The Infiltrator (2016)

04 Saturday Feb 2017

Tags

Benjamin Bratt, Brad Furman, Bryan Cranston, Diane Kruger, Drama, Drug cartel, John Leguizamo, Literary adaptation, Money laundering, Review, Robert Mazur, Thriller, True story

D: Brad Furman / 127m

Cast: Bryan Cranston, Diane Kruger, John Leguizamo, Benjamin Bratt, Juliet Aubrey, Yul Vazquez, Elena Anaya, Rubén Ochandiano, Simón Andreu, Joseph Gilgun, Juan Cely, Art Malik, Saïd Taghmaoui, Amy Ryan, Jason Isaacs, Olympia Dukakis, Michael Paré

Number four hundred and twenty-nine in what feels like 2016’s never-ending list of true stories – or movies based on true stories – The Infiltrator is a throwback to the kind of crime dramas made in the Seventies, with the main character going undercover and putting their life on the line in order to expose the mob boss/cartel leader/fiendish criminal mastermind who has so far remained untouchable. Here the main character is Robert ‘Bobby’ Mazur, a veteran US Customs special agent nearing retirement, but who takes on one more undercover case when another agent, Emir Abreu (Leguizamo), asks for his help. Abreu’s case involves an informant (Cely) with ties to a Colombian drug cartel, and the aim, at first, is to follow the drug trail from America back to Colombia and catch the cartel leaders red-handed. But Mazur has a better idea: instead of following the drugs, why not follow the money?

Assuming an alias, Bob Musella, Mazur poses as a businessman who can launder the cartel’s money through the companies he owns, effectively making it clean and untraceable. He and Abreu are put in contact with a couple of the cartel’s men (Ochandiano, Andreu), who in turn introduce them to Javier Espina (Vazquez), a high-level enforcer whose job it is is to assess whether or not Musella can be trusted, and his claims for the cartel’s money are true. Reassured that they are, Espina gives the go ahead for Musella to start laundering the cartel’s money, but when Mazur is put in a compromising situation with a lap dancer – he’s happily married with two children – he invents a fiancée to get himself out of it. Mazur’s boss, Bonni Tischler (Ryan), is less than happy with this, but arranges for a female agent, Kathy Ertz (Kruger), to step into the role.

With his “credentials” proving satisfactory, Mazur cites a problem with the way the cartel currently moves its money as an excuse for meeting with the person who runs it all. This leads him to both the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which will help him launder larger quantities of the cartel’s money than he can make look legal, and the acquaintance of Roberto Alcaino (Bratt), whose role is to facilitate both the movement of the cartel’s money and the distribution of its drug shipments through an entry point in Miami. Alcaino welcomes Mazur and Ertz into his home, and they become friendly with both him and his wife, Gloria (Anaya). Using a tape recorder hidden in a briefcase, Mazur is able to gain evidence on all the parties concerned, but needs just one more thing to happen before he can have everyone arrested: the release of funds belonging to Pablo Escobar which the US government has frozen. Without these funds, Escobar, who is the head of the cartel, will not commit to using Mazur exclusively, and the undercover work he’s done will only cause so much damage.

In the hands of director Brad Furman and screenwriter Ellen Sue Brown (Furman’s wife), Robert Mazur’s tale of deception and intrigue becomes a tale of patience and deferment for the audience, as any likely tension or nail-biting moments are kept to a minimum, and Mazur’s scam on the cartel moves along slowly and relentlessly to its expected denouement. Along the way, there are lots of scenes where Mazur as Musella insists on doing things his way and the cartel almost meekly agrees. His cover remains intact throughout, as does Ertz’s, and only Espina suspects they’re not who they say they are. At this point, the viewer will be grateful for something going wrong, as up til now it’s all gone along too smoothly (it may well have been this way, but it doesn’t make for compelling viewing). But not for long; Espina’s potential threat is removed before it’s even had time to get going, and the viewer is left wondering if anything is ever going to upset Mazur’s carefully balanced apple cart.

The movie also struggles to maintain a consistent focus, with subplots that come and go without advancing the main narrative, and scenes surrounding Mazur’s home life that feel tacked on and derivative. His wife, Evelyn (Aubrey), is supportive of his work even though she wishes he’d retired when he could have, but is inexplicably jealous of Ertz and their fake relationship (she even asks Ertz if she’s sleeping with him). Elsewhere, Mazur is followed by someone who turns out to be a CIA agent, but you have to be paying attention to the end credits to learn why. And both Mazur and Ertz appear to bond with Alcaino and his wife to the point where they feel sympathy for them. These and other aspects of what should be a fairly straightforward storyline may well be meant to add depth and complexity to proceedings, but instead they only show just how bland that storyline really is.

As for the performances, Cranston plays Mazur with a great deal of charm (and a quite impressive wig), but we never really get to know him as a person. He’s good at his job, but we don’t know what motivates him to be so good, or what makes him so effective as an undercover agent. Kruger comes on board halfway through and her character’s (quickly ignored) inexperience proves a good foil for Cranston’s taciturn dedication, though viewers may well be surprised by the number of times they hug. Leguizamo offers good value for the viewer’s time (as always), portraying Abreu as a thrill-hungry agent with an attitude to match; whenever he’s on screen the movie livens up a little. As a second tier kingpin, Bratt exudes a glossy menace that is much more effective for being delivered with a reluctance born out of long experience of the life he leads, while from the supporting cast, Dukakis has a ball as Mazur’s aunt, Vazquez is unnerving as the camp yet deadly Espina, and Aubrey expresses more in a look than seems entirely feasible.

With its slow but steady pacing and attention to period detail, the movie doesn’t lack for sincerity, but it doesn’t quite know how to pick up the pace when it’s needed. Furman concentrates on explaining how the cartel’s money can be laundered, but it’s exposition that only needs confirming once, whereas it’s explained on at least four separate occasions. There are twists and turns here and there, some entirely predictable, others less so but lacking in impact. And there’s one scene, in a restaurant involving an unlucky waiter and an anniversary – no, birthday – cake that appears out of nowhere (and context) and tries to make Mazur something he’s not: a hardass.

