| Watch from April 27 on Moscow screens “My heart stopped beating” (France, 2005, Jean Audiard). An excellent film by an excellent French director Audiard (“See People Fall”, “The Self-Proclaimed Hero”, “Read My Lips”), a remake of James Toback’s little-known, but certainly classic independent film “Fingers” with Harvey Keitel. Tom (Romain Duris - "The Spanish Flu", "Arsene Lupine", "Pretty Women") is forced to work for his own father, who can equally be called a real estate specialist and a real criminal. At the same time, Tom actually dreams of becoming a pianist. And he starts studying with a Chinese teacher who doesn’t understand a word of French. An interesting and exciting film that last year received the Silver Bear in Berlin, the BAFTA Award for Best Non-English Language Film and as many as eight Cesars. Also starring Ore Attika, Emmanuelle Devaux, Liin Dam Pam and Mélanie Laurent.
“The Big Journey” (USA, 2006, Steve Williams). A full-length cartoon, suspiciously similar to the recent megahit "Madagascar": a lion from the New York zoo, in the company of his many friends of all breeds and species (koala, crocodile, giraffe, chameleon, squirrel... not without penguins) goes in search of his a little lion son who was sent to Africa by mistake. In some places it’s all quite funny and dynamic, but, unfortunately, the recipes of its predecessors (and besides “Madagascar”, the creators clearly took inspiration from “The Lion King” and “Finding Nemo”) this time did not work: the film was released in the US (in the original , by the way, called simply “Game”) failed and was liked much more by critics than by a wide audience. Perhaps the only thing that turned out to be really original and interesting here was a much closer attention to the problem that the animal characters, although they talk to each other and are not entirely real, are seriously concerned about the fact that there are predators among them , and peaceful herbivores. But this is probably not enough for complete entertainment.
“When a Stranger Calls” (USA, 2006, Simon West). A remake of the 1979 thriller of the same name: a young student (Camilla Belle - "The Ballad of Jack and Rose", "Chumscrubber"), looking after children in her free time, remains with her two kids in a country house when an unknown person begins to terrorize her over the phone. which, apparently, is much closer than you might think - perhaps even in the house itself... Quite a strong, but depressingly unoriginal film (and without a single star). You can imagine it from the first to the last frame even just by reading this annotation. It’s not very clear why director West chose this particular story for his next work, who had previously made a completely different (not to say better, but much more sophisticated) movie, like “Prison Plane” and “Lara Croft.” Also starring Tommy Flanagan, Katie Cassidy, Tesa Thompson, Derek De Lindt.
Mrs Henderson Presents (UK, 2005, Stephen Frears). The story of a wealthy widow (Judi Dench - "Iris", "The Chronicles of Riddick", "Pride and Prejudice") who, during the Second World War, bought an abandoned cinema and came up with the idea of raising the morale of British soldiers with the help of shows featuring nude models. The film was nominated for two Oscars (Best Actress and Best Costumes), four BAFTA Awards and as many as eight British Independent Film Awards - but ultimately did not receive a single award. Also starring Bob Hoskins, Will Young, Kelly Riley, Christopher Guest and Thelma Barlow. Stanislav F. ROSTOTSKY |
|
