Life’s a Bitch (and then you meet the Girl of your Dreams)

DVD Review: REMEMBER ME
12 – 108mins – 2010
Written by: Will Fetters
Directed by: Allen Coulter
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Emilie de Ravin, Chris Cooper, Lena Olin, Pierce Brosnan, Ruby Jerins, Tate Ellington
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We are always told never to judge a book by its cover, and yet movie one sheets and DVD covers always try their utmost to be as bold, attractive and alluring as possible to get us to do just that – to persuade us to see the “GREATEST FILM EVER, EVER MADE… EVER!!! *****” based upon a single photoshopped image and some hyperbolic arse-kissing pull-quotes.

Curiously, the marketing and design bods promoting Remember Me systematically failed to do that (check out the wholly bland and unimaginative cover art below). Perhaps they were hoping that the in-vogue appeal of Robert “Edward Cullen” Pattinson and Emilie “Clare from Lost” de Ravin cuddled up looking off into the middle distance would be enough to sell the film?

To a certain extent I suppose they were (sadly) right, as Twi-hards flocked to check out their object of lust in something human and dramatic, but I was under the unfortunate misunderstanding that this film was just a by-the-numbers romantic comedy; a lightweight time-passer between Twilight instalments for Mr. Pattinson.

Boy was I wrong. I'm talking "thinking I’d detest Fast Five but really it was freaking awesome" magnitude wrong (check out my confessio- I mean, review HERE). But then it wasn’t as if this film’s "we've got hot actors" advertising did a great deal to paint a more comprehensive picture...

Remember Me is a film about living in the moment, making the most of life and living up to the memory of those who have gone before us. It is very much a character piece with some very engrossing story arcs delivering some rather astute lessons in life to a group of people who have all had their fair share of tragedy to contend with. On the downside, this does mean that some scenes are quite emotionally charged and some characters are really detestable graduates of the school of life.

The man the web refers to as R-Patz is at his most downbeat and least handsome (sorry, girls) as Tyler Hawkins, a volatile lad in his early twenties whose emotionally brusque father (Brosnan) is too involved with work to notice that his young art prodigy daughter (Jerins) is being bullied at school and their nuclear family is a mess following the suicide of Tyler’s older brother some seven years earlier.

At heart, Tyler is a good guy, but he takes his grief and aggression out on others and he has seen the inside of a holding cell more often than is healthy. Persuaded by his insensible dick of a roommate (Ellington) that the daughter of the cop (Cooper) who last bust open his face would be a great person to fool around with to get revenge, Pattinson starts dating Ally Craig (de Ravin) – a girl who knows a thing or two about tragedy, having witnessed the murder of her mother a decade previous – only for this bet to turn into an actual love affair which deeply affects both parties.

The drama is a little depressing at times, the colour palette a little too washed out and the characters’ choices a little frustrating, but Allan Coulter’s film does enough to keep well clear of twee, generic or predictable. The leftfield “twist” in the final act could be accused of using real life disaster for the purposes of entertainment, but there’s no denying it is a strong emotional blow which enforces the film’s redemptive message and guarantee’s you won’t quickly forget Remember Me.


In a CR@B Shell: Not at all the film I was expecting, but for all the right reasons. Remember Me isn’t a barrel of laughs, but it is an affecting and heartfelt drama which fulfils its purpose by teaching us about the peaks and troughs of the human condition.
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Big Top, No Morals

Cine Review: WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
12A – 120mins – 2011
Screenplay by: Richard LaGravenese
Based on the novel by: Sara Gruen
Directed by: Francis Lawrence
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon, Christoph Waltz, Mark Povinelli, Jim Norton, Ken Foree, James Frain, Paul Schneider, Hal Holbrook
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“Life is the most spectacular show on Earth” so advocates the strapline for this Francis Lawrence directed adap of Sarah Gruen’s 2005 historical circus novel. But for all the tight-rope walkers, coochie girls, bearded ladies and animal attractions thrilling audiences beneath the Benzini Brother’s Big Top, Water For Elephants’ main focus is on the shadow which falls behind the spotlight: human’s cruelty to one another in the Great Depression, and their subsequent cruelty to the animals they depend on for income.

Screen heartthrob Robert Pattinson sheds Edward Cullen’s supernatural shimmer for a sweaty brow and browning shirt and hops aboard a moving railcar as penniless orphan Jacob Jankowski, whose Cornell University-educated veterinary expertise saves him from being thrown straight back off by brutal circus master and all-round rotten bastard August Rosenbluth (Waltz), whose travelling troupe is failing to pull in the punters. Until, that is, he acquires a new star act: Rosie the Bull Elephant.