With so many angles to cover, and not all of them as effective as needed, The Infiltrator relies more and more on Cranston to pull it through the weeds, but it’s an uphill struggle even for him. With Leguizamo given less and less to do thanks to Kruger’s involvement, and her role almost entirely (and deliberately) superficial at times, it’s only Bratt’s urbane take on Alcaino that keeps the final third interesting. It’s all given a rosy patina of sophistication by DoP Joshua Reis, though, and the movie benefits greatly from the way in which Furman uses composition to establish mood. But this particular tale eschews mood too often for it to work as a tense, engaging thriller, and in doing so, manages to downplay the enormity of Mazur’s achievement. And when it comes, it comes at a wedding that looks like it’s been put together for a reality TV show rather than a Customs Office sting operation.

Rating: 6/10 – moderately absorbing, yet banal in execution, The Infiltrator suffers from being too much on an even keel, and not loosening up in its approach at telling Robert Mazur’s amazing story; Cranston is a pleasure to watch, even if you think Mazur was inordinately lucky in what he did, and he keeps things from disintegrating too quickly, leaving a movie that wants to be topical (despite being set in the late Eighties), but lacks the modern day relevance that could be assigned to it.

Loving (2016)

03 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

ACLU, Anti-miscegenation laws, Drama, Jeff Nichols, Joel Edgerton, Marton Csokas, Nick Kroll, Racism, Review, Ruth Negga, Supreme Court, True story, Virginia

D: Jeff Nichols / 123m

Cast: Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga, Marton Csokas, Nick Kroll, Terri Abney, Alano Miller, Sharon Blackwood, Bill Camp, David Jensen, Jon Bass, Michael Shannon

Caroline County, Virginia, 1958. Bricklayer Richard Loving has fallen in love with Mildred Jeter (Negga), and now she’s pregnant. Knowing that Virginia’s anti-miscegenation laws prohibit inter-racial marriage, they travel to Washington D.C. and get married there. They return to Caroline County and begin their married life in the home of Mildred’s parents. But news of their marriage has reached the wrong people; in a dawn raid carried out by the local sheriff (Csokas), Richard and Mildred are arrested and put in jail. Richard is allowed out on bail soon after, but Mildred is kept there until the following Monday. At their trial, and on the recommendation of their lawyer (Camp), they plead guilty and are both sentenced to one year in prison, which will be suspended if they leave Virginia and don’t return for twenty-five years. With no other choice available to them, they move to Washington and stay with one of Mildred’s friends.

Richard’s mother (Blackwood) is a midwife, and Mildred is determined that their first baby should be delivered by her. They sneak back to Caroline County and Mildred gives birth to a son, Sidney. But again, the sheriff arrives to arrest them. In court, the judge is on the point of sentencing them when their lawyer intervenes and assumes the blame for their having returned. They return to Washington, and in time, have two more children: another son, Donald, and a daughter, Peggy. But Mildred is unhappy that her children can’t grow up surrounded by trees and fields and a more simple country life. On the advice of her friend she writes to Robert F. Kennedy (at the time the Attorney General), explaining their situation. A little while later, Mildred receives a call from Bernard S. Cohen (Kroll), a lawyer working for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who has been passed their case and wants to meet with them. But their first meeting doesn’t go too well, mainly because he suggests they return to Caroline County and get re-arrested so Cohen can begin mounting a challenge through the courts.

Circumstances however, dictate a return to Caroline County, and the Lovings rent an old farm house nearby where they’re unlikely to be noticed. Cohen is encouraged to keep working on their case, and with the aid of constitutional lawyer Phil Hirschkop (Bass), they keep appealing the verdicts given at Virginia state level, until they have an appearance before the Supreme Court, an appearance that will have a far-reaching effect on not just the Lovings, but the whole country.

Following quickly on the heels of his previous movie, Midnight Special (also 2016), writer/director Jeff Nichols has made a much quieter, less spectacular movie, but also one that speaks directly from the heart. Anyone expecting the usual courtroom pyrotechnics that such a story might provoke other movie makers to attempt will be either sorely disappointed or pleasantly surprised. There are only three courtroom scenes in the entire movie, and they’re all very brief. And aside from the dawn raid that sees the couple’s first arrest by Sheriff Brooks, there’s little in the way of full-blown drama or tension. What we have instead, is a movie that quite rightly focuses on the Lovings, and the various ways that their love for each other allows them to weather the legal and social ramifications of their fight to have their marriage recognised – and not just in the state of Virginia.

Nichols has gone to great lengths to make this movie about the Lovings, and not the crusade that Cohen and Hirschkop went on to get the anti-miscegenation law changed, a law that had been born out of the South’s desire to maintain racial purity (Virginia’s argument was that it was unfair to bring mixed race children into the world; the state regarded them as bastards). This contentious stance, and the challenge to it would make for a great movie, but Nichols is more astute than that, and he’s recognised that it’s the Lovings themselves that are the important element here. In scene after scene we witness a couple whose commitment and reliance on each other is evident from a glance here, a touch there, and how strong they are because they’re a couple. It’s their love that shines through, time and again, and it’s all done so subtly and so delicately that the breadth and depth of it is sometimes surprising – and that makes it all the more extraordinary.

Nichols is helped by two very good choices for the roles of Richard and Matilda. Edgerton gives possibly his best performance as the buttoned-down, emotionally and intellectually restrained bricklayer whose involvement all along is tempered by a fatalistic attitude. Edgerton is hunched over and taciturn, weighed down (and yet unbowed) by the wider relevance of his situation. It’s a situation that he doesn’t trust fully, but because Matilda supports it, he supports it through supporting her. Edgerton displays all this by relaxing his features when needed, softening his mostly pinched facial muscles as signs of both acceptance and admration for Mildred’s patience and persistence; you know he’d rather settle for a quiet life in Washington, but he also recognises that it’s not the life he should be leading. For some viewers, it may seem that Edgerton is just brooding a lot and being monosyllabic, but there’s a depth and a profundity to his performance that is very impresssive indeed.

