Monthly Roundup – May 2016

31 Tuesday May 2016

Tags

Arkansas, Basil Dearden, Bedouin tribes, Biopic, Boaz Yakin, Carla Balenda, Cheerleaders, Chris White, Christine Nguyen, Crazy About Tiffany's, Crime, Damian Lewis, Documentary, Dog handler, Dominique Swain, Drama, Elliott Reid, Fantasy, Gertrude Bell, Googie Withers, History, Holly Golightly, Horror, Illegal arms, J.B. Priestley, James Franco, Jamie Brown, Jewellery, Jim Wynorski, John Clements, Jon Fabris, Josh Wiggins, Lauren Graham, Lawrence of Arabia, Matthew Miele, Max, Middle East, Mystery, Nicole Kidman, Prisoners, Queen of the Desert, Reviews, Robert Pattinson, Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre, Stage play, Summer camp, The City, The Whip Hand, They Came to a City, Thomas Haden Church, Thriller, Tiffany's, Toxic waste, Traci Lords, True story, US Marines, Werner Herzog, William Cameron Menzies, Winnoga, Zombie Cheerleader Camp

Max (2015) / D: Boaz Yakin / 111m

Cast: Josh Wiggins, Thomas Haden Church, Lauren Graham, Luke Kleintank, Robbie Amell, Mia Xitlali, Dejon LaQuake, Jay Hernandez, Owen Harn

Rating: 6/10 – after his handler is killed in Afghanistan, Max goes to stay with his handler’s family, and helps expose a plot to supply arms to a Mexican cartel; a feature that ticks every box in the “family movie” canon, Max is enjoyable enough but is also too lightweight to make much of a sustained impact, even though the cast enter wholly into the spirit of things.

They Came to a City (1944) / D: Basil Dearden / 78m

Cast: John Clements, Googie Withers, Raymond Huntley, Renee Gadd, A.E. Matthews, Mabel Terry-Lewis, Ada Reeve, Norman Shelley, Fanny Rowe, Ralph Michael, Brenda Bruce, J.B. Priestley

Rating: 6/10 – nine individuals find themselves in unfamiliar terrain and on the outskirts of a vast city – and have to decide if they’re going to stay there; J.B. Priestley’s play is as close to a socialist tract as you could have got during World War II, and while They Came to a City betrays its stage origins and is relentlessly polemical, it has a stark, overbearing visual style that is actually quite effective.

Crazy About Tiffany’s (2016) / D: Matthew Miele / 86m

With: Jessica Alba, Katie Couric, Amy Fine-Collins, Fran Lebowitz, Baz Luhrmann, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Jennifer Tilly, Andrew & Andrew

Rating: 6/10 – a documentary charting the rise and rise of Tiffany’s, the jewellery store made even more famous by Truman Capote and Audrey Hepburn (who he despised in the role of Holly Golightly); a tremendously indulgent puff-piece for the company, Crazy About Tiffany’s is redeemed by some fascinating anecdotes, and the faint whiff of pretentiousness given off by most of its customers.

Queen of the Desert (2015) / D: Werner Herzog / 128m

Cast: Nicole Kidman, James Franco, Damian Lewis, Robert Pattinson, Jay Abdo, David Calder, Jenny Agutter, Holly Earl, Mark Lewis Jones, Christopher Fulford

Rating: 5/10 – a biopic of the explorer and writer, Gertrude Bell (Kidman), and how she won the trust of numerous Middle Eastern tribes at a time when British colonialism was looked upon with distrust and contempt by those very same tribes; not one of Herzog’s best (or Kidman’s), Queen of the Desert suffers from being treated as history-lite by the script, and never quite being as courageous in its efforts as Miss Bell was in hers (and not to mention a disastrous turn by Pattinson as Lawrence of Arabia).

Zombie Cheerleader Camp (2007) / D: Jon Fabris / 85m

Cast: Jamie Brown, Chris White, Nicole Lewis, Jason Greene, Brandy Blackmon, Daniel Check, Terry Chandeline Nicole Westfall, Micah Shane Ballinger

Rating: 2/10 – when cheerleaders attend a summer training camp, they’re unaware that a squirrel exposed to toxic waste will be the catalyst that turns them and a group of horny males into flesh-eating zombies; all you need to know is that Zombie Cheerleader Camp was made at the extreme low budget end of movie making and features camera work that’s so bad it’s almost a challenge to find a well-framed shot anywhere in the movie (and then there’s the “acting”…)

Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre (2015) / D: Jim Wynorski / 84m

Cast: Dominique Swain, Traci Lords, Christine Nguyen, Cindy Lucas, Amy Holt, John Callahan, Corey Landis, Skye McDonald, Chris De Christopher

Rating: 3/10 – fracking causes the release of an unspecified number of prehistoric sharks into the Arkansas waterways, and this jeopardises the escape of several women prisoners from a work detail; yes, Sharkansas (actually filmed in Florida) Women’s Prison Massacre is as bad as it sounds, and yes it is as cheesy as you’d expect, but it’s also one of the tamest and most annoying of all the recent shark-related movies we’ve had foisted upon us, and not even the talents of low budget movie maestro Wynorski can rescue this from the bottom of the barrel.

The Whip Hand (1951) / D: William Cameron Menzies / 82m

Cast: Carla Balenda, Elliott Reid, Edgar Barrier, Raymond Burr, Otto Waldis, Michael Steele, Lurene Tuttle, Peter Brocco, Lewis Martin, Frank Darien

Rating: 6/10 – a journalist (Reid) on vacation stumbles across a mystery involving a lake where the fish have all died, and a nearby ghost town where the remaining locals aren’t too friendly, and he finds himself prevented from leaving; a well-paced but forgettable effort from master production designer Menzies, The Whip Hand starts off well but soon ties itself inside out in trying to be a confident thriller, an ambition it fails to achieve thanks to untidy plotting and thin characterisations.

Question of the Week – 31 May 2016

31 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Bryan Singer, Franchise, Question of the Week, Simon Kinberg, X-Men: Apocalypse

With X-Men: Apocalypse receiving a very mixed reaction from critics and audiences alike – it’s either a terrific adaptation that feels like a filmed comic book, or it’s turgid nonsense that lacks structure and has too many characters – the recent announcement by Bryan Singer that he won’t be around for the next X-Men movie may not have come as much of a surprise. Having returned to the franchise with X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), and steered it to nearly three quarters of a billion dollars at the international box office, it seemed certain that Singer – along with writer/producer Simon Kinberg – would be able to repeat that instalment’s success with X-Men: Apocalypse. But it’s a funny thing: maybe Singer isn’t to blame, and maybe it’s not Singer who should step away from the franchise (though he probably does want to make other non-mutant filled movies). No, perhaps it should be Simon Kinberg, the writer of X-Men: Apocalypse, and wait – hang on, the writer of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) (that quote of Jean Grey’s – “At least we can all agree the third one is always the worst” – begins to make sense now). And wait just one second – he wrote Fantastic Four (2015) as well! (WtF?) With this in mind, this week’s question is an easy one:

With the latest X-Men trilogy now completed, is it time for a fresh pair of hands to take control of any further X-Men movies and bring a new perspective on it all, or should we let the same people carry on and potentially devalue the franchise even further?

Race (2016)

30 Monday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

1936 Olympics, Athletics, Biography, Carice van Houten, Drama, Four gold medals, Germany, Jason Sudeikis, Jeremy Irons, Jesse Owens, Larry Snyder, Leni Riefenstahl, Nazis, Racism, Review, Stephan James, Stephen Hopkins, True story

D: Stephen Hopkins / 134m

Cast: Stephan James, Jason Sudeikis, Jeremy Irons, Carice van Houten, Eli Goree, Shanice Banton, David Kross, Jonathan Higgins, Tony Curran, Barnaby Metschurat, Chantel Riley, William Hurt, Glynn Turman

Made with the support of Jesse Owens’ family, Race follows Owens as he enrols at Ohio State University in 1933, meets athletics coach Larry Snyder who teaches him how to be a better sprinter, and on through until his appearance at the 1936 Olympics, held in Berlin. It’s a powerful story, and Owens’ performance at the Games is legendary… which makes Race all the more surprising for how tame it is, and how unsure it is in what it wants to say.

As biopics go, it’s all standard stuff. We see Owens (James) as a young man saying goodbye to his sweetheart (and mother of his child), Ruth (Banton) before he heads off to Ohio State University. Once there, he encounters a predictable amount of systemic and endemic racism from pupils and staff alike, but concentrates on what he can do on the running track. Attracting the attention of athletics coach Larry Snyder (Sudeikis), Owens dispels any doubts about his abilities by matching the fastest recorded time in the 100 metre dash, and doing it as casually as if it were just “one of those things”. It’s not long before Snyder is talking about the 1936 Olympics, and Owens representing his country in Nazi Germany.

Before then there’s the small matter of the 1935 Big Ten track meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan where Owens’ set three world records and tied a fourth in under an hour, his marriage to Ruth, and the political manoeuvrings that saw the US agree to compete in the 1936 Olympics once their envoy, construction magnate Avery Brundage (Irons), had negotiated terms with Dr Goebbels (Metschurat). With these things in place, Owens and the US team arrive in Berlin and begin preparations for the Games. Once they begin, it doesn’t take Owens long to disprove the Nazis’ idea of Aryan supremacy. He wins four gold medals: in the 100 metres, the 200 metres, the broad (long) jump, and the 4×100 metre relay (which was ironic as he replaced a Jewish runner who was dropped thanks to last-minute political expediency). History is made, and in the most bittersweet of circumstances.

Race covers all this, and more, but fails to make it interesting for the viewer, instead falling back on the kind of biopic clichés that were old back in the era Owens was breaking track records like they were nothing of importance. It also tries to cram in too much in the way of subplots, particularly in the way that Leni Riefenstahl (van Houten) goes about filming the Games, and often in defiance of Goebbels and his indifference to her efforts. Riefenstahl’s presence in the movie is surprising, as the movie could have worked well enough without her. Instead we’re treated to Riefenstahl acting as an unofficial interpreter/translator for Goebbels, and van Houten struggling to look intimidated when necessary. Riefenstahl keeps cropping up, and after a while you begin to wonder if she was as involved as the movie makes her out to be.

The effect of all these subplots and extraneous storylines is to (almost) make Owens a secondary character in his own biopic. And one unfortunate romantic dalliance aside, Owens is given the kind of never-do-wrong attributes that hype the legend instead of portraying the man behind the legend. As Owens, James is confident enough, but doesn’t seem able to go beyond the script’s insistence on making Owens as unaffectedly noble as possible, and in some respects, operating in a vacuum that leaves him unaware of the political and racial maelstrom going on around him once he’s in Germany. This leads to an awkward scene where Snyder wanders around Berlin and just happens to see a group of Jews being rounded up at the end of a back street. There are other moments where the era’s ugly racism is pushed to the forefront, but strangely, there’s more of it on display in the US than there is in Berlin.

By failing to make the inherent drama of Owens’ participation, well… dramatic, the movie never fully engages the audience, or allows it to become emotionally invested in the man’s achievements (although the focus is rightly on the Olympics, his achievement at Ann Arbor carries more resonance). Left with little to identify with beyond the casual attempts at characterisation made by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse’s banal script, the viewer has no choice but to sit back and hope that the movie remembers he or she is there at some point, but without any guarantees that this will happen.

The cast do their best but the odds are stacked against them. Sudeikis dials down the comic charm he uses elsewhere but can do little with a role that requires him to take a back seat once Berlin rolls around, and which seems there to mainly provide Owens with motivational pep talks when he needs them. Irons is all capitalist swagger as the man who demanded superficial concessions from Nazi Germany in return for the US’s taking part in the Games, while as mentioned above, van Houten enjoys a bigger role as Riefenstahl than it’s likely she had historically. Of the rest of the cast, only Metschurat stands out as an icy, thuggish-looking Goebbels who wouldn’t look out of character if he was wearing braces and Doctor Martens boots.

Attempting to make a cohesive whole out of so many disparate strands, director Stephen Hopkins instead places a similar feel and importance on all of them, leading to a movie that moves seamlessly from one scene to the next without ever rising or falling in terms of the low-key drama, or tinkering with the tone of the movie. Hopkins has had a varied career, but while this isn’t his first biopic – he also made The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004) – this is his first “prestige” picture, and he falls back on the kind of easy choices that a first-timer might make, and in doing so, fails to charge the movie with the kind of energy that would draw in an audience and keep them glued to their seats.

Rating: 5/10 – not quite an also-ran, but near enough, Race plays liberally with the connotations of its title but is ultimately too lightweight in its execution to be a pointed, and poignant, reflection of the period it covers; Owens was an exceptional athlete, and while the movie does acknowledge this, what it doesn’t do is raise its own game to match that of its subject.

The Nightmare (2015)

29 Sunday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Documentary, Horror, Nightmares, Review, Rodney Ascher, Shadowman, Sleep paralysis

D: Rodney Ascher / 91m

With: Kate Angus, Forrest Borie, Christopher Bleuze-Carolan, Ana Malagon, Stephen Paynter, Jeff Reed, Korinne Wilson, Connie Yom

For those who have never experienced it, sleep paralysis is truly the stuff of nightmares, a disturbing occurrence that can happen nightly to its sufferers, and which can lead them to hallucinating the appearance of strange “shadow men” who approach them menacingly. These “shadow men” aren’t real, but such is the strange reality that accompanies sleep paralysis, that while the sufferer is experiencing all this, they believe it all to be real, and these hallucinations can be terrifying.

Sleep paralysis is a recognised condition, and a fascinating subject, one that documentarian Rodney Ascher has decided to explore in his follow up to Room 237 (2012), his look at so-called hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980). Using the experiences of eight sufferers, Ascher adopts a combination of talking heads testimony, eerie recreations, and occasional medical research to examine a condition that affects roughly six per cent of people, and which could provide an explanation for such cultural memes as near death experiences and alien abduction.

What soon becomes apparent from hearing each individual tale is how similar they all are, with their apparent waking paralysis, open bedroom doors, and shadowy shapes making their presence known while the “sleeper” can do nothing about it. It’s perhaps this inability to move coupled with the presence of a strange creature that can’t be fended off that makes it all the more terrifying. Most sufferers begin to experience these attacks while they’re a child, and for many they persist into adulthood. As these tales unfold, one thing becomes clear (as a title card declares): it’s a thing.

Of course, the reality of the person’s recollection is supported by Ascher’s decision to re-enact their nightmares, making the movie not just a documentary but a horror movie as well, a well-intentioned hybrid that works better in some cases than in others. Using darkness and light to surreal yet credible effect, Ascher takes each case on its own merit, and introduces the kind of horror iconography that we haven’t seen since the days of Freddy Krueger (who features at one point in the movie’s journey). The “shadowman” image is repeated throughout – with some details changing as and when necessary – and it’s this chilling imagery that seems to drive the nightmares, and prove consistent in its appearance across different cultures and time zones. As Ascher probes each sufferer’s experiences, the “shadowman” takes up ever greater importance, until by the movie’s end there’s no doubt that this figure is instrumental in how terrifying each nightmare becomes.

But while Ascher’s decision to re-enact these nightmares gives the movie some bite, and stops it from being just a bunch of talking heads expounding on theories of good and evil and supernatural design, what it doesn’t do is answer the one question that should be on every viewer’s mind: why these people in particular? They’re all regular people, leading regular lives, but while there’s evidence to support the theory that it’s all down to genetic inheritance, Ascher seems more concerned with the nightmares themselves than if sleep paralysis can be overcome and a sufferer cured of their afflcition. With so many recreations clogging up the movie’s run-time, Ascher makes the mistake of assuming that every recreation will be interesting to the viewer.

Unfortuantely, it’s this repetition that bogs down the movie once all eight sufferers have introduced themselves to the viewer. With the similarities between nightmares established early on, and with little recourse but to keep repeating the same ideas that keep coming up, Ascher’s movie soon runs out of steam. Part of the problem is that a proven, workable cure hasn’t been discovered yet – one sufferer uses televisions as a means of putting off the inevitable – and another is that there’s no mystery here; as mentioned above and in the movie, it’s a thing. And while there are plenty of reasons why this happens to people, and plenty of theory work out there, The Nightmare isn’t interested in examining any of it too closely. This leads to one of the sufferers believing there to be a supernatural element to her nightmares, a belief that has no basis in fact, and which goes unchallenged by Ascher. In fact, Ascher makes very few attempts to challenge any of the assertions of his interviewees, and their concerns and interpretations of their dreams are generally accepted for what they are.

But while Ascher the interviewer forgets to provide some balance, Ascher the canny director knows that his movie will stand or fall on the quality of the re-enactments, and here he gets it right most of the time, using a variety of visual techniques to illustrate the panic and fear that envelops each sufferer, and the causes of that panic and fear. There are some genuinely chilling moments, even one or two jump scares, as each tale is told, and while some of the imagery he adopts has been seen before in a variety of horror movies from the last ten years, Ascher still manages to invest them with the kind of frisson that jangles the nerves. But then he sabotages the effect of these scenes by showing how some of them are set up by his own crew, a device that takes the viewer out of the moment and unfairly reminds them that none of this is actually real, even if the eight subjects chosen really believe their experiences are real.

By the movie’s end, some viewers will be wondering if the topic of sleep paralysis could have been examined in a better way. Ascher appears to have set out to make a documentary that examines the condition in such a way that any conclusions are avoided, and the movie suffers as a result. By not probing enough into both the condition and its sufferers’ experiences, The Nightmare ends up skimming the surface of a very intriguing phenomenon.

Rating: 5/10 – uneven and lacking a cohesive approach, The Nightmare never really decides what kind of documentary it wants to be, and misses out entirely on being the go-to movie on the subject; some arresting imagery aside, Ascher’s take on sleep paralysis and what it means to be a sufferer gets lost amidst all the appearances by “shadow men” and the director’s decision to refrain from explaining anything in any depth.

