:00:00. > :00:00.with me to look ahead to the weekend's football, all on Sportsday
:00:00. > :00:18.at 6.30. Now on BBC News, time for the Film Review.
:00:19. > :00:20.Hello and welcome to the Film Review on BBC News.
:00:21. > :00:23.To take us through this week's cinema releases is Mark Kermode.
:00:24. > :00:35.We have The Big Short, which is a financial satire, which I know you
:00:36. > :00:42.have seen and enjoyed. We have Our Brand Is Crisis, Sandra
:00:43. > :00:49.Bullock in a political satire. And The Assassin, a sumptuous
:00:50. > :00:55.dynasty tale. I did love The Big Short. I liked it as well, direct
:00:56. > :00:57.did by Adam Mackay, best known for directing comedies like Anchorman,
:00:58. > :01:01.somebody who does not necessarily have a track record in the area of
:01:02. > :01:08.financial satire. This is essentially a take on the financial
:01:09. > :01:12.crash of 2007-8, which looks at the unfolding disaster from the point of
:01:13. > :01:17.view of those renegades who predicted, and therefore were able
:01:18. > :01:22.to profit from, the financial meltdown. This is not a film of
:01:23. > :01:24.heroes, this is a film of very blackly comic tone. Here is a clip.
:01:25. > :01:25.Do you smell that? What's that?
:01:26. > :01:45.This is your basic mortgage bond, all right?
:01:46. > :01:50.They were just thousands of triple-A mortgages bundled together,
:01:51. > :02:02.They're private, and they're made up of layers of trenches.
:02:03. > :02:04.The highest level triple-As getting paid first,
:02:05. > :02:07.the lowest rated Bs getting paid last, taking on defaults first.
:02:08. > :02:10.Obviously, if you're buying Bs, you can make more money,
:02:11. > :02:28.Now, the interesting thing is that that slightly sarcastic tone, you
:02:29. > :02:31.would think it would be hard to sustain that for the length of the
:02:32. > :02:35.movie, but it does it well. There is a comparison between this and The
:02:36. > :02:40.Wolf Of Wall Street, the problem with which was that I didn't like
:02:41. > :02:46.the central character. But I found it hard to be treated in what he was
:02:47. > :02:50.doing. In the case of this, it has a touch of margin to about it. It
:02:51. > :02:55.essentially makes you interested, despite the fact that you don't like
:02:56. > :02:58.any of these people. Like the Godfather movies, you have good
:02:59. > :03:03.Mafia and bad Mafia, and you are on the side of the slightly better
:03:04. > :03:08.Mafia. Exactly, they are all swimming in a sort of cesspool. They
:03:09. > :03:13.are all swimming among sharks, and they are the least of the bad. The
:03:14. > :03:19.film tries to explain this jargon, as you saw. There is a device, when
:03:20. > :03:22.they talk about collateralised debt, we suddenly cut to Margo Robbie in a
:03:23. > :03:26.bubble bath, explaining what one of these is. I found that gimmick less
:03:27. > :03:30.funny than a lot of people did. We get Selena Gomez at a gambling
:03:31. > :03:36.table, explaining what derivatives are. I didn't quite need that much
:03:37. > :03:39.nudging and winking. For the rest of it, I found the spectacle of
:03:40. > :03:44.watching this financial is to tuition coming to the brink of
:03:45. > :03:49.collapse engrossing enough. The film is very bleakly comedic. It has
:03:50. > :03:53.tremendous performances and has been nominated for a series of Academy
:03:54. > :03:56.Awards. Christian Bale is the crazy guy who listens to heavy rock. And
:03:57. > :04:00.is the first person to understand what is going on. And when he is
:04:01. > :04:05.asked, how come you figured this out? He says, because I read the
:04:06. > :04:10.bonds. They say, nobody reads the bonds, only the lawyers! He says,
:04:11. > :04:14.no, they didn't either. One final thought, which was at the end of it,
:04:15. > :04:18.I thought this is a brilliant movie. How did they do that again? It is
:04:19. > :04:22.explained throughout the film, but I still didn't understand. I have
:04:23. > :04:28.watched it twice, and I still can't explain to you what a synthetic CVO
:04:29. > :04:34.is, but I don't want to know. Our Brand Is Crisis. Again, this is
:04:35. > :04:38.loosely inspired by a true story. It has a wag the dog feel to it. Sandra
:04:39. > :04:43.Bullock is a reclusive political adviser who is called out of her
:04:44. > :04:48.self-imposed retirement to get on unelectable candidate elected in the
:04:49. > :04:52.Bolivian presidential campaign. She doesn't want to do it, and then she
:04:53. > :04:56.discovers that the opposition is being run by her archrival, played
:04:57. > :05:00.by Billy Bob Thornton. They have history and personal battles, so she
:05:01. > :05:04.throws herself into it. The next thing you know, she is running the
:05:05. > :05:09.campaign. I like Sandra Bullock's performance. She goes from being
:05:10. > :05:15.reclusive and looking slightly damaged to being somebody who is
:05:16. > :05:17.completely on top of the game and running all these political
:05:18. > :05:24.machinations, and then gets drunk and into trouble. She is great.
