Mild Concern

Snobbish, scatty, ill-informed, inconsistent and not as funny (or clever) as we think we are. MildConcern.com is a UK-based website celebrating film, TV and the arts.

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VERONICA MARS (REVIEW)

Mild Concern has written a second review for the Prince Charles Cinema blog, Jeff Goldblum's Laugh.

For those not currently aware of the cult and critical, but not ratings success, that was Veronica Mars allow me to set the scene.  The titular character of Veronica is a high school student in the fictional Californian town of Neptune and is played by the Frozen star Kristen Bell. Having dated the richest guy in school and been a fixture of the popular crowd for years Veronica’s life falls apart when her best friend is murdered and her dad, the local Sheriff, accuses her boyfriend’s dad. Flash forward to the start of the series and Veronica is an outsider at High School and her dad is now working as a private investigator. In her spare time she works as a teen detective solving a case each episode while working on the season long case; in the first instance the murder of her best friend. I realise that written down this all sounds quite hokey but somehow the high school detective works brilliantly and the teen noir show from creator Rob Thomas is a dark, witty series filled with rounded characters and dialogue to quote all over your LiveJournal. Hey, it worked in Brick so why can’t it work here? Beside Joss Whedon was a fan of the show, and even cameoed in an episode, so take that as an endorsement from someone with great taste and a healthy bank balance, neither of which I possess.

Read More: Veronica Mars review at Jeff Goldblum's Laugh

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Veronica Mars – Film Review

I’ve talked to you a lot over the years about Veronica Mars, even more so over the past few weeks. Starting as a teen noir TV series in 2004 Veronica Mars followed High School detective Veronica (Kristen Bell) as she tried to solve her best friend’s murder, figure out who raped her, and help out at her dad’s private detective agency. It was a surprisingly dark teen drama with clever dialogue and believable characters. The show was beloved by too few people and finished in 2007. Rumours of a film continuing the story were rife as usual and I was not convinced. Cue 2013 and the film has a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign which spawned a dozen imitators and more importantly raised funds for the Veronica Mars film to be a reality.

Read More: Veronica Mars - Film review at MildConcern.com

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Veronica Mars UK Trailer

Finally! We have been sent the UK trailer for the Veronica Mars movie which gets a limited UK cinema release on 14th March 2014 and will be available for digital download on the same day.

For anyone unfamiliar with the Veronica Mars universe please read my previous ramblings, and that time I got statistical. For the die-hard fans I give you the trailer, enjoy!

Veronica Mars UK Trailer at MildConcern.com

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Inside Llewyn Davis – LFF Film Review

When it comes to the latest film by the Coen brothers Inside Llewyn Davis I pretty much just want to tell you that it’s a great film, both funny and moving and blah blah blah, and for you to just go and see it. This is Joel and Ethan Coen we’re talking about here, they don’t really make bad films (ignoring for convenience a weak spot in the early noughties). If you need more convincing I will go on.

Read More: Inside Llewyn Davis – LFF Film Review at MildConcern.com

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The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears – LFF Review

I don’t think I was properly equipped to watch this film let alone review it. The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tearsis a French giallo-inspired body horror sexual thriller ordeal that spent the better part of two hours putting me through a lot of brutal images and intense tension that failed to relent from the brutal opening titles to the films bloody close.

Read More: The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears – LFF Review at MildConcern.com

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Computer Chess – LFF Film Review

Computer Chess is a bit of a curio. When it begins you are instantly struck by its unique production style as to compliment its 1980s setting the film was shot on black and white video and the visuals are precisely as low quality as this implies. The film is set over a long weekend in an American hotel where a convention of computer programmers has congregated to battle their chess codes against one another, the victor having to then attempt to beat a human being. The ropey images nicely match the shabbily dressed men that litter the film and the period the film is set where presentations are given using overhead projectors with slides composed on acetates.

