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Content:

Creators Notes:

Just a quick message this time as we have lots of other work to be getting on with this month. But we love this issue, so we hope you do too.

3-15: Reviews of this months film... 4-5: The Rum Diary 6-7: 50/508-9: Immortals 10-11: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 12-13: In Time14-15: Dreamhouse 16-17: On DVD this month...17: A list of DVDs releases this November 18-19: What’s on next month?19: A list of films to be released in December

Creators: Journalist and Editor:Charlie Derry: http://charliederry.wordpress.comcharlie.derry@live.co.uk

Designer and Art Director:Mikie Daniel: http://mikiedaniel.wordpress.commikiedaniel@gmail.com

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Reviewsof this months films...

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The Rum DiaryThe Rum Diary, directed

by Bruce Robinson, follows journalist Paul Kemp (Johnny Depp) who travels to Puerto Rico to escape the American life. Here, he starts writing for a run-down newspaper, The San Juan Star, with stressed out editor Lotterman (Richard Jenkins), fellow journalist Bob Sala (Michael Rispoli) and office drunk Moburg (Giovanni Ribisi). After disagreements with his boss, Kemp picks up his own habit of drinking rum and falls in love with the beautiful Chenault (Amber Heard), fiancée of businessman Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart). But will a proposition from Sanderson pull Kemp away from backstreet cock fights and into a life of luxury and private beaches? It seems unlikely when the proposition revolves around exploiting the island, something which Kemp has already found inspiration for his writing in.

Based on a novel by American journalist Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Dairy was written in the early 1960s but it wasn’t published until 40 years later. It took nine years for the film adaptation to get off the ground, which began filming in 2009, and then another two years for it to reach our cinema screens. In total, it took 51 years in lag time for the film’s release this month. To Thompson’s dismay, the film regretfully suffers from reflecting upon this lengthy process, becoming a drag itself.

The Rum Diary is director Robinson’s first film in 19 years. Whilst the film is visually attractive, with a lot of the focus on the 1950s Caribbean setting, the film is also quite dark. Some parts of the film make you laugh, all of which can be seen in the trailer, but in between the pretty back drops and humour derived from Depp, the story is dull and deeply uninteresting. I expected a light-hearted, tropical drama about a journalist who drinks a lot of rum, but this isn’t what I got.

I haven’t read The Rum Diary book, so it was easy to be wrong in my expectations. But when discussing the film on Twitter John Riley told me that, “The book is short, light and breezy.” Yet this is quite the opposite to the film. As opposite as you can get, actually. It wasn’t short, in fact the 120 minute run time

seemed double that, and it definitely wasn’t breezy.

This is the only film with Johnny Depp as the lead in that I haven’t enjoyed, yet Depp has starred in another of Thompson’s novel adaptations too. Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas was directed by Terry Gilliam and released in 1998. Here he played the cynical Raoul Duke, who is often the main character and narrator of Thompson’s stories and novels. Obviously Depp was the right choice for the role, even though the novel’s character is some 20 years younger, and he portrayed his character proficiently. Unfortunately, the story around him was so uneven that even Depp couldn’t help pull it off.

A main weaknesses in the film was the use of Chenault’s character. John comments that, “For some reason, though many of the details are blurry, I always remember the book’s initial description of her, ‘She had a hard little body and a way of walking that indicated a mass of stored up energy.’ In the book she’s clearly portrayed as a tease.” Whilst the film reflects on this well enough, it is also quick to forget about her character at the end of the film. She flirts and teases throughout, but after coming close to finally bedding Kemp, she isn’t seen again until briefly being mentioned in the epilogue.

Release Date:11th November 2011

Director:Bruce Robinson

Famous Faces:Johnny Depp, Giovanni Ribisi and Aaron Eckhart

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John continues, “It’s a flaw of the book that she’s less a character in herself than an object of desire and exchange to all the male characters.” And maybe that’s the only reason we need to why we don’t see more of her. If she was purely an object of desire, her character isn’t important when her teasing has stopped and she falls for Kemp in return. But whilst that makes great literature, the film needed to see more of this lust and it needed to end with romance. For that reason alone, she didn’t serve as an important character in the film, losing her integrity and thus closing the film unsuccessfully.

