Rachael Lampa Human

4/5

Over the last ten years Rachael Lampa has scored a string of chart hits, lined her mantle with trophies and underscored the teen years of a whole generation of young Christians.  Now, firmly taking the creative reins, Rachael braves the bold step of ‘going Indie.’  You might expect second rate writing.  You might expect a drop in quality.  You might even be thinking that Rachael’s voice will not sound as ‘perfect.’  You would be wrong on all counts.  With this liberating collection, Rachael proves herself more than a studio phenomenon and more than just a great pop singer.  Rachael Lampa is revealed an all-round musical talent.

Taking a different lyrical tone than her previous successes, it is frankly refreshing to learn a little more about Rachael beyond the well documented fact that she loves the Lord.  Human, unlike so many collections which claim to adhere to a thematic unity, is actually a bunch of songs all born from the same idea.  Chronicling the vulnerable humanity of the artist through bad relationships and good, moving to a new home and admitting her own fragility, Human is as honest a collection as any.  Not holding back, Lampa really spills her guts without being bogged down by emotionally indulgent artistry.  In fact, unusually for an artist with a pop history like Lampa’s, the songs bearing her name on the writing credits are, arguably, the best of her career.

Fans of old will find solace in the ‘familiarly Rachael-esque’ Avalanche, demonstrating her trademark soaring vocals.  Really, though, Human takes the guitar driven work of Lampa’s third studio album one step further, boasting an almost acoustic sound on a number of tracks which show off the beautiful, sandy edge to her voice. Close To The Sun and All The Way Down stand out as show-stopping numbers with a fun vibe and an open-heartedly human lyric and Jonny Lang’s soft vocals blend wonderfully with Lampa’s on the thought provoking title track which seems to sum up what Lampa’s new work is really all about.

If Human has any flaw, it is the length.  With the addition of a few more tracks, this could most definitely be Lampa’s best work.  One can only hope that this project will instill Lampa with an even greater strength of conviction and the confidence to plough on along the same path.  Let’s see more of this please Rachael … a lot more!

Brothers

4/5

Directed by: Jim Sheridan

Starring: Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman

War is a fantasy.  War is a collective memory passed on by grannies and granddads.  War has been distanced … and thank God it has.  For a generation that has never seen war on the home front, there is a misty fascination surrounding the whole concept.  What would it be like?  Would I be good in one?  Would I chicken out?  These are questions that we love to answer for ourselves and, of course, it is a fool’s game because we have no way of knowing how we would react to those kinds of situations.  Occasionally, though, a film like Brothers stands out amongst the Independence Day-Lord Of The Rings bunch and reminds us why we do not want to ever discover the real answers.

Sam and Grace, along with daughters Isabelle and Maggie, are an all-American military family.  With a Marine Corps granddad and a screw up brother, Tommy, the family has its ups and downs but none that could prepare them for the news that Sam has been killed in Afghanistan.  Though there is actually more hope for Sam than first thought, Grace is left with two children and a well meaning but hap-hazard brother-in-law with whom to struggle through.

What Brothers lacks in narrative intrigue, it more than makes up for in pathos.  Often, with films so generously bathed in water-eye moments, the audience is left alienated by emotional indulgence.  This is not the case here.  Natalie Portman demonstrates the perfect balance between convulsive sadness and mind-numbing grief which makes her the widow you selfishly want to heal and steal for yourself.  Jake Gyllenhaal plays the clown with an ironic maturity and a convincing, roguish charisma.  Oddly, it is the Golden Globe nominated Tobey Maguire who seems most miss cast, not for a lack of ability on his part but for his gangly adolescent-like frame.  Though he is clearly a talented performer, his body lacks the gravitas of fatherhood and military service that is normally associated with American war heroes.  No matter, though, because the talented trio are superbly supported by two of the greatest child actors ever seen on screen.  Bailee Madison and Taylor Grace Geare perform with a genuinely magnificent sophistication sorely lacking in many actors thrice their age.

Carried by the strong performances, the narrative itself is interesting enough but clearly plays second fiddle to the talent.  Beautifully written and excellently timed, the highs and lows provide enough of a light relief to last you through the traumas.  Indeed, director Jim Sheridan sustains a striking contrast between the frantic and the calm, the internal war and peace, which make up the existence of this family; birthed by their government’s battles.  Though perhaps not as ground breaking as some of its peers, Brothers is well and truly beautiful.  A uniquely gifted ensemble handles a story which needs to be told again and again.