Read More: Computer Chess – LFF Film Review at MildConcern.com

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The Double – LFF Film Review

Only a few minutes into Richard Ayoade’s second film as director I wrote in my note book in capital letters “I LOVE THIS” and ninety minutes later I did not disagree with myself. Ayoade’s first feature Submarine was a hilarious story of young love that was very much grounded in reality but shot with a distinctive style that stood it out from the crowd. With The Double Ayoade has truly evolved as a film-maker as he has taken his unique eye for film and run with it to create a surreal masterpiece that David Lynch would be proud of.

Read More: The Double – LFF Film Review at MildConcern.com

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At Berkeley – LFF Film Review

Two years ago I saw Frederick Wiseman’s previous documentary Crazy Horse in which he took viewers inside Paris’ nude dance revue for just over two hours. Despite the potentially titillating subject matter I found myself bored out of my mind and running for the exit when they threatened us with a Q&A with Wiseman. This year I found myself back in the grip of the much-lauded documentarian as I sat down to watch his latest documentary about Berkeley university that comes in at an astonishing 244 minutes in length. If two hours of strippers won’t entertain me what chance does four hours of university lectures have?

Read More: At Berkeley – LFF Film Review at MildConcern.com

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Night Moves – LFF Film Review

I am someone who loves their bed; I love to be in it and hate to leave it. Because of this a film has a lot to answer for when I am forced (by nobody other than myself) to attend a screening that starts at nine o’clock on a Saturday morning. Night Moves was off to a bad start before it had even begun.

Read More: Night Moves – LFF Film Review at MildConcern.com

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Prince Avalanche – Film Review

David Gordon Green first come onto my radar with his second film All the Real Girls which he made a decade ago. The film was a long mumble-filled affair that sticks in my mind as a defining example of American independent cinema and as the film that gave Zooey Deschanel her first lead role. In the years since Green has veered away from the character driven drama to a more comedic and mainstream path through films including Pineapple Express, Your Highness and The Sitter. Considering this CV you might get the wrong idea when I say that his latest feature is a comedy starring Paul Rudd; Prince Avalanche is not a broad buddy comedy but a sweet, funny, and understated comedy about two men who are anything but buddies.

Read More: Prince Avalanche – Film Review at MildConcern.com

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We Are the Best! – LFF Film Review

“Fun” is not a word I use a lot when talking about the film festival experience. Often films are better described by words such as “worthy”, “important”, “dull”, “oscar-worthy”, “impenetrable”, or “borderline pornographic” but withWe Are the Best! there really is no better word to apply to it than “fun”.

It is Stockholm in the early 1980s, everyone is wearing amazing jumpers, and punk is dead. Or is it? Two young girls, Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) and Klara (Mira Grosin), team up to form their own punk band purely to spite a group of boys who want to use the same rehearsal space. With no musical skills to speak of they recruit friendless guitar-playing Christian Hedvig (Liv LeMoyne) and a new punk band (NOT a girl band) is formed.

Read More: We Are the Best! – LFF Film Review at MildConcern.com

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Starred Up – LFF Film Review

Jack O’Connell plays Eric, a young offender who is “starred up” (it’s the name of the movie!) and moved to adult prison ahead of time at the age of nineteen. Eric is prone to explosive bouts of violence which threaten to put both his chance of release and his life in severe danger. The prison Eric is moved to also houses his estranged father Neville (Ben Mendelsohn) and the hope is that his presence will help calm the brutal teenager but he finds more authentic help in the form of volunteer counsellor Oliver (Rupert Friend).

Read more: Starred Up LFF Film Review at Mild Concern.com

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Floating Skyscrapers – LFF Film Review

When a film opens with a lingering shot of a men’s bathroom with no visible characters and faint wet noises that you can only assume are produced by some illicit oral sex, you know you are in for a slightly challenging ride.Floating Skyscrapers is the story of a young Polish swimmer struggling with his homosexuality whilst living with his mother and his girlfriend. It is a story of denial, desire, and consequences that is a first for Poland as writer/director Tomasz Wasilewski describes it as “the first Polish LGBT film”.