Grimsby (2016)

28 Saturday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Airborne virus, Assassination, Brothers, Chile, Comedy, Drama, Ian McShane, Isla Fisher, Louis Leterrier, Mark Strong, Penélope Cruz, Rebel Wilson, Review, Sacha Baron Cohen, Spy, World Cup Finals

aka The Brothers Grimsby

D: Louis Leterrier / 83m

Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Strong, Penélope Cruz, Isla Fisher, Ian McShane, Rebel Wilson, Barkhad Abdi, Gabourey Sidibe, Scott Adkins, Annabelle Wallis, Johnny Vegas, Ricky Tomlinson

Just avoid. This is a movie whose “comic” highlight is its lead characters hiding in an elephant’s vagina while it’s being penetrated by another elephant – and then the other elephant ejaculates. Fans of Baron Cohen will probably enjoy this but anyone else will be wondering how on earth this was ever made, and if they manage to get through to the end, they’ll also be wondering how they can get eighty-three minutes of their lives back.

Rating: 3/10 – yet another example of gross-out humour being more important than properly constructed comedy, Baron Cohen’s latest offering is so bad you hope he’s never allowed to make another movie of his own ever again; wasting the talents of a good cast (spare a thought for Penélope Cruz, appearing in this and Zoolander 2 in the same year), and giving new meaning to the word ‘puerile’, Grimsby is competently made but embarrassing at almost every turn.

Happy Birthday – Carey Mulligan

28 Saturday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Actress, An Education, Career, Carey Mulligan, Drive (2011), Movies, Never Let Me Go, Nicolas Winding Refn, Shame, The Greatest

Carey Mulligan (28 May 1985 -)

It’s hard to believe but Carey Mulligan has been gracing our screens for just eleven years since her debut as Kitty Bennet in Pride & Prejudice (2005). Since then she’s appeared in a number of high profile, and high quality movies that have earned critical approval – both for the movies themselves and for Mulligan’s performances – and she’s earned a reputation as one of today’s most intelligent and captivating actresses. She’s adept at playing strong-willed heroines such as Bathsheba Everdene in Far from the Madding Crowd (2015), and was en pointe as the vivacious and mysterious Daisy Buchanan in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby (2013). Some people may still only know her as the potential Time Lord companion, Sally Sparrow, in an episode of Doctor Who back in 2007, but that’s just another indication of how much of an impact she can have when given the right role. Here are five other performances that show off Mulligan’s skills as an actress, and five movies where her appearance has benefitted them greatly.

Never Let Me Go (2010) – Character: Kathy H

In this adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s prize-winning novel, Mulligan is one of a group of friends whose lives aren’t quite what they seem, and who go on the run when they discover just what it is they’ve been “chosen” for. Mulligan got the role of Kathy after the producers spent quite some time trying to find an actress suitable for the role, but this is one of her best performances: honest, insightful, and haunting. The movie may have divided critics and audiences alike, but the effectiveness of Mulligan’s portrayal is one of the few things in the movie that can’t be denied.

An Education (2009) – Character: Jenny Mellor

Another adaptation, this time of the memoir by British journalist Lynn Barber, An Education sees Mulligan playing sixteen year old Jenny, a bright, intelligent schoolgirl who finds herself seduced by Peter Sarsgaard’s charming con man. It’s a coming of age tale that sees Mulligan display a range of feelings and emotions that engender a tremendous amount of sympathy for the character, especially when the extent of her naïve behaviour has unfortunate consequences. Mulligan was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal (but didn’t win), and won a BAFTA instead; not bad for what was only her second, proper lead role.

Shame (2011) – Character: Sissy Sullivan

In Steve McQueen’s powerful drama, Mulligan is the troubled, disturbed sister of Michael Fassbender’s sex addict, a role she invests with such an intense, emotionally charged air of futility that it’s hard to look away when she’s on screen. It’s a raw, unflinching performance, one that matches Fassbender’s own for the depths to which she takes the character, and there’s a fearlessness that is astonishing to watch. It’s a testament to Mulligan’s immersive portrayal that she is never less than credible from beginning to end. And she has a great singing voice too.

The Greatest (2009) – Character: Rose

2009 was Mulligan’s breakout year, with An Education and this emotionally adroit drama about a family trying to deal with the unexpected death of their son, helping to put Mulligan “on the map”. While parents Susan Sarandon and Pierce Brosnan come to terms with their loss, they also find themselves dealing with Mulligan’s character, who turns up on their doorstep and tells them that she’s pregnant with their son’s child. The movie’s a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, and is a little uneven in places, but Mulligan’s fragile, emotionally uncertain Rose is the strong focus that ties all the elements together into a (mostly) satisfying whole.

Drive (2011) – Character: Irene

In Nicolas Winding Refn’s hard-boiled, occasionally wince-inducing crime drama, Mulligan is the love interest for Ryan Gosling’s taciturn stunt car (and sometime getaway) driver. But this being a Refn movie, the term “love interest” isn’t as generic as it sounds, as Mulligan makes Irene more than just a predictable foil for the “hero”, and helps make the audience root for their relationship. Mulligan portrays Irene as good-natured and helpless – on the surface – but there’s an underlying steeliness that Gosling’s driver responds to, and Mulligan accentuates the character’s dual nature without being obvious about it – and that’s an achievement all by itself.

Trailers – Diary of a Chambermaid (2015), Morgan (2016) and Len and Company (2015)

27 Friday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Benoît Jacquot, Diary of a Chambermaid, Kate Mara, Léa Seydoux, Len and Company, Luke Scott, Morgan (2016), Previews, Remake, Rhys Ifans, Tim Godsall, Trailers

When you’re making a version of a novel by Octave Mirbeau that’s been filmed before by the likes of Jean Renoir (in 1946), and Luis Buñuel (in 1964), then you need to bring something special to the mix. Alas, from the looks of the trailer for this latest incarnation of Diary of a Chambermaid, it seems as if director and co-writer Benoît Jacquot has somehow mishandled things to the point of making Léa Seydoux’s title character more pouting and hostile than sympathetic. Combined with elements that make it look like it will descend into thriller territory, this adaptation looks as if it’s doomed from the start, but with Vincent Lindon in support it may yet redeem itself, although to do so, it’s really got to outshine a trailer that doesn’t do the movie any justice. Unless…

Morgan is the first feature from Luke Scott (son of Ridley), whose short movie Loom (2012) showed considerable promise. The tale of a corporate risk assessment consultant (played by Kate Mara) who is tasked with deciding if an artificial being that’s been created in a laboratory should be terminated, it looks stylish, creepy and tense, and the trailer holds back from revealing what the artificial being looks like – even though Morgan is played by Anya Taylor-Joy, Thomasin in The Witch (2015). By adding a touch of mystery, and not revealing too much about the movie’s scenario, the trailer does better than most in making Morgan a movie that might just be better than other Frankenstein-inspired efforts released in recent years.

In Len and Company, Rhys Ifans is the washed-up rock star turned in-demand producer trying to get away from it all by imposing a voluntary exile on himself. But the peace and quiet and booze-assisted reflection he seeks is interrupted first by his son (played by Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer and Joanne Whalley), and then by the pop star he helped create (played by Juno Temple). With director Tim Godsall’s drama leavened by some moments of bittersweet humour, the movie has a knowing attitude toward its characters, and serves as a reminder that Ifans can be a remarkable actor when necessary. It may not make it onto many people’s Ten Best lists for 2016, but this looks as if it has the potential to surprise anyone who sees it.

Mini-Review: Learning to Drive (2014)

25 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Ben Kingsley, Comedy, Divorce, Drama, Driving lessons, Grace Gummer, Isabel Coixet, Jake Weber, Marriage, Patricia Clarkson, Queens, Relationships, Review, Romance, Sarita Choudhury, Sikh

D: Isabel Coixet / 90m

Cast: Patricia Clarkson, Ben Kingsley, Jake Weber, Sarita Choudhury, Grace Gummer, Avi Nash, Samantha Bee, Matt Salinger

When literary critic Wendy Shields (Clarkson) learns that her twenty year-plus marriage to husband Ted is over, and he’s leaving her for someone else, she does so in the back of a cab being driven by Indian Sikh Darwan Singh Tur (Kingsley). In the wake of such a disastrous journey, Wendy receives a visit from her daughter, Tasha (Gummer), who is away working on a farm. Tasha wants her mother to come visit her but Wendy doesn’t know how to drive (and doesn’t want to learn). But when Darwan returns an envelope she left in his cab, she discovers he’s also a driving instructor. Plucking up her courage she begins to take lessons, and in doing so, finds that she’s able to deal with the new challenges in her life.

Meanwhile, Darwan is looking out for his nephew, Preet (Nash), who is in the country illegally. He’s also dealing with calls from his sister back in India who’s busy arranging a bride for him. When she arrives, Jasleen (Choudhury) isnt quite what Darwan expected; they have little in common, she’s afraid to leave their home, and Darwan is beginning to have feelings for Wendy. As their friendship develops, both Wendy and Darwan are faced with a similar problem: in facing the future, how can they use what they’ve learned from each other and be happy.

The second collaboration between Coixet, Clarkson and Kingsley after Elegy (2008), Learning to Drive is a less dramatic affair but still has some poignant things to say about relationships and the effects of loneliness when they’re taken away. Darwan has come to the US and found citizenship through seeking political asylum; he shares a basement property with several other Sikhs, most of whom are there illegally like his nephew. When they are arrested, and Preet goes to live with his girlfriend, Darwan sees his new bride as a way of avoiding being alone. Wendy, however, realises that she’s been alone for some time, even while married, but doesn’t realise at first just how used to that she’s become. As she and Darwan learn more about each other, so they learn to use the strength that believing in each other brings to both of them.

Clarkson and Kingsley have a great on-screen chemistry, and both give exemplary performances, displaying ranges of emotion both below and above the surface that leaves the viewer in no doubt as to the sincerity of their portrayals. The movie allows for humour as well, with Wendy’s blind date, Peter (Salinger), offering the kind of second date arrangement that won’t be heard in any other movie. Coixet directs with the knowledge that Sarah Kernochan’s script – itself based on a New Yorker article by Katha Pollitt – is a little lightweight in places, but this doesn’t stop her from focusing on the characters and their predicaments with a sympathetic eye. In the end, it’s a movie that stands or falls on the quality of its two leads’ performances, and thankfully, that isn’t something Learning to Drive has to worry about.

Rating: 7/10 – sometimes bittersweet, occasionally genuinely moving, Learning to Drive isn’t about learning to drive but rather about learning to reconnect, something that Wendy and Darwan have forgotten how to do; a simple pleasure then, but one that can be revisited from time to time and still be found rewarding.

Question of the Week – 25 May 2016

25 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, International Box Office, Marvel, Question of the Week

With the news this week that Captain America: Civil War has already reaped over a billion dollars at the international box office – $1,059,936,681 as of today – it seems that the Marvel Cinematic Juggernaut is well and truly here to stay (not that there was any real doubt about that). Doctor Strange is due this November, but it’s unlikely that anyone thinks it’ll do the same kind of business; for that to happen again, Marvel themselves are probably looking toward the two Infinity War movies to bring in that kind of money. Which begs this week’s question:

Given Marvel’s current dominance at the international box office, is there any likelihood of their “dropping the ball” in the next few years and seeing that dominance wane, or are we probably going to be seeing, say, Phase 10 in 2048?

Sing Street (2016)

24 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Aiden Gillen, Band, Catholic Boys School, Comedy, Drama, Drive It Like You Stole It, Dublin, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Jack Reynor, John Carney, Lucy Boynton, Review, Romance, School disco, Semi-autobiographical, Songs, Synge Street, The Riddle of the Model

D: John Carney / 106m

Cast: Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Lucy Boynton, Jack Reynor, Aiden Gillen, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Kelly Thornton, Mark McKenna, Ben Carolan, Percy Chamburuka, Conor Hamilton, Karl Rice, Ian Kenny, Don Wycherley

A semi-autobiographical account of writer/director John Carney’s upbringing in Dublin in the mid-Eighties, Sing Street may well be the most enjoyable romantic drama (with extra added music and comedy) of 2016. The creator of Once (2007) and Begin Again (2013) has fashioned a delightful, appealing movie that offers very few surprises, but does so with a great deal of affection and charm. It’s a movie that leaves you with a smile on your face and wondering what happens to all the characters once the movie’s ended (at this point, a sequel featuring the same characters wouldn’t go amiss).

Carney’s on-screen incarnation is Conor Lalor (Walsh-Peelo). Conor is fifteen and part of a family that is on the verge of falling apart. His mother (Kennedy) and father (Gillen) are constantly arguing, his older brother, Brendan (Reynor), is unemployed and hasn’t left the house in ages, while his sister, Ann (Thornton), is wrapped up in her schoolwork and upcoming exams. For Conor, life has been so far uneventful, but a change in the family fortunes means his transferring from a Jesuit school to a nearby Catholic school run by the Christian Brothers.

Conor has a middling interest in music and gets most of his knowledge from Brendan. While trying to fit in at his news school, Synge Street CBS, Conor falls foul of the resident bully, Barry (Kenny), but is befriended by Darren (Carolan) who offers his services should Conor ever need them. Conor finds a use for Darren almost straight away; as they loiter at the school gates, Conor spots a girl across the street who, according to Darren, is unapproachable. Conor crosses the street and asks the girl – whose name is Raphina (Boynton) – if she wants to be in a video his band is making. Raphina is skeptical but agrees to take part in the shoot. All Conor has to do is put together a band (with Darren as their manager), and his efforts to woo Raphina can be put into operation.

Conor’s plan gets off to a good start when Darren introduces him to Eamon (McKenna) who’s a multi-instrumentalist. From there they recruit a keyboard player, Ngig (Chamburuka), a bass player, Garry (Rice), and a drummer, Larry (Hamilton). They call themselves Sing Street after their school and record a demo version of Duran Duran’s Rio. They shoot their video, and Raphina takes part. Conor is happy with the way things are going but Brendan is less than supportive. Challenging Conor to write his own songs for the band, and to adopt their own visual image, Brendan makes it clear that being a covers band will get them nowhere. Suitably encouraged, Conor trusts in his own abilities and the songs he creates with Eamon go a long way to improving both the band’s repertoire and their performances.

Conor and Raphina grow closer but the shadow of her planned move to London hovers over their relationship like a black cloud. And while the band become more proficient, and score their first public performance at the upcoming school disco, Conor believes he’s made enough of an impression on Raphina that she won’t leave, but when she doesn’t turn up for a video shoot, Conor learns that the life of a budding pop star isn’t as easy or as fulfilling as he’d hoped.

A breath of fresh air amidst a period when so many other movies are proving to be disappointments for a myriad of reasons, Sing Street is a welcome reminder that you don’t have to have a mega-budget or a host of household names (or be a sequel) to connect with an audience and become a success (if only a modest one). From its opening scene where Conor learns he’s moving schools, and which features the first of several very funny lines from Brendan, Carney’s look back at the highs and lows experienced by a lovestruck teen is simply yet expressively told, and features a clutch of winning performances from its mostly inexperienced cast.

It’s a richly satisfying movie, exploring the trials of young love, the naïve expectations of forming a band, and grounding it all in the relationships, particularly that between Conor and Brendan. Carney has created the older brother we’d all like to have, the wise-beyond-his-years confidant and source of encouragement we can all look up to, and Reynor comes close to stealing the movie out from under his younger co-stars. But Carney’s insistence on choosing a largely non-professional cast has paid off handsomely. Walsh-Peelo is excellent as Conor, his shy, diffident nature giving way to the kind of self-confidence so few of us attain at that age. As he woos Raphina through the lyrics of his songs, the depth and tenderness of Conor’s feelings are expressed in such a poignant, heartfelt way that the viewer can’t help but root for him. (It’s also great to see the young actor adopt the various hairstyles of the pop stars he seeks to emulate; no doubt viewers of a certain age will wince in recognition of their own tonsorial decisions.)

While the temptation is to label Sing Street as a musical, and while there are enough musical interludes to maintain that temptation throughout the movie’s running time, this is really about a romance borne out of happenstance and unexpected need. As such it succeeds admirably in portraying that first early flush of attraction and the disjointed emotions that often come with it. Conor’s motives are clear and unerring: he wants the girl. But in the grand tradition of all romantic endeavours, the course of true love is not allowed to run smoothly, and Raphina’s own dreams intrude on and interfere with Conor’s. It’s all handled with a seductive precision and an eye for the undisclosed feeling that makes Conor and Raphina’s relationship all the more credible, even if it is predictable in its outcome.

With the central relationships all being handled with a deftness of touch that shows just how far Carney has come as a director since November Afternoon (1996), the movie is free to concentrate on the music. Like all the best musicals, Carney, in collaboration with Gary Clark, has composed a handful of songs that both advance the story and reveal Conor’s developing feelings for Raphina. It’s helpful too that they’re all very well-written, and two songs in particular, The Riddle of the Model and Drive It Like You Stole It, have the potential to find a life for themselves outside the confines of the movie. Make no mistake – and one very poignant ballad aside – these are lively, enjoyable, sing-along tunes that have an infectious glee about them, as if both Carney and his talented cast had decided from the start that melancholy tales of woe and unrequited love weren’t needed at all. And you know, they were right.

Rating: 8/10 – some elements are too familiar from too many other movies to go unnoticed, but Carney imbues these elements with a wistfulness and an enticement that makes Sing Street very hard to resist; with toe-tapping musical numbers and several appealing performances courtesy of its young cast, it’s a movie that deserves a wider audience than it will probably get, and any movie that features a great joke at the expense of Phil Collins can’t be all bad.