Up In The Air

3/5

Directed by: Jason Reitman

Starring: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick

Sitting in the middle of the long road to the Oscars, here in the UK it is easy to get lost amidst the sea of talked about films, half of which have yet to be released on this side of the Atlantic.  Much hyped, partly for its writing and partly for its performances, Up In The Air is one of those films that we all heard about long before we had the chance to see.  Something of an unfair pressure, the question then becomes whether or not it can live up to the hype; and it is not an easy question to answer.  Immediately gripping in some ways, Up In The Air is quite off putting in others.  It is possibly a product that will be more greatly appreciated by critics and film enthusiasts than it will by wider audiences.

George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham; a man who is paid to fire other people and has the pleasure of flying all over the country to carry out his less than joyful work.  Feeling liberated by his transient lifestyle, Bingham dreams of clocking up a grand total of ten million air miles.  Unfortunately for him, his play boy lifestyle is threatened by the young Natalie Keener, whose ideas of video conference firing may change his industry forever.  Caught between his family, his love affair with the equally high-flying Alex and his executive lifestyle, Bingham is forced to make some serious decisions and face the possibility of … settling down!

The opening sequence is killer!  It grabs you from the very first second with slick scenography, slick writing and the slickly choreographed routines of the airport.  Slick is really the operative word as the whole thing begins to soar on the writing of Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, along with the former’s trademark dry whit.  There are moments where the repartee is truly thunderous and one can only watch in admiration as the able performers churn through the brilliant lines like a knife through a super soft low fat spread.  Oddly, it is that same brilliant dryness characterising Reitman’s work which also limits the potential of this particular piece.  Whilst the writing may impress us, the characters struggle to match the wonder of the words and never really manage to draw us in.

Whether or not you are enjoying it, if you cannot feel the characters you are not likely to feel the film.  As Bingham’s affair with Alex, played by the brilliant Vera Farmiga, takes a terribly predictable turn you really are left to wonder why it is that you should care.  The man is essentially cold and it is hard to love a cold man; real or fictional.

Credit must be given to Anna Kendrick for delivering an engaging and heart warming performance, amidst all that frozen stuff, with an endearing charm.  George Clooney is overshadowed, though, by his female co-stars as he never breaks from his usual rigidity.  It is good work turned in by all here, maybe even great, but the lack of charisma does take a toll.  Something needs to loosen up a little.  A belly laugh here or there never hurt anyone.

The Book Of Eli

4/5

Directed by: The Hughes Brothers

Starring: Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman and Mila Kunis

Dusty roads, grey skies and howling winds … ragged clothes, messy hair and dirty faces … bandits, rapists and cannibals … all the standard tell tale signs of this now exhausted formula are here.  The whole post apocalyptic, dystopian wasteland thing has been done to death of late and, with I Am Legend only just behind us, it seems poor timing to doll out another ‘religious thriller’ of this kind.  Anyone looking at the paperwork would be forgiven for giving this one a miss, but they would certainly have missed out.  The Book Of Eli is what one might call a rare triumph; as gripping as it is original and as pious as it is ‘f***ing awesome.’

Denzel Washington is Eli, one of the few remaining who are old enough to remember the world before ‘the flash.’  Thirty winters since the catastrophic event have passed and Eli lives solely to ensure that his book finds a safe home.  Traveling across America, he encounters Carnegie, played by Gary Oldman; a wannabe Hitler on the look out for said volume.  Believing that the man who could reintroduce the Bible to the world would become its ruler, Carnegie is determined to eliminate Eli and take the King James edition into his own possession.  Carnegie’s only problem is that Eli is what the cool kids might call, well, ‘bad ass.’

Unlike many artistic projects heavily dowsed in religiosity, the Hughes Brothers have managed to create a film that feels one hundred percent cool.  Completely avoiding cringe, this film is smooth, edgy and pretty damn funny to boot.  As always, Denzel Washington is the consummate professional, presenting a perfectly formed character with charm and panache.  Gary Oldman’s villain is a little more ham, hobbling around with a permanent grimace, but he pulls it off as only Gary Oldman could.  Offsetting each other brilliantly, the pair represent immovable pillars of opposing strength at the film’s foundation.  The artful sequences of violence are executed with enviable grace and little pockets of well placed humour support the whole beautifully.

