michel (Christophe Paou) witnesses a murder in the lake committed by Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps), the man he desires, he undergoes amnesia amidst the throes of passion, and suddenly the perpetrator is free to be with him. Meanwhile, Guiraudie is careful not to focus just on sexual relationships, showing how important friendship and  the acceptance of others is to gay culture through the charming Henri (Patrick D’Assumçao), whom Michel befriends. Also noteworthy is Inspector Damroder (Jerome Chappatte), who investigates the drowning of a gay man. It is clear that the inspector is not gay but his carefully chosen words during the investigation are respectful and convey empathy and concern. This is a new kind of socially responsible inspector than has been seen on screen. This kind of heightened awareness is also true of the lonely ‘tourist’ Henri.

Official Competition

Like Father, Like Son

The words “Fuji TV Film” introduced Like Father, Like Son (Soshite chichi ni naru) by Hirokazu Kore-eda. Though the director is known for his contemplative film language, this particular film, with its fade to black edits and faithfulness to the plot, did not reveal any particular visual inventiveness. The camera angles and editing are conventional, and the story is propelled by dialogue. The subject is based on an article about children who are misidentified in hospitals at birth, and inadvertently displaced in a home absent of their biological parents. Ryota Nonomiya (Masaharu Fukuyama) and his wife Midori (Machiko Ono) raise their son Keita together, though the marriage seems strained. The hospital where Keita was born contacts the parents six years later to inform them that Keita was switched at birth with their biological son. The couple then meets the boy that could have been their son and his parents. Like Father, Like Son goes on to question if only bloodlines determine a parent, and by raising questions about adoption and how to explain it to children the film proves itself socially relevant.

Moira Sullivan is an accredited journalist at Cannes, and served on the Queer Palm Jury 2012. She is a member of FIPRESCI with a doctorate in cinema studies from Stockholm University and graduate studies in film at San Francisco State University.

Cast of The Bling Ring

By Moira Sullivan.

The reviews for The Great Gatsby were not overwhelmingly positive and most critics, including myself, recognized the film as ambitious but flawed. As an out of competition film, this imperfection is expected. Still, it is the kind of film that will attract audiences as it did a cadre of divided critics.

The Bling Ring

Seen and heard around Cannes: “If Sofia Coppola doesn’t win an award for The Bling Ring, I will eat a piece of my accreditation badge.” (Just a piece?) Coppola repeats her iconography from Marie Antoinette (2006) with lingering shots of the obscenely abundant wardrobes and paraphernalia of celebrities. In this case, a pack of young people (Claire Julien, Taissa Farmiga, Katie Chang, Israel Broussard, and Emma Watson) discover the addresses of celebrities like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, and show up while they are away. Apparently, most of the celebrities leave their doors unlocked. The question is whether the “Bling Ring” was doing their victims a service by emptying out their closets and stealing wristwatches, wads of cash, handbags, shoes and sunglasses – all clearly excessive, non-essential assets. The items shout out a barrage of labels and some of the products even find endorsements in the film’s credits. Paris Hilton actually cooperated in the making of the film. What is more disturbing is the lifestyle of these Hollywood burglars: airhead teens with limited vocabulary who party, snort coke, and lead double lives in front of their clueless parents.  They boast of their accomplishments on Facebook and even when they are apprehended and spend time in jail, they become celebrities in their own right. Niki (Watson) shares the same jail time as Lindsay Lohan and can hear her crying in her cell. Later, Vanity Fair interviews her about her “spiritual crisis”. Coppola inventively follows the crime scene and chronicles the life of the young and aimless. Emma Watson shows that she can be a clever American airhead. As Hannibal Lector says, we covet what we see everyday. The lifestyle of the rich and famous is what these teens see every day and esteem, which makes their crime a complex social problem, especially since they all seem so sociopathic.

What comes to mind is how Cannes sells the lifestyle of the celebrities for fans and creates desire with obligatory evening attire, and exclusive and restricted gatherings. This part of Cannes is what gets the most attention from large media outlets.

