Monthly Roundup – February 2016

29 Monday Feb 2016

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5th birthday, Action, Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Animation, Athletics, Batman, Batman: Bad Blood, Batwing, Batwoman, Benson Fong, Bruce Wayne, Charlie Chan, Crime, Detective, Dracula, Drama, Fast Girls, Genndy Tartakovsky, Hotel Transylvania 2, Jason O'Mara, Jay Oliva, Kevin James, Lenora Crichlow, Lily James, Mantan Moreland, Morena Baccarin, Murder, Mystery, Nightwing, Noel Clarke, Phil Karlson, Radium, Regan Hall, Relay team, Review, Robin, Sean Maher, Selena Gomez, Sequel, Shanghai, Sidney Toler, Sports, Steve Buscemi, Stuart Allan, The Heretic, Thriller, Yvonne Strahovski

Batman: Bad Blood (2016) / D: Jay Oliva / 72m

Cast: Jason O’Mara, Yvonne Strahovski, Stuart Allan, Sean Maher, Morena Baccarin, Gaius Charles, James Garrett, Ernie Hudson, Robin Atkin Downes, Travis Willingham, Geoff Pierson

Rating: 7/10 – when Batman (O’Mara) is missing believed dead after an encounter with The Heretic (Willingham), it falls to Nightwing (Maher), Robin (Allan) and newcomer Batwoman (Strahovski) to discover if he really is dead, or if his disappearance is part of a bigger plot; continuing Warner Bros. impressive streak of animated Batman movies, Batman: Bad Blood is as moody and psychologically sombre as its live action counterparts, even if some of its characters behave like children in their attempts to get along.

The Shanghai Cobra (1945) / Phil Karlson / 64m

Cast: Sidney Toler, Mantan Moreland, Benson Fong, James Cardwell, Joan Barclay, Addison Richards, Arthur Loft

Rating: 5/10 – the Oriental detective is tasked with finding the murderer of several bank employees, but the mystery turns out to be connected to an old case Chan was involved in years before in Shanghai; another conveyor belt Monogram/Charlie Chan movie, The Shanghai Cobra is hardly distracting, or distinguishable from any of its Forties brethren, but it’s entertaining enough in its way, and Toler still seems to be enjoying himself in the role (which is no mean feat).

Fast Girls (2012) / D: Regan Hall / 91m

Cast: Lenora Crichlow, Lily James, Lorraine Burroughs, Noel Clarke, Lashana Lynch, Dominique Tipper, Rupert Graves, Philip Davis, Bradley James, Emma Fielding

Rating: 3/10 – Olympics wannabe sprinter Shania Andrews (Crichlow) makes it onto the UK team but finds her progress hampered by a rivalry with fellow athlete Lisa Temple (James), as well as personal problems of her own; for Fast Girls, writer and star Noel Clarke has fashioned a cliché-strewn drama that lacks cohesion between scenes and is laden with unconvincing dialogue, not to mention the paper-thin plotting and some extremely wayward performances.

Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015) / D: Genndy Tartakovsky / 89m

Cast: Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, David Spade, Keegan-Michael Key, Asher Blinkoff, Fran Drescher, Molly Shannon, Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman, Dana Carvey, Rob Riggle, Mel Brooks

Rating: 6/10 – Count Dracula (Sandler) has a grandchild – but will the little sprog turn out to be fully human, or will he sprout fangs and make his grandfather eternally happy?; a serviceable sequel, Hotel Transylvania 2 lacks momentum in the first hour and then pulls it together to provide a fun conclusion, which makes it okay for children, but adults will probably be wishing they were watching the first movie instead.

The 88th Annual Academy Awards – The Oscars 2016

29 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Academy Awards, Chris Rock, Diversity, Oscars

It’s been a difficult period for the Oscars what with the diversity issue rearing its ugly head and leading to some stars refusing to attend the ceremony – is it all just based around Beasts of No Nation failing to get any nominations? – but on the night everyone was looking to host Chris Rock to provide the final summing up of the whole debacle. He made some great remarks about the Oscars in the Sixties, having black categories such as Best Black Friend, how racist Hollywood producers are, and that the same opportunities should be given to black actors that are given to white actors. It wasn’t the funniest opening monologue the Oscars have ever seen but Rock got his points across in a way that wasn’t divisive or unnecessarily aggressive.

There were some strange moments: Stacey Dash, Sam Smith mangling his own song for Spectre, Suge Knight, Black History Month Minute (Jack Black?), any subsequent attempts by Chris Rock to address the issue of diversity (done to death far too quickly), cookie sales for Chris Rock’s daughters(!), the staff from Price Waterhouse Cooper, Jacob Tremblay standing on a box, and a plethora of weird musical cues for both presenters and winners.

Best Original Screenplay
Bridge of Spies, Matt Charman, Ethan Coen & Joel Coen
Ex Machina, Alex Garland
Inside Out, Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley; Original story by Pete Docter, Ronnie del Carmen
Spotlight, Josh Singer, Tom McCarthy
Straight Outta Compton, Screenplay by Jonathan Herman, Andrea Berloff; Story by S. Leigh Savidge, Alan Wenkus, Andrea Berloff

Perhaps not an unsurprising result though fans of Inside Out may well feel cheated. Presented by Emily Blunt and Charlize Theron.

Best Adapted Screenplay
The Big Short, Charles Randolph, Adam McKay
Brooklyn, Nick Hornby
Carol, Phyllis Nagy
The Martian, Drew Goddard
Room, Emma Donoghue

A fairly open field here, and this screenplay was very dense yet understandable throughout, but the Carol boycott began here. Presented by Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe.

Best Supporting Actress
Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
Rooney Mara, Carol
Rachel McAdams, Spotlight
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs

Great result for Vikander though Kate Winslet’s performance was so much more impressive, and should have been the winner. Presented by J.K. Simmons.

Best Costume Design
Carol, Sandy Powell
Cinderella, Sandy Powell
The Danish Girl, Paco Delgado
Mad Max: Fury Road, Jenny Beavan
The Revenant, Jacqueline West

As with the BAFTAs, Beavan wins with ease, the first shoo-in of the evening, but marred by an awkward call for ecological responsibility by the winner. Presented by Cate Blanchett.

Best Production Design
Bridge of Spies, Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Rena DeAngelo, Bernhard Henrich
The Danish Girl, Production Design: Eve Stewart; Set Decoration: Michael Standish
Mad Max: Fury Road, Production Design: Colin Gibson; Set Decoration: Lisa Thompson
The Martian, Production Design: Arthur Max; Set Decoration: Celia Bobak
The Revenant, Production Design: Jack Fisk; Set Decoration: Hamish Purdy

The second win for Mad Max: Fury Road, well deserved and with a great speech by Gibson. Presented by Tina Fey and Steve Carell.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Mad Max: Fury Road, Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega, Damian Martin
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, Love Larson, Eva von Bahr
The Revenant, Siân Grigg, Duncan Jarman, Robert Pandini

Number three and as hugely deserved as the movie’s first two awards. Presented by Margot Robbie and Jared Leto. (Now go Google the word “merkin”.)

Best Cinematography
Carol, Ed Lachman
The Hateful Eight, Robert Richardson
Mad Max: Fury Road, John Seale
The Revenant, Emmanuel Lubezki
Sicario, Roger Deakins

Number three for Lubezki (after Gravity and Birdman) and not unexpected in any way, shape or form. Presented by Rachel McAdams and Michael B. Jordan.

Best Film Editing
The Big Short, Hank Corwin
Mad Max: Fury Road, Margaret Sixel
The Revenant, Stephen Mirrione
Spotlight, Tom McArdle
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Maryann Brandon, Mary Jo Markey

A movie that must have really been feeling the love at this point, and further recognition of just how good Miller’s vision is. Presented by Priyanka Chopra and Liev Schreiber.

Best Sound Editing
Mad Max: Fury Road, Mark Mangini, David White
The Martian, Oliver Tarney
The Revenant, Martin Hernandez, Lon Bender
Sicario, Alan Robert Murray
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Matthew Wood, David Acord

And the juggernaut rumbles on, and just as deserved as the other awards it’s picked up. Presented by Chadwick Boseman and Chris Evans.

Best Sound Mixing
Bridge of Spies, Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom, Drew Kunin
Mad Max: Fury Road, Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff, Ben Osmo
The Martian, Paul Massey, Mark Taylor, Mac Ruth
The Revenant, Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Randy Thom, Chris Duesterdiek
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio, Stuart Wilson

Number six for Mad Max: Fury Road – ’nuff said. Presented by Chadwick Boseman and Chris Evans.

Best Visual Effects
Ex Machina, Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington, Sara Bennett
Mad Max: Fury Road, Andrew Jackson, Tom Wood, Dan Oliver, Andy Williams
The Martian, Richard Stammers, Anders Langlands, Chris Lawrence, Steven Warner
The Revenant, Rich McBride, Matthew Shumway, Jason Smith, Cameron Waldbauer
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan, Chris Corbould

Not an easy one to call but a win for Ex Machina at least breaks up the winning streak of that Australian movie… you know the one. Presented by Andy Serkis.

Best Animated Short Film
Bear Story, Gabriel Osorio, Pato Escala
Prologue, Richard Williams, Imogen Sutton
Sanjay’s Super Team, Sanjay Patel, Nicole Grindle
We Can’t Live Without Cosmos, Konstantin Bronzit
World of Tomorrow, Don Hertzfeldt

While many may have expected Pixar to win for Sanjay’s Super Team, this was a tremendous result for this lovely little movie. Presented by Kevin, Stuart and Bob.

Best Animated Feature Film
Anomalisa, Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson, Rosa Tran
Boy and the World, Alê Abreu
Inside Out, Pete Docter, Jonas Rivera
Shaun the Sheep Movie, Mark Burton, Richard Starzak
When Marnie Was There, Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Yoshiaki Nishimura

While this wasn’t entirely unexpected, the award should have gone to Anomalisa, and probably in any other year it would have done. Presented by Woody and Buzz Lightyear.

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale, The Big Short
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Sylvester Stallone, Creed

Absolutely the right choice – Rylance’s performance was one of the best of 2015 in any category, and if you thought Stallone was going to win, don’t feel too bad, iny other year he would have. Presented by Patricia Arquette.

Best Documentary – Short Subject
Body Team 12, David Darg and Bryn Mooser
Chau, Beyond the Lines, Courtney Marsh and Jerry Franck
Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah, Adam Benzine
A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Last Day of Freedom, Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman

A powerful, intense movie that deserved to win, and one that has made a difference already in Pakistan. Presented by Louis C.K. (who gave a great speech about how deserving the nominees were).

Best Documentary – Feature Amy, Asif Kapadia, James Gay-Rees Cartel Land, Matthew Heineman, Tom Yellin The Look of Silence, Joshua Oppenheimer, Signe Byrge Sørensen
What Happened, Miss Simone?, Liz Garbus, Amy Hobby, Justin Wilkes
Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom, Evgeny Afineevsky, Den Tolmor

Not a surprise, but in a field where any of the nominees could have won, perhaps a popular choice rather than a definitive one. Presented by Daisy Ridley and Dev Patel.

Best Live Action Short Film

Ave Maria, Basil Khalil, Eric Dupont
Day One, Henry Hughes
Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut), Patrick Vollrath
Shok, Jamie Donoughue
Stutterer, Benjamin Cleary, Serena Armitage

A wide open category but still a worthy winner. Presented by Jacob Tremblay and Abraham Attah.

Best Foreign Language Film
Colombia, Embrace of the Serpent
France, Mustang
Hungary, Son of Saul
Jordan, Theeb
Denmark, A War

A surprise win for Hungary in a category where the entries from Colombia and Jordan were probably the front runners. Presented by Sofia Vergara and Byung-hun Lee.

Best Original Score
Thomas Newman, Bridge of Spies
Carter Burwell, Carol
Ennio Morricone, The Hateful Eight
Jóhann Jóhannsson, Sicario
John Williams, Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Morricone’s first win but for a score that remains memorable for not being memorable, and which did nothing to elevate the moviePresented by Pharrell Williams and Quincy Jones.

Best Original Song

“Earned It,” Fifty Shades of Grey, Abel Tesfaye, Ahmad Balshe, Jason Daheala Quenneville, Stephan Moccio
“Manta Ray,” Racing Extinction, J. Ralph, Antony Hegarty
“Simple Song #3,” Youth, David Lang
“‘Til It Happens to You,” The Hunting Ground, Diane Warren, Lady Gaga
“Writings on the Wall,” Spectre, Jimmy Napes, Sam Smith

A big surprise, with Smith giving a shout out to the LGBT community. Presented by Common and John Legend.

Best Directing
Adam McKay, The Big Short
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
Alejandro González Iñárritu, The Revenant
Lenny Abrahamson, Room
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight

Two in a row for Iñárritu (the Mexican responsible for his movie’s twelve nominations – how’s that for diversity?), and the first winner to ignore the music telling him his time was up. Presented by J.J. Abrams.

Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Brie Larson, Room
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

After her BAFTA win, Larson became a dead cert for this award, but Blanchett’s performance in Carol was just that much more nuanced and effective. Presented by Eddie Redmayne.

Best Actor
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Matt Damon, The Martian
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl

You could say, “about time too”, but DiCaprio has given better performances and his speech about climate change was heartfelt but out of place. Presented by Julianne Moore.

Best Picture
The Big Short, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner
Bridge of Spies, Steven Spielberg, Marc Platt, Kristie Macosko Krieger
Brooklyn, Finola Dwyer, Amanda Posey
Mad Max: Fury Road, Doug Mitchell, George Miller
The Martian, Simon Kinberg, Ridley Scott, Michael Schaefer, Mark Huffam
The Revenant, Arnon Milchan, Steve Golin, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Mary Parent, Keith Redmon
Room, Ed Guiney
Spotlight, Michael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin, Blye Pagon Faust

It didn’t win any other awards, and it wasn’t the best movie of 2015, but it felt like it won because of its content and the Academy’s need to acknowledge that. Presented by Morgan Freeman.

In the end it was Mad Max: Fury Road‘s night with six wins and so many movies winning one award only. Chris Rock’s involvement lessened as the show went on (which was a result considering how overdone the diversity angle was), and there were occasional highlights courtesy of the Minions, Louis C.K. and Sacha Baron Cohen as Ali G (at least he didn’t come as Borat in his green mankini). Carol was ignored, an aspect of diversity itself that no one has questioned or remarked upon, and there were very few surpises (as usual). The show itself was the regular mixture of awkward cues, strange camera angles, and no Jack Nicholson in the front row (just what does he do now each year the Oscars are on?). But, hey, that’s why we love them so much, because they never really change the format, and they never employ a host who will really rock the boat (it’d be great to see Ricky Gervais get his hands on the job).

The Lady in the Van (2015)

28 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Alan Bennett, Alex Jennings, Camden, Drama, Humour, Literary adaptation, Maggie Smith, Nicholas Hytner, Review, Road accident, True story

D: Nicholas Hytner / 104m

Cast: Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings, Jim Broadbent, Frances de la Tour, Roger Allam, Deborah Findlay, Gwen Taylor, David Calder, Claire Foy, Cecilia Noble

If you lived in a certain road in Camden, London in the early Seventies, then you would have known about, and probably encountered, the lady in the van, otherwise known as Miss Shepherd (Smith). She lived in and out of her Bedford van, a dilapidated vehicle that she’d owned for years, and would park outside people’s properties as and when she decided, and for as long as she wished. She was cantankerous, eccentric, less than hygienic, and lived in fear of the police, from whom she was “on the run” following a road accident that occurred several years before and for which she blamed herself.

When the playwright Alan Bennett (Jennings) moved into that certain road, he too became aware of Miss Shepherd – along with all the other residents – and her appearance and lifestyle (for lack of a better word) intrigued him. He maintained a respectful distance though, and though he was generally polite to her, like everyone else he tried to have as little to do with her as possible. But as his time there went on, Bennett began to have more and more to do with her, until one day she mentioned that the solution to the problem of her parking outside people’s homes was off-road parking, in someone’s drive perhaps. Bennett later agreed that Miss Shepherd could park her van on his driveway.

An arrangement that was supposed to last a few months, until Miss Shepherd got herself “sorted out” eventually lasted a lot longer: fifteen years. During that time, Bennett began to discover things about Miss Shepherd that indicated she was the victim of not just the road accident’s effect on her, but also a series of personal tragedies that happened before then. His understanding of her behaviour, and the ways in which he dealt with her suspicious attitudes, while gaining a degree of trust, took years to develop, but Bennett’s patient, attentive nature worked where few other people would have succeeded – even if she did drive him mad.

In adapting his own original work – a book and subsequent stage play performed in 1999 – Bennett has retained the charm and wit of his original dialogue, while keeping things fresh for today’s audiences. There’s a faint whiff of nostalgia that lingers in some of the scenes though, as Miss Shepherd’s continued presence in the road is tolerated with much more civility and resigned acceptance than would probably be the case today. Bennett’s neighbours range from the property-price conscious Rufus (Allam) and Pauline (Findlay), to the elegant widow of the composer Vaughan Williams (de la Tour), but all of them treat Miss Shepherd with a bemused affability once her van is on Bennett’s drive. She’s like the dotty (slightly smelly) old aunt that a lot of families have, and who is left to her own devices. It may well have been a different story behind the other residents’ curtains, but in public this is the face of a united community, and one that doesn’t entirely resent an outsider’s imposition on their way of life.

As for Bennett, his reactions to Miss Shepherd are viewed through the device of having two of him: the Alan Bennett who lives his life, and the Alan Bennett who writes about everything. The former is more timid but has to deal with Miss Shepherd on a daily basis; the latter is a clever construct that serves to highlight the former’s timidity while also driving him to make better decisions regarding himself (themselves?) and Miss Shepherd. (It’s a little like having an author challenge himself as to the veracity of the story he’s telling.) Bennett confers with himself on numerous occasions, and the effect is to see into Bennett’s mind at the time, and the contradictions that resided there, such as his dislike for Miss Shepherd having to battle with his concern for her as a human being.

Once Miss Shepherd is established on Bennett’s drive, the movie begins to explore in richer detail the tragedies that befell her in her earlier life. As the evidence mounts up and we see a succession of betrayals and the impact they’ve had on her, we see just how Miss Shepherd has come to be living this unfortunate existence. These betrayals also help to explain her behaviour, including a strange aversion to music. And as the picture becomes clearer, it becomes almost impossible not to sympathise with her misfortune (even if her behaviour is still mostly the other side of obnoxious).

In portraying these reversals of fortune, Bennett also manages to relay the inner strength and determination that Miss Shepherd must have armoured herself with in order to survive. Her abrupt nature may push people away, but this also keeps her safe. It’s a terrible way to live, and Bennett makes it clear that he feels her attitude was unnecessary, but understandable as well. It’s this poignancy that pervades the movie’s second half and enriches it at the same time. With Hytner taking a measured, somewhat sedate approach to the narrative, Bennett’s tale becomes incredibly, unfathomably sad, until the extent of the tragedies Miss Shepherd has suffered is put into such sharp relief that it’s almost unbearable to watch.

This being an Alan Bennett tale there’s still plenty of droll humour to enjoy, as well as Miss Shepherd’s more caustic comments, and the relationship between Bennett and himself – like an old married couple – is beautifully observed. As the wounded Miss Shepherd, Smith is superb, peeling back the layers of pain that she’s hid behind to reveal a woman whose dulled ambitions and stalled emotions have left her unable to live the life she so desperately needed. Smith played the role originally on stage, and you can sense how comfortable she is in the role, and how focused she is on showing the various contradictions that make up Miss Shepherd’s fractured personality. She’s matched by Jennings, who gives an equally impressive performance(s) as Bennett, capturing the writer’s fey manner, natural petulance, and eye for little details.

It’s an impressive movie over all, with only a couple of aspects proving problematical. Broadbent’s turn as an ex-policeman who knows about the road accident and uses it for his own selfish ends doesn’t seem likely, and his reason for doing so is never properly explained by the script. And there are brief cameos from the cast of Hytner’s movie of The History Boys (2006), which instead of being pleasing are often distracting and take the viewer out of the movie (oh, look it’s James Corden; oh, hang on, that’s Dominic Cooper). Otherwise, The Lady in the Van maintains a rewarding sense of a tale well told, and remains a fitting tribute to a woman whose acceptance of her way of life was life-affirming in ways we may never fully appreciate (though the movie does its best to help us along).

Rating: 8/10 – while it may feel slight and lacking in depth at first, The Lady in the Van soon proves itself to be a moving, insightful look at human perseverance and how someone can adapt to diminished opportunities when necessary; with dry, contemplative moments of comedy and a surfeit of winning moments, Bennett’s tale is a pleasure to witness, and an absorbing tribute to the life of one Margaret Fairchild.

My Old Lady (2014)

27 Saturday Feb 2016

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Comedy, Drama, Inheritance, Israel Horovitz, Kevin Kline, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, Paris, Relationships, Review, Theatrical adaptation, Viager

D: Israel Horovitz / 107m

Cast: Kevin Kline, Maggie Smith, Kristin Scott Thomas, Dominique Pinon, Stéphane Freiss, Noémie Lvovsky, Stéphane De Groodt, Sophie Touitou

When impoverished American Matthias Gold (Kline) inherits a Paris apartment from his late father, he has no idea that his plan to sell the apartment for several million euros will be stalled by the presence of Mathilde Girard (Smith), the woman who has lived there as a kind of sitting tenant ever since the death of her husband forty years before (she’s now ninety-two). As well, Matthias discovers that the terms of his father’s arrangement with Madame Girard means that he has to pay her a monthly stipend. In France, this arrangement is known as viager, and it also means that the apartment, which consists of three floors and a large garden, can’t be sold until Madame Girard’s death.

Luckily, Matthias has a back-up plan, in the form of François Roy (Freiss), a Paris businessman who is interested in buying the contract for the apartment, and despite Madame Girard’s presence in the property. This means little in real terms for Madame Girard, whose life will be unaffected if the contract is bought by someone else. However, it means a great deal to her daughter, Chloé (Thomas), who also lives in the apartment, and would be left homeless in the event of her mother’s death (what Matthias doesn’t know is that Roy’s plan is to demolish the apartment building and build a hotel in its place).

Matthias and Chloé are at odds over the situation, and find themselves clashing. Curious about her, Matthias follows her one day and discovers that she is having an affair with a married man, Philippe (De Groodt). Having been “persuaded” by Madame Girard to pay rent while he stays there, Matthias uses this information to blackmail Chloé into letting him stay rent-free. In the meantime, he’s been selling off items of furniture to local antique dealers in order to have some money. While searching the apartment for more items to sell, he finds a number of photographs that point to a much closer relationship between his father and Madame Girard than he ever suspected. In turn, this leads to further revelations that neither he, Madame Girard, or Chloé were ever aware of, and which have a profound effect on them all.

From the poster above (and from the trailer below), you’d be forgiven for thinking that My Old Lady is likely to be a bit of a genial romp, a comedy with heart that features a sprightly Maggie Smith running rings round a clueless Kevin Kline as she outmanoeuvres him time and again as he tries to oust her from the apartment. And initially, that’s exactly the kind of movie it is (except that Smith isn’t as sprightly as you might expect). Kline does a good job of looking exasperated and confused, Smith is polite and excessively punctilious, and the scene is set for a (one-sided) battle of wills, with humour aplenty and generous dollops of heart-warming sentiment served up throughout the movie as Matthias and Madame Girard learn to respect and like each other.

But writer/director Horovitz – adapting his stage play That Old Lady for the screen – has other ideas. It soon becomes apparent that Horovitz has a different tale to tell, one that includes humour as pathos only, and which at times, makes for a darker, more gruelling story than is first apparent. As Matthias begins to unravel the truths behind his parents’ marriage, and where Madame Girard and Chloé fit into it all, Horovitz takes the viewer on a journey into one man’s personal despair, and the way in which he finds redemption. There’s a long stretch where Matthias unburdens himself of a terrible event that happened when he was younger. It’s a scene that causes the viewer to hold their breath as Kline delivers a masterclass in dramatic acting, highlighting the depth of Matthias’s pain and the emotional devastation it’s caused him, and the effect it continues to have on him.

At first, this scene seems out of place, especially in terms of the movie’s tone, and subsequent scenes lack the power it contains (and some viewers may find the rest of the movie a bit of a letdown in terms of a lack of similar intensity), but it’s a cathartic moment, one that allows the viewer to understand both Matthias’s often crass, uncaring manner, and one that allows the viewer to connect with a character who seems motivated entirely by his own selfish needs. Chloé, who is present during the scene, has her own burdens, and this allows her to purge her resentments as well, as it becomes clear that she’s always known the truth about her mother and Matthias’ father. Both actors are superb, imbuing their characters with a common, tragic sadness that has hampered both their lives for so long, and to such terrible effect.

Rather than being an out and out comedy, My Old Lady is a compelling drama that focuses on serious topics such as emotional dysfunction, parental neglect, suicide, social occlusion, and inappropriate self-respect, and deals with each one without a trace of flippancy. But it is funny in places, and there are some good visual gags thrown in at odd moments to leaven the drama, as well as some very good reparteé between Kline and Smith that shows neither of them has lost their sense of comic timing.

Clearly at ease with the material, Horovitz blends the comedy with the drama to refreshingly good effect, and takes the viewer on a journey that in meteorological terms, starts off bright and sunny, becomes increasingly cloudy, then very stormy before rays of sunshine start to break through the dark clouds and disperse them. As mentioned briefly before, the last twenty minutes cuts corners in its attempts to wind up the narrative, and some viewers may feel that scenes have been excised in an attempt to bring the movie down to its current running time. But this is a minor disappointment in comparison to what’s gone before, and Horovitz and his trio of outstanding lead performers should be congratulating themselves on a movie that doesn’t shy away from dealing with some very serious matters indeed.

Rating: 8/10 – an intelligent, unexpectedly gripping movie that may put off some viewers (though that would be the wrong reaction to it), My Old Lady is a must-see for fans of serious drama; Kline and Thomas are superb, and Horovitz uses the Paris settings to add a melancholy tone that aids the movie tremendously.

Our Brand Is Crisis (2015)

25 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Anthony Mackie, Billy Bob Thornton, Bolivia, Campaign, Comedy, David Gordon Green, Drama, Joaquim de Almeida, Negative campaign, Political consultants, Politics, Polls, Presidential elections, Review, Sandra Bullock

D: David Gordon Green / 107m

Cast: Sandra Bullock, Billy Bob Thornton, Anthony Mackie, Joaquim de Almeida, Ann Dowd, Scoot McNairy, Zoe Kazan, Dominic Flores, Reynaldo Pacheco, Louis Arcello, Octavio Gómez Berríos, Luis Chávez

When a Bolivian politician, Pedro Castillo (de Almeida), hires an American political consulting firm to help him win the upcoming Presidential elections, they’re unprepared for how unpopular he is with the Bolivian people, and how uncharismatic he is. With their candidate adrift in the polls by twenty-eight points, the consultants, led by Ben (Mackie), bring in “Calamity” Jane Bodine (so called because of the way in which she’s mishandled the last four electoral campaigns she’s overseen). Arriving in Bolivia, Jane is initially laid low by altitude sickness, and takes a few days to find her feet. During this time, the other consultants do their best to make Castillo more voter friendly, but nothing seems to work.

Castillo’s main rival is a plain-speaking man of the people called Rivera (Arcello). His campaign is being run by Jane’s nemesis, Pat Candy (Thornton), a man who – like Jane – isn’t averse to lying and cheating to getting the job done. When he orchestrates a physical assault on Castillo, Jane sees the answer to the campaign’s problems in Castillo’s response – he knocks his assailant to the ground – and at once she regains her old flair for electoral battle. She quickly energises the consulting team (and against their better judgment on occasion), and impresses on them that the message should be that Castillo doesn’t have time for silly publicity stunts; he’s too busy trying to get elected so that he can save the country from the crisis it finds itself in right then.

This approach begins to work, and Castillo makes up some ground in the polls, but there’s a problem: it won’t be enough. Jane advocates starting a negative campaign, looking for dirt on Rivera, anything that will put him in a bad light. But Castillo is resistant to the idea, and refuses to do it. Behind his back, Jane has some flyers printed that make it seem Rivera has launched his own negative campaign. Castillo relents, and Jane digs deep into Rivera’s background, uncovering a public funding fraud related to the purchase of some cars. It proves to be the first salvo in a battle between Jane and Candy that in time, changes the whole complexion of the campaign, and gives Castillo a fighting chance of winning the election.

For anyone watching Our Brand Is Crisis who finds themselves suffering an attack of déjà vu, it will be because this story has been covered before (with the real people concerned) in the 2005 documentary of the same name. Covering the 2002 Bolivian Presidential elections, and the involvement of US consulting firm Greenberg Carville Shrum, Rachel Boynton’s timely examination of political campaign tactics was both illuminating and worrying in equal measure. Arriving ten years on, and without the benefit of those elections to give it some much-needed context, Our Brand Is Crisis feels out-of-sorts with itself from the moment it touches down in Bolivia and tries to develop its comedy credentials by having Jane look ill and barf into a wastebasket.

It’s at this point that anyone expecting a political satire will begin to suspect they’re going to be disappointed. And so it proves, with the movie’s comic highlight involving the sad demise of a llama (so not really much of a highlight). Elsewhere there’s a nervy, whingy performance from McNairy that is meant to provide further humour but looks and sounds out of place, and the kind of uncomfortable banter between Jane and Candy that in any other workplace would have seen him fired for sexual harrassment. It’s hard to see why such obvious attempts at comedy were included in the movie, as all they do is interrupt the more carefully orchestrated drama, and detract from the somewhat clumsy message the movie is promoting (basically, never trust a politician or the people who work for him/her).

That said, the movie does get its point across quite succinctly at times. Castillo has a quiet exchange on the campaign bus with a naïve young supporter called Eduardo (Pacheco) in which he spells out exactly what’s going to happen if he’s elected, and by inference, what it will mean for Bolivia. It’s played with due restraint by the two actors and is the movie’s most plainly shot scene, a simple two-hander (with cutaways to Jane) that also shows just how good the movie could have been if the effects of political expediency had been shown rather than the lengths that some consulting teams will go to to maintain that expediency. And in its own deceptive way it illustrates clearly the difference between a campaign promise and an elected imperative.

Again, it’s the political dirty tricks that become the focus, from the revelation that Castillo had an affair (and which Peter Straughan’s script never manages to make as devastating as it’s meant to be), to the ridiculous notion that Rivera has Nazi sympathies. The game of political oneupmanship between Jane and Candy is also one of the movie’s less convincing sleight of hands, while the impromptu visit by Jane to Eduardo’s home (and which leads to her getting drunk and arrested) merely adds to the notion that the script hasn’t decided what it wants to be: searing political drama, raucous comedy, or mocking satire. In the end it’s none of these. Instead it’s a messy political exposé that fails to tell us anything new about either South American politics or the grubby tactics used by US consulting firms to ensure their candidate’s success.

It does, however, have one great redeeming feature: Sandra Bullock. In a movie that tries too hard and spreads itself too thin (and often in the same scene), Bullock is the through line that the audience can connect and stay with. Beneath her seen-it-all-with-warts-on demeanour and lack of shame at some of the things she devises, Jane is a memorable character made all the more memorable for Bullock’s portrayal of her as a media-savvy manipulator with hidden reserves of compassion. There’s a scene at the end that, in the hands of some actresses, would have appeared maudlin and unconvincing. But Bullock nails it with a dazed expression and eyes full of fear for what she’s done. It’s the movie’s strongest, most affecting moment; it’s just a shame that it comes so late in the day.