The Book Of Eli’s real worth though is in its killer twist.  Capable of making M. Night Shyamalan set down his quill for good, it is impossible to do this film any justice without actually revealing what the twist is.  Suffice it to say that we are talking about an ending which is unguessable, inconceivable and utterly amazing.  Tying together all of the religious themes, conflicts of will and the animalistic, visceral struggles of the characters, writer Gary Whitta has pulled a show-stopper out of the bag.  Not one for the faint of heart and geared more towards a male audience, The Book Of Eli may never receive the acclaim that it deserves.  But know that it is deserving … it really is deserving.

Shakira She Wolf

4/5

While the world goes goo-goo-Ga-Ga-loo, the original queen of pop-crazy, Shakira, is still dishing out the hits, charged up as ever.  With a glossier, more electro-pop coat than the rock tinged hide of Oral Fixation Vol. 2, She Wolf demonstrates a greater creativity than any of Shakira’s early Alanis-wannabe material.  Similarly preoccupied with all that is carnal, sexuality and female expression are definitely at the heart of the material and what Shakira may lack in vocal prowess, she more than makes up for in sensuality.  Ain’t nobody can pull off those animal moans the way she can!  It’s just a shame there isn’t a little more bulk to the album.

More slender and svelte than previous efforts, unusually there is nothing on She Wolf that needs to be trimmed.  The title track is a triumph of animalistic ingenuity, setting the pace and leading the way beautifully.  Second single Did It Again is a treasure; fiercely driven by percussion and plenty of plaintive ‘Uuooohs,’ it’s a hard tune to shake.  Men In This Town is a female anthem a la Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, a sure fire hit if released, and the mellower tones of Gypsy bring a little balance to the collection.  If anything is missing it’s Underneath Your Clothes part II but that’s easily forgiven when the rest of the album is so much fun.

Teaming up once again with her old buddy Wyclef, and cementing their ‘poverty-breeds-artistry’ pairing, Spy is a beacon of originality and not at all an imitation of its predecessor.  Borrowing production from the likes of The Neptunes, John Hill and, or course, Wyclef Jean gives She Wolf something of an ‘around the world in eighty days feel’; lit up with percussive beats and musical motifs gathered from just about everywhere.  This she wolf certainly does get around!  No doubt there will be plenty of gyrating and hip shaking to accompany live performances of the material and why not?  Who wouldn’t want to see the she wolf shaking it?  More please!

Nine

2/5

Directed By: Rob Marshall

Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Sophia Loren, Kate Hudson and Fergie

Like any young mobster looking to prove himself amongst the Dons of this world, it seems that most stories these days have to show what they’re made of in every other arena before they finally make it to Hollywood.  You would think that with such a rigorous training ground and having overcome so many trials, a story that has gone from film to stage and stage to film once more would be pretty near perfect.  Sadly it seems, some tales still manage to slip through the net without having undergone the necessary sifting.

Less of a story than a reflection, Nine follows a famous Italian film director, Guido Contini, as he attempts to hone his craft, haunted by the many women who have crossed his path.  The mistress, the mentor, the temptress, the whore, the mother and the tragic, tragic wife … too many cooks!  Not entirely innocent himself, Guido seems to have difficulty living up to his own media hype and controlling his rampant libido.  Fragments of his imagination blur with his concept of reality and the women he loves, of which there have been a fair few, end up falling through the cracks.

The watery thin plot has very few plusses, punctuated with songs about as purposeful as they are memorable, but it is not difficult imagining Nine as a very intense straight play.  The motivation for the big glamour musical, though, just seems inappropriate somehow as a representation of a mind so clouded and masticated by debauchery.  What we have here, in fact, is a pale shadow of the glimmering inspiration behind 2002’s Chicago and a waif like impersonation of its captivating charisma.  Trading on all the same tricks, Marshall’s latest directorial effort has the polish of its predecessor but not so much of the substance.

Where Nine really hits the mark is the stellar performances from its first rate cast.  Daniel Day-Lewis is once again unrecognisably transformed as Guido, with an enviable charm and enough killer chat up lines to keep the women of Rome off the streets for a decade.  Nicole Kidman is faultless, as always, and Kate Hudson turns in a star performance as a slightly pointless but very sexy journalist.  Shedding the hunch of Piaf as easily as a snake’s skin, it is the stunning Marion Cotillard, though, who steals the show and manages to upstage Penélope Cruz, not only with her incredible talent but her sensational figure also.  Even Fergie’s Grammy winning vocals fail to draw the attention away from the French lovely.  Marshall’s greatest success here is the never ending parade of breathtaking beauties that make up the women behind Guido’s fame.  Though the script is biting and the presentation slick, the whole does not quite seem to fit together.  What is missing though?  Action?   Originality?  Empathy!

