Looking For Eric
A do-it-yourself group therapy session with his concerned postie mates prompts each man to visualize being in the skin of someone he admires and would like to emulate. In Eric’s case, he imagines looking through the eyes of his namesake and Manchester United hero ‘King’ Eric Cantona. Later indulgence with his stepson’s marijuana stash leads Eric to start having visions of the French football legend, who quickly becomes a life coach and confidant to the beleaguered Mancunian. Just as we begin to think the film is an uplifting (albeit lifting slowly from the gutter), slightly schizophrenic buddy movie, events take an ugly turn for the worse and in our guts we can feel a Ken Loach misery-fest in full working order coming on. Three years ago, that’s maybe how it would have ended, but in the midst of a worldwide recession, the cinema-going public need hope as much as anyone else. Loach eventually rescues us from despair, but he has to abandon the realism previously built up to deliver us from evil. But if we can suspend belief for Eric Cantona life coaching a Manchester postman, we can buy into the film’s finale also.
We come out a lot happier from this than we have from any Ken Loach film for a long time. This director’s films should really be compulsory viewing in Spanish schools; it would soon put an end to misconceptions of Britain being all about reserved ladies and gentlemen and five-o’clock tea.
Away We Go
This quirkily comedic coming of age road movie is something rather unexpected from American Beauty director Sam Mendes. Its main characters are Verona, an illustrator of medical textbooks, and her boyfriend, Burt, who sells insurance futures to insurers by telephone. The film opens with Burt performing what turns out to be an unconventional pregnancy test on Verona.
We rejoin the couple, in their early thirties, six months into the pregnancy when Burt’s parents break the news that they are leaving to fulfil their long-held ambition of living in Antwerp, Belgium. Burt and Verona, who had moved from Chicago to be near their family, are left feeling unanchored and directionless, as well as hopelessly unprepared for parenthood. While they aren’t necessarily poor, they seem not to have moved on from the lifestyle of their long-gone
This quirkily comedic coming of age road movie is something rather unexpected from American Beauty director Sam Mendes. Its main characters are Verona, an illustrator of medical textbooks, and her boyfriend, Burt, who sells insurance futures to insurers by telephone. The film opens with Burt performing what turns out to be an unconventional pregnancy test on Verona.
We rejoin the couple, in their early thirties, six months into the pregnancy when Burt’s parents break the news that they are leaving to fulfil their long-held ambition of living in Antwerp, Belgium. Burt and Verona, who had moved from Chicago to be near their family, are left feeling unanchored and directionless, as well as hopelessly unprepared for parenthood. While they aren’t necessarily poor, they seem not to have moved on from the lifestyle of their long-gone
student days; they live in a ramshackle prefab without proper heating and cardboard covering a broken window. Amidst their self-doubt, Verona asks Burt, (interestingly, the mantra of almost every thirty-something expatriate in Madrid if you go to the right/wrong bars) “Are we fuck-ups?” It seems she is asking the audience too. With no sense of belonging and no ties apart from to each other, the pair decide to find a new home for themselves and their unborn child.
Their journey takes them to Phoenix, Tucson, Madison (Wisconsin), Montreal and Miami, presented as a series of vignettes, before they finally find their home. The film does dander along without great pace, but it gets where it sets out to. Burt and Verona are refreshingly and unwaveringly, truly in love. The flawed parenting and relationships they encounter on their
Their journey takes them to Phoenix, Tucson, Madison (Wisconsin), Montreal and Miami, presented as a series of vignettes, before they finally find their home. The film does dander along without great pace, but it gets where it sets out to. Burt and Verona are refreshingly and unwaveringly, truly in love. The flawed parenting and relationships they encounter on their
travels convince them they are, after all, much less fucked up and much more fortunate than they thought.
Watch it, especially with someone you love. But, if you’re single and have suffered heartbreak in the past, you might feel they’re rubbing your nose in it. In which case, give it a miss. You’ll spend money on your ticket, and three times as much on drowning your sorrows afterwards.
Watch it, especially with someone you love. But, if you’re single and have suffered heartbreak in the past, you might feel they’re rubbing your nose in it. In which case, give it a miss. You’ll spend money on your ticket, and three times as much on drowning your sorrows afterwards.
2012
On 21 December 2012, the world will end as we know it. The Ancient Mayans calculated the end of time long ago with their sophisticated calendar system, while New Agers predict a profound transition and the dawning of the Age of Aquarius Naranja. That’s the premise given to Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, to do what he most enjoys and what he does best – to make a movie in the disaster and apocalyptic genre with stunning visual effects. Mr Dependable John Cusack heads an ensemble cast, which also includes Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson, Danny Glover, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Oliver Platt.
The Northern Hemisphere’s winter solstice arrives in 2012 and, sure enough, the Earth’s crust begins to collapse and the planet is devastated as the oceans swallow entire continents. The only hope of survival is a series of Noah’s Ark-style super ships made by the… guess… American ‘Institute for Human Continuity’. The promotional hoardings and trailers boldly claim, “The end is just the beginning”. It’s not though, is it? The end is really the main event. That’s not to take anything away from 2012, but precisely what a film like this is offering is to see how the people in charge behave in the situation, how normal people like us behave in the situation, and jaw-dropping effects to show us what the end of the world looks like. It’s going to be good, but it’s not going to be amazing, unless you only care about special effects.
On 21 December 2012, the world will end as we know it. The Ancient Mayans calculated the end of time long ago with their sophisticated calendar system, while New Agers predict a profound transition and the dawning of the Age of Aquarius Naranja. That’s the premise given to Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, to do what he most enjoys and what he does best – to make a movie in the disaster and apocalyptic genre with stunning visual effects. Mr Dependable John Cusack heads an ensemble cast, which also includes Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson, Danny Glover, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Oliver Platt.
The Northern Hemisphere’s winter solstice arrives in 2012 and, sure enough, the Earth’s crust begins to collapse and the planet is devastated as the oceans swallow entire continents. The only hope of survival is a series of Noah’s Ark-style super ships made by the… guess… American ‘Institute for Human Continuity’. The promotional hoardings and trailers boldly claim, “The end is just the beginning”. It’s not though, is it? The end is really the main event. That’s not to take anything away from 2012, but precisely what a film like this is offering is to see how the people in charge behave in the situation, how normal people like us behave in the situation, and jaw-dropping effects to show us what the end of the world looks like. It’s going to be good, but it’s not going to be amazing, unless you only care about special effects.
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