The American Side (2016)

23 Monday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Alicja Bachleda, Camilla Belle, Directed energy weapon, Drama, Free energy, Greg Stuhr, Jenna Ricker, Matthew Broderick, Mystery, Niagara Falls, Nikola Tesla, Private detective, Review, Robert Forster, Thriller

D: Jenna Ricker / 102m

Cast: Greg Stuhr, Alicja Bachleda, Camilla Belle, Matthew Broderick, Robert Forster, Janeane Garofalo, Grant Shaud, Harris Yulin, Joe Grifasi, Stephen Henderson, Kelsey Siepser, Robert Vaughn

Some movies give the impression that they should be longer, that their proper running time has been truncated during the editing and post-production process. These movies seem to be saying that there’s something missing, an element that would enable the movie to be better than it is, sharper, clearer, more dynamic, more interesting, funnier, darker, better focused all round. And then there are the movies where that same impression is made, but no matter how much you may think that a longer cut might be the answer, the truth is, it wouldn’t make a difference.

Such is the case with The American Side. It’s ostensibly a modern noir thriller, with many familiar elements to ground it in that particular genre. There’s a grizzled, world-weary private detective, Charlie Paczynski (Stuhr); a damsel in distress, Nikki Meeker (Bachleda), who knows too much and whose life appears to be in danger; a femme fatale, Emily Chase (Belle), who may or may not be on the side of the bad guys; two competing businessmen – Borden Chase (Broderick) (Emily’s older brother) and Sterling Whitmore (Forster) – either of whom could be the main bad guy; and a McGuffin in the form of a mechanical design by Nikola Tesla that could be used as a weapon. In some respects its noir business as usual, and while these familiar elements should allow for a degree of comfort in navigating the twists and turns of the script, in reality they’re only used to reel in any curious – potential – viewers.

Once the movie gets started, most viewers could be forgiven for thinking that The American Side, with its early murder of a minor character and Charlie’s determined attitude in finding their killer would be the kind of investigation that leads to corruption in high places, and the private detective realising that he can’t trust anyone. Alas, here, this is only partially true, as Charlie trusts one too many people in his quest to find his friend’s killer, and a wider conspiracy begins to make itself felt. Charlie also comes across as a little too gullible, a fact that doesn’t help him with his investigations, and which leads to his being easily fobbed off or deflected by everyone around him. And as the mystery deepens, the script – courtesy of director Ricker and star Stuhr – becomes an erratic mix of noir beats and muddled plotting.

It begins simply enough, establishing Charlie as a low-rent private eye who works out of a bar and who uses a stripper, Kat (Siepser), to help catch cheating husbands, who he then blackmails so that he receives payment from both the errant husband and the suspicious wife. It’s not a particularly lucrative business, and Charlie isn’t the most likeable of guys, but he gets by. But when Kat is killed by a man they both believe will fit the brief of cheating spouse, Charlie finds himself looking for a college professor called Soberin (Yulin) who’s mixed up in a plot to build a directed energy weapon designed by Tesla.

Sadly, what up til now has been a fairly straightforward, if gloomily shot movie, becomes a puzzle that goes off in various different directions, many of which lack a purpose other than to make things even more mysterious or inexplicable. Charlie’s own investigation sees him (traditionally) one step behind everyone else, but even when he does get up to speed the viewer is left with the sense that he’s only pretending to understand what’s going on, and in reality still doesn’t have a clue as to who’s doing what, and why. It’s not even that the plot, such as it is, is unusually complex. It’s that when explanations are forthcoming, and motivations are revealed, they just don’t make any sense. The viewer is left scratching their head and wondering if they’ve missed something.

Ricker and Stuhr’s intention seems to have been a pretty simple one: combine basic noir components with a low-budget indie sensibility and stir together accordingly. But there’s something missing from the recipe, and the movie ends up sacrificing clarity in favour of providing uneven twists and turns, some of which feel awkward and contrived rather than organic. As the plot unfolds, some narrative decisions prove so unwieldy that you begin to suspect the script is a first draft that no one got around to looking at for errors or inconsistencies. It’s a shame as there’s the germ of a great idea here, and Tesla was enough of a maverick inventor for any movie maker to “have fun with”, but Ricker and Stuhr use him sparingly as a character, preferring instead to refer to him constantly as an under-appreciated genius who knew what was best for the world.

One of the movie’s main distractions is the continual referral to Niagara Falls and its history. The Falls are used as a backdrop – Charlie catches up with Soberin there – and events there in the past serve as clues to what Tesla was up to with his directed energy weapon, but this inclusion leads to more questions than the script can answer, and it makes for at least two unsatisfactory moments at the movie’s climax (which is also set at the Falls). This fascination also explains the movie’s title: no one has gone over the Falls from the American side and lived. (Alas, this isn’t a metaphor for anything that happens in the movie.)

By making so much of the movie incomprehensible, or just plain confusing, Ricker and Stuhr have undermined their own project in such a comprehensive manner that the cast have no other choice but to make the best of it. Stuhr is a relaxed, no frills actor who’s not quite hard-boiled enough to make Charlie the anti-hero the script wants him to be, and he serves as the stooge in too many scenes where he should be in control. Bachleda’s role is underwritten, Belle struggles to keep her character on the right side of believable, while Broderick has his own problems with the kind of arch, mannered dialogue that even the most inexperienced of actors would run a mile from.

Under Ricker’s purview, The American Side ends up being a cumbersome, cruelly ill-considered movie that evinces little sympathy for its characters, and which proves very difficult to care about beyond a superficial level. It’s not a bad movie per se, just one that takes what should be a simple storyline and plot, and buries both of them under a pile of unnecessary implausibilities and contradictions. And it’s a movie where continuity screams excised scenes, as Charlie suffers head lacerations that happen entirely off camera and without being referred to by anyone. Somewhere there’s a longer cut of this movie, and someone needs to release it. Only then will the movie have a real chance of impressing its audience.

Rating: 5/10 – a film noir wannabe that neglects both its storyline and its plot, The American Side is so preoccupied with prolonging its inherent mystery that it can’t resist keeping it’s distance from the viewer; as a result everything suffers, and the movie never recovers from Ricker and Stuhr’s apparent insistence on filming their script as is.

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

22 Sunday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Action, Angel, Apocalypse, Beast, Bryan Singer, Cyclops, Drama, Evan Peters, Havok, James McAvoy, Jean Grey, Jennifer Lawrence, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Magneto, Marvel, Michael Fassbender, Mutants, Mystique, Nicholas Hoult, Nightcrawler, Oscar Isaac, Professor Xavier, Psylocke, Quicksilver, Review, Rose Byrne, School for Gifted Children, Sci-fi, Sequel, Storm, Superheroes, Thriller, X-Men

D: Bryan Singer / 144m

Cast: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne, Evan Peters, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Lucas Till, Olivia Munn, Ben Hardy, Alexandra Shipp, Josh Helman, Ally Sheedy

It’s okay.

Rating: 6/10 – an average sequel that offers a muddled storyline complete with yet more disaster porn, the best thing you can say about X-Men: Apocalypse is that it’s competently made; without a strong emotional core to help the audience care about the characters, or a real sense of impending apocalypse to make the stakes all the more gripping, this is a sequel that fails to build on the good work achieved in the previous two instalments.

Triple 9 (2016)

21 Saturday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

2010 Black List, Action, Anthony Mackie, Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Crime, Drama, Gal Gadot, Gold robbery, John Hillcoat, Kate Winslet, Murder, Review, Robbery, Russian mob, Thriller, Woody Harrelson

D: John Hillcoat / 115m

Cast: Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anthony Mackie, Woody Harrelson, Kate Winslet, Aaron Paul, Gal Gadot, Norman Reedus, Teresa Palmer, Clifton Collins Jr, Michael Kenneth Williams, Michelle Ang

Another script liberated from the Black List (this time from 2010), Triple 9 reaches us after having been optioned back in 2012 and with John Hillcoat firmly attached to the director’s chair. Back then, Shia LaBeouf was in place to play the lead, and Nick Cave was providing the score. But funding proved to be an issue and the movie languished in development hell until 2014 when financing was found and distribution rights were secured as well. Before then, LaBeouf left the project and was replaced by Charlie Hunnam, who in turn was replaced by Casey Affleck. During pre-production, casting choices also included Cate Blanchett and Christoph Waltz in the roles eventually taken by Kate Winslet and Woody Harrelson. And Nick Cave left as well, to be replaced by Atticus Ross.

All this is mentioned because Triple 9 is a movie that could and should have been better than the finished product. Whether or not it would have been with the talent proposed above we’ll never know, but upon consideration it’s unlikely it could have been any less disappointing. For a crime/action/drama/thriller with a top-notch cast and a director whose previous movies include The Proposition (2005) and The Road (2009), Triple 9 never really gets to grips with its own storyline, or makes the relationships between the characters at all convincing.

The plot revolves around the efforts of a Russian mobster’s wife, Irina Vlaslov (Winslet), to free her husband from prison. In order to achieve this she hires a group of men consisting of three criminals – Michael (Ejiofor), Russell (Reedus) and his brother Gabe (Paul) – and two corrupt cops – Marcus (Mackie) and Franco (Collins Jr) – to steal a safety deposit box from a bank vault. This they do, but Irina refuses to pay them because what was supposed to be in the box isn’t there, and instead she insists that they have to take on another mission: the theft of data about her husband from a government storage facility.

In order to do this successfully, Marcus suggests they employ a triple nine scenario, an officer down situation that would see all other available officers sent to that incident’s location. He chooses his new partner, Chris (Affleck), to be the fall guy for their plan, and he begins to set things in motion. Using a local gang member as a patsy, Marcus arranges for Chris to be at an abandoned housing project on the day of the theft, but his plan doesn’t work in the way he’d hoped: a triple nine call does go out over the air but it isn’t Chris who is the officer down. Meanwhile, Michael and Franco retrieve the data from the storage facility, but what follows is a series of double crosses as everyone involved in the theft acts in their own, often murderous, interests.

By the time these double crosses occur, the average viewer may well be wondering if they’re going to have anyone to root for. Certainly, Matt Cook’s well-regarded script seems hell-bent on eliminating as many of its lead characters as it can, and it may come as a surprise to discover just who is still standing come the movie’s finale, but with most of said characters getting what they deserve, each demise carries with it an increasing sense of ennui. It’s simply too difficult to care about any of them, whether it’s Ejiofor’s earnest gang leader, or Harrelson’s rule-bending detective. There’s not enough investment in any of the characters for an audience to identify with them or feel sympathetic towards them. Even Chris, with his arrogant sense of right and wrong, comes across as the kind of guy you’d avoid having a drink with.

There’s also the issue of the various sub-plots that are threaded throughout the movie, from Michael’s attempts to secure custody of his son – he just happens to have had a relationship with Irina’s sister, Elena (Gadot) – to Detective Allen’s (Harrelson) investigation into the bank robbery. While these and other sub-plots link together, they do so haphazardly and often without any sense that they’re always operating in the same milieu as the main plot or storylines. And it doesn’t help that, ultimately, the data in the storage facility (and the release of Irina’s husband) is treated like a McGuffin, used to drive the story forward but having no relevance over all.

With the script and the drama proving too unwieldy and convoluted – the lengths Marcus goes to in setting up Chris being shot take up too much of the running time and seem unnecessarily complex – the characters are reduced to loosely sketched mannequins, moving around and reacting to things as the whims of the script dictate. The final half hour should have most viewers scratching their heads in amusement at the clumsy way in which Cook tries to wind things up neatly and with a bow on top. Instead of providing the audience with a satisfying and thrilling ending, the movie fizzles out and ends with a whimper and not a bang. It’s a movie that starts off promisingly with a well-staged bank robbery and getaway chase, and ends with an unlikely (and dramatically inert) confrontation in a car park.

Thankfully it’s not all doom and gloom, though that’s definitely the world the characters’ inhabit. Against the odds there are good performances to be had, with Ejiofor and Mackie giving their characters a far better grounding than the script allows them, while Winslet exudes icy menace with almost every glance. Affleck and Harrelson work well together, and there’s sterling support from Paul as the gang member who develops a conscience when confronted with the reality of the triple nine scenario. Fighting against the material, Hillcoat does manage to imbue proceedings with a nervous energy, even if he’s not able to be consistent, and the action sequences, even if they are reminiscent of Heat (1995), are still rousing enough to impress. And finally, there’s Nicolas Karakatsanis’ superb cinematography, which adds a febrile intensity to Hillcoat’s nervous energy, making the movie a pleasure to watch for its visuals if not its story.

Rating: 5/10 – with precious little back story for any of the characters, and a sense that Cook’s screenplay needed another pass, Triple 9 is a hard movie to get to grips with; stubbornly lacking in focus, it unfolds with all the inevitability of a tragedy but without the emotional content that would make it all the more rewarding.

Zootopia (2016)

20 Friday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Animals, Animation, Byron Howard, Chief Bogo, Comedy, Disney, Drama, Ginnifer Goodwin, Idris Elba, Jason Bateman, Judy Hopps, Nick Wilde, Night Howlers, Predators, Prey, Review, Rich Moore, ZPD

aka Zoomania; Zootropolis

D: Byron Howard, Rich Moore / 104m

Cast: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, Jenny Slate, Nate Torrence, Bonnie Hunt, Don Lake, Tommy Chong, J.K. Simmons, Octavia Spencer, Alan Tudyk, Maurice LaMarche, Shakira

Appearing out of nowhere to grab over $970 million worldwide, Zootopia is yet another reminder that when Disney gets it right, Disney gets it right and then some. In terms of Disney animation only The Lion King (1994) and Frozen (2013) have taken more money at the box office, while in comparison, Pixar have only one movie, Toy Story 3 (2010), that’s been more successful. Of course, there’s always the possibility that Zootopia isn’t as good as its success at the box office suggests. But the answer to that is: yeah… right.

Like so many Disney characters, Judy Hopps (Goodwin) is a bunny with a dream: to be a police officer working for the Zootopia Police Department. Despite no rabbit ever having even tried to join the ZPD, and despite the fears and worries of her parents (Hunt, Lake), Judy excels at the training academy and graduates top of her class. But when she arrives in the great city of Zootopia – where predator and prey co-exist in harmony – she finds that her presence isn’t exactly welcomed, by her fellow officers, and in particular, by her boss, Chief Bogo (Elba). While the rest of her colleagues investigate the separate disappearances of fourteen different animals in mysterious circumstances, Judy is given Meter Maid duties.

While making the most of this change of fortune, Judy meets Nick Wilde, a fox who proves to be a hustler. Judy wants to arrest him but Nick is too smart to be caught so easily. But when Judy promises to find one of the missing animals, an otter called – appropriately – Otterton, and Chief Bogo gives her just forty-eight hours to do so or she’ll have to resign, a clue leads to Nick being coerced into helping her look for the missing otter. The trail points to the involvement of the local crime kingpin, Mr Big (LaMarche), and a mystery involving the missing animals that sees them reject their peaceful lives and revert back to their primitive, predatory ways. Judy and Nick locate the missing animals and believe they’ve found their culprit, but in the aftermath, the pair fall out over something Judy says at a press conference. Judy resigns from the ZPD when she realises that she’s inadvertently made things worse – prey animals have less trust now in their predatory neighbours – and she returns home. But a revelation there sends her back to Zootopia where she seeks Nick’s help in solving the mystery of the “savage” animals for good.

The first thing to know about Zootopia is that it’s a Disney movie through and through. There are the usual themes of tolerance and understanding, and overcoming prejudice, as well as a mismatched couple who learn to respect and trust each other, but thanks to a confident, engaging script by Phil Johnston and Jared Bush, these themes are given a spirited polish and never once feel tired or laboured. The cleverest idea the script gives us is a central female character who has a dream that isn’t based around some old-fashioned romantic notion; instead, Judy’s ambition is to make a difference. She’s perhaps the first Disney character (male or female) to be both completely self-aware and selfless at the same time. Goodwin portrays her with such a delightful sense of sincerity tinged with playfulness that you can’t help but smile at the character’s naïvete, and cheer when she proves herself to the surprise of everyone around her.

Johnston and Bush’s script also gives us a great co-star and foil for Judy in the form of wily fox Nick Wilde. As played by Bateman, Nick is the kind of schemer the actor has portrayed several times before, but here he ups his game to make Nick both cunning and contrite at the same time, a neat trick that becomes more evident as the movie progresses. Like Goodwin, Bateman gives a charming, entertaining performance that benefits the movie greatly, and they share an enviable chemistry considering they’re giving vocal performances (and may not have even recorded their scenes together).

As usual with Disney – at least Disney under the leadership of John Lasseter – there’s a wealth of riches to be had, with moments that are among the finest of any animated movie made. From Judy’s carrot pen, to Nick’s son, to an app that lets anyone appear in a video with Gazelle (Shakira) (Zootopia’s leading songstress), to the Don Corleone-inspired Mr Big, to the naturalist club run by Yax (Chong), there are moments to treasure, as well as in-jokes for those paying close attention (Tudyk plays a crooked weasel called Duke Weaselton; in Frozen he played the treacherous Duke of Weselton). All of them, however, are overshadowed by one sublime moment of animation genius: the reaction of Flash the sloth to one of Nick’s jokes. This moment alone makes the movie worth seeing, and is one of Disney’s finest eleven seconds.

Visually the movie is stunning, with levels of detail and colour that are continually arresting (no pun intended), providing a rich palette for the eyes that never stops being entertaining. The sequence where Judy chases a fleeing Weaselton into Rodentia (unexpectedly) foreshadows Captain America: Civil War (2016) as she goes from one of the smallest animals in Zootopia to a veritable giant when placed amongst the denizens of that particular area. It’s an example of just how inventive and effortlessly thrilling the movie can be, and the humour that threads itself throughout the screenplay matches that invention, with jokes at every turn and enough visual gags to keep everyone happy, young and old alike.