He’s matched by Negga, who gives one of the year’s most sublime performances. Best known perhaps for her TV work on shows such as Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and more recently, Preacher, Negga is a revelation here, not portraying Mildred but inhabiting her, and in the process, revealing aspects and nuances that play out through her expressions and her body language. Like her husband, Mildred has a pride and a sense of her own worth that won’t be taken from her, and it’s she who drives the story forward. Negga shows us the determination not to be told where she can or cannot live and bring up her children, and she does so with a quiet fierceness that is entirely credible. Just watching her as she tries to take in what “going to the Supreme Court” actually means, with the character’s naïvete and lack of education shining through, is a perfect example of Negga’s confidence in the role, as she combines vulnerability and tenacity to quite stunning effect. And if further proof were needed as just how good she is, watch Negga when Mildred gets the call from Cohen as to the Supreme Court’s verdict; it’s simply breathtaking, both for its emotional complexity and its simplicity, a conflation that few actresses are able to achieve no matter how much they try.

Nichols is also astute enough to make sure that Loving isn’t about miscegenation, or the racial, social and political turmoil of the time (though they’re acknowledged), but what marriage means for a couple who love each other so deeply. It’s no coincidence that the movie is most effective when a scene involves just Richard and Mildred, and the audience can see how important they are to each other. Nichols is to be congratulated for making a movie that is truly about a couple and not what happened to them; here, all that is of secondary importance. With tremendous, striking cinematography from regular DoP Adam Stone, and a quietly emotive yet affecting score by David Wingo, Nichols adopts a measured, deliberate approach to the Lovings’ story that makes the whole experience that much more thought-provoking and absorbing.

Rating: 9/10 – a simple, yet powerful movie about love and hope, and a couple whose faith and belief in each other was unshakeable, Loving is one of the better screen biographies of recent years, featuring two superb central performances, and a fidelity to the real Richard and Mildred Loving that is refreshing to witness; with few obvious fireworks to grab the attention, what the movie does instead to such good effect, is to introduce us to a couple who never sought the attention they received (except insofar as it helped their legal challenge), and who, while they were alive, were a shining example of love really, truly conquering all.

Equity (2016)

02 Thursday Feb 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Alysia Reiner, Anna Gunn, Cachet, Drama, Investment banking, IPOs, James Purefoy, Meera Menon, Review, Sarah Megan Thomas, Thriller

D: Meera Menon / 100m

Cast: Anna Gunn, James Purefoy, Sarah Megan Thomas, Alysia Reiner, Samuel Roukin, Craig Bierko, Nate Corddry, Nick Gehlfuss, Carrie Preston, Tracie Thoms, Lee Tergesen, James Naughton

When an Initial Public Offering (IPO) (or stock market launch) that she’s brokering goes badly wrong, investment banker Naomi Bishop (Gunn) finds herself within touching distance of the glass ceiling. Passed over for promotion because of the launch’s failure, Naomi is further rankled by her boss’s assertion that the deal didn’t work out because she ruffled a few feathers. Given another project to work on – the launch of a privacy company called Cachet – she finds her rapport with the company’s owner, Ed (Roukin), tested early on, and the project is saved from potential disaster by the timely intervention of Naomi’s assistant, Erin Manning (Thomas). Realising what an asset she has, Naomi uses Erin to keep Ed happy.

Meanwhile, Naomi’s boyfriend, broker Michael Connor (Purefoy), is in need of an insider tip that he can pass on to old friend and businessman Benji Akers (Bierko). When he learns about Cachet, Michael tries to find out what he can about the company, but Naomi is tight-lipped about it. Later he tries to look around on her phone but her password defeats him. Also at this time, Naomi runs into an old friend, Samantha Ryan (Reiner). What seems to be an unexpected but pleasant reunion is soon revealed to be a ploy on Samantha’s part: she’s part of a government team investigating both Michael and Benji. When Naomi realises this, she refuses to cooperate.

As the day of the IPO approaches, Naomi learns that Cachet, far from being the heavily firewalled company that Ed brags it is, is at risk from hackers. This leads to Ed questioning Naomi’s confidence in the IPO, and beginning to have second thoughts about working with her. Erin is told to keep him “sweet”, and she manages to do so, keeping the deal alive. When Erin learns that the person who warned Naomi about the risk of Cachet being hacked has been fired, she tries to get hold of Naomi to tell her. Unable to, she ends up at Michael’s apartment, where she makes a decision that will have far-reaching consequences not just for Naomi, but for Michael, for Samantha, for Cachet, and for Erin herself.

A movie created, developed and assembled by women, and which features women in almost every role you can think of, Equity is a movie that, thanks to its female-centric provenance, comes loaded down with anticipation and a lot to prove. The world of investment banking has a male-dominated heirarchy that makes it difficult for a woman to succeed in the same way that a man does. As Naomi discovers, one mistake, one project that doesn’t go as planned, and the knives are out, with even colleagues adopting a “dead (wo)man walking” approach to their interactions with her. Using this as the backdrop for a tale riddled with deceit, backstabbing and betrayal, the movie attempts to make Naomi the heroine – unfairly treated, a little naïve despite her position and experience, and working within a personal ethical framework that her colleagues don’t seem to share or understand. It’s the age-old question: can a woman succeed in a man’s world?

For a movie that sings the praises of female empowerment, and presents us with a trio of female characters, each with their own individual sense of entitlement, Equity can’t seem to make up its mind what to do with them. When we first meet Naomi she’s a strong, charismatic woman who’s close to the top of her profession, but it’s not long before the cracks begin to show and she’s running just to stand still. Similarly, Samantha’s determination to bring a case against Benji and Michael sees her chase down leads using guile and no small amount of ingenuity, but as soon as she gets bogged down and her investigation grinds to a halt, she doesn’t know what to do next. Only Erin seems to have a game plan that works, and where she ends up is perhaps indicative of the answer the movie itself is plumping for: yes, women can succeed in a man’s world, but they have to behave like men in order to do so.