Developed by George Clooney and his producing partner Grant Heslov, Our Brand Is Crisis was originally meant to be directed by and star Clooney, but as time – and the movie’s development – rolled on, his intended participation dwindled to that of producer. Seeing the movie now this seems like a wise move on his part. Even though Green is a clever, often mercurial director, he’s defeated here by the hit-and-largely-miss script, and as a result he never finds a consistent tone that the movie can adhere to. Away from Bullock, the rest of the cast provide serviceable performances (thanks to some cruelly underdeveloped characters), with only de Almeida showing what can be done with the briefest of outlines. And Thornton, drafted in to give one of his patented Machiavellian opponent roles, does just that – and nothing more.

Rating: 5/10 – an undemanding look at how political campaigns can be manipulated toward a desired outcome, Our Brand Is Crisis lacks dramatic focus and a clear approach to the material; saved by Bullock’s performance, the movie nevertheless struggles to fly when she’s not on screen, and ends up as disappointing as the electoral outcome.

10 Reasons to Remember Douglas Slocombe (1913-2016)

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

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Career, Cinematographer, Director of Photography, Douglas Slocombe, Ealing, Movies

Douglas Slocombe (10 February 1913 – 22 February 2016)

When looking back over a career that spanned five decades, it’s clear that Douglas Slocombe was a very talented cinematographer whose range and versatility came to be appreciated by many. And there were different stages to his career, stages that meant new challenges, new associations and inevitably, greater heights. He began, as so many of his generation did, as a photojournalist working for Life magazine and Paris-Match (he even filmed a speech given in Berlin by Josef Goebbels just before the invasion of Poland). During World War II he was a newsreel cameraman, and while he worked (mostly uncredited) on a handful of movies and documentaries, it wasn’t until 1945 when he shot Ealing’s Dead of Night that his future in the industry was secured. Slocombe’s realistic visual style suited Ealing perfectly, and he went on to shoot some of their most memorable and iconic releases.

In the late Fifties and early Sixties he worked on a succession of British dramas that were praised for the natural approach of their narratives, the performances, and their photography. Slocombe also proved adept at moving from black and white to colour, and showed he had a mastery of both mediums. If some of the movies he made during the Sixties and early Seventies weren’t always as successful as their makers had hoped, there was always Slocombe’s work to commend them, and his reputation remained untarnished; he was unable to shoot a movie badly or with less than his usual attention to detail and his strong sense of how a scene should be lit.

As his career moved into its final decade, Slocombe worked on a movie that proved his confidence and talent behind the camera was as assured as it ever was, and he became famous for never using a light meter during the shoot. The movie was a relatively small-scale adventure yarn called Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981); when it came time to make the second and third movies in the series, there was no one else considered for the role of DoP, and fittingly, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) was Slocombe’s last movie. He was nominated for three Oscars during his career, and a number of BAFTAs (some of which he did at least win), but Slocombe was really one of those cinematographers whose work told you all you needed to know; any awards were merely an acknowledgment of what was already apparent: that he was an artist with an instinctive grasp of light and shade and colour and depth, and he was one of a kind.

1 – Dead of Night (1945)

2 – Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

3 – The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953)

4 – The Servant (1963)

5 – The Lion in Winter (1968)

6 – The Italian Job (1969)

7 – Travels With My Aunt (1972)

8 – Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)

9 – Julia (1977)

10 – Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Mini-Review: Freeheld (2015)

22 Monday Feb 2016

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Cancer, Civil partnerships, Drama, Ellen Page, Equality, Freeholders, Julianne Moore, Laurel Hester, Michael Shannon, New Jersey, Ocean County, Pension rights, Peter Sollett, Police, Review, True story

D: Peter Sollett / 103m

Cast: Julianne Moore, Ellen Page, Michael Shannon, Josh Charles, Steve Carell, Dennis Boutsikaris, William Sadler, Tom McGowan, Kevin O’Rourke, Luke Grimes, Gabriel Luna, Anthony DeSando, Skipp Sudduth, Mary Birdsong, Kelly Deadmon

When Forrest Gump memorably announced that “life [is] like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get”, he probably wasn’t referring to Freeheld, a cliché-ridden recounting of the struggle endured by New Jersey police detective Laurel Hester (Moore) as she tried to get her pension benefits assigned to her same-sex partner, Stacie Andree (Page). Hester had an aggressive form of lung cancer that spread to her brain, and she wanted her pension paid to Stacie so that she would be able to remain in their home.

But a combination of political and gender prejudices decreed that Stacie would not be entitled to those benefits, even though the Ocean County board of freeholders assigned to make that decision had been recently empowered to do so by the state legislature. Instead they rejected Laurel’s claim and, if you believe this version of events, remained stubborn in their rejection of her claim for some time afterward, and in the face of mounting protests and media criticism.

Now, if you’ve read this far – or have already seen the movie – it won’t be much of a stretch to realise that Laurel got her wish and Stacie got her benefits. But it’s the way in which this story is told that is likely to anger viewers, more than the intransigence of the board. With its bland, TV-movie-of-the-week visual style, and numbingly rote storytelling, Freeheld has all the appeal of televised jury service (and where the case is a minor one). It ticks all the boxes as it wends its weary way to its foregone conclusion: Hester’s concealment of her lesbianism from her colleagues and police partner Dane Wells (Shannon); the way in which this concealment affects her relationship with Stacie; Wells’ disappointment when he finds out (that Laurel didn’t tell him ages ago); the discovery of a lump that “isn’t that serious”; the male police detective (played by Grimes) who’s also gay and can’t/won’t show his support; Stacie’s determination to believe that Laurel will beat her cancer; one of the board (Charles) acting as its moral conscience; and the discovery of information about the board that will help in getting them to overturn their decision.

Freeheld is a movie that lacks joy and passion, and thanks to uninspired direction from Sollett, it’s even hard to be outraged by the board’s spurious reasons for their decision. Even Moore isn’t as engaged in her character as you’d expect her to be (perhaps she realised early on there wasn’t a lot of depth there), and Page plays Stacie as either grouchy or permanently upset with no room in between. Shannon looks uncomfortable throughout, Charles looks like he’s trying to solve a difficult maths problem, Grimes wears a guilty-through-shame expression that should be a giveaway to his colleagues but isn’t, and there’s an irritating, over-the-top performance by Carell as a gay rights activist that both enlivens the movie and highlights how drab it is elsewhere.

Rating: 4/10 – despite the movie’s attempts to retell an important milestone in the struggle for equal rights, Freeheld is a lazy attempt to do so, and fails to convince in almost every department; for a better overview of Laurel Hester’s story, track down Freeheld (2007), an Oscar-winning documentary short that doesn’t deal in awkward sentimentality or by-the-numbers moralising.

Goodnight Mommy (2014)

21 Sunday Feb 2016

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Drama, Elias Schwarz, Horror, Lukas Schwarz, Mother, Review, Severin Fiala, Susanne Wuest, Thriller, Twins, Veronika Franz

Original title: Ich seh ich seh

D: Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala / 100m

Cast: Lukas Schwarz, Elias Schwarz, Susanne Wuest, Hans Escher, Elfriede Schatz, Karl Purker

At an isolated lakeside property surrounded by woods and cornfields, two nine year old boys, twins, play freely while they await the return of their mother who has been in hospital following an accident. When she returns home they are dismayed to find she has had facial reconstructive surgery, and her features are hidden under a swathe of bandages. Her mood and attitude have changed and she’s no longer the kind-hearted mother they remember. She insists on imposing some strict house rules in order to aid her recovery, and because of a perceived slight, refuses to acknowledge the presence of one of the boys, Lukas.

Lukas and his brother, Elias, begin to feel uneasy around their mother, and soon they’ve convinced themselves that the woman who has come home from the hospital isn’t their mother at all but an imposter. When they rescue a cat and bring him home, it’s not long before they find him dead in the basement. Convinced their “mother” is responsible they begin to form a plan of resistance. As they ignore her wishes and behave inappropriately around her, she becomes less and less tolerant, to the point of locking them in their room. The boys challenge her more and more, even telling her they want their mother back. This leads to increased tension in the house, tension that is relieved for a short period when their “mother” is able to remove her bandages and she looks like her old self.

By now though, Elias and Lukas have convinced themselves completely that she is an imposter, and they take steps to prove their theory. When she wakes one morning she finds herself tied to her bed and her two sons determined to learn the truth – whatever the cost.

Goodnight Mommy begins in a cornfield, with Lukas and Elias playing hide and seek amongst the rows. It’s the epitome of a carefree, spirited childhood, as we follow the two boys on their adventures and explorations of the local countryside. It’s almost idyllic, beautifully shot (on glorious 35mm) by DoP Martin Gschlacht, and with only a shot of the two boys disappearing into a disused tunnel to give any indication that their childhood is anything but unspoiled and bucolic. When they return to their brightly lit, glass-fronted home with its open-plan spaces and minimalist furniture, it seems as if the house is, for them, an extension of the world they play in outside. Excited to see their mother again, they rush to her bedroom, and in the moment it takes to acknowledge her appearance, their picturesque existence comes to an end.

What follows is less about innocence lost as innocence corrupted from within, as Elias and Lukas take increasingly disturbing steps in their quest to find the truth about their mother’s identity. With no one to correct them – their father and mother have separated as a result of the accident – and with their imaginations becoming ever more fervid and distressing, the twins create their own cauldron of oppression. When they take matters too far, and their methods in finding the truth become too harrowing, their dispassionate features and lack of compassion become even more frightening than the idea that their mother really is some kind of evil döppelganger.

The movie toys with this idea, that there’s a matriarchal cuckoo in the nest, for quite some time, with the mother behaving oddly while her sons are out of sight and earshot, and thanks to some cleverly inserted dream sequences that are played out in the boys’ own psyches (one such sequence, involving a cockroach, will have some viewers wishing they were watching something altogether more wholesome). As the movie pulls the audience firmly in this direction, and litters the narrative with clues that something truly isn’t right with the mother, it distracts cleverly and persuasively from the real horror: that something truly isn’t right with the children.

By the time viewers work this out – and some may do so quite early on – it’s far too late, and the movie has sunk its claws in and won’t let go. Thanks to two superb performances from real-life twins Elias and Lukas Schwarz, the blandness of their appearance, and their downplayed facial expressions hide a growing menace that sits like a suffocating cloak around their shoulders. As they carry out newer and more emasculating “procedures” on their “mother”, the movie attains a level of intensity that proves hard to watch, and where the drama so far has been patiently heightened and maintained, it now becomes the kind of horror movie where to look away is no guarantee of relief. One mealtime sequence becomes so excruciating to watch, thanks to the children’s lack of foresight, that their casual, matter-of-fact response is even more horrifying.

Matching the Schwarzes in the acting stakes is Wuest, whether she’s looking grim and monstrous behind her bandages, or later when she’s restored to her former good looks. When further doubt to her identity is added to the mix late on, Wuest still manages to tread the line of providing clarity while also maintaining the uncertainty of her character’s true nature. It’s a delicate balancing act, but one that she pulls off with aplomb. All three are helped immeasurably by the writing-directing team of Franz and Fiala. Their script, and the confident way in which they’ve developed it visually, is refreshingly spare, and yet it’s also possessed of a depth in terms of the characterisations and the psycho drama being enacted on screen that elevates the material to unexpected heights.

The movie is also paced to perfection, with scenes allowed to play out for maximum effect, and to enhance the sense of impending doom that permeates the narrative with every inevitable development. Franz and Fiala have worked hard to create a private world for the story to take place in, and interior worlds for the boys that feed off of and sustain that original private world. It all adds up to one of the most original and nerve-racking horror movies of recent years.

Rating: 9/10 – anchored by a trio of superb performances, and a script that doesn’t shy away from showing the consequences of imaginations left unchecked, Goodnight Mommy has a clammy, skin-crawling effect that’s hard to shake off; with striking imagery and a tremendous sound design to add to the movie’s sense of mounting terror, this is satisfying in ways you really shouldn’t want it to be.

The Condemned 2 (2015)

20 Saturday Feb 2016

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Action, Drama, Drones, Eric Roberts, Explosions, Gambling, New Mexico, Randy Orton, Review, Roel Reiné, Sequel, Steven Michael Quezada, Thriller

D: Roel Reiné / 90m

Cast: Randy Orton, Eric Roberts, Wes Studi, Steven Michael Quezada, Bill Stinchcomb, Alex Knight, Dylan Kenin, Michael Sheets, Morse Bicknell

The world of The Most Dangerous Game gets another hackneyed, played out already diversion in the form of The Condemned 2, yet another WWE Films exercise in low budget stupidity. You can imagine the meeting where such a movie is discussed and agreed: men in sharp suits sitting around asking themselves which WWE superstar they should employ in their latest cheaply produced action thriller, and which already expired concept should they put him in. And though Randy Orton has already paid his dues in 12 Rounds: Reloaded (2013), someone clearly felt that one embarrassing WWE movie on his CV wasn’t enough.

But what further movie to shoehorn him into? And then someone had the idea, the creative challenge that would make all the difference, and that would show a solid commitment to enhancing Orton’s onscreen career: a sequel to a movie made eight years before, and which had an actual budget and a degree of in-built credibility with its casting of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Vinnie Jones. Yes, someone said, let’s make a sequel to The Condemned (2007).

But then someone else must have interrupted all the cheering and the backslapping and the hearty congratulations for solving such a weighty issue. And that person must have said, “hang on, before we get carried away, we haven’t got the same kind of money to make a sequel that we did the original”. And everyone would have nodded their heads in agreement, acknowledging that the studio’s run of action movies over the last five years had underperformed spectacularly, and that as a result, budgets had been trimmed to within an inch of a WWE Diva’s waistline. So what to do? Come up with another idea?

The answer was clearly no. The answer was to scale back the production values of the original – obviously – and scale down the size of the original’s plot. Instead of a nationally televised manhunt taking place on a remote island, and Jones’s twisted psycho hellbent on killing Austin’s noble hero, how about a twisted psycho putting pressure on the team of an ex-bail bondsman to take part in hunting him through the dusty arroyos of New Mexico? Cue more nods of agreement, a phone call to Orton’s agent, the drafting of a production schedule, and hey presto! one more movie out of the starting (Lions)gate.

As quickly and as cheaply made as The Condemned 2 is though, it’s still a masterpiece in comparison to some of WWE Films’ other releases – Knucklehead (2010), and Leprechaun: Origins (2014), yes, we’re talking about you guys. But it does push the boundaries of credibility from the very start, as Orton and his team of heavily armed bail bondsmen infiltrate the hideout of a very bad man indeed (played by Studi), who’s worth a million if they bring him in alive. After much gunplay and a standoff between Orton and Studi, Orton kills the very bad man and is subsequently convicted of involuntary manslaughter (but he’s given a two year suspended sentence, so that’s okay). But Orton quits the bail business and decides he’s having nothing more to do with guns or criminals or running around in the middle of the night chasing bounties.

Of course, that’s what he thinks. In the meantime, Studi’s second in command, a shifty-looking sleazebag called Raul (Quezada) has set up a bizarre gambling casino in an abandoned industrial plant, where high rollers can bet on the outcome of the latest game in town: hunting the ex-bail bondsman. Having coerced/threatened/blackmailed his team to try and kill Orton, Raul encourages his bloodthirsty clientele to bet heavily on each encounter. But Orton proves unsurprisingly difficult to kill (note to WWE execs: how about that for a movie title?). As he struggles to get to the bottom of why his friends suddenly have murderous intentions toward him, Orton looks perplexed and confused, and often seems to have forgotten he has lines of dialogue. In comparison, while Orton underacts, Quezada takes up the shortfall and overacts like a ramped-up kid with ADHD.

Soon though, Orton finds out what’s going on thanks to one of his team showing some balls, and aided by his father (played by Roberts) and another of his team that he convinces to help him, Orton heads for Raul’s casino-cum-hideout, and against a backdrop of several dozen explosions, comes face-to-face with his nemesis. Yes, it’s not exactly Shakespeare, and nor should it be, but aside from its use of a drone as a way of Raul keeping track of what’s happening with Orton, there’s very very very little that either makes sense or shows any sign of an inventive approach to the material or the narrative. The script is credited to Alan B. McElroy, and if that name rings any kind of a bell, then it’ll be because he wrote Wrong Turn (2003), The Marine (2006), and way back, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988). (You should now have a pretty good idea just how bad the script is.)

Thankfully though, McElroy’s script has been put in the hands of low-budget action movie specialist Roel Reiné, whose recent career has seen him wrestle equally unwieldy storylines and plots to life, and often for WWE Films. One thing Reiné is good at is injecting energy into often tired screenplays. He’s also adept at boosting them by virtue of a visual style that allows for unexpected camera angles during fight scenes, and particularly here, some stunning overhead (drone-PoV) shots that look amazing, and show off the New Mexico landscape to impressive effect. They’re not enough to outweigh the dreary predictability of the script, or the muted performances of the cast (Quezada’s aside – he really needed a moustache to play with to complete the portrayal), but they do add rare moments of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy offering.

There are more WWE movies waiting in the pipeline to be released on an unsuspecting audience, and while there’s no sign that any of them will be better than The Condemned 2, one thing can be taken for granted: they’ll follow WWE Films existing template for making these kinds of movies: take one WWE superstar, add a few fight scenes and a handful of explosions, throw in a psychotic bad guy, and combine all these elements into a less than compelling whole, and on the stingiest budget possible. Next up? Dolph Ziggler and Kane in Countdown (2016). Now how can anyone pass that up?

Rating: 4/10 – there are worse WWE-backed movies out there, but this still takes some explaining in terms of its stitched-together script and performances that make no effort to connect with each other; not even strictly a sequel to the original, The Condemned 2 ambles awkwardly to its pyrotechnic-heavy conclusion, and provides further evidence that rather than enhancing its superstars’ careers, these kind of outings seem more of a punishment than a reward for their work in the ring.

She Killed in Ecstacy (1971)

19 Friday Feb 2016

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Drama, Ewa Strömberg, Fred Williams, Howard Vernon, Jesús Franco, Medical committee, Murder, Paul Muller, Revenge, Review, Seduction, Sie tötete in Ekstase, Soledad Miranda, Suicide

Original title: Sie tötete in Ekstase

D: Jesús Franco (as Frank Hollmann) / 80m

Cast: Soledad Miranda (as Susann Korda), Fred Williams, Paul Muller, Howard Vernon, Ewa Strömberg, Horst Tappert, Jesús Franco

In a career that began with the documentary short El árbol de España (1957), Jesús Franco (better known as Jess) made over two hundred movies. He was a fiercely independent movie maker who worked quickly and never went over-budget. This allowed him to make the movies he wanted to make, and though the general conception is that he made a lot of awful exploitation movies from the late Sixties until his death in 2013 – his last movie was Revenge of the Alligator Ladies (2013) – there are those who would claim Franco as an auteur. It’s true he wrote and directed a lot of his movies, and was also a cinematographer, an editor, a composer, and sometimes an actor, and his movies are recognisable for their visual aesthetic (an ethereal picture postcard quality), but Franco’s style is often his own worst enemy. When watching his movies, there’s a distinct feeling that what happens doesn’t matter, that as long as the appropriate atmosphere is created – a kind of heightened reality – then everything else is of secondary importance. This can lead to many of his movies proving difficult to watch, and sometimes they’re like an endurance test.

Fortunately, She Killed in Ecstacy is one of his more well-known and accessible movies. It’s also got a more straighforward plot than usual, as the wife (Miranda) of a disgraced doctor (Williams), sets out to punish the board members who have rejected her husband’s work – something to do with human foetuses and growth hormones – and banned him from medical practice for life. The doctor, plagued by the accusations made by the board, and driven to despair, kills himself. His wife becomes an avenging angel, and one by one, she aims to have her revenge.

But being a Franco movie, she does so using sex. She seduces the first member of the board (Franco regular Howard Vernon) in his hotel room before killing and then emasculating him. She leaves a note warning the other three that they too will suffer a similar fate, and this is found by another board member (played by Franco himself). He warns his colleagues and even tells them that a woman was involved. However, this doesn’t stop the doctor’s wife from pursuing her revenge. Next, she seduces and murders the female member of the board (Strömberg), suffocating her with a plastic cushion while in the throes of passion. She leaves a further note.

The last member of the board (Muller) goes to the police with his fears and tells the investigating officer (Tappert) of his suspicion that the murders are linked to the doctor’s disgrace. The officer is unconcerned and dismissive. And sure enough the board member finds himself being pursued by the doctor’s wife, trailed and followed through a series of encounters that lead to a third seduction and his murder at the wife’s hands. This now leaves one remaining board member. Can the doctor’s wife complete her mission before the police find and stop her?

Shot in a spare, otherworldly style by Franco in his choice of locations, all isolated and with extraneous people removed – the board members’ hotel is devoid of any staff – She Killed in Ecstacy is one of those movies that exerts a strange fascination. Its basic revenge plot is bolstered by some odd narrative diversions, such as the doctor’s corpse laid out in bed for his wife to have conversations with, and the initial meeting between the doctor’s wife and the female board member where the wife is reading a John le Carré novel in English. Strange quirks and decisions like these add a further element of the unusual to what is already in some respects a strange movie (such as the doctor’s work on human embryos having, apparently, been conducted in his lounge at home).

But the strangeness of Franco’s narrative fits perfectly with his approach to the material, keeping the viewer slightly off-balance, and highlighting the increasingly disturbed actions of the doctor’s wife. Until her untimely death in 1970, Miranda had become one of Franco’s muses, and their work together showcases both her skills as an actress, and Franco’s as a director; for some reason they brought out the best in each other. Here, the actress gives a terrific performance that shows the character’s pain and suffering, as well as the effects her violent activity begin to have on her. It’s not quite the sort of depth of character that you’d expect from a Franco movie, but it’s there nonetheless, and it elevates the movie out of its standard low-budget formula.

But there are still plenty of Franco’s trademark idiosyncracies for fans to revel in. His use of the zoom lens at odd, inexplicable moments is there, as is his shooting through glass or other translucent materials (the plastic cushion). At one point, Miranda positions a wine glass directly in front of the camera (and appears to break the fourth wall while doing so), so as to obscure her seduction of the female doctor. These are just a couple of the things that Franco litters his movies with, and while some viewers may find them off-putting and annoying, once you’ve seen a few of Franco’s movies, they become less intrusive.

Miranda’s performance aside, the rest of the cast indulge in varying degrees of histrionics, with Muller coming closest to the usual kind of performance you’d expect. Even Franco, not always the best cast member in his movies, displays a coolness of character that is broadly effective, and Tappert’s unhurried, almost frivolous portrayal works as close to comic relief as you’re likely to get. But in the end, these are bonuses, as the performances aren’t the main attraction of a Franco movie. It’s the man himself, and discovering what new perpsective on his somewhat perverse world view is going to be explored on each particular occasion that makes viewing his movies so worthwhile in the end.

Rating: 7/10 – in usual terms this is no masterpiece, but amongst Franco’s work this is easily one of his best, a brooding, provocative revenge movie that proves unexpectedly rewarding; as an entry level movie to Franco’s ouevre, She Killed in Ecstacy is a great place to start, and better still, works well on its own.

The Hateful Eight (2015)

18 Thursday Feb 2016

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Bounty hunter, Bruce Dern, Demián Bichir, Drama, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kurt Russell, Michael Madsen, Minnie's Haberdashery, Mystery, Quentin Tarantino, Review, Samuel L. Jackson, Thriller, Tim Roth, Walton Goggins, Western, Wyoming

D: Quentin Tarantino / 167m

Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Tim Roth, Demián Bichir, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, James Parks, Channing Tatum

It’s post-Civil War Wyoming, and a stagecoach trying to outrun a fast approaching snowstorm (in already treacherous weather) is stopped by an unexpected encounter with a bounty hunter, Major Marquis Warren (Jackson), stranded on the road to the nearest safe haven, a staging post named Minnie’s Haberdashery. On board the stagecoach is another bounty hunter, John “The Hangman” Ruth (Russell) and his prisoner, Daisy Domergue (Leigh), heading for the town of Red Rock so she can face trial. Once bona fides are established between the two men, Warren is allowed to journey on aboard the stagecoach. Later they pick up another stranded man, Chris Mannix (Goggins), who tells them he’s also heading to Red Rock where he is to take up the post of sheriff.

At Minnie’s Haberdashery, they find that an earlier stagecoach has taken shelter there, and there are four men waiting out the impending snowstorm. One is a Southern general, Sanford Smithers (Dern), who’s come to Wyoming in search of his missing son. Another is Joe Gage (Madsen), a cowboy heading home after being away on a lengthy cattle trail. The third introduces himself as Oswaldo Mobray (Roth), on his way to Red Rock to act as hangman should Daisy Domergue be found guilty at her trial. And then there’s Bob (Bichir), a Mexican who tells Warren that Minnie and her husband, Sweet Dave, have gone to see her mother, and that they’ve entrusted the upkeep of the staging post to him. But Warren is unconvinced.

Once everyone is inside and introduced to each other, Ruth is quick to make it clear that he believes at least one person there isn’t who he says he is, and that it’s likely they’re going to try and free Daisy (though he doesn’t say why, or how he knows). Warren believes him, and they agree to join forces and keep an eye on the other men. But things begin to go wrong when Warren recognises Smithers, and he realises why the old man is there, and so far from home.

The eighth movie by Quentin Tarantino is ostensibly a Western, but thanks to its writer/director’s penchant for being a movie magpie, it’s also a thriller, a revenge drama, an old dark house-style mystery, and yet another movie where he assembles a great cast only to give preference to some – Jackson, Russell, Goggins – while neglecting others – Leigh, Bichir, Madsen. That Tarantino wants to stuff his movie with references to other movies has always been a part of his movie making raison d’être, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that The Hateful Eight isn’t just a Western. But this time around, the end result is a movie that struggles to find its identity, and thanks to the novel-style approach of Tarantino’s script – it’s made up of six Chapters – it feels much more artificial than it should be.

As Tarantino nudges along his characters in the wake of Jackson’s central character, and takes in issues of racism and post-War guilt, and a very occasional stab at the morality behind the execution of women, it becomes clear that these characters are mere cyphers, lacking in development and free from any real, appreciable insight into their motives. Given this lack of investment by Tarantino’s script, and despite the detailed and often hypnotic rhythms of the dialogue he grants them, it’s left to his very talented cast to make up the shortfall. Some achieve this with aplomb – Goggins in particular – but even the likes of Russell and Leigh can’t elevate the shallow nature of their characters. Russell bellows like an absurdist bully, while Leigh at one point is reduced to the kind of playground boasting that was outmoded even in the 1860’s.

Spare a thought then for Tarantino regular Jackson. Having landed the lead role in the movie, and been given the kind of back story that most actors would relish getting their hands on (or teeth into), it must have been dispiriting to see the final product and realise that for all the blood and thunder involved, it was all for nought given how the character is treated in the movie’s final chapter. There’s a lot to be said for a movie of this length when it exposes some of its maker’s more crueller narrative decisions and forces its audience to wonder if its wunderkind creator is quite the impressive writer/director he’s reputed to be. And this is where The Hateful Eight is most successful: in showing that the hype surrounding Tarantino isn’t always deserved.

Take one scene in particular, the beginning of Chapter Four, entitled Domergue’s Got a Secret. Unable to introduce a major plot development in any other way (apparently), Tarantino resorts to the use of an offscreen narrator (voiced by himself) who not only explains what Daisy’s secret is, but clearly signposts for those in the audience who may be hard of understanding, what this means in terms of what follows. It’s like someone stopping a theatre production of Macbeth and stepping forward to explain that when Shakespeare says Macbeth can’t be “killed by man born of woman” he actually means he can be killed by someone born via Caesarean. Got it? Then let’s move on.

From there on The Hateful Eight swiftly unravels in a welter of violence and bloodshed that throws out all the groundwork made to get this far, and concentrates instead on bumping off its cast of characters. But any fascination or sympathy the viewer may have had for anyone is eroded by Tarantino’s decision to go for a bloodbath rather than a tense showdown. And then there’s the final chapter, so awkward and clunkily written that the viewer can’t help but wonder if Tarantino didn’t know how to end his movie, and settled on the first thought that came to him – and then didn’t even bother to polish the finished script. For once, Tarantino relinquishes control over the material, and the camerawork by Robert Richardson – up til then one of the few consistent positives about the movie – is undermined by the kind of reckless scissor-happy editing that you’d expect from someone having to deal with far less filmed material and an impossible deadline (and the movie’s editor, Fred Raskin, is a much better editor than that – check out his work on another 2015 Western, Bone Tomahawk, for proof).

When all is said and done, The Hateful Eight isn’t a movie that works; at least, not entirely. If anything, the movie never proceeds to anywhere successful once Chris Mannix boards the stagecoach and they arrive at Minnie’s Haberdashery. Up til then, Tarantino does what he does best: he introduces his characters through his trademark intricate dialogue, and he sets the scene for the rest of the movie. But once in Minnie’s Haberdashery, the plot has to take over, and it soon runs out of steam. The addition of a flashback in Chapter Five feels even more awkward than the revelation that Daisy has a secret, and makes scant use of Channing Tatum into the bargain.

And finally, as if to rub salt into the movie’s wounds, we have a score by Ennio Morricone that has no impact throughout, and isn’t in any way memorable (there are times when it doesn’t even feel suited to the material). When your favourite movie composer can’t even make a difference then you just know that it’s not going to work. Sometimes – and this applies to anyone who writes and directs their own movies, or who have carte blanche from the studio that writes the cheques – having an idea isn’t enough. And building on that idea isn’t enough. And writing a screenplay isn’t enough. Sometimes you just have to let an idea go. Often it’s the kindest thing you can do for everyone.

Rating: 6/10 – narrative glitches aside, Tarantino’s eighth movie proves lacklustre both in terms of its visuals and its attention to its characters, leaving the viewer without anyone to sympathise with or warm to; The Hateful Eight is also the first of the writer/director’s movies to feel incomplete in terms of his investment in the project, and while he may argue otherwise, there’s a distance between him and the final product that hasn’t been there in any of his other, seven movies.

Deadpool (2016)

17 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Ajax, Angel Dust, Colossus, Comedy, Drama, Ed Skrein, Fantasy, Marvel, Morena Baccarin, Mutants, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Origin story, Ryan Reynolds, Superhero, T.J. Miller, Tim Miller, Violence, Wade Wilson

D: Tim Miller / 108m

Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein, T.J. Miller, Gina Carano, Brianna Hildebrand, Leslie Uggams, Karan Soni, Jed Rees, Stefan Kapicic

Scabrous. Loud. Violent. Poignant. Sarcastic. Silly. Sophomoric. Raunchy. Confident. Sharp. Astute. Uncompromising. Thrilling. Audacious. Genre-defining. Sweet. Provocative. Homicidal. Brutal. Funny. Clever. Slick. Ingenious. Irreverent. Bold. Arresting. Forceful. Romantic. Cool. Bad-ass. Ribald. Biting. Shocking. Unapologetic. Intense. Frenetic. Demented. Gross. Lunatic. Crass. Superb.