Zootopia‘s central storyline is enhanced by its timely message of tolerance and understanding (a message Disney have been “timely” with for decades now), and its mystery is satisfying up to a point (attentive viewers will spot the movie’s villain from the moment they make their appearance), leaving the characters to take centre stage and provide the audience with one of the most enjoyable, satisfying and rewarding animated movies of the last few years. It has a sweet-natured tone that can’t be resisted, and does everything it can to give its audience a good time, something it never fails to do.

Rating: 9/10 – animated movie-making of the highest order, Zootopia is a funny, sweet, charming, beautiful to look at movie that never puts a foot wrong in its mission to entertain; with Disney making a movie that’s this good, the competition – Pixar included – must be wondering just what they have to do to topple the House of Mouse from its (currently) well-deserved pedestal.

Zoolander 2 (2016)

19 Thursday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Ben Stiller, Blue Steel, Cameos, Comedy, Fashion, Fashion designers, Father/son relationship, Justin Bieber, Models, Murder, Owen Wilson, Penélope Cruz, Review, Rome, Sequel, Will Ferrell

D: Ben Stiller / 102m

Cast: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, Penélope Cruz, Kristen Wiig, Kyle Mooney, Justin Theroux, Cyrus Arnold, Benedict Cumberbatch, Nathan Lee Graham, Billy Zane

Zero

Originality

Laughs

Applied,

Now

Don’t

Ever

Repeat!

2 (for the money)

Rating: 3/10 – Stiller and co re-team for another crack at making idiot male model Derek Zoolander funny – and still miss the boat, the dock, hell, the whole damn harbour; the above photo says it all, as Zoolander 2 strikes out by repeating much of the same material the original trotted out, and (using just the one example) by thinking that “jokes” such as Susan Boyle giving the finger to a bunch of paparazzi is equal to side-splitting hilarity.

Question of the Week – 18 May 2016

18 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Careers, Kristen Stewart, Personal Shopper, Robert Pattinson, Twilight

Another in the weekly series designed to encourage debate on thedullwoodexperiment, where readers/followers/first-timers/anyone can air their opinions/views/thoughts on the topic/subject/idea in question. (Apologies for the lack of a Question of the Week last week.)

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart were everywhere during the four years it took to bring the Twilight saga to the big screen, but since Breaking Dawn Part 2 bowed in 2012, both actors have (apparently) shied away from the kind of mega-movie experience that made them both household names. Pattinson has made five movies, mostly interesting and moderately successful at the box office, while Stewart has made eleven (four of which can be seen this year). She too has made some interesting choices, but like Pattinson, hasn’t exactly lit up the box office. They may be working on movies that offer them different challenges, and they may not be interested in how successful those movies are, but with Pattinson’s recent, embarrassing performance as T.E. Lawrence in Queen of the Desert (2015), and Stewart’s latest, Personal Shopper (2016) being booed at Cannes, this week’s question is:

Have the careers of Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart peaked with their involvement in the Twilight franchise, or will they achieve the kind of career longevity that will see retrospectives of their work in, say, thirty years’ time?

The Fencer (2015)

17 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Drama, Endel Nelis, Estonia, Fencing, Finland, Haapsalu, Hendrik Toompere Sr, Klaus Härö, Leningrad, Märt Avandi, Review, Soviet Union, Sports Club, Tournament, True story, Ursula Ratasepp, World War II

Original title: Miekkailija

D: Klaus Härö / 98m

Cast: Märt Avandi, Ursula Ratasepp, Hendrik Toompere Sr, Liisa Koppel, Joonas Koff, Ann-Lisett Rebane, Elbe Reiter, Egert Kadastu, Lembit Ulfsak, Kirill Käro

The Fencer begins with a brief – but necessary – history lesson: during World War II, Estonia was occupied by Nazi Germany; most of the men were conscripted into the German army. When Estonia was absorbed into the Soviet Union, it regarded all members of the German army as war criminals, regardless of any extenuating circumstances. In the years following the war, Estonians who were known to have been a part of the German forces were tracked down by the Soviets and imprisoned.

Against this backdrop, the movie tells the story of Endel Nelis (Avandi), an Estonian and former championship fencer who was himself drafted into the German army, and who is now trying to avoid capture by the Soviets. He arrives in the small Estonian town of Haapsalu to take up a position as a teacher. His arrival is greeted with disdain by the school principal (Toompere Sr), and Endel soon finds that one of his extra duties, running the sports club, is paid lip service to by the principal, and his initial attempt to get the club up and running is undermined accordingly. But when he decides to teach fencing as part of the sports club, he finds nearly all the students turning up for the first session.

The principal is disconcerted by this show of enthusiasm, and mistrusts it, choosing instead to try and undermine its popularity at a parents meeting. While he alludes to dire consequences if the parents vote for the fencing to continue, the grandfather (Ulfsak) of one of the boys in the club, Jaan (Koff), encourages the rest of the parents to vote to keep it going. While all this is going on, Endel is visited by his best friend, Aleksei (Käro) who warns him that people are looking for him in Leningrad (where he’s come from). And Endel begins a tentative relationship with another teacher, Kadri (Ratasepp).

As time goes on, the children make enough progress that when one of them, Marta (Koppel), learns of a national fencing tournament to be held in Leningrad, and she wants Endel to enter them, it provides him with a diffcult decision: should he risk taking some of the students to Leningrad and being caught, or should he risk losing the faith the children have in him, and with it, witness the end of the club? (As if there’s any doubt as to what decision he’ll make.) Once at the tournament, the four pupils he’s chosen to compete – Marta, Jaan, Lea (Rebane), and Toomas (Kadastu) – show that the skills they’ve developed have a good chance of seeing them win the tournament outright. But the increased presence of armed guards throughout the building points to Endel’s chances of returning to Haapsalu as being even slimmer than he’d expected.

Directed by Härö from a script by Anna Heinämaa, The Fencer is a melancholy rumination on individualism and patriotic duty, with Endel as the protagonist seeking the kind of quiet life that everyone on the run wishes for, yet rarely attains. It’s a stately, deliberately paced movie that still manages to be impactful and modestly gripping. It has a keen sense of the story it’s telling, and makes its points about the Soviet Union’s totalitarian approach to socialism with understated precision, preferring to acknowledge small instances of the system’s control rather than focus on the larger examples that most other movies fall back on. It paints a broad picture of the times, the early Fifties, but adds sufficient detail to be both impressive and insightful. (This is best evidenced in the scene with the parents’ meeting, where the principal’s officious and condescending nature is contrasted by what is effectively the “will of the people”. His attempt at intimidation almost works, but Heinämaa and Härö ramp up the tension through the slow awareness of the parents that they have more power than the principal wants them to realise.)

Endel’s relationship with the pupils is developed naturally and without resorting to the kind of sentimental clichés that a Hollywood version might fall back on without thinking. Jaan looks up to Endel because his father is missing, while even the majority of the other children look upon him as a father figure, someone they can trust. But it’s Endel’s trust in them, his belief that they can be good, if not great, fencers that buoys their affection for him, and provides the movie with a great deal of its heart and soul. Even though he confides in Kadri that he’s not good with kids, that he doesn’t know how to deal with them, Endel still has an instinctive feel for dealing with them that allows him to forge such great relationships with them (though he’s not exactly the kind of teacher who maintains boundaries; instead he appears to make it up as he goes along).

At its heart, The Fencer is about doing the right thing, and doing it for all the right reasons, even if it comes with a personal price attached. Endel turns down the chance of moving on and hiding out in Novosibirsk, and it’s here that you begin to get the sense that Endel is finished with running, that with the sports club he’s found a place where he belongs (not to mention the love of a good woman). Endel can be seen putting his life and its value in perspective, and when he makes his choice near the movie’s end, he can be applauded for being true to himself and no one else.

As the beleaguered teacher, Avandi has a weary yet subtly engaged manner about him that is heartwarming and sympathetic. Endel is trying to do the best he can, and it’s easy for the viewer to root for him. Avandi’s sad, doleful features tell you more about how the character is feeling than any amount of exposition, and Härö takes every opportunity to focus on those features and weave a bit of acting magic. As the “villain” of the piece, Toompere Sr is a mean-spirited pedagogue stranded in a small town and seeking affirmation through adhering to the demands of the state. He’s a low man made even lower by his actions, but thanks to Toompere Sr he’s not a man to be hated (or even despised) but pitied instead; he’s as much a prisoner of fate as Endel is.

Once the movie arrives in Leningrad, and the tournament begins, Härö wisely drops the political and social elements for a solid, ever-so-slightly-gripping batch of fencing bouts that add a bit of zest to the pacing. The final bout is played out with élan, even if the outcome goes from being unpredictable to downright obvious halfway through, and the final coda provides a bittersweet ending that smacks of wish fulfillment on the makers’ part but at least gives the viewer the happy ending they’ve been hoping for.

Rating: 8/10 – a beautifully lensed movie that features a succinct, unpretentious yet absorbing screenplay, The Fencer can best be described as the kind of movie that sneaks up on you and takes you by surprise; it’s a quietly impressive movie that only falters when it tries to up the pace and be visually more dramatic, but this is a minor concern when weighed against the many, many, many things the movie gets right.

Burning Bodhi (2015)

16 Monday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Cody Horn, Drama, Friendships, Funeral, Indie, Kaley Cuoco, Landon Liboiron, Love, Matthew McDuffie, New Mexico, Relationships, Review, Virginia Madsen

D: Matthew McDuffie / 95m

Cast: Cody Horn, Landon Liboiron, Kaley Cuoco, Meghann Fahy, Eli Vargas, Sasha Pieterse, Andy Buckley, Virginia Madsen, Wyatt Denny

One of the most popular stories both in literature and cinema – and the wider arts in general – is the one about the prodigal son (or daughter) returning home after a long time away. There will be family issues to face, people to tiptoe gingerly around, and reconciliations to be made, maybe even a few apologies. And it will be an emotional return for all concerned. For all the myriad reasons why someone should return home to face that kind of situation, the most overly used reason is because someone has died. In that circumstance, the pull is undeniable, and the lead character finds themselves drawn back to a place that they’ve done their best to escape from (and plan never to go back to). In its own way, this return is another rite of passage, even if the character is, say, forty or over, because it’s about acknowledging the past and coming to terms with it.

The main character in writer/director Matthew McDuffie’s bittersweet indie drama is Dylan (Liboiron). Dylan is in a relationship with Lauren (Fahy) but it’s not going so well. They’ve had a huge argument right around the time that Dylan learns of the death of his best friend in high school, Bodhi. He’s contacted by a mutual friend, Ember (Horn), who tells him she’s organising Bodhi’s fun-eral (not funeral). Feeling the need to get away for a while, Dylan travels from Chicago to New Mexico, and back to the town he grew up in. He reconnects with his dad, Buck (Buckley), but remains at a distance from his mother, Naomi (Madsen), who left them for another man. Also invited to the fun-eral is Katy (Cuoco), Dylan’s old girlfriend. Their relationship ended badly, but as the fun-eral approaches, he finds old ties hard to resist, and Dylan begins to experience some of the feelings he had for Katy before he left.

While Dylan, Ember and Katy spend time together arranging Bodhi’s send-off, Lauren follows Dylan down to New Mexico, while another friend of Bodhi’s, Miguel (Vargas) travels down by mini-van. On the way he picks up a stranded young woman called Aria (Pieterse); Aria is six months pregnant and heading to California to start a new life, but she agrees to accompany Miguel to the fun-eral. In the days leading up to the ceremony, secrets are revealed, and old relationships are thrown into sharp relief as Dylan faces up to his fears around commitment, Katy battles the drug addiction that is in constant danger of leading to her child being taken away from her, and Ember tries her best to keep her own hidden feelings from being revealed, and making things even more contentious.

There’s more than a whiff of Lawrence Kasdan’s The Big Chill (1983) about Burning Bodhi, but what’s interesting about this particular movie is the way that it makes communication between the characters both easier and more difficult because of their reliance on modern technology. When Dylan discovers that Bodhi has died, he does so via Facebook, and when he mentions Bodhi’s death to the people around him, it turns out they already know. If death is the great leveller then social media is death’s public relations officer, ready to disseminate news of its activities at the merest push of a button. It’s fast, it’s efficient, and it saves on all the phone calls.

As a step down from one-to-one conversations, the characters rarely use their phones to talk to each other either. Instead they send each other texts, and while this may seem like mass avoidance on everyone’s part, McDuffie is clever enough to make these exchanges the heart and soul of his movie. He shows how much more easy it is for Dylan and his peers to communicate with each other this way, and how easy it is for them to express their feelings, and more clearly. In one scene, Dylan and Katy exchange texts that explore the idea of their getting back together. Dylan is all for it, believing they can make things work, but Katy is unconvinced. As Dylan tries to persuade her to try again, and Katy resists the temptation, their feelings for each other, dormant but still there, are stated with such deep-rooted poignancy that the viewer can’t help but hope they get back together, even though Katy is right.

McDuffie doesn’t make his movie a talk-free zone however, and there’s plenty of verbal interaction to keep more traditional communicators happy, but he achieves more with his characters in terms of a look or a physical stance than he does with the somewhat over-written dialogue of the last fifteen minutes. Here the likes of Katy and Ember offer semi-profound insights into the nature of life and relationships, and with a side order of mortality thrown in for good measure. It makes them all seem wiser than their years, or that they all studied philosophy in high school (which doesn’t seem likely).

The cast embrace the various storylines with gusto, giving considered yet effective performances. Even Liboiron, called upon to be antagonistic and self-absorbed (aka a dick) for most of the movie, acquits himself well, and he manages to imbue Dylan with a lost puppy aura that offsets some of the more hurtful (and harmful) things he does. Horn is the type of upbeat, freewheeling young woman who should be really annoying, but the actress makes her the most sympathetic character in the whole movie, and she does so effortlessly (even when she’s trying to hook up a mutually unimpressed Dylan and Katy while Katy is doing community service). As the drug-damaged Katy, it’s Cuoco who nearly steals the movie, giving the kind of performance that reinforces the idea that there’s more to her than playing Penny on The Big Bang Theory. With her pasty face made pantomimic by the application of too much make-up, Cuoco allows the audience to view her with pity but not with any feelings of condemnation.

On the whole, McDuffie and the cast make good work of a narrative that, for all its careful construction, still appears lightweight in places, and this upholds the idea that the script is unlikely to provide anything to shock or cause concern in its audience. Viewers will be able to predict the movie’s outcome well in advance, not because McDuffie is a terrible screenwriter, but because, good as it all is, he doesn’t really take any chances with the material. This leads to a few scenes lacking in dramatic focus, and when a revelation is made about someone’s feelings or emotions, those feelings and emotions are usually left without being explored any further. This does mean a lack of emotional histrionics (which is a good thing), but it also means that a character’s reactions/demeanour aren’t as fully realised as they could be (which isn’t a good thing).

Ultimately, some lessons are learned while others are left by the wayside, and the fates of all the characters are left for the viewer to decide on, even if the script appears to be shepherding them in certain directions. The New Mexico locations are often beautifully lensed by DoP David J. Myrick, and there’s an unintrusive yet inquisitive score by Ian Hultquist that embeds itself in certain scenes and elevates the emotional content of those scenes with an ease that shouldn’t be ignored.

Rating: 7/10 – with its themes of forgiveness, regret and abandonment, Burning Bodhi may seem like it’s a movie with a message (though if it was, that message would arrive in a text), but instead it does its best to concentrate on the characters and how they can keep hurting each other while still loving each other; a few narrative stumbles here and there stop the movie from being awards-worthy impressive, but as a feature debut for Matthew McDuffie, it’s a good indicator that his next movie should be one to watch out for.

For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 6. S. Darko (2009)

15 Sunday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Briana Evigan, Chris Fisher, Conejo Springs, Daveigh Chase, Donnie Darko, Drama, End of the world, For One Week Only, Iraq Jack, Jackson Rathbone, James Lafferty, Meteorite, Review, Sci-fi, Sequel, Thriller

Introduction

Cult movies are often beloved by their admirers beyond all other movies – passionately, fiercely, and with little truck for anyone or anything that tarnishes that movie’s reputation or their belief in it. Tell a fan of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) that anyone who attends a midnight screening in costume is a few sexual peccadilloes short of an orgy, and you’re likely to be slapped round the face with a posing pouch. But cult movies, by the nature of their fans’ love for them, will often attract producers with an eye to making a quick buck by exploiting said fans’ love and affection. Here’s one such movie, apparently made with the best of intentions but which in practice proved to be as far from those intentions as it’s possible to get.

S. Darko (2009) / D: Chris Fisher / 103m

Cast: Daveigh Chase, Briana Evigan, Jackson Rathbone, James Lafferty, Ed Westwick, Matthew Davis, John Hawkes, Bret Roberts, Elizabeth Berkley

By now – unless they’re trapped somewhere in the Fragmentary Universe – fans of Donnie Darko (2001) will have realised or heard that S. Darko is a less than satisfactory follow up to Richard Kelly’s surreal mindbender of a movie. With zero involvement from Kelly himself (not even a “good luck guys!”), this independently made sequel was created with the intention of taking place in “a similar world of blurred fantasy and reality”. Watching the movie, one thing is abundantly clear: neither director Chris Fisher nor screenwriter Nathan Atkins has any real idea of the world that Kelly created for Donnie Darko, or more importantly, the elements that made it all work.