As John Riley proposes, “I might skip the film and keep my memories of the novel.” I’d suggest to at least wait until the DVD release and give it a rent, but I wouldn’t push it any further.

*Thanks to John Riley (@ BrickVanDee)

for helping with my discussion.*

“The book is short, light and breezy, but the

film is quite the opposite.

As opposite as you can get,

actually.”

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50/50Directed by Jonathan

Levine, 50/50 is a comedy-drama loosely based on the life of screenwriter Will Reiser.

When 27-year-old Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) goes to the doctors about back pain, he finds out that he has a rare type of spinal cancer, and must undergo chemotherapy in order to reduce the tumour. His best friend Kyle (Seth Rogen) attempts to take his mind of his life-threatening illness with alcohol, medicinal weed and sex, whilst his girlfriend Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) slowly starts becoming detached. As part of his recovery, Adam must also see an inexperienced psychologist Katherine (Anna Kendrick), and befriends two older chemo patients receiving treatment alongside him. But will his struggles overpower his determination to beat cancer? Or will the help of a seemingly irrelevant part of

his treatment convince him to stop being selfish?

50/50 is brilliantly written, and it’s no wonder everybody is talking about it. Deceptively simple, the film is very confident and the dialogue unfolds in a largely improvised style which makes the conversations natural, and everything else feel authentic. It’s more drama then comedy,

but too many jokes would have desensitised the plot, and whilst it never pushing for laughs, it is funny in all the right places.

Based loosely around the true story of writer Will Resier, friend of the film’s co-lead Seth Rogen, 50/50 dealt with story’s theme

with a brilliant honesty. For the most of the film there is a great sense of awareness towards the negative subject, but in places it felt that it did need a bit more. For example, the scenes with Adam and the two older chemo patients were great and they provoked real emotion. But these were then contrasted against more heartless scenes like when Adam and Kyle destroyed his ex-girlfriend’s painting.

For me, this unnerving contrast was largely because of Seth Rogen‘s character who, yes is a great comedic actor, but for the first time I also found him rather unlikable. When Adam snaps at him near the end of the film, all for good reasons, nothing comes out of his lack of sympathy except that he had supposedly flicked through a book when nobody was looking. Rogen may have genuinely gone through this with Reiser at

“The dialogue unfolds in a

largely improvised style which makes

conversations natural.”

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the time, but this friendship didn’t shine through in the film. Maybe it’s a man thing though, as my male friends disagreed with me and thought that he offered great support to his best friend. Unfortunately I didn’t see his rationality, I saw a misogynistic ignorance.

Anna Kendrick, as well, wasn’t amazing in her role. I understand that she was supposed to be young and inexperienced, but I have seen this irritable characteristic from her too far much already from her role in Twilight, in which she played a much younger character. For 50/50, I hoped that she would have portrayed more of an adult role, which you are even at 24, but unfortunately it still came off quite immature and therefore disengaging.

However, it was all about Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and he was superb. Still, I’m not standing beside the substantial critical admirers. It was a good film, but I have seen better this month.

Release Date:25th November 2011

Director:Jonathan Levine

Famous Faces:Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen and Anna Kendrick

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Release Date:18th November 2011

Director:Tarsem Singh

Famous Faces:Henry Cavil, Luke Evans, Mickey Rourke, Stephen Dorff and Freida Pinto

Im m orta l s

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From the producers of 300 and directed by Tarsem Singh, Immortals is a 3D fantasy action based on the Greek myths of Theseus and the Minotaur.

Taking place in 1228BC, Theseus (Henry Cavill) is chosen by Zeus (Luke Evans) and the Greek Gods to lead a fight against the barbarous King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke), who declares war on Olympus after the Gods fail to answer his prayers. Hyperion, who is now on a rampage across Greece, seeks the magical bow of Epirus in order to free the Titans, defy the Gods and destroy all of humanity.

