Criticker has just switched its front-page focus box onto British filmmaker Mike Leigh, whose new drama Happy-Go-Lucky has just arrived in American theaters.
Mike Leigh talks about Happy-Go-Lucky
Mike Leigh will be a familiar name to any movie fan who appreciates intelligent, character-driven dramas. Since the 70s, Leigh’s been writing and directing wonderful films, often in conjunction with Britain’s excellent Channel 4 (the USA needs a Channel 4!) The honest, true-to-life characters are what stand out most in his movies — nobody is a caricature, as he resists painting people as 100% good or evil. His is engaging cinema, worth multiple viewings.
We’ve decided to share Leigh’s top 5 ranked films at Criticker. Did your favorite make the list?
It must be mentioned that 1973’s critically-acclaimed Hard Labour also got high marks, but very few Criticker users have seen it, so we didn’t include it in this list.
As is the case with a lot of cool free stuff from the States, it’s not available to anyone outside of the USA or Canada. GRRRR! Don’t you recognize your fan-base is largely in Europe, Mr. Moore?!
The film chronicles Moore’s tour across American college campuses in the run-up to the 2004 Presidential Election. According to Moore, the “goal was to help turn out a record number of young voters and others who had never voted before. (That part was a success. Young adults voted in greater numbers than in any election since 18-year-olds were given the right to vote. And the youth vote was the only age group that John Kerry won.)”
Wow, all thanks to You: The Soul of the Liberal Machine, I’m sure. Actually, it’s probably a good thing that the film isn’t available to those of us outside the US… if it were, I’d feel compelled to watch it, and then would spend 3 weeks fuming about how obnoxiously self-impressed Mr. Moore is.
This weekend, audiences got their first look at W., Oliver Stone’s most recent attempt at generating controversy.
Oy… it was self-evident that Stone wasn’t going to paint an attractive portrait of our Commander-in-Chief, but this film really isn’t going to pull any punches. Is it presumptuous to bring out a biopic while the guy is still in office? I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. We’ve all had to live with Bush and his policies for 8 long years… and I think it’s valid for a filmmaker to take a critical look at the wounds while they’re still fresh.
I just wish that filmmaker wasn’t Oliver Stone! This film is going to be dismissed by half of America before it even hits screens.
Josh Brolin looks great, though, as Dubya. And, who knew Tony Blair was such a hottie?!
By way of Andrew Sullivan’s blog comes a set of the most famous Steadicam sequences of all time. Such shots involve a great amount of time and patience, and often the story behind the shot is as interesting as the product itself.
And, though it wasn’t mentioned in Sullivan’s blog, we can’t leave out Joe Wright’s extraordinary sequence from Atonement. I can’t find an embeddable clip, so you’ll have to click over to YouTube to watch it.
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Others that we’ve forgotten? We know that the all-time ultimate single-shot sequence must be Russian Ark, by Aleksander Sokurov, which is an entire 90-minute movie without a single cut.
If you haven’t had enough, make sure to spend some time at Steadishots.org, which dedicates itself to the “tribute and study of Steadicam operators and their work”.
Anyone?? How about if I told you that it will be the remake of a cult film from the ’90s?
— deafening silence —
Alright, alright. But what’s your reaction when you hear that the film — a remake of Abel Ferrera’s Bad Lieutenant from 1992 — will be directed by celebrated German filmmaker Werner Herzog? If you’re at all like us, it’s bewildered curiosity.
Herzog is much-loved here at Criticker HQ, thanks in large part to his penchant for strange material. He’s mainly been making documentaries for years now, which makes his decision to remake a 16-year old cop film intriguing. And with Bad Lieutenant, he seems to be willfully assembling the most annoying cast possible. Perhaps he just wants to enrage fans of the original, and then film their reactions for an ironic making-of? What are you playing at, Werner?
Anyway, we’re interested. I’ll even type a sentence, which I had previously assumed my mind unable to construct: “I can’t wait for that new Xzibit film”. There. It’s on record.
I just found out about this really cool Alfred Hitchcock resource page, loaded with everything you need to know about the master of suspense. I especially like their 1000 frames of Hitchcock feature:
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