Tian zhu ding (Touch of Sin)

Jia Zhang-ke’s Tian zhu ding (Touch of Sin) is a commanding film in competition that should be on the jury’s short list. As with Zhang-ke’s other films, the director chronicles the new development and transformation of China after the Cultural Revolution. The director weaves four stories from four provinces, each concerning the struggles of a particular worker in China as the country embraces global capitalism. In each case, the power of self determination is undermined by a corrupt system that cripples the human spirit:  a man who fights for official acknowledgement that his village’s factory was sold to pay for the boss’s car and private jet; a woman who works as a pedicurist and refuses to sleep with one of the clientele and stabs him (an event that occurred in 2009 in the Hubei province); a young man who works at a hotel with a covert sex trade; a traveling migrant worker who survives by theft and even murder. The director’s mise en scène, which calls attention to Maserati cars and Calvin Kline underwear, illustrates the displacement of the Chinese worker through chaotic economic forces, as far from The Bling Ring as can be.

Moira Sullivan is an accredited journalist at Cannes, and served on the Queer Palm Jury 2012. She is a member of FIPRESCI with a doctorate in cinema studies from Stockholm University and graduate studies in film at San Francisco State University.

Leonardo DiCaprio at The Great Gatsby Cannes premiere - Photo courtesy of Anne-Christine Poujoulat (AFP)

By Moira Sullivan.

Nearly 4,000 accredited journalists descend upon the city of Cannes for a week and a half of cinema magic and what looks like heavy rain for the first few days. The opening festivities for the 66^th Cannes Film Festival revolved around the out of competition The Great Gatsby. At the press conference, Baz Luhrmann rather pompously explained how touching it was that an admirer came up to him after a screening and told him how her grandfather, the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, would have liked it. “Ironically, the book was written to make some quick money,” said Luhrmann, who informed the press corps that more people had read The Great Gatsby in the film’s opening week than in Fitzgerald’s lifetime. However, Leonardo DiCaprio reminded Luhrmann that the context of this theatrical release should be held distinct from the virtues of the Fitzgerald’s work. Gatsby has been already released in the USA on May 10, and it remains to be seen if the film will illicit French whistles.

Steven Spielberg - Jury President for 66th Cannes Film Festival

After Gatsby’s showing, the Cannes Film Festival began in earnest with an opening ceremony featuring Jury President Steven Spielberg. Prior to Spielberg’s speech, the Maîtresse de Cérémonie Audrey Tautou’s introduced a collage of the director’s most celebrated films, beginning with her personal favorite: E.T. the Extra-Terrestial (1982). Tatou’s remarks at the ceremony were those of a star struck girl at the movies rather than the mature actress she has become. Afterward, there was a commemoration of the Cannes out of competition film The Color Purple (1985). A choir sang the theme song with a solo by vocalist Crystal, dressed in a Tuxedo, something that was notably not on the minds of the French press this evening with their attention to the stars and women in evening gowns. Once Spielberg took the stage, he playfully acknowledged that the Cannes Film Festival has been around as long as he has–66 years. He then took the time to speak about some of the films that will be shown and to introduce his jury: Daniel Auteuil, Vidya Balan, Naomi Kawase, Nicole Kidman, Ang Lee, Cristian Mungiu, Lynne Ramsay, and Christoph Waltz.

This year, the nominated films in the official competition range from human relationships to love to violence. Jia Zheng-ke’s A Touch of Sin and Takashi Miike’s Shield of Straw are among the more visceral entries. However, one of the more exciting titles has to be Abdellatif Kechiche’s La Vie D’Adèle (Blue is the Warmest Color), a story of two women who fall in love, starring Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos. The film almost seems like an antidote to Cristian Mungiu’s tragic Beyond the Hills, in competition at Cannes last year, which echoed the parade of films from the 60’s about lesbians in couples in which one usually winds up dying or leaving her lover for a man, such as The Fox (1967) and The Children’s Hour (1961). The Queer Palm Jury this year, organized in 2011 by French journalist Franck Finance-Madureira, is headed by the cult Portuguese director João Pedro Rodrigues. La Vie D’Adèle and Steven Soderbergh’s Behind the Candalabra, a biopic on gay entertainer Liberace starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon in smashing new roles, are some of the candidates for this award, which is becoming a valuable and vital part of the Cannes lineup.