Ultimately, Amy Fox’s screenplay – from a story by Fox, Thomas and Reiner – lacks focus and contains some astonishingly lame dialogue, particularly the scene where Samantha “seduces” Benji’s right-hand man, Cory (Corddry) (you will cringe; seriously, you will cringe). There’s also no one in the movie who is even remotely sympathetic, making it difficult to care about anyone, even Naomi, who by the movie’s end should have won over the audience thanks to the predicament she ends up in, but who remains a character you can easily forget about five minutes after the movie’s over. From all this it’s unclear just what message the movie is trying to get across, or even how important it is. Is it asking us to consider whether women should compete with men in the land of IPO’s, or is it that the movie believes women should compete, just as long as they leave their feminine principles at home?

Gender issues aside, there are efforts to make this into a thriller, but these aren’t very convincing, as it all boils down to whether or not the knowledge that Cachet is hackable will affect the share price on the first day of trading (it’s that exciting). But as we already know what’s happened up to this point, and the script has conveniently spelled it all out for us, the issue of the share price becomes just another glum moment in an overly glum movie. Thanks to the script, the performances lack depth, and for the most part, any appreciable energy. In the last third, Gunn defaults to a perplexed expression that apparently explains how Naomi is feeling in every scene she’s in, while Reiner falls back on dismay at every opportunity (as well she might). But it’s Thomas who really lets the side down, adopting a wide-eyed, “who me?” approach to Erin that makes her look like she’s either on drugs, or is just a few seconds behind everyone else. As for Purefoy, he could have phoned in his performance and it wouldn’t have looked or sounded any different, such is his obvious boredom in the role.

In the director’s chair, Meera Menon does what she can to make the movie look and feel more important than it is, but the material works against her too often for her to make much out of it at all. Scenes come and go with no great acclaim, and the various “twists and turns” can be seen coming from a mile off. The movie also struggles to find its own rhythm, with Andrew Hafitz’ editing making the movie look as if it’s been pared down from a longer cut. There’s the germ of a good idea here, but the execution of it leaves much to be desired, from Erin’s pregnancy which has no bearing on anything, to Samantha’s already discussed “seduction” scene, to Naomi yelling at her boss, “When is it going to be my year?” Sadly for Naomi, and the movie, it’s not 2016.

Rating: 5/10 – moderately engaging but increasingly mired in mediocrity overlaid with a bland sensibility that it can’t overcome, Equity isn’t the gender equality triumph its makers were perhaps hoping for; dramatically flaccid for long stretches but still watchable, the movie struggles most with its trio of central female characters, a mistake that the makers appear to have made no effort to curtail, leaving the audience with no one to care about, or root for.

Poster of the Week – Der Januskopf (1920)

01 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Conrad Veidt, Der Januskopf, F.W. Murnau, Horror, Josef Fenneker, Lost movie, Poster of the week, Silent movie

If you haven’t heard of Der Januskopf, then it’s not entirely surprising. Despite being directed by F.W. Murnau, with cinematography by Karl Freund, and starring Conrad Veidt (all at the height of their powers), this thinly disguised version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde hasn’t been seen since its initial release, and is now considered a lost movie. While we’re unlikely to ever see the movie, especially after all this time, what we do have is its poster, and one that shows another creative artist working at the peak of their powers.

Josef Fenneker – whose signature can be seen near the bottom right hand corner – was a prolific designer and illustrator whose work in Berlin had already won him great acclaim before he was approached to create the poster for Murnau’s “appropriation” of Stevenson’s novel. It’s a typical Fenneker poster, with Veidt’s already angular features highlighted and exaggerated by sharp, slashing lines and deep, troubling shadows. His eyes are distorted so that they don’t look fully formed, or are undergoing some kind of violent transformation (hmmm…). Veidt’s forehead, usually curving and soft, is represented by two angular planes of flesh that look as if they’ve been joined together haphazardly, with no regard for symmetry. Or maybe the bones beneath them are splitting and fusing, and that’s causing the distortion. Whichever it is, one thing is clear from Veidt’s anguished expression: it’s painful.

And yet, Veidt’s face isn’t all tortured flesh and bone. His lips, fully bee-stung and tapering at one corner to a point that could impale someone if they weren’t careful. They’re full, tempting, at odds with the rest of Veidt’s features, inviting even, a feminine pout that tempers Veidt’s expression of pain and which proves hard to avoid looking at. But then his jaw line reflects that agony again, jagged in its delineation, and almost as if Fenneker has made slicing motions with his brush in order to get the full effect.

Below that jaw line is a surprise, a throat so distended and goitre-like it acts as a further horrible reminder that Veidt – or at least his character, Dr Warren – is undergoing a terrible change in appearance. It’s almost as if his alter ego, the villainous Mr O’Connor, is making his way up and out, and will be forcing Veidt’s strikingly realised lips wide apart in his efforts to be free (what kind of monster is going to be revealed?). But almost as if this amount of horror isn’t enough, there’s also the shock of seeing Veidt’s hand, reduced to cadaverous bones and reaching out as if to claw his throat open and release the beast within.

With Veidt’s on-screen character so grotesquely depicted – contemporary audiences would most likely have been horrified by Fenneker’s creation – all that’s left is to provide a suitable background for the central image. Using swathes of yellow and grey to paint an unhealthy miasma around Veidt, the effect is of a man not only enduring a terrible (and terrifying) physical transformation, but having to do so while surrounded by an atmosphere that seems to exemplify sickness and disease. Or maybe it’s meant to represent that curiously German concept of schadenfreude, and the colours have been chosen to represent the character’s emotional and intellectual turmoil. Whichever view is right – indeed, if either of them are – Fenneker’s poster remains a startling, arresting work of art, and a testament to his prowess as an interpreter of German silent cinema.

NOTE: There’ll be more from Josef Fenneker throughout February 2017.