The worst idea they have is to focus on Donnie’s younger sister, Samantha (Chase), as if by using one of Kelly’s original characters (and persuading the original actress to return to the role) it will lend their movie a degree of legitimacy it otherwise wouldn’t have. That this doesn’t work is evidenced by the way in which the character is treated. Samantha has run away from home, aged seventeen, with her best friend Corey (Evigan). When their car breaks down in Utah, the two friends accept a lift into the nearest town, Conejo Springs. Once there, Samantha finds herself sleepwalking; in this state she sees a future version of herself talking to a disturbed man nicknamed Iraq Jack (Lafferty). She tells him that the world will end in a few days’ time on July 4th.

Aside from passing on these messages, Samantha tends to wander aimlessly around town bumping into various locals and being treated like a bystander in her own storyline. She does get involved in the mystery of a missing child but it’s a subplot that, like large portions of the movie, hasn’t been thought through enough, and it feels like a distraction from the larger story. References to Donnie are made but Samantha’s reactions are muted, as if both Atkins and Chase don’t really know how to articulate her feelings over what happened to him at the end of Donnie Darko. What the script does do however, is saddle both the character (and the unfortunate Chase) with little motivation and even less development, preferring instead to treat Samantha in a callous (and careless) manner not once but twice (you’ll know how when you see the movie – not that you should, of course).

Atkins’ script is further muddled by its end of the world plotting, incoherent notions of time travel, secondary characters such as creepy bride of Jesus Trudy Kavanagh (Berkley), and inclusion of local nerd Jeremy (Rathbone) who develops a nasty looking rash that remains unexplained and immaterial to the narrative. There are further problems that Atkins can’t overcome, but the main one is his inability to craft dialogue that sounds like a real human being would say it. Here’s just one deathless exchange, between Samantha and local bad boy Randy (Westwick):

Samantha: I didn’t tell you something before. My brother died too. I was ten. Ever since that day, nothing’s ever been the same.

Randy: Never will be. We can’t change that.

Samantha: Think it’ll ever get easier?

Randy: Probably get worse.

Samantha: Maybe it’s up to us.

Randy: No.

Samantha: Wake up, start over?

Randy: I wish I could believe that. We have the same holes in our hearts, you and me.

That exchanges like that one are delivered with such po-faced sincerity makes it almost impossible to take the movie seriously. It’s like watching a teen movie where the leads are trying to make sense of relationship issues rather than fathom the mystery they’re all involved in. The plot – such as it is – is developed in fits and starts, and in such a haphazard manner that when it’s all wrapped up neatly (and with the cinematic equivalent of a bow on top), the viewer who’s managed to reach the end will be wondering what the previous ninety-five minutes were all about (or for).

Fisher may well be a fan of Kelly’s (emphasis on the) original movie, and he and Atkins may have set out to make a companion piece to that movie, but they show their complete lack of understanding of what made Donnie Darko such an extraordinary experience at every turn. Even on its own merits the movie struggles to perform effectively, with Fisher failing to inject any tension into the material, and leaving scenes feeling listless and uninvolving. The spirit of the original is missing entirely, as is the sense of mystery and chaos just beyond the veil of everyday life. And anyone waiting to see Frank put in an appearance, be prepared for disappointment; here his presence is entirely symbolic.

Rating: 3/10 – while using time lapse shots of clouds as indications of a portentous enigma may work in some movies, in S. Darko it merely serves to remind viewers of just how devoid of purpose and originality the movie really is; jumbled and unnecessary, it’s a movie that doesn’t even try hard enough to match its predecessor for subtlety or thought-provoking drama.

For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 5. Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004)

14 Saturday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Cuba, Cuban Revolution, Dance, Dance competition, Diego Luna, Drama, For One Week Only, Guy Ferland, Havana, John Slattery, Music, Patrick Swayze, Review, Romance, Romola Garai, Sela Ward, Sequel

Introduction

There are dozens of sequels that turn up uninvited, years after their predecessor was first released. Some arrive without any kind of fanfare, while others appear with all the promotional backing available under the sun. Beware of those that arrive under the latter circumstances – sometimes the hype is designed to grab as much at the box office as the movie can manage before word of mouth kicks in and people begin to realise the movie is one to avoid. When the movie in question is a belated sequel to a much-loved original, any abundance of hype is perhaps the biggest clue that the sequel should be avoided. Here is one such example, a movie that came along seventeen years after the original, and still begs the question, why? (Read on for the answer.)

Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004) / D: Guy Ferland / 86m

Cast: Diego Luna, Romola Garai, Sela Ward, John Slattery, Jonathan Jackson, Mika Boorem, January Jones, René Lavan, Patrick Swayze, Mya

If you watch the opening credits of Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights closely, you’ll find that one of the producers is called JoAnn Fregalette Jansen (she also has a small, non-speaking role in the movie itself). Jansen lived in Cuba, aged fifteen, during the period the movie is set in, 1958. Playwright Peter Sagal wrote a screenplay based on Jansen’s experiences of the Cuban Revolution, and her relationship with a Cuban revolutionary. The screenplay was titled Cuba Mine and was a serious examination of the events that occurred in Cuba at the time, and how the country’s political idealism became polluted by the Communist ideology that replaced the more liberal regime that existed in the Fifties.

The script was commissioned by Lawrence Bender in 1992. Bender was fresh from the success of producing Reservoir Dogs (1992), but the script went unproduced until Bender revisited it again ten years later. However, Sagal’s script was only used as the basis of a completely new script by Boaz Yakin and Victoria Arch. The end result? A disastrous attempt to recreate the magic of Dirty Dancing (1987).

With the original having proved so successful, and having gained a place within the cultural zeitgeist (“Nobody puts Baby in a corner”), a sequel was always likely to appear eventually, but this is a movie that spends its thankfully short running time replicating the original’s storyline instead of coming up with something new. It’s the eternal problem facing sequels everywhere: how to combine enough DNA from the original movie with newer, fresher elements to make a satisfying whole. Sadly, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights is a sequel that can’t even assemble enough DNA from its predecessor to make much of a difference. It’s perfunctory, lazy, and lacks impact.

It also has a hard time doing the one thing that it should get right above all else, namely the dance routines. Thanks to the movie’s Cuban setting, the music and dance numbers are meant to be energetic, effortlessly fluid, and somewhat mildly erotic, but thanks to the movie’s determined efforts to edit the dance sequences into bite-sized shots that often don’t match the moves on show immediately before and after each shot, the very elements that are meant to draw in an audience are undermined from the word go. Now this could be a conscious, artisitic decision made by director Guy Ferland and his editors, Luis Colina and Scott Richter, in which case the trio have no idea of how to put together a dance sequence; or it could be that Luna and Garai’s moves weren’t quite as impressive as everyone hoped and they needed a little “help” in looking so accomplished (you decide).

Elsewhere the movie is equally determined to rely on cinematic and cultural clichés in order to tell its story. If the movie was even remotely realistic, it would be easy to believe that, before the revolution, all Cubans were happy-go-lucky souls who never tired of singing and dancing on pretty much every street corner. There are moments of casual racism that don’t amount to anything in terms of the drama, as well as cursory references to the political struggle happening at the time. Luna’s hotel waiter, Javier, evinces his distrust of Americans only until Garai’s preppy Katey waves the lure of competition prize money under his nose, while Katey’s family hang around in the background waiting to be given something to do.

The performances are average, with Luna and Garai developing an uneasy chemistry that seems more convincing on the dance floor than anywhere else, while Ward and Slattery get to play good cop/bad cop once Katey’s relationship with Javier is revealed (the scene in question is notable for playing like an outtake from a TV soap opera). Spare a thought though for poor old Patrick Swayze, co-opted into the script as a dance class instructor who gets to show Katey some moves before being reduced to providing reaction shots during the dance competition. Swayze looks uncomfortable in his scenes, as if he’s having second thoughts about being in the movie but also realising it’s too late to back out.

The movie is a sloppy mess, shot through with an earnest quality that wants to be taken for drama. But like so much on display it’s often involuntary, as if the various elements of the screenplay were put together in a blender rather than a word processor. Ferland directs it all with little or no attention to the emotions of the characters – Garai spends quite a bit of time looking upset but gets over it all just as quickly as it’s started – but at least he manages to make the Puerto Rican locations look suitably beautiful, throwing in wondrous sunsets and sunrises with giddy, artistic abandon.

Rating: 3/10 – unimaginative, even in its dance routines, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights lacks a compelling storyline and characters to care about; with so many aspects not working to their full potential, the movie proves to be inferior in almost every way to its predecessor – and no one should be surprised.

Trailers – The Accountant (2016), Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (2016) and The Light Between Oceans (2016)

13 Friday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

120fps, Alicia Vikander, Ang Lee, Assassin, Ben Affleck, Derek Cianfrance, Drama, Forensic accountant, Gavin O'Connor, Joe Alwyn, Literary adaptation, Michael Fassbender, Movies, Parenthood, Previews, Rachel Weisz, Thriller, Trailers, Vin Diesel, Warfare, Western Australia

NOTE: The current For One Week Only is taking a well-deserved break after its Disney sequel marathon yesterday; it’ll be back tomorrow.

Once he’s reprised his role as Batman in Suicide Squad, Ben Affleck will next be seen in this odd thriller about a maths savant who works as a forensic accountant by day and is a hired assassin by night (of course). Working for the bad guys works out okay, but when Affleck’s character, Christian Wolff, takes on a legitimate client, things take a more deadly turn. It doesn’t help that Christian is also being pursued by the Treasury Department (led by J.K. Simmons). Whether or not this will be any good is open to conjecture, but Warner Bros. have put back its original release date from 29 January to 14 October, suggesting that there’s not the complete confidence in it that you might expect. It does have a great cast, with Anna Kendrick, Jon Bernthal and John Lithgow in support, and director Gavin O’Connor did a good job in taking over on Jane Got a Gun (2015), so this does have bags of promise at least. Perhaps a bit of finger-crossing is in order, then.

An adaptation of the novel by Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk has a lot to recommend it. It’s the first feature from Ang Lee since Life of Pi (2012), it has a supporting turn from Vin Diesel which should remind people that away from muscle cars and a certain genetically-enhanced murderer he’s a much better actor than he’s given credit for, and has been filmed in 4K, 3D and 120fps. Early footage shown at the National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas last month was greeted with the kind of superlatives that make this a shoo-in at next year’s round of awards ceremonies. Away from the technical side though, this looks to be an emotional and compelling look at the differences between the realities of war and perceptions reached at home, and features a break-out performance from newcomer Joe Alwyn as Billy Lynn.

Another literary adaptation, this time from the novel by M.L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans is the latest from director Derek Cianfrance, who gave us Blue Valentine (2010) and The Place Beyond the Pines (2012). It’s a heartfelt tale of impassioned romance, parental loss, uncontrollable grief, and a gift from the sea that brings with it a painful moral dilemma. Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander are the couple making a difficult choice in the midst of overwhelming grief, while Rachel Weisz is the widow whose recent loss threatens their regained happiness. The movie looks beautiful thanks to Justin Kurzel’s go-to cinematographer Adam Arkapaw (he also shot the first series of True Detective), and the period settings – post-World War I Western Australia – appear to have been lovingly recreated. If everything turns out as hoped, then this too will be sparring for awards come the beginning of 2017.

For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 4. Disney Runs Amok (1998-2006)

12 Thursday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure, Atlantis: Milo's Return, Bambi II, Brother Bear 2, Disney, For One Week Only, Kronk's New Groove, Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure, Mulan II, Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World, Sequels, The Fox and the Hound 2, The Hunchback of Notre Dame II, Walt Disney

Between 1937 and 1990, The Walt Disney Studios produced twenty-four animated movies, all of them original features. In all that time the only movie Disney had any plans to follow up with a sequel was Fantasia (1940). Having resisted any temptation during those fifty-three years to make a sequel to any of their animated movies, the company made an odd choice for their very first: The Rescuers Down Under (1990). It under-performed at the box office, and since then, only two further entries in the Animated Classics series have been sequels: the long-awaited Fantasia 2000 (1999) and Winnie the Pooh (2011).

But in the Nineties, and away from their Animated Classics, Disney embraced the idea of direct-to-video sequels with a vengeance. The first to be released was The Return of Jafar (1994), a clumsy attempt to capitalise on the success of Aladdin (1992); it was followed by the slightly better Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996), which proved to be commercially successful. More direct-to-video movies followed, and the House of Mouse, through either its Disney Televison Animation or DisneyToon Studios arms, released a welter of movies that often bore little relation to the originals they were trying to imitate/emulate. The following movies were all released between 1998 and 2006, and are all prime examples of a studio trampling all over its legacy as a creator of some of the most beloved animated movies – hell, just movies – of all time. These are the sequels that have yet to be followed up by another movie that further devalues the original.

Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998) / D: Tom Ellery, Bradley Raymond / 72m

Rating: 5/10 – neither better nor worse than Pocahontas (1995) – which wasn’t that great to begin with, this sees the same awkward mix of New World politics and cute animals transported to London as Pocahontas strives to avoid conflict between England and the Colonies; the animation is flat and drab to look at, without the attention to detail of an Animated Classic, and the story itself is unsatisfactory, leaving the viewer to tread water waiting for something more interesting to happen (which it doesn’t).

Hercules: Zero to Hero (1999) / D: Bob Kline / 70m

Rating: 3/10 – a compilation movie with three stories acting as an introduction to Hercules: The Animated Series, this is basic is as basic does, with little charm or imagination to help the viewer along; another example of poorly designed and executed animation, it’s a sequel in name only, and seems to have been made as a way of grabbing as much cash as possible before word got around as to how bad it is.

Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure (2001) / D: Darrell Rooney, Jeannine Roussel / 66m

Rating: 3/10 – the offspring of Lady and Tramp gets into all sorts of trouble when he joins a gang called the Junkyard Dogs in an effort to be a “wild dog”; a better-than-average cast that includes Chazz Palminteri, Mickey Rooney, Cathy Moriarty, Bronson Pinchot, and Frank Welker can’t rescue this mongrel of a movie as it completely ignores what made the original such a classic and spins a tale so dull and uninspired you’ll be hoping the entire canine cast will end up with distemper.

Return to Never Land (2002) / D: Robin Budd, Donovan Cook / 72m

Rating: 3/10 – released theatrically (although it’s hard to see why), this did well enough to be regarded as a minor success, but it’s still a drab, forgettable movie with none of the charm or energy of the original; the story lacks the kind of forward momentum that keeps the viewer interested, and as Peter Pan, Blayne Weaver gives the kind of vocal performance that makes you wonder if he was given any direction whatsoever.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame II (2002) / D: Bradley Raymond / 69m

Rating: 3/10 – fans of the original will be horrified to see how shoddy the animation is in this equally horrifying sequel that makes a mess of its basic storyline, as Quasimodo (a returning Tom Hulce) is embroiled in a plot to steal Notre Dame’s most famous bell; there’s a lot of filler here, and despite most of the original cast returning along with Hulce, it’s a movie that struggles to engage the audience or provide a solid reason for staying with it ’til the end.

101 Dalmatians II: Patch’s London Adventure (2003) / D: Jim Kammerud, Brian Smith / 74m

Rating: 4/10 – despite a stronger storyline than most direct-to-video sequels, this is still a baffling mix of the original’s use of Cruella de Vil and the shenanigans prompted by Patch’s need to seek adventure outside his family (a la Scamp); with two stories being told the movie ends up letting itself down by not paying full attention to either, and the animation is as uninspiring as previous direct-to-video releases.

The Jungle Book 2 (2003) / D: Steve Trenbirth / 72m

Rating: 4/10 – despite replaying large chunks of the original, and having some of the flattest, blandest animation of any of the sequels listed here, The Jungle Book 2 was surprisingly given a theatrical release; however, this isn’t an excuse to believe this is a superior product, as it displays a reluctance to be inventive or smart, and instead trades off the goodwill created by the original.

Atlantis: Milo’s Return (2003) / D: Victor Cook, Toby Shelton, Tad Stones / 78m

Rating: 3/10 – although Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) wasn’t quite the success Disney had hoped for, it still had a certain charm, thanks to Michael J. Fox’s performance and its quaint, steampunk aesthetic; this sequel, made up of three episodes of a TV series that was never completed, shows Disney trying to make something out of nothing, and the result is a sequel that never gels or satisfies thanks to its piecemeal nature.

Mulan II (2004) / D: Darrell Rooney, Lynne Southerland / 79m

Rating: 2/10 – one of the poorest of all the direct-to-video sequels, Mulan II is simply dreadful, and begs the question why Disney thought it should have been released in the first place; the script is a muddle of ideas around arranged marriage and loyalty that not even the usually talented voice cast can do anything with, and Rooney and Southerland prove that having two directors doesn’t always guarantee the required level of quality.

Kronk’s New Groove (2005) / D: Elliot M. Bour, Saul Andrew Blinkoff / 72m

Rating: 3/10 – lightweight in both its script and its performances, this sequel to The Emperor’s New Groove (2000) has a storyline that underwhelms consistently and lacks energy; the songs are underwhelming too, while the returning cast – like others before them – aren’t given the freedom to make more of the material than is on the page, all of which leads to a sequel that proves a chore to sit through.

Bambi II (2006) / D: Brian Pimental / 75m

Rating: 3/10 – set during the events of Bambi (1942), and following the death of Bambi’s mother, this ode to single parenting suffers from an agonising sense of its own seriousness and vocal performances that give new meaning to the term “lifeless”; it suffers too from having a visual style that is blander and weaker than that of its predecessor, leaving it feeling and looking even more turgid than it already is.

Brother Bear 2 (2006) / D: Ben Gluck / 73m

Rating: 3/10 – by this stage, Disney’s consistency in churning out pale imitations of its Animated Classics is beginning to become noteworthy in itself, and this sequel to a movie that didn’t exactly set the box office alight is another case in point; only sporadically engaging, and with a soundtrack that practically screams “lacklustre”, Brother Bear 2 has a better rep than most Disney sequels, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that this is still disappointing from start to finish.

