Warm Bodies is a classic love story of star crossed lovers. In this case it’s an undead zombie boyfriend ‘R’ (Nicholas Hoult) and a very alive girlfriend ‘Julie’ (Teresa Palmer). Leave the Twilight references there because they are definitely not in the same ballpark.
Some epidemic or other has changed the world as we know it and the humans led by Julie’s Dad, ‘Grigio’ (John Malkovich), live inside a high walled commune while many of the infected zombie types have taken residence in the local airport. When a group of friends from the commune, including Julie, have to go to the outside world to get supplies, that’s when the fun starts. To cut it short, ‘Julie’ meets ‘R’ and she makes his cold dead heart beat again.
Ok, that’s pretty straight forward. We’re introduced to this world by R’s inner monologue and his coherence plays beautifully against what others see of R, grunting and shuffling along. The comedy is built up by melding with R is thinking and what is actually happening on screen. He brings Julie to his hideaway to keep her safe, she thinks he’s by kidnapping her. Also, a Shakespeare-esque balcony scene is used to hilariously good effect.
Warm Bodies also features some great one liners, great subtleties in the script and a fantastic soundtrack. How many zombies do you know with an awesome vinyl collection?
Jonathan Levine has done an amazing directing job on Warm Bodies and has perfectly combined the humour, romance and background story to great effect. Palmer is great as the all American good girl and after this Hoult should be spoken of as the guy from ‘Warm Bodies’, not ‘About a boy’ or ‘Skins’.
I’ve seen a fair few of the Oscar contenders but Warm Bodies is my favourite film of 2013 so far. Attention film makers: don’t bother trying to make anything else in this genre. This is the ultimate Zom-Rom-Com.
Directed by Seán Ó Cualáin, Men At Lunch looks at the history and myths behind the 1932 photograph, ‘Lunch Atop A Skyscraper’. Taken in Manhattan, as the Rockafellar Center was being built, the documentary looks at the background of ’30 Rock’ in New York, the great depression and how skyscrapers were shooting up, if you’ve no more ground to build on, build up.
In the photograph, we see Central Park in the background, without harnesses, the iron workers eat their lunch, 57 stories up. No room for acrophobia here! Deep in the bowels of the building there is a photographic ‘museum’, which has prints of all the photographs taken and these show that it wasn’t just the iron workers up there. Pictures of photographers taking photographs of other snappers. It really interesting to see how they found out who actually took the photograph.
As for the men who are eating lunch, we are taken on a trip trying to get to the bottom of the identities of the eleven, how lots of people claim one of them is their grandfather and how a photograph in a pub in the west of Ireland has lead to establishing the identities of two of the men.
This is a documentary which both fans of photography and history will enjoy, using interviews, stills and archival footage. Photography fans will enjoy the visual element and the glimpse we get of the archives. For this viewer, the history of New York city is fascinating and we get a real gritty look at how the city was built. Very enjoyable and extremely educating with a dash of an Irish twist.
Today Netflix launch their original series House of Cards, I was lucky enough to be given a pre-release screener for episodes 1 and 2.
Set in Washington DC, House of Cards centres around Congressman, Majority Whip, Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey), who has been promised to be put forward for the position of Secretary of State. When the newly elected President reneges on the promise, Underwood with the encouragement of his wife (Robin Wright), becomes a Machiavellian wizard who plays his co workers like puppets, slowly pitting them against each other to get what he wants.
Meanwhile Zoe Barnes is a lowly reporter in The Washington Herald, fed up of local county court reports and to start a blog about the real behind the news stories of Capital Hill. She approaches Underwood and in return for anonymity, he feeds her his wealth of knowledge and secrets.
Ok, so far so good in this remake of a BBC mini series and there are many television shows that have similar storylines with different backdrops, including the currently broadcast ‘Revenge‘. In the first two episodes where ‘House of Cards’ comes into its own, is in the boundaries it doesn’t have. Traditional television shows have to adhere to certain criteria, what the network want, language being used, even time of day a show is aired. With Netflix, all of these boundaries are gone, the only thing stopping the creativity of the directors and writers are themselves and if the audience can and will adapt to their style.
First off, this doesn’t look like it’s not going to be broadcast on traditional television. It’s crisp, clean and gorgeous. Having Kevin Spacey in your cast is always a good thing, having him put his money where is mouth is, is better, he’s an executive producer. The depth of the cast also makes you this seriously, Robin Wright (Moneyball, Jenny in Forrest Gump), Corey Stall (Law & Order), Michael Kelly (Criminal Minds) amongst others. Back it up with David Fincher (The Social Network/Fight Club) directing and it’s a heavyweight.
For this viewer, where ‘House of Cards’ exceeds is in bending the rules. Spacey’s monlogues, directly to camera, are fascinating. He introduces the audience to the situation, the location, explains everything going on, he catches you up on the backstory in uberquick time. He turns away from the camera and it’s back to the scene with his fellow actors. After the first or second time of this we know what to expect but it changes. At one point Underwood is being spoken to by Linda Vasquez (Sakina Jaffrey), the President’s right hand woman. Underwood sits at his desk, Vasquez is standing, she walks out of shot and mid scene Underwood faces the camera and makes an eye gesture, ‘Yea Right’, before continuing with the scene. Underwood’s behaviours make it impossible to back out, the viewer is an active participant in what’s going on.
That’s not the only thing, when text messages are sent, a dialogue box appears on screen with the message, very multimedia like. And there’s some clever editing, cutting back and forth, especially noticeable when the words ‘Monica Lewins…’ are cut off.
At points throughout also, there are certain throwbacks to Film Noir, especially when Underwood meets Zoe Barnes in public. He always seems to be in the shadow, she’s in the light. His face is never fully seen, we mostly see the back of his head, showing how he wants to remain anonymous in the whole information swap.
People are watching television differently now, most people watch their programmes through Sky+ or by watching boxsets. Not everyone can sit down at the same time every week and watch something, life gets in the way. While Netflix is an online content distributor, House of Cards is a great move into making them a content maker. Whether it’s a television series or a web series we watch, it’s all still moving visual content. If Netflix keep up the high quality production, interesting storylines and add to their catalogue of Netflix Originals, they could completely change the television landscape.
This time of year is always good for films, some Oscar hopefuls get their release and there’s always something to savour. ‘Bullet To The Head’ is a new shoot em up, blow em up film, directed by Walter Smith (48 Hours/Another 48 Hours) and stars tough man, Sylvester Stallone. ‘Bullet To The Head’ isn’t going to feature in any ceremonies during award season.
Stallone plays ‘Jimmy Bonomo’, a New Orleans hitman who works alongside Detective Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang), as they search for their mutual enemy, Bonomo’s partner’s killer. Even an appearance from the awesome Christian Slater as the playboy millionaire Marcus Bapiste, isn’t enough to save this.
The film is based on a graphic novel, ‘Du plomb dans la tête’, which can be a good thing but here is also the film’s downfall. The acting is like characters on a paper page, one dimensional. We are never shown anything to relate to or feel empathy with the characters. It’s not helped by Stallone’s monotone dialogue. Script wise, even some shared ‘jokes’ between the two leads isn’t enough while the incidental music throughout the film seems to be used in accordance with what would be chapters in the graphic novel. It’s used a little too much though and starts to grate.
But, if you’re looking for 91 minutes of mindless killing and a few explosions thrown in for good measure, this will be the movie for you. Otherwise, see what else is on.
Bullet To The Head opens in Irish theatre’s on February 1st.
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