La Vie D’Adèle (Blue is the Warmest Color)

In addition to the official competition, Cannes features the Marché du Film (Film Market), full of exciting films offered outside of jury consideration. Cannes has also risen to the challenge of showcasing more women behind the camera with this year’s Un Certain Regard, featuring eight films by women, nearly half of which were chosen under the watch of jury president Thomas Vinterberg. Meanwhile, Semaine de la Critique (Critic’s Week) finds Mia Hansen-Løve heading up the Jury du Prix Découverte du court métrage and du Prix Révélation France 4 competitions. Another competition will be for the Camera d’Or award, or best debut feature, presided over by Agnes Varda. The short film and Cinéfoundation competitions will be led by jury president Jane Campion. Additionally, several Cannes classics will be seen at special screenings, including Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) complete with a guest appearance from Kim Novak. There will also be new restoration films and an homage to the centennial of the birth of Indian films.

At the close of the opening ceremony, Leonardo DiCaprio (who has been in several of Spielberg’s films) came on stage together with Amitabh Armitabh, who was also featured in The Great Gatsby. DiCaprio declared the festival open and the evening ended with fireworks and soggy beach parties on the Riviera.

Moira Sullivan is an accredited journalist at Cannes, and served on the Queer Palm Jury 2012. She is a member of FIPRESCI with a doctorate in cinema studies from Stockholm University and graduate studies in film at San Francisco State University.

During cinema’s long and varied history, the horror film has always been considered the poor relation. Forget that movies designed to disturb are almost as old as the medium itself – the first filmed version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was made in 1910 at the Edison Studios in the Bronx, New York City – or that the genre almost singlehandedly saved Hollywood studios such as Universal and RKO from bankruptcy during the 1930′s. These kind of movies have never been taken terribly seriously. However, if horror films have always been shrouded with an air of dubiosity, the sub-genre of the ‘slasher movie’ has been positively persona non grata. Fans of the films, whose narratives (what there is of them) revolve around people getting stalked by maniacs and hacked about in ever more inventive ways, are often considered as degenerate as the anti-heroes of the said works such as Michael, Jason and Freddy.

So it’s refreshing when something comes along which treats films like Halloween (1978), Friday the Thirteenth (1980) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), with the degree of gravity so many believe they deserve. Slice and Dice: The Slasher Film Forever (2012), leads you through the history of this oft maligned and misunderstood area of cinema by means of interviews with a veritable who’s who of luminaries including Tobe Hooper (director of the mother of all slasher movies, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [1974]) and Jeffrey Reddick, who created the recent Final Destination (2000) and its hit sequels. Highlighted with clips from the usual culprits, such as the aforementioned Friday the Thirteenth and its critically acclaimed clone The Burning (1981) as well as lesser-seen classics like Terror Train (1980) and Motel Hell (1980) (recently rereleased on Blu-ray), the documentary approaches the slasher film from a near academic stance. Taking it from its earliest days those interviewed, also including cult British director Norman J. Warren, argue the case that the essence behind the slasher movie can be traced as far back as Agatha Christie’s classic mystery novel And Then There Were None, first published in 1939, whilst Hitchcock’s masterpiece Psycho (1960) and Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) can be seen as the blueprints which set the standard for the films that followed.

