Pitch Perfect

Anna Kendrick has won much acclaim (including an Oscar nomination) for supporting roles in very good films such as Up in the Air, 50/50 and End of Watch. Pitch Perfect is the first time that she's really had to carry a film from the lead.

The film is set in the world of competitive college acapella singing groups and is directed by a man whose previous experience has been in TV shows such as Dawson's Creek and One Tree Hill. So far, so unpromising. Furthermore, it can't really decide whether it wants to take the singing relatively serious or to be a Best in Show style pastiche of an unusual occupation, so we get relatively straightly done musical segments (aside from the odd outbreak of projectile vomiting) but with very tongue-in-cheek commentary provided by John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks. Elsewhere, there is an attempt to mix the usual romantic subplot, parental separation issues with touches of broader, even at times gross-out humour.

Out of all of this, the biggest surprise is that they've managed to produce a very likeable and above all funny film. Kendrick makes for an engaging leading lady, the musical sequences are very well handled (especially the riff-off about halfway through) and the gags keep coming. The humour is hit and miss, but there are far more hits than misses and probably something for everybody tastes. The established actors Higgins and Banks are poorest served by a script that leaves them little but weak innuendos until the finale, but a final killer out down by Banks almost makes up for that.

Not that the film is perfect - there are probably too many character arcs and subplots that just aren't given enough room - from the almost silent girl coming out of her shell, Kendrick's daddy issues and career aspirations as a music producer to the amateur magician and the Korean room-mate. Things have a tendancy of just happening without the audience seeing the intervening struggles.

Overall - 7/10 Tries to cram a lot in and be a lot of different things, but is done with enough energy, fun and humour to work more than it doesn't.

The Impossible

The Impossible represents the first real attempt to deal with 2004's Boxing Day tsunami in film. Despite being a Spanish production, it follows a Hollywood pattern of being very anglo-centric - the focus is squarely on western holiday-makers caught up in the tragedy rather than the locals having their countryside devastated and the Spanish family whose true story this is based upon have been morphed into a very English one.

Those gripes aside, the film is actually very successful. Director Juan Antonio Bayona (whose last film was Spanish horror The Orphanage) and his screenwriters grasp that the best way to convey something of  the scale of the disaster is actually focus small, to view everything through the eyes of the one family separated by the waves and unsure if each other are alive or dead, and the emotions they go through and the sometimes questionable choices they make. Which is not to say that this is a small film - the moment when the tsunami hits and the immediate aftermath as Naomi Watts' mother and her eldest son are swept miles inland is one of the most powerful and bravura pieces of film-making you're likely to see this year.

In fact Bayona handles both the small emotional scenes and the big action ones with consumate skill, from the opening use of noise over a blank screen to create an atmosphere of apprehension. However, there is one emotional blow when mother and son have reached that hospital that I'm unsure of - I don't know if it was something that really happened to the Spanish family, but if invented by the film-makers feels like an emotional twist/manipulation for dramatic effect that the film doesn't really need.

The cast are also superb - Ewan McGregor more sympathetic and less irritating than he's been for a while and Watts is superb, but the real star is 16 year old Tom Holland who shoulders much of the emotional weight of the film in very convincing fashion. A great future awaits him if he continues like this.

Overall - 8/10 A very powerful, well acted and well put together film with an early contender for one of the sequences of the year.

Quartet

Quartet is a slightly odd choice for Dustin Hoffman's solo debut in the director's chair, being as it is such a very English movie. Aiming squarely for the same audience as last year's Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the film is set in a retirement home for retired musicians and centres around 4 retired opera singers, two of whom used to be married before it ended disastrously. Together they must perform the quartet from Rigoletto in order to raise the money to keep the home open.

As a director, Hoffman is a steady hand and makes good use of his stately setting, displaying a good eye for framing a shot. He also, unsurprisingly, pulls some good performances from his cast. Maggie Smith is essentially playing the same part as in Marigold down to the same accent and same need for a hip replacement, but is as watchable and moving as ever, but the real class here is added by a brilliant turn from Tom Courtenay as her ex-husband. It is there relationship that provides the film with its heart.