Monthly Roundup – January 2017

31 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Animation, Ariel Schulman, Auli'i Cravalho, Chester Morris, Chris Wedge, Chris Williams, D.J. Caruso, Dave Franco, David Yates, Disney, Don Hall, Donnie Yen, Dwayne Johnson, Eddie Redmayne, Emma Roberts, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, George Sherman, Gerry O'Hara, Guy Hamilton, Heart of a Dog, Henry Joost, Horror, Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom, Ian McShane, J.K. Rowling, January 2017, John Musker, Laurie Anderson, Lolabelle, Lucas Till, Moana, Monster Trucks, Monthly roundup, Movies, Nerve (2016), Oliver Reed, Rat terrier, Ray Enright, Reviews, Richard Conte, Ron Clements, Sean Patrick O'Reilly, The Party's Over, The Pleasure Girls, The Sixties, The Sleeping City, Tomorrow at Seven, Vin Diesel, xXx: Return of Xander Cage

Nerve (2016) / D: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman / 96m

Cast: Dave Franco, Emma Roberts, Emily Meade, Miles Heizer, Juliette Lewis, Kimiko Glenn, Marc John Jefferies, Colson Baker, Brian Marc

Rating: 6/10 – an online game of Truth or Dare quickly escalates into something more dangerous than expected when Vee (Roberts) decides to escape her comfort zone and take on the game’s challenges; less than subtle criticisms of the Internet and social media can’t hide the fact that this kind of scenario – teens (mostly) take risks to become “cool” in the eyes of the world – lacks immediacy and a real sense that its characters are in any actual danger, leaving Nerve to flirt with its ideas but never really take them out on a first date.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) / D: David Yates / 133m

Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Colin Farrell, Alison Sudol, Samantha Morton, Ezra Miller, Faith Wood-Blagrove, Jenn Murray, Jon Voight, Ronan Raftery, Josh Cowdery, Ron Perlman, Carmen Ejogo

Rating: 5/10 – in New York in 1926, young wizard, Newt Scamander (Redmayne), arrives with a case full of fantastic beasts (what else?) and finds himself in the midst of an evil plot to boost Warner Bros.’ take at the box office; despite being written by J.K. Rowling, Fantastic Beasts... is littered with characters we never get to know, clumsy demarcations between the wizarding world and that of the Muggles (or No-Maj’s as they’re known here), features another tedious series of destruction-porn episodes, and fosters the overwhelming sense that, despite protestations to the contrary, this is a franchise cash-in and nothing more.

Moana (2016) / D: Ron Clements, John Musker, Don Hall, Chris Williams / 107m

Cast: Auli’i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House, Temuera Morrison, Jemaine Clement, Nicole Scherzinger, Alan Tudyk

Rating: 6/10 – when a curse threatens the island she lives on, chief’s daughter Moana (Cravalho) goes in search of the one person who can put things right: the cause of the curse, demi-god Maui (Johnson); following on from the delightful (and fresh) Zootopia (2016), it’s shocking to see just how lightweight Moana is in comparison, with little depth to the characters, and a plot so flimsy it’s almost see-through, all of which leaves the movie’s stunning animation as the only thing that makes an impact.

The Party’s Over (1965) / D: Guy Hamilton / 94m

Cast: Oliver Reed, Clifford David, Ann Lynn, Katherine Woodville, Louise Sorel, Mike Pratt, Maurice Browning, Jonathan Burn, Roddy Maude-Roxby, Annette Robertson, Alison Seebohm, Eddie Albert

Rating: 7/10 – an American businessman (David) comes to London to persuade his fiancée (Lynn) to return home and get married, but he finds himself battling against her friends (led by Reed’s anti-Establishment poser), and her sudden disappearance; seen today, The Party’s Over has all the hallmarks of a Sixties curio, but at the time it pushed quite a few boundaries, and fell foul of the British censors, forcing Hamilton to remove his name from the credits – but not before he’d made a fascinating and striking movie that’s only let down by a handful of weak performances and an ending that matches them.

The Sleeping City (1950) / D: George Sherman / 85m

Cast: Richard Conte, Coleen Gray, Richard Taber, John Alexander, Peggy Dow, Alex Nicol

Rating: 6/10 – the murder of a doctor at New York’s Bellevue Hospital prompts the police to place three undercover officers there in an attempt to flush out the killer; beginning with an awkward endorsement of the Bellevue staff by Conte (whose inability to read from cue cards is obvious), The Sleeping City soon settles into its film noir trappings but while it’s diverting enough, it doesn’t know what to do with Conte’s lead detective, or how to make its central plot more interesting than it is.

Heart of a Dog (2015) / D: Laurie Anderson / 75m

With: Laurie Anderson

Rating: 8/10 – a tone poem, an essay, a treatise on the unconditional love a dog has for its owner, and a wider examination of grief and loss allied to the events of 9/11 – this isn’t just about Laurie Anderson’s relationship with her beloved rat terrier, Lolabelle, but about the various ways that love and loss can affect us; at its core, Heart of a Dog is not a documentary, but a collage of distressed film stock, abstract sound and sound effects, Anderson’s performance persona, visual memories, heartfelt imagery and reminiscences, poetic reality, and Anderson’s own unique view of the world and the essential poetic nature of it all, all of which combines to provide the viewer with one of the most intriguing and thought-provoking movies of recent years.

Tomorrow at Seven (1933) / D: Ray Enright / 62m

Cast: Chester Morris, Vivienne Osborne, Frank McHugh, Allen Jenkins, Henry Stephenson, Grant Mitchell, Charles Middleton, Oscar Apfel, Virginia Howell

Rating: 7/10 – the Black Ace is a master criminal/murderer who predicts the time he’ll kill each of his victims, and he never fails, but crime writer Neil Broderick (Morris) is on his trail, and with the help of Black Ace expert, Thornton Drake (Stephenson), is determined to catch him; an old dark house mystery that features light relief (or major annoyance – take your pick) from the double act of McHugh and Jenkins as two of the stupidest cops on the force, Tomorrow at Seven does a good job of playing cat and mouse with the audience, but with so few suspects on display, the identity of the Black Ace is, sadly, all too obvious.