You can use any of the above words to describe Deadpool, and they would all be appropriate. Deadpool is the kind of movie that attracts accolades by the inevitable bucket load, its twisted, hyper-real take on the superhero genre at odds with the more predictable, family-friendly approach favoured by Marvel et al. In fact, this is so far beyond anything you’ll have seen since Robert Downey Jr kitted himself out as Iron Man back in 2008 that it’s practically a reinvention of the superhero genre. The jokes are still there, and the sense that there’s one more quip just waiting around the corner is still prevalent, and there’s the usual over the top, physics-defying action sequences, but here it’s all about the tone. And the tone says: fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.

Forget Marvel’s small screen successes with Daredevil and Jessica Jones, this is really, really adult stuff, with nudity, anal sex, deliberate on-screen amputations, lascivious one-liners, graphic violence, so many innuendos they could choke a wolverine, and enough off-colour material to offend just about everyone. It really is that kind of movie, a riotous panoply of bad taste, copious use of the F-word, visceral action, and pin-sharp humour. And thanks to the efforts of its director, star and writers, it all adds up to the best superhero movie since X2 (2003) (and minus the downbeat ending).

Of course, we’ve seen Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson before, in the poorly devised and executed X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). Unforgivably presented with his mouth sewn shut, the self-styled Merc With a Mouth was little more than an obstacle put in the way of the movie’s hero towards the end. But now we have a movie that does him full justice, and in the process, blows away any lingering cobwebs from previous incarnations, and raises the bar for what superhero movies can be.

That said, the basic plot and storyline isn’t the most original, and nor does it have to be, because it’s what the script does with it that makes it all so memorable, along with Reynolds’ relaxed, committed performance. Having found love with Vanessa (Baccarin), a prostitute who shares Wilson’s sense of humour and somewhat jaundiced outlook on the world, our principled mercenary learns he has terminal cancer. But he’s offered a chance: a secret experimental procedure that will both cure his cancer and make him virtually indestructible at the same time. With nothing to lose he takes up the offer, but Wilson finds himself at the mercy of super-soldier Ajax (Skrein) and his sidekick Angel Dust (Carano). Several tortuous procedures later and the dormant mutant genes in Wilson’s system have been awoken, but in doing so they’ve left him looking hideous (“like a testicle with teeth”).

One spectacular building explosion and subsequent collapse later, and Wilson decides to go after Ajax, who has boasted he can fix his appearance (“like an avocado had sex with an older, more disgusting avocado”). It all leads to a huge showdown at a salvage yard between Deadpool, X-Men Colossus (Kapacic) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Hildebrand), and Ajax, Angel Dust and their expendable goons. Oh, and Deadpool has to save Vanessa, who’s been kidnapped by Ajax (what else is a movie girlfriend for?).

There’s a whole lot more and it’s all as entertaining and enjoyable as you could have hoped for. Kudos should be given to 20th Century Fox for giving Deadpool a second chance – they made X-Men Origins: Wolverine – and for letting the movie develop in such a way that the character from the comics hasn’t had his reprobate behaviour curtailed. Of course, much of the credit is due to Reynolds and the way in which he stuck by the character over the last seven years. This may well be the role for which he will always be remembered, but if so, it’s unlikely the actor will have any qualms about it. His own deadpan sense of humour shines through, and his casual delivery of Wilson/Deadpool’s dialogue only adds to the overall effect (in fact, some lines are dispensed with so casually you’ll be wondering if you heard them properly).

But in amongst the genre-bending violence – the opening freeway assault is one of the most slickly produced and wince-inducing action sequences ever seen, purely for what happens to some of Ajax’s men – what makes Deadpool even more impressive is the romance between Wilson and Vanessa. As the besotted, sexually adventurous couple, Reynolds and Baccarin imbue their characters’ relationship with an unexpected and plaintive depth; when Wilson is diagnosed with cancer the script ensures it’s not just him that’s affected by the news. Baccarin is a good foil for Reynolds, and their scenes together exude a warmth that’s been missing from other superhero romances.

With moments where Deadpool breaks the fourth wall with gleeful abandon, to others where the movie pushes its luck in being scurrilous, the movie freewheels and pirouettes through its standard plotting with complete abandon. Reynolds’ Deadpool look (“like Freddy Krueger face-fucked a topographical map of Utah”) actually makes him look amazingly like Ted Danson after an horrific skin peel, while Hildebrand’s teen mutant is a cross between Teddy Munster and any number of Goth princesses. The only “look” that doesn’t quite work is Colossus’ CGI gaze, his lack of pupils making him look a little creepy, as well as a little backward.

All in all this is a tremendous romp, and one that breathes new life into what is fast becoming a moribund genre. Whether or not it prompts other superhero franchises to up their game (though not in the same direction; that would be a big mistake) remains to be seen, but it’s very likely that right now studio executives throughout Hollywood and beyond are looking at existing projects and wondering if they can (as Mark Watney might put it) “Deadpool the shit out of them”. Let’s hope wiser heads prevail, because otherwise, we’re in for a shedload of movies that will fall well short of what is a very impressive mark.

Rating: 9/10 – there’s often talk about superhero movies remaining true to the source material, but Deadpool embraces this idea with relish and comes up trumps as a result; exciting, profane, whip-smart and just plain FUN, this is a movie you can watch over and over again and never tire of.

Trailer – Mr. Right (2015)

17 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Anna Kendrick, Comedy, Hitman, Preview, Romance, Sam Rockwell, Tim Roth, Trailer

The kind of “edgy” romantic comedy that we all know is going to be both mushy and appealingly sentimental at heart, Mr. Right is the latest from the pen of Max Landis – Chronicle (2012), American Ultra (2015), and, uh, Victor Frankenstein (2015) – and brings together Sam Rockwell (the title character) and Anna Kendrick in a tale that promises lots of comedy and some well-choreographed fight scenes. Rockwell is the hitman who’s developed a moral code (he kills the people who hire him instead of the intended victims) and who meets Kendrick’s Martha, a young woman whose last relationship ended badly. Their romance is hopefully the heart of the movie, but there’s bound to be plenty of action as Mr. Right finds himself being hunted down by his employers. With a supporting cast that includes Tim Roth, RZA, James Ransone and Michael Eklund, the only concern is the director, Paco Cabezas, whose last movie was the less than inspiring Rage (2014) starring Nicolas Cage. But festival audiences have taken to the movie so perhaps this will prove as entertaining and endearing as its makers intended.

Short Movies Volume 2

15 Monday Feb 2016

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Anton Sheptooha, Australia, Benjamin De Bandt, Comedy, Drama, Fabio Gradassi, France, I Miss You, Impuissance, Italy, Mech: Human Trials, Mihalis Monemvasiotis, Nick L'Barrow, Patrick Kalyn, Red Wine, Reviews, Romance, Sci-fi, Thriller, Una di troppo

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 is the second in an ongoing series of posts that will focus on short movies. Who knows? You might find one that becomes a firm favourite – if you do, please let me know.

I Miss You (2014) / D: Anton Sheptooha, Nick L’Barrow / 7m

Cast: Alex Fitzalan, Steph Howe

Rating: 8/10 – A touching, heartfelt little movie that charts the course of a romance between an unnamed young man and woman in a succession of scenes that show the rise, and eventual collapse, of their relationship. All the while the young man narrates his feelings of loss at not having his girlfriend in his life anymore. Subtly and succinctly made, with a voiceover that convincingly displays sadness and regret (even if the character says he doesn’t have any regrets), this Aussie charmer is one of those rare shorts that you wish was just that little bit longer.

Una di troppo (2015) / D: Fabio Gradassi / 4m

aka One Too Many

Cast: Arianna Ceravone, Marco Stefano Speziali

Rating: 8/10 – It’s the morning after the night before and Marco is congratulating himself on yet another sexual conquest, a friend of his flatmate’s called Gianna. But there’s more to his apparent good fortune than he suspects, a fact that becomes all too clear when he asks to see Gianna again. A quickfire assault in the Italian battle of the sexes is handled with deft humour as Gradassi has fun with Marco’s pompous self-belief and Gianna’s no-nonsense intentions. The “twist” is perhaps a little too obvious but it’s handled with aplomb by the two stars, which makes Una di troppo a small but very delicious treat.

Impuissance (2015) / D: Cleaudya Deschamps, Ludovic Julia, Chloé Prendleloup, Júlia Tomàs Pagès, Benjamin De Bandt / 8m

aka Powerless

Cast: Benjamin De Bandt, Sylvie Morizot

Rating: 7/10 – A young boy tries to cope with feelings of pain and despair in the wake of his mother’s unexpected death. If you search out short movies on the Internet then you’re bound to come across some that are the results of school projects, such as this moody, slightly eerie French endeavour, that features an impassive performance from De Bandt, and a visual approach that favours bleak, existential compositions spliced into the boy’s humdrum daily routine. It has a gradual effect on the viewer, but one question will probably remain uppermost in most viewer’s thoughts: where is the father in all this?

Mech: Human Trials (2014) / D: Patrick Kalyn / 6m

Cast: Steve Baran, Rowland Pidlubny, Douglas Chapman, Pete Gasbarro

Rating: 7/10 – Following an accident, a man retreats into the world of designer drugs, only to find their effect on him isn’t quite what he was expecting… and that he’s not alone. Along with school projects, there are an awful lot of short movies that are made to show what a movie maker can do, a) on a limited budget, b) with a lot of imagination, and c) as a calling card to the various studios out there. This sci-fi thriller, with its Terminator overtones, is high on moody shots of its star, and does well with its depiction of the drug’s physical effects, but also makes the mistake of repeating its one standout moment – and for a six-minute movie that’s not always a good thing.

Red Wine (2013) / D: Mihalis Monemvasiotis / 6m

Cast: Peter Greenall, Aggy Kukawka

Rating: 9/10 – Having cooked dinner and poured two glasses of red wine, a man waits for his wife to come home and join him. When she does, her being late leads to accusations of sexual impropriety, and an uncomfortable confrontation that speaks of domestic violence to come – or does it? With a bigger budget and a longer running time, it’s unlikely that Red Wine would work as well as it does. By keeping it tight and memorably disturbing, and even more so when the nature of the action becomes clear, Monemvasiotis manages to draw the viewer in and keep their attention fixed as events spiral seemingly out of control. Tense and hypnotic, Red Wine is one short that is astute enough to not “let off” its audience by providing a cosy ending.

The BAFTAs 2016

14 Sunday Feb 2016

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2016, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Awards, BAFTA, Brie Larson, John Boyega, Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mad Max: Fury Road, Mark Rylance, Movies, Stephen Fry, The Revenant

It’s that time of year again for the British Film Industry to slap its collective back and try and reassure itself that it’s in some way as vital as the US in terms of production, star power, and prestige (if not box office returns). Held in the slightly cramped environment of the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden, and presented yet again by Stephen Fry, the ceremony followed the usual, tried and tested formula, and thanks to the miracle of pre-recording, didn’t outstay its welcome like the Oscar ceremony does.

One thing you probably won’t see at the Oscars is the BAFTA Kiss-Cam, an awkward bit of fun that had brief hook-ups between Cuba Gooding Jr and Stanley Tucci, Bryan Cranston and Julianne Moore, Eddie Izzard and Rebel Wilson, and oddly, Leonardo DiCaprio and Maggie Smith. Valentine’s Day, eh? What were the odds? (Winners in bold.)

Outstanding British Film
45 Years – Andrew Haigh, Tristan Goligher
Amy – Asif Kapadia, James Gay-Rees
Brooklyn – John Crowley, Finola Dwyer, Amanda Posey, Nick Hornby
The Danish Girl – Tom Hooper, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Anne Harrison, Gail Mutrux, Lucinda Coxon
Ex Machina – Alex Garland, Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich
The Lobster – Yorgos Lanthimos, Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday, Efthimis Filippou

Not a surprise but also not the best result, with both The Danish Girl and 45 Years more deserving. Presented by Kate Winslet and Idris Elba.

Special Visual Effects
Ant-Man – Jake Morrison, Greg Steele, Dan Sudick, Alex Wuttke
Ex Machina – Mark Ardington, Sara Bennett, Paul Norris, Andrew Whitehurst
Mad Max: Fury Road – Andrew Jackson, Dan Oliver, Tom Wood, Andy Williams
The Martian – Chris Lawrence, Tim Ledbury, Richard Stammers, Steven Warner
Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Chris Corbould, Roger Guyett, Paul Kavanagh, Neal Scanlan

With little to choose between any of the nominees, it wasn’t a surprise that the Force took the BAFTA, but good to see Chris Corbould, an industry veteran, rewarded (with his team) for doing such fantastic work. Presented by Emilia Clarke and Matt Smith.

EE Rising Star Award

John Boyega; Taron Egerton; Dakota Johnson; Brie Larson; Bel Powley

A public vote that Boyega himself described as a “fluke” but well-deserved nevertheless. Presented by Jack O’Connell.

Best Supporting Actor
Benicio Del Toro – Sicario
Christian Bale – The Big Short
Idris Elba – Beasts of No Nation
Mark Ruffalo – Spotlight
Mark Rylance – Bridge of Spies

Absolutely the right result, Rylance’s performance was a masterclass of internalised emotion. Accepted by Steven Spielberg. Presented by Rebel Wilson, who made a really funny speech about diversity and how the Oscars are racist, not to mention how Idris Elba made her nervous.

Animated Film
Inside Out – Pete Docter
Minions – Pierre Coffin, Kyle Balda
Shaun the Sheep Movie – Mark Burton, Richard Starzak

Well, who else was going to win? Presented by Eddie Izzard.

Best Supporting Actress
Kate Winslet – Steve Jobs
Alicia Vikander – Ex Machina
Rooney Mara – Carol
Jennifer Jason Leigh – The Hateful Eight
Julie Walters – Brooklyn

Winslet gave far and away the best performance in this category, and if she hadn’t won, then it would have been as baffling as why Carol hasn’t been nominated at the Oscars. Presented by Eddie Redmayne.

Costume Design
Brooklyn – Odile Dicks-Mireaux
Carol – Sandy Powell
Cinderella – Sandy Powell
The Danish Girl – Paco Delgado
Mad Max: Fury Road – Jenny Beavan

A good result for both Beavan and Mad Max: Fury Road, and she got to say, “Oh what a lovely day” at the podium. Presented by Olga Kurylenko and Riz Ahmed.

Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Producer or Director
Alex Garland (Director) – Ex Machina
Debbie Tucker Green (Writer/Director) – Second Coming
Naji Abu Nowar (Writer/Director) Rupert Lloyd (Producer) – Theeb
Sean McAllister (Director/Producer), Elhum Shakerifar (Producer) – A Syrian Love Story
Stephen Fingleton (Writer/Director) – The Survivalist

A great choice for this award, and good to see such a simple, moving story get its due recognition. Presented by Dakota Johnson and Will Poulter.

Adapted Screenplay
The Big Short – Adam McKay, Charles Randolph
Brooklyn – Nick Hornby
Carol – Phyllis Nagy
Room – Emma Donoghue
Steve Jobs – Aaron Sorkin

Congrats to McKay and Randolph who took a daunting, difficult subject and made it accessible to anyone who watched the movie. Presented by Angela Bassett.

Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema (The Michael Balcon Award)

Established 175 years ago, the winners of this award, Angels Costumes, have been involved in the movies since 1913 and whichever movie you think of, it’s likely you’ve seen at least one of their costumes over the years, from Indiana Jones’ outfit to Gandhi’s robes, and a whole lot more. Presented by Cate Blanchett.

Original Screenplay
Bridge of Spies – Matthew Charman, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Ex Machina – Alex Garland
The Hateful Eight – Quentin Tarantino
Inside Out – Josh Cooley, Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve
Spotlight – Tom McCarthy, Josh Singer

A popular choice that wasn’t any kind of a surprise, and out of a fairly level playing field, but still a good result. Presented by Cuba Gooding Jr.

Film Not in the English Language
The Assassin – Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Force Majeure – Ruben Ostlund
Theeb – Abu Naji Nowar, Rupert Lloyd
Timbuktu – Abderrahmane Sissako
Wild Tales – Damian Szifron

A great result for the portmanteau revenge movie, and good to see that a fiercely adult and uncompromising movie can win a BAFTA. Presented by Carrie Fisher and Domhnall Gleeson.

The Fellowship Award

Sidney Poitier. Given by the Academy in recognition of a lifetime’s achievement in cinema, with contributions from Oprah Winfrey, Noel Clarke and Lulu. Alas, Poitier was unable to attend due to ill health but there was a filmed (and quite heartfelt) acceptance, and his award was given to him by Jamie Foxx.

Director
The Big Short – Adam McKay
Bridge of Spies – Steven Spielberg
Carol – Todd Haynes
The Martian – Ridley Scott
The Revenant – Alejandro González Iñárritu

Another non-surprise given the scale and the difficulty of making The Revenant, though Todd Haynes may well have felt robbed by comparison. Presented by Stanley Tucci.

Best Actress
Brie Larson – Room
Saoirse Ronan – Brooklyn
Cate Blanchett – Carol
Alicia Vikander – The Danish Girl
Maggie Smith – The Lady in the Van

Accepted by Lenny Abrahamson, this was completely unexpected. That Cate Blanchett didn’t win was possibly the only real shock of the night. Presented by Sacha Baron Cohen.

Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio – The Revenant
Eddie Redmayne – The Danish Girl
Michael Fassbender – Steve Jobs
Matt Damon – The Martian
Bryan Cranston – Trumbo

What a surprise! A shoo-in for the award, DiCaprio thanked many British actors who have inspired him over the years, and Tom Hardy in particular. Presented by Julianne Moore.

Best Film
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
The Revenant
Carol
Spotlight

With DiCaprio and Iñárritu winning in their categories this wasn’t any kind of a shock, but it was a sad moment to see Carol overlooked yet again. Presented by Tom Cruise.

The following awards weren’t shown during the broadcast:

Documentary
Amy – Asif Kapadia, James Gay-Rees
Cartel Land – Matthew Heineman, Tom Yellin
He Named Me Malala – Davis Guggenheim, Walter Parkes, Laurie MacDonald
Listen to Me Marlon – Stevan Riley, John Battsek, George Chignell, R.J. Cutler
Sherpa – Jennifer Peedom, Bridget Ikin, John Smithson

Cinematography
Bridge of Spies – Janusz Kaminski
Carol – Ed Lachman
Mad Max: Fury Road – John Seale
The Revenant – Emmanuel Lubezki
Sicario – Roger Deakins

Editing
The Big Short – Hank Corwin
Bridge of Spies – Michael Kahn
Mad Max: Fury Road – Margaret Sixel
The Martian – Pietro Scalia
The Revenant – Stephen Mirrione

Production Design
Bridge of Spies – Adam Stockhausen, Rena DeAngelo
Carol – Judy Becker, Heather Loeffler
Mad Max: Fury Road – Colin Gibson, Lisa Thompson
The Martian – Arthur Max, Celia Bobak
Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Rick Carter, Darren Gilford, Lee Sandales

Make Up & Hair
Brooklyn – Morna Ferguson, Lorraine Glynn
Carol – Jerry DeCarlo, Patricia Regan
The Danish Girl – Jan Sewell
Mad Max: Fury Road – Lesley Vanderwalt, Damian Martin
The Revenant – Sian Grigg, Duncan Jarman, Robert Pandini

Sound
Bridge of Spies – Drew Kunin, Richard Hymns, Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom
Mad Max: Fury Road – Scott Hecker, Chris Jenkins, Mark Mangini, Ben Osmo, Gregg Rudloff, David White
The Martian – Paul Massey, Mac Ruth, Oliver Tarney, Mark Taylor
The Revenant – Lon Bender, Chris Duesterdiek, Martin Hernandez, Frank A. Montaño, Jon Taylor, Randy Thom
Star Wars: The Force Awakens – David Acord, Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio, Matthew Wood, Stuart Wilson

So in the end it was The Revenant‘s night, with five wins. More heartening was the four wins for Mad Max: Fury Road, a movie that was released (in awards terms at least) so long ago that some people might have forgotten all about it. That Carol didn’t pick up a win remains as baffling as America’s fascination with Donald Trump, and its snub here seems to be in keeping with the Oscars more overt slight. Which begs the question, just what does a lesbian love story have to do to win an award?

Room (2015)

13 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Abduction, Brie Larson, Drama, Emma Donoghue, Escape, Jack, Jacob Tremblay, Joan Allen, Lenny Abrahamson, Literary adaptation, Ma, Old Nick, Review, Sean Bridgers

D: Lenny Abrahamson / 118m

Cast: Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Sean Bridgers, Joan Allen, Tom McCamus, William H. Macy, Amanda Brugel

Ma (Larson) and Jack (Tremblay) live in what they refer to as Room, literally a single room environment that they haven’t been outside of since Ma was abducted and brought there seven years before, and Jack’s birth five years ago. Everything in Room is functional or adapted to be functional. There’s a TV but Ma has told Jack that the people and places and things he sees there aren’t real, and that there isn’t any outside world, only space. This doesn’t quite explain the visits of Old Nick (Bridgers) who brings supplies and ensures the power stays on, but as a constant in their lives, Jack doesn’t question his appearances, or why he has to sleep in the closet when Old Nick pays Ma “special attention”.

The door to Room is always locked; Old Nick uses a combination keypad to get in and out, and Ma doesn’t know the code. With Jack now five years old, and of an age where he can begin to understand the concept of a larger world outside Room – even if he doesn’t believe it can be true – Ma decides it’s time for them to leave and begin to lead a normal life. One night when Old Nick pays them a visit she arranges for Jack to appear sick. Old Nick refuses to do anything more than bring more painkillers the next night. But Ma persuades Jack to play dead and be wrapped up in a rug – her idea is that Old Nick will take Jack’s body somewhere to bury it; when he stops his truck at a road junction, Jack is to jump out and run to the first person he sees and ask for help.

Old Nick is fooled by Ma’s assertion that Jack has died, and takes out the rug with Jack inside it. In the back of Old Nick’s truck, Jack frees himself from the rug, and after a few missed opportunities, jumps from the truck. Old Nick chases him but they encounter a man walking his dog. Seeing that something is wrong, the man challenges Old Nick who throws Jack to the ground and speeds off in his truck. The police are called, and a supportive officer (Brugel) manages to work out from what Jack tells her, just where Ma is. The two are reunited, and at last they can begin to build a new life for themselves.

Without spoiling anything for anyone who hasn’t seen Room yet, it’s a movie of two unequal parts, both in running time and in content. For the first forty-five minutes (approximately), we’re sequestered in Room with Ma and Jack, stuck like they are within four unforgiving walls. But while you might be expected to feel confined or claustrophobic, it’s rarely the case because Ma and Jack don’t see it that way – Jack because he’s never known anything else, and Ma because she’s adapted after seven years to her environment. Neither feels trapped (or at least Ma never gives any indication that she does), and neither appears unhappy with their lot. They have each other, and live in a world that, Old Nick aside, is theirs alone. For Jack it’s a normal life given the parameters Ma has made for him, and for Ma it’s the only life she can have because she wants to protect Jack.

Once Jack and Ma are free of Room, and free to go wherever they wish (once the media has lost interest in them at least), they find themselves confined in a different environment, Ma’s childhood home, now inhabited by her mother, Nancy (Allen) and her new partner, Leo (McCamus) (her father, Robert (Macy) lives abroad, though he returns when he learns Ma – whose real name is Joy – has been rescued). The remaining hour and a quarter finds Joy and Jack finding their way in this new world. There are clever moments of adjustment, such as Jack learning to navigate stairs, but Joy retreats from everyone. And while this may seem like an unexpected turn of events – that Joy should have the most trouble adapting to being back in the “real world” – it’s actually entirely predictable.

This lessens the drama of the second part, as we watch Jack assimilate slowly but surely, and with much more inner confidence than his mother. While Joy becomes dissociative and withdrawn, Jack begins to blossom, aided by his grandmother and Leo (and a very cute dog called Seamus). In fact, it’s the way in which Jack adapts so quickly to his new life that causes the movie to lose some of the dramatic intensity it’s built up until that point. And with Joy missing for a while, the movie has little choice but to show just how Jack’s bonding with Leo and his grandmother is replacing his formerly rock-solid relationship with his mother. It’s a natural progression, perhaps – Jack makes his first friend during this period as well – but given the vigour and the power of the movie’s first part, it also feels like a bit of a letdown. Just how easily can Jack and Joy be separated from each other? As it turns out, quite easily.

Room has been adapted by Emma Donoghue from her novel of the same name, but what works on the page doesn’t translate so well to the screen. Jack provides random smatterings of narration to explain his feelings, but while these interior monologues work in the novel, here they’re another example of insecurities built in to the script. Far more effective is Jack’s wide-eyed astonishment at seeing an impossibly vast sky as he lies in the back of Old Nick’s truck. Inside Room we’re seeing this insular world almost entirely from Jack’s perspective, and thanks to the strength of the material, and Abrahamson’s masterly direction, these scenes have a depth and a profundity that the outside world lacks. Once we’re out of Room the movie loses its way and never recovers the compelling aspect that propels those first forty-five minutes.

Thankfully, the two central performances, despite being hamstrung by the change in narrative direction, are uniformly superb. Larson is possibly the finest actress in her age group working today, and here she’s simply breathtaking, finding aspects and nuances of her character that aren’t always apparent from the script, and making Joy’s eventual struggle with “normality” less formulaic than it is as written. Matching her is Tremblay, giving the kind of honest, uninhibited performance that only a child actor can give. He provides such an intelligent, forthright portrayal that the viewer can only look on in wonder at how effortlessly he does it all. Just watch his reactions to being asked questions by the police officer: they’re a mini-masterclass in conflicting emotions forcing themselves past overwhelming shock.

In the director’s chair, Abrahamson (thankfully not calling himself Leonard anymore) excels at portraying the insular world of Room, and maintains an uneasy tension throughout these scenes and Jack’s escape. And with the aid of Danny Cohen’s exemplary camerawork, he allows the viewer to prowl in and around Room as if they were living there too. But once the movie settles down at Nancy’s home, his confidence and control over the material lessens and leads to several scenes lacking any kind of resonance at all. And as a result, newcomers to the story such as Allen and McCamus are left largely to fend for themselves. It’s clear that Abrahamson and Donoghue have forged a good working partnership, but it’s also clear that they couldn’t recognise or overcome the deficiencies that so hurt the movie’s second act. In the end, the relationship the viewer has built up with Ma and Jack in their captivity is ruined by their freedom, and in essence, that’s too much of a price to pay when that relationship has been so immediate and so powerful.

Rating: 7/10 – let down by an injudicious approach to its second part, Room wastes the tremendous amount of goodwill it acquires during the first part, and becomes a movie that sinks under the weight of its own capitulation; however, it does boast two hugely impressive performances from Larson and Tremblay, and an opening forty-five minutes that are among the most remarkable of any movie in recent years – so see it just for them.

The Program (2015)

12 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Ben Foster, Blood doping, Chris O'Dowd, Cycling, David Walsh, Drama, Dustin Hoffman, EPO, Floyd Landis, Jesse Plemons, Journalist, Lance Armstrong, Performance enhancing drugs, Review, Stephen Frears, Team Postal, Testicular cancer, The Sunday Times, Tour de France, True story

D: Stephen Frears / 103m

Cast: Ben Foster, Chris O’Dowd, Guillaume Canet, Jesse Plemons, Lee Pace, Denis Ménochet, Dustin Hoffman, Edward Hogg, Elaine Cassidy, Laura Donnelly, Peter Wight

In 1993, Irish sports journalist David Walsh (O’Dowd) met and interviewed Lance Armstrong (Foster) for the first time. Armstong was a newcomer to the Tour de France, and when asked by Walsh what he hoped to achieve, the young rider’s answer was, “to finish”. He did, but so far down the field that he made next to no impact on his rivals. Armstorng became aware that his stronger, faster adversaries were able to beat him because their blood was more richly oxygenated than his… and that there was a reason for this.

The reason was a banned substance called erythropoietin – EPO. It was administered by the advising doctor of the team winning all the Tour de France stages (and the tournament over all). Armstrong persuaded the team’s doctor, Michele Ferrari (Canet), to provide him with EPO as well. But before his “treatment” could make a distinct difference in his performance, Armstrong was diagnosed with stage three testicular cancer in October 1996. He underwent an intensive series of treatments that involved the removal of a diseased testicle, four cycles of chemotherapy, and surgery to remove several brain lesions. Amazingly, in February 1997, Armstrong was given the all clear. And he was determined to return to professional cycling.

But he had no team to come back to. Eventually he hooked up with the American Team Postal, and soon he was winning races, and impressively so. And two years later, in 1999, he won the Tour de France for the first in what would be seven consecutive years. But while everyone celebrated Armstrong’s tenacious comeback and fierce will to win, it was journalist David Walsh who suspected that something wasn’t quite right. How, he asked, had a middling rider with unimpressive riding times, and after an albeit short battle with cancer, returned to cycling only fitter, faster, and stronger, and been able to win the Tour de France so easily (he won by seven minutes and thirty-seven seconds)? And why wasn’t anyone else asking the question? And, more importantly, why wasn’t anyone asking the question when Armstrong kept winning year after year?

There are many reasons, as it happens, but the main one was that Armstrong became so successful, so famous as the face of cycling, that no one within the industry was able (or willing) to challenge him, even the officials in charge of the Cycling Federation. So powerful was he that when he tested positive for corticosteroids he was able to get his personal team to supply backdated prescriptions for cortisone as a treatment for saddle sores, and so avoid any charges of drug taking. Throughout his career, Armstrong was able to bluff and bully and wriggle his way out of any accusations of drug taking, blood doping or any other form of cheating. He became famous for avoiding the question of whether he’d taken drugs by saying he’d “never tested positive for performance enhancing drugs”.

As Armstrong did take EPO on many occasions, so The Program shows him doing it over and over as well. In fact it shows Armstrong shooting up or drawing off his own blood on several more occasions than is absoutely necessary. We know it’s endemic to the sport because we’re told this almost right away, and it loses its dramatic effectiveness very quickly. It’s a problem the movie suffers from throughout, a lack of dramatic effectiveness, and this in turn leads to the movie becoming perfunctory, and in places quite dull. It also makes the mistake of focusing too much on Armstrong – an obvious mistake, but one the makers should have avoided.

The problem with Armstrong as your main character is that no matter how much you try and shade his character with visits to a children’s cancer ward, or have him ride out into the Texas desert to stare meaningfully at naturally occurring pools of water, he’s still the villain of the piece and the architect of his own downfall. And yes, sometimes that’s enough, but even David Walsh, in his book on which the movie is partly based, Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong, couldn’t answer the one question that the average viewer is likely to be asking all the way through: just why did he do it? Because, without an answer, Armstrong just goes from ambitious cyclist to arrogant, self-serving bastard in the drop of a hat.

And once he’s there the script by John Hodge stops looking for answers and becomes a braodly faithful retelling of the facts as they transpired once Floyd Landis (Plemons) joined Team Postal and everything began to unravel. The complexities of Armstrong’s story are smoothed over and/or ignored, Walsh’s tenacity in the face of almost everyone in his profession treating him like a pariah is given short shrift, and the nature of cycling’s unspoken acceptance of the cheating going on under its nose – these are all passed over in favour of following Armstrong from one non-illuminating scene to another. Even Foster, normally a more than capable actor, can’t stop his performance from becoming tedious by the end; it’s almost as if even he’s recognised that he can’t make any more out of Lance’s character as written.