The Fox and the Hound 2 (2006) / D: Jim Kammerud / 69m

Rating: 3/10 – Tod and Copper: The Early Years (as this could have been called) aims for a high degree of sentimentality and in doing so, makes watching the movie more hard going than it needs to be; recycling ideas from the Lady and the Tramp and 101 Dalmatians sequels, this has all the feel of a contractual obligation as Kammerud puts the characters through the motions, and the script busies itself with saying nothing of interest or importance.

For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 3. The Wicker Tree (2011)

11 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Britannia Nicol, Cowboys for Christ, Fertility, For One Week Only, Graham McTavish, Henry Garrett, Horror, May Day, Pagan rituals, Robin Hardy, Sequel, Sir Lachlan Morrison, Tressock

Introduction

Horror movies – God bless ’em for their ability to have audiences shaking their heads in frustration as yet another group of teens head off to the haunted woods/abandoned building/kill zone of their choice, only to have their now ritualised behaviours interrupted and curtailed by whichever masked serial killer/escaped demon/demented whackjob happens to be lurking nearby. (And before anyone complains, yes, that description doesn’t cover every horror movie, but it is indicative of a great deal of modern “horror”; the true horror is that these tired, hoary old storylines are trotted out time and again.)

With horror movies becoming increasingly derivative and lacking in originality, the idea of watching one of them with a number at the end of the title isn’t exactly thrilling. Horror sequels rarely ever live up to the promise that may have been delivered by their predecessor, and it’s a very rare horror sequel indeed that expands effectively on, or outstrips, its parent. Not even the prospect of the same writer/director at the helm is a guarantee of quality. Here’s one example of a horror sequel that was much anticipated, but which didn’t live up to everyone’s expectations.

The Wicker Tree (2011) / D: Robin Hardy / 96m

Cast: Britannia Nicol, Henry Garrett, James Mapes, Lesley Mackie, Clive Russell, Graham McTavish, Jacqueline Leonard, Honeysuckle Weeks, Christopher Lee

The Wicker Man (1973) is an acknowledged horror classic, a brooding, unsettling movie that lingers in the memory, and features one of Christopher Lee’s finest performances. The news that the movie’s writer/director Robin Hardy was working on a sequel first surfaced in 2002, and Lee was set to return as Lord Summerisle. But problems with financing kept the movie from being made, and Hardy turned his screenplay into a novel (unfortunately titled Cowboys for Christ). Hardy next adapted his novel into the screenplay that was used for The Wicker Tree, and it’s this process that perhaps gives the best clue as to why the movie doesn’t work as successfully as it should.

Returning to themes set around the belief in paganism in the modern world, The Wicker Tree could, and perhaps should, have been a worthy follow-up to Hardy’s classic original. But the flaws are there from the beginning, and it’s not long before the viewer has no option but to realise that this sequel isn’t going to live up to expectations. Hardy’s story is as basically simple as in The Wicker Man: a religious individual finds themselves caught up in a pagan community, and learns that they are being used as part of a fertility rite that will ensure the community’s survival. But where The Wicker Man had subtlety and a well-judged sense of impending doom for its central character, The Wicker Tree lacks both these elements, and struggles to establish itself as a worthy successor. Part of the problem is the central character of Beth (Nicol), an evangelical Christian from Texas. Thanks to Hardy’s script, and Nicol’s performance, Beth is a character we never get to really know or sympathise with. With no one to root for, or get anxious about, the movie lacks tension as a result.

There’s also a problem with another character, Sir Lachlan Morrison (McTavish). Originally meant to be played by Christopher Lee, the role is this movie’s equivalent of The Wicker Man‘s Lord Summerisle. But Hardy doesn’t do enough with the role to give McTavish a chance of making him as mesmeric as Lee, or as quietly chilling. McTavish was originally meant to play the role of Morrison’s butler, Beame (Russell), but when Lee was unable to fill the part, McTavish was “promoted”. In doing so, Hardy appears to have recast the part without rewriting the character to match the actor’s skill and ability (McTavish isn’t a patch on Lee). This leads to scenes where McTavish looks uncomfortable, and where his credibility is often in question.

The actions of the community lend themselves to some unfortunate moments of unintended levity, and the May Day celebrations that will culminate in another sacrifice. There are too many of these moments for comfort, and Hardy seems unable to recognise that these are hurting the movie rather than supporting it. Echoes of the first movie abound, but lack a similar effect: where Britt Ekland’s naked dance is rightly remembered for its eerie, yet uncompromising sexuality, here we have Honeysuckle Weeks topless in a river; with apologies to Ms Weeks, it doesn’t evoke the same response.

Tonally the movie is all over the place, with scenes not having even the barest impact and the plot being propelled forward without any sense that there’s a real through line. As it moves forward, the movie struggles to maintain a sense of the impending horror that awaits Beth come May Day, and although knowledge of the first movie isn’t necessary, the fact that it does exist, and that it is so good, makes Hardy’s mistreatment of his own material so hard to understand. He’s like a man adrift, failing to connect with a story that he’s spent so much time developing, and that translates to the screen. In taking so long to get his movie to the screen it appears that he’s lost sight of almost everything that made The Wicker Man so compelling.

Rating: 3/10 – a movie that makes you wonder just how its creator could have got it so badly wrong, The Wicker Tree is a lumpen, dreadful mess full of equally dreadful performances, and a storyline that defies logical appreciation; that it tarnishes the memory of The Wicker Man is bad enough, but being a bad movie through and through is worse still.

For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 2. Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser (2015)

10 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

1965, Biker gang, Brittany Daniel, Christopher Walken, Comedy, David Spade, Fred Wolf, Joe Dirt, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Mark McGrath, Patrick Warburton, Review, Sequels, Time travel, Twister

Introduction

When talking about sequels, two genres seem to be referred to more than any others: horror and comedy. They’re cheap to make, don’t always require big names to attract an audience, and will generally attract said audience by virtue of being an easy watch (whether that’s the case or not). Comedy sequels rarely retain the charm or gag-to-laugh ratio of their predecessors, even if the same cast/director/screenwriter returns; the original idea, if done right, should have had all its comic potential mined from source, so that any follow-up has really got to go the extra mile to work anywhere near as well. What you get – usually – are the same jokes rehashed, the same characters held in development stasis, and maybe some new characters that don’t add anything new to the mix. When a comedy sequel arrives so long after the original, you have to wonder at the reason for it, and will it have anything new to say? The reason is usually a financial one (it’s a very rare sequel that’s made under the auspices of “artistic merit”), and in terms of having anything new to say, well, let’s just say you shouldn’t count on it. Here’s a “great” example.

Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser (2015) / D: Fred Wolf / 107m

Cast: David Spade, Brittany Daniel, Patrick Warburton, Mark McGrath, Dennis Miller, Christopher Walken, Rhonda Dents, Tracy Weisert, Adam Beach

David Spade is the member of Adam Sandler’s “posse” whose career has been made up of appearances on TV, supporting turns in his pal Sandler’s movies, and voice work in a multitude of animated series and features. In 2001, he co-wrote and starred in a movie called Joe Dirt. It was about a man searching for his parents (who abandoned him as a baby), and the man, Joe, was a complete idiot. The movie wasn’t brilliant, but it wasn’t awful either; instead it occupied that middle ground where there are as many good things to say about it as there are bad. And it was funny in places, really funny, and Spade made the best of a rare leading role.

Fast forward fourteen years and Spade is back, co-writing (with director Fred Wolf, who also co-wrote the first movie) and starring in a not quite inevitable sequel. The same narrative structure is used as in the first movie – Joe recounts a journey he’s taken, this time going back to 1965 and traversing the years until he reaches the pivotal moment where he meets his wife, Brandy (Daniel) – and along the way he finds himself in all sorts of trouble while admitting to anyone who’ll listen that he’s as dumb as a box of spanners. Of course, this being a road movie of sorts, it’s also about Joe taking a journey of self-discovery and realising what’s really important (his wife and family, being true to oneself, having a good heart – the usual drivel).

But Spade and Wolf have a secret agenda. As Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser finds its time travelling groove, and goes about ripping off elements from The Wizard of Oz (1939), Back to the Future (1985), Forrest Gump (1994), and Cast Away (2000), the movie can’t help but have Joe interact with various moments in US history, particularly an encounter with the founder members of Lynyrd Skynyrd when they were still The Wildcats that ends abruptly when they mention being rich and successful enough to own their own airplane. It’s a scene obviously shoehorned into the script to be both amusing and maudlin at the same time, but thanks to the number of suggestions that Joe makes, all of which will ensure the group’s fame and fortune, the scene falls flat, and loses whatever bittersweet poignancy it may have aimed for.

It’s the same for most of the movie, as scenes lacking any subtlety (the scene with Buffalo Bob, a “future” scene involving vodka soaked tampons) vie for attention with scenes that are meant to be heartfelt. But sadly it doesn’t matter what the tempo or mood of any given scene, thanks to Wolf’s casual approach to directing, they all feel as if they’ve gone on too long, or that the meaning of the scene has been eclipsed by the need to include a joke or bit of business that doesn’t work. It all leads to long stretches where the narrative stalls unnecessarily and any momentum the movie has managed to attain is kicked to the kerb.

Of course, being a sequel, the movie does its best to bring back as many of the original cast as possible. This is usually a good thing, as the familiarity of the characters is (hopefully) maintained along with a great deal of goodwill towards them; when they show up, the viewer is meant to be happy to see them. However, Spade aside, none of the returning cast get very much to do. Daniel is sidelined for much of the movie, Walken pops up for three scenes (and coasts through all of them), Beach gets a cameo, and Miller acts as an occasional prompt for the narrative. Of the newcomers, Warburton gets the lion’s share of screen time but never seems like he’s connected with his character(s), while the only thing that McGrath does of note is to name check himself in the scene relating to the vodka soaked tampons (and weirdly, not in a good way).

Like many sequels, Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser tries hard to justify its existence but never succeeds in stating a good case for itself. Much of the humour is forced, and on a couple of occasions is reliant on Spade’s verbal dexterity, leaving the movie feeling like the vanity project of someone who’s easily persuaded that the material they’ve come up with is more than enough to gain critical and commercial approbation. Alas, in this case, that’s not true. At best, the movie is inoffensive (even when it tries its best to be offensive), at worst it’s a disappointing, unrewarding exercise in recreating what little lightning was in the original bottle.

Rating: 4/10 – slackly directed, and edited to the point of distraction by Joseph McCasland, Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser is a sequel that spends more time riffing on other, more successful movies than creating something new and effective; Spade is fine as Joe, but as this is his baby he should bear the responsibility of what is ultimately a shoddy, sporadically amusing misfire.

For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 1. Kindergarten Cop (2016)

09 Monday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Action, Aleks Paunovic, Bill Bellamy, Comedy, Darla Taylor, Dolph Lundgren, Don Michael Paul, FBI, Flash drive, For One Week Only, Kindergarten Cop 2, Review, Sequels, Undercover, Witness Protection Program

Introduction

Sequels have been with us since the Silent Era, specifically since The Fall of a Nation (1916), a follow-up to D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915). Written and directed by Thomas Dixon Jr, it contained much the same contentious and controversial material as its predecessor, but was dismissed by at least one critic as a “preposterous” picture (so even then sequels had a bad rap). The idea of making a sequel to a successful movie never really caught on, but the idea of movie series did, and in the Thirties and Forties, studios such as Universal churned out movie after movie featuring the same characters (often played by the same stars but not always), and adhered to the idea of recycling long before it became fashionable in the Nineties. It wasn’t until the Seventies, and the advent of movies such as The Godfather Part II (1974) and French Connection II (1975), that the studios began to realise that the relatively humble sequel could be a money maker. In the Eighties, independent movie makers jumped on the band wagon also, giving us franchises we never asked for (usually in the horror genre) and unwanted cash-ins that held equal zero enticement. But the makers of these movies knew one thing above else: if you make a sequel to a movie that’s been even halfway successful, and make it as cheaply as possible (okay, that’s two things), then people will pay to see it, either at the cinema or in their own homes.

Sometimes though, a sequel comes along that just leaves the average moviegoer stunned by its existence. This kind of sequel – the sequel you never imagined would be made… ever – usually pops up out of nowhere, unheralded, and with no reason to exist other than that a producer, somewhere, somehow, managed to get financing for it, and people to work on it, and actors to star in it. And with all the effort that goes into the making of a movie, all the time and talent and hard work, how does this particular movie, with all its shortcomings and failures there for all to see, actually get to be as bad as it is? Because that’s the main, major problem with sequels: they pretty much suck big time. Or if they don’t suck big time then they manage to disappoint in other ways, such as retelling the same story as the first movie, or going darker, or refusing to develop the characters, or repeating the same tonal problems that existed the first time around (hello, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice). Sequels come with the least level of expectation, and the most sense of a disaster waiting to be viewed. So to illustrate this point, For One Week Only will present seven of the most unnecessary sequels yet made, sequels that were/are so bad that a third movie hasn’t been contemplated or made yet.

Kindergarten Cop 2 (2016) / D: Don Michael Paul / 100m

Cast: Dolph Lundgren, Darla Taylor, Bill Bellamy, Aleks Paunovic, Michael P. Northey, Sarah Strange, Josiah Black, Raphael Alejandro, Dean Petriw, Abbie Magnuson, Tyreah Herbert, Oscar Hartley, Valencia Budijanto, William Budijanto

Twenty-six years. Not the longest period between an original and its sequel – that honour goes to Bambi (1942) and its DTV sequel Bambi II (2006), with a gap of sixty-four years – nevertheless Kindergarten Cop 2 arrives with only a minimum of enthusiasm to recommend it, and quite a lot to make any unsuspecting viewer run for the hills (even the ones with eyes). This is the kind of sequel that’s basically a retread of the original movie, with minor changes made, and no attempt to improve on things. If anything, the original Kindergarten Cop (1990) is a work of genius when compared to this drab retelling, what with Lundgren’s lumbering approach to the material (every time he smiles it seems as if the effort’s hurting him), and Paul’s absentee landlord version of directing helping to hold the movie back.

This time around, Lundgren’s FBI agent is on the hunt for a flash drive that contains a copy of details of everyone in the Witness Protection Program. It’s been hidden in a school, and it’s up to Agent Reed (Lundgren) to go undercover and locate it while masquerading as a kindergarten teacher, and trying to keep one step ahead of Russian villain Zogu (Paunovic), who wants it so he can track down the ex-girlfriend who’s going to testify against him in an upcoming trial. The whole thing is plotted so lazily that you don’t need any familiarity with the first movie to work out just what’s going to happen. Even the minor subplot involving one of the kids having an abusive parent plays out exactly as you’d expect, even though the dynamic is changed (it’s resolved by a pep talk rather than a beating).

The humour is as bland and uninspiring as expected, and the movie dials back on the original’s more brutal approach to violence. Scenes come and go without any sense of connection to each other, and some characters appear to exist in a vacuum; even Reed’s relationship with his partner, Agent Sanders (Bellamy), appears to be more of a convenience arranged by the screenplay than something borne out of two men working together over a period of years. Reed’s love interest with fellow kindergarten teacher, Olivia (Taylor), is as manufactured and hard to believe in as anything else, and the moment when school principal, Miss Sinclaire (Strange), lets rip with a baseball bat – while intended to be funny – merely reaffirms how lazy (and lousy) it all is. And to add insult to injury (the viewer’s), there’s no prizes for guessing when Reed gets to say, “Class dismissed”.

Rating: 3/10 – professionally made but only just, Kindergarten Cop 2 scrapes all kinds of layers from the bottom of the barrel – and some that no one knew were there until now; leaden and tedious, it’s a movie that drags itself along like a wounded animal that’s unaware of just how badly injured it is, but is in dire need of euthanasia.

The Bad Education Movie (2015)

08 Sunday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Abbey Grove, Comedy, Cornwall, Eden Project, Elliot Hegarty, Harry Enfield, Iain Glen, Jack Whitehall, Mathew Horne, Review, Sarah Solemani, School trip, TV series

D: Elliot Hegarty / 90m

Cast: Jack Whitehall, Harry Enfield, Sarah Solemani, Mathew Horne, Iain Glen, Ethan Lawrence, Charlie Wernham, Layton Williams, Kae Alexander, Jack Binstead, Nikki Runeckles, Weruche Opia, Joanna Scanlan, Jeremy Irvine, Talulah Riley, Clarke Peters, Steve Oram, Steve Speirs, Marc Wootton

Just avoid. This is a movie whose “comic” highlight is its lead character teabagging a swan. Fans of the TV series will probably enjoy this but anyone else will be wondering how on earth this was ever made, and if they manage to get through to the end, they’ll also be wondering how they can get ninety minutes of their lives back.

Rating: 3/10 – yet another dreadful movie adaptation of a British TV comedy series, The Bad Education Movie wastes no time in insulting the viewer’s intelligence and doing its best to make as little effort as possible; some lovely Cornish locations aside, this has all the hallmarks of a movie that’s been written in a rush, directed in a fugue state, and acted on rare occasions (check out Horne’s constant mugging if proof is needed).

Trailers – Southside With You (2016), Bad Moms (2016), and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

07 Saturday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Australia, Bad Moms, Barack Obama, Barry Crump, Comedy, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Julian Dennison, Kathryn Hahn, Kristen Bell, Literary adaptation, Michelle Obama, Mila Kunis, Movies, Previews, Richard Tanne, Sam Neill, Southside With You, Taika Waititi, Trailers, True story

In Southside With You, writer/director Richard Tanne invites us to witness a very special first date: the one between Michelle Robinson (played by Tika Sumpter) and Barack Obama (played by Parker Sawyers). Taking place in the summer of 1989, it’s an epic date, taking in far more than the average dinner and a show, and the movie pitches this event at the level of an above average romantic comedy – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sawyers looks particularly convincing as Obama, his tone of voice and physicality so reminiscent of a certain modern day President that it’s sometimes spooky to see, while Sumpter is equally convincing as the self-assured Michelle. The movie does look like it might be a little too “cute” in places, but there’s enough deprecating humour here to offset any charges that the movie is being overly winsome.