Whilst in prison, Thesues befriends a prisoner named Stavros (Stephen Dorff) and they later escape the beautiful oracle Phaedra (Freida Pinto). Thesues finds the Epirus Bow, but is attacked by Hyperion’s soldier, the Minotaur (Robert Maillet). After somehow fitting in a sex scene between all of this brutality, Hyperion’s soldiers attack Phaedra’s temple and,

after stealing the bow for himself, Hyperion

releases the Titans, forcing his army to face a war against

the Gods.Full of epic and

brutal fighting scenes, the film really reflects on the producers unique style.

Without these action sequences of brilliantly played out violence, the film wouldn’t have been nearly as successful. At the same time though, if you have seen 300 then you have already seen all of this before. Whilst it is a style that I enjoyed and hoped to see more of, the plot line of Immortals came too close to other films for it to be distinguishable, and had too many similarities to take this style to another level.

A lot of the time, the film felt like a mix between 300 and Clash of the Titans due to its heavy reliance on magical and powerful beings and mythological creatures. But whilst Immortals could be compared to a number of films, it was still of a lot higher quality and managed to pull this off; it was just a shame that everything felt so familiar, which in this case didn’t serve as an advantage.

Although Immortals has these similarities in terms of story line, it showed many strengths and improvements in other aspects. With a fantasy, myth-fueled film like this, it’s often easy to get lost in what is happening and you need to pay close attention for everything to make sense. Whilst many have criticised the film’s lack of rich narrative, everything flowed in a fast and linear pace, which kept you from getting confused by meaningless characters and exaggerated scenes.

There wasn’t only constant scenes of bloody brutality either. The creative visual effects are stunning which contrast amazingly against the scenes of violence and is what makes the film take precedence of others in its genre. The CGI is extremely pretty, with one scene at the end of the film, which can be seen in the trailer, really standing out when the camera pans out to show thousands of soldiers fighting as if standing on a perplex surface in the clouds.

The cast of the film was also an interesting one too, and is again why the film had a much higher quality. Henry Cavill, who will be playing Superman in 2013’s Man of Steel lacked inspiration in places, but he really fit the part and gave us a glimpse of what we are in for next year. Mickey Rourke plays a character similar to his role in Iron Man 2, but there is no denying that he makes an incredible evil man. I also enjoyed Luke Evans‘ performance as Zeus, who last month played one of The Three Musketeers and also played a slight change in roles as Apollo in Clash of The Titans.

Overall, Immortals is a stunning piece of filmmaking, but it won’t be remembered for anything else. Whilst it is a good film, it has far too many similarities to make it stand out enough from the look-a-like crowd to define it as anything more.

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The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1Directed by Bill Condon,

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 is the first part to the final instalment of Stephenie Meyer‘s Twilight Saga novels.

The first part of Breaking Dawn follows Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and her now vampire fiancée Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) through their marriage and honeymoon to the life-threatening consequence of Bella falling pregnant. Now, with the Volturi coven waiting for Bella to be turned immortal and the Quileute werewolf pack keeping guard, Bella must prepare to say goodbye to the ones she loves as she weakens from the thirst of the blood-sucking baby inside of her.

Whilst this is the most love-struck chapter yet, Breaking Dawn is also the scariest, sexiest and most violent novel out of the franchise. As a fan of the books, I was really

worried about how this adaptation would work on the big screen. I’ve grown tired of trying to explain to ‘Twi-haters’ that the novels are much better than the film, because, let’s face it, why would anyone take my word for it? Personally, I feel that Breaking Dawn is the worst novel out of the series as well. The book is set out differently from the other three, looking at the situation from Jacob’s point of view as well, which was a small positive. However, I read the book within hours and felt there wasn’t enough of anything to keep an audience engaged, especially with the first half that is the focus of the film.