Avatar

5/5

Directed by: James Cameron

Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi & Sigourney Weaver

It may not be a new story, but it is a great one.  More than ten years after the roaring success of Titanic, James Cameron is pushing the boat out once again, this time with Avatar.  Bound up by tired themes of prejudice vs tolerance, strip-mining vs tree-hugging and ignorance vs understanding, Avatar follows Captain John Smith as he befriends a young Indian princess … no sorry … it is the story of Kevin Costner’s attempts to help the Lakota on the American frontier … oops, mixed up again!  It is in fact the tale of a paraplegic marine named Jake Sully whose mission is to infiltrate the ranks of the alien inhabitants of a distant planet, rich with valuable minerals.  Aided by a new technology which allows him to possess a hybrid replica body of the native Na’vi, an ‘avatar’, matters take a complicated turn when Jake finds himself romantically involved with the princess Neytiri as well as being spiritually attached to her people.

To claim that this story is in any way original would be foolish but to deny its potential for empathy and pathos would be equally so.  It is, in fact, a classic.  Who could not be moved by a people’s attempt to save their world, and who could not envy the deep rooted satisfaction of life that leads them to defend it so passionately?  At worst you may feel a little like a school child ‘learning about racism’ but you will not be able to avoid the tingling sensations that accompany the ascension of an underdog.

Of course Avatar’s real draw is nothing to do with the tale but lies in the much talked about, ground breaking visual effects.  To see this film in 2D would be a treat sorely missed.  Unlike previous 3D successes like Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs and Up where the third dimension was really a much needed gimmick attached to a less than thrilling picture, James Cameron masterfully uses the third dimension to enhance our experience as we explore a whole new world with Jake Sully.  Never before has a fictional exploration been so … sensory.  Heaving waterfalls and gaping chasms literally draw gasps and the integration of human actors with computer animated characters is the closest to flawless we have seen yet.  Be excited!  This is a bold step into the future of movie making.

Impressively cohesive, this juggernaut is nothing short of a visual feast.  Perhaps best described as ‘Pocahontas for men,’ the big guns and adrenaline leaps are beautifully underscored by a powerful romance and, of course, the whole thing is coated in a healthy dose of ethical debate.  If Cameron’s visuals cannot impress you then James Horner’s ethereal soundtrack must, with haunting vocals lent by the ever lovely Leona Lewis.  Finally it can be said, for once without a hint of hyperbole, that this film is quite literally breathtaking.

An Education

4/5

Directed by: Lone Scherfig

Starring: Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Emma Thompson, Dominic Cooper, Olivia Williams, Alfred Molina and Rosamund Pike

To those of us ill-fated enough to be born in the decade of shoulder pads, mullets and metal, the fulness of life is forever denied; reared with the crushing belief that no time will ever be as cool, as free or as bohemian as the 1960s.  What with The Beatles, Hepburn and the birth of free love, how could any other New Romantic, Girl Power decade ever compete?  After an hour and a half of sitting through this gloriously rich, thick cut dialogue between the bourgeois relics of the 50s and the young champions of liberated pleasure, An Education proves, hands down, that the 60s wins the decade of the century award … and then some.

Adapted from the autobiography of journalist Lynn Barber by Nick Hornby, An Education charts the coming of age of one Jenny Mellor; a promising school girl, a well rounded Oxbridge candidate and an exceptionally gifted conversationalist.  A coincidental meeting with middle-aged play boy David plunges Jenny into a decadent world of fine art, fine clothes and fabulous French music.  Wildly opposed to the studious lifestyle envisioned by Jenny’s father, it is a road that leads to heartbreak and wasted potential.

Draped in an array of costumes that are best described as breathtaking, Carey Mulligan leads an exceptional ensemble cast with both flair and poise.  Mulligan captures the perfect balance between an academic wisdom and a worldly naiveté and not only is she beautiful, but her timing is spot on and her delivery perfect.  Peter Sarsgaard is disarmingly charming as the dangerous David whilst Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike support with an aloof sophistication that would make even Evelyn Waugh envious.  If possible, Pike is perhaps even more ravishing than she was back in her days as a Bond girl and Emma Thompson is flawless, as always, in her small but memorable role as Jenny’s virtuous Pharisee of a Headmistress.