When your latest comedy stars Mila Kunis as an overworked, worn out, under-appreciated mom who decides to go on a bender in order to feel better about herself and her life, you’d better make sure that such a set up is at least halfway credible (Kunis as a mom is a bit of a stretch all by itself). Sadly, the trailer for Bad Moms – Kunis is joined by Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn to make up the titular trio – doesn’t give the potential viewer any such assurance. There are definitely laughs to be had but writers/directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore have too much of a patchy track record – 21 & Over (2013), The Hangover (2009), and er, Four Christmases (2008) – to instil any confidence that we haven’t already seen the best bits from the movie in the trailer – and if that’s the case then the movie, and we the audience, are in a lot of trouble.

Playing like the surreal second cousin to Up (2009), Hunt for the Wilderpeople sees Julian Dennison’s troublesome youngster, Ricky Baker, the focus of a manhunt when he goes missing with his foster uncle Hector (played by Sam Neill). Adapted by writer/director Taika Waititi from the novel by Barry Crump, this is the kind of quirky, offbeat movie that offers a surfeit of genuine laughs to complement the heartfelt drama on display elsewhere. Having co-created the sublime What We Do in the Shadows (2014), Waititi is on his own here, but from the looks of the trailer has done a fantastic job in creating the kind of strange, off-kilter world that allows Ricky and Hector to bond without anyone voicing concerns about the difference in their ages or Hector’s less than friendly demeanour.

Southbound (2015)

06 Friday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Chad Villella, David Bruckner, Death, Drama, Fabianne Therese, Horror, Jailbreak, Mather Zickel, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Patrick Horvath, Radio Silence, Review, Roxanne Benjamin, Sacrifice, Siren, The Accident, The Way In, The Way Out, Thriller

D: Radio Silence, Roxanne Benjamin, David Bruckner, Patrick Horvath / 89m

Cast: Chad Villella, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Fabianne Therese, Nathalie Love, Hannah Marks, Susan Burke, Davey Johnson, Mather Zickel, David Yow, Tipper Newton, Matt Peters, Gerald Downey, Kate Beahan, Hassie Harrison, Larry Fessenden

The anthology has been a staple of the horror movie genre going back as far as Ealing’s Dead of Night (1945). This latest offering, a portmanteau of five interlocking stories – The Way Out, Siren, The Accident, Jailbreak, and The Way In – offers a range of competing terrors, and predictably, some are better than others.

We begin with Mitch (Villella) and Jack (Bettinelli-Olpin), speeding through the desert night, both of them covered in blood and anxiously looking behind them as they travel, on the look out for what is revealed to be a group of winged skeletal figures. These figures are still following them when they reach a gas station with a motel round the back. The two men take time to clean themselves up, but when they leave find that the road now brings them back to the gas station… again and again… and the skeletal figures are closing in.

From the motel in back we follow the efforts of three young women, Sadie (Therese), Ava (Marks), and Kim (Love), as they head towards their next gig. There should be four of them but their friend Alex died recently, something for which Sadie accepts some of the blame for not keeping their friend safe. When they find themselves stranded at the side of the road after a tire blows, a lift from a passing couple (Burke, Johnson) should be the answer to their prayers but instead Sadie’s friends begin acting strangely, and she discovers that they’re all in the hands of a group of devil worshippers.

Sadie manages to get away but in doing so has a fateful encounter with Lucas (Zickel) (which the trailer gives away unfortunately). Lucas is on his way home but soon finds himself needing to get Sadie to the nearest town. Receiving instructions via his cell phone from the emergency services, Lucas finds the local hospital, but what he finds there is far from what he’s expecting, and the night takes an even more bizarre turn for the worse, worse enough that Lucas may never leave the town ever again.

Lucas’s tale gives way to that of Danny (Yow), a man in search of his missing sister, Jessie (Newton). He abducts a bartender (Peters) and forces him to take him to where he believes his sister is being held against her will. Along the way he learns about the true nature of the people Jessie has chosen to live amongst, and that his determination to find her has terrible consequences.

In the last segment we meet a family made up of Daryl (Downey), his wife Cait (Beahan), and their daughter, Jem (Harrison). They’re on a family vacation before Jem goes off to college, and they’ve rented a house. As they prepare to have dinner, three masked men show up outside before forcing their way in. Daryl is their target, and it soon becomes clear that the men are there out of revenge for something he’s done.

Any portmanteau movie stands and falls on the quality of its individual stories, and Southbound is no different. The Way Out throws the viewer into the middle of an escape from supernatural creatures that it makes no attempt to explain. Mitch and Jack have done something bad – that we can guess – but the sparseness of the dialogue allied with the striking visuals used to depict the skeletal entities leaves any exposition unnecessary. This is the stuff of nightmares, and the viewer is forced to go along with it all and hope for answers later. (Observant readers will already have gathered that the final segment, The Way In, is more directly linked than the other episodes, and so it proves.)

Siren drops the ball however, its tale of desert-based devil worshippers proving clumsy both in its construction and its presentation. Writer/director Benjamin aims for eerie but never quite achieves the right tone. A dinner party that should be chilling thanks to the behaviour of everyone but the three friends is muted thanks to the generic set up and unfulfilled sense of menace. It’s further hampered by the unconvincing performances of Love and Marks, a poorly choreographed and framed scene in which the cultists induct Sadie’s friends around a fire pit, and the ease with which Sadie escapes a bear trap.

The Accident more than makes up for Siren‘s shortcomings, though, and is the movie’s stand out segment, a squirm-inducing tale of punishment and body horror that employs some truly excellent special effects and is the sort of tale that wouldn’t have been out of place in an old Tales of the Crypt comic book. It’s a sweaty, claustrophobic, blood-drenched episode, with an equally sweaty performance from Zickel that overcomes the segment’s only failing, that being the ease with which Lucas performs certain tasks with only the barest of encouragement to persuade him.

Jailbreak and The Way In aren’t able to match the intensity of David Bruckner’s ballsy contribution, and although the rest of the movie isn’t quite the anti-climax it might seem, Patrick Horvath’s tale of unfortunate brotherly devotion is too slight to work effectively and feels like an under-developed Twilight Zone episode, while The Way In brings the movie back to where it started with a home invasion tale gone horribly, terribly wrong. These are acceptable as stand-alone segments but lack the edge needed to make them more memorable within the confines of the movie as a whole.

Eagle eyed viewers will spot clues and references to each of the segments popping up here and there, indicating the characters are trapped in some kind of purgatorial existence that they’re all doomed to repeat, and there are cameos from the skeletal creatures. Budgetary constraints hold the movie back however, though the majority of the performances fit well with the stories on offer, with Zickel grabbing the lion’s share of the acting plaudits. That said, the lonely desert landscapes are used to good effect, and the photography – by Tarin Anderson, Tyler Gillett, Alexandre Naufel, and Andrew Shulkind – is exemplary throughout, blending the action of each vignette into a surprisingly cohesive whole. And the whole thing is topped off by a gravelly, ominous voice over by Fessenden as a radio DJ who, if you listen closely, seems to know exactly what’s happening… and why.

Rating: 7/10 – despite some obvious flaws, Southbound is a largely effective and inventive horror anthology that does its best to offer jaded audiences something at least a little different; it succeeds for the most part thanks to the makers’ decision to link each of the stories in clever and intriguing ways, and by imbuing each tale with a satisfying sense of dread.

Top 10 Movies at the International Box Office – January-April 2016

05 Thursday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

International Box Office, Movies, Top 10

With 2016 already a third of the way gone (where does the time go?), it’s time to take a look at the movies that have raked in the cash across the globe in the first four months. There are some surprising entries, and the top spot is held by a movie which may well breach the billion mark by the year’s end – which will be an amazing achievement and completely unexpected. Half are sequels, one is a remake, which leaves just four movies that are original – if that isn’t a sad reflection on the make up of movies released so far this year then nothing will be. All have made over $150m at the international box office, but whether they’ll still be in the Top 10 at year’s end (or even in another four months) remains to be seen. So here they are: the movies we’ve gone out of our way to see at the box office, whether we live in Hollywood or Hunan Province. See how many you can guess in advance.

NOTE: All figures are courtesy of the good folks at boxofficemojo.com.

10 – London Has Fallen – $191,295,451

London Has Fallen seems to have made its money off the back of a residual fondness for its US based predecessor. That a movie as poorly constructed and flaky as this can make as much money as it has is both worrying and oddly comforting – worrying because audiences will flock to a movie even when it’s clearly a case of stupid is as stupid does, and oddly comforting because there’s always room for movies that wear their stupidity like a badge of honour.

9 – The Monkey King 2 – $193,677,158

The second sequel on the list was released back in February and shows just how important the international markets, and particularly China, are now when determining the box office success of foreign language movies. The Monkey King 2 tanked in the US, earning only $709,982, but its performance overseas is a salutary reminder that Hollywood can’t have it all – and that’s a good thing.

8 – Captain America: Civil War – $261,600,000

Captain America: Civil War doesn’t open in the US until tomorrow – what’s the betting it’s as successful on its home turf as it has been abroad? (Don’t bother to answer that.) Marvel have another potential billion dollar movie on their hands, and if it can rake this much in in just one week then the sky’s the limit. It’s also proved itself as yet another critic-proof behemoth; a good job then that it’s as good as everyone hoped.

7 – Monster Hunt – $385,274,702

The second foreign language movie on the list, Monster Hunt‘s total haul is yet another snub to the US market, which allowed it to play for just one week back in January and make a massive $32,766. It may not be the best example of Chinese fantasy movie making, but international audiences have taken it to their hearts, and in the end that’s all that matters.

6 – Kung Fu Panda 3 – $508,538,424

And now we reach the big guns. A massive leap in ticket sales takes us to the third outing for lovable Po, irascible Master Shifu, and the Famous Five. Well on the way to emulating both its predecessors’ haul of over $600m, Kung Fu Panda 3 is the latest in a series that has quietly earned its success without appearing to do too much in the process. Both sequels have built on what’s gone before, and this instalment is a testament to the way in which a simple formula can be enriched and expanded and keep drawing audiences back.

5 – The Mermaid (Mei ren yu) – $552,521,248

The third (and final) foreign language movie on the list, Stephen Chow’s fantasy drama is yet further proof that the US box office, once regarded as the main arbiter of a movie’s success, doesn’t occupy that role as comprehensively as it used to. In comparison with The Monkey King 2 and Monster Hunt, The Mermaid performed respectably in the US, earning $3,232,685, which makes its international haul all the more impressive. Perhaps there’ll come a time when foreign language movies will bypass the US box office altogether; after all, how much profit can they be making in such a suffocating market?

4 – The Jungle Book – $725,233,678

With brand-name recognition and an impressive promotional push by the House of Mouse, The Jungle Book was always going to be on this list somewhere, but for a movie that was only released over a few weeks ago it’s put an equally impressive number of bums on seats in a relatively short space of time. Will it break the billion dollar mark? Possibly, but the point here is that the movie is a triumph of expectation and promotion that has performed exceptionally well around the world, and without really bringing anything special to its audiences.

3 – Deadpool – $761,707,675

Deadpool has proved to be a runaway, unabashed success story at the box office, and all despite its raunchy, coarse, crude, hyper-violent excesses (or is it because of all those things?). It’s great to see such an unapologetically adult movie do so well, and find itself outperforming so many family friendly (and demographically targeted) movies. With this amount of money taken at the box office, there should be no excuse for the sequel to be anything other than as raunchy etc as its forebear.

2 – Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – $864,255,044

It had to be near the top, what with the high levels of fanboy expectation and the overwhelming promotional barrage we were subjected to from the moment the movie was announced. But with the movie itself proving less than stellar, this is the perfect example of a movie earning a shed load of money while not actually offering an experience that justifies people shelling out for it in the first place. Go figure!

1 – Zootopia – $933,713,976

If you said to yourself at the beginning of this post, I bet Zootopia is the number one movie, then give yourself a pat on the back (you sly old fox you). A complete surprise that it’s unlikely Disney themselves could have predicted, this reaffirms the notion that a genuinely good movie will win out if given the chance. That audiences have taken to Zootopia so completely and unreservedly is another positive that shouldn’t be ignored, and of all the movies released so far in 2016, its success should be celebrated for what it is: truly deserved.

Question of the Week – 5 May 2016

05 Thursday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Captain America: Civil War, DC, Suicide Squad, Warner Bros.

With the recent release of Captain America: Civil War there has been no end of renewed/continuing criticism of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. So this week’s question is an easy one:

Does anyone believe that Suicide Squad will be the movie to lift DC/Warner Bros. out of the grim, destruction-porn dead end they seem to be embedded in?

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

04 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Action, Ant-Man, Anthony Russo, Black Panther, Black Widow, Bucky Barnes, Chris Evans, Colonel Zemo, Drama, Elizabeth Olsen, Falcon, Hawkeye, Iron Man, Jeremy Renner, Joe Russo, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Paul Bettany, Paul Rudd, Review, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlet Witch, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Sokovia Accords, Spider-Man, Superheroes, The Avengers, Thriller, Tom Holland, Vision, War Machine, William Hurt, Winter Soldier

D: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo / 147m

Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd, Emily VanCamp, Tom Holland, Daniel Brühl, Frank Grillo, William Hurt, Martin Freeman, Marisa Tomei, John Kani, John Slattery, Hope Davis, Alfre Woodard

And so begins Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Though the Marvel formula is pretty well established now, and is beginning to show through a little too often for comfort – Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) disappoints more and more with repeated viewings, Ant-Man (2015) was fun but too married to the formula for its own good – the company that should finally give us the Spider-Man movie a lot of people have been waiting for, has cannily begun the process of dismantling and rebuilding the work it carried out in Phases 1 and 2. Having introduced us to the more well-known Marvel superheroes – Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Captain America etc. – over the next few years we’re going to meet several newer additions to the roster, so that by the time we get to Avengers: Infinity War Part II (2019), the Avengers will hopefully be comprised of a different set of superheroes.

With that in mind, there’s a lot that needs to happen before then, and while Captain America: Civil War looks as if it’s the first step in getting there, and while it’s still the best Marvel movie this side of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Marvel are still playing it safe in terms of the characters – contrary to what you may have heard, all the main players survive in this movie – but they are trying to make things grittier and more true to life in relation to the characters’ relationships and feelings. Hence we have a falling out between Tony Stark (Downey Jr) and Steve Rogers (Evans) over whether or not the Avengers should be “policed” following the destructive events in Sokovia. Tony believes that their actions in the past have caused too much death and suffering (even though they’ve saved the world twice), while Steve feels that it shouldn’t be left up to anyone else but the Avengers as to where they go and who they stand up to; what if they’re not asked to go somewhere they should be?

It all leads to the various core Avengers – except for an absent Thor and Bruce Banner – taking sides over the issue, and for each side to bring in back up when it’s clear that a showdown is inevitable. Meanwhile, as if things aren’t bad enough, Steve’s old friend and Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes (Stan) is still on the run and apparently responsible for the bombing of a United Nations building that has taken the life of T’Chaka (Kani), the king of African nation Wakanda. His son, T’Challa (Boseman), swears to have his revenge on Barnes, and with Steve unwilling to give up on his friend, the battle lines are even more fiercely drawn. (T’Challa is one of the new characters, aka Black Panther, and will have his own movie in 2018.)

What it all boils down to is whether or not the Avengers should be autonomous or inducted into the world’s police force and used accordingly. There are good reasons on both sides for inclusion or exclusion but the interesting thing about the arguments put forward is that Tony’s are emotionally driven by his feelings of guilt over the numerous deaths that occurred in Sokovia, while Steve’s are still rooted in his past. Having fought against Hitler and Hydra both in World War II, Steve knows one thing for sure: if there’s evil to be faced and defeated, then you just do it. It’s a simple idea, but for Steve a very powerful one. And though the movie does its best to keep the narrative focused on this divisive idea, there’s a spanner in the works.

The “spanner” is this movie’s principal villain, Colonel Helmut Zemo (Brühl), who is operating in the background and using Barnes’ past to cause maximum distrust between Tony and Steve. He’s doing so for personal reasons, and credible ones at that, and they have a bearing on the division that threatens the future of the Avengers. Zemo may not be trying to destroy the world like Loki or Ultron, but it’s good to see a villain causing so much harm all by himself and without an army of aliens or robots to help him. Brühl puts in a good performance, and its one whose quiet determination isn’t overwhelmed by all the sturm und drang going on around him. But Zemo is also the device by which the Avengers reach their own accord, an uneasy truce if you like, but one that introduces a further interesting dynamic for future movies.

As for the other characters, and with so many to include, the script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely rightly concentrates on the falling out between Tony and Steve, while doing its best to address and develop issues surrounding everyone else. There’s the tentative romance brewing between Vision (Bettany) and Scarlet Witch (Olsen) that has them on opposite sides (as well as Vision’s understanding of the Infinity Stone in his forehead), the return of General Thaddeus Ross (Hurt) as the man charged with bringing the Avengers into line, the various drawbacks encountered by Falcon (Mackie) and War Machine (Cheadle) as the sidekicks of Captain America and Iron Man respectively, Black Widow’s (Johansson) kick-ass yet conciliatory occupation of the middle ground when necessary, the return of Hawkeye (Renner) to make up the numbers on Cap’s side, and the return also of Scott Lang aka Ant-Man (Rudd) who provides much of the comedy that makes the airport confrontation so much fun.