Supplementing the main feature is the bonus documentary Don’t Go in the Backwoods, which, as the title implies, looks at the further sub-grouping of movies based around the close-knit families and communities that inhabit rural America, as in films like Wes Craven’s cult-shocker The Hills Have Eyes (1977). As no film released on DVD is complete without a selection of trailers, Slice and Dice backs up its claims for the legitimacy of its subject with a veritable smorgasbord of madman carnage, featuring over twenty classic slasher trailers, including those for Black Christmas (1974), Fade to Black (1980) and Final Exam (1981).

Slasher films may not be to everyone’s taste. However if Slice and Dice proves nothing else, it shows that horror is always more effective if you believe it could actually happen. As a result a stranger with a manic grin and sharp axe is way more disturbing than any manmade monster could ever be.

Slice and Dice: The Slasher Film Forever was released on DVD on May 13, 2013. A host of extras include audio commentary on the main feature by director / producer Calum Waddell, and Justin Kerswell, author of Teenage Wasteland: The Slasher Movie Uncut, outtake interviews and a Q and A session at the Glasgow Film Theatre with writer James Moran and director Norman J. Warren.

Cleaver Patterson is film critic and writer based in London.

A stretch of cute neighborhoods with picket fences, green lawns. A traveling carnival filled with trailers and sideshow burnouts. A shack buried out in the forest, surrounded by pine trees and old cars sinking back into nature. Ultimately, it does not matter what you call home, it only matters that you make a home with what you have. At its best, The Place Beyond the Pines reminds us of this oft forgotten sentiment. Following the well-received Blue Valentine (2010), director Derek Cianfrance reunites with actor Ryan Gosling to tell the story of an exciting chain of robberies in small town, upstate New York. Gosling plays Luke, a motorcycle stunt driver who tries to build a family with an old flame and a child he never knew he had. Naturally, he does so by committing robbery and so the foundation for his family is built on sand. I honestly wish I could review just this film, because it is thrilling, tragic and it gains momentum without effort. The problem is that The Place Beyond the Pines is three films masquerading as one, and the subsequent chapters become less engaging as time passes.

In the first section of the film, Luke travels in a carnival and awaits the pull of the curtains. As he enters the big tent, he mounts a motorcycle and drives into a small steel ball, sharing the space with two other drivers to the cheers of a crowd. After the show, he is visited by former lover Romina (Eva Mendes) and he drives her home, only to find an infant son waiting. To Luke’s dismay, Romina has no interest in making a family with him, enjoying the security of her boyfriend Kofi (Mahershala Ali). Luke persists, feeling that the blood of their son must bond them together, and attempts to woo her. Beyond these attempts, Luke grapples with his shortcomings as a provider and he uses his only known skill set, riding a motorcycle like no other, to rob banks without pursuit. After a number of successful heists, he has stashed a nest egg for the family he hopes to win and goes to Romina’s house with the gift of a new crib to show his worth.

A confrontation with Kofi follows this show of affection, and in weak moment Luke allows his anger to boil over and strikes Kofi with a wrench. As Romina fawns over Kofi’s gushing wound, Luke’s son cries bloody murder. And then a beautiful thing happens. Luke picks up his child, leaves the room, and very quickly the crying stops. If The Place Beyond the Pines was not strangled by a devotion to its source novel, this would be the moment to build on. As Luke cradles his child, the audience sees the glimpse of a family that will never be and the man that Luke could have been if he had made different choices. Sadly, Luke embraces a self-destructive path and after his falling out with Romina he attempts to rob two banks at once. When his motorcycle catches a flat, his getaway from the police takes a thrilling turn and the action perfectly plays off the drama of earlier scenes, making the audience care about Luke’s well-being.