With the script continually taking a backward step when it should have been ploughing forward, and with no sense of outrage at what Armstrong did – and encouraged others to do – the movie lacks passion and feels remote from its subject matter. There are a number of people who played a large part in Walsh’s investigation into doping in cycling, and while they are represented, they’re also marginalised along with the very important knowledge they have about Armstrong’s activities. It was a very big thing when Armstrong admitted that he took performance enhancing drugs when asked by a doctor during his cancer treatment, but here it’s referenced and then ignored as if of little or no importance. And then there’s Armstrong’s appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, a move he thought would help him retain the public’s admiration for him, but which backfired on him spectacularly when Oprah wouldn’t accept that he was remorseful.

It’s when moments like these are not given their due place in proceedings that The Program stumbles and fails to achieve any relevance as a recounting of Armstrong’s career. He was a lot more manipulative and a lot less caring of others, even his closest confidantes, and he had no qualms about trying to ruin the lives of those he thought weren’t being “team players”. His antipathy towards Walsh, at least, is given some expression, particularly when his one of his colleagues stops him from travelling between Tour de France stages with them as they used to, a good example of how Lance got what Lance wanted. But otherwise, the movie manages only to keep Armstrong at a remove from others, and in consequence from the audience.

Unable to find a way around the sedate nature of the script, Frears is left with trying to coax good performances out of his cast, and make the cycling sequences exciting to watch. As mentioned above, Foster can only do so much, but he’s very good in the earlier, pre-cancer scenes, showing Armstrong’s determination and will to succeed to very good effect. O’Dowd has a limited number of scenes in which to make an impression, and two of those involve him answering a phone and acting surprised. As the doping Doctor Ferrari, Canet is the movie’s liveliest, most effusive character, but his appearance and his demeanour make him look like he’s stepped out of a Seventies porn movie. Pace struts and swaggers his way through as Armstrong’s lawyer, and Ménochet makes the most of playing Armstrong’s righ hand man on the team, Johan Bruyneel. Only Plemons makes any kind of an impact, as the morally confused farmboy who joins the team but finds himself cut adrift when he gets “caught” taking testosterone.

On a visual level the movie works better when it’s out of doors, and by and large it successfully recreates the buzz of the races, though it can be off-putting when you realise you’re watching archival footage instead of a re-enactment. Foster looks persuasive in these scenes (even if you’re pretty sure the other cyclists have been told to go slower), and there’s at least a sense that this isn’t “fun” but quite punishing in its own unique way. Inside however, and the movie seems cramped – sometimes stifled – as if Frears’ visual creativity had deserted him. But by the time you notice all this, you probably won’t care too much, what with all the other deficiencies on display.

Rating: 5/10 – a middling, disappointing examination of one man’s renunciation of professional ethics and personal morality, The Program rarely succeeds in raising any indignation at Armstrong’s attitude or behaviour; for a more fastidious, much more involving look at Armstrong’s fall from grace, you’d be far better off watching The Armstrong Lie (2013) than this pallid endeavour.

Secret in Their Eyes (2015)

11 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Alfred Molina, Billy Ray, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Crime, Drama, El secreto de sus ojos, Julia Roberts, Murder, Nicole Kidman, Remake, Revenge, Review, Thirteen years, Thriller

D: Billy Ray / 111m

Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, Dean Norris, Michael Kelly, Joe Cole, Alfred Molina, Zoe Graham

Remakes of foreign language movies are never easy. Not everything translates as well in another language, and some of the idiosyncracies or nuances of the original movie will be lost in the process. But that’s not to say that foreign language movies shouldn’t be remade in English, or that movie makers shouldn’t try to put their own stamp on an existing idea/concept/storyline, just that if they do, we shouldn’t be too surprised if the end result isn’t as compelling or as satisfying as the original.

Such is the case with Secret in Their Eyes, the English language remake of El secreto de sus ojos (2009), an Argentinian thriller that was a bit of a surprise when it was released, and which garnered critical acclaim around the world. It’s a gripping, very stylishly realised movie, and easily one of the best movies of that particular year, a fact supported by its taking home the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. With that version being so successful, the question that needs to be asked is: do we need this one as well?

The answer is not really, no. It was always going to be a difficult challenge, but when it was announced that the writer of Captain Phillips (2013), Billy Ray, was going to write and direct the movie, and the services of Messrs Ejiofor, Kidman and Roberts had been secured for the trio of lead roles, you could have been forgiven for thinking that this was one remake that couldn’t go wrong. But right from the start there’s a sense that something’s not quite right, that whatever magic made the original such a breath of fresh air is missing, and that what follows is likely to be more disappointing than rewarding.

And so it proves. The basic plotting and structure are retained but where the original wove its connected stories over a distance of twenty-five years, Ray reduces it to thirteen (perhaps to avoid having to cast two sets of actors in the lead roles). He also retains the cutting back and forth between the two time periods, as Ejiofor’s obsessed FBI Counter-Terrorism expert Ray Kasten investigates the death of his friend and colleague Jess Cobb’s daughter (Graham). While Jess (Roberts) is overwhelmed by grief, Karsten determines to bring her daughter’s killer to justice, but soon finds himself in hot water when his main suspect, Marzin (Cole), is connected to a surveillance operation he’s a part of, and none of his superiors, including DA Martin Morales (Molina), want to know anything about his potential involvement in a murder.

While Kasten battles political expediency, he finds an ally in newly appointed Assistant DA Claire Sloan (Kidman). Together they try to build a strong enough case against Marzin, but their efforts go unrewarded. Thirteen years later, and with Marzin having gone to ground in the meantime, Kasten stumbles across new evidence that points to Marzin’s whereabouts. He gets back in touch with Claire (now the DA, having succeeded Morales) and Jess, and vows that this time they’ll get Marzin. Claire is hesitant and unconvinced, while Jess seems unimpressed and unwilling to help. Kasten presses on, but as before his plans go awry, and catching Marzin proves as difficult as it was thirteen years before.

By retaining the twin storylines and having them run side by side as the movie unfolds, Ray strives to keep the audience guessing as to the eventual outcome of both, but in the process he robs the material of any pace, and makes some scenes appear out of context to what’s gone before. Others seem to have sprung out of thin air, with certain relationship developments – a lukewarm romance between Kasten and Claire being the main culprit – stuttering in and out of life. It’s as if certain editorial choices were made in the cutting room, and the structure was the ultimate loser. It also makes for several frustrating moments when the viewer has to stop and remind themselves of where they (and the movie) are.

And unfortunately, Ray isn’t anywhere near as good a director as he is a writer. Too many scenes lack the appropriate energy, and his use of the camera doesn’t always show a knack for effective framing, leading to some shots where his cast are marginalised unnecessarily at the expense of the broader composition. He and the audience should be grateful then that, despite all these bars to their doing so, Ejiofor and Roberts both come up with terrific performances (Kidman is good but as with so many of her performances in recent years, she somehow manages to fall just shy of impressing completely). Kasten’s dogged, guilt-charged determination gives Ejiofor the chance to flex his acting muscles to highly charged effect, while Roberts steals every scene she’s in as the detached, grief-stricken mother who is a shadow of her former self; her de-glammed features display Jess’s sorrow so perfectly it’s heartbreaking to look at her.

But these are two unexpected positives in a movie that steadfastly refuses to provide its audience with anything other than a concerted diet of perfunctory plot and character developments, and which also asks said audience to take several leaps of faith in terms of the narrative and how it plays out (at one point, Kasten and Claire make a deduction – which Ray clumsily illustrates – that they can’t possibly have arrived at in the way that they do). And the end, which should be quietly powerful, as well as disturbing, lacks the necessary heightened emotion to provide the payoff the movie so badly needs by this point.

Thanks to an ill-considered approach to the material, Ray’s adaptation lacks appeal and falls flat far too often to be excusable. As remakes of foreign language movies go it’s not up there with the best, but rather occupies a place much lower down the table, and serves as an object lesson in how not to compensate for the loss of nuance and subtlety present in the original. Some movies, as we all know – and studio executives should know by now – deserve not to be remade, and this is as good an example as any that El secreto de sus ojos should have been one of them.

Rating: 4/10 – laborious, and lacking in too many departments to be anywhere near as effective as it needs to be, Secret in Their Eyes may well be too much of a chore for some viewers to watch all the way through; however this would be doing a disservice to Ejiofor and Roberts, but their performances aside, there’s really very little to recommend this particularly unnecessary remake.

Happy Birthday – Laura Dern

10 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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10 February, A Perfect World, Actress, Birthday, Career, Daddy and Them, Focus (2001), Laura Dern, October Sky, We Don't Live Here Anymore

Laura Dern (10 February 1967 -)

Laura Dern’s career has had its ups and downs, like many others, but she’s always maintained a positive approach that has paid off handsomely over the years. Perhaps being the daughter of Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd meant being an actress was always in her genes, but she’s forged her own path and played significant roles in a number of movies, from David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), to her Oscar-nominated role in Rambling Rose (1991), and perhaps most famously as archaeologist Dr Ellie Sattler in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1994), a role she reprised in Jurassic Park III (2001). She’s an actress who has forged a career by making some very interesting choices, and in doing so, has made a variety of movies in a variety of genres and never been pigeon-holed as a result. Her lithe, slightly elongated frame and tousled blonde hair are her physical trademark, but she can be tough as nails when required, and has the kind of intuitive acting style that brings an uncomplicated honesty to the parts she’s played over the years. Here are five movies she’s appeared in that have benefitted greatly from her performances, and which are well worth tracking down if you haven’t seen them already.

October Sky (1999) – Character: Miss Riley

Dern takes a supporting role as a science teacher who helps inspire some of her pupils as they begin to express their interest in rocket engineering. The movie is based on the true story of Homer Hickam (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), and its depiction of the small town Fifties milieu Hickam grew up in is expertly recreated, allowing Dern and her co-stars to channel some very effective nostalgia in the process. Her character is the kind of teacher we all wish we had in school, but rather than make her a complete paragon, Dern takes a pleasant natured figurehead and makes her more fully rounded than the role needs her to be.

A Perfect World (1993) – Character: Sally Gerber

A tense thriller directed by Clint Eastwood from a script by John Lee Hancock, this sees Dern as a criminologist who locks horns with Eastwood’s Texas Ranger in the hunt for two escaped convicts (played by Kevin Costner and Keith Szarabajka) who have taken an eight-year-old boy hostage. Dern gives an impassioned performance as she fights Eastwood’s intransigence and hostility towards “new-fangled” ideas of man’s innate humanity. And as the only female of note in the movie she more than holds her own in such testosterone-fuelled company, and offers a welcome change of perspective whenever she’s on screen.

Daddy and Them (2001) – Character: Ruby Montgomery

In this black comedy – written and directed by her co-star Billy Bob Thornton – Dern plays one half of a couple who come to the aid of an uncle who’s accused of murder. Part road trip, part exploration of the jealousies and fears that can bind a couple just as easily as love and friendship, the movie gives Dern the chance to show off her comedic skills, and work with her mother as well. It’s a little rough around the edges, but has a charm all its own, and Dern and Thornton together make for a great couple who can’t help but be at odds with each other.

Focus (2001) – Character: Gertrude Hart

A complex, thought-provoking look at anti-Semitism, both perceived and actual, in Brooklyn during the last days of World War II, this sees Dern as a young woman turned down for a job by William H. Macy’s thoughtless racism. When the tables are turned and he finds himself equally prejudiced against, his relationship with Dern’s character gives him the opportunity to make amends for his previously callow thinking. Dern gives a sympathetic, assured performance as the harrassed young woman whose perceived Jewishness proves no justification for her own flawed prejudices.

We Don’t Live Here Anymore (2004) – Character: Terry Linden

With the tagline, “Why do we want what we can’t have?”, this sees Dern as a frustrated, negligent housewife whose husband (played by Mark Ruffalo) has an affair, and which leads to her doing the same. The problem? Their extra-marital partners are their best friends, another unhappy couple. Dern is terrific, downplaying her natural vivacity in favour of a subdued, wayward approach that speaks of unspoken abuse somewhere in the character’s past. And she has a standout speech in which she describes the way in which her husband treats her like a dog, a moment of sincerity and emotional honesty that is delivered so perfectly Dern is simply mesmerising to watch.

Dad’s Army (2016)

09 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Bill Nighy, Blake Harrison, Captain Mainwaring, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Comedy, Corporal Jones, Drama, German spy, Home Guard, Invasion plans, Michael Gambon, Oliver Parker, Private Pike, Review, Sergeant Wilson, Toby Jones, Tom Courtenay, Walmington-on-Sea, War, World War II

D: Oliver Parker / 100m

Cast: Toby Jones, Bill Nighy, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Tom Courtenay, Michael Gambon, Blake Harrison, Daniel Mays, Bill Paterson, Mark Gatiss, Sarah Lancashire, Felicity Montagu, Alison Steadman, Emily Atack, Holli Dempsey, Julia Foster, Annette Crosbie, Ian Lavender, Frank Williams

Those of a certain age will remember the original UK TV series that ran from 1968 to 1977. It was immensely popular, with episodes regularly hitting the eighteen million mark for viewers, and it spawned a radio version, a stage version, and in 1971, there was even a movie featuring the original cast. Even today, repeat showings of Dad’s Army garner viewing figures in the low millions. It’s a national institution, and one of the few shows in the UK that pretty much everyone either likes or has a soft spot for. In short, it’s that good.

And now we have a remake to contend with, an updating (of necessity) of the cast – though series’ veteran Frank Williams does return as the vicar – and an attempt at recreating past glories with a slightly modern slant attached. When the project was first announced in 2014, the reaction amongst fans wasn’t as enthusiastic as the makers would have hoped, and when the trailer was first shown in cinemas in late 2015, some audiences gave it a less than warm reception. The general consensus seemed to be: this can’t be any good… can it?

The short answer is no. This version is so disappointing that for much of its running time, viewers will be wondering how the makers could have got it so badly wrong, and with such consistency. It’s obvious from the opening scenes that find the platoon attempting to capture a bull, and which lead to their running scattershot across a field while the camera adopts the POV of the bull, that this isn’t going to be the warmly humorous affair that the series was, or as cleverly constructed. And as the movie continues, introducing its tired plot centred around the Allied invasion in 1944 and the search for a German spy, it becomes abundantly clear that whatever merits Hamish McColl’s screenplay may have had, they’ve not been transferred to the screen.

In this version, as opposed to the series, Captain Mainwaring (a game but badly undermined Toby Jones) is portrayed not as the officious prig that he was on TV but as a bumbling idiot. Sergeant Wilson (Nighy) was always the quiet Lothario, but now we’re asked to believe that he would fall so easily and in such a headstrong way for a woman from his past, the worldly-wise journalist Rose Winters (Zeta-Jones) (he was her tutor at Oxford, which raises all sorts of questions that thankfully the script doesn’t want to explore). And then there’s the rest of the platoon: nervous Corporal Jones (Courtenay, going from the sublime 45 Years to this farrago), addled Private Godfrey (an admittedly well cast Michael Gambon), doomy Private Frazer (Paterson), upbeat spiv Private Walker (Mays), and dopey Private Pike (The Inbetweeners’ Harrison). If nothing else, it’s a great cast, but it’s also a cast who are given so little to do in real terms (other than to keep advancing the plot – there’s an incredible amount of exposition here) that one ultimately wonders what was the point of hiring them.

When the best you can do with actors of this calibre is have them stand around in a church hall for no better reason than to see how terrible they are as a Home Guard – which we already know – and then repeat the same three or four more times, it shows up the paucity of ideas on display. The rivalry between Mainwaring and Wilson, so beautifully enacted by Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier on TV, is retained, but with Mainwaring appearing so petulant and bullying in his responses to Wilson that all the subtlety of their relationship is lost, abandoned possibly from the first draft. Corporal Jones’s nervous anxiety in the face of danger is poorly channelled by Courtenay (who never seems comfortable in the role), while Private Pike’s innate stupidity is bolstered for some reason by his quoting famous lines from the movies of the period and being made to look like Errol Flynn (and all to little effect). Only Gambon succeeds in beating the odds, making Godfrey endearingly silly in his dotage, but then the character isn’t given anything else to do other than be endearingly silly, so Gambon can’t go wrong.

And then there’s the plot, the kind of hackneyed attempt at combining contemporary concerns with light humour that the series would have done more justice to, and more effectively, in under half an hour. The original scripts by Jimmy Perry and David Croft were tightly constructed, beautifully observant of their characters’ foibles, and the humour always arose from those foibles; everything was in service to the characters. Here it’s the opposite, and the characters are shoehorned into a plot that never gets off the ground (unlike a certain number of tanks). Thankfully, the script doesn’t attempt to hide the identity of its German spy (and their identity is easily deduced from the trailer), so that’s one hurdle it doesn’t have to stumble over in the dark, but it does lay a massive egg in the form of Mark Gatiss’ Major Theakes, a martinet senior officer with an unexplained limp and a penchant for fitting the war in around his leisure activities. It feels like Theakes is there as a satirical nod to the incompetencies of the command structure, but if so, he’s out of place and would be better off appearing in a World War I tale instead.

The movie is also one of the blandest, most visually depressing movies to watch in some time, its dour colour palette and compromised colour range doing little to engage the senses beyond the red dress worn by Zeta-Jones. Even the outdoor scenes seem to have been filmed only on days when the skies were overcast and/or gloomy. And the final shootout is so devoid of tension and excitement that you can only hope it’s all over with as quickly as possible.

If it seems unfair to judge Dad’s Army 2016 with the original show, then it’s because the original was so good, and this isn’t. This is laboured, uninspired, woeful stuff in places, and not a tribute to the enduring qualities of the TV show in any way, shape or form. Even the attempts to squeeze in the various catchphrases from the show are awkwardly handled, and some you might even miss as you fight to maintain a decent level of attention. With the show having gained such a level of respect and admiration and affection over the years, to have this released now, and to be so badly put together, begs the question that’s asked here quite often: why didn’t anyone realise how bad this was when they were making it, or was it all too late if they did?

Rating: 3/10 – another example of a UK TV sitcom given a lacklustre cinema outing, Dad’s Army should stand as a warning to other movie makers looking to adapt a small screen favourite; with a script that forgot to include any jokes, or anything that an audience that could react to by laughing out loud, this should be avoided by anyone who loves the series and who doesn’t want that love tarnished by what’s been attempted here.

The Queen of Ireland (2015)

08 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Ballinrobe, Conor Horgan, Documentary, Drag queen, Homosexuality, Ireland, Marriage equality, Panti Bliss, Review, Rory O'Neill, RTE, True story

D: Conor Horgan / 82m

With: Rory O’Neill

Unless you’re a part of the Irish LGBT community, or have been to one of her shows in a number of cities worldwide, it’s unlikely that you’ll have heard of Panti Bliss, the drag queen alter ego of Rory O’Neill. And you may think that a documentary about her would focus on O’Neill’s life and his experiences of being a gay man in a country where homosexuality was only legalised in 1993. But there’s a bigger story here, and one that the makers of The Queen of Ireland couldn’t have foreseen would happen when they first began filming.

In January 2014, O’Neill appeared (as himself) on RTÉ’s The Saturday Night Show. He and the presenter discussed homphobia in Ireland and as part of his comments, O’Neill alleged that some individuals in Irish journalism were homophobic. This resulted in the TV station being threatened with legal action, and in order to avoid being taken to court, RTÉ paid compensation amounting to €85,000. And then on 1 February 2014, Panti appeared onstage at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre and made a Noble Call speech in response to RTÉ’s actions and about his own personal feelings as a homosexual man living in Ireland. As a result of this, Irish gay rights began to be discussed more openly and more seriously in the Irish government, and in May 2015 the country held the first referendum on same-sex marriages.

What begins as a heartfelt and very charming introduction to an instantly likeable personality, with plenty of input from O’Neill’s family, friends and associates, would have been entirely acceptable if the movie’s focus hadn’t strayed any further than that. O’Neill is an engaging screen presence by himself, confident, self-deprecating, politically and culturally aware, and quite witty in his approach to the way in which being Panti has made his life so rewarding. And Panti is genuinely good company to spend time with, her outrageous look (“a big cartoon woman”) and friendly, approachable demeanour doing a lot to mollify any notions of prejudice. She’s funny, vivacious, passionate, and more confident than O’Neill is likely to be without the wig and makeup. We see some of her earlier incarnations, and there’s a definite progression in terms of Panti developing her cabaret style, and her character as a whole. It’s informative, enjoyable stuff, and if there’s only one problem with it all, it’s that we don’t get to see Panti onstage in all her glory for any real length of time.

But then there’s that TV interview, and the whole tone of the movie changes, as it becomes a probing examination of LGBT rights in Ireland, and how homophobia, and its endemic nature, comes to be challenged at the highest level. The movie also steps up a gear, and the issue of homosexuality comes to the fore, as O’Neill and Panti find themselves at the forefront of a cause that will lead to a major change in the rights of LGBT people in Ireland. Panti becomes an icon, the unofficial face of change, and through it all we see O’Neill maintain a quiet demeanour that reflects his determination to remain humble and unaffected by his sudden increase in fame and public awareness. He’s also very astute, and very aware of what the referendum will mean if it’s successful, and what it will mean if it isn’t.

The nature of homophobia is perhaps best revealed in two short passages: the speech Panti gives at the Abbey Theatre (perhaps the best description of homophobia and its effects that you’ll ever hear), and a speech given in the Irish legislature attacking the way in which RTÉ failed to uphold its duties as the national broadcaster. These two speeches are supplemented by shots of emotive posters put up by groups opposing the idea of same-sex marriages, and the movie, without resorting to impassioned hysterical outbursts or relating extreme homophobic rhetoric, makes its point in a much more effective way, allowing the viewer to feel that they’re not being led by the nose into supporting Panti without appreciating both sides of the argument (something that Panti does very cleverly).

Throughout all this though we never lose sight of Panti the entertainer, and O’Neill the individual behind the public persona. It comes as a bit of a shock when, without warning, O’Neill reveals he was diagnosed as HIV+ in 1995, and the awkward effect it’s had since on his dating – just when do you let the other person know, and how much do you really hope it won’t make a difference? But O’Neill is self-assured – and self-aware – enough to ensure that being HIV+ doesn’t define him, and watching him ten years on he looks the picture of health.

After the referendum, O’Neill returns to his home town of Ballinrobe to make a one-off appearance as Panti (also her first appearance there). There are several touching moments with his family, in particular when Panti is getting ready in her parents’ bedroom, where as a young boy she used to watch her mother getting ready and putting on her makeup. It’s an unexpectedly affecting moment, and yet another example of how O’Neill has managed to stay grounded as an individual throughout all the ups and downs of his life so far. And it’s gratifying to see that despite thousands of public appearances and shows, Panti can still be nervous when faced with an audience of people she’s known since childhood.

What makes The Queen of Ireland so rewarding is the way in which its director has assembled the footage from the various stages of O’Neill’s life, and made each period as interesting and informative as all the others. There’s not a dull, uninteresting moment in the whole movie, and O’Neill is someone the viewer can warm to right from the start. Whatever your views on LGBT rights, or homosexuality in general, this is a movie that promotes an honest, healthy attitude to both sides of the argument, and is to be commended for doing so unreservedly.

Rating: 9/10 – humorous, poignant and candid, The Queen of Ireland treats its central character and the political discourse of recent years in Ireland with a refreshing lack of bias (though it would be very difficult to take a disliking to Panti on any level); without losing sight of the man behind the makeup, Panti’s story is an uplifting one that speaks for itself and is well worth taking a look at.

Flightplan (2005)

07 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Berlin, Disappearance, Drama, Flight, Hijack, Jodie Foster, Missing daughter, Peter Sarsgaard, Propulsion engineer, Review, Robert Schwentke, Sean Bean, Thriller, Widow

D: Robert Schwentke / 98m

Cast: Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean, Kate Beahan, Erika Christensen, Michael Irby, Assaf Cohen, Marlene Lawston, Greta Scacchi

Every once in a while a movie comes along that is one part absurd, one part stupid, and two parts ridiculous. Back in 2005 that movie was Flightplan, a modest thriller starring Jodie Foster as super-anxious widow Kyle Pratt who’s travelling with her six-year-old daughter Julia (Lawston), from Berlin to New York by plane after the unexpected death of her husband (whose body is travelling with them in the hold). Hours into the flight, Kyle awakes from a nap to find that Julia has disappeared. Panicked, she accosts passengers and cabin crew alike in her efforts to find her daughter, but everyone tells Kyle the same thing: no one has seen her, not even the flight attendant, Fiona (Christensen) who saw them on board.

The plot thickens when Kyle tries to enlist the aid of the captain, Marcus Rich (Bean), who is initially sympathetic, even though a check of the plane’s manifest reveals the seat Julia was sitting in is officially empty. A search of the plane is conducted, and as expected, Julia isn’t found. When Kyle insists she and the crew search the cargo hold and the avionics section, Rich finds her abrupt, pushy attitude hard to handle. He finds things even harder when he receives notification from the morgue that has shipped her husband’s body, that Julia is also dead, killed at the same time as her father. Kyle vigorously denies this to be true, but now everyone sees her as the deluded, grieving widow. With the aid of the flight’s air marshal, Carson (Sarsgaard), Rich does his best to contain the situation from getting any worse.

And then it gets worse. Kyle accuses two Arab passengers (Irby, Cohen) of being complicit in Julia’s disappearance and attacks one of them. Carson intervenes but in the ensuing scuffle, she gets free. Carson chases after her but one of the Arabs intercepts her and throws her to the floor and she is knocked unconscious. When Kyle comes to she finds herself talking to a therapist (Scacchi) who nearly convinces her that her grief over her husband and daughters’ deaths have caused her to imagine that Julia is still alive (as this is easier to deal with). Kyle is almost convinced but sees evidence that Julia is alive, and she redoubles her efforts to find her. She eludes Carson and gets up into the roof of the plane where she causes the emergency oxygen masks to drop down and the loss of lighting throughout the plane.

Her efforts at sabotage allow her to go below decks to the cargo hold. She opens her husband’s coffin just as Carson catches up with her. In handcuffs and with the captain diverting the plane to land in Newfoundland, Kyle doesn’t have long to find her daughter and work out why she’s been abducted in the first place. Can she find out who’s behind it all, stop them, and get her daughter back? Are you kidding? Of course she can, she’s Jodie Foster.

Watching Flightplan again so long after seeing it for the first time is a strangely unrewarding experience. Memory – that elusive mistress – has covered the movie in a soft rosy blanket and if pressed, offers up a 7/10 rating, confident that it won’t be questioned too closely. But isn’t that the nature sometimes of first-time viewings, that with the passage of time some movies take on a brighter, shinier hue than was actually the case? Flightplan is definitely one of those movies, its high altitude hysterics and gaping plot holes you could fly a 747 through – oh, wait, they actually did – seemingly impervious to criticism eleven years ago because the movie was a whole lot of fun. But now with the dubious benefit of a second viewing, it’s a movie that’s revealed in all its lacklustre glory (oxymoron intended).

Now it’s true we don’t always expect air-tight screenplays that follow every logical line when it comes to thrillers, especially so-called “high concept” ones. And sometimes, the ones that only come close to credibility by accident are often the thrillers we can enjoy the most, but Flightplan misses out on even this by virtue of two very grave errors made right from the start. The first is that it casts Jodie Foster as a grieving widow who may be hallucinating the existence of her daughter. Right away, the idea that Foster could be hallucinating anything, no matter how sad or grieving her character may be is patently absurd (that’s the first part, remember?). She’s Jodie Foster; she only ever plays strong women. And secondly, her daughter disappears on a plane, which in itself is a variation on the hoary old locked-room mystery, so of course she’s been abducted. Any other explanation would be just plain stupid (and that’s the second part).

The movie battles against these issues valiantly, but soon resorts to running Foster around in circles in her efforts to discover her daughter’s whereabouts. All the while she looks like she’s about to have a coronary, so prominent is the vein in her forehead. But she perseveres, and is helped/hindered/helped by Sarsgaard’s dopey-looking air marshal (he really does look like he’s going to nod off right in the middle of a scene). With so few of the cast as plausible suspects for the villain role, Sarsgaard becomes the obvious choice, and despite the presence of Bean. But then he’s ruled out of the competition, then he’s back in again – oh wait, now he’s just been nice again. Yes it’s designed to add tension to a plot that lacks any kind of edge, but it only succeeds in being annoying and ridiculous (part three), though not quite as ridiculous as the reason for Julia’s abduction in the first place, which makes no sense at all and is patently ridiculous (and there we have it, part four).

Still, Foster is good value, even when she’s running down aisles like a champion sprinter, or punching out stewardesses, and she’s as watchable as always, imbuing Kyle with that patented inner strength that Foster, as an actress at least, possesses in abundance. Sarsgaard limps along behind her in comparison, trying to find a way in to a character who appears to have no inner life at all and exists purely for the script’s lazy benefit. Bean gets to play exasperated at various points, but is compensated by being handed the movie’s best line: “I am responsible for the safety of every passenger on this plane – even the delusional ones!” Sadly, everyone else is forgettable, but that’s because their roles are.

Schwentke directs in a bland, perfunctory style that does nothing to elevate the material (not that much could), and signals his desire early on to focus exclusively on Foster, and to the detriment of everyone else. Florian Ballhaus’s cinematography shows Berlin in the bleakest light possible before trying to make us go “Wow!” at the glamorous interior of the plane, and there’s a turgid, ineffective score from James Horner. All of which goes to prove that high concept thrillers need a whole lot more than a committed lead and a hokey script to be successful.

Rating: 5/10 – Flightplan plays like a toned-down Die Hard of the skies, but with its central plot and storyline proving too uninspired for comfort, it’s left to Foster to keep things moving and the audience from straying; if you want to see an imperilled Foster trapped in a confined space, see Panic Room (2002) instead.

Misconduct (2016)

06 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Al Pacino, Alice Eve, Anthony Hopkins, Blackmail, Crime, Drama, Fraud, Josh Duhamel, Lawsuits, Legal drama, Malin Akerman, Manhunt, Murder, Review, Shintaro Shimasawa, Thriller

D: Shintaro Shimasawa / 106m

Cast: Josh Duhamel, Alice Eve, Anthony Hopkins, Al Pacino, Malin Akerman, Byung-hun Lee, Julia Stiles, Glen Powell, Marcus Lyle Brown

Released as a Lionsgate Premiere (rough translation: not good enough to be shown in cinemas), Misconduct is an early contender for Worst Movie of 2016. It’s ostensibly a thriller but veers off in so many different directions in an effort to be interesting that in the end it’s just a jumbled mess. There’s not even the germ of a good idea here, the script by Simon Boyes and Adam Mason resorting to cliché after cliché and line after line of awful dialogue in its efforts to appear somehow less than the sum of its parts (or the parts of its sum even).

It’s a movie where everybody is up to no good. Sadly, the audience knows this right from the start, so any “revelations” or twists and turns have the effect of inducing a headache rather than any surprises. The storyline tries to be convoluted in an attempt to mystify anyone unfortunate enough to watch Misconduct, and the basic plot – Hopkins’ pharmaceutical CO is accused of deliberately falsifying bad test results – struggles even to be relevant within the movie’s own structure. Once a badly attached blackmail plot is added to the mix, it gives the movie carte blanche to be as stupid as it wants, a move it takes full advantage of.

As well as the blackmail plot – instigated by Hopkins’ unbalanced girlfriend (played by Akerman) and involving Duhamel’s ambitious attorney – Misconduct features a dire attempt at adding depth to two of the characters’ lives, Duhamel and his moody, depressed wife Eve, by having them recovering from the loss of a child during pregnancy. Why this subplot is even present is a mystery the movie never answers, along with the presence of Lee as a corporate-sponsored assassin who for some inexplicable reason is dying from some unstated disease (again you have to ask yourself why any of this has been included).