The Pleasure Girls (1965) / D: Gerry O’Hara / 88m

Cast: Ian McShane, Francesca Annis, Mark Eden, Klaus Kinski, Anneke Wills, Tony Tanner, Rosemary Nicols, Suzanna Leigh, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Carol Cleveland

Rating: 6/10 – Sally (Annis) comes to London to be a model, and soon falls in with a like-minded group of young women looking to find their way in the world – and have a lot of fun at the same time, even though it doesn’t always work out like that; though the focus is in on Sally, her friends, and the various relationships they form, The Pleasure Girls makes more of an impact thanks to its male cast, with McShane, Eden and Kinski (very good) all standing out thanks to strong characterisations and having less soap opera-style dialogue than that of the female cast, and O’Hara’s direction appearing to wander whenever two or more of the girls are on screen.

Monster Trucks (2016) / D: Chris Wedge / 105m

Cast: Lucas Till, Jane Levy, Thomas Lennon, Barry Pepper, Rob Lowe, Holt McCallany, Amy Ryan, Danny Glover, Frank Whaley

Rating: 7/10 – an oil-drilling operation leads to the release of three “monsters” that live deep underground, but while the oil company captures two of the creatures, the third ends up befriending high school senior, Tripp (Till), who in turn helps it to avoid being captured as well; an innocuous throwback to the kind of fantasy movies made for kids in the Eighties, Monster Trucks is a lot of fun if you let yourself just go with it, and though its message of tolerance and understanding of “foreigners” seems at odds with current notions of US nationalism, it’s still a message we can all stand to hear one more time.

Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom (2016) / D: Sean Patrick O’Reilly / 83m

Cast: Kiefer O’Reilly, Sean Patrick O’Reilly, Jane Curtin, Ron Perlman, Christopher Plummer, Alison Wandzura, Tyler Nicol, Doug Bradley

Rating: 5/10 – young Howard Lovecraft (Kiefer O’Reilly) finds himself transported to a strange kingdom of ice which is inhabited by equally strange creatures, and where he finds himself searching for both a way back, and a way to reassure his father (Nicol) (who’s locked up in an asylum) that his ravings about other worlds and said creatures are all true; a curious blend of children’s animation and H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom is quite straightforward in its approach, but is let down by poor production values, an animation style that makes it look like a video game from the Nineties, and a script that juggles motivations and dialogue like a one-handed man in a chainsaw-catching competition.

xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017) / D: D.J. Caruso / 107m

Cast: Vin Diesel, Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone, Toni Collette, Ruby Rose, Kris Wu, Tony Jaa, Nina Dobrev, Rory McCann, Michael Bisping, Samuel L. Jackson

Rating: 4/10 – the world is in peril from yet another technological McGuffin, and it’s up to extreme sports enthusiast/secret agent Xander Cage (Diesel) to save the day; with Diesel unable to get The Last Witch Hunter (2015) off the ground as another franchise earner, it’s no surprise that he’s returned to a character he left behind fifteen years ago, but this is as uninspired and as predictable as you’d expect, and only Yen’s (always) impressive physicality makes any kind of an impact.

Mini-Review: Split (2016)

31 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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23 identities, Abduction, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Drama, James McAvoy, M. Night Shyamalan, Multiple personalities, Review, The Beast, Thriller

D: M. Night Shyamalan / 117m

Cast: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Haley Lu Richardson, Jessica Sula, Brad William Henke, Sebastian Arcelus, Izzie Coffey

After a party at their local mall, birthday girl Claire (Richardson) and her friend Marcia (Sula) offer withdrawn classmate and pity invite Casey (Taylor-Joy), a ride home. But in the car park, a stranger (McAvoy) gets in the car instead of Claire’s father, and he uses a spray to render the three girls unconscious. When they wake, they find themselves in a locked basement room, but otherwise unhurt. Their abductor, Dennis, tells them that they’ll be perfectly safe, as long as they don’t try to escape; they’ve been taken because “someone” is coming. Meanwhile, Dennis attends therapy sessions with Dr Karen Fletcher (Buckley), but when he does he’s called Barry, and he’s a different personality altogether. And this is the point: Dennis and Barry are just two of twenty-three personalities living in the body of the man known as Kevin Wendell Crumb.

With one of the personalities sending urgent e-mails to Dr Fletcher on a regular basis, but Barry assuring her everything is okay, she suspects something has happened that has prompted this cry for help. As she attempts to work out just what that something might be, the girls make an attempt at escaping. Claire manages to get out of the room they’re in but she’s soon captured and locked in a separate room; the same fate eventually befalls Marcia. Casey tries to strike up a relationship with another of Kevin’s multiple personalities, a nine year old boy called Hedwig. He warns her that the “someone” who is coming is actually known as the Beast, and as Hedwig adds quite cheerfully, “He’s done awful things to people and he’ll do awful things things to you.” With Casey and Dr Fletcher arriving at the truth of things from different angles, it’s still down to the three girls to find a way out and back to safety before the Beast arrives.

With each new M. Night Shyamalan movie, it seems everyone is in agreement: he’s making better movies now from when he used to make absolute tosh like The Happening (2008) and The Last Airbender (2010). But while that may be true (and to make movies worse than either of those mentioned would be a feat in itself), it’s also true that he’s still not anywhere near to making movies as accomplished as The Sixth Sense (1999), or fan favourite, Unbreakable (2000). But while he’s still got a way to go, Split is certainly a good indication that he’s getting there. He’s helped in no small part by McAvoy’s incredibly detailed and nuanced performances as seven of Wendell’s multiple personalities, and Taylor-Joy’s practical captive with a relevant back story.

But while his cast go to great lengths to make his story at least halfway credible, and Shyamalan himself directs with great skill, as a writer he still manages to stumble too often for comfort, and the script fails to answer several important questions, the main one being, why is Hedwig’s drawing of the Beast not even remotely like the version we see towards the end – and especially after Dr Fletcher asserts that “an individual with multiple personalities can change their body chemistry with their thoughts”? (Oh, really?) It’s about time that Shyamalan let somebody else write the script because it’s the one area in which he consistently lets himself, and his movies, down. In the end, it’s all nonsense, but it could have been much more enjoyable nonsense, and McAvoy’s dexterous performances could have been part of a better showcase for his talents.

