:00:00. > :00:00.the southern hemisphere, we will look ahead to tomorrow's action.
:00:00. > :00:00.That is all on Sportsday at 6:30pm, but now it is time for the Film
:00:00. > :00:23.Review. Hello and welcome to the Film Review
:00:24. > :00:27.and BBC News. To take us through this week's cinema releases, Mark
:00:28. > :00:32.Kermode, what have we got? A very mixed bag, The Butler, a strange
:00:33. > :00:38.mixture of historical fact and fiction. We have Don Jon, a very
:00:39. > :00:45.modern look at relationships between men and women. And we have The
:00:46. > :00:50.Counsellor, Ridley Scott directs a script by Cormac McCarthy, what
:00:51. > :00:56.could possibly go wrong?! I see, well, The Butler has an interesting
:00:57. > :01:01.premise, hasn't it? Yes, it is inspired by a real`life story that
:01:02. > :01:05.was recorded in the Washington post, a guy who once served 34 years in
:01:06. > :01:09.the White House and seen extraordinary change. The rights
:01:10. > :01:12.were bought up by a movie company, and we now have a fictionalised
:01:13. > :01:17.version of the story which plays loose with the facts of the story.
:01:18. > :01:21.The central character, Cecil Gaines, played by Forest Whitaker, at the
:01:22. > :01:25.beginning we see him in terrible circumstances on a plantation, where
:01:26. > :01:28.his father is killed. Then he ends up working at the White House, and
:01:29. > :01:32.he served through several administrations, and as he serves,
:01:33. > :01:37.the world around him changes, and obviously the whole thing will lead
:01:38. > :01:40.up to Barack Obama, so it is an extraordinary period of social
:01:41. > :01:44.history. The movie wants to play to the largest possible audience, to
:01:45. > :01:48.play to the stalls, and it does that rather effectively. Whilst he is at
:01:49. > :01:52.work, Cecil Gaines as a character has to be an invisible presence in
:01:53. > :02:01.the room, he keeps being told that the Butler's art is to not be there,
:02:02. > :02:04.but at home, with his own life, with his wife played by Oprah Winfrey,
:02:05. > :02:11.that is where life comes into the film.
:02:12. > :02:29.Me and your daddy saw a wonderful movie the other day. Oh, Sri Lanka?
:02:30. > :02:34.In The Heat Of The Night. He is a white man's fantasy of what he wants
:02:35. > :02:38.us to be. He just won the Academy Awards, he's breaking down barriers
:02:39. > :02:47.for all of us. By acting a white boy, he is nothing but a rich uncle
:02:48. > :02:53.Tom. You are all puffed up with your hat on your head, coming in year,
:02:54. > :03:05.saying what ever you want. You need to go. What? Get the hell out of my
:03:06. > :03:11.house! I cannot take this no more! I am sorry, Mr Butler, I didn't make
:03:12. > :03:18.fun of your hero! Everything you have is because of that butler.
:03:19. > :03:22.The interesting thing about that clip is that it sums up one of the
:03:23. > :03:26.problems that critics have had, the question about whether the movie is
:03:27. > :03:31.too palatable for its own good, because Lee Daniels made things like
:03:32. > :03:34.Pressures, which was very dark, and the Paperboy, very rude and right,
:03:35. > :03:39.and in this Casey has reined himself in. The film is very conscious of
:03:40. > :03:43.what it is doing in terms of how they tell the story, it does not
:03:44. > :03:47.want to offend or alienate anybody. It wants to tell this story to the
:03:48. > :03:53.widest possible audience, and it is full of cameo roles, Jane Fonda as
:03:54. > :03:58.Nancy Reagan... Interesting cameos! She does it very well, she dominates
:03:59. > :04:03.the screen. John Cusack is a very nosy Richard Nixon. For me, the
:04:04. > :04:08.strength of the film is that... It goes the root of Forrest Gump, a lot
:04:09. > :04:11.of people were sniffy about that, but I like it, I like the
:04:12. > :04:16.sentimentality and the schmaltz, the fact that it is a populist movie. In
:04:17. > :04:19.this case, the strongest performances Oprah Winfrey, who is
:04:20. > :04:23.terrific as the wife and a matriarch, a fully rounded,
:04:24. > :04:27.3`dimensional character. She really fills the screen. In the case of
:04:28. > :04:32.Forest Whitaker, he's doing a difficult thing, playing a
:04:33. > :04:35.character, who was uncharacteristically explosive in
:04:36. > :04:39.that clip, for the most part he is absenting himself, standing witness
:04:40. > :04:43.to these historical events. It is very on the nose, it works through
:04:44. > :04:47.every single key historical events, one of the family members is
:04:48. > :04:51.present. It does not gesture towards things, it sticks flags in the lawn,
:04:52. > :04:54.it is very clear, but the fact of the matter is that quite often
:04:55. > :04:58.critics get sniffy about this stuff, not understanding that as far
:04:59. > :05:03.as the audience is concerned, it is working for them. I was moved to
:05:04. > :05:07.tears. I know it is sentimental and schmaltzy, it has a piano score
:05:08. > :05:19.which tells you which criticised and which is triumphant, but for me it
:05:20. > :05:22.worked. I liked it, I went with it. Anything that is like Forrest Gump
:05:23. > :05:28.is good. Don Jon. This is written by, directed and starring Joseph
:05:29. > :05:32.Gordon`Levitt, who set out to met a romcom about a man obsessed by porn
:05:33. > :05:36.and a woman obsessed by Hollywood romances. And to examine the way in
:05:37. > :05:40.which both of those two characters essentially objectified each other
:05:41. > :05:44.and therefore cannot find any real human interaction. At the beginning,
:05:45. > :05:48.it works quite well in a sort of snappy, very superficial, quite
:05:49. > :05:52.alienating version of a man who cannot connect with the people
:05:53. > :05:56.around him because he is so obsessed with pornographic fantasy is. And
:05:57. > :06:00.his central role with Scarlett Johansson, they work quite well, but
:06:01. > :06:04.they are, after a while, quite hard to take. Then along comes Julianne
:06:05. > :06:08.Moore, the character who has lived, who has really connected with other
:06:09. > :06:11.people, the character who has loved and lost, and suddenly the whole
:06:12. > :06:16.movie starts to change and it becomes much more warm, more
:06:17. > :06:20.engaging, more human, more likeable. I think it is an interesting
:06:21. > :06:28.directorial work from Joseph Gordon`Levitt, I think it is
:06:29. > :06:30.slightly... It suffers from slight superficiality at the beginning,
:06:31. > :06:32.although it is meant to do, it is meant to be about breaking down
:06:33. > :06:37.those barriers. It is quite brave, even to tackle that theme, it is not
:06:38. > :06:43.Steve McQueen's Shame, is it? Recently we had Thanks For Sharing,
:06:44. > :06:49.and it is not quite as daring as it seems, but it is still, in some
:06:50. > :06:55.areas, a taboos subject. The Counsellor, Ridley Scott, Cormac
:06:56. > :07:01.McCarthy, what could go wrong? Banality crews, Cameron Diaz...
