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You are here: Home Leisure Arts & Culture Cinema: the state of play in Obama's US (page 2)
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18/06/2009Cinema: the state of play in Obama's US

Picturenose’s James Drew wants to be a journalist like Russell Crowe in 'State of Play', while Jeremy Slater tells you why you shouldn’t miss Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut, 'Synecdoche, New York'.

(Page 2 of 4)

Matthew Michael Carnahan and Tony Gilroy have done an excellent job of compressing the three-hour original into a tight, breathless 120 minutes, and the film’s greatest strength lies in its unsensational, sincere approach to the journalist’s daily grind. As with All the President’s Men, State of Play illustrates very well how even the biggest stories are nailed not by lightning flashes of inspiration, but rather the plodding painstaking process of making the calls and getting people on the record. Crowe, on the other side of the coin here from his role in The Insider, is entirely believable as the newshound who’s prepared to put everything on the line, while Mirren excels (she seems incapable of doing otherwise these days) as his increasingly hacked-off boss.

State of Play trailer

Only the ending may seem a touch pat, striving for the final twist that seems a touch tacked-on, but this is still a fine, intelligent thriller demanding close inspection.
127 mins.
James Drew

 
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
 
Why would you want to go and see a film which, for a Hollywood movie, is so down on itself and life? A film that begins depressingly and refuses to change mood is obviously not going to attract a large audience – the Brits wallowing in post-Empire angst and driven by a new type of working-class director were past masters at kitchen-sink misery nearly 50 years ago, and people wonder why the British film industry disappeared for nearly two decades soon after.




1 reaction to this article

Francesco Sinibaldi posted: 22-06-2009 | 7:26 PM

J'espère qu'à l'avenir....

Le soleil,
quand le chant
du matin couvre
le sourire avec
tendre poésies,
paraît la lumière
qui éclaire la
chanson d'un
monde solitaire,
et d'un rêve
infini.....

Francesco Sinibaldi

Inside Expatica
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