Rating: 6/10 – let down by a script that starts off strong then slowly but surely runs out of steam and ideas by the halfway mark, Split still qualifies as a stepping stone on the path of Shyamalan’s rehabilitation as a quality movie maker; McAvoy is terrific, the eerie nature of the basement rooms makes for a good mise en scène, and then there’s that final scene, which, depending on your love for a certain movie, will either have you whooping with joy, or wailing in despair.

Jackie (2016)

30 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Billy Crudup, Biography, Drama, Funeral, Greta Gerwig, Historical drama, Interview, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Natalie Portman, Pablo Larraín, Peter Sarsgaard, President John F. Kennedy, Review, The White House, True story

D: Pablo Larraín / 100m

Cast: Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Billy Crudup, Greta Gerwig, John Hurt, Richard E. Grant, Caspar Phillipson, Beth Grant, John Carroll Lynch, Max Casella

A week after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (Phillipson) in November 1963, his widow, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (Portman) – otherwise known as Jackie – summoned the journalist Theodore H. White (Crudup) to her home at Hyannis Port. White had won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction with his book The Making of the President, 1960, an account of the election that saw Kennedy win the Presidency. Jackie’s idea was for White to write an article that would be published in Life magazine, and which would show a correlation between her late husband’s administration and King Arthur’s court at Camelot. White agreed, and guided by Jackie’s suggestions, he wrote a thousand word essay that stressed the Camelot comparison.

This is the basis for Jackie, the latest movie to pick over the bones of Kennedy’s assassination and its wake. By using White’s “interview” with Jackie, the movie shows how Jackie dealt with the demands of suddenly becoming a former First Lady, balancing her public persona with her private feelings, arranging her husband’s funeral, and most important of all, protecting and promoting his legacy. It’s this that forms most of the narrative, as Jackie seeks to cement Kennedy’s place in history. Even riding in a hearse with brother-in-law Bobby Kennedy (Sarsgaard) (and this shortly after Kennedy’s body has been released from Parkland Hospital), Jackie is keen to make the point that nobody remembers James A. Garfield or William McKinley, both assassinated while in office, but they do remember Abraham Lincoln – and all because of his legacy as a President.

But her husband’s legacy isn’t the only thing she appears focused on. There’s also the matter of what she regards as “the truth”. She wants the American public to see the full horror of what she experienced on 22 November 1963; to this end she doesn’t change out of that famous pink Chanel suit she wore on the day when she’s given the opportunity, and even though it’s spattered with her husband’s blood. She keeps it on for the rest of the day – at Parkland Hospital, during Lyndon B. Johnson’s impromptu inauguration, at the airport in Washington (where she refuses to leave by the back of the plane so as to avoid the reporters), and finally in the White House, where she wanders the various rooms as if only now beginning to come to terms with the enormity of what happened earlier that day in Dallas, Texas.

In the days that follow, we see Jackie behave erratically but with some deep-rooted purpose that only she understands, tackling the issue of whether or not to walk behind the coffin, and what she’ll do once she leaves the White House. She confides in one of her retinue, Nancy Tuckerman (Gerwig), one of the few people who can raise her spirits and bring a smile to Jackie’s face, and a priest, Father Richard McSorley (Hurt), who offers her spiritual comfort. But she remains almost defiantly isolated, determined to continue in her own way, and against the wishes of the new administration when it matters.

In focusing on Jackie in the hours and days following Kennedy’s assassination, the movie gives the viewer the opportunity to eavesdrop on the very private grief of a very public person, someone who put on a brave face for the cameras, but who also kept herself at a distance, despite wanting people to see “the truth”. It’s this dichotomy that makes Jackie the person endlessly fascinating to observe, and Jackie the movie somewhat disappointing in terms of the narrative. We see Jackie at various points, both in time and in place, throughout the movie. There are scenes in Dallas, in Washington, inside the White House, at Hyannis Port, but many of them feel like snippets of memory, connected discretely to each other by the random nature of Jackie’s thoughts and emotions. When she and White (known only as the Journalist, for some reason, in the credits) sit down to discuss the article, their conversation often goes off at a tangent, and Noah Oppenheim’s screenplay encourages this, as if it will give us a better understanding of Jackie in those four days between JFK’s death and his funeral. But it’s obvious: she’s trying to weather those four days as best she can until she can grieve properly, away from prying eyes.

With the script trying to add layers where they’re not needed, it’s left to Natalie Portman to save the movie from its all-too-clever design, and deliver a nigh-on faultless performance, burrowing under Jackie’s skin and finding the nerve centre of someone who was never entirely comfortable being in the public spotlight, but who instinctively knew the public’s perception of JFK as a great President – hence the parallel with Camelot – needed to be kindled as quickly as possible after his death, and that she was the only one who could do it. Portman portrays this single-mindedness with a quiet intensity, perfectly capturing Jackie’s “feisty” nature in private, and her more vulnerable, debutante persona in front of the cameras and/or reporters’ notebooks. There are moments in the movie when you could be forgiven for thinking that Jackie is “absent” from the room, or a conversation. But Portman’s portrayal is more subtle than that, and she gauges these “absences” with an acute awareness that a character’s stillness or silence often means more than is seen on the surface.

If there’s one problem with Portman’s magnificent performance, it’s that it overshadows everything else the movie attempts or gets right. Jackie, ultimately, stands or falls thanks to Portman’s efforts, because without her command of the character (and Jackie’s odd accent), the movie lacks little else to keep the audience’s attention from wandering. Making his first English language movie, Chilean director Larraín displays an aptitude for scenes of sombre regret, and along with Portman fleshes out Jackie’s character to impressive effect, but there still remains the feeling that Jackie (the person) has been assembled from random aspects of her personality that seem a good fit for the narrative rather than a true representation of what she was really like at the time. At best, this is an interpretation of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy; at worst it’s an impression.

