Month: March 2015

TOP FIVE (2014)

top-five-poster1

What are your top five?

Chris Rock directs, writes and stars in this very smart film about relationships, celebrity, love in the spotlight, friendships and the issues surrounding fame.
It’s about time.
It’s about time that a very funny stand up comedian and talented writer makes a great film. This evokes the feel of Annie Hall, yet is totally contemporary; conversation, questions, challenges, comedy all are here beautifully composed

Usually when a comedian headlines a film we’ll get some diluted, studio nonsense that seems to muzzle the talent and force them into pre-designed moulds that they just don’t fit in. The closest thing to this, and even that is very different is, Louie, the brilliant tv series, written, starring and directed by the incredibly funny talented, good friend of Rock’s, Louis C.K.
Rock is not afraid to show a long two-handed scene where two characters challenge each other, the dialogue is fresh, clever and a welcome change to the usual films helmed by comedians.

Rock (Andre Allen) stars with Rosario Dawson (Chelsea Brown) who plays a journalist from the New York Times assigned to interview him and she, as usual, imbues the part with charm and realism. He plays a comedian who has made the transition to films and like Michael Keaton’s character in Birdman, has come off the back of a massive franchise in which he plays Hammy The Bear in a ridiculous cop/buddy 3 film run. He is about to get married to a Kim Kardashian reality star type and Brown confronts him with real questions forcing him to look closely at the trajectory of his life/career.

Peppered with guest spots from a whole heap of very talented comedians, they are used here with intelligence and wit. Cedric The Entertainer has more than a blast playing Jazzy D (“Who the man in Houston?”), Kevin Hart plays Andre Allen’s (Rock) agent, J.B. Smoove plays Allen’s best friend/minder and is real and funny, Anders Holm (Workaholics) has a nice part playing Chelsea’s boyfriend. The very funny Romany Malco has a few fun scenes with Gabrielle Union (Erica Long, Allen’s fiance). More Malco, please. Tracy Morgan, Jay Pharoah, Leslie Jones and Hassan Johnson plays Allen’s relatives and each bring the pain, comedically. There are a bunch of other surprises that I shall let you discover yourselves.

?uestlove is the music producer so you know there will be tunes and Jay Z and Kanye were co-producers of the film. The pedigree is insane.

This is how you do it, make a film that is both personal and well composed and you should have a hit on your hands. Ultimately, my thinking is that the people will gravitate towards quality, as opposed to ingesting the rubbish that is normally on offer.

Do yourself a favour and check out this clever, funny, romantic comedy. Funny is funny is funny.

4/5

DOWNLOAD THE FILM ON BLU RAY DVD HERE

BUY THE FILM ON iTUNES HERE

LISTENERS PROJECT 2 (2015)

41baa8_2f96efca64744ebda1399d864a76e382.jpg_srb_p_720_635_75_22_0.50_1.20_0

The Old Swan Wharf

“The Listeners Project have just produced four short films in the historic Swan Wharf in Hackney, due to be turned into modern flats in 2016. Filming took place on four consecutive days beginning on Thursday 5th February.

Each Director was randomly given one of four distinct spaces within the old victorian wharf and they and their cast and crew had 24 hours each to film in the spaces.  Each writer had Frank O Connor’s poem Advice to Lovers as a jumping off point and all four short films (2 – 6 mins in length) were screened on Valentine’s day at the location to an audience of 60.”

Continuing on from their last project, the Listeners are back with four more interesting and experimental films for your delight and delectation.

The first film is ‘Help’ directed by Sonny Malhotra and starring Oliver Gilbert and Pia De Keyser and is very nicely shot, utilizing the space very well and creating a strange, eerie tone that is both dark and unsettling.

‘Occupy’ is the second in this collection, written by the incredibly talented Steve Bloomer and is directed by Leanne Welham. Great use of space and the dialogue is well written. Starring Charlie Catrall and Elarica Johnson, this piece makes some interesting points about housing.

‘Lovelife’ is a lot of fun. Primarily a dance piece, this utilizes the space well and creates a fun short. Alistair Goldsmith and Sonya Cullingford are the actors/dancers.

The last film ‘The Red Room’ directed by Ben Lambert (who is the main producer on the whole project) is the most interesting piece out of this collection. Starring the very talented, Lizzie Phillips along with Vinta Morgan, this film brings in the idea of the Stockholm syndrome with a touch of the 1984’s. Lizzie Phillips gives a lovely performance in this weird and wonderful little film.

Overall these experiments work and challenge the audiences. It’s great that they are out there being made. I’m a big fan of creatives who go out and do it themselves and for this they get:

4/5

Watch the films here