Delicacy (La délicatesse) DVD Review

★★★☆☆

Quality romantic comedies (French or otherwise), are an elusive beast. The phrase ‘chick flick’ is now synonymous with poor quality filmmaking. Often trite, sickly and poorly written the romantic comedy is a genre that has suffered from some of the laziest efforts of recent years. The majority of the energy is put into casting big names in an ‘if you build it they will come’ method of attracting audiences. Adapted from his own award winning novel, David Foenkino and his brother Stephane direct.

Nathalie (Audrey Tatou - Amelie, The Da Vinci Code) finds her idyllic life shattered when her husband is killed in a traffic accident. Following the loss of her soul mate she cuts herself off emotionally and channels all of her energy into her career. She spends a good deal of time fending off the advances of her boss while forming an attraction to Swedish colleague Markus (Francois Damien – Heartbreaker). He’s certainly not the typical love interest; gap toothed, ungainly, shy and socially awkward. Those closest to Nathalie make it clear that she could do much better.

Tatou has made a career out of romantic comedies, with extremely varied results. Delicacy keeps you off balance by switching between genuinely funny and touching moments to those of loss and despondency. Though very well acted by both Tatou and Damien, the lack of genuine chemistry between the two characters is evident. There is no real sense that Nathalie needs Markus to fulfill her and complete her recovery from losing her husband.

Delicacy is charming love story that benefits from the lack of Hollywood-style gloss and two engaging lead performances.

Vikki Myerscough

Rating: 15
Release Date: 6th August, 2012 (UK&Ireland)
Director: David Foenkinos, Stéphane Foenkinos
Cast: Audrey Tautou, François Damiens and Bruno Todeschini

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Hawks And Sparrows (Uccellacci e uccellini) - Masters Of Cinema Review

★★★★☆

Hawks and Sparrows is another in Masters of Cinema’s continuing series of Pasolini re-issues with more to come later in the year. The film stars Toto who not know to most people outside of Italy know who he is but he was the huge star in Italy and was sort of the Italian Chaplin. The fim co-stars Pasolini’s collaborator and lover Ninetto Davoli.

The film’s story is a rather strange crossbred of a fairy tale and mid 60s leftist filmmaking. It’s about these 2 characters who meet a talking Marxist crow. The crow tells them the story of these 2 old Franciscan Monks (naturally played by Ninetto and Toto) and they preach to the Hawks and Sparrows and try to convert them to Christianity. They rest of the film consist of them wandering having episodic adventures includes meeting beautiful girls, they get chased away by angry farmers and dancing teenagers.

The film touches on Life, Religion, Birth, Sex, Aging and Death. It’s all done with humour and a touch of almost Monty Python silliness. The talking crow talks almost like thrift store Godard revolutionary speak but The Crow symbolize death eventually. The film features a wonderful Ennio Morricone score, which features Domenico Modugno singing the opening credits in an ironic fashion. The score itself is almost a Leone score which is unsurprising cause it was done around the same time as his scores for Leone.

The film is an extremely enjoyable if very strange piece of Bunuelian esq comedy even though the humour at time is very broad. The film seems to be considered a lesser work of Pasolini’s even though he considered it the only film of his that he wasn’t disappointed with. A knowledge of mid 60s Italian politics may help for some but for a person like me who has no knowledge it stills works as a very enjoyable film.

Ian Schultz

Rating: PG
UK Re-release Date: July 2012
Directed By: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Cast: Totò, Ninetto Davoli , Femi Benussi
Buy:Hawks and Sparrows [Masters of Cinema] On DVD [1966]

'The Paranormal Incident' DVD Review

★☆☆☆☆

The problem with the spate of handheld, found-footage ghost films that have arrived post Paranormal Activity is that they are hounded by the success and pitch-perfect horror of that film.  Still a bad film is a bad film, and unfortunately that’s what The Paranormal Incident is. Since Paranormal Activity has already nailed the format, films centred on hauntings and found footage have to do something different or they just fade into monotony, The Paranormal Incident doesn’t even try.

                The film follows a group of students, half who believe in the paranormal, half who don’t, as they spend a night at the apparently haunted Odenbrook Sanatorium.  Armed with motion sensors, high frequency sound equipment, and plenty of cameras, the team are out to prove or disprove the existence of ghosts. The story is relayed post-events with the one survivor being shown the footage by a police officer who suspects he murdered his friends.

                Initially the set-up intrigues, swapping from hospital room to four days prior builds a certain interest, but the flatness of the characters, who we don’t get any time to know, and the stunted nature of the dialogue slowly pulls the viewer past interested and straight into disappointed. Once inside the sanatorium events trundle along at a predictable pace, and the cuts back to the hospital actually fracture the mood, halting any sustained scare. Another major issue with the film that keeps it trapped under mediocre is its complete reliance on jump-scares and sudden noises, rather than making the effort to construct any sort of sustained menace or apprehension. What the audience needs is more reason to be scared of the Odenbrook rather than a brief intro, some kid’s drawings, and found footage of the cheesy variety. Eventually the film spirals into a murky mess of disappearances and manic camera shaking which leaves the viewer completely nonplussed as to the fate of the characters. The final ten minutes reaches for something more, alluding to a story beyond the film, but it seems like a childish copy of the X-Files and it’s this that leaves the viewer with a bad taste.

                The Paranormal Incident relies on recycled uninspired horror stock, features some truly woeful plot devices, and the acting of its entire cast is not overly convincing. If more time had been spent letting us get to know the characters then we would have cared for their strife, likewise if more subtle and original scare-tactics had been employed from the start of the film then we might have actually hid behind our hands.

Scott  Clark

Rating:15
UK Release Date:23 July 2012
Directed by: Matthew Bolton
Cast: Amanda Barton, Keith Compton , Thomas Downey
Buy:Paranormal Incident On DVD