24/01/2014 The Film Review

pride salvaged for the visitors. That is all coming up at 6:30pm.

Hello and welcome. We have Mark Kermode.

I don't think we will have another fight like we did last week. We have

the new film by the Coen brothers, set in 1961, Greenwich Village.

We have De Niro and Stallone. We wanted to see a boxing movie with

those two. And of course August: Osage County.

I would see anything by the Coen brothers. The story is 1961,

Greenwich Village, this character and the Coen brothers have said the

whole film spun out of a single idea, what if he got beaten up in an

alleyway. At the beginning of the film we see something similar. He is

attempting to, he has had a name of one part of the singing duo, that is

now over his partner has thrown himself off a bridge. He is told by

everybody he is a complete fool, stumbles from one carriage to

another and decides he might try to make his way to Chicago and goes to

see whether any of those gigs or records have made any money.

How are we doing? Great. Records doing well? Not so hot. Where is

Cincinnati? It is not in here. It should be in there. I got it. You

have got it? You want it? Can I have it must remark do you only something

was to mark --? People have got to know you. Cincinnati is not good.

Nobody knew us when we were a duo, it is not like we were a big act. It

is not a big re-education for the public. Mel? How are you doing, kid?

I liked this, I liked the folk scene, and the difficulty, I

suspect, is the EU really love a loser?

-- do you really. It has the whole pallets, the colour, very cold. The

music, making sure everything is authentically stop it is a very

straightfaced, very door companion piece. The thing I found problematic

is as much as I admire it, I have seen it twice, I find it hard to

like. Part of the reason is it is a very insular film, some people say

it doesn't go anywhere, the cyclical narrative. It is a film made by

people in love with the millionaire, but having a conversation with

themselves. There was a running in joke in which

the people in the background, you have two identified Peter, Paul and

Mary, and Bob Dylan. Who don't play much as a role, but if you don't

know any of that stuff it is a bit tricky.

The problem is it still feels oddly intuitive. The constantly crosses

his path is at the same one, a different one? It feels like a rebel

without a punch line. Perhaps like a song without a chorus. I don't think

it is not brilliantly done, I think it is. The attention to detail is

everything. Somehow I feel it has an infinite ability. I cannot pretend,

I want to like it more, as it is I admire it greatly but having seen it

twice it doesn't get and my skin and emotionally engage me.

But it is Citizen Kane compared to the next film.

I think most things would be. The story is, Sylvester Stallone, Robert

De Niro, there were boxes, had a grudge. They decide to get back in

the ring because of promoted health and if they do that there will be a

lot of money -- a promoter tells them. Get back in the ring and you

will make a bunch of money. The think about it is, you know the high

concept movie, in which you can picture it in 15 words. The pitch is

maybe funny, but the actual act of watching it is like wading through

treacle. It is spectacularly not funny.

I am not surprised by Stallone, I am surprised by Robert Dinero. -- De

Niro. Look back over Robert De Niro's back catalogue, a lot of

films look like this. On screen they are doing it for the money, I think

of screen they are doing it for the money.

That is move onto something else stop August: Osage County, an

adaptation of the stage play. Meryl Streep was the poisonous and

poisoned matriarch. A poet drunk husband disappears, she calls the

family together, they proceed to tear each other apart. Over the

course of some horrendous domestic abuse. Who are you? This is my

fiance, Steve, you met him at the church. It is German. German, Irish.

That is peculiar, to bring a date to your father 's funeral. I know the

poetry was good but I wouldn't have considered it a date material for

stop he is not a date, he is my fiance, we are getting married in

new years in Miami. I would love it if you would make it. I don't really

see that happening. Have you ever been married before? Yes, I have.

More than once? Three times, before this. You should have it down by now

then. I had that one pegged. Look at him. We love Meryl Streep.

She is grateful stop she is really sticking her teeth into it. The

problem is previous adaptations look like films, this looks like a stage

play. When there is so much going on, fireworks, performances, Meryl

Streep 's in fine performance, but it feels like a bunch of set pieces

stuck together. What doesn't have is a sense of it being can hear it

movie. -- being a coherent movie. There is nowhere to go, you cannot

escape. It still feels like it is on stage. Previous adaptations looked

like films, this looks like a stage play. Oddly enough, it has lost a

lot of the stage play's running time and it seems longer. It is one of

those things where less is more, but not in the right way.

It is, however, we are in Tennessee Williams Territory. Oklahoma. It has

got that extra very dynamic between the characters and great women

characters. The performances are really good,

you can see they are enjoying themselves. The writing is

fantastic. That is not enough to make it a great film. A series of

great performances. The best is still 12 years a Slave.

Amazing performances, really troubling film.

Deliberately so. I know a few people said it was too tough and felt

perhaps it was exploitative. I think it is as tough as it needs to be, a

brilliant job of telling the story. The performances are breast taking.

-- breathtaking. It is a really profound film. In years to come

people will look back on it and see it as a milestone movie. A milestone

movie for society, as well. It is a brilliant piece of

storytelling. And your DVD is Brush. -- Rush.

An awful lot is going on with a soundtrack, the gears, the tyres. It

is a wonderful soundscape. As far as the characters are concerned,

slightly pantomime. One of them is a playboy, the other...

But they were. Hunt genuinely did, all the stuff

the trade he was doing, he really was. The thing that makes the movie

work is even if you are not interested in Formula One it puts

you right there in the car. It is to do with the soundtrack. Close the

curtains and turn the soundtrack art. It is a great watch for a wet

weekend which is what we are going to have.

You will find more news and reviews online. That was it for this week.

I am off to get the DVD as soon as I have finished my shift because it

will be a wet