Matching Curtains

Run Lola Run: DVD review

I watched Run Lola Run last week, courtesy of Lovefilm, and finished this compact and frenetic movie astonished that I hadn't seen it sooner. And wanted to watch the whole thing again. More of an idea than a film, in ... Lola director Tom Tykwer has created something both iconic and intellectually engaging, fusing style and substance with an enviable edge.

Run Lola Run is a thriller and post-modern twist on the quest genre set in Berlin, which focuses on Franka Potente's character Lola. Lola has twenty minutes to get 100,000 Deutschmarks to her boyfriend Manni, before he holds up a supermarket (it happens to us all love). And just as thrillers should, thrill it does. But to call the movie a thriller robs it of it's profundity and visual flair; as Lola pounds the Berlin streets to save her lover, we witness three different runs/versions of her fate, all set to a thumping techno soundtrack which had me breathless. The pervasive beats mimic the ticking clock which Lola is up against; they also mimic her heartbeat as she runs to each of the three conclusions as if in a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

The end results of Lola's runs throw up interesting questions around free will and determinism. Changes to external events and her own different choices and interactions with those she encounters during each run, generate totally different endings - and not just for her. The effects on those she encounters are stamped out fast forward style in still frames; presented with such speed and interspersed as they are within Lola's narrative, I was tempted to hit rewind to absorb what had happened! But so addicted was I, I kept moving forward with the heroine. In many ways it was like playing a computer game, with alternate realities opening up and offering not just philosophical questions, but droll and creative reflections on the nature of film-making.

The movie was made over ten years ago but doesn't seem dated - almost in spite of its self-consciously urban stylings and score. Potente looks awesome as Lola, her steely gaze, blazing red hair and cargo pants placing her character alongside Uma Thurman's Mia Wallace and Audrey Tautou's Amelie in the pantheon of Instantly Recognisable Female Movie Characters. She also looks like a cartoon character, which Tykwer riffs on at the start of each run with a short animation. It's amazing how much he crams into a movie which is only just over an hour long. In many ways, the movie reminds me of a phrase Andre Breton used to describe Frida Kahlo's painting: to paraphrase, Run Lola Run is the visual equivalent of a ribbon around a bomb. Aesthetically stunning, fast-paced yet tidily packaged, it is a series of explosions which will leave viewers thinking long after it ends.

Red Riding Hood

Red Riding Hood interested me a great deal; not least because I adore twisted fairy tales and have been impressed by leading lady Amanda Seyfried's performances in one of my favourite HBO dramas, Big Love. However, I've been more than vocal in my derision of the Twilight franchise which Red Riding Hood's director Catherine Hardwicke was at the helm for (admittedly, without having read the books, which are purported to be poorly written, or indeed seen the movies). My interest in Red Riding Hood waned slightly after reading a review which advised readers that the movie was just Twilight with a red cape, but undeterred, I headed to the cinema to catch the latest spin on a well-known fairy tale.

The story begins in what appears to be medieval times and the action soon kicks off with the murder of our eponymous heroine's sister by a werewolf. The murder throws the small village in which the family live into fear and a bloodthirsty desire for vengeance. Enter Gary Oldman as Father Solomon, camping it up as a priest-cum-wolf hunter who warns the village that by day, the wolf assumes a human form. His words plunge the village into paranoia; a paranoia which mounts as Red Riding Hood, or Valerie as she's known here, is exposed as being able to understand the beast ...

The story comes - but of course - complete with a love triangle to please the teenage girls who are surely the movie's key demographic. Attempts to capitalise on the darker elements of the original tale by sexualising the story could have been really compelling, but alas, Hardwicke falls back onto stereotypical character types and soft focus cinematography in love scenes which lack any kind of eroticism at all. You'd have thought Seyfried's Monroe-like blend of wide-eyed innocence and heaving bosom would have been put to better effect. The sexualisation of our heroine seems both cautious and confused, as the wolf is not who we are lead to expect. This was my first disappointment, coupled with a script which is initially so laden with unecessary exposition you can almost hear the sets creaking under its weight. The script does, however improve - the same can't be said of some of the performances. Virginia Madsen plays Valerie's mother with all the emotional import of one of the wolf's deceased victims (it must be the botox); as leading men go, Shiloh Fernandez and Max Irons do sneering and baffled well, but fail to convince as sex symbols (perhaps it's just my age). It's down to Seyfried and Oldman to carry the movie, which they do with a little help from Julie Christie as Red Riding Hood's infamous grandmother. Their performances allowed me to overlook the plot holes and the location's lack of grime and prompted me to wonder what a more daring director would have done with this. Billed as a horror, it is anything but; promising a darkness which is absent, Red Riding Hood has made me realise what skill it takes to make a genuinely thrilling and creative grown up fairy tale, which will appeal to teens and adults alike. In the hands of David Lynch, or even Tim Burton in his prime, this could have been something special. As it is, Hardwicke's effort is a typical teen romance with gothic pretensions.

Your Highness

It’s bawdy, extremely silly, and was clearly written when star and co-author Danny McBride was under the influence of copious amounts of weed. And yet I liked it.

Your Highness is a spoof movie in which its predominantly American stars sport ridiculous faux-English accents to parody the English fairy story tradition – and a heckuva lot of eighties movies, such as  The Princess Bride - to tell the story of Prince Fabious (James Franco) and his slacker brother Thadeous (McBride). Using a medieval setting as backdrop, this deliberately hammy and self-aware movie follows the Princes as they embark upon a quest to save Fabious’ wife to be Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel) from the clutches of an evil wizard Leezar (an unrecognisable Justin Theroux). They’re joined by Natalie Portman’s plucky Isabel, a sorcerer played by a puppet which will change your perception of the likes of Fraggle Rock forever more, and a bizarre menagerie of English talent including Toby Jones and Damian Lewis. Transposed onto this medieval template are a cacophony of dick jokes and stoner humour, a creative use of expletives (‘the fuckening’ pokes fun at the abduction of virgins by lecherous villains and tells it like it is), and, for reasons perhaps best known to the creators, a tribe of naked women who threaten to lure the Princes to their death. You’ll have to watch the movie to know that the latter happenstance is most definitely not a nod to Homer’s Odyssey.

You get the point. The success of this movie truly lies in the fact that it has snared an unlikely and curious bunch of performers to participate in the nonsense. After the ardours of the Oscar-winning Black Swan, Portman must have felt making this movie was tantamount to a holiday. And James Franco proves as slippery as ever, darting from Ginsberg to gormless as the handsome but naïve prince. Everyone is deliberately wooden and tongue-in-cheek, a fact that many critics seem to have overlooked in their rush to be snotty about the project. OK, David Gordon Green's follow up to Pineapple Express is not a great film; much like its predecessor, it will alienate anyone for whom weed addled japery is tiresome and juvenile. However, if like me, you’ve a fine (if guilty) appreciation for such infantile fun, you’ll find something to chortle at. It’s admittedly patchy and the action sequences go on for far too long; furthermore I think McBride is best confined to a peripheral role as he lacks the charm that more familiar faces Seth Rogen or Jonah Hill would have lent to Thadeous. Nonetheless, having done a quick internet trawl of some scathing reviews, I’m compelled to defend this crude and quirky treasure. Your Highness is a vanity project yes, and one which I am sure is much funnier to the folks involved in making it than the majority of adult cinema goers. But if you can let go of the need to be clever-clever and learn to love the indiscriminate use of ‘fuck’ in pseudo-Chaucerian language, you will enjoy this raucous royal romp.

Guaranteed to be a whole lot more fun than Kate and Wills.