Charging his glamorous wife, Marlena (Witherspoon), with riding the majestic beast and Jacob with training and caring for it, the animal-admiring pair begin to fall in love, with Marlena torn between a man she in equal parts fears and reveres, and her growing feelings for the quietly dignified roustabout with the smouldering eyes who treats her like a lady.

Square-chinned Waltz is distressingly authentic as the volatile August, who will charm you with champagne and a tuxedo one minute then get his thugs to pummel you the next. Pattinson, meanwhile, pulls his own weight commendably outside the Twilight-verse, even if his love affair with Witherspoon is somewhat melodramatic (Their love is doomed! They can’t be together! He’s “beneath” her!).

Much has been made of the films old fashioned vibe, and Water for Elephants is certainly prone to plentiful period piece properties – the misty-eyed framing by a ninety year old Jacob (Hal Holbrook) who recalls his life story to an intent modern day listener (Schneider), the plight of the common man is showcased by roustabout Camel’s (Norton) prohibition-evading drinking problem, whilst August and Marlena live it up in luxury – but for all the “magic” and “spectacle” of the 30’s festivities, what will stick with you long after the circus has packed up and pulled away is the blood, grit and shit-shovelling which made this such a miserable era to live in.


In a CR@B Shell: Team Edward will swoon while animal lovers will squirm as Rosie and her bestial brethren are subjected to tortuous injustices in the name of entertainment. You hear more than you actually see, but nevertheless Water for Elephants better conveys the atrocities of the era than it does an “enchanting” romance.
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Ghosts in the Twilight

TV Review: THE HAUNTED AIRMAN
15 – 68mins – 2006
Teleplay by: Chris Durlacher
Based on the novel by: Dennis Wheatley
Directed by: Chris Durlacher
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Julian Sands, Rachael Sterling, Melisa Lloyd, Daniel Ainsleigh, Scott Handy, Peggy Popovic
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This loose literary reworking of Dennis Wheatley’s “The Haunting of Toby Jugg” stars Hollywood heart-throb Robert Pattinson in a post-Goblet, pre-Twilight role as the disabled and traumatised World War II RAF airman of the title, confined to a wheelchair and committed to a Welsh military hospital to recuperate both psychically and mentally from the injuries that have befallen him.

Whereas Wheatley's 1948 source novel had a strong element of the occult and genuine supernatural hocus-pocus, Chris Durlacher’s BBC Four adaptation keeps all the horrors inside Toby’s shell-shocked mind, as this psychologically damaged patient is plagued by nightmares of the innocent families he killed in bombing raids, while hallucination-conjured spiders scuttle en-mass over his duvet.

In the dreary daylight hours, meanwhile, Toby cannot escape the creeping suspicion that his doctor, Hal Burns (Julian Sands), doesn’t have his best interests at heart, while the aunt (yes, aunt) Toby loves and wishes to marry (Rachael Sterling) isn’t returning any of his handwritten correspondence. With all of this weighing on the disabled pilot’s mind, The Haunted Airman certainly provides the rising Brit-born star with a chance to stretch his limbs – dramatically speaking, at least. Not that Edward Cullen is ever a bundle of laughs...

But for all of the eerie atmosphere and low-shot camera angles, this modest dramatisation is simply far too sluggish to grip your attention, even at little over an hour long. Intercutting scenes within the dank hospital with scarlet-drenched flashbacks to deafeningly chaotic and dramatically shot war memories is clearly an attempt to stun and disillusion the viewer, but it merely comes across as a confusing hindrance, to little narrative purpose.

Style over substance? That certainly seems to be Durlacher's intention, but this tactic is only successful when a production's distinctiveness compliments the material, not when tumultuous cutaways are edited in to juxtapose the brooding and uneventful story at seemingly haphazard instances. Ultimately, the transient tale's conclusion fails to justify the build-up or deliver a satisfying enough twist to tie the events together, leaving you with a creeping suspicion that the cast and crew have somehow missed the point of Wheatley's vision entirely.