Read More: Floating Skyscrapers LFF film review at MildConcern.com

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Nebraska – LFF Film Review

Two years ago Alexander Payne brought the London Film Festival his Oscar-winning film The Descendants. The film about family, told through the story of a father on a road trip with his offspring, was sweet, funny, and authentic. Nebraska is not dissimilar as it stars Will Forte and Bruce Dern as father and son (Woody and David respectively) who travel 700 miles to see if Woody has won $1 million in a sweepstakes. His family sees it as an obvious scam but David decides to indulge his father as he teeters on the edge of dementia.

Read More: Nebraska LFF Film Review at MildConcern.com

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Out Now – 4th October 2013

Because yesterday was National Poetry Day (and Kat did it once) today’s Out Now is written in the form of haikus.

Thanks for Sharing Hi Mark Ruffalo! Sex addiction is a joke? Gwyneth may annoy.

Sunshine on Leith The Proclaimers’ songs Get Mamma Mia treatment. Thanks Dexter Fletcher.

How I Live Now Third world war breaks out. A girl on holiday hides. Saoirse Ronan stars.

Emperor Worthy war film time. Where have you been Matthew Fox? Hang the Emperor?

The To Do List Finally Plaza Lead in raunchy comedy Contains frequent sex.

Camp 14: Total Control Zone Documentary North Korean Prisoner Head to the South!

Rurouni Kenshin Bakumatsu war. Sounds like form of long grain rice. Samurai wanders.

For Those in Peril Fishing accident. One boy is blamed and outcast. He must find the lost.

The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology Kat saw this last year. She struggled with it a lot. Philosophical.

The Crash Reel Shaun White / Kevin Pearce. Rivalry on the half-pipe. Try not to crash. Ouch.

Metallica Through the Never Metallica songs. Not my cup of tea. Or pot. Roadie on mission.

Flower Girl Romance, comedy. A florist and movie star. From Nigeria.

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This Ain’t Chemistry. This Is Art: An Analysis Of Breaking Bad And The Heisenberg Principle

“You lost your partner today. What’s his name – Emilio? Emilio is going to prison. The DEA took all your money, your lab. You got nothing. Square one. But you know the business and I know the chemistry. I’m thinking… maybe you and I could partner up.”

Breaking Bad 101

When Breaking Bad first aired in the UK it was run on 5USA and then dropped after its second season failed to prove a hit for the network (possibly because of invisible marketing and obscure scheduling). Think about that for a moment. A show now widely heralded as perhaps the greatest television show ever – even over The Wire some say – was dropped by…… a sister of Channel 5. Luckily for those who did love the series, Netflix UK swooped in to give it a reprieve in early 2012 and it quickly became a poster child of the on-demand streaming service industry.

To be fair it’s not hard to see why in its earlier years broadcasters shied away from Breaking Bad. A show about a middle-aged man with cancer who decides to cook methamphetamine? That’s three counts on the studio exec’s “every successful show needs to be populated by young hotties, not be about a depressing illness and certainly not follow the corruption of man via a life of crime and moral ambiguity” chart. Who could ever see that being successful?

Truth is people want the grim. People want the corrupt. People want the tragic. The story of an above average-minded man living a pitifully average life before circumstances and a series of ill-thought out choices take him to extremely dark places is exactly what we, the ever-unhappy-with-our-own-lives, average viewers of television want.

Legacy, self-worth, family and a generous seasoning of tragedy: Breaking Bad is tight.

Read More - This Ain’t Chemistry. This Is Art: An Analysis Of Breaking Bad And The Heisenberg Principle at MildConcern.com

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Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman – Film Review

When I first heard about this film I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the title. A film like this can go one of two ways; it can be a brilliant piece of exploitation satire like Black Dynamite or simple a cheap bit of exploitation cinema itself. So what would Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman be? Would is be the good or the bad. Unfortunately it was neither, it was the ugly or rather the mediocre.

Read More: Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman – Film Review at MildConcern.com