The Quartet is rounded off by the more comic notes of a flirtatious Billy Connolly, who has moments but becomes a bit wearisome, and Pauline Collins, whose character comes to close to taking cheap laughs from the onset of dementia for my tastes. Hoffman wisely decides against actually having his stars sing, but fills out the rest of the cast with real musicians and singers and Michael Gambon is on good form as the irascible producer in charge of matters.

Rather like its ageing stars, the film is pleasant company, but somewhat slow and lacking drama. It fails to reach either the laughs or the emotion of the Marigold Hotel.

Overall - 6/10 More a gently pleasant chorus than a stirring aria. Likeable and entertaining, but somewhat lacking in other areas.

Tony's Favourite Films of 2012

So, this might turn out to be a rather short-lived resurrection of my blog, but whilst I have a few moments I thought I'd do my customary round-up of the films I enjoyed the most in 2012. Life events elsewhere meant that the volume of my film watching decreased somewhat (and 2013 will probably see a much sharper fall ;-) ) and there were certainly some films that I wanted to see and didn't manage to catch.

Before moving on to the best, I will cast a cursory glance at the worst films that I had the misfortune to see at the cinema this year - in contention for Turkey of the year were the 3D re-release of The Phantom Menace, Taken 2, The Cold Light of Day and Ghost Rider 2, but the undisputed Turkey of the year was George Lucas' Red Tails. There is undoubtedly a good film to make in the real story of the Tuskagee airmen. Red Tails is not that story - the dialogue is abysmally poor and the action beyond credulity.

Moving on, those films that narrowly missed out on a place in my personal top 20 would include IRA thriller Shadow Dancer; The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Moonrise Kingdom  and The Hobbit (which was an excess 30 minutes and an unnecessary hedgehog away from being a very good film).

The Top 20:

20. Looper - Rian Johnson's time-travel tale might not have totally sorted all the paradoxes, but was still a thoroughly entertaining sci-fi.

19. Jack Reacher  - A late arrival, but a very well done film that succeeds despite the controversy of Cruise's casting as the hero (who in the books is 6'4" and blond).

18. Jeff Who Lives at Home - More indy minded, but a playful exploration of fate and inter-connectivity that manages to get away with a rather contrived ending.

17. Avengers Assemble - Marvel's super-team up worked box office magic and was largely successful through the interplay between the characters despite the big finale falling a bit flat.

16. Martha Marcy May Marlene - Elizabeth Olsen is superb in this portrayal of a young woman recently escaped from a cult.

15. Silver Linings Playbook - Romance, dancing, gambling and mental illness - an unlikely winning combination and De Niro better than he's been in ages.

14. Ruby Sparks - Quirky rom com about an author who invents his perfect woman, charming and amusing throughout.

13. End of Watch Gritty LA cop story that routes its episodic plot in some very real characters and relationships.

12. Carnage - Polanski's satire of manners makes the most of its top notch cast to unpick middle class foibles.

11. The Muppets return to the big screen with a surprisingly heartfelt and funny film.

10. Argo Ben Affleck continues his winning streak as director managing a lighter tone in this incredible true story of the rescue of Americans from revolutionary Iran using a fake film crew.

9. Seven Psychopaths a somewhat messy, but incredibly entertaining story of a struggling screenwriter, dog-napping and other odd occurrences.

8. Skyfall - Daniel Craig's Bond is back on track after the somewhat disappointing last effort and worthy final one in the series for Judi Dench. Ben Wishaw and Ralph Fiennes will make good additions.

7. The Hunger Games One of the best teen-lit adaptations created a convincing and compelling dystopian future.

6. Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists.  Ardman return to claymation in winning style - it's a very silly, but the gag rate never fails.

5. The Life of Pi - Ang Lee's adaptation of the "unfilmable" book is visually stunning and thought-provoking in equal measure.

4. The Descendants Clooney downplays but hits the right notes in this somewhat melancholy-comedic drama.

3. Beasts of the Southern Wild  a beautiful lyrical film which gains heart by not trying to explain too much.

2. The Dark Knight Rises -  a worthy finish to Nolan's batman trilogy. Heath Ledger was never going to be an easy act to follow, but Tom Hardy does a god job in villain role.

1. The Artist Witty, inventive, very funny and almost wordless - a very worthy and original Oscar winner