There’s more, but as the movie continues piling absurdity on top of absurdity, the unlucky viewer will find themselves wondering if this is intended more as a parody than a thriller, and will be laughing accordingly, but if it is then no one informed the cast, who struggle through scene after scene with resolutely straight faces and a grim determination to get through it all and reach the end with a degree of integrity still intact. Duhamel is a capable actor, but here he’s as wooden as a fence post and spends most of his screen time looking petulant, or as if there’s a bad smell under his nose (there is, and it’s coming from the script). Matching him for petulance, and using staring off into space a lot as a character trait, Eve gives probably the worst performance of her career so far, as she tries to distance herself from everyone and everything connected with the movie.

Akerman is a poor femme fatale, her attempt to seduce Duhamel having all the allure of a drunken one-night stand with someone you hope doesn’t give you their number the next morning. As mentioned above, Lee is the assassin who’s close to death, and he sleepwalks through his role making supposedly “deep” comments and trying to appear above it all by refusing to acknowledge that this is one acting gig his agent should be apologising for profusely. And then there’s Stiles, an actress who really should be given better roles than the one she has here, a Kidnap and Response expert who gets to shout at Hopkins a lot and look suitably badass (and that’s basically it).

You get the picture: Misconduct has its fair share of bad performances to match its bad script and wayward direction – Shimasawa, making his first feature, gives an approximation of what a director should be doing – but then there’s Hopkins and Pacino, two Oscar winners now content (like De Niro) to throw away their talent and make terrible movie after terrible movie. Hopkins has the larger amount of screen time, but phones in his performance, and falls back on the kind of aloof, manipulative, all-knowing characterisation he’s played way too often in recent years. When you’ve got Hopkins in a movie and he’s playing a powerful businessman you just know in advance that he’s not going to be putting much effort in, and that’s exactly the case here. Amazingly though, Pacino is worse, his law firm boss coming across as a pale imitation of his role in The Devil’s Advocate (1997). He’s also upstaged by his own hair, which in one scene, looks like the worst comb-back in history. Why either of them took on their roles is the one abiding mystery the movie cannot solve.

From starting out as a legal thriller – you get the idea the movie might just be about bringing Hopkins’ fraudulent CO to justice, and the hunt for the evidence to prove his negligence – it soon descends into a welter of murder and violence and betrayal on all sides, as the script decides it needs to be more punchy than in its earlier scenes. It leads to one of the movie’s more absurd scenes where Duhamel, having gouged his stomach escaping from the police, buys some glue in a convenience store and uses it to close his wound. And of course, he then runs around as if it had never happened. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

There is an attempt at providing a central murder mystery to keep the audience intrigued, but regular viewers of this kind of movie will spot the culprit from a mile off. But this is in keeping with the movie’s inability to come up with anything new or unpredictable, and again, regular viewers of this kind of star-happy dross will have resigned themselves to the movie’s inevitable outcome(s) long before they reach the end. The makers probably didn’t intend the title Misconduct to be so relevant to its own content and execution, but in one respect they can be applauded: they made sure the movie certainly lived up to it.

Rating: 3/10 – with only its standard, by-the-numbers production effort propping it up in the ratings stakes, Misconduct is a woeful, massively disappointing movie that falls down each and every time it tries to be interesting; with awful dialogue and some truly atrocious performances, it’s a movie that defies explanation as to its existence, and ranks as one of the worst “corporate/legal thrillers” in recent memory.

Aaaaaaaah! (2015)

05 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Aggressive behaviour, Alpha male, Ape-like behaviour, Apes, Comedy, Dismemberment, Drama, Lucy Honigman, Murder, Noel Fielding, Primates, Robert Fripp, Sex, Steve Oram, Tom Meeten, Toyah Willcox

D: Steve Oram / 79m

Cast: Steve Oram, Lucy Honigman, Toyah Willcox, Tom Meeten, Sean Reynard, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Julian Barratt, Holli Dempsey, Noel Fielding

If you’re familiar with Steve Oram, then you’ll know that he’s an actor/comedian who has popped up in a wide variety of UK TV comedies – Tittybangbang (2006-07), Heading Out (2013) and a slew of others – and that he was also responsible for the quirky Sightseers (2012). He’s always provided a somewhat skewed approach to the material he’s created himself, often coming up with characters who seem removed from daily life, and who don’t always see things in the same way that “normal” folk do. But with Aaaaaaaah!, he’s taken that removal and come up with something that’s both original and challenging.

What Oram has done is base Aaaaaaaah! on a simple premise: what if Man had involved in terms of walking upright and creating a civilisation we can all recognise, but in the process, retained the behaviours, instincts and language of the primates we’ve “evolved” from? The result is fascinating to watch, but it needs to be said at the outset: this is not a movie that everyone will either “get” or like. It’s absurdist, has obviously been shot on a very low budget, doesn’t really contain any jokes (though it is very funny), and features a game cast who are asked to behave in ways that you won’t have seen in a Planet of the Apes movie.

The first scene acts as a kind of litmus test for the rest of the movie, and many viewers may well decide that if what happens is an indication of what’s to come, then they’ll be better off watching something else. We see two men – Smith (Oram) and Keith (Meeten) – making their way through a wooded area until they come to a stop by a fallen tree. There they pause, and while Smith sits on the fallen tree, Keith wordlessly massages Smith’s thighs. Then Smith takes a framed picture out of a pocket and begins crying. Keith clears a space on the ground and Smith gently places the picture there. While Smith continues to cry, Keith unzips his fly and urinates on the picture. Once he’s done, Smith urinates on it as well, but before he zips back up, Keith dabs away any remaining urine from the end of Smith’s penis (and in close up).

If you’re put off by this, and do decide to stop and watch something else, then you’ll already be missing the point, and you’ll be missing out on a movie that really does provide the viewer with something they won’t have seen before. Keith’s actions are completely in keeping with grooming in male primate groups, and this is what the movie is about, seeing our notions of civilised behaviour undermined by the rudimentary behaviour of our primate ancestors. From Smith and Keith we move on to meet Denise (Honigman), her mother Barabara (Willcox), older brother Og (Reynard), and Ryan (Rhind-Tutt), who has ousted Denise’s father Jupiter (Barratt) as the household’s alpha male (Jupiter now sleeps against the fence at the side of the house). Here we get to see how this family lives and copes with each other, both in terms of human ambition – we first see Ryan trying to set up a new flatscreen TV – and primate-based emotions.

An argument over food between Ryan and Barabara leads to a one-sided food fight, and Denise leaves the house. She meets Helen (Dempsey) in a park and they decide to go and do some shoplifting. Caught by the manager and his deputy (Fielding), they only escape thanks to an injudicious desire for sex on Fielding’s part. Back home, a party is in full swing, one that’s soon attended by Smith and Keith. Smith marks his territory and mates with Denise before taking her with him when he leaves. This angers Og who tells Ryan later the next day. Together they track down Smith and Denise (and Keith) and there is a violent showdown that sees Keith stabbed by Og. Smith takes his revenge on both men and returns to Denise’s home, where he discovers Jupiter’s presence and welcomes him back into the house. Which doesn’t prove to be the best of ideas…

For anyone willing to go with the flow and the strange depth of Oram’s research, Aaaaaaaah! is a heady mix of animal hysterics, vicious behaviour, cruel sight gags, highly attuned emotions such as jealousy and anger, and all couched in the kind of visual stylings that are reminiscent of British short comedies made in the Seventies (and which also had little or no dialogue). Oram has made a clever, stinging comedy that is also unexpectedly witty and engaging, full of pathos, and which doesn’t short change the viewer in terms of its storyline. If some of the behaviours displayed in the movie seem a little too extreme, or even weird, then again, Oram has done his homework, and there’s nothing that doesn’t happen in the same or similar way amongst our primate cousins.

The cast are all put through their paces, the demands of Oram’s script leading to darker moments that include physical and sexual abuse, murder, and unacceptable cruelty to humans (though Oram does stop at having any of his cast flinging faeces around). What’s illuminating is that none of this is unusual amongst apes, but appears absolutely horrifying when carried out by humans (it really is a different world). Honigman fares best, but spare a thought for a game Willcox, who really does get the worst of the food fight scene (though you might think that what touches Rhind-Tutt’s forehead while he’s passed out is worse).

To add to the sense of disorientation that viewers are likely to feel, Oram has employed a ragged, disjointed style of filming that offers odd angles and off-kilter framing, and has overlaid it with an unsettling score provided largely by Robert Fripp of King Crimson (and also Willcox’s husband). It all adds to a bravura piece of movie making that is more of a triumph than perhaps anyone had a right to expect – and that may just include its creator.

Rating: 8/10 – not for all tastes, and likely to alienate more viewers than are likely to be embraced in its inherently savage bosom, Aaaaaaaah! is a slice of natural history gone horribly wrong; subversive and strange, and at times very uncomfortable to watch, this is still incredibly funny amidst all the “madness” and chaos, and easily one of the more inventive movies made in recent years.

Love the Coopers (2015)

04 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Alan Arkin, Christmas, Comedy, Diane Keaton, Drama, Dysfunctional family, Ed Helms, Family ties, Jessie Nelson, John Goodman, Olivia Wilde, Relationships, Review, Romance, Steve Martin

aka Christmas With the Coopers

D: Jessie Nelson / 107m

Cast: Diane Keaton, John Goodman, Alan Arkin, Olivia Wilde, Ed Helms, Marisa Tomei, Amanda Seyfried, June Squibb, Jake Lacy, Anthony Mackie, Alex Borstein, Timothée Chalamet, Maxwell Simkins, Blake Baumgartner, Steve Martin

It’s February, so what better time to watch a movie set at Xmas? Coming to Love the Coopers a couple of months or so after what would be deemed the best time to watch it, the first thing that comes to mind about the movie is that it didn’t have to be set at Xmas at all. As several branches of the same extended family all prepare to get together over the Yuletide period, it’s easy to see how this could have been set at Thanksgiving, or on an anniversary, or in the run up to a wedding (or even a funeral). The backdrop is just that: a backdrop, serviceable enough, but aside from the introduction of mistletoe to encourage some very sloppy kissing, there’s nothing about Love the Coopers that required it to be set at Xmas.

With that out of the way, the viewer can now sit back and enjoy the highly amusing interactions between the various members of the Cooper family, from acerbic patriarch Bucky (Arkin), to his uptight daughter Charlotte (Keaton) and her nearly estranged husband Sam (Goodman), and on down to their wayward daughter Eleanor (Wilde) who meets a soldier, Joe (Lacy), in an airport bar and persuades him to pose as her boyfriend. Then there’s Charlotte’s brother, Hank (Helms), who’s recently lost his job as an in-store photographer, and their sister, Emma (Tomei), who resorts to shoplifting as a way of getting Charlotte a present she’ll have to pretend to like. Oh, and then there’s diner waitress Ruby (Seyfried), whose friendship with Bucky might mean more to both of them than they’ll admit.

Wait, there was mention of “highly amusing interactions”. Well, that was probably the intention, but sadly, Steven Rogers’ screenplay forgot to include any appreciable laughs beyond the aforementioned sloppy kissing, and the tried and trusted use of inappropriate comments from a senior citizen with dementia, Sam’s Aunt Fishy (Squibb). Matters are made worse by the decision to include a narrator (Martin) who provides a running commentary on what’s happening, and what the characters are thinking, and who at the end, is revealed to be – well, let’s just say the narrator’s identity is meant to be whimsical and in some ways, cute, but it just goes to show how poorly constructed and thought out the whole thing is.

With the humour left somewhere behind in an earlier draft perhaps, the movie tries to make the most of a series of underwhelming dramatic scenarios, from the impending break up of Charlotte and Sam, to Hank’s inability to get a new job while keeping his recent unemployment a secret from everyone else, to Eleanor’s confusion over what sort of life she wants and whether or not she believes in love (yawn). Thanks again to Rogers’ screenplay though, the viewer will find these trials and tribulations having a minimal impact, and will most likely be checking their watch to see how much longer all these banal travails have got to continue.

Taking advantage of a Xmas metaphor, the movie is the equivalent of the Xmas roast that’s not been cooked properly. It’s dramatically turgid, unconvincing, and despite the incredibly talented cast (who are clearly wasted – and not in an alcoholic way; that might have been more interesting), never takes flight in the way that its makers probably intended. Quite why it was made is hard to work out, and it’s definitely a movie that you’ll only endure once, but if there’s one thing about it that can be used as a positive, it’s that – no, actually, there isn’t anything.

Rating: 3/10 – the dysfunctional American family coming together to feud and fuss with each other is a staple of US movie making, but Love the Coopers brings absolutely nothing new to the (Xmas) table; poor in every department, and one that its cast will probably want to forget, this is a movie that defies anyone to gain any kind of reward from it.

Happy Birthday – Isla Fisher

03 Wednesday Feb 2016

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3 February, Actress, Birthday, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Hot Rod, Isla Fisher, Now You See Me, The Great Gatsby (2013), Wedding Daze

Isla Fisher (3 February 1976 -)

Born in Oman and spending time in Scotland and Australia growing up (where she also started out on homegrown series such as Home and Away), Fisher has made a good career for herself as the sexy girl next door with a flair for comedy, adding lustre to movies as diverse as Wedding Crashers (2005) and The Lookout (2007). Her bright, bubbly nature is always a bonus in any movie she’s a part of, and though she often finds herself in supporting roles, she’s still an actress whose name in the credits will provide a level of reassurance in the viewer. From an early role as Woman #1 in Out of Depth (2000) right up to her recent appearance as herself in Klown Forever (2015), Fisher has proved time and again that she’s a versatile, talented actress. Here are five more examples worth taking a look at.

Now You See Me (2013) – Character: Henley Reeves

As part of the Four Horsemen magicians’ group, Fisher had one of the most memorable scenes of 2013, chained in a tank of water and finding herself unable to get out (which actually did happen during filming). Although the focus tended to be on Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson’s characters, Fisher was still an important part of the mix, and more than held her own in her scenes with her male counterparts.

Wedding Daze (2006) – Character: Katie

In this romantic comedy – originally titled The Pleasure of Your Company – Fisher is the love interest for Jason Biggs, a man whose previous marriage proposal resulted in his fiancee’s death. Fisher navigates the various tropes and traditions of this kind of movie with ease, and gives a fresh, happy-go-lucky performance that adds a great deal of energy to things. It’s not the greatest rom-com in the world but thanks to Fisher, it is one that’s a lot of fun when she’s on screen.

Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) – Character: Rebecca Bloomwood

A cautionary tale disguised as a rom-com, this was a movie that saw Fisher cement her place in Hollywood, as the clothing/accessory obsessed magazine employee who can’t seem to stay out of debt. Fisher is just perfect in the role, and takes every opportunity the script gives her to be funny and charming, and she even makes her eventual change of priority feel entirely credible and not just a necessity of the script.

The Great Gatsby (2013) – Character: Myrtle Wilson

As the tragic mistress of Joel Edgerton’s arrogant bully of a businessman, Fisher has her most dramatic role to date, and doesn’t disappoint, even if her appearances are kept to a minimum. But thanks to a combination of Fisher’s understanding of the character, and Baz Luhrmann’s approach to the material, Fisher makes those brief appearances count tremendously, leading to the view that her role could – and should – have been expanded.

Hot Rod (2007) – Character: Denise Harris

In this cult favourite, Fisher takes on the standard role of girl next door and still makes something out of it, even if it requires her to be a foil to Andy Samberg’s obsessive stuntman for much of the time. Working well within an established ensemble, Fisher shows a keen sense of comedic timing and does more than enough to ensure that she’s not overshadowed by her largely testosterone-fuelled co-stars.

Truth (2015)

02 Tuesday Feb 2016

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60 Minutes, Cate Blanchett, CBS, Dan Rather, Dennis Quaid, Drama, George W. Bush, James Vanderbilt, Literary adaptation, Mary Mapes, Preview, Review, Robert Redford, Texas Air National Guard, Topher Grace, True story

D: James Vanderbilt / 125m

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Robert Redford, Topher Grace, Dennis Quaid, Elisabeth Moss, Bruce Greenwood, Stacy Keach, Noni Hazlehurst, John Benjamin Hickey, David Lyons, Rachael Blake, Dermot Mulroney, Andrew McFarlane, Connor Burke

In 2004, Mary Mapes (Blanchett) was a producer at CBS’ flagship news programme, 60 Minutes. She worked with the legendary news anchor Dan Rather (Redford), and earlier that year she and her team had produced a news report on the abuse happening at Abu Ghraib (which later won a Peabody Award). Mapes was a highly regarded producer who had been at CBS for fifteen years; when she told her bosses that she wanted to investigate irregularities connected with then President George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard during the early Seventies, she was given the go ahead to look into the matter and prepare a segment for broadcast.

Soon after, Mapes came into possession of documents – memos – that claimed to show Bush had failed to follow orders while in the ANG, and that efforts were made by his superiors to influence and improve his record. These documents were purportedly written by Bush’s commander, the late Jerry B. Killian. Mapes and her team set about trying to find witnesses who could corroborate the content of these memos, but were consistently rebuffed. At the same time they sought to have the documents examined for authenticity. But there were problems: the documents weren’t the originals, and their source wasn’t confirmed before the segment was aired on 8 September 2004. Mapes, even though the documents were copies of the originals, was convinced of their probity at least, and so was Rather. The segment was broadcast, and during it, Rather stated that “the material” had been authenticated.

But this wasn’t true, and soon criticism of the show’s claims were spreading far and wide, and focused primarily on the typography used in the memos and other anachronisms that seemed damning. CBS found themselves backtracking, and Mapes was disturbed to learn that the person who’d given her the documents, retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett (Keach), had lied about where he got them from. With their provenance appearing unsavoury at the least, Mapes came under pressure from the head of CBS, Andrew Heyward (Greenwood), to limit the damage of these revelations, and to find conclusive proof that the memos were even written by Killian. Unable to, and with other accusations of poor journalism coming in thick and fast, Mapes and her team were suspended pending an internal investigation. With his own integrity tarnished by the criticisms, Rather made a public apology regarding the segment, and later, announced his retirement.

Adapted from Mapes’ book Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power, writer/director James Vanderbilt’s debut feature is an awkward beast, telling its story with a great deal of enthusiasm for showing just how tarnished Bush’s ANG record was, but then failing to properly acknowledge just how badly Mapes and her team scored a classic own goal. You don’t have to be an expert in TV news journalism to realise that the whole issue of the memos – their authenticity, their provenance, what they appeared to say – was handled with an irresponsible disregard for true journalistic integrity. Anyone watching Truth, and that really does mean anyone, will be watching events unfold and wincing at just how readily Mapes and her team were willing to put their heads in a collective noose. They failed to do the one thing that any journalist or writer needs to do to make an accusation: have conclusive, incontrovertible proof that what they’re saying is true. And Mapes didn’t have that.

But again, the movie tries its best to avoid acknowledging what should be obvious to anyone watching. It still supports Mapes in her efforts to “get out from under” the storm of approbation and scathing criticism that rains down on her once the segment airs. And it tries to make her into a scapegoat for a much larger conspiracy, one that’s expressed with anguished contempt by her colleague, Mike Smith (Grace), but the whole idea lacks weight, despite the movie clinging to it unashamedly for the last thirty minutes. This may be how Mapes and her team felt at the time, but a judicious helmer would have excised it for being too incongruous and absurd a proposition (it’s also one of those embarrassing tantrums that people have when they haven’t got anyone else to blame but themselves).

All this leads to an inescapable, but strangely welcome conclusion: the movie you’re watching is about failure, a rare topic in American movies, but one that Vanderbilt at least tries to embrace, even if he doesn’t quite know what to do with it, hence the ambivalence towards Mapes and the schoolboy errors she makes. Rather makes his apology but is seen doing so on a variety of TV screens and monitors, rather than up close, thereby limiting the effect of his regret and the connection we can make to it; it’s almost inconsequential to what’s happening to Mapes at the time, as if the movie has to acknowledge it occurred but doesn’t want to lend it too much importance. It’s like when someone says to you, “Oh, by the way…” But Mapes is resolute in her convictions right up until the credits. In any other movie the audience would be applauding her for standing up for her beliefs, but instead you can’t help but wonder if she ever learnt anything of personal value from it all.

In the end we’re asked to have a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mapes and the way she’s treated, but it becomes increasingly difficult. Even Blanchett can’t make her entirely sympathetic, and while she gives a good performance, she’s hampered by the fact that she’s trying to elevate the position of someone who was the author of her own downfall. As Rather, Redford is a bit of a distraction, not because of how we see him after all these years, but because we have no idea if he’s portraying Rather with any degree of accuracy; there’s just not enough there for us to be sure. Further down the cast list, Grace essays yet another earnest young man role, while Quaid adds gravitas as the ex-military man on Mapes’ team. Moss rounds out Mapes’ (in)famous five, Greenwood is her angry, unsupportive boss, and Keach is the whistle blower who isn’t telling the whole truth. All give adequate performances but bow to Blanchett’s greater involvement and do their best not to get in the way when she’s in full flow (which is often).

With half an eye trained on being a prestige, awards-gathering picture, Truth aims for solid and dependable, and for the most part achieves those aims, but lacks the passion that would have made all the difference to the material. Vanderbilt has the talent to make better, more focused movies, and he’s to be congratulated for attracting what is a top-notch cast for his first project, but too often they’re operating at the edge of the frame to be effective, and are given few chances to shine (except for Blanchett, that is). And Vanderbilt needs to interpret his material more, to let it breathe and grow beyond the obvious, as several scenes in Truth have the feel of filler instead of moments that advance the storyline. But these are forgivable errors for a first-time director to make, and though the movie isn’t entirely successful on its own merit, there’s just enough here to make the experience pleasant enough to hang around til the end.

Rating: 6/10 – flawed, and with a central character who loses the audience’s sympathy with each passing minute, Truth should be an engrossing exposé of journalistic persecution, but instead proves to be far stranger, less convincing affair; Blanchett does her best to hold it all together, but she’s defeated by the material and Mapes’ recurring ability to undermine herself without anyone else’s help.

Joy (2015)

01 Monday Feb 2016

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Bradley Cooper, Comedy, David O. Russell, Drama, Edgar Ramirez, Inventions, Jennifer Lawrence, Joy Mangano, QVC Channel, Review, Robert De Niro, The Miracle Mop, True story

D: David O. Russell / 124m

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Edgar Ramirez, Diane Ladd, Virginia Madsen, Isabella Rossellini, Dascha Polanco, Elisabeth Röhm, Aundrea Gadsby, Gia Gadsby

At first glance, Joy looks like a traditional rags to riches story about a plucky young woman who overcomes several hurdles on her way to making her fortune. And for the most part this is exactly the kind of movie that Joy is. But it’s also a David O. Russell movie, and that means that the story can’t be told in a completely straightforward way. Instead we’re treated to occasional dream sequences that apparently hold a mirror up to Joy’s feelings at the time, a voiceover that comes and goes without adding too much to the overall presentation, and a lengthy stopover at the headquarters of the QVC Channel that amounts to a very generous piece of promotion.

By returning to the kind of small-town milieu he depicted so well in Silver Linings Playbook (2012), Russell has forgotten to include the one thing that made that movie so affecting and effective: interesting characters. Here, we have budding business matriarch Joy Mangano (Lawrence) whose struggle to get her Miracle Mop – the first self-wringing mop – both into production and into people’s homes is punctuated by several obstacles and problems, not the least of which is her business naïvete. That she overcomes all these problems is a given – this is based on a true story after all – but in the hands of Russell and his co-story writer Annie Mumolo, Joy’s tale lacks the kind of investment in the characters that’s needed for an audience to be cheering them on through adversity after adversity.

The problems begin almost immediately, with Joy’s grandmother Mimi (an almost unrecognisable Ladd), foreshadowing events with an upbeat voiceover that predicts Joy’s success as an adult because Mimi knows she’s destined for greatness. This is the restaurant equivalent of being told that a particular meal on the menu is going to be a feast for the tastebuds. If you’re already seated at your table (or in the back row of your local cinema), then you’re not going to disbelieve the person telling you all this, and with Joy we know in advance that Mimi’s predictions will come true. So it doesn’t need all this dreamy talk of predestination and making one’s dreams come true. And this is largely the role that Ladd has in the movie, to pop up every now and then when things go wrong and remind everyone that everything will be alright in the end. (But we know this already…)

We then have a considerable amount of time spent introducing the characters. There’s Joy, obviously, a divorced mother of two who spends most of her time clearing up after her reclusive mother, Terry (Madsen), and her father, Rudy (De Niro), who owns an auto repair shop. Her parents are divorced, but circumstances have them living in Joy’s house, Terry in her room, Rudy in the basement. There’s also Tony (Ramirez), Joy’s ex-husband, who also lives in the basement, and has his own dreams of being a singer (but this subplot is smothered at birth and dismissed thereafter). Adding to the mix is Joy’s petulant half-sister Peggy (Röhm), whose own struggle to be accepted fully by Rudy is another subplot that gets an early grave, and Joy’s childhood friend Jackie (Polanco), whose role is to support Joy at the expense of having any character of her own. All these characters interact with each other in ways that are mostly confrontational, but which add up to a series of poorly timed dramatic interludes, Russell filming these scenes as if they were rehearsals rather than the finished offering.

And then there’s Joy herself. Whatever really happened in Joy Mangano’s life as she fought to get her Miracle Mop into people’s homes (“It’s the only mop you’ll ever need to buy” is repeated like a mantra), it’s hard to believe that someone with so much flair and the kind of intelligence to come up with such a revolutionary invention could be so continuously undermined both by her family – though admittedly with her best interests at heart – and by such a large number of poor business decisions. And the movie eventually realises this at the end, but by then it’s too late. Despite several setbacks, including a declaration of bankruptcy that gets ignored like so many other briefly introduced subplots, Joy wins out in the end, as expected, but it’s the way in which she does that shows just how uninterested Russell is in portraying his central character in any kind of consistent light. Joy solves all her business problems by providing the kind of expertly constructed and detailed deconstruction of her opponent’s position that only exists in the movies, and which has them backing down immediately.

Russell’s uneven, and often ill-considered script is the one major flaw that stops Joy from being the thought-provoking, inspirational movie it no doubt wants to be in the first place. Thankfully it’s bolstered by an impressive performance from Lawrence even if she is fighting against the script’s often painful restrictions on her ability to connect with the audience. Alas, the same can’t be said for Cooper, who plays a senior buyer at QVC as if he were a Messiah of the airwaves. It’s an arch, uncomfortable to watch performance, and helps to mire the movie around the halfway mark, as Joy’s initial attempts to sell the Miracle Mop are given awkward free rein on TV, and the movie’s pace, not the sprightliest at the best of times, grinds to a clunking halt. De Niro has the look of an actor whose starting to realise his role isn’t going to be as big or as important to the story as he’d thought, Madsen channels an odd combination of deliberate shut-in and shy Southern belle supposedly to comic effect but soon becomes annoying, Ramirez is sidelined early on and hangs around in the background for two thirds of the movie, and Rossellini comes in halfway through and behaves like a low-rent mafiosi whose just suffered a minor stroke.

Along with American Hustle (2013), Russell seems to be foregoing content over style, but here it doesn’t work either. The wintry Long Island setting and bland interiors do little to improve the visual malaise that stalks the movie throughout, and there are too many occasions where the framing seems off-kilter, though whether this is deliberate or not is hard to tell, but it does have the effect of further distancing the viewer from the characters. Russell adds a few cinematic tricks to mix things up but they only serve to reinforce how ineffective the overall design is. With it already being too difficult to connect with Joy and her dysfunctional family, Russell’s directorial stance and ragged screenplay offer little help in getting any actual joy out of Joy.

Rating: 6/10 – lacking the necessary creative steam to get it through the hesitancies and inconsistencies of the script, Joy is a pedestrian tale of success borne out of personal tenacity; Lawrence elevates proceedings but even her sterling effort can’t save a movie that doesn’t know what kind of movie it wants to be, and which fumbles around for too long trying to find out.

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10 Reasons to Remember Frank Finlay (1926-2016)

31 Sunday Jan 2016

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Actor, Career, Frank Finlay, Movies

Frank Finlay (6 August 1926 – 30 January 2016)

Depending on the level of your exposure to his work, Frank Finlay will be best known to you either for his Oscar-nominated role as Iago in Laurence Olivier’s Othello (1965), as the rambunctious Porthos in Richard Lester’s adaptation of Dumas’ The Three Musketeers (1973) (and its two sequels), or the cheating husband in TV’s Bouquet of Barbed Wire (1976) (and its sequel). But of course, this versatile British actor had a varied, interesting career that spanned over fifty years, and he worked with some of the finest actors and directors during that period, both on screen, on stage and on TV. He always held his own, though, and his famously brooding looks were often mesmerising to watch, and though he never made it to the “big leagues” he was still the type of actor you could expect an intelligent, considered performance from, even if the production around him wasn’t quite as intelligent or considered as he was. As a character actor he could be superb, and when given the chance – as in Bouquet of Barbed Wire – he could be incredibly focused in a lead role, so much so that it’s a shame he wasn’t offered more of them. Although he will always be known for the roles quoted above, there is one role that may come as a surprise to those who don’t remember it, but is well worth watching: the Witchsmeller Pursuivant in the first series of Blackadder (1983), a rare comic role which he played with appropriate and very funny relish.

1 – A Study in Terror (1965)

2 – Othello (1965)

3 – Robbery (1967)

4 – The Molly Maguires (1970)

5 – The Three Musketeers (1973)

6 – Count Dracula (1977)

7 – Murder by Decree (1979)

8 – Sakharov (1984)

9 – Dreaming of Joseph Lees (1999)

10 – The Pianist (2002)

Monthly Roundup – January 2016

31 Sunday Jan 2016

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Acting, Affair, Antonia Scalari, BP, China, Cholera, Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Drugs, Edward Norton, Floodtide, Freebasing, Giulio Marchetti, Giuseppina, Gordon Jackson, Historical drama, Italy, Jack Lambert, James Hill, John Curran, John Laurie, Literary adaptation, Marina Zenovich, Naomi Watts, Oscar winner, Petrol station, Richard Pryor, Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic, Romance, Rona Anderson, Ship design, Shipyard, Short movie, Stand up comedy, The Clyde, W. Somerset Maugham

Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic (2013) / D: Marina Zenovich / 83m

With: Richard Pryor, Jennifer Lee, Rashon Khan, Thom Mount, Whoopi Goldberg, Bob Newhart, Patricia von Heitman, David Banks, Skip Brittenham, Paul Schrader, Stan Shaw, Robin Williams, David Steinberg, Rocco Urbisci, Lily Tomlin

Rating: 6/10 – a look back over the life and career of Richard Pryor featuring comments from the people who lived and worked with him; if you’re familiar with Pryor and his work then Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic won’t provide you with anything new, but its concise, straightforward approach is effective enough, even if there’s an accompanying lack of depth to the way the material has been assembled.

Floodtide (1949) / D: Frederick Wilson / 90m

Cast: Gordon Jackson, Rona Anderson, John Laurie, Jack Lambert, James Logan, Janet Brown, Elizabeth Sellars, Gordon McLeod, Ian McLean, Archie Duncan

Rating: 7/10 – an eager to succeed shipyard worker (Jackson) earns both the respect of the shipyard owner (Lambert) and the love of his daughter (Anderson, who Jackson married in real life), as he climbs the ladder from metal worker to ship designer; the kind of cottage industry movie that Britain made in abundance in the late Forties/early Fifties, Floodtide has a great deal of charm, and an easygoing approach to its slightly fairytale narrative.