However, the novel of the same name never intended the story to end there, and so the film blindly follows, veering away from the conclusion of this story to that of Officer Avery (Bradley Cooper), the very same man who pursued Luke during the chase. His story has little to do with Luke’s family: it involves police corruption. And truthfully, this story has its enthralling moments as well, especially when Avery believes he is being lead into the woods by the crooked cop Deluca (Ray Liotta) to be killed. However, this second section never builds like the first and feels rushed for the limited screen time. Conversely, the third section of this film is an irredeemable mess centered on unlikable characters and with little driving force behind it. Following the highly coincidental friendship of AJ (Emory Cohen) and Jason (Dane DeHaan), who are Avery and Luke’s respective offspring, the final chapter wallows in its need for each to find their own identity in the wake of their fathers’ lasting influence. This may have worked on the printed page, but on film it comes across as insufferable and trite. Sadly, this last chapter casts the brilliant opening of The Place Beyond the Pines so far into the background that one might forget that this used to be a good film.

Jacob Mertens is Review Editor of Film International.

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) dispels the widely held assumption that sci-fi extravaganzas are, on the whole, aimed purely at the teenage / geek market. Here, it can be comfortably claimed, is the thinking man’s blockbuster, a film that doesn’t forgo intellect in favour of spectacle. That’s not to say that the latest instalment in the long-running futuristic franchise doesn’t deliver high octane and big screen thrills, but it does so in a manner that stimulates the mind as well as the eye.

Faced with a threat from within their own organisation the crew of the Starship Enterprise, led by Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and First Officer Spock (Zachary Quinto), must stop an enemy whose sole aim is death and destruction on a cosmic scale.

It is hard to transfer something that has built an iconic status through the medium of television, successfully to the big screen. Fans of the original show often resent the way their beloved characters are changed and manipulated (frequently through necessity) for the different format. Newcomers to the mythos, which can include cast and production crew as well as viewers, on the other hand, don’t always capture or understand the essence or that illusive, unspoken, secret ingredient, which made the show so special. Countless television programmes (often with an ‘otherworldly’ element to them) have tried the transition with varying degrees of success. Producer Jerry Weintraub’s usual golden touch failed to bring John Steed and his sparring partner Mrs Peel alive in The Avengers (1998), whilst a certain trio of crime busting beauties fared little better in Charlie’s Angels (2000) and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003).

With this in mind one imagines that it would be a brave (or foolhardy) man who would attempt to transpose a programme of the calibre of Star Trek, to the big screen. After the original hit series it was inevitable that some studio would take up the challenge, which Paramount Pictures did with Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and several successive sequels. After its last expedition however in Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) under the leadership of Patrick Stewart in the guise of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, it seemed the Starship Enterprise may have been put in permanent dry dock. So it was a surprise when director J.J. Abrams announced he was reviving the series by taking it back to the beginning with Kirk and his team in Star Trek (2009). The massive success of that film was bound to spawn a follow-up, though it has been light-years in film terms for it to arrive. So now that it has, was it worth the wait?

The answer is yes, as in Star Trek Into Darkness Abrams has returned to mix old and new with constant deferential nods to the series starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, whilst reinterpreting it for a whole new generation of fans. A vibrant young cast is headed by Pine revisiting the role of Kirk, whilst Quinto, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban and Zoe Sladana return as his crew, whose role as Kirk’s ‘surrogate family’ is enforced by a narrative that highlights the humanity of even the most unexpected members of the group. Here the characters, including newcomer Alice Eve as feisty auxiliary Science Officer Carol Marcus, show their fallibility as they curse, fall in love and spend their downtime getting drunk in clubs much like any off duty soldier would. Even the villain of the piece, John Harrison (brought to life by a characteristically oily Benedict Cumberbatch) has a warped sense of right behind his actions that, whilst not making them forgivable, does give a degree of understanding to his twisted reasoning.

This juxtaposition between the past and future can also be seen in the new world in which the story unfolds, with such iconic landmarks as London’s St Paul’s Cathedral and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge overshadowed by gleaming skyscrapers. Cities of tomorrow are often places that make you despair for what’s to come with their post-apocalyptic grimness and crime-ridden streets. Here however we have a utopia of glass and steel (given depth and scope by 3D) which has embraced and respected the legacy of the past by incorporating it seamlessly with the future, much like the filmmakers have done with the show itself.