Together with Nick Hornby’s beautifully lyrical text, director Lone Scherfig creates a world of intoxicating temptation, for toxic it truly is, as beguiling for the audience as it is for the chief protagonist. The only hole, perhaps, is in the blindly driven ignorance of Jenny’s parents as they thrust her towards an Oxford education with an almost farcical and cringe-worthy pretence to pomp.  Amidst the whirligig of artists, authors and glamorous locations, though, this frustration is easily forgotten as An Education slides elegantly towards its humble and poignant conclusion.

Mariah Carey Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel

2/5

So what happened?  This last decade has seen Mariah Carey throw away her old Walter Afanasieff formulas and twee one word album titles, like Daydream, Rainbow and Butterfly, in favour of risky, innovative, up to the minute R&B.  Well, this is no one word title but the record clearly marks a giant step backward in Mariah’s ‘glittering’ career.  Lacking the adrenaline high vocals of The Emancipation of Mimi, and missing the driving beats of E=MC², Memoirs is safe, mid-tempo and, well, just a little dull.  In fairness, it is also slick, polished and beautiful in places.

Having sold over 165 million albums, it seems unlikely that a superstar like Mariah Carey will really suffer much from one disappointing record, but where Memoirs really falls flat is in its retrospective feel.  Tagged as a ‘greatest hits album without using the greatest hits,’ Mariah and The Dream have returned to the muted, lacklustre approach of Charmbracelet with a classic Butterfly-esque ballad thrown on the end; her cover of Foreigner’s I Want To Know What Love Is.  Sure the vocals are great but much of the material is lacking.  The track succeeds in demonstrating Mariah’s thriving powerhouse vocals but the unmistakably 80s feel of the song seems out of place amongst a collection of urban slow jams.

Oddly for Carey, who is probably better known for her melodies than her lyrics, Memoirs is really her most interesting work lyrically.  Of course we get the standard love songs but we also see Mariah choosing to fore-ground her lyrics on a number of tracks this time around, as well as exploring darker than usual themes of revenge and aggression.  This is Mariah  Carey angrier than we have ever seen her before, which is somewhat strange since she seems to have finally found herself happily married.  Still, however, Memoirs’ strongest track is the lilting, laid back love song Ribbon with stomping lead single Obsessed coming a close second.  If Mrs Nick Cannon wants to see her renewed success lasting another twenty years, though, she is going to have to do better than this.  She raised the bar and now she has to top it every single time.

Law Abiding Citizen

4/5

 

Directed by: F. Gary Gray

 

Starring: Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler

 

Clyde Shelton is an inventor.  Seemingly a good-natured family man, the devil takes hold of his extremely well motivated hands following the murder of his wife and daughter.  Nick Rice is an attorney.  After striking a somewhat Faustian deal with one of the killers, to secure the conviction of the other, he finds himself the target of Shelton’s latent malevolence.  Ten years pass and, needless to say, the tragedy is not forgotten.  The Philadelphia justice system shudders as Shelton emerges a fully fledged terrorist with the imagination of Leonardo da Vinci and the know-how to back it up.

 

Starting out as the love-child of Enemy Of The State and Saw, Law Abiding Citizen soon establishes itself as a story deeply rooted in biting moral debate.  Much like the tragic heroes of Sophocles and Euripides, Shelton is a man throttling down the path of hubris towards a gripping climax.  Director F. Gary Gray frames Shelton brilliantly as an early Catholic martyr praying the rosary; defying a corrupt system as he calmly twiddles the beads on a bracelet his daughter made for him.  Both committed family men, Rice and Shelton play tug of war with a rope twisted from dual strands of intellect and action.  The story pivots on this constant back and forth; two forces, each fighting in the name of God, with no right answer.  The issue is a fascinating one.

 

A well balanced combination of ballsy action sequences, powerful rhetoric and stinging pathos, Law Abiding Citizen is easily appealing to a wide range of audiences.  More Daniel Craig’s Bond than Roger Moore’s, the gutsy script provides a safety net of humour with just the right amount of gore to make the experience feel dangerous.  It’s edgy, it’s clever and more importantly it asks questions, and valid ones at that!  Foxx and Butler are even matched in ability and both turn in convincing and engaging performances.  Where Law Abiding Citizen possibly falls flat is in the unravelling of the game.

 

Whilst wanting to surrender and just go with the flow, you could easily be forgiven for feeling like you need a bit more detail.  All of the scheming, the technology, the wizardry seems to be just a little out of reach.  Though not necessarily a bad thing, the final reveal is perhaps a little less empowering than other similarly successful thriller flicks.  If you can live with a bit of mystery, problem solved.  If not, you could well find yourself a little underwhelmed.