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.
Never Knowingly Underwhelmed 