Giuseppina (1960) / D: James Hill / 32m

Cast: Antonia Scalari, Giulio Marchetti

Rating: 9/10 – on a slow, sunny day at an Italian roadside garage, young Giuseppina (Scalari) finds that life isn’t quite as boring as she thinks; an Oscar-winning short, Giuseppina is a total delight, with minimal dialogue, some beautifully observed caricatures for customers, and a simple, unaffected approach that pays enormous dividends, and makes for an entirely rewarding experience.

The Painted Veil (2006) / D: John Curran / 125m

Cast: Naomi Watts, Edward Norton, Liev Schreiber, Toby Jones, Diana Rigg, Anthony Chau-Sang Wong

Rating: 7/10 – bacteriologist Walter Fane (Norton) takes his wife Kitty (Watts) to China as punishment for an affair, but in combatting an outbreak of cholera, discovers that she has qualities he has overlooked; previously made in 1934 with Greta Garbo, The Painted Veil (adapted from the novel by W. Somerset Maugham) is a moderately absorbing, moderately effective romantic drama that never quite takes off, but does feature some beautiful location photography courtesy of Stuart Dryburgh.

5 Famous Movie Roles That Nearly Went to Someone Else

30 Saturday Jan 2016

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Bette Midler, Beverly Hills Cop, Famous movie roles, Forrest Gump, John Travolta, Meg Ryan, Misery, Movies, Robert DeNiro, Star Wars, Sylvester Stallone, The Silence of the Lambs

Once a movie is released, and especially if it’s successful, it becomes difficult to imagine another actor or actress in the lead role, and even harder if they win a clutch of awards into the bargain. Some movie stars can become so indelibly linked to a part, that if someone else takes it on in a remake or a sequel you can’t help but see the original actor in their place (you might even resent them for being there). And there are times when the very idea is wrong. Spare a thought for example, for David Soul, tasked with following in the footsteps of Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine in the short-lived Casablanca TV series back in 1983. No matter how world-weary he affected to be, Soul just couldn’t match Bogart for deep-seated ennui. As a result, Soul’s interpretation of the role couldn’t help but feel like a pale imitation.

But if following in the footsteps of an iconic actor in an iconic role isn’t bad enough, then spare a thought for those actors and actresses who passed on a role that became iconic. How bad must that be? How must it feel to know that you could have taken on a role and made it your own, and yet because of some reason or other, you decided not to, and one of your more circumspect colleagues jumped at the chance and made it their own? (Probably bad enough that if worst comes to worst and the colleague is nominated for an Oscar, then that colleague won’t receive a vote from the person who lost out… at the very least.)

Here then are five movie stars and the roles they turned down. You can judge for yourselves just how successful they would have been if they’d gone ahead and played these roles, but one thing can be said for certain: each movie would have had a different dynamic as a consequence, and maybe they wouldn’t have been as successful, or as memorable.

1 – Sylvester Stallone – Role: Axel Foley – Movie: Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

Despite a long period of pre-production and several scripts written during the process, Beverly Hills Cop was always meant to star Stallone. But with a matter of weeks to go before filming began, Stallone upped and quit the project (Steven Berkoff, who plays the movie’s villain, once said in an interview that the Rocky star quit over disagreements about which kind of orange juice was to be put in his trailer). Enter Eddie Murphy, who seized the hastily rewritten character and improvised his way into the public’s affections as the motormouth cop with a bitingly funny sense of humour. It’s hard to think of Stallone being as free or confident in the way that Murphy is, and he’s not known for comedy – Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992), anyone? – so the chances of it having been as successful as well are less conclusive, but this is one of the best examples of an actor coming in and stealing the show (thankfully).

2 – Meg Ryan – Role: Clarice Starling – Movie: The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Without meaning to undermine or decry Ryan’s talent as an actress, it’s perhaps very fortunate indeed that she turned down the role of Clarice Starling, paving the way for Jodie Foster to give such a stunning performance. Like some of her contemporaries, Ryan passed on the role because she felt the movie would be too violent, but with the benefit of hindsight it’s perhaps a good thing she didn’t take on the part. As with Stallone and Beverly Hill Cop‘s humour, The Silence of the Lambs and its dark, oppressive material isn’t really Ryan’s forté, and the idea of a rookie FBI agent in bouncy curls chasing down a serial killer suddenly becomes too risible to be entertained seriously.

3 – Robert De Niro – Role: Han Solo – Movie: Star Wars (1977)

When casting the role of Han Solo, George Lucas wanted to go with someone he hadn’t worked with before, and several up and coming actors – Christopher Walken, Kurt Russell, and Chevy Chase(!) to name but three – were considered. But De Niro was one of a handful of actors who actually turned down the role. With his appearances in Mean Streets (1973), The Godfather Part II (1974), and Taxi Driver (1976) already establishing him as one of the best actors of his generation, it was probably a wise move on De Niro’s part, but what he would have made of lines such as, “It’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs” is still a tantalising proposition.

4 – John Travolta – Role: Forrest Gump – Movie: Forrest Gump (1994)

Throughout his career, Travolta has turned down a number of roles that, in other actors’ hands, have led to critical acclaim and their movies’ success at the box office. And this isn’t the only time that Tom Hanks has benefitted from Travolta’s reluctance to take on a role: he also turned down the role of Paul Edgecombe in The Green Mile (1999). But this decision is one that Travolta still regrets today, and though it’s hard to imagine him reciting the line, “Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates” with the same naïve innocence as Hanks does, it would have been interesting to see him adapt his naturally effusive style of acting to the role.

5 – Bette Midler – Role: Annie Wilkes – Movie: Misery (1990)

It’s often interesting to hear about proposed casting choices and the odd matches of actor or actress to a role, but the idea of Midler playing dowdy, homicidal Annie Wilkes is one that takes some adjusting to (especially given Kathy Bates’ Oscar-winning performance). Nothing in Midler’s career up til then (or since) gives any indication that she would have been effective in the role, so maybe she knew she was making the right decision – but to have been offered the role in the first place? Bizarre, just very bizarre.

Grandma (2015)

29 Friday Jan 2016

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Abortion, Bereavement, Comedy, Granddaughter, Grandmother, Judy Greer, Julia Garner, Lesbian, Lily Tomlin, Marcia Gay Harden, Paul Weitz, Relationships, Review, Sam Elliott

D: Paul Weitz / 78m

Cast: Lily Tomlin, Julia Garner, Marcia Gay Harden, Judy Greer, Sam Elliott, Laverne Cox, Elizabeth Peña, Nat Wolff, Lauren Tom

Elle Reid (Tomlin) is a once well-known poet. She’s also a lesbian whose long-term partner has recently passed away. She has a daughter, Judy (Harden), she isn’t on very good terms with. She’s grouchy, antagonistic and caustic as the mood takes her. She’s also just shown the door – horribly – to Olivia (Greer) whom she’s been in a relationship with for four months. And now she’s visited by her granddaughter Sage (Garner) who’s pregnant and needs $630 for an abortion by five forty-five that evening. No wonder she’s so unapologetically cranky.

Elle has another reason to be in a bad mood: thanks to an attack of principles she’s cut up her credit card and used it as a wind chime, so she can’t give Sage the money she needs. To make up for this selfish crime against modern day living, Elle agrees to help Sage find the money from other sources. First they visit Sage’s boyfriend, Cam (Wolff), where his aggressive and disrespectful attitude to Elle leads to some unexpected violence and the accrual of $50. From there they try to call in a loan from one of Elle’s friends, Deathy (Cox), but that only nets $65. When Elle next tries to sell some of her first edition books (even though they’re not in the best of condition), that plan backfires when Olivia appears on the scene and an argument ensues. With time running out, Elle decides she has to take a risk and visit an old flame, Karl (Elliott). At first Karl seems amenable to lending Elle the remaining $515 but their shared history ruins things and he refuses. This leaves Elle and Sage with only one remaining option: they have to see Judy and ask for her help, even though she and Elle are effectively estranged and she has no idea that Sage is pregnant (Elle also tells Sage that she’s afraid of Judy and has been since she was five).

It should take the viewer roughly two minutes of Grandma‘s running time to see why Lily Tomlin signed up to play Elle. In keeping with her literary background, and doing her best to end her relationship with Olivia as quickly as possible, Elle refers to her as “a footnote”. It’s an unnecessarily cruel remark, and Tomlin delivers it casually, as if it were of no more significance than if Elle had called Olivia a terrible lay, or a boring conversationalist. And from that nasty remark, and Elle’s adamant refusal to apologise, the viewer can see that spending time with Elle is going to be made all the more enjoyable thanks to Tomlin’s acid dry performance. Yes, she’s unconscionably horrid at times, and yes she does her best to belittle the people she despises (which seems to be everyone outside of Sage and Deathy), but it’s Elle’s acerbic, take-no-prisoners attitude that is so ironically appealing, and Tomlin knows this. And knowing this she grabs the role in both hands and has a high old time with it.

But Tomlin’s performance isn’t the whole movie, and thanks to Weitz’s command of his own script, Elle isn’t allowed to overwhelm the other characters, and she doesn’t get all the best moments. And it’s not just about one woman’s misanthropic attitude to the world around her, but the ruptured family dynamics that keep her alone following the death of her partner, and how her being needed leads to a reconciliation that everyone is a part of. This gives the movie the heart it needs to balance Elle’s angry behaviour, and leavens the nihilism she seems to revel in. Without it, Grandma would still be funny, absorbing even, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near as rewarding.

Weitz is back on form after a string of less than fully realised movies – Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (2009) and Little Fockers (2010) to name but two – and he creates a sympathetic storyline to hang his characters from, as well as making each encounter on the road to Judy’s office as grounded and credible as possible while also indulging Elle’s astringent nature. The outcome of the trip to see Karl is a particular highlight, adding a layer of unexpected poignancy to a situation that some viewers might not see coming until it’s there. It also gives Elliott the chance to show just how good an actor he is, and if Grandma has no other impact than to open the doors for Elliott to give further, equally moving performances then his appearance here will have been entirely worth it.

By carefully balancing the inherent pathos and humour of Sage’s “situation”, Weitz also gets to poke fun at the American public’s antipathy to hearing the emotive word “abortion”. Elle and Sage are ejected from a coffee shop (that used to be a free clinic) thanks to Elle bemoaning out loud the clinic’s passing – “Where can you get a reasonably priced abortion in this town?” The word is used liberally throughout, and as an accurate description of the procedure Sage needs to have it’s entirely in context, but Weitz refuses to sugar coat the situation, and it’s to the movie’s credit that when Elle and Sage do encounter a pro-lifer (and her young daughter), their position isn’t criticised or lampooned, but instead is used to provide one of the movie’s best laughs.

With Weitz so assured in the handling of the material, his cast are free to provide fully rounded characters that you can empathise with and support (except for Cam, naturally). Tomlin, as mentioned before, is on superb form, and is ably supported by Garner who gives Sage a wistful nature that makes it seem as if she’s always working things out in her head, but is just a little bit too slow in doing so (“Screw you”). Harden pitches up in the final third and does sterling work as the mother who can’t quite work out why her daughter is afraid to tell her she’s pregnant when she has such a distant relationship with her own mother. Greer has a handful of scenes as the jilted Olivia and displays the character’s dismay and pain at being rejected with aplomb, her need to know the real reason for her dismissal a necessary challenge to Elle’s self-centred arrogance.

Grandma is a movie that it would be easy to overlook, sounding as it does like an indie chick-flick for the generationally unbiased. That it’s profoundly moving in places, riotously funny in others, and completely charming all the way through is more than enough to recommend it. It’s short, sweet, avoids a lot of the clichés associated with the subject of abortion, features a cast who are behind Weitz all the way, and is just plain terrific.

Rating: 9/10 – one of the smarter, funnier, more enjoyable comedies of 2015, Grandma is a small-scale joy that deserves to be seen by as wide an audience as possible; and let’s say it again, and louder this time: “Where can you get a reasonably priced abortion in this town?”

10 Reasons to Remember Jacques Rivette (1928-2016)

29 Friday Jan 2016

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Career, Director, French New Wave, Jacques Rivette, Movies

Jacques Rivette (1 March 1928 – 29 January 2016)

Idiosyncratic, pioneering, challenging, fascinating, obscurist – François Truffaut once said of Jacques Rivette that the French New Wave began “thanks to Rivette”, and while that may be true, the fact is that Rivette had an uneasy relationship with the French movie industry, and despite an extraordinary talent as a director, never achieved the success of his contemporaries, well-known names such as Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Éric Rohmer and Jean-Luc Godard. He made long (sometimes very long) movies – Out 1 (1971) runs to nearly thirteen hours in its original version – and constructed them in such a way that audience attention was of supreme importance; complex story structures and innovative story-telling techniques made his movies look and sound unique.

Despite a career that began in 1949 with the short, Aux quatre coins, Rivette faced challenges that would have kept many directors from continuing their careers at all. While he made a steady stream of movies over the ensuing years, he encountered so many obstacles and setbacks that his perseverance is a testament to both his personal tenacity and his talent (in particular, a four-picture deal made in 1976 was never completed due to the poor reception of the first two movies). He wasn’t an instinctively commercial moviemaker, but he was influential in his own way, and his movies reflect an approach and an attitude about the boundaries attached to modern movies that should be applauded rather than dismissed. Watch any of his movies and you’ll find the work of a true artist, a moviemaker whose intelligence, wit and liveliness shone through with a clear-sighted consistency – even if he was doing his best to baffle his audiences at the same time.

1 – Paris Belongs to Us (1961)

2 – The Nun (1966)

3 – L’amour fou (1969)

4 – Out 1 (1971)

5 – Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)

6 – Le Pont du Nord (1981)

7 – Merry-Go-Round (1981)

8 – Gang of Four (1989)

9 – La belle noiseuse (1991)

10 – The Story of Marie and Julien (2003)

Bleeding Heart (2015)

28 Thursday Jan 2016

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Diane Bell, Drama, Edi Gathegi, Half-sisters, Jessica Biel, Joe Anderson, Prostitution, Relationships, Review, Shiva, Thriller, Yoga, Zosia Mamet

D: Diane Bell / 88m

Cast: Jessica Biel, Zosia Mamet, Edi Gathegi, Joe Anderson, Kate Burton, Harry Hamlin

Bleeding Heart is likely to end up being one of those movies. You know the ones, those “interesting” looking movies you pass by on your way to the New Release/Blockbuster section of your local DVD store (if there still is one in your area). It has a well-known “name” actor or actress in the lead role, and is often a drama that looks intriguing and which you may even pick up to read the blurb on the back of the case. But chances are that even then you’ll think twice and instead, plump for the latest Bruce Willis flick (Career Suicide Part 9 perhaps), or the most recent Katherine Heigl humdrum rom-com. But if you did put Bleeding Heart back on the shelf, then you would be doing both it and yourself a serious disservice.

It begins with Jessica Biel’s slightly ethereal yoga teacher May extolling the virtues of a non-violent, peaceful existence. She and her boyfriend Dex (Gathegi) have big plans to expand their yoga business, and their sense of contentment – with their work, their lives, and each other – is palpable. But May has a personal issue she needs to deal with first: getting in touch with the maternal half-sister she’s only just located (and luckily only half an hour away from where she lives). Nervous and unsure if she’s doing the right thing, May knocks on her door and drops the bombshell she’s been carrying around with her for some time.

The young woman who answers is ten years younger and suitably shell-shocked by May’s turning up on her doorstep. They agree to meet in a bar and May’s half-sister Susan, who likes to call herself Shiva (Mamet), is nice and agreeable and pleasantly surprised by this sibling revelation. The two get on and at May’s urging, agree to meet up again. Back home, Dex is initially pleased for her, but his focus is on their business and his support dwindles at the realisation that seeing Shiva is likely to become more important than taking their current success to the level.

May accepts a late night invitation to meet Shiva and her boyfriend, Cody (Anderson), outside a bar. Cody is aggressive and clearly has a volatile temper, and when someone reproaches him for speaking harshly to Shiva, he gives them a vicious beating. May and Shiva drive off and they go back to May’s place. The next morning, with Cody in jail, May and Shiva persuade each other that spending some proper time with each other is a good idea and they head for May’s mother’s place. On the way, they stop off at Shiva’s apartment to pick up some things and May discovers that Shiva is a prostitute. May is stunned by this and by the implication that Cody is both boyfriend and pimp. But Shiva is unconcerned by it all, even appearing comfortable with it.

As they begin to get to know each other, cracks start to appear in May’s relationships with her mother, Martha (Burton) (unhappy at not being consulted about May looking for Shiva) and Dex (unhappy that she’s no longer focused on their business). But she feels a bond with Shiva that she’s never felt before, and even though Shiva tells her she doesn’t need to be saved, May’s instincts are to do exactly that. When Cody gets out of jail, Shiva goes back to him, and he drops her off at a client’s home. May, though, follows them, and decides to rescue her, and the resulting effort leads to both a consolidation of their relationship and a showdown with an angry Cody.

At its core, Bleeding Heart has a lot to say about relationships and the nature of power and control within them. While Shiva and Cody’s relationship is volatile and intense, and his control over her is the frame within which they exist, May’s relationship with Dex is, on the surface at least, more fluid and mutually supportive. But Dex has his own control issues, and in his own way doesn’t want May to do the things she wants to do. When she begins spending time with Shiva, and even gives her money to pay her rent, Dex is angry because May’s behaviour is a threat to the orderly existence he’s cultivated with her. And when May resists his insistence on maintaining their “status quo” his reactions are similar to Cody’s (though to be fair he’s not as violent).

With May coming to terms with the impact of having a half-sister in her life, and the repercussions of pursuing that relationship, the movie concentrates on how both women find their way out of what are unhealthy relationships for both of them. It doesn’t offer any blinding revelations, or even provide any new insights into how people justify their staying with people who profess to care about them but don’t show it in reality (or when it’s really important to do so). But what it does offer is a chance to see how two people can find real dependence in each other, and despite having numerous obstacles put in their way. May and Shiva are more alike than they realise, and Bell’s perceptive script is careful to show the ways in which they begin to mirror each other, with the best of each one’s character having an effect on the other.

Both Biel – an actress whose career resumé is littered with too many lacklustre Hollywood movies – and Mamet are well suited to their roles, and their onscreen partnership is both subtly rewarding and emotionally resonant, with both actresses inhabiting their characters with confidence and skill. Biel undergoes a physical as well as emotional change, and shows a burgeoning strength of purpose that helps May refind herself after years of following what appears to be the path of least resistance. Mamet underplays the vulnerability beneath Shiva’s street smarts, and there are moments where her unhealthy dependence on Cody is both frustrating and yet entirely credible. It’s to both actresses credit that while May and Shiva are clearly recognisable “types”, they’re still sympathetic and likeable, and easy to root for.

On the opposing side, Gathegi plays Dex like an injured puppy who can’t understand why someone would upset him (deliberately or otherwise), while Anderson’s turn as the outwardly charming Cody is hampered by his character’s lack of depth. Bell can be forgiven for this, as Cody is essentially the unthinking catalyst for the two sisters coming together, and without him this would be a different movie altogether; his adversity is necessary for May and Shiva to bond together with the appropriate intensity. That said, Anderson definitely makes an impression, and it’s difficult to remind yourself that he’s British.

Bell, making her second feature after her impressive debut Obselidia (2010), here tells a simple story with a firm grasp of the dynamics of May and Shiva’s relationship, and the unfulfilling lives they lead. If there’s an element of wish fulfillment towards the end it’s negated by the movie’s resolution, which is tougher and less cathartic than it might seem. Add some unshowy but deft camerawork by Zak Mulligan and you have a movie that is polished and assured and which offers far more than at first glance. And if Bell decides to revisit May and Shiva at some point in the future, that wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.

Rating: 8/10 – Bell is a moviemaker to watch, and imbues Bleeding Heart with a simple complexity (not a contradiction) that elevates the movie from its indie roots and provides the audience with unexpected rewards throughout; Biel and Mamet give great performances, and the whole exercise shows that even the most staple of storylines can be enhanced by well-judged brio and conviction.

Trailer – Term Life (2016)

27 Wednesday Jan 2016

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Action, Comedy, Hailee Steinfeld, Preview, Trailer, Vince Vaughn

This may be unfair, and God knows there’s no real reason it should be getting any more exposure than it already has, but spare a thought for the people who put together the trailer for Term Life, the latest from Vince Vaughn, an actor who now wants to impose his tired, fast-talking idiot schtick on an action movie. This must have been a real challenge to assemble because this movie looks like it’d drain the life from you with every single minute of its running time (and do it deliberately). If this has anything going for it, the trailer fails to showcase it, and watching it gives the very real sense that the company responsible for the trailer must have been banging their heads against the wall trying to make the movie look less disappointing than the finished product’s likely to be. And when the trailer for your new movie makes it look this bad – even after a bunch of guys (presumably) have worked their asses off to make it look halfway decent – maybe it’s time to cancel any plans you had for promoting it, and just move on to the next project. If you’re still in any doubt about how bad this movie could be, then check out the trailer. And if after seeing it you think it’s not bad, or it’s a movie you’re now looking forward to, then drop me a line – I’d love to hear your reasons.

Happy Birthday – Scott Glenn

26 Tuesday Jan 2016

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26 January, Actor, Birthday, Buffalo Soldiers, Carla's Song, Freedom Writers, My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys, Personal Best, Scott Glenn

Scott Glenn (26 January 1941 -)

Glenn is one of those rangy actors with a weathered face who pops up in a variety of movies, sometimes in the lead role, but always giving good value and on occasion making an average movie (or even a downright bad one) all the better when he’s on screen. From his feature debut in James Bridges’ The Baby Maker (1970), Glenn has been the epitomy of honest screen acting, someone the audience can rely on and sympathise with, even if he’s playing the villain. He’s made some high profile movies, including Oscar winners such as Nashville (1975) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991), and later this year he can be seen in season two of Daredevil. But in amongst all these well-known and well regarded movies and the performances that go with them, Glenn has made a number of movies that have either slipped unnoticed under the radar, or haven’t quite managed to get the attention they deserve, or feature appearances that you might not remember him making. Here are five such movies, and proof – if any were needed – that Glenn is a talented actor, and sometimes the only reason that some movies turn out as well as they do.

Carla’s Song (1996) – Character: Bradley

Glenn in a Ken Loach movie? As unlikely as it may sound, it happens here, with Glenn playing an aid worker in war-torn Nicaragua who encounters Robert Carlyle’s politically naïve Glaswegian bus driver. It’s not the most well-written of roles that Glenn’s ever played, but he manages to overcome the movie’s second-half stylistic failings to keep the viewer energised whenever he appears, and Bradley’s complex motivations allow for a degree of suspense.

Freedom Writers (2007) – Character: Steve Gruwell

Glenn takes a supporting role as the father of Erin Gruwell (played by Hilary Swank), a teacher who tackles her class’s notions of racism by showing them the horrors of the Holocaust. He’s not required to do too much, and you could be forgiven for thinking he wasn’t in the movie at all, but this is one of those occasions where Glenn’s familiar features and personal integrity adds an extra layer of truthfulness to an already true story.

My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys (1991) – Character: H.D. Dalton

The last movie directed by Stuart Rosenberg – Cool Hand Luke (1967), Brubaker (1980) – this sees Glenn as a retired rodeo rider whose return home sees him face a new set of challenges thanks to his dysfunctional family. Glenn gives another subtle, nuanced turn that’s quietly convincing, and if the ending is a little too “Hollywood”, the movie’s still worth checking out for the very good work that leads up to it.

Buffalo Soldiers (2001) – Character: Sergeant Robert E. Lee

In this satire on corruption and greed within the US military just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Glenn is the top sergeant who squares off against Joaquin Phoenix’s black marketeer. As a no-nonsense, intensely loyal patriot, Glenn inhabits the character with aplomb and makes a wonderfully steadfast counterpoint for Phoenix’s less savoury activities, all of which lead to a spectacular showdown.

Personal Best (1982) – Character: Terry Tingloff

Robert Towne’s exploration of women’s athletics features a career best performance from Mariel Hemingway, but also a perfectly judged turn from Glenn as the coach who can accept that two of his athletes have feelings for each other but not when those feelings interfere with their aim to compete at the Olympics. Glenn gives such a good performance it doesn’t feel that unlikely that he could step off the screen and do the job in real life.

Oh! the Horror! – Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015) and Sinister 2 (2015)

25 Monday Jan 2016

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Brit Shaw, Bughuul, Chris J. Murray, Ciarán Foy, Custody battle, Dan Gill, Demons, Drama, Ex-deputy So-and-So, Gregory Plotkin, Horror, Ivy George, James Ransone, Murder, Sequels, Shannyn Sossamon, The Midwives, Toby

Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015) / D: Gregory Plotkin / 88m

Cast: Chris J. Murray, Brit Shaw, Ivy George, Dan Gill, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Chloe Csengery, Jessica Tyler Brown, Don McManus, Michael Krawic, Hallie Foote

Promoted as the series’ entry that ties everything together and explains all that’s happened in the previous five movies, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension has arrived at a point where rounding off the convoluted storyline begun (quite simply) back in 2007 has ceased to be of any interest. It’s likely that most people, even fans, gave up after Paranormal Activity 3 (2011), as the producers attempted to make each instalment part of a bigger whole. This led to Katie Featherston’s character popping up in unlikely places to ensure some kind of continuity, and the slow but inevitable decline in both plausibility and scares.

But with this concluding entry, the makers have decided to ignore the events of Paranormal Activity 4 (2012) and Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014) and bring back the younger versions of Katie (Csengery) and Kristi (Brown) in a game of video charades. With a new couple, Ryan (Murray) and Emily (Shaw), who move in to a new home with their young daughter Leila (George), set up as prospective victims of the entity now known as Toby, the movie adds a semi-live-in nanny, Skyler (Dudley) and Ryan’s visiting brother Mike (Gill) to the mix, and once a box full of old video tapes and a video camera that looks like a parody of a boombox is found, begins to wrap things up very untidily indeed.

As Ryan becomes obsessed with going through the tapes, strange things begin to happen in the house – strange, that is, if you haven’t seen the previous five movies (though perhaps the strangest thing is the Xmas tree, which keeps changing in size throughout – now that’s spooky). It soon becomes obvious that Leila is the focus for all this weird activity, and Ryan and Mike set up cameras around the house to film it all. It’s not long before we see a strange black figure coalescing in Leila’s room at night, or emanating from the upstairs ceiling. It’s aggressive, it’s trying to become fully formed, and it doesn’t register on every camera (this is meant to be unnerving, but serves only to make us watch even more static shots where nothing is happening). And amongst a whole slew of “explanations” for what’s happening, Ryan and Emily discover that the house they’re in has been built over the location of Katie and Micah’s house (from the first movie) that burnt down (which again is meant to be unnerving, but just seems like one “coincidence” too far).

Thanks to the familiarity and the structures of the previous movies, this (hopefully) final movie soon finds itself painted into a corner. Toby makes more progress toward human form in this movie than in all the others combined, which makes you wonder why it’s taken him this long. The scares still consist of things rushing at or past one of the cameras, and the slow build of tension that made the first movie so effective, has now become so devalued that instead of feeling anxious, the viewer is more likely to feel bored. And the characters still insist on carrying cameras around with them when the ectoplasm hits the fan, a problem none of the movies has been able to address with any confidence.

If this is to be the last in the franchise – and there’s no reason it should be, given the final outcome – then it will qualify as the least in the series thanks to the tired nature of the narrative, and an unwillingness to do anything that might be innovative or surprising. And as if to confirm – if confirmation were needed – just how devoid of originality the movie is, the Ghost Dimension, so hyped up before the movie’s release, proves to be just… another… room.

Rating: 3/10 – unable even to sign off satisfactorily, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension sees the series grind to a creative halt amid a welter of dull scenes that rarely relate to each other let alone the rest of the franchise; with such a disregard for its own legacy, the series deserves to be laid to rest now, but if a seventh movie is on the cards, then it needs to ignore everything that’s gone before and come up with a brand new story entirely – because this one is broken beyond all repair.

Sinister 2 (2015) / D: Ciarán Foy / 97m

Cast: James Ransone, Shannyn Sossamon, Robert Daniel Sloan, Dartanian Sloan, Lea Coco, Tate Ellington, John Beasley, Lucas Jade Zumann, Nicholas King

The original Sinister (2012) was a surprise, both in its inventive storyline and writer/director Scott Derrickson’s confidence with the material. Its principal villain, the demon Bughuul (King) – looking like a badly scarred Nick Cave – was kept largely in the shadows and his motives went largely unrevealed. It was a mostly effective mix of horror movie and mystery drama, and was bolstered by Ethan Hawke’s committed performance. But as with any horror movie that achieves even limited success at the box office, the inevitable sequel is here at last.

With Hawke’s character no longer around for the viewer to follow up with, we’re left with Ransone’s secondary, unnamed character as our guide to what follows. As the now ex-deputy (called So-and-So in the credits), he’s begun following the trail of killings related to Bughuul and is travelling around the US burning the buildings that these killings have taken place in, the idea being that Bughuul’s legacy can’t be continued in the same place by future inhabitants. At one such place he encounters Courtney (Sossamon), a mother with two sons, Dylan (R. Sloan) and Zach (D. Sloan), who is hiding from her abusive husband (Coco) pending a custody battle. Of course, the ex-deputy is already too late. Dylan is spending most nights in the basement watching snuff movies with the likes of Bughuul protégé Milo (Zumann) and his equally dead friends. Once Dylan has watched all the movies they have to offer, then he can make his own and become the latest in the long line of Bughuul’s victims.

The movie cheats a bit at the start by showing us a snuff movie that we’ll see the making of later on (and which turns out differently), and it delves perhaps too deeply into the origins of its villain, making him into a kind of globetrotting malevolent entity who can pop up anywhere, and in any culture. Thanks to the same judicious use of his appearance in the movie as the first one though, Bughuul remains as scary in appearance as he did before, but with the sense of threat firmly linked to Milo and the other children, his occasional appearances lack the intensity of the first movie.

The central plot – Dylan’s recruitment by Milo – is enhanced by the snuff movies he’s encouraged to watch. These are the movie’s grim highlights, their 16mm nature proving as effective as they did in part one. One, Fishing Trip, is perhaps the nastiest (and well made), though Sunday Service gives it a run for its money. But when the movie stops for us to see one of them, it serves also as a reminder that this is where the movie really works, not with its soap opera style romance between the ex-deputy and Courtney, nor the domestic violence dramatics once Courtney and the kids are back with daddy. These are necessary to pad out the running time and give us some breathing space between the moments of horror, but are equally those moments you wish the movie would get through more quickly.

The performances are average, with Ransone’s shy, reclusive nature soon becoming annoying, and Sossamon finally eschewing the ragged fringe look we’ve seen way too often. The brothers Sloan are okay, with Dartanian looking at times like a younger Ryan Lee, but Zumann gives such a mannered and off-putting portrayal as Milo that you wish he had less screen time (this is definitely not one of those movies where the children give easily the best performances).

In the end, Sinister 2 has a hard time justifying its existence beyond being an opportunistic cash-in on the back of an unexpected success (though some horror movie sequels have been made for even less exalted reasons). It doesn’t further the original story in any meaningful way, and has less to say about the nature of evil, something the original did with some degree of interest and flair. There are no prizes for guessing the outcome, nor that the last scene will feature a groan-inducing “scare”, and equally there’s very little chance that this will be a movie you’ll want to come back to, even if someone asks you to.

