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Hello and welcome to the Film Review on BBC News. | :00:18. | :00:19. | |
To take us through this week's cinema releases is Mark Kermode. | :00:20. | :00:24. | |
A very mixed bag. We have snowed in, the new drama by Oliver Stone. We | :00:25. | :00:39. | |
have The Office Christmas Party. Yes, it's Christmas! And Life, | :00:40. | :00:45. | |
Animated, a really to refit documentary. -- terrific | :00:46. | :00:54. | |
documentary. We begin with Snowden, about Edward Snowden, the former NSA | :00:55. | :00:58. | |
contractor who blew the whistle on surveillance culture in the US after | :00:59. | :01:04. | |
911. Joseph Gordon Levitt plays the idealistic young man who joins the | :01:05. | :01:07. | |
intelligence services because he wants to serve his country but | :01:08. | :01:11. | |
becomes alarmed by how intrusive their surveillance is of apparently | :01:12. | :01:12. | |
ordinary citizens. It's not dirt we need necessarily | :01:13. | :01:25. | |
but a pressure point, something intimate, some weakness. Can we look | :01:26. | :01:32. | |
through his family? How about his sister-in-law? What is that? Is that | :01:33. | :01:45. | |
some of video she sent somebody? No, this is live. What do you mean live? | :01:46. | :01:57. | |
It is camera activation. Activation? Yes, the laptop is off. She forgot | :01:58. | :02:00. | |
to close it. I always wondered what was under | :02:01. | :02:13. | |
those. You can see from those it is a | :02:14. | :02:17. | |
creepy drama about surveillance culture. The problem is that there | :02:18. | :02:22. | |
was a documentary which is in this film and we get someone playing the | :02:23. | :02:26. | |
woman from the film. In that documentary, we saw these | :02:27. | :02:30. | |
revelations, and it was a horrific documentary, informative and edge of | :02:31. | :02:33. | |
your seat stuff. Much of it takes place in a hotel in Hong Kong when | :02:34. | :02:36. | |
he was getting the information out into the world. It is nail-biting | :02:37. | :02:41. | |
stuff. The documentary is more dramatic than this dramatisation. | :02:42. | :02:45. | |
The documentary makes clear that Snowden does not want to be the | :02:46. | :02:48. | |
centre of the story. It is bigger than him. So to make a drama called | :02:49. | :02:54. | |
Snowden about Snowden seems perverse, since the story is not | :02:55. | :02:58. | |
meant to be about him. Also, the genius of the documentary is that it | :02:59. | :03:01. | |
deals with complicated technical issues and makes them | :03:02. | :03:06. | |
understandable. Watching this, I felt like I came out knowing | :03:07. | :03:09. | |
slightly less than when I went in. It is not that it does not have some | :03:10. | :03:14. | |
dramatic virtues, but when you have seen something as good as the | :03:15. | :03:17. | |
documentary, you want to go, just watch that. It is dramatic, tense, | :03:18. | :03:24. | |
informative, explanatory, it does everything that this dramatisation | :03:25. | :03:29. | |
does, and much more. Which leaves you feeling, what's the point? And I | :03:30. | :03:34. | |
honestly don't know what the point is. The documentary covered it all. | :03:35. | :03:40. | |
Let's move on The Office Christmas Party, about a party that gets way | :03:41. | :03:45. | |
out of hand. It sounds like the BBC News channel Christmas Party | :03:46. | :03:50. | |
yesterday. I sincerely hope that was more fun than watching this film. I | :03:51. | :03:53. | |
went in with high expectations because it is from the makers of | :03:54. | :03:58. | |
blades of Glory. Jennifer Aniston is the hard-nosed boss who is closing a | :03:59. | :04:01. | |
failing office and Jason Bateman decides the way to make it succeed | :04:02. | :04:05. | |
is to throw a Christmas Party to attract business. The plot makes no | :04:06. | :04:10. | |
sense and it looks like the film-makers said, never mind, just | :04:11. | :04:14. | |
get to the party when everyone is throwing stuff around. The problem | :04:15. | :04:17. | |
is, on the one hand it has some talented performers. It is a bit | :04:18. | :04:27. | |
like being the only sober person in a room full of increasingly drunk, | :04:28. | :04:32. | |
shrieking loud people. And the more shrieking, drunk and loud they get, | :04:33. | :04:36. | |
the more it feels like you have a hangover without the fun of the | :04:37. | :04:40. | |
party beforehand. And the real shame of it is that I keep going to see | :04:41. | :04:44. | |
this kind of film thinking, this is the one that will change my mind, | :04:45. | :04:47. | |
that is Willie good fun. And then you go, no, it is just that movie. | :04:48. | :04:56. | |
And this was just that movie. Timed for the Christmas market? Yes, Ray, | :04:57. | :05:00. | |
thanks, Christmas present nobody asked for. Let's move on to Life, | :05:01. | :05:05. | |
Animated, which is a fantastic piece of work. A superb documentary by a | :05:06. | :05:13. | |
director who won an Oscar in 2010. It is the story of the son of an | :05:14. | :05:19. | |
award-winning journalist. As a young man, he is somebody who has | :05:20. | :05:23. | |
discovered a way of understanding the world through Disney films. What | :05:24. | :05:27. | |
happened was, at the age of three he suddenly started to retreat into | :05:28. | :05:31. | |
