17/01/2014 The Film Review

Australian Open. That is all in Sportsday at 6. 30pm. Now it's time

for The Film Review. Welcome to the Film Review. To take

us through this week's cinema releases is Mark Kerr mode. We have

already had an argument before the first film and we haven't started

yet. What have we got? The big release, obviously, The Wolf of Wall

Street, the new film by Martin Scorscese, starring Leonardo

DiCaprio. And we also have the delves due. Remember Rosemary's

Baby. This is like Rosemary's Baby's Baby. And Timer have me, can an

inventor and technician be paint like a 1th century Dutch artist Dobb

Timer have mere. -- 17th century. Now, The Wolf of

Wall Street I happened to mention I loved it and laughed all the way

through. You happened to suggest you perhaps didn't. The We will have a

full and frank set-to. A new film, directed by Martin Scorscese, three

hours' long, Leonardo DiCaprio stars as does Jordan Belfort. A

stockbroker. It tells of his rise and fall. He played past and loose

with the stock market. Lived a life of wanton debauchery. It is a three

three-hour orgy of drugs, and sex. It was billed at the Golden Globe as

a comedy, the Kyoto gree. I would say it is a jet black comedy. Here

is one of the more comic moments where the rising financier is giving

up rating by his father. Here is a climb.

$30,000 in one month, Geordie, huh? Business expenses. Look what you got

here. Look at this, ?$26,000 for one dinner. This can be explained we had

the Pfizer clients. The Porterhouse. We had to buy champagne. Tell them

about the sides you ordered. I ordered sides. $26,000 worth of

sides. What are these sides, to cure cancer? They did, that's problem

they were a plus-one, they were expensive Shut up, stop. OK, one of

the funnier moments in the film. All the good stuff, DiCaprio is

terrific, his performance is over the top and controlled. Jonah Hill

building on performances like Money Fall. Here is my problem. It apes

the structure of Goodfellows n that case there is a way into the central

character, he does terrible things and you are interested by him. My

problem with The Wolf of Wall Street which is based on memoirs, is I

hated him from the outset. Some people have complained that what the

film does, it somehow glamourises or revels in his lifestyle. Endless

orgies and drug taking and endless debauched behaviour. They say it

glamourises T I have to say having seen it twice I didn't feel it was

glamourised because I loathe the lifestyle entirely. The problem for

me is this: If you loathe a character, you cannot find a way in.

In the case of Good fellas there is a way of empathising with and liking

the company of some of these people. With me, I founder watching this was

like watching and undunging, it is way too long, there is no way it

should be three hours' long, it depicts a world in which the world

is macho and chauvinistic but the film treats its female characters

badly, they are either wives or girlfriends or sex workers. It is

one of those things which you think there is a Titan movie in there, a

movie which is a stronger critique of the world it is depicting. I just

thought, having seen it twice, at no point was I emotionally engaged.

There were things it that were funny and a that I admire but I found it

frosty, and a chilly experience. If I can have a right of reply. I

thought it was like the Great Gats by with laughs. Of course it was

over the top but it was funny. You don't have to like - you have to see

a way into it, but his appeal was the public were mugs and he

exploited that. Now you could say that's morally reprehensible but if

you had a downer on every morally reprehensible hero you wouldn't like

Macbeth? That's not my problem. My problem is if there is no way into

the character, spending that time in his company becomes tiresome. Some

people have said it glamourises and galorifies his lifestyle. I don't

think that's the case but I think it gives you a blank and loathsome and

inpenetrable portrait of a world of people behaving in an I a Pauling,

amoral way... You don't think that bears any resemblance to the way in

which Wall Street functioned at the time? I this I it does but when you

look at King of Comedy and Goodfellows these people were

potentially psychotic but you had a way into their characters. In the

end... Did you not feel At no point, three hours was stretching it. You.