The secret of survival is to honour the past whilst looking forward and adapting for what lies ahead, a lesson that those behind Star Trek Into Darkness appear to have taken on board. Whether the Starship Enterprise will continue to ‘boldly go where no man has gone before’ under the command of Abrams remains to be seen, now that he has been put in charge of the rival Star Wars saga. However, going by the evidence on display here, fans of Kirk and his crew can expect to be following their exploits for some time to come.

Star Trek Into Darkness is released in the UK on May 9, 2013, and in the USA on May 17, 2013.

Cleaver Patterson is film critic and writer based in London.

Many hinge the success and failure of a superhero film on whether villains can entice and excite the audience, or whether heroes can effectively transcend their humanity and conquer the odds. These are irrelevant concerns when placed next to the crucial component of all great action films: vulnerability. Without vulnerability, there can be no threat to the hero and no great stake in the action, and while many superhero films build in some kind of crutch to their protagonist, a lack of balance between action and threat often results from the need to construct a superior being. Take the iconic Superman, for example. The Kryptonian can be thrown through buildings, shot repeatedly, and he will always walk away unscathed. However, the minute Lex Luther drops by, adorned with a stylish chain of kryptonite, Superman devolves into an insufferable puddle of a man. The action must then take one extreme or the other: Superman is impervious or Superman is whiny little girl.

So, why take the time to examine the character of Superman in an Iron Man 3 review? Simple, the example better clarifies what director Shane Black does right with his iteration of the ‘invincible’ Iron Man. Iron Man 3 continues the saga of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), billionaire weapons manufacturer turned superhero philanthropist, who begins investigating the terrorist activities of the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) after a friend nearly dies during one of his professed attacks. However, not all is as it seems in the film, and Stark must soon grapple with superhuman soldiers and the scientist-turned-psychopath Dr. Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) as well.

What pushes the film towards greatness, though it may never reach it, is the constant impermanence of Iron Man’s suit of armor. Throughout the film, Stark is constantly having to operate the suit while it malfunctions or is torn to pieces, and because of this he constantly puts himself at risk. In fact, one sequence finds Stark leaving his malfunctioning suit to recharge on a car’s battery, raiding a hardware store for supplies, and then using these domestic supplies to invent several modestly destructive weapons. He then mounts an assault on the Mandarin’s mansion cloaked only in a hoodie. The sequence works for two reasons, it reaffirms Stark as a brilliant scientific mind and it instills genuine concern for his safety. And frankly, when Stark kills a terrorist with a Christmas ornament that explodes into shrapnel, it just feels more satisfying.

The film also benefits from a strong script, which learns the lessons of past Marvel and DC machinations that overwhelmed the screen with too many villains. Instead, Iron Man 3 creates a fascinating turn in the second act that subverts audience expectations and refocuses all of Iron Man’s ire on Killian. While giving details would ruin the shift, I must at least say that comic book purists should be grateful that Black’s film can take chances with the source material and create something new and intriguing. As far as the rest of the film goes, Downey Jr.’s charismatic turn as the Iron Man continues to take advantage of sharply written dialogue, and the action agreeably builds to an inevitable climax with all the brilliant pomp of a comic book film.

If Iron Man 3 has one aspect that holds it back from greatness, it is that the film does not effectively delve into Dr. Killian’s motives as a villain. True, all the groundwork has been laid: a cripple who now seeks the feeling of power and superiority that always eluded him, and so on. That said, Pierce’s character leaves the audience little to remember of him as a man, and so the villainous role feels shallow. Even so, Killian provides excellent fodder for Tony Stark’s maturation as a character, and it is Stark’s beating heart, still surrounded by shrapnel, that drives the film. Viewers who go to Iron Man 3 expecting the relentless barrage of The Avengers (2012) may walk away disappointed, but those who can appreciate the thin-skinned humanity of a superhero will find more than enough here to sate them.

Jacob Mertens is Review Editor of Film International.