Rating: 5/10 – horror sequels such as Sinister 2 exist in a parallel world of movie making where it’s assumed that people want more of something that’s been successful, but really, that’s rarely the case; a largely by-the-numbers approach that will remind many viewers of horror sequels from the Nineties, this is a movie that never tries to be anything but a movie trying to be successful off the back of its predecessor.

Amy (2015)

24 Sunday Jan 2016

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Alcohol, Amy Winehouse, Archival footage, Asif Kapadia, Back to Black, Blake Fielder-Civil, Career, Documentary, Drugs, Frank, Grammy's, Mitch Winehouse, Review, Singer, Tony Bennett

D: Asif Kapadia / 128m

With: Amy Winehouse, Juliette Ashby, Nick Shymansky, Mitch Winehouse, Blake Fielder-Civil, Lauren Gilbert, Sam Beste, Raye Cosbert, Andrew Morris, Lucian Grainge, Tyler James, Yasiin Bey

One of the most talented singers of her generation, Amy Winehouse “arrived” on the music scene in 2003 with the release of her first album, Frank. Eight years later she was dead from alcohol poisoning. She was in the public eye so often, and so often for the wrong reasons, that a lot of people felt they knew her. Unable to deal with the fame and fortune she so justly deserved, she retreated into a life of alcohol and drug addiction and repeated, unsuccessful attempts to throw off the demons that plagued her. One of her idols, Tony Bennett, said of her, “she was the only singer that really sang what I call ‘the right way’ because she was a great jazz-pop singer”. But why did she die at the age of twenty-seven, alone and with only her bodyguard checking on her occasionally?

Sadly, Amy doesn’t provide any answers. Nor does it probe too deeply into why the singer had such an addictive personality, or why she had been bulimic for most of her life (a topic which is mentioned partway through then dropped as a point of fact that needs no further investigation). It also fails to explore the differences between Amy Winehouse the world-famous singer/celebrity, and Amy Winehouse the private person. While there are times when her friends and family comment on her behaviour, and there’s a large amount of regret that can be felt, no one seems to have really known what made Amy tick during those brief eight years when she was so well known and so highly regarded.

The reason that Amy fails to do this is partly due to the very cleverly constructed way in which it recounts Amy’s life, charting her teenage home life and early success with Frank, through to her increasing use of drugs and her alcohol dependency before the further success of Back to Black. From there the pressures associated with such an unexpected and meteoric rise were compounded by her poor choice of partner – step forward, Blake Fielder-Civil – and the lack of support gained from her family, in particular her father, Mitch, whose lack of empathy for his daughter is incredible to witness. All this led to repeated, and entirely predictable relapses following stays in various rehab clinics. With no one attempting to deal with her bulimia – or get her to – Amy’s health was so compromised by 2011 that those close enough to her knew that her drinking would eventually kill her.

But Amy is effectively reportage, a trawl through the singer’s life that relies on a great deal of archival footage of Amy and her friends, Amy and her working relationships, Amy on stage, Amy in the public eye, and the contributions of many of the people who knew her personally and worked with her professionally. And while some of the early, pre-Frank footage is beguiling to watch, and fascinating in a morbid way (knowing how she would look in later life), the later footage, once her demons have made themselves felt, leads the movie into darker, more disturbing territory. It’s at this point that Amy moves away from bittersweet reflection and becomes a rehash of the public and private life we all saw develop over those eight years. We see the public appearances where she seems overawed and/or overwhelmed, the sight of someone with the light in their eyes slowly dying out, and we gain the sad realisation that this person’s life can only end in tragedy.

Did we always know this? Certainly Amy’s friends knew this, and it’s likely that her colleagues in the music industry knew this, and the movie, while not pointing any fingers directly (or with any intention of doing so), does however make one thing clear: no one did enough to stop it. Her friends stepped away because they couldn’t bear to watch her destroy herself, and her record company wouldn’t work with her unless she was clean (reasonable in itself but for Amy an ultimatum she was never going to achieve, not in the long-term). In the end, that’s why Amy died alone and with only her bodyguard occasionally checking in on her: she had nobody she could rely on to protect her.

The sadness and the largely unavoidable tragedy of all this is brought out by Kapadia’s firm control over the movie’s content, and while some people, particularly Mitch Winehouse, have subsequently decried Amy as having produced “an inaccurate narrative of Amy’s story”, there’s little doubt that in the last three years of her life, when her problems became insurmountable, that she was desperately unhappy and struggling to find direction in her life. You can see this illustrated best when she’s seen recording a duet with Tony Bennett, one of her life-long idols. The confidence that has seen her give outstanding vocal performances time and time again has deserted her; she keeps apologising for getting things wrong. Bennett continually reassures her but you can see from her eyes that Amy isn’t convinced; when the session is done, you can see how relieved she is that she’s got through it all. It’s moments like these, when she clearly wants to be at her best, but her best is too far away for her to grasp, that prove the most disturbing and the most upsetting.

Could Amy Winehouse have conquered her demons and still be making great records today? We’ll never know, but one thing we can be sure of: her short career gave us many wonderful recordings, and it’s these lasting treasures by which we should remember her, not as the drunk, confrontational, tragically lost figure she was in her last few years. She was talented, incredibly so, and Amy reminds us of that constantly, even as it charts her downward spiral. She was always about the music, always about the irresistable pull of it, and thanks to Kapadia’s inclusion of several of her most iconic and meaningful songs, Amy is still a reminder of just how talented she was, and how much she will be missed.

Rating: 8/10 – a fascinating documentary that tells a fascinating story, even if we think we’ve seen it all before, Amy mixes archival footage of the singer along with candid commentaries from the people who knew and worked with her to create a devastatingly human story of tragedy borne out of success; that it doesn’t make judgments (except very cleverly) or arrive at any conclusions are the only things that stop this from being any better than it already is.

The Big Short (2015)

22 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Adam McKay, Banking crisis, Brad Pitt, CDO's, Christian Bale, Drama, Fraud, Housing market, Review, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, Sub-prime mortgages, Triple A's, True story, Wall Street

D: Adam McKay / 130m

Cast: Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, John Magaro, Finn Wittrock, Marisa Tomei, Melissa Leo, Rafe Spall, Jeremy Strong, Hamish Linklater, Adepero Oduye, Byron Mann

It seems a little odd now that next year, 2017, will see the tenth anniversary of the collapse of the US housing market. Thanks to the greed of the Wall Street banks, in the US alone, eight million people lost their jobs and six million people lost their homes. It was a national scandal. But how did it all come about? Well, it’s fairly complicated, but The Big Short does a good job of explaining it all.

Adapted from the book by Michael Lewis, the movie looks at the people who first realised that the US housing market was a timebomb waiting to happen. It begins with a hedge fund manager, Dr Michael Burry (Bale). He had been analysing mortgage lending practices and discovered that mortgages were being sold at an alarming, and unchecked rate. With increasing defaults at the lower end of the market, a collapse was inevitable, and Burry predicted it would happen in 2007. Burry then approaches several of the big name banks, including Goldman Sachs, and persuades them to let him take out credit default swaps, an insurance against the collapse happening. If it does, they pay him a major return on his premiums.

Burry’s actions attract the attention of a trader at Goldman Sachs, Jared Vennett (Gosling). At first, like everyone else, Vennett thinks that Burry’s idea is completely ridiculous. But he does what Burry did and digs a little deeper, until he too sees the likelihood of the collapse happening. He attempts to do what Burry has done using his own funds but a misplaced phone call ends up putting him in touch with Mark Baum (Carell), another hedge fund manager. Baum and his small team begin to create their own credit default swaps.

In addition, two young investors, Charlie Geller (Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Wittrock) hear about the default credit swaps, and with the aid of industry veteran Ben Rickert (Pitt), they too manage to raise their own swaps. Burry faces the ire of his bosses at the company where he works (who can’t see that the housing market could collapse – because it’s never happened before) because of the size of the premiums he’s paying, while Baum’s investigation into the pending collapse begins to show the enormous effect it will have on the public, as well as the financial system. The sheer size and scope of the fallout, they realise, won’t just affect the US economy, but the global economy as well.

As Baum and his team look further into the reasons why the collapse will occur, they discover that the banks and mortgage lenders are complicit in keeping the status quo, preferring to get rich off of short term investments instead of long term ones. And they also discover the existence of CDO’s (collateralized debt obligations), groups of poor loans that are packaged together and given incorrect ratings in order that they can be sold on. These packages are essentially worthless but are being used to a) prop up the already wobbly housing market, and b) to further ensure quick, easy profits for the banks.

But it all proves to be too much and too late. In 2007 the markets defaulted and the collapse began in earnest. The ripple effect of foreclosure after foreclosure began to cripple the banks, and many closed for business, owing billions of dollars (the movie states that $5 trillion was lost in total). But – and here’s the irony – Burry, Baum, Vennett, Geller and Shipley all profited from the collapse. Their credit default swaps allowed them to make millions off of the back of everyone else’s misery. The movie acknowledges this around halfway through, and while up til then the viewer might be regarding these guys as the heroes of the story, by the end it’s doubtful you’ll see them in the same light. When Burry leaves his office once his company’s credit default swaps have been honoured you see the amount they’ve made written on a board: $2.69 billion.

By focusing on the people who warned the system what was going to happen, and who benefitted from it in the long run, The Big Short is able to show us what was happening on the inside, and how pervasive the fraud related to mortgage lending was. It’s a morality tale where no one gets off lightly. Geller and Shipley, once they realise the effect the collapse will have on ordinary people they try and warn their friends and families, but they’ve made no effort to warn anyone else during the whole time. Baum approaches one of the Ratings agencies, to see how they can justify giving approval ratings to the CDO’s, only to be told that if they didn’t the banks would take their business elsewhere; and yet Baum doesn’t warn anyone outside his own team about what this means. And Burry sits back in his office and watches it all unfold with the view that he’s just doing his job.

That the US financial institutions of the time were amoral in their approach to protecting their clients is something we’ve long been aware of, but the point The Big Short makes with absolute clarity is that everyone was too busy getting rich to even care. What makes matters worse is that the banks weren’t even worried; they knew that the government – the people, if you like – would have to bail them out if anything did go wrong. It’s this nasty, reprehensible lack of responsibility, and the extent of it, that really comes across, and even though Baum in particular bemoans the industry’s fraudulent activities, it still remains that few efforts were made to avoid the collapse when it was known about and accurately predicted.

As the movie’s anti-heroes, Bale is on nervous, Asperger’s-type form as Burry, supposedly with a glass eye (the left one), and working with absolute certainty that his projections are correct. Burry is a character that comes across as indifferent to anyone around him, and dismissive of others when challenged, but Bale makes him into a weary financial warrior, determined to make a profit for his investors at the expense of millions of ordinary non-investors. He’s likeable enough but some viewers may find him cold and distant. Carell plays Baum as the script – by McKay and Charles Randolph – has set him up: as the tale’s sole source of any conscience. With an unflattering wig perched on his head to add to his woes, Carell looks crestfallen and morose throughout, as if the weight of the (financial) world was all on his shoulders alone. It’s less of a performance than an extended mope-athon, and aside from a few moments of outrage, Baum looks and sounds like someone who’s got inside the cookie jar, has stuffed them all in his mouth, and only then discovered that he doesn’t like the flavour.

In support, Gosling sports a hideous hairstyle and struts around breaking the fourth wall with undisguised glee (as do several other characters), while Pitt buries himself beneath another odd wig and a scruffy beard. Magaro and Shipley adequately put across the eagerness and the excitement of being in on what could be termed an “industry secret”, and their scenes together are eloquent for how they go from earnest and enthusiastic to demoralised and dismayed. The rest of the cast do well with sometimes sketchily written characters, though Mann comes in towards the end as an investment manager that the banks use to create synthetic CDO’s (even worse than the real thing) and who is scarily unconcerned about the consequences of what he’s doing.

McKay – better known for his work with Will Ferrell – has made a movie that exposes the indolence and the greed at the heart of Wall Street during the last decade, and he’s done it with no small amount of style. When something complicated needs explaining, instead of getting one of the characters to explain it, the movie is effectively paused while a celebrity does so in terms that the average viewer can understand (which leads to the surreal moment when Selena Gomez explains what synthetic CDO’s are). With the intricacies of the financial jargon overcome, McKay looks to emphasise the human cost of the banks’ endeavours and does so with a pointed, judgmental approach that can be hugely effective.

The Big Short may not be everyone’s idea of a movie to crack open a few beers with, or indeed one that could be enjoyable, but there’s much to warrant giving it a try, and if you pay attention to what’s being said, there’s a lot to be understood about what went wrong in 2007 and why it was inevitable. As a cautionary tale it’s perhaps a little too late in the telling, but it does leave the viewer with one very clear warning right at the end: beware of “bespoke tranche opportunities”. They’re the new version of CDO’s and the banks are pushing them with all the gusto did in the past.

Rating: 8/10 – well focused on both the financial and human sides of the crisis, The Big Short is a scary look at a situation that nearly caused a global financial meltdown, and why it came about; fascinating and horrific on a continually WtF? level, the movie is at its best when its skewering the antipathy and the greed of the banks and their seemingly pathological determination to screw over everybody for the sake of a quick buck.

Trailer – Suicide Squad (2016)

22 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, DC, Preview, Suicide Squad, Superheroes, Trailer

The latest trailer for Suicide Squad wouldn’t normally be a candidate for inclusion on thedullwoodexperiment – after all, the first one wasn’t. But someone, somewhere had the inspired idea that this trailer should be accompanied by, and edited to fit the rhythms of, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. And in a very strange way, it absolutely, positively works. Even if the movie proves to be lacklustre and disappointing, it will at least have this trailer to remind people of what could have been, and is a fitting testament to the idea that sometimes, trailers are a lot better than the finished product.

Steve Jobs (2015)

21 Thursday Jan 2016

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1984, 1988, 1998, Aaron Sorkin, Apple, Biography, Black cube, Computers, Computing, Danny Boyle, Drama, Father/daughter relationship, History, iMac, Jeff Daniels, Kate Winslet, Literary adaptation, Macintosh, Michael Fassbender, NeXT, Product launches, Review, Seth Rogen, True story

D: Danny Boyle / 122m

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels, Michael Stuhlbarg, Katherine Waterston, Ripley Sobo, Makenzie Moss, Perla Haney-Jardine, Sarah Snook, John Ortiz

Steve Jobs – maverick genius, arrogant manipulator, or indifferent human being? In Danny Boyle’s latest movie we get to learn that the late founder and CEO of Apple was all three, which shouldn’t be a surprise as each description isn’t exclusive of itself. But where Aaron Sorkin’s script, adapted from Walter Isaacson’s book, impresses most is when we see Jobs being all three at the same time.

The structure of the movie allows us to see Jobs at three separate points in his life, and each time in the immediate lead up to a product launch. So in 1984 we see him trying to launch the Macintosh, Apple’s first new product in seven years since the Apple II. In 1988 he’s on his own, attempting to impress everyone with the NeXT computer, an item that is doomed to failure. And we end on a high note in 1998 with the launch of the first iMac and Jobs’ ensuring he would never be forgotten. It’s like a crazy rollercoaster ride, as the advances in computer innovation are revealed to be less important than marketing and design. As Jobs so aptly puts it, “They won’t know what they’re looking at or why they like it but they’ll know they want it”.

By telling Jobs’ story in three distinct episodes, Boyle and Sorkin, with the aid of a very talented cast, reveal how Jobs started with an idea and kept pursuing it for over fifteen years. That idea may have gone through some variations in all that time, but the movie paints a very convincing portrait of a man driven by the need to do things differently and in a way that’s at odds with everyone around him. In his pursuit of excellence in home computing, Jobs brooked very little compromise, and we see this in the meticulous nature of his product launches, where even the Exit signs have to be switched off so that the visual presentation can have the most impact. Jobs doesn’t compromise, and he doesn’t recognise the value and support of the people around him, including his old friend and co-creator of the Macintosh, Steve Wozniak (Rogen), and his long-suffering personal assistant Joanna Hoffman (Winslet).

Each launch brings its own set of issues and problems for Jobs to overcome, from the first Macintosh’s failure to say “hello”, to the NeXT computer’s lack of an operating system, to Wozniak’s public insistence that the iMac launch should include an acknowledgment of the work put in by the team who made Apple II so successful. Jobs refuses to accept that any of these will interfere with his plans for success, and he drives the people around him with a fierce determination that is both alienating and patronising. The movie keeps Jobs focused and uncompromising in his self-belief, right until the end, and as an anti-hero he fits the bill entirely.

But while the behind the scenes manoeuvrings that show how each phase of Jobs’ career were a necessary, evolutionary step (for him and his computers) all make for compelling viewing, the movie is less successful with its three act structure than it realises. Each section relies on a lot of repetition, as encounters and personal problems are examined each time, albeit from slightly different angles. Jobs’ condescending treatment of Wozniak is a case in point, as is his dismissive treatment of computer engineer Andy Hertzfeld (Stuhlbarg). And then there’s Lisa, the daughter he tried to deny having.

Jobs’ relationship with Lisa is one of the bigger subplots in the movie, and as an attempt by Boyle and Sorkin to show the man’s more “human” side, it’s nevertheless quite clumsy and unconvincing in its execution. At the first launch, Lisa is five years old; up until she uses a Macintosh to draw a picture, Jobs is distant toward her, and to her mother, Chrisann (Waterston). But the picture changes his feelings about her, and in the other two acts we see the same sort of thing happen again, as Jobs begins to treat Lisa as a person and not a Court-confirmed inconvenience (Jobs was so arrogant that upon learning that a paternity test showed it was 94% certain he was Lisa’s father, he came up with an algorithm that counter-claimed that the 6% difference meant Chrisann could have slept with any one of twenty-eight million men and the result would have been the same). While it’s a creditable attempt to humanise Jobs, it’s these scenes that carry the least weight, and the least credibility. By the time Lisa is nineteen and on the verge of wanting nothing to do with him, all it takes is for Jobs to say he was “poorly made” and she forgives him just like that (as well as a hastily improvised bribe that promises she’ll have one of the first iPods).

More potent is the relationship Jobs has with John Sculley (Daniels), the CEO he poached from Pepsi to run Apple in the Eighties. It was Sculley who had Jobs ousted from Apple following the disastrous sales of the Macintosh, and Sorkin’s script soars whenever it focuses on the pair’s uneasy relationship. There’s a bravura scene where Jobs confronts Sculley over what he sees as the CEO’s betrayal of him, and Boyle intercuts with flashbacks that show the depth of Jobs’ own complicity, giving the audience a balanced view of what happened and why. Both Fassbender and Daniels are superb in these scenes, and the movie has a fire and an energy that it lacks elsewhere.

As expected, Boyle elicits strong performances from his cast, with Fassbender giving a superb performance as the empathy-lite Jobs, and Winslet stealing the movie out from under him as Joanna. Winslet is simply in a class of her own, adding subtlety and shading to a role that would otherwise have been quite bland. When she confronts Jobs over his treatment of Lisa before the ’98 launch, the pent-up emotions she releases are as liberating for the viewer as they are for Joanna. In support, Rogen shows fleeting glimpses of the actor he can be when he’s not channelling Seth Rogen, and Daniels is magnificent as Sculley.

Jobs is frequently challenged as to what he can actually do, and at one point he tells Wozniak that “musicians play their instruments. I play the orchestra”. With Jobs, Boyle shows himself to be a great conductor as well, but thanks to some uncomfortable narrative decisions borne out of Sorkin’s script, this isn’t as rewarding as some of his other movies, and his control over the material, while evident throughout, isn’t enough to overcome the movie’s built-in deficiencies. That said, and as with all of Boyle’s movies, it’s visually stimulating and in tandem with editor Elliot Graham, he maintains a pace and a rhythm that propel the viewer along effortlessly.

Rating: 7/10 – slickly, professionally made with Boyle firmly in charge and full of impressive performances, Jobs is nevertheless a movie that fails to do full justice to its central character; as a result Jobs the human being proves less interesting than Jobs the arrogant perfectionist, and any insights into the man that can be gleaned are at the expense of soap opera elements that, unfortunately, compromise his more acerbic nature.

Anomalisa (2015)

20 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Animation, Charlie Kaufman, Cincinnati, Comedy, Customer service, David Thewlis, Drama, Duke Johnson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michael Stone, Mid-life crisis, Review, The Fregoli, Tom Noonan

D: Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson / 90m

Cast: David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Noonan

If you’re new to the work of Charlie Kaufman, and haven’t seen any of his earlier works such as Being John Malkovich (1999) or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), then Anomalisa may not be the best place to start. Not because it’s a bad movie – very far from it – but because it requires a great deal of navigation to get to where Kaufman wants to take you. You can approach the story at face value: middle aged man suffering a mid-life crisis has a one-night stand while on a business trip, or you can see past the obvious and examine the bizarre psycho-sexual mindset of a man for whom everyone else in the world looks and sounds the same, and for whom personal relationships are a form of existential torture.

By having his lead character suffer from the Fregoli Delusion, a rare disorder where a person believes that different people are in fact the same person but in constantly changing disguises, Kaufman has found a new way to look at how we assess new relationships and how we assign emotional links to new relationships from old ones. It all sounds heavy going, and maybe not the best material for an animated movie, but in fact it’s the perfect approach and style for telling Kaufman’s tale.

Michael Stone (Thewlis) is a customer service guru. He’s written a well-known and highly regarded book on the subject and he’s arrived in Cincinnati to give a speech the next day. He’s married with a young son and on the ride from the airport establishes that there’s a toy store near his hotel where he can get a gift for his son. At the hotel, called The Fregoli, Stone checks in and goes to his room where he decides to call up an old girlfriend, Bella Amarossi, and see if she’ll meet him for a drink. She agrees and they meet up in the hotel bar. There are recriminations from Bella over the way Michael just upped and left her, and the reunion ends badly when he suggests they go up to his room to “talk more privately”; angered that he just wants to have sex with her, Bella leaves.

With nothing else to do, Michael visits the nearby toy store only to learn that it’s an adult toy store. But he sees a mechanical head and upper torso, with arms, of a Japanese woman behind the counter and he decides to buy it. Back in his room he’s just getting out of the shower when he hears a familiar woman’s voice from outside in the hallway. He dashes out but no one is there. Convinced she must be in one of the other rooms, he knocks on doors until one is opened by Emily. Emily is in town for his speech along with her colleague and best friend Lisa (Leigh). Michael is immediately smitten by Lisa and after the three of them have had cocktails in the hotel bar, he invites Lisa back to his room. Fascinated by her, and in particular by her voice, Michael flatters her into having sex with him.

Afterwards he has a dream where the hotel manager speaks to him in the basement and tells him that while assignations in the hotel rooms are to be expected, Michael can do so with anyone but Lisa. A team of secretaries all offer themselves to him and as he attempts to escape he wakes up. In the morning, Michael and Lisa have breakfast together, but he begins to criticise her behaviour, and soon her voice, which he finds so alluring, begins to pall, and she sounds like everyone else. Later, when he gives his speech, Michael rambles and goes off topic, and his previous confidence deserts him; he sounds alienated and confused. And when he returns home, he still finds no relief from the problems that plague him.

Part of the pleasure of watching Anomalisa is trying to fathom if Michael knows he suffers from Fregoli disorder or not. There are times when it seems as if he does but is choosing to ignore it (or deal with it), and there are times when he seems oblivious to it (you can guess when these moments occur). The movie’s perspective doesn’t help, with everyone except for Michael and Lisa looking the same – and bearing an uncanny resemblance to Sonny from I, Robot (2004). Further disorientation is added by having Tom Noonan voice all the other characters, male or female. (It’s a great idea, and Noonan’s rich tones are used to very good effect.) If we’re seeing all this from Michael’s perspective, then he is aware of it and is choosing to deal with it. But if we’re seeing all this from the vantage point of an observer, then Michael’s awareness of his condition is open to question, and so are his motives.

There’s much that’s open to interpretation either way, but it’s his relationship with Lisa, however short-lived, that holds the key to Michael’s behaviour. His marriage is on the rocks because he’s unhappy with his life in general (because of his disorder?), he’s in town just overnight, alone, and seeking “company”; it’s a cliché waiting to happen. Kaufman relates the ensuing “courtship” with aplomb, embedding an early clue as to Lisa’s “place” in Michael’s mindset (the payoff comes when he gets home), and leading the viewer down the path called misdirection. It’s all cleverly done, and with more than a hint of mischief, and in terms of the narrative, is richly rewarding when all becomes clear at the end.

To explain more would be to ruin the fun of discovering how Michael overcomes his disorder and makes a connection with another person. The stop motion animation style employed appears clunky and hesitant but it’s a perfect fit for Michael’s confused mind and emotions, as well as his lumbering approach to other people. It’s charming too, with little details here and there that add depth to the narrative (the zoo sign that can be seen from Michael’s hotel window). And Kaufman adds sly, witty moments of his trademark humour: the plane that can be seen from Michael’s plane (you know exactly what’s going to happen), and the hotel clerk who taps away at a keyboard without taking his eyes off Michael at all.

So much animation is aimed at the younger market that it’s refreshing to see a completely adult-themed animated movie that doesn’t include talking animals or magical fairy kingdoms. Kaufman and Johnson have created a unique world for us to visit and spend time in, and aided by a beautifully melancholy score by Carter Burwell, have made a movie that resonates long after it’s ended.

Rating: 9/10 – a superb movie in its own right but elevated by its distinctive use of stop motion animation, Anomalisa is a sheer delight from start to finish; with much to say about how we view other people and relate to them in times of emotional crisis, and how insular we can be, it’s also at times unbearably poignant – and that’s a very good thing indeed.

Trumbo (2015)

19 Tuesday Jan 2016

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Bryan Cranston, Dalton Trumbo, Diane Lane, Drama, Exodus, Historical drama, Hollywood, HUAC, Jay Roach, Kirk Douglas, Oscar winner, Otto Preminger, Review, Roman Holiday, Screenwriter, Spartacus, The Blacklist, The Brave One, The Hollywood Ten, True story

D: Jay Roach / 124m

Cast: Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane, Elle Fanning, Helen Mirren, John Goodman, Michael Stuhlbarg, Louis C.K., David James Elliott, Roger Bart, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Dean O’Gorman, Christian Berkel, Stephen Root, Alan Tudyk, John Getz

Anyone with a passing interest in the history of Hollywood will probably have heard of the Hollywood Ten, a group of screenwriters and directors who were cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to state their affiliation (if any) with the Communist Party. They stood up for their First Amendment rights only to find that the government wasn’t listening; as a result they were fined and given prison sentences ranging from six months to a year. Hollywood exacted a further penalty: none of the ten would be allowed to work in the industry and their names would be added to the Blacklist, a list of actors, writers, directors and other industry professionals who were regarded as communists and traitors to the American way of life.

This ignominious period in American political and entertainment history is the backdrop for Trumbo, a look at the life and experiences of one of the Hollywood Ten, and the ways in which he managed to subvert the Blacklist. Beginning in 1947, the movie charts the attempts by the Hollywood establishment to fall into line with the political manoeuvrings of people such as stockbroker and US Representative J. Parnell Thomas, and to not appear out of step with the paranoia of the time. Against this, screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (Cranston) tries to marshal his “comrades” in an effort to rebut the accusations made against them, and with the likes of Edward G. Robinson (Stuhlbarg) in support, prepares to defy Congress and to refuse to cooperate at the hearings.

The movie shows how some of the Ten, including Arlen Hird (Louis C.K.) – a character created to represent several of the original members – have their doubts about this course of action, but they are persuaded by Trumbo, and their time before Congress leads to the ruination of their careers. Matters are made worse when supporters such as Robinson give their names to the enquiry, and the extent of the Blacklist begins to be felt once their gaol terms are completed. Hird becomes ill, while Trumbo does his best to support him. Still needing to write, Trumbo writes a screenplay that he gives to his friend Ian McLellan Hunter (Tudyk) to sell to the studios. The script is bought by Paramount and the movie made from it, Roman Holiday (1953), goes on to win an Oscar for its screenplay.

The irony isn’t lost on Trumbo, and when he’s approached by King Brothers Productions, headed by Frank King (Goodman), to produce screenplays for them (under pseudonyms of course), he jumps at the chance. However, a combination of King’s demand for scripts and Trumbo’s own exhausting work ethic leads to an estrangement from the rest of his family: wife Cleo (Lane), eldest daughter Nikola (Fanning), son Chris, and youngest daughter Mitzi. He ropes them in to be his support team, delivering scripts and rewrites whenever needed and refusing to see that they have their own lives to lead. In time, they begin to rebel against his dictatorial attitude.

As rumours of Trumbo’s involvement with King Brothers begins to spread throughout Hollywood, efforts are made by columnist Hedda Hopper (Mirren) to expose him. The release of The Brave One (1956) with a script by Robert Rich (in reality Trumbo), adds fuel to the fire, especially when it too wins an Academy Award for its screenplay. With Trumbo’s profile becoming even more pronounced than it was before the Blacklist, he finds himself working for both Kirk Douglas (O’Gorman) (on Spartacus) and Otto Preminger (Berkel) (on Exodus). Both men are willing to ignore the Blacklist and give Trumbo screen credit, but not before they have to deal with the possibility of anti-Communist boycotts of their movies and widespread industry disapproval.

In recounting Trumbo’s story, Jay Roach’s movie plays very much like every other Hollywood biopic you’ve ever seen. It moves at a steady pace, ticks all the important boxes when recounting/explaining the motives of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, shows how deeply the Blacklist affected the lives of its victims, and recounts Trumbo’s subsequent attempts to remain gainfully employed in the town that had turned its back on him. In short, it sticks to a very traditional formula and rarely strays from it, even down to the idea that Trumbo would have befriended a black fellow inmate in prison (Akinnuoye-Agbaje) (an example of his pro-egalitarian approach to people and politics). It’s only when see him at home, bashing out screenplay after screenplay, that the movie offers us something different from the standard notion of a writer struggling to maintain his career. Here, Trumbo is shown to be a bit of a monster – indifferent to his wife, dismissive of his children, and so self-absorbed he can’t see the damage he’s doing.

But like a lot of things that happen in the movie, this self-absorption and bad behaviour is easily remedied, and then it’s on to the next hurdle. For this is what Trumbo the movie is comprised of: a series of hurdles for the writer to clear. Sometimes he does so with inches of room to spare, at other times he knocks them down on his way to the finish line, and occasionally he doesn’t even realise the hurdles are even there. And he does it all with wit and panache and a fondness for the odd bon mot. For someone dealing with the issues that Trumbo had to deal with – and his pseudonym dependency issues aside – his movie incarnation never really seems to be affected by what’s happening around him. Sure he’s outraged, and sure he’s angry at the injustice of it all, but all too often the movie makes it sound like it’s all just a big intellectual challenge for him, and one that he can easily outmanoeuvre.

As the screenwriter who did some of his best work in the bathtub, Cranston gives a rasping, eloquent portrayal of a man who never loses sight of his principles, even when everyone around him is either trying to deny they exist, or castigate him for having them. It’s an award-worthy performance but one that lives or dies on Cranston’s likeability in the role, and it’s good that he is very likeable. But then so is everyone else, even the “villains” like Mirren’s vicious Hedda Hopper; there’s no one you really take exception to. In this sense, John McNamara’s screenplay becomes all surface sheen and lightweight drama, with none of the varied emotions that must have been felt by all concerned at the time.