As mentioned before, we’re introduced to one of Phase 3’s newer characters, Black Panther. Originally meant to have a much smaller role in Captain America: Civil War, Boseman’s portrayal is extremely good, and bodes well for his solo outing. The character’s place in the MCU is assured thanks to the way in which the script integrates his own personal mission of revenge into Tony’s attempts to achieve regulation of the Avengers. Neither a part of the Avengers or against them, Black Panther is a neutral figure in terms of the differences affecting them, and acts as a buffer for the audience by following his own path.

And then there’s the little matter of finally seeing Peter Parker aka Spider-Man in a Marvel movie – at last. With all due respect to Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire, and Marc Webb and Andrew Garfield, in the space of roughly half an hour, the Russo brothers and the writers have given us the best Spidey yet seen on the big screen. Holland is terrific as the garrulous super-teen, nervous and perplexed in his meeting with Tony Stark, unabashedly starstruck in his set-to with Captain America et al. It’s an absolute joy to see him portrayed in this fashion, and for fans who stay to (almost) the very end, the caveat “Soider-Man will return” (a la James Bond) will be a welcome sight.

With this movie, Marvel has begun the next Phase of its assault on our hearts and minds and disposable incomes in such an enjoyable way that even though it’s not a movie that takes any real risks with either its characters or the storyline, it’s still a marked improvement on recent outings. The humour is there, the action/fight scenes are as inventive and thrilling as ever, and (some of) the characters are allowed to develop further, thereby consolidating our affection for them. It’s a huge juggling act, but here the writers and the Russo brothers have made such a good job of things that there are only minor gripes to be had, and those aren’t really worth mentioning. Where Guardians of the Galaxy raised the bar considerably for the MCU, Captain America: Civil War has just vaulted over it with accomplished ease.

Rating: 9/10 – while many may regard this as just Avengers 2.5, there’s more to Captain America: Civil War than meets the eye, and Marvel can be rightly proud of what they’ve achieved; as a stand-alone movie it works incredibly well, and as a part of the wider MCU it’s even more effective, being more tightly scripted and more efficiently directed than any other superhero movies out there at the moment – and yes, that does mean Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016).

Happy Birthday – Rebecca Hall

03 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

A Promise, Actress, Career, Everything Must Go, Frost/Nixon, Iron Man 3, Movies, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Rebecca Hall (3 May 1982 -)

With her tall, slim frame and features that can appear both angled and smooth, Rebecca Hall – daughter of renowned English theatre director Sir Peter Hall – has made a career out of playing strong-willed yet vulnerable women, and in a variety of genres. She made her debut in the TV series The Camomile Lawn (1992), but it wasn’t until 2006 that she made her debut on the big screen in Starter for 10. Since then she’s worked solidly, releasing two or three movies each year, and working with directors of the calibre of Christopher Nolan, Ron Howard, Patrice Leconte, and Woody Allen. She’s often a reassuring presence in her movies, providing audiences with a sympathetic character to relate to and root for. She once said that she “always look[s] for contradiction in a character”, and this shows in her choice of roles over the years, even in something as unsuccessful as Lay the Favorite (2012). Later this year she can be seen in Steven Spielberg’s The BFG, yet another high-profile movie that sits comfortably within the mix of Hollywood and indie movies that make up her career so far. Before then, it’s worth checking out the five movies listed below, all of which feature Hall giving strong, impressive performances.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) – Character: Vicky

In Woody Allen’s romantic comedy/drama, Hall is the practical friend to Scarlett Johansson’s more extrovert Cristina, but while she appears to be more strait-laced in comparison, it’s Vicky that falls for Javier Bardem’s lusty artist, Juan Antonio. Hall gives a layered, intelligent performance that allows the audience to believe that Vicky could be so certain about her future, and yet so unsure once she meets Juan Antonio, and the feelings of confusion and remorse she exhibits in the wake of their affair. Juggling these feelings with the need to appear satisfied and content with her recent marriage, Hall ensures Vicky is a recognisable and understandable character, and one that you feel you could probably get to know very well in real life.

A Promise (2013) – Character: Charlotte “Lotte” Hoffmeister

A period drama set in Germany in 1912 – and directed by Patrice Leconte – A Promise features Hall as the young wife of an aging tycoon (played by Alan Rickman) who falls in love with an engineer (played by Richard Madden) who works for her husband. It’s a tale of unrequited love on both sides, adapted from a novel by Stefan Zweig, and features a beautifully constructed and affecting performance from Hall that is a pleasure to watch. As Lotte struggles against her ingrained sense of duty, Hall shows the personal sacrifice she has to make in order to retain her own sense of self-worth, until circumstances (namely, World War I) intrude and make her efforts seem ill-advised.

Frost/Nixon (2008) – Character: Caroline Cushing

As the new girlfriend of David Frost (played by Michael Sheen), Hall’s character finds herself involved in the tense run-up to Frost’s televised interviews with disgraced US President Richard Nixon (played by Frank Langella). (In reality, Cushing and Frost had been together for five years at this point.) Hall has a supporting role here, and isn’t on screen for much of the movie’s running time, but when she is she still grabs the viewer’s attention, and there’s an obvious chemistry between Hall and Sheen that adds to the dynamic of Cushing and Frost’s relationship.

Everything Must Go (2010) – Character: Samantha

Although Everything Must Go is very much Will Ferrell’s movie, Hall once again shows she can match anyone when it comes to giving a natural, honest performance, and she does so here effortlessly, playing a pregnant, put-upon neighbour who does her best to help Ferrell’s depressed, alcoholic ex-salesman get over the loss of his job and his wife, and despite having enough problems of her own. It’s a surprisingly substantial role, and Hall teases out every nuance and shading of the character, making Samantha a much more rounded (and grounded) person than may be expected, and entirely sympathetic to boot.

Iron Man 3 (2013) – Character: Maya Hansen

Hall once said, “One of the great things about the ‘Iron Man‘ franchise is that they employ fascinating actors who don’t necessarily do action movies.” Well, Hall is certainly a fascinating actor, and as the geneticist whose work ultimately is used for immoral and illegal purposes by Guy Pearce’s chief villain, she adds another string to her bow by appearing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She still gives her role due sincerity, and makes Hansen as credible as any other character she’s played. It’s a tribute to Hall that she doesn’t look or feel out of place in an Iron Man movie; a shame then that her character probably won’t be returning any time soon.

Mr. Topaze (1961)

02 Monday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Albert Topaze, Comedy, Corruption, Drama, Forgotten movie, Herbert Lom, Leo McKern, Marcel Pagnol, Nadia Gray, Paris, Peter Sellers, Review, School teacher

aka I Like Money

D: Peter Sellers / 97m

Cast: Peter Sellers, Nadia Gray, Herbert Lom, Leo McKern, Michael Gough, Billie Whitelaw, John Neville, Martita Hunt, John Le Mesurier, Joan Sims

Rarely seen since its release in 1961, Mr. Topaze has the distinction of being the first (and only) full-length feature directed by Peter Sellers. Adapted from the stage play by Marcel Pagnol (and already filmed on seven previous occasions, twice by Pagnol himself), Mr. Topaze has come to be regarded as Sellers’ “forgotten” movie, and unless there’s a print waiting to be found in someone’s attic, the only known existing copy is in the hands of the British Film Institute’s National Archive.

It’s an amiable drama with humorous flourishes, and tells the story of a school teacher called Albert Topaze (Sellers). He’s an honest man, known for his integrity, but he’s also incredibly mild-mannered, content to teach his pupils but with few if any social interests. He does harbour a romantic attraction for Ernestine (Whitelaw), another teacher, but she’s also the daughter of the headmaster, Muche (McKern), a circumstance that keeps him from wooing her except in the most awkward and unsatisfactory ways. It’s only when his friend and fellow teacher, Tamise (Gough), persuades him to be more manly and seize the day that Topaze reveals his love to a delighted Ernestine. But he’s still too afraid of Muche to approach him for her hand in marriage.

Before he can muster enough courage to speak to Muche, a more serious matter arises. A baroness (Hunt), the grandmother of one of his pupils, arrives at the school to complain about her grandson being bottom of the class. She believes Topaze has made a mistake on her grandson’s report, and wants Topaze to change it. Topaze stands by his markings which leads to the Baroness withdrawing all her grandsons from the school, the revelation that Topaze is in love with Ernestine, and his being fired by Muche.

But help is at hand, in the form of crooked businessman Castel Benac (Lom) and his mistress, musical comedy actress Suzy Courtois (Gray). Realising that his honesty and naïvete are the perfect attributes they need to help them with a crooked deal they have planned, Benac and Suzy convince Topaze to accept the role of Managing Director in a company that will facilitate the deal; and if anything goes wrong then he’ll take the fall. A visit from a business rival (Neville) of Benac’s reveals the truth but Topaze allows himself to be persuaded by Suzy to remain on board. Topaze goes along with Benac’s deception, even when he discovers the extent to which he’s been used. And this discovery leaves Topaze having to make a very difficult choice…

As mentioned above, Mr. Topaze is an amiable drama with humorous flourishes. It’s a movie that starts off quietly with Topaze and his pupils walking through the streets of Paris, and remains at an equally steady pace for the rest of the movie; sometimes it borders on being stately. But Sellers has made a good choice here because Topaze is a man of reflection, not a doer but a prevaricator, and to move things along at a more industrious pace would have altered the tone and feel of the movie as a whole. (A faster paced movie would have thrust proceedings into the style of a farce, and while that might not have been a bad thing, it’s not the kind of story Sellers is trying to tell.)

By focusing on Topaze’s introspective demeanour, and establishing his integrity, Sellers is free to make him the calm at the centre of the storm of emotions and drama that go on around him. From McKern’s antic turn as the obsequious and grandiose headmaster, to Gough’s effusive best friend, to Whitelaw’s pouting love interest, and to Lom’s blustering businessman, almost all the characters around Topaze are more animated than he is and by extension, more aware of the world around them. As he learns that he’s been duped, Sellers sidesteps the temptation to make Topaze as emotive as everyone else, instead relying on weary resignation to indicate Topaze’s disappointment and anger; after all, what difference will it make?

Sellers’ melancholy turn as Topaze wasn’t well received in 1961, with critics and audiences alike unwilling to accept him in a role that wasn’t as overly comedic as they were used to, but Sellers pitches the part perfectly, and even though it should be the other peformances that grab the attention, the viewer’s eye is always drawn to the former Goon. In fact, such is the strength of his performance that when he’s not on screen the movie seems to miss him; when he returns the movie also seems to heave a sigh of relief.

But while Sellers the actor is on fine form, Sellers the director doesn’t always make the most of Pierre Rouve’s screenplay. Rouve downplays the satirical elements needed once Topaze meets up with Benac, and the course of his disillusionment is played with only scant regard for the sad inevitability of it all. Sellers is on shaky ground during this part of the movie, as the plot takes centre stage, leaving his character development to drift along with the narrative. Benac and Suzy make for more interesting and compelling characters, and the ease with which Topaze’s protestations are overcome smacks of expediency rather than any natural development of either the storyline or the character. It all ends with an uncomfortable meeting between Topaze and Tamise that poorly illustrates Pagnol’s idea that there are no truly honest men in the world.

Seen from a distance of forty-five years, Mr. Topaze is an intriguing movie to watch, thanks largely to Sellers’ immaculate performance, but also due to its entirely unexpected nature (just the year before he’d appeared in The Millionairess and Two Way Stretch, playing characters that were more typical of his career up ’til then). Sadly it seems that the response to Mr. Topaze was disappointing enough for him to return to the type of roles audiences liked him for (although Stanley Kubrick was clever enough to cast him in Lolita (1962) as the parasitic Clare Quilty). And one short movie aside – I Say I Say I Say (1964) – he never directed again. A shame then, as on this evidence, and with some carefully chosen projects provided for him, Sellers could have been just as well regarded for his directorial prowess as his acting prowess.

Rating: 7/10 – better than contemporary audiences and reviewers described on its release, Mr. Topaze is a bittersweet drama that offers some simple cinematic pleasures along with a raft of enjoyable performances (McKern is particularly effective); that it feels a little slipshod once Topaze’s integrity starts to wear away is unfortunate and stops the movie from being as polished and cohesive as its first “half”, but this is still a movie worth tracking down if you can*.

Alas, there is no trailer available at present for Mr. Topaze.

*Mr. Topaze is available to view on the British Film Institute’s BFI Player, though in a version that runs just eighty-four minutes, which suggests that there is a reel missing from their print.

Short Movies Volume 3

01 Sunday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

40 years, Action, Alien virus, Ammo, Antonio Fargas, Best friends, Blooming, Coming out, Drama, Ex-boyfriend, Harrison J. Bahe, Holly Valance, Jamie Dornan, Jane LA, Jason Biggs, Jenny Mollen, Julie Benz, Kat Coiro, Kidnapping Caitlynn, Lesbianism, LGBT, Max Landis, Reviews, Sammi Pechman, Sci-fi, Shanae Styles, Short movies, X Returns, Zena Grey

The short movie is an oft-neglected aspect of movie viewing these days, with fewer outlets available to the makers of short movies, and certainly little chance of their efforts being seen in our local multiplexes (the exceptions to these are the animated shorts made to accompany the likes of Pixar’s movies, the occasional cash-in from Disney such as Frozen Fever (2015), and Blue Sky’s Scrat movies). Otherwise it’s an internet platform such as Vimeo, YouTube (a particularly good place to find short movies, including the ones in this post), or brief exposure at a film festival. Even on DVD or Blu-ray, there’s a dearth of short movies on offer. In an attempt to bring some of the gems that are out there to a wider audience, here’s another in an ongoing series of posts that focus on short movies. Who knows? You might find one that becomes a firm favourite – if you do, please let me know.

Jane LA (2014) / D: Max Landis / 12m

Cast: Zena Grey, Russell Henson, Maggie Levin, Hadrian Belove, Anna DeHaan, Max Landis

Rating: 7/10 – A documentary movie maker (Landis) films a young woman, Jane (Grey), who believes that by setting off a bomb in a crowded public place, she’ll bring people closer together (as well as making an artistic statement). With talking head soundbites from some of the people that know her, Jane’s story is played out in a wistful, semi-serious way that keeps the viewer guessing as to whether or not she’s completely serious, or (to be unkind) completely deluded. Landis plays with our perceptions of other people’s truths, while Grey makes Jane lovable and scary at the same time, leading to a final shot that is both haunting and unnerving.

Blooming (2013) / D: Harrison J. Bahe / 10m

Cast: Shanae Styles, Sammi Pechman

Rating: 6/10 – A young woman reveals her sexuality to her best friend… with unexpected results. Though entirely predictable, this is the kind of wish fulfillment tale that stands or falls on the quality of its dialogue and performances, and Bahe’s stripped down narrative is no exception. With an earnest performance from Styles as the young woman afraid to tell her best friend that she’s a lesbian, Blooming does enough to avoid being easily dismissed, but for some viewers, Bahe’s simple approach may be too flat in its presentation.

Kidnapping Caitlynn (2009) / D: Kat Coiro (as Katherine Cunningham-Eves) / 10m

Cast: Jenny Mollen, Jason Biggs, Julie Benz, Rhys Coiro

Rating: 7/10 – Daniel (Coiro) and Emily (Mollen) have split up, but this doesn’t stop Emily from trying to get some of her things back from their house, and despite the locks having been changed. Dragging her new beau Max (Biggs) with her, Emily’s “retrieval” of her things leads to Daniel’s new girlfriend, Caitlynn (Benz) being abducted with everything else. A bright little comedy, Kidnapping Caitlynn is endearing and engaging thanks to assured performances from Mollen and Biggs, and features some great one-liners to show just how deluded Emily is in the way she deals with her break-up.

X Returns (2009) / D: Ammo / 10m

Cast: Jamie Dornan, Holly Valance, Antonio Fargas

Rating: 5/10 – In the wake of Apollo 11’s return to Earth in 1969, a marine (Dornan) is infected by an alien virus and kept in quarantine for forty years before being freed by a woman (Valance) who works in the facility where he’s being kept. With its lack of back story to explain what’s going on and why (particularly the woman’s actions and just why the marine has spent so long in quarantine – and without aging), X Returns should best be viewed as an attempt to drum up interest in making a full-length feature out of Agent X’s plight. It also has an X-Files vibe about it, and is worth seeing for Fargas’s quietly menacing portrayal of a government spook. If you’re a fan of Dornan’s though, be prepared for disappointment: he’s barely in it.

thedullwoodexperiment

~ Viewing movies in a different light

Monthly Archives: May 2016

Monthly Roundup – May 2016

Question of the Week – 31 May 2016

Race (2016)

The Nightmare (2015)

Grimsby (2016)

Happy Birthday – Carey Mulligan

Trailers – Diary of a Chambermaid (2015), Morgan (2016) and Len and Company (2015)

Mini-Review: Learning to Drive (2014)

Question of the Week – 25 May 2016

Sing Street (2016)

The American Side (2016)

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

Triple 9 (2016)

Zootopia (2016)

Zoolander 2 (2016)

Question of the Week – 18 May 2016

The Fencer (2015)

Burning Bodhi (2015)

For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 6. S. Darko (2009)

For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 5. Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004)

Trailers – The Accountant (2016), Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (2016) and The Light Between Oceans (2016)

For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 4. Disney Runs Amok (1998-2006)

For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 3. The Wicker Tree (2011)

For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 2. Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser (2015)

For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 1. Kindergarten Cop (2016)

The Bad Education Movie (2015)

Trailers – Southside With You (2016), Bad Moms (2016), and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

Southbound (2015)

Top 10 Movies at the International Box Office – January-April 2016

Question of the Week – 5 May 2016

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Happy Birthday – Rebecca Hall

Mr. Topaze (1961)

Short Movies Volume 3

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: