Snowden, Office Christmas Party, Life, Animated The Film Review


Snowden, Office Christmas Party, Life, Animated

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Hello and welcome to the Film Review on BBC News.

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To take us through this week's cinema releases is Mark Kermode.

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A very mixed bag. We have snowed in, the new drama by Oliver Stone. We

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have The Office Christmas Party. Yes, it's Christmas! And Life,

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Animated, a really to refit documentary. -- terrific

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documentary. We begin with Snowden, about Edward Snowden, the former NSA

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contractor who blew the whistle on surveillance culture in the US after

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911. Joseph Gordon Levitt plays the idealistic young man who joins the

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intelligence services because he wants to serve his country but

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becomes alarmed by how intrusive their surveillance is of apparently

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ordinary citizens. It's not dirt we need necessarily

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but a pressure point, something intimate, some weakness. Can we look

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through his family? How about his sister-in-law? What is that? Is that

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some of video she sent somebody? No, this is live. What do you mean live?

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It is camera activation. Activation? Yes, the laptop is off. She forgot

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to close it. I always wondered what was under

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those. You can see from those it is a

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creepy drama about surveillance culture. The problem is that there

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was a documentary which is in this film and we get someone playing the

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woman from the film. In that documentary, we saw these

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revelations, and it was a horrific documentary, informative and edge of

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your seat stuff. Much of it takes place in a hotel in Hong Kong when

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he was getting the information out into the world. It is nail-biting

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stuff. The documentary is more dramatic than this dramatisation.

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The documentary makes clear that Snowden does not want to be the

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centre of the story. It is bigger than him. So to make a drama called

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Snowden about Snowden seems perverse, since the story is not

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meant to be about him. Also, the genius of the documentary is that it

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deals with complicated technical issues and makes them

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understandable. Watching this, I felt like I came out knowing

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slightly less than when I went in. It is not that it does not have some

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dramatic virtues, but when you have seen something as good as the

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documentary, you want to go, just watch that. It is dramatic, tense,

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informative, explanatory, it does everything that this dramatisation

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does, and much more. Which leaves you feeling, what's the point? And I

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honestly don't know what the point is. The documentary covered it all.

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Let's move on The Office Christmas Party, about a party that gets way

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out of hand. It sounds like the BBC News channel Christmas Party

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yesterday. I sincerely hope that was more fun than watching this film. I

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went in with high expectations because it is from the makers of

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blades of Glory. Jennifer Aniston is the hard-nosed boss who is closing a

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failing office and Jason Bateman decides the way to make it succeed

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is to throw a Christmas Party to attract business. The plot makes no

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sense and it looks like the film-makers said, never mind, just

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get to the party when everyone is throwing stuff around. The problem

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is, on the one hand it has some talented performers. It is a bit

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like being the only sober person in a room full of increasingly drunk,

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shrieking loud people. And the more shrieking, drunk and loud they get,

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the more it feels like you have a hangover without the fun of the

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party beforehand. And the real shame of it is that I keep going to see

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this kind of film thinking, this is the one that will change my mind,

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that is Willie good fun. And then you go, no, it is just that movie.

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And this was just that movie. Timed for the Christmas market? Yes, Ray,

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thanks, Christmas present nobody asked for. Let's move on to Life,

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Animated, which is a fantastic piece of work. A superb documentary by a

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director who won an Oscar in 2010. It is the story of the son of an

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award-winning journalist. As a young man, he is somebody who has

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discovered a way of understanding the world through Disney films. What

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happened was, at the age of three he suddenly started to retreat into

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himself and he was diagnosed as autistic. For a long time, his

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parents were worried that he had completely lost touch with them and

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the world around him. Owen just started changing really fast. You

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know, he wasn't sleeping, that was the first thing. He would be up in

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the night, all night. His motor skills were deteriorating. And then

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his language processing broke down. He just started reciting gibbering.

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It was hard for me to understand what people were saying. They were

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all garbled. It's like we are looking for clues

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to a kidnapping. Someone kidnapped our son. And that image is really

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powerful. The parents feel completely disconnected. Then they

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realise he is watching these Disney cartoons intently. At one point, the

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father gets a Disney glove puppet and asks his son a question, and he

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answers with a line from the movie. And they realise that in fact he is

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in gauging with these movies and if they can talk to him in language

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from the movies, actually he can be brought out of this isolation. This

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documentary is so uplifting, so brilliant. On the one hand, we see

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what eight refit young man he has become. He is lively and engaged. He

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has this Disney cartoon club in which he gets people to talk about

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the way these archetypal stories reflect their lives. It is a film

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about the power of cinema to genuinely transform people and to

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transform their experience of the world. And it is a film which has as

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its subject somebody who is very, very honest, somebody who literally

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says it as they experience it. Hearing him being able to express

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very eloquently what his experience of the world is, how it is that

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watching Disney cartoons, Disney narratives has enabled him to

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reconnect with those around him, is wonderful. He has this rich fantasy

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life in which he has a kingdom of lost sidekicks, because he started

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drawing Disney characters, always the sidekick, and in visit himself

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as the champion of the sidekick. The other thing is that they managed to

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get Disney to clear the rights to all of the clips. The way they did

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it was that the director took the movie to this roomful of scary

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lawyers and showed them, and they were all in tears, they were so

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moved. It is wonderful. If you are a fan of Disney it makes sense, but it

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is great to see animation working like this, and the transformative

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power of sin are. Such a wonderful subject, someone whose company you

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will feel privileged to spend an hour and a half in. Your best movie

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out at the moment. Edge of 17. I think it is to reflect. It is a

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story of a young woman who is struggling with being a teenager and

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trying to find her place in the world. It is really funny but also

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poignant, and it feels very real, like it is made honestly. It

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captures just how difficult it can be, being a young person. I think it

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does that really well, and it is really funny and smart. And I have

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yet to find someone who has seen it is not loved it. Best DVD? A weird

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little Scandinavian drama about a group of young women who manage

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through a magical potion to transform themselves into boys, so

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they can experience life in the other gender. It's very interesting

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drama. Some of it does not quite work but it has the magical realist

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element to it. It talks eloquently about the difference between the

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genders and the different experience of boyhood. It was a film I knew

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nothing about when I started to watch it, and I was completely drawn

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in. Very adventurous, fairy tale quality. Makes an interesting double

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bill with your name, a Japanese animation which has been a runaway

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success in Japan, about a boy and girl whose swap bodies

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inadvertently. A very good double bill. Thank you very much for all of

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that. A quick reminder before we go that

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you'll find more film news and reviews from across the BBC

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online at bbc.co.uk/markkermode. And you can catch up

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with our previous programmes That's it for this week. Thanks for

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watching. Goodbye.

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