:05:25. > :05:30.However, the film itself is somewhat uneven. It loses its cynical nerve
:05:31. > :05:34.in the last section, which is not something you can say about The Big
:05:35. > :05:39.Short. That is cynical all the way through. So the film loses its
:05:40. > :05:43.nerve, but Sandra Bullock is very good and it is worth seeing for her
:05:44. > :05:49.performance. It did not do well in America. No. But she is worth
:05:50. > :05:53.watching. There is one slight parallel, going way back to one of
:05:54. > :05:59.Clinton's campaigners, James Carville. Mary was on the other
:06:00. > :06:07.side, and they got married. Truth is stranger than fiction. The Assassin.
:06:08. > :06:12.I love this film. It is the latest from Hou Hsiao-Hsien and this was
:06:13. > :06:15.Taiwan's official entry for the 80th Oscars foreign-language Oscar,
:06:16. > :06:19.although it didn't make the short list. It is based on a Tang dynasty
:06:20. > :06:23.tale of a young woman who is raised to be a killer and is then sent on a
:06:24. > :06:25.mission which will test her metal, both physical and psychological.
:06:26. > :07:22.Here is a clip. There is film-making where the
:07:23. > :07:25.pauses mean everything. Funnily enough, that clip is on
:07:26. > :07:28.representative, because although it is a martial arts genre, actually,
:07:29. > :07:33.there is much less fighting in it than you would expect. It is not a
:07:34. > :07:38.series of martial arts. There is a certain amount of wire work, but it
:07:39. > :07:44.is really about stillness. It is about moments of observed
:07:45. > :07:48.languorously, and looking inside. It is not about what people do, it is
:07:49. > :07:54.about what people think. It is one of the most beautiful films I have
:07:55. > :08:04.seen for a long time. The frame has a painterly composition, as opposed
:08:05. > :08:07.to widescreen. It is a film which is about what people feel about
:08:08. > :08:12.circumstances. It is visually astonishing. There is one sequence
:08:13. > :08:16.in which we watch almost an entire scene through a sort of shimmering
:08:17. > :08:19.haze of fabric, which gives it an almost in theory or unreality. The
:08:20. > :08:24.director said when he was searching for locations in Mongolia, he came
:08:25. > :08:29.across these things that looked like a classical Chinese painting. From
:08:30. > :08:33.these images, you can see the beauty of it. The trailer has tried to make
:08:34. > :08:40.it look more like an action movie like crouching Tiger. It isn't. It
:08:41. > :08:47.is a story of love and honour and self-determination and betrayal, and
:08:48. > :08:52.so much of it is, the soundtrack is birdsong and insects and zither on
:08:53. > :08:58.drums, which you can't tell are in the frame or out of it. I thought it
:08:59. > :09:02.was magical and mysterious. Slightly confusing for the uninitiated.
:09:03. > :09:05.Again, I have seen it twice and the second time round, I did understand
:09:06. > :09:10.it, which is more than can be said for The Big Short. It looks
:09:11. > :09:16.balletic. It is beautiful, I relieve recommend it. You're best of the
:09:17. > :09:22.week? I just think Room is wonderful. Fantastic performances
:09:23. > :09:26.and they have done a wonderful job with the book. It is not the film
:09:27. > :09:31.you think it is going to be. It is not a film about crime or captivity.
:09:32. > :09:36.It is not the film you imagine if you hear it is about a mother and
:09:37. > :09:40.her young son trapped in a room. Which might put you off going to see
:09:41. > :09:47.the film. They should put that on the poster - Room is not that film!
:09:48. > :09:52.It is superb. Did you decide this was housing week on the Film Review?
:09:53. > :09:55.Your DVD of the week is 99 Homes. This makes an interesting double
:09:56. > :10:00.bill with The Big Short, because 99 Homes is about the human cost of
:10:01. > :10:04.what happened when the housing market crash. It is looking at it
:10:05. > :10:10.from the other side. It starts with Andrew Garfield as somebody losing
:10:11. > :10:15.his home who is then brought on by a Gordon gecko figure, greed is good,
:10:16. > :10:18.singing that mantra about why it is that just looking after yourself is
:10:19. > :10:26.what America wants. Together, they make a very interesting double bill.
:10:27. > :10:30.It is also a terrific piece of work. It is one of those films that stays
:10:31. > :10:34.with you. It's got overlooked in cinemas, which is a shame, because
:10:35. > :10:36.it is top-quality. Each is why we have it as the DVD.
:10:37. > :10:39.A quick reminder before we go that you'll find more film news
:10:40. > :10:42.and reviews from across the BBC online, including