I read a lot of reviews beforehand that said the film was very melodramatic, which was completely what I expected with the main story line revolving around marriage and babies. There is already a huge dislike against the franchise if you’re not a 14-year-old girl,

even my synopsis above doesn’t do it any favours. However, I didn’t feel this way at all. In fact, the film was a very good adaptation of the novel and it worked a lot better on-screen then I imagined it could. This is because of one reason; it wasn’t tamed down for a PG audience.

Twilight was a great adaptation, but New Moon and Eclipse fell short because they began to put their focus on the younger audience, as they knew this is where a majority of the audience was coming from. This was my main concern for Breaking Dawn, thinking the adaptation would surely miss out the sexual scenes and romanticise the birth scene which, in fact, was quite brutal.

Fortunately, the film didn’t go this way and it included the sex, with a large emphasis on Bella’s lust for it. It also put a focus on the threat of Bella dying, and emphasised the violence and terrifying nature of Bella giving birth to a child that

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The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1would of happily sucked her blood dry. It even scared me a little, especially the way Bella seemed to look like a skeleton for most of the film. Whilst this put a dampener on the film’s love-filled setting, it was what was needed for it to be a bareable film out of the Twilight Saga context. It worked well as a stand-alone film, and would have even worked as a great end to the franchise.

The only part of the film which was badly adapted was the wolf pack scene. If you’ve seen the film you will know what I am talking about straight away. If not, there is a scene in the film which explores the inclusion of the werewolf tribe communicating telepathically. Somehow the werewolves sounded like Transformers, and it was far too laughable to take seriously.

There were reasons to laugh that weren’t out of

disapproval as well though. Bella’s father Charlie (Billy Burke) has been the main source of ‘comedy’ throughout the franchise, which is great because he is one of the more relatable characters, not liking Edward. His sarcastic comments made the film easier for non-fans to watch, breaking away from the focus of Bella and Edward to give more of a believable reaction to their human-vampire relationship (not that he knows, yet!).

The rest of the cast, also, were at their best in this instalment. Kristen Stewart, when not looking like a sack of bones, smiled more than usual, Robert Pattinson gave a much stronger performance having to stand against Bella at one point in fear of losing her. Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) had a better role in this instalment as well, and one that didn’t involve him having to take his top off every five minutes. It was obvious

that Lautner had a lot more experience in acting since Eclipse too, which paid off quite a lot for him.

In the end, Breaking Dawn managed to be my favourite adaptation since the franchise began with Twilight in 2008, even if the plot doesn’t seem like the most appealing of stories. And now I’m more excited for the film’s final chapter, Breaking Dawn – Part 2, which is set to be released next year. Have I managed to persuade any Twi-haters to give it a try yet?

Release Date:18th November 2011

Director:Bill Condon

Famous Faces:Kristen Stewart, Robert

Pattinson and Taylor Lautner

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I n : t I m e Written and directed by

Andrew Niccol, In Time is set in the year 2161, a future where time has taken over as the world’s currency. At the age of 25 a person stops ageing, but the fluorescent green clock fitted into their arm starts ticking giving them only one more year to live. From then on they must work for more time if they wish to carry on living, but it’s not as easy for those outside of New Greenwich who live off hours rather than years.

Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) lives in the ghetto, a time zone where people live day-to-day, working their hardest to make it even through the night. When a stranger gives Will over a century of life, he becomes determined to change this way of living and heads to the richest timezone in a Robin Hood fashion – he must steal from the rich and give to poor. However, timekeeper Raymond (Cillian Murphy)

is on his trail accusing him of murder, forcing Will to kidnap millionaire and time-loaning businessman Phillipe Weis’ (Vincent Kartheiser) daughter, Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), and take her hostage to protect his own life.

Full of roof top chases, car flips and gun fights, In Time sets itself up to be an action film, but it doesn’t quite hit the nail on the head. Car flips are flimsy, and the roof

top often compromise of Timberlake dragging around an impressionable Seyfried who’s trailing behind. That doesn’t prevent In Time from being a good film though, at least in the sense that the story around these characters is constantly interesting.