himself and he was diagnosed as autistic. For a long time, his | :05:32. | :05:36. | |
parents were worried that he had completely lost touch with them and | :05:37. | :05:44. | |
the world around him. Owen just started changing really fast. You | :05:45. | :05:49. | |
know, he wasn't sleeping, that was the first thing. He would be up in | :05:50. | :05:58. | |
the night, all night. His motor skills were deteriorating. And then | :05:59. | :06:03. | |
his language processing broke down. He just started reciting gibbering. | :06:04. | :06:13. | |
It was hard for me to understand what people were saying. They were | :06:14. | :06:14. | |
all garbled. It's like we are looking for clues | :06:15. | :06:37. | |
to a kidnapping. Someone kidnapped our son. And that image is really | :06:38. | :06:42. | |
powerful. The parents feel completely disconnected. Then they | :06:43. | :06:46. | |
realise he is watching these Disney cartoons intently. At one point, the | :06:47. | :06:50. | |
father gets a Disney glove puppet and asks his son a question, and he | :06:51. | :06:55. | |
answers with a line from the movie. And they realise that in fact he is | :06:56. | :06:59. | |
in gauging with these movies and if they can talk to him in language | :07:00. | :07:04. | |
from the movies, actually he can be brought out of this isolation. This | :07:05. | :07:09. | |
documentary is so uplifting, so brilliant. On the one hand, we see | :07:10. | :07:13. | |
what eight refit young man he has become. He is lively and engaged. He | :07:14. | :07:18. | |
has this Disney cartoon club in which he gets people to talk about | :07:19. | :07:21. | |
the way these archetypal stories reflect their lives. It is a film | :07:22. | :07:26. | |
about the power of cinema to genuinely transform people and to | :07:27. | :07:29. | |
transform their experience of the world. And it is a film which has as | :07:30. | :07:35. | |
its subject somebody who is very, very honest, somebody who literally | :07:36. | :07:40. | |
says it as they experience it. Hearing him being able to express | :07:41. | :07:43. | |
very eloquently what his experience of the world is, how it is that | :07:44. | :07:48. | |
watching Disney cartoons, Disney narratives has enabled him to | :07:49. | :07:52. | |
reconnect with those around him, is wonderful. He has this rich fantasy | :07:53. | :07:56. | |
life in which he has a kingdom of lost sidekicks, because he started | :07:57. | :08:02. | |
drawing Disney characters, always the sidekick, and in visit himself | :08:03. | :08:05. | |
as the champion of the sidekick. The other thing is that they managed to | :08:06. | :08:10. | |
get Disney to clear the rights to all of the clips. The way they did | :08:11. | :08:14. | |
it was that the director took the movie to this roomful of scary | :08:15. | :08:19. | |
lawyers and showed them, and they were all in tears, they were so | :08:20. | :08:24. | |
moved. It is wonderful. If you are a fan of Disney it makes sense, but it | :08:25. | :08:28. | |
is great to see animation working like this, and the transformative | :08:29. | :08:33. | |
power of sin are. Such a wonderful subject, someone whose company you | :08:34. | :08:38. | |
will feel privileged to spend an hour and a half in. Your best movie | :08:39. | :08:43. | |
out at the moment. Edge of 17. I think it is to reflect. It is a | :08:44. | :08:49. | |
story of a young woman who is struggling with being a teenager and | :08:50. | :08:52. | |
trying to find her place in the world. It is really funny but also | :08:53. | :08:57. | |
poignant, and it feels very real, like it is made honestly. It | :08:58. | :09:03. | |
captures just how difficult it can be, being a young person. I think it | :09:04. | :09:07. | |
does that really well, and it is really funny and smart. And I have | :09:08. | :09:12. | |
yet to find someone who has seen it is not loved it. Best DVD? A weird | :09:13. | :09:20. | |
little Scandinavian drama about a group of young women who manage | :09:21. | :09:23. | |
through a magical potion to transform themselves into boys, so | :09:24. | :09:28. | |
they can experience life in the other gender. It's very interesting | :09:29. | :09:31. | |
drama. Some of it does not quite work but it has the magical realist | :09:32. | :09:37. | |
element to it. It talks eloquently about the difference between the | :09:38. | :09:41. | |
genders and the different experience of boyhood. It was a film I knew | :09:42. | :09:44. | |
nothing about when I started to watch it, and I was completely drawn | :09:45. | :09:48. | |
in. Very adventurous, fairy tale quality. Makes an interesting double | :09:49. | :09:53. | |
bill with your name, a Japanese animation which has been a runaway | :09:54. | :09:59. | |
success in Japan, about a boy and girl whose swap bodies | :10:00. | :10:03. | |
inadvertently. A very good double bill. Thank you very much for all of | :10:04. | :10:06. | |
that. A quick reminder before we go that | :10:07. | :10:09. | |
you'll find more film news and reviews from across the BBC | :10:10. | :10:12. | |
online at bbc.co.uk/markkermode. And you can catch up | :10:13. | :10:14. | |
with our previous programmes That's it for this week. Thanks for | :10:15. | :10:22. | |
watching. Goodbye. | :10:23. | :10:29. |