In a CR@B Shell: Arachnophobes will be paralysed with fear, but true horror hounds will be left dispirited. Wheatley fans, meanwhile, will cry blasphemy at the significant changes to the novel's essence. Mark this weary Beeb “thriller” up as strictly for R-Patz droolers only.
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Fangs, Fur & Pheromones

Cine-review: THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE
12A – 123mins – 2010
Screenplay by: Melissa Rosenberg
Based on the 2007 novel by: Stephanie Meyer
Directed by: David Slade
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Bryce Dallas Howard, Xavier Samuel, Billy Burke, Ashley Greene, Peter Facinelli, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Dakota Fanning, Sarah Clarke
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I have read a number of reviews for this third silver screen adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s bazillion-selling Twilight saga. A lot of people – or their girlfriend’s – have opinions on it, natch. Every single one of these critical appraisals has cited Eclipse as far and away the best film of the series (so far). By no means a faultless or perfect movie, but far more accomplished than its two plodding predecessors (both of which, tellingly, had different directors). Having now watched David 30 Days of Night Slade’s vision of the teen vamp/werewolf romance, I am going to say something controversial. Brace yourselves, Twi-hards… I actually preferred Twilight (2008) and New Moon (2009). There, I said it.

No, before you ask: I have not read any of the books in the series. I have been told that I will appreciate the nuances of the films more once I have (and hopefully a myriad of questions - like why the hell the vampires seem to be made of crystal and “crack” when they are killed? - will be answered), but I refuse to believe it is a necessity; the films should stand up on their own, rather than as flashy and expensive advertisements for their prose counterparts. Besides, this isn't The Da Vinci Code we’re talking about, where countless passages of vital canonical research and Art History back story are edited out or crammed into a split-second of film in order to preserve a humane runtime; this is a teenage fantasy with vampires and werewolves.

The plot, for the unacquainted minority such as I, follows on directly from that which was set up in the previous instalments: Avenging the death of her pack mate (as visualised in Twilight), red-headed vampire Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard, an almost imperceptible replacement for Rachelle Laferve) is in Seattle, raising an undead army of ferocious newborns to kill American High School-er Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and break the heart of her vampire lover, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). The Cullen clan begrudgingly agree to a temporary alliance with their lycanthropic enemies in order to take down Victoria and destroy her newborn army, lead by murdered Riley Biers (Xavier Samuel), while Edward and Bella hide out. In the mountains. In a snowstorm. In a tent.

Intertwined with the conflict and action is the saga’s staple serving of romance and melodrama, as Bella is convinced she wants to be turned into a vampire to live her (after)life with Edward – yet she is unsure if, at 18 years-old, she is quite ready to marry him yet!! This may have something to do with her overprotective policeman father, Charlie (Billy Burke), who is, understandably, none-too-keen on the union, or it may have something to do with her best friend – the shirt-phobic, night-howler Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) – who admits he too is head-over-paws in love with our everywoman protagonist. Fangs or fur? Decisions, decision, Miss Swan…

While David Slade does an adequate job with the threequel’s larger scale and more intense battle sequences (even if the CGI werewolves still don’t quite convince – and what is with them “popping” in and out of lupine form?), it is in the quieter, soppier moments that Eclipse repelled me. Yes, I know I’m neither the key demographic or gender, but I didn’t squirm this much in Twilight or New Moon. Perhaps it is the darting from dark tension to light yearning; from fighting to fawning; from Seattle to Forks; which frequently jolted me out of my engagement with the film? Furthermore, I found the scenes with Bella and Edward laying loved-up in a meadow musing on love, sex and marriage to be excruciatingly awkward (akin to many of the criticisms levelled at Christenson and Portman in Attack of the Clones), which is doubly unexcusable given the star’s real life relationship.

Actors who did impress me were Ashley Greene as clairvoyant Cullen, Alice, and Jackson Rathbone as her "blood brother” and head battle trainer Jasper. Both actors bring the requisite peculiarity to their vampiric characters, both physically and in their off-kilter delivery, even if they are sidelined far too often in lieu of the star trio. Eclipsed (ho ho!) also are the Volturi, the powerful, age-old sect of vampires who lose any menace they accrued in New Moon by spending the entire film waiting in the wings. Guided by Dakota Fanning’s vacant Jane, they come across as a coven of self-important kids, only entering the climatic battle after it is over. How noble…

Finally, a tributary story fleshing out Rosalie Hale’s (Nikki Reed) tragic death and transformation via a mournful monologue and montage seemed a redundant attempt to darken the teen love story with a controversially edgy adult tone (Rosalie was raped and killed by her drunken fiancé), merely to provide leverage to the outstandingly obvious: that Bella is making a huuuuuge mistake by wanting to sacrifice her heartbeat for an eternity with Edward. And no, before you ask: that doesn’t mean I’m siding with “Team Jacob”, either…


CR@B Verdict: David Slade doesn’t alter much to the Twilight formula in bringing the third novel to the big screen. More epic in scale but more flitting in plot, Eclipse left me shaken but unstirred by its battles of the body and heart.
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