:07:02. > :07:05.Everything is there on the table. The story is that Michael
:07:06. > :07:09.Fassbender's character is a guy who decides to get involved in a drug
:07:10. > :07:13.deal. We know from the beginning that he will regret the decision.
:07:14. > :07:18.One of the reasons is because everyone around him keeps telling
:07:19. > :07:26.him how much he is going to regret it, here is a clip.
:07:27. > :07:40.What did you do with the money? You can talk about it if you like. You
:07:41. > :07:47.seem unsettled. I am all right. You do not know what to do. I cannot
:07:48. > :07:54.advise you, counsellor. You are advertising me. I need you to be
:07:55. > :08:02.sure that you are locked in. Because maybe I should tell you, that is my
:08:03. > :08:12.recommendation, counsellor, don't do it. This is a serious crime. So is
:08:13. > :08:17.this. The problem with this film is, he is
:08:18. > :08:22.a great writer, but probably not a great screenplay writer. He spends
:08:23. > :08:27.all this time saying things like the truth has no temperature, what is
:08:28. > :08:33.the value of grief? What does that mean? Exactly, it is peopled by drug
:08:34. > :08:40.dealers who do nothing but soliloquy eyes and quote classical literature.
:08:41. > :08:44.After a while, even Quentin Tarantino would say, this is ringing
:08:45. > :08:48.a bit untrue. You see Cameron Diaz with a cheater, and then later on
:08:49. > :08:54.she has a long soliloquy about what it means to be a cheater. It is the
:08:55. > :08:57.worthiest and I have to say, the most disappointingly self`indulgent
:08:58. > :09:01.thing I have seen for a long time. There is all this talent on screen,
:09:02. > :09:04.and there are these moments which are meant to be excessively strange
:09:05. > :09:09.in which, for example, Cameron Diaz makes loves to a car, and it goes on
:09:10. > :09:12.for a long time. It must have looked good on the page, but on the screen
:09:13. > :09:17.it looks a bit embarrassing, and the thing you would never think you
:09:18. > :09:22.would think with a Cormac McCarthy script is, I wish these people would
:09:23. > :09:27.stop talking, just stop talking! Even Quentin Tarantino would go,
:09:28. > :09:33.another with the talking now! Now, not so much talking in Gravity. Have
:09:34. > :09:37.you seen it yet? I have not. I should say, a couple of my friends
:09:38. > :09:42.say they thought it was absolutely wonderful but it was likely
:09:43. > :09:47.disorientating. It is. Not quite motion sickness but going that way.
:09:48. > :09:51.It is absolutely discombobulated, and I think it is that rare example
:09:52. > :09:54.in which the 3D actually adds to the experience. You are meant to feel
:09:55. > :09:59.what it would be like to be weightless in space, and it comes
:10:00. > :10:05.closer to that than any movie I have seen. You are floating around with
:10:06. > :10:11.satellite and debris and George Clooney. And definitely not a wordy
:10:12. > :10:16.script. Your DVD is Pacific Rim, which... I like Guillermo del Toro
:10:17. > :10:22.but I don't know, aliens and... Guillermo del Toro normally does one
:10:23. > :10:28.for me, one for them, and the reason I have chosen this is is because of
:10:29. > :10:30.Michael Bay, who made the Transformers movies. What this
:10:31. > :10:34.demonstrates is if you want to make movies about robots hitting each
:10:35. > :10:37.other, get Guillermo del Toro to do it, because you will care about what
:10:38. > :10:44.happens to be robots. It is robots hitting each other but with a human
:10:45. > :10:47.heart, and you like him. I do, but I'm just wondering if robots hitting
:10:48. > :10:52.each other with a German heart, if that was part of the core Mike
:10:53. > :10:57.McCarthy script! If only! We will leave it there. You will find more
:10:58. > :11:03.film news and reviews online, including all the previous shows.
:11:04. > :11:16.That is it for this week, thank you for watching and goodbye.
:11:17. > :11:22.Hello there. It looks like a great evening for BBC Children in Need
:11:23. > :11:27.fundraising, a lot of dry weather around. We have had some sunshine in
:11:28. > :11:28.the south`east, and here the clear skies will allow temperatures to