The film has a good cast too, more so with the smaller roles including best friend Borel (Johnny Galecki) and Will’s mother (Olivia Wilde) who both played engrossing roles, far from the ones that are expected of them; Galecki doesn’t live up to his geeky stereotype and Wilde plays a character twice her age, and for this they both exceed.

Timberlake and Seyfried, as well, play really strong roles. Seyfried especially prevails, as I didn’t expect her to fit into this type of film at all. Unfortunately the script was a little amateur in places though, which meant that neither of them lived up to their full hype, with Timberlake lacking the usual charm that he gives off when we remember he was once a member of N*Sync.

In Time is an undoubtedly smart film, but one of its main downfalls is a lack of explanation. Placing itself in the future, the film’s setting has somehow derived from the world as we know it, yet we are given no background story to how it has evolved to be this way. The film doesn’t reflect on its futuristic setting either, which asks us to accept an undeveloped future. In this sense, the plot doesn’t work as it seems to have been given no more thought then, “let’s swap money for time.” The film would have worked a lot better if it was set in a present yet alternative world, as then we could have more easily accepted this premise. But setting itself a hundred years from now, we must consider it as a possible world, which a good writer would have expanded upon.

Up until writing this review I highly enjoyed the film. Unfortunately, critiquing a film means

release Date:1st November 2011

DIrector:Andrew Niccol

Famous Faces:Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried and Cillian Murphy

“In Time sets itself up to be an action film, but it doesn’t quite hit the nail on

the head.”

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thinking about the film in-depth, and this has led me to see such many flaws. Again, a lot of these come from a lack of detail. The main question that needs to be is asked is why are the residents of the ghetto so ready to accept their fate of running out of time? Accepting death means a lack of threat, with people willing to fall down dead then to steal a couple of minutes from a passerby.

The characters of the film are very naive, probably because they don’t know any better, but to an audience this only weakens any engagement that we have with the story.

Despite all of this, I would recommend to go and watch this film and enjoy it. None of these points effecting my viewing, and until I was made to think about these minor issues in detail, I wouldn’t have had anything bad to say at all.

“The characters of the film are

very naive, which to an

audience only weakens any

engagement that we have with

the story.”

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Release Date:25th November 2011

Director:Jim Sheridan

Famous Faces:Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz

and Naomi Watts

Dr

eam

H

ou

se

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Dream House, directed by Jim Sheridan, follows Will Atenton (Daniel Craig), a publisher who quits work to move his wife Libby (Rachel Weisz) and their two daughters into their dream home. The family soon discover, however, that their seemingly idyllic house was once the murder scene of a mother and her daughters, and that the crime was supposedly committed by the father who is now being held at a psychiatric hospital in town. Will begins to investigating the murder after strange things start happening around him, but his only lead comes from his neighbour Ann (Naomi Watts) and her ex-husband Jack (Marton Csokas), whilst everybody else keeps what they know to themselves.

Dream House has the makings of a horror film, which is one of the main reasons it is interesting. When you explain that a family move into a new house and that the previous tenants were murdered, it’s only too easy to presume that either one of the children will become possessed or that the house is built in an ancient burial ground. Beginning just as The Amityville Horror did, the film could have easily concluded in the same way. Thankfully, it doesn’t, and the film takes another road in a twist of genre. Dream House is a

thriller, and whilst it has an essence of ghosts and creaky stairways, it plays on such clichéd scares to build itself up.

The outcome of the film is a lot better thought out than any typical horror has to offer, and when you come to terms with the truth, you can see how everything links together from the film’s rich texture and well written plot. Despite sometimes having a weak script, Dream House has an ever-shifting plot and this is what keeps you engaged. With a couple of incredible twists and a really good cast backing the

story up, Dream House is more of a successful drama than anything else; whilst sometimes episodic, it is always intriguing and this is why the combination of genres works.

Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz are a brilliant leading couple, as well, with an obvious chemistry between them on show throughout the film. This relationship is really worth mentioning, even more so when the family is considered as a whole. The two daughters (Claire and Taylor Geare) put on a brilliant performance for their age too. It’s often that a young

child’s performance in a film is cringey, especially in a horror, but the fact that the two girls are sisters in real life really helps. These four actors together give the film strength, giving a believable performance that provokes emotion when needed.

For some reason, however, Dream House has received an overall bad review from critics, with Rotten Tomatoes reporting an average rating of 3.7 out of 10. These bad criticisms may reflect on news that the director supposedly fell out with the production team over the shape of the script and production of the film though. He and the cast also disliked the final cut of the film so much that they refused to do any press for it, and the film wasn’t screened for critics in advance either. Whilst it was occasionally easy to see that Sheridan lost control of his directorial roles, overall I felt that his aims shone through and that film managed to pull itself off.

The worst part about the film’s production is that trailer gives away the whole story line, including the film’s twist. If you plan on seeing this film I would warn you not to watch it or read anything else about it. Dream House is a very good film, but if you know the twists beforehand it will not have the same effect. I would highly recommend it, so let that be the only encouragement you need.

“Dream House has an ever-shifting plot and this is what keeps you

engaged.”Dr

eam

H

ou

se

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On DVD this month...

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Zookeeper Date: 21st November

A group of zoo animals decide to break their code of silence in order to help their lovable zoo keeper find love -- without opting to leave his current job for something more illustrious, starring Kevin James and the voice of Adam Sandler.

Bridesmaids Date: 14th November

A romantic comedy written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo following a group of females, which leads to a competition between the maid of honor and a bridesmaid over who is the bride’s best friend.

Horrible Bosses Date: 21st November

Comedy following three friends who conspire to murder their awful bosses when they realize they are standing in the way of their happiness, starring Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Colin Farrell andJennifer Aniston.

Cars 2 Date: 21st November

Star race car Lightning McQueen and his pal Mater head overseas to compete in the World Grand Prix race. But the road to the championship becomes rocky as Mater gets caught up in an intriguing adventure of his own: international espionage starring the voice of Owen Wilson.

Larry Crowne Date: 14th November

Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts star in a romantic comedy, following a middle-aged man (Hanks) who reinvents himself after losing his job by going back to college and also falls in love with an unhap-pily married teacher, Mercedes (Roberts).

Transformers: Dark of the MoonDate: 28th November

Directed by Michael Bay, he Autobots learn of a Cybertronian spacecraft hidden on the Moon in the third instalment to the Transformer franchise, who race against the Decepticons to reach it and to learn its secrets.

November DVD Releases:

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What’s out next month?

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December’s Cinema:Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Date: 16th December

Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law return as the detective duo Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson to join forces with a mysterious gypsy woman, Noomi Rapace, to outwit and bring down their fiercest adversary, Professor Moriarty.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Date: 26th December

An English adaptation of the first film in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, following Journalist Mikael Blomkvist and young computer hacker Lisbeth Salander in his search for a woman who has been missing for forty years.

The Thing Date: 2nd December

At an Antarctica research site, the discovery of an alien craft leads to a confrontation between graduate student Kate Lloyd and scientist Dr. Sander Halvorson. Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr, this is a prequel to the 1982 film of the same name by John Carpenter.

Hugo Date: 2nd December

Martin Scorsese’s child fantasy set in 1930s Paris and based on Brian Selznick‘s award-winning best-seller. Hugo is a young orphan who goes on a magical adventure with an automaton to unlock a secret that will transform his life. Starring Asa Butterfield and Chloë Grace Moretz.

A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas Date: 9th December John Cho and Kal Penn return as Harold Lee and Kumar Patel. Six years after their Guantanamo Bay adventure, the stoner duo cause a holiday fracas by inadvertently burning down Harold’s father-in-law’s prize Christmas tree.

Mission Impossible 4: Ghost ProtocolDate: 26th December

Tom Cruise returns to another impossible mission when the IMF is shut down, implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization’s name.