It. I laughed a lot. There were other films I saw recently that less

than three hours were Treving it a lot. The delves due, you say,

Rosemary's Baby's Baby A newly married couple they go on holiday

for their honeymoon and they find themselves unwittingly carrying the

dove devil's child. You think I have seen this before, but it is down

withed mo earn footage. We see it through video diaries or

surveillance Camaras. The problem with the film is that Eli wroth, he

hasn't had an original thought since his first film. He says just because

Rosemary's Baby is a Holy Grail doesn't mean you should discount

this. But if you have seen it, and also you sit there and go - that's

the plot from Rosemary's Baby, that's the demon child thing from

the Omen and Its Alive and that's from exorcist. There is a part of

you thinking if you have never seen any horror films before you might be

surprised. On a technical level it is done perfectly efficiently. It is

not terrible by any means. It is knotted just the way so many

horrible films are done now, quiet, quiet, bang. But it is so stunningly

unoriginal that you think there is a amendment that somebody ought to go

- shall we just do something that hasn't been done before? Now, Tim's

Vermeer that hasn't been done before. People for a long time

speculated that there are lots of things extraordinary about the

pictures but one is, did he use photographic technique? It has been

around for a while. Tim Jenson who is anp inventor and technician, but

not a painter figures the light box, the pin Camara, he must have used a

protophotographic thing. In order to prove this he sets out to recreate

the room, the setting of the music lesson and he, an avowed

non-painter, using the technique he thinks Vermeer must have used, can

paint anything like Vermeer. Here is a clip. Seeing the Vermeeres in

person was a revelation. It reinforced to me that I was on the

right track. That what I was seeing was an accurate representation of

the colour in that room. I just had a hunch that there must be a way to

actually get the colours accurate. With mechanical means. Some way you

could do that in the 17th century. The genius of the film is this. He

sets out to see if he can reproduce what he believes the techniques are.

It is kind of like a detective work. He is looking at the painting going,

how could he have got this level of clarity and detail and this level of

photographic light recognition? And, working with, know, what he thinks

is what Vermeer must have used he sets out to replicate the work. It

is a Penn Teller project so you think, is it a hoax, is it an

illusion but it is fascinating and interesting. It is a film that

ultimately concludes that there is not a divide between art and

science, that there is nothing non-artistic about being technical.

There is no lack of inspiration in finding a brilliant way of using

smoke and mirrors, so on the one hand it is anner ultimate for what

Penn Teller do anyway. But it is an engrossing mystery storey. You

are looking at somebody investigating the evidence, almost

like Sherlock Holmes, how could they have done that? I thought it was

absolutely fascinating. And very moving and I think, in the end,

proves there is a unity of art and skies, rather well. We are not going

to have a row about what your best film of the week is, 12 Years a

Slave is harrowing but extraordinary Absolutely extraordinary, I think

Steve McQueen has done a brilliant job of bringing this to the screen.

It has done fantastic in Oscar nominations. I think he will win

Best picture. The point is, the film is tough but it is just as tough as

it needs to be. There are moments when you look away, but what he

understands is how to tell this story, not in anyway how to demean

it or diminish it. It has to be told in a tough way. He does it

brilliantly. You come out of it thinking - it is truthful, realistic

and ultimately ennobling. I genuinely think in the history of

cinema, it will be seen as an important movie. Also, there are

small bits, for instance, when he is named. He is told his name isn't

what it is used to be and that he is Plait. That dehumanisation quite

extraordinarily moving, although it may see a small thing. Once you see

this in the film and understand what it means to a human being to be

controlled in that way, not to have your own name. It explains Malcolm X

and Muhhammad Ali. Yes and the use of music is just wonderful. Your

DVD. One of the world's less subtle director, Roland Emmerich But with

him you know what you are going to get. There was two films one was

boring but White House Down has more explosions. It is looking at the

lawn saying - is that the President with ak rote launcher. The answer

is, yes, why? Because it is a Roland Emmerich film and he can do it.

Excellent. Thank you very much. A reminder before we go you will find

more film news and reviews from Mark on his BBC blog at BBC do you/Mark

Kerr mode. That's it for this week. I'm right about The Wolf of Wall

Street. He is wrong. Thank you for watching. Goodbye.

Hello. Good evening. For many, Sunday is going to be the best day

of the week. We have more rain to come in on Saturday and we have seen

a lot of showers today particularly. From overnight into this morning

across the south-east which is why we have had scenes of flooding.

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