On the technical side, Jackie flits between looking stunning, and looking bland depending on the requirements of the script, and the budget. The interiors of the White House, faithfully recreated in a studio outside Paris, France, are dazzling examples of what can be achieved when you have the talents of production designer Jean Rabasse, art director Halina Gebarowicz, and set decorator Véronique Melery on board. And yet, if you contrast these wonderful sets with the motorcade sequences, it’s like the difference between day and night, with the scenes in Dallas looking like they’ve been shot on a closed stretch of road and with only two cars available for filming. And despite the best efforts of cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine, the movie never overcomes these disparities. In contrast, Mica Levi’s tonal, somewhat sepulchral score is a good match for the material, and acts as an emotional undercurrent to Jackie’s grief and displacement.

Rating: 8/10 – fans of low budget independent dramas will enjoy Jackie for its slow, measured pace, refusal to explain everything that’s going on (with Jackie herself), and Portman’s exquisitely detailed performance; an attempt at an intimate portrayal of a very private person, the movie glides majestically along for most of its running time, and gives the impression of being more meanngful than it actually is, but it still has a lot to offer both the casual and the more interested viewer.

Moonlight (2016)

29 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Barry Jenkins, Chiron, Drama, Drugs, Homosexuality, Janelle Monáe, Mahershala Ali, Miami, Naomie Harris, Review, Tarell Alvin McCraney

D: Barry Jenkins / 111m

Cast: Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, Trevante Rhodes, Naomie Harris, Mahershala Ali, Janelle Monáe, Jaden Piner, Jharrel Jerome, André Holland, Patrick Decile

Chiron (Hibbert) is a young boy living in Miami who is being bullied at school. Avoiding another attempt by his classmates to harrass him, Chiron seeks refuge in an abandoned property. He’s discovered by local drug dealer, Juan (Ali), who takes him under his wing. With his girlfriend, Teresa (Monaé), Juan looks after Chiron overnight, and learns that his nickname is Little, because of his shy, withdrawn nature. The next day, Juan takes Chiron home to his mother, Paula (Harris). The only person he likes is his schoolmate Kevin (Piner), and they become firm friends. When Juan sees Paula with one of his customers, he berates her but she responds by criticising his supplying drugs to her. Chiron keeps going back to see Juan and Teresa, eventually revealing that he hates his mother.

At the age of sixteen, Chiron (Sanders) is still being bullied, now by a specific classmate, Terrel (Decile). His mother is now addicted to crack and prostitutes herself to support her habit. Chiron still visits Teresa, and his relationship with Kevin (Jerome) becomes more intimate following a party. But Terrel’s bullying takes a more sinister turn when he pressures Kevin into taking part in a hazing ritual that requires him to punch Chiron in the face. The ritual leads to Chiron taking out his anger and his frustration on Terrel in front of his classmates, and being arrested.

As an adult, Chiron (Rhodes), now known as Black, has moved to Atlanta and followed in Juan’s footsteps and become a drug dealer. He’s estranged from his mother, but she keeps asking him to visit her. One night, out of the blue, Chiron receives a call from Kevin, who is still living in Miami. Kevin apologises for his actions years before, and this in turn prompts Chiron to visit his mother at the drug treatment facility where she now lives. She too apologises for the way she treated Chiron when he was growing up. He then travels to Miami and meets up with Kevin who is working in a diner. And Chiron reveals a surprising truth to his old schoolfriend that allows for a reconciliation between them.

A surprise hit at several festivals in 2016, Moonlight is a heartfelt, emotionally charged drama that portrays the experiences of a young boy as he grows into a teenager and then a young man. Based on the play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell Alvin McCraney, as well as both McCraney and director Jenkins’ experiences growing up with similar family backgrounds to that of Chiron, Moonlight is a superb example of low-budget, independent movie making that’s by turns intelligent, compelling, meaningful, vital, and above all, crafted with a tremendous amount of heart and soul.

In telling Chiron’s story across three different time periods, Jenkins is able to show the slow, inevitable loss of innocence that comes from living in an environment where life is held in poor regard, and regret is a squandered by-product of selfish need. Already having seen and heard far more of the adult world than is good for him, as well as facing the daily trial of being the target of bullies, it’s no wonder that Chiron is withdrawn and non-communicative. What voice does he have? Who will listen to him? The lack of a father in his life doesn’t help, making his relationship with Juan, however inappropriate, the nearest he has to having a male role model. With his mother worried more about satisfying her own needs, Chiron is adrift in life. Only his friendship with Kevin provides him with hope of something better; Juan and Teresa offer him support but on a limited basis, and when he learns that Juan has sold drugs to his mother, it’s another disappointment that reinforces his view that adults don’t care. In this, the movie’s first section, Jenkins displays a sureness of touch in detailing Chiron’s sense of alienation, a situation he has no control over. It’s heartbreaking to see this young boy, treated so unfairly, both directly and indirectly, and to know that whatever is in store for him in the future, it’s unlikely that his situation will improve.

And so it proves when we see Chiron as a teenager. Still the victim of bullying, still withdrawn and being emotionally neglected by his mother, the young boy sitting on a powder keg of ill-formed anger is now older, but still struggling to find a place for himself in the world, and trying to make sense of his burgeoning feelings toward Kevin. It’s this section that delves deeply into the pain and frustration that he feels more and more, and when he does connect with Kevin it’s a rare moment of joy in an otherwise unrewarding life. But Jenkins is ahead of his audience. Just as viewers might be thinking, “Well, this happiness can’t last”, he subjects Chiron to further pain and betrayal. This, Jenkins seems to be saying, is Chiron’s lot in life: for every good thing that happens to him, a reversal must come along to balance things out.

And in the final section, where we see Chiron as an adult, and it appears as though his future will be short-lived due to his being a drug dealer, the movie also makes it seem as if Chiron will remain adrift for the rest of his life. But Jenkins and McCraney have other plans for him, and by subtly shifting the focus from Chiron’s distrust of life and the pain it has caused him, the movie offers hope in the form of the one thing that ever brