110
110 minutes is the longest of the three films I saw today in the name of duty (the other two were, coincidentally, 101 apiece). I have a lot of films to see over the next month in order to become Mark Kermode on television and radio. Today, which is always a big day for the proper film critics as it's National Press Screening day for all the nationals and Sundays, I saw the following (which I won't review in depth as there may be embargoes):
Land Of The Lost (curious mix of knowing rubber-monster nostalgia for 1970s TV show we never saw and state-of-the-art Jurassic Park CGI with Will Ferrell in front of it, caught between a number of stools but essentially the teenage boy audience - look, a lady with tits in a vest, dude! - and the older, grown-up, saw-the-original audience - funny acid trip sequence, man! - which makes for an uneven ride, levened by scene-stealing performance by Danny McBride), Coco Avant Chanel (tasteful but largely uneventful French biopic with Audrey Tatou as the quite grumpy, and dull, dressmaker), and Adam (another Brit goes to Hollywood and does a decent American accent - Hugh Dancy - in rather superficial but touching and wholly predictable Asperger's-based love story). That's my day. No screenings tomorrow, but Orphan on Wednesday, and both parts of Mesrine on Thursday. As holiday cover, Kermode is much higher maintenance than doing Lauren Laverne on 6 Music, but I like a challenge.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 8:40 PM
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surely Kermode cover includes the purchase of a red tie/black suit combo with a bucket of Brylcream on your head? Come on, it'd be 'ironic'. And you always wear black anyway on the telly? No?
Oh. Okay then.
"doing Lauren Laverne on 6 Music" Fnar, Fnar!
First Anne Widdecombe, now this. There's just no stopping you.
Here's a question. Are British film critics able to evaluate the authenticity of Brit actors American accents? I'm not sure I'd be able to spot a 'reverse Dick Van Dyke'. Though I suspect Eddie Izzard's in 'The Riches' might be close.
Never mind critics - are British viewers able to evaluate the authenticiy of Brit actors' American accents? Yes. We hear enough real Americans on telly and in film. Recall how dodgy Hugh Laurie's accent was when House started, and how much better it is now. Who ever doubted the authenticity of Idris Elba's in The Wire? Or Stephen Moyer's in True Blood? A good accent is the kind you don't spot. Eddie Izzard's was occasionally suspect in The Riches, but I still liked the show. It's not a dealbreaker for me, but I am impressed when it's done well. Americans are much worse at British accents.
Good examples. I never doubted Stringer Bell as an authentic American for a second. Dominic West's seems a little bit more generic. I'd be curious to know what Baltimore natives think?
I really liked Adam, to my faint surprise (I saw it because I was interviewing Hugh Dancy, who was lovely). It was indeed predictable, but I thought it was a a refreshingly uncutesy depiction of a neuro-atypical person - I think it showed how difficult he could be at lot of the time.
You're Mark Kermode? Are all my must-listen podcasts going to collapse into one super-dense one?
( (c) The day today I think.)
Mr Collings - I had the pleasure of subtitling your Film 24 effort on Friday (well, the 9:45pm repeat anyway), and very lovely it was too. Unfortunately, although you are a heavenly dream for subtitlers compared to Mark "10,000 words a minute" Kermode, you are still a little on the rapid side, so I had to edit quite brutally, leaving a rather threadbare, staccato narrative of facts and opinions and no jokey flavour (I managed to get the one about Antichrist being a date movie in. Hooray!)
So I must apologise for making your deaf/hard of hearing viewers think that you were barking brief statements at your co-host like some demented general. And that you asked the nonsensical question "Why must Hollywood keep remaking my chartered?"
Sorry. But I enjoyed the section.
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