Monkey's Blog - with a little help from Alice

Recent Films: our top three
NOTE: don't forget to click on the pictures...

Our Favourite
Absolutely the very best of the all the films we've seen recently is the beautiful Beasts of the Southern Wild. It tells the tale of a poor south-of-the levee community in Louisiana, seen through the eyes of a young child. Quvenzhané Wallis was only five when she was cast in the part (all of seven when filming finished) and she's absolutely brilliant! Maybe even a youngest-ever Oscar contender? This first feature from Benh Zeitlin was very much a group effort, and deservedly won accolades at both Sundance and Cannes.

It's about environmental issues, class, poverty, race - as well as being the powerful story of a troubled daughter-father relationship.

The eyes and imagination (both!) of Hushpuppy, as she's called, command the point of view. The eponymous (what a pompous word, but Alice insists) beasts are the aurochs she's been told are prehistoric monsters buried under the ice-caps.

Since she's also learned these are now melting, when a Katrina force storm arrives, she "sees" the aurochs unleashed. They were wonderfully magnificent - and scarey! Alice says this is called Magical Realism. Sounds like an outright contradiction to me...

Alice thinks it's OK to enter another reality through a portal, like Cocteau's Mirror or C S Lewis's Wardrobe: in fact she loved all the Narnia stories as a child. And the Alice books, of course, were an early favourite. But she finds it somewhat disturbing to have it just happen without any transition.

There's a fascinating Making of Beasts of the Southern Wild video here. Yes, we do understand that some people don't like to know anything about a film before they've seen it. However, I like knowing all the ins and outs - it adds to my appreciation, in fact.  

Hear, hear, says Alice.
Hear? I'll never get used to these bizarre human expressions. Seems this one is historical...

Our Second Choice
From indie to block buster! But our tastes are quite eclectic. We actually went along to our second favourite art-house cinema to see this new Bond movie. Why? Because I hate iMax (it gives me a crick in my neck); they have lovely, comfortable, red seats in their Screen One, and it was cheaper there, too.

Skyfall was certainly over-hyped, but only in the sense of there being so very much of it: Moviejuice, Review Show, Mark Kermode on Film 24, even dear old Graham Norton had all three stars on his couch. Despite the hype, which can sometimes put Alice off, we really wanted to see it, and in the event it was well worth it.

It had all the expected running, jumping, chasing and shooting one expects; plus a more interesting plot than the last two, so that was good enough for me to thoroughly enjoy myself.

Alice is a bit more precise in her critical approach. She reckoned Daniel Craig has proved himself as probably the best Bond ever; Judi Dench did full justice to a more complex part for M, and Havier (oops!) Javier Bardem was a chillingly nasty villain, fully matching his role in No Country for Old Men. We also had a new Q in Ben Whishaw, who (handing Bond a tiny lighter-sized radio transmitter) uttered the priceless line, "Were you expecting an exploding pen? We don’t really go in for that any more." I suspect Alice rather took to him.

Moreover, it looked absolutely super, especially the unique title sequence (now on YouTube.) Alice, now, is pretty pernickety when it comes to cinematography, and this got her full approval. So, it's five stars from us both.

And our third recommendation

Ginger And Rosa, directed by Sally Potter (of Orlando fame) is about two best friends, born on the same day. Their growing up together is skillfully established in a series of quick and emotive scenarios. As teenagers in the "swinging" London of the 1960s they come face to face with the Cold War nuclear threat, as well as encountering sex, love and some complex family and friendship relationship problems. The parents and other adults exhibit all shades of sixties' opinions and bohemian craziness. The script and direction are excellent. The acting is first class all round.
See this review, and this one too.

Alice herself is of the same generation as the girls, and remembers well the terror she felt during the Cuban Missile Crisis - the fear of total human annihilation, just like Rosa. But even if you didn't live through it, the film is worth seeing just to get a feel of what it was like. It's also a very good film indeed.