By arriving with an air of detachment (whether deliberate or not), and an ironic detachment at that, Roach has crafted a movie that is effortlessly watchable but which falls short of being compelling. We follow Trumbo on his journey from celebrated Hollywood screenwriter to… well, celebrated Hollywood screenwriter via a couple of detours, and though we know it probably was rough, that doesn’t come across. Still the performances are a large measure of the fun to be had (Mirren, Goodman and Stuhlbarg each bring their A-game), and the period setting gives Daniel Orlandi a chance to shine in the Costume Design department. One aspect that does work? The inclusion of archival footage from the HUAC hearings, a salient reminder that people like Ronald Reagan were quick to distance themselves from their friends and colleagues under the threat of censure. What times they were, and what a shame that Trumbo isn’t quite the movie to show us just how bad they were.

Rating: 7/10 – full of unrealised potential, Trumbo is an easy watch when it should have been more engrossing and, in terms of the political witch hunt that occurred at the time, able to invoke the viewer’s ire with ease; Cranston is on fine form and he heads a more than capable cast but this has to be filed under “missed opportunity”.

Brooklyn (2015)

18 Monday Jan 2016

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1952, Colm Tóibín, Domhnall Gleeson, Drama, Emory Cohen, Enniscorthy, Ireland, John Crowley, Julie Walters, Literary adaptation, New York, Review, Romance, Saoirse Ronan, The Fifties

D: John Crowley / 111m

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson, Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters, Jane Brennan, Brid Brennan, Jessica Paré, Fiona Glascott, Emily Bett Rickards, Eve Macklin, Nora-Jane Noone, Michael Zegen, Eva Birthistle, Eileen O’Higgins

Adapted from the novel by Colm Tóibín, Brooklyn is the tale of a young Irish girl, Eilis (pronounced A-lish) (Ronan) who, in 1952, travels from the small town where she’s lived all her life, to the Big Apple, and specifically the borough of Brooklyn. It’s a chance for her to make a future for herself, to escape the narrow confines of rural Irish life. She’s supported by the local Catholic diocese, in the form of Father Flood (Broadbent), and goes to live in a boardinghouse run by God-fearing, opinionated Mrs Keogh (Walters). With a job in a department store lined up for her as well, Eilis has all she needs to do well.

But she misses home, and her widowed mother (Jane Brennan) and well-liked sister, Rose (Glascott). She writes to Rose a lot to try and combat her feelings of homesickness, and at first, finds it hard to fit in with the other young women at Mrs Keogh’s. As she struggles to find her place in this overwhelming new world, she meets a young Italian boy, Tony Fiorello (Cohen), at a dance. He’s sweet, good-natured, and has a winning smile. Eilis likes him straight away, and they begin seeing each other. He meets her when she gets out of her evening bookkeeping course; they go to the movies together and to other dances; and they go to Coney Island where Eilis learns the tricky etiquette behind wearing a bathing suit.

Their relationship makes Eilis more confident and self-assured. She helps out at the local shelter at Xmas time, providing food for the homeless Irish. She gains the respect and approval of her supervisor (Paré) at the department store, and she sails through her first year at night school, earning Father Flood’s admiration. And then Tony tells her he loves her. At first she doesn’t know how to respond to this, and Tony believes she doesn’t love him back, but Eilis overcomes her fears and admits she loves him too (though she’s still a little uncomfortable about it). Unexpected, tragic news comes from home, and Eilis feels compelled to go back. Tony urges her to marry him before she goes, afraid that if they don’t have such a strong tie to bind them, Eilis will never come back. They tie the knot and Eilis returns to her home town of Enniscorthy.

Though she agrees to stay until after the wedding of her close friend, Nancy (O’Higgins), Eilis’s return is viewed by many in the town as a permanent one. She lands a job at a local firm doing their books for them, and attracts the attention of Jim Farrell (Gleeson), a young man who’s regarded as a bit of a catch. Eilis and Jim begin spending time with each other, and she begins to feel conflicted over her marriage to Tony; she leaves his letters to unopened in a drawer in her room. With the weight of local expectations pressing down on her, will Eilis stay in Enniscorthy, or will she return to Brooklyn and her husband?

If you’ve already seen Brooklyn, then you’ll already know that the summary above covers most of the main points in the movie, and that Eilis’s journey from smalltown girl to big city woman isn’t without its fair share of ups and downs. But you’ll also be aware – hopefully – that these ups and downs lack a certain dramatic impact. It’s not that Eilis’s story is short of incident, far from it, but what incidents there are just don’t have any weight behind them, making the movie feel under-developed. Despite being adapted from Tóibín’s novel by Nick Hornby, this is one screenplay that doesn’t do the source material justice.

Having said that, it’s likely any subsequent adaptation would have the same problem that Hornby had: much of what transpires is only moderately dramatic, and it’s very difficult to see how the material could be strengthened without harming the observant nature of the narrative. In essence, we’re invited to watch how Eilis Lacey deals with the various problems and positives that come along in her life, but we’re not really asked to participate in them, or to become involved with her. It’s like hearing about someone from someone else: you only get the flavour of a person and their life, and not the detail.

Part of the problem is that nothing really happens, certainly not enough for Eilis to feel as emotionally burdened as she does for a lot of the time. And the script never really puts Eilis in a place where she has to make any really important decisions. Yes, she agrees to marry Tony, yes, she has to make a choice between staying in Enniscorthy or going back to Brooklyn, but that’s it. Even the notion that she might fall for Jim Farrell and stay becomes unlikely as soon as the viewer realises that all they do is go for walks on the beach together, and Eilis isn’t showing the slightest romantic interest in him. Iin a movie lasting nearly two hours, there should be more drama than that, and as romantic love triangles go it’s bland and unconvincing.

Despite all this, the movie still has plenty of things going for it, not the least of which is Ronan’s performance as Eilis. Ronan is a gifted actress, and while she’s not given too much heavy lifting to do, she still impresses as the awkward young girl who grows to adulthood in a foreign land. Her oval features are used to good effect as Eilis becomes more self-assured, and her faltering grasp on love allows Ronan to display a guarded excitement that is entirely appropriate to the character. She’s ably supported by Cohen and Gleeson as the men in her life, though Gleeson has a hard time making Farrell seem more than just a puppy dog waiting for Eilis to play with him. Walters provides a good deal of the comedy, and Broadbent is a capable substitute figure for Eilis’s father.

Behind the camera, Crowley, who has yet to make a movie that fully realises its potential – his last was Closed Circuit (2013) – does a great job in recreating the period, and with DoP Yves Bélanger, keeps the camera focused on Ronan’s face, all the better to catch her slowly dawning self-awareness and confidence. Bélanger also keeps the movie looking rich and inviting while Eilis is in Brooklyn, and naturally beautiful when she’s in Ireland. But with the material lacking bite, there’s only so much he and Crowley can do to keep the audience involved and following along in Eilis’s wake. Things aren’t helped either by an intrusive score by Michael Brook that doesn’t so much amplify what little drama there is, as try and become it.

Rating: 7/10 – though it tells its story plainly and with few attempts made to elevate the drama, Brooklyn is the kind of movie that would suit on a wintry Sunday afternoon in front of the fire; that it never really achieves any great dramatic heights is a shame, but it’s nevertheless an enjoyable watch if you don’t expect too much from it.

The Danish Girl (2015)

17 Sunday Jan 2016

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1926, Alicia Vikander, Amber Heard, Artists, Ben Whishaw, Copenhagen, Denmark, Drama, Eddie Redmayne, Einar Wegener, Gerda Wegener, Lili Elbe, Literary adaptation, Matthias Schoenaerts, Painting, Sex change, Tom Hooper, Transgender, True story

D: Tom Hooper / 119m

Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, Matthias Schoenaerts, Ben Whishaw, Sebastian Koch, Amber Heard, Adrian Schiller, Pip Torrens

Copenhagen, 1926. Einar Wegener (Redmayne) is a celebrated painter and husband to fellow painter Gerda (Vikander). They live in a big house by a canal and appear to be blissfully happy together, despite Gerda’s work being passed over by the local art dealer (Schiller), and despite not having had a child together in the six years they’ve been married. They are well regarded amongst their friends and contemporaries, including Ulla (Heard), a dancer who Gerda has agreed to paint a portrait of. One day Ulla is late for her sitting and Gerda asks Einar to take her place. He puts on stockings and shoes and covers himself with a dress; the effect of having the dress next to him reawakens old feelings from his childhood. When Ulla does arrive she’s delighted to see her “substitute” and tells Einar he should be known as Lili.

Later, Gerda discovers Einar is wearing one of her nightgowns under his clothes. She accepts this and the next morning while he sleeps she sketches him, giving him an androgynous look. When Einar refuses to attend an artist’s ball, Gerda prompts him to attend in disguise, as his “cousin” Lili. She intends it to be a game while Einar is secretly pleased to be able to dress as a woman. At the ball, Lili attracts the attention of Henrik (Whishaw) who engineers a situation where he kisses her. This initially confuses Einar but the urge to continue as Lili is stronger and he continues to see Henrik secretly.

When their relationship ends, Einar makes the decision to be Lili most of the time. Out of this, Gerda finds her muse, and her paintings of Lili begin to gain attention. When her work is noticed by art dealers in Paris, she takes the opportunity to go there, and succeeds in persuading Einar to come with her. It’s good timing, as Einar has been seeking treatment for what he believes is a condition that can be resolved, but most doctors believe he is either insane or perverted and want to see him committed. In Paris, Gerda contacts Einar’s childhood friend and art dealer Hans Axgil (Schoenaerts), but when she brings Hans back to their apartment, they find Lili there instead of Einar.

At this time Einar and Gerda hear about a German doctor who is interested in people like Einar who feel like they are a woman trapped inside a man’s body. The doctor, called Warnekros (Koch), is trying to pioneer the kind of surgery that will allow a man to become a woman, complete with female genitals. Einar agrees to undergo the procedures necessary as he feels this is his best chance of becoming the person he really is – Lili. Meanwhile, Gerda’s conflicting emotions about her husband lead her to skirt perilously close to having an affair with Hans.

At one point in The Danish Girl, Einar Wegener visits a Paris brothel and watches through a window as a young woman sensuously caresses herself. He mimics her movements, and in doing so, has an orgasm. It’s a telling moment, as Einar’s need to be a woman finds expression in a moment of heightened sexuality. It’s also the point at which the movie makes it clear to the audience that Einar’s condition isn’t the result of some mental incapacity, or a chemical imbalance. This is where Einar truly becomes Lili, even if he still has to dress as a man on certain occasions.

Lili’s story has been told in her own words in the book, Man into Woman: The First Sex Change, published in 1933, and drawn largely from the diary entries she wrote while undergoing her sex change procedure. The Danish Girl takes the book as a starting point and tells Lili’s story with a stately precision that both heightens the drama and allows room for Hooper to delve deeply into the relationship between Einar and Gerda and Lili herself. For this to work, the movie needed two actors capable of navigating the intricacies of gender confusion and emotional displacement, as Einar embarks on his all-consuming journey to become Lili, and Gerda tries to come to terms with losing the only man she’s ever loved. Fortunately, the movie has Redmayne and Vikander in it, and these two amazingly versatile actors keep the movie from being as dreary and confined as the movie’s backdrop (the movie is a triumph of muted colours and dull settings).

Redmayne is on superb form here, portraying Einar’s transformation from tormented man to blissfully happy woman with so much tenderness and understanding of the mixed emotions both Einar and Lili must have felt that it’s impossible to detect a false note anywhere in his performance. It’s hard to think of another actor who could have portrayed the two roles so effectively. And he’s matched by Vikander, an actress who goes from strength to strength in every movie she makes (even if it’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E.). She takes what could have been a secondary character and imbues her with a clear-sighted intelligence and emotional resilience that complements Redmayne’s performance and ensures that Gerda’s part in all this isn’t forgotten or given less importance. Their scenes together have such a charge that some of them leave the viewer on the edge of their seat, poised to see how their relationship will develop and how much their love for each other will see them through.

As mentioned above, Hooper directs in a stately manner he seems to have picked up from watching too many heritage movies, and while this doesn’t disadvantage the movie completely, it does lead to moments where the passage of time – on screen at least – seems slower than it actually is (the events here take place over four years, but you wouldn’t know it otherwise). Some viewers may find their patience tested on these occasions but this is a movie that draws you in with its performances and proves compelling because of them. Few movies take the time to examine in detail how their characters feel, and why, but The Danish Girl – thanks to Lucinda Coxon’s screenplay – does it throughout and with an honesty that uplifts what could have been an entirely depressing story. But then again, this is a movie about courage and determination against the odds, and at a time when transgender issues were only just beginning to be addressed by the medical community. And the movie tackles these issues with a tremendous amount of sympathy and compassion.

The movie has another distinguished, evocative score courtesy of Alexandre Desplat, and is beautifully framed and shot by Danny Cohen (though again, Hooper’s choice of muted colours remains an issue). And Melanie Oliver’s editing is another strength, her ability to utilise a combination of static shots and measured cutting helping to improve the visual style. Away from the main story, the movie drops the ball on only two occasions: with the subplot involving Gerda’s attraction to Hans, which is unnecessary and would seem more relevant if this were a soap opera; and Lili’s relationship with Henrik, which isn’t explored fully, and which adds confusion to the already confused state she’s in at the time (just what is their relationship about?). But these issues aside, the movie is the kind of intelligent, clearly defined movie making that doesn’t come along very often, and which does enormous justice to its central characters.

Rating: 8/10 – with a virtuoso performance from Redmayne, and an equally impressive turn from Vikander, The Danish Girl is a riveting true story about the recipient of the world’s first sex change operation; impressively mounted, and with an honesty that permeates every scene, this is a movie well worth investing the time with, and which rewards on almost every level.

Trailer – Elvis & Nixon (2016)

16 Saturday Jan 2016

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Elvis Presley, Kevin Spacey, Knuckles of steel, Michael Shannon, Preview, Richard Nixon, Steel claws of a tiger, Trailer, True story

In America, the most requested photograph held in the National Archives is the one that depicts then President Richard Nixon shaking hands with Elvis Presley. Using this iconic image, Elvis & Nixon seeks to tell the story of the meeting that took place between the two men on 21 December 1970. The circumstances were certainly bizarre – and have already been explored in the movie Elvis Meets Nixon (1997) – but it is true that Elvis went to the White House to seek Nixon’s approval to become what he termed a “Federal Agent at Large” for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Nixon thought the meeting would help with his lack of popularity with younger voters. That two men could be so deluded is hard to believe but as they say sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. The absurdities of the situation and the meeting seems to be well covered, and Spacey as Nixon is the kind of casting that should have happened long ago. Shannon as Elvis may prove to be a tougher sell though, as the actor has a very distinct screen presence, but he does seem to have nailed the craziness of Elvis’s delusion. However the movie turns out it’s definitely one to check out, and could be an outside contender come the awards season next year.

The 2016 Oscar Nominations

16 Saturday Jan 2016

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2016, Actor, Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Best Motion Picture, Director, Movies, Nominations, Original Screenplay, Oscars, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress

Is it the middle of January already? Is it time to start getting mildly excited by the prospect of another year where the Academy voters behave responsibly and predictably in their choices for Best Film, Actor, Actress etc. etc.? Well, you’re darned right it is! Except this year there’s some early controversy, especially if you’re a fan of Carol, rightly regarded as one of 2015’s best movies – if not the best – but not good enough in the Academy’s eyes to be nominated for Best Motion Picture of the Year. And they’ve snubbed Todd Haynes as well, Carol’s director. What is going on?

Elsewhere, director snubs seem to be the order of the day, with Ridley Scott failing to pick up a nomination for that well-known comedy The Martian, and Steven Spielberg being overlooked for Bridge of Spies. The thing it’s always hard to understand about the Academy is that when they do this sort of thing, it never makes sense: how can a movie nominated in the Best Motion Picture category not have its primary mover and shaker nominated for Best Director? Maybe the Spotlight team should investigate.

For the most part it’s another predictable year, with some early front runners – Cate Blanchett for Carol, Spotlight for Best Motion Picture – emerging out of the haze, but with so few movies receiving the most nominations the only interest will be in seeing who wins the most. Here then are my picks for the winners in the main categories. The ones highlighted in bold are the ones I think will win. The ones highlighted in italics are the ones I think should win. If there’s no movie highlighted in italics then the one in bold is my choice for both.

Best Motion Picture of the Year

The Big Short; Brooklyn; Bridge of Spies; Mad Max: Fury Road; The Martian; The Revenant; Room; Spotlight

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

Bryan Cranston – Trumbo; Matt Damon – The Martian; Leonardo DiCaprio – The Revenant; Michael Fassbender – Steve Jobs; Eddie Redmayne – The Danish Girl

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

Cate Blanchett – Carol; Brie Larson – Room; Jennifer Lawrence – Joy; Charlotte Rampling – 45 Years; Saoirse Ronan – Brooklyn

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

Christian Bale – The Big Short; Tom Hardy – The Revenant; Mark Ruffalo – Spotlight; Mark Rylance – Bridge of Spies; Sylvester Stallone – Creed

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Jennifer Jason Leigh – The Hateful Eight; Rooney Mara – Carol; Rachel McAdams – Spotlight; Alicia Vikander – The Danish Girl; Kate Winslet – Steve Jobs

Best Achievement in Directing

Lenny Abrahamson – Room; Alejandro González Iñárritu – The Revenant; Tom McCarthy – Spotlight; Adam McKay – The Big Short; George Miller – Mad Max: Fury Road

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen

Bridge of Spies; Ex Machina; Inside Out; Spotlight; Straight Outta Compton

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published

The Big Short; Brooklyn; Carol; The Martian; Room

Creed (2015)

15 Friday Jan 2016

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Adonis Creed, Apollo Creed, Boxing, Championship bout, Drama, Light heavyweight, Michael B. Jordan, Review, Rocky Balboa, Ryan Coogler, Sequel, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson

D: Ryan Coogler / 133m

Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Andre Ward, Anthony Bellew, Ritchie Coster, Jacob “Stitch” Duran, Graham McTavish, Gabe Rosado

The Rocky series has been a recurring staple of moviegoing since Sylvester Stallone first introduced us to the Italian Stallion back in 1976. The first movie had so much heart it sometimes felt like it would burst, and Stallone’s performance was a perfect match for the character. Rocky II (1979) was the inevitable sequel, and Stallone was canny enough to replicate enough of what made the first movie so good with newer elements that complemented the original. But then he made an unnecessary third movie, Rocky III (1982), and suddenly Rocky was fighting for an uneasy mix of revenge and morality. And then we had the blatant jingoism of Rocky IV (1985), with the Italian Stallion representing American pride at its most unseemly against a near unstoppable Russian opponent (thank God the Cold War was nearly over).

That seemed to be it, but then Stallone came up with Rocky V (1990), an attempt at scaling back the stylistic excesses of the previous two movies, but which lacked an interesting story. By then, Stallone was forty-four and age was beginning to make its point (as the movie recognised), and the chances of Rocky Balboa still stepping into the ring and taking even more poundings was quickly dismissed. But just as you can never keep a good fighter down, a sixth movie appeared, Rocky Balboa (2006). It showed more of a respect for the series than parts III – V, and it gave Stallone a chance to show just how much affection he had for the character, and that Rocky could be rescued from unintended parody. And that, surely, everyone felt, was that.

Well, almost. Now we have a seventh movie and a sixth sequel, except that this time around, the focus isn’t on Rocky Balboa but instead it’s on the illegitimate son of his most famous opponent, Apollo Creed. He has the appropriate (and unfortunate) name of Adonis, and when we first meet him he’s a young boy in a childcare facility. He’s also beating up one of the other boys, so right away we know he’s got anger issues. And we know that these issues will resurface later in the movie to provide an obstacle to getting where he wants to be, and if by chance he meets someone significant, in being with the person he wants to be with. He’s given an unexpected reprieve from a young life busting other kid’s noses by the arrival of Apollo Creed’s widow, Mary Anne (Rashad), who takes him home with her.

As an adult, Adonis (Jordan) is conflicted: he has a well-paid office job but he also fights down in Tijuana where he’s undefeated after fifteen bouts. He’s self-taught, self-motivated, but knows he needs a proper coach to help him make a name for himself in the ring. And that name needs to be Johnson, his mother’s name, because he doesn’t want to make it on the back of his father’s legendary status. So he resigns from his job, and moves from Los Angeles to Philadelphia, home of another boxing legend. There he approaches Rocky, who after the usual demurring, agrees to help him train to be a better, professional fighter. And he meets someone significant, in the form of wannabe musician and downstairs neighbour, Bianca (Thompson).

Adonis is focused, and when he wins his first US fight against local boxer Leo ‘The Lion’ Sporino (Rosado), the cat is soon out of the bag in terms of his heritage. And with World Light-Heavyweight Champion ‘Pretty’ Ricky Conlan (Bellew) needing a fight in the next six months, the stage is set for the kind of fairytale ending that only happens in Hollywood boxing movies, and which includes highlights of a highly physical, hugely punishing twelve round bout (basically the kind that rarely happen in the real world).

If some of the summary above sounds a little cynical, then it is. Creed is a movie that follows a well established template, and is incredibly easy to predict, right down to the outcome of Adonis’s bout with Conlan. There’s nothing here that you won’t have seen before, and there’s little that’s new or innovative. But fortunately, this is a movie where all that doesn’t matter, because what it does have is a fondness for and a charity towards the characters that allows them to feel like old friends even though you’ve only just met them. Adonis is the eternal child trying to find a place for himself in the world, and with only a single means to do it. He’s matched by Bianca, whose progressive hearing loss means she has to concentrate on her music almost to the exclusion of everything else. They’re both sympathetic characters and easily likeable, and both Jordan and Thompson have no trouble investing them with the kind of emotional honesty needed to avoid their becoming stereotypes.

And then there’s the man himself, Rocky Balboa, aged, resigned to running his restaurant, and staying adrift from the world that made him famous. This is a character that Stallone has played for nearly forty years all told, and this is finally the movie where he gives his best performance as the Italian Stallion. It’s a modest, surprisingly complex performance, with delicate shadings that haven’t been seen in a Rocky movie before, and Stallone appears so at home in the role that it really does seem difficult to separate the two: is Stallone Rocky, or is Rocky Stallone? Either way, the much maligned actor is excellent in his signature role, and he reminds us of just how much heart and soul the character had back in the beginning.

Away from Stallone, much of the movie’s success is down to the direction of Ryan Coogler. Coogler adopts a slightly unconventional visual approach to the movie which pays off during its quieter moments as the widescreen image is used to highlight a range of emotions. He’s also adept at keeping the camera in the ring, having it circle the boxers (and sometimes getting in between them) and prowl around every punch and blow. It’s a fluid performance by the camera, and superbly orchestrated by Coogler and DoP Maryse Alberti. The editing by Claudia Castello and Michael P. Shawver is also a plus in these sequences, interspersing the fluid camerawork with quick cuts and flourishes when the action needs to get in tight.

There are references to the earlier movies throughout, though bizarrely, Rocky’s early morning training run is transformed completely, with Adonis trailed and then overtaken by local youngsters on a variety of souped-up bikes. Bill Conti’s iconic score is in there as well, though you might not always recognise it, and of course, those steps outside the Philadelpha Museum of Art get a visit, but in a way that’s less majestical and more realistic. Fans will be pleased to see so much effort being put into what is the seventh movie in the series, and with the torch being passed from Stallone to Jordan, there’s always the possibility that we’ll be following Adonis Creed’s career for some time to come.

Rating: 8/10 – on a par with the first two movies, Creed is hugely enjoyable, and benefits from a script – by Coogler and Aaron Covington – that puts the characters first before the fight scenes; if there still remains a lack of development in some areas (the various subplots), there’s more than enough here to keep old, new and non-fans alike happy and satisfied.

10 Reasons to Remember Alan Rickman (1946-2016)

14 Thursday Jan 2016

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Actor, Alan Rickman, Career, Movies

Alan Rickman (21 February 1946 – 14 January 2016)

2016 has already seen the deaths of Vilmos Zsigmond and David Bowie, which ordinarily would have been bad enough, but now we have the sad passing as well of Alan Rickman. Rickman was one of Britain’s finest actors with a rich, varied career both on stage and screen, and back when he started out, on TV as well (if you get a chance to see The Barchester Chronicles (1982), you’ll see he’s always been talented). He came late to movies, making his big screen debut in a role that has proven iconic over the years, the immaculately groomed, urbane thief Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988) (and doesn’t he look great for forty-two?). More villainous roles followed but Rickman was sharp enough to move away from those types of parts and he began making movies that showcased the wide range of skills he had as an actor, even showing on occasion what many believed was a surprising gift for comedy; who can forget the witheringly funny way he would intone “By Grabthar’s hammer” in Galaxy Quest (1999)? For many he will always be Professor Severus Snape from the Harry Potter movies, a role he made his own. You never quite knew what he was going to do in a scene as Snape, and that dangerous energy could be a feature of roles elsewhere. As well as acting he made two movies as a director, the understated yet poignant The Winter Guest (1997) and the romantic period drama A Little Chaos (2014); both are well worth checking out. But what we’ll miss most about Alan Rickman will be his voice, that rich, mellifluous sound that could ooze charm, villainy, passion and disdain in equal measure and still draw you in almost like a character all its own.

1 – Die Hard (1988)

2 – Truly Madly Deeply (1990)

3 – Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)

4 – Bob Roberts (1992)

5 – Sense and Sensibility (1995)

6 – Galaxy Quest (1999)

7 – Love Actually (2003)

8 – Snow Cake (2006)

9 – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011)

10 – CBGB (2013)

45 Years (2015)

12 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Andrew Haigh, Anniversary party, Charlotte Rampling, David Constantine, Drama, Glacier, In Another Country, Literary adaptation, Marriage, Norfolk, Review, Switzerland, Tom Courtenay, Wedding anniversary

D: Andrew Haigh / 95m

Cast: Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay, Geraldine James, Dolly Wells, David Sibley

Geoff and Kate Mercer (Courtenay, Rampling) are near to celebrating forty-five years of married life with a big party. As their party planner remarks, it’s an odd year to celebrate, but it’s because their fortieth had to be cancelled thanks to Geoff needing a heart bypass. They live outside a small village in Norfolk with their dog Max and appear to have a tranquil, reclusive existence.

On the Monday before the party, Geoff receives a letter from Switzerland that contains a surprise. Back in 1962, Geoff and his then girlfriend, Katya, were hiking through the Swiss Alps when she fell into a crevasse. Now, with the snowline having retreated due to global warming, Katya’s body has been found embedded in a glacier. The news startles Geoff, and unnerves Kate, especially when it occurs to her that it seems odd that Geoff would have been contacted. When he tells her that on occasion during their trip he and Katya pretended to be married to get a hotel room, and because of this he’s regarded as her next of kin, it further unnerves Kate.

As the week progresses and Kate spends her time organising the party, she begins to realise that Geoff is spending his time reliving memories of his time with Katya. There arre questions she wants to ask him but is afraid to. When she discovers that Geoff has been going up into the loft and looking at old slides, she also discovers something that proves shocking. Kate becomes distant from Geoff, and angry with him for what she sees as a betrayal of their own relationship, that he should want to spend so much time thinking about a woman he knew before he and Kate even met.

With the party looming ever nearer, Kate confronts Geoff over his behaviour but she can’t quite bring herself to fully explain her feelings. All she wants is for Geoff to make it look like he wants to be there. But even with his assurance that he does want to be there, and he does love her, on the day, Kate is wracked with unresolved emotions as the celebration of their life together gets under way.

Adapted from the short story In Another Country by British author David Constantine, 45 Years is a subtle, intelligent movie about perceived betrayal and the jealousy resulting from it that features tremendous performances from both Rampling and Courtenay, and confident, assured direction from Andrew Haigh. It’s a movie that relies heavily on the stillness of contemplation to explore the surprisingly strong emotions felt by its central character, Kate, and it quietly and effectively makes those emotions resonate with a power that is equally unexpected for their intensity.

Haigh, who also wrote the screenplay, postions Kate and Geoff at a point where their contentment with each other is so ingrained that it brooks no question – from us at least. But when the letter from Switzerland arrives and we see their quite different reactions to it – Geoff retreats into a world of memory and introspection, Kate sees a challenge to the comfort she’s found in their marriage – that contentment is sure to be disrupted. But where some movies might explore the ways in which both characters are affected by this kind of news, Haigh does something a little unusual: he makes Geoff a silent mourner who talks about Katya in generalities, and brings Kate’s fears and concerns to the fore.

Kate is governed by an irrational but entirely understandable need to know that Katya isn’t Geoff’s great lost love, the woman he has missed for all these years, and also that their marriage hasn’t been a case of Geoff settling for second best. She wants to know that she matters, that Geoff loves her more than he did Katya, that their marriage hasn’t been one of convenience on Geoff’s part. But she cannot find the courage to ask the question directly or with any conviction that she wants to know the answer. And by doing so she makes her situation all the worse, as her assumptions and worries about her place in Geoff’s life are amplified by her insecurities.

As Kate, Rampling is simply incredible. She gives an impressive, astonishing performance, one of contained desperation, as Kate appears to allow herself to give in to the emotions she feels in the wake of the letter’s arrival. In several scenes and shots Rampling’s features are a mask behind which you can see a swirling cauldron of emotional confusion and dismay. There’s a scene where she plays the piano, and in her playing there’s a release of emotion that is so terrible for its restrained violence; as she hits the keys each note is like a plea for exculpation of her feelings. And at the party, as Kate and Geoff dance together in what should be a joyous moment for them both – a recreation of the first dance at their wedding – Rampling’s body language tells the viewer everything they need to know about how Kate is dealing with it all.

By contrast, Courtenay is required to remain – comparatively – in the shadows. Geoff’s behaviour at the news of Katya’s discovery is largely poignant, an inadequate response given his age and his physical infirmity. Geoff looks frail throughout, and there’s always the possibility the news will prove too much for him, but Haigh is canny enough to make Geoff stronger than he seems, at least emotionally, and there’s a handsome payoff for this at the party. Courtenay is a terrific match for Rampling, his naturally far-off gaze used to good effect as someone remembering another time in their life when they were happy. When he recounts the circumstances of Katya’s death, it’s with a heartfelt sense of acknowledgment for the happiness of that time in his life. For the viewer, it’s clear that Geoff doesn’t feel his relationship with Kate is of lesser importance. Oh that Kate could feel the same way.

45 Years excels at portraying the way in which someone can so easily and quickly feel that the relationship they’ve invested so much time in can feel so false (even if it’s probably not the case; though the movie doesn’t commit itself either way). Haigh shows complete control over the material and the narrative, even in the scenes where Kate is wandering aimlessly about a nearby town and her uncertainty is clear by the random directions she takes. The action is also beautifully framed and shot by DoP Lol Crawley, and the movie revels in its autumnal colour scheme (a perfect metaphor for the characters’ time of life and expectations). It’s a rich, sometimes lyrical movie that rewards in scene after scene, and features two actors at the top of their game. And it all ends with a final shot that is devastating for the way in which it leaves the viewer to decide how, or even if, Geoff and Kate continue their marriage.

Rating: 9/10 – a moving, emotionally astute portrait of a marriage plunged into crisis by the insecurities of one partner, 45 Years is a poignant look at how easy a long-term relationship can be undermined by simple suspicion; Rampling once again shows why she’s still one of the best actresses working today, and Haigh cements his position as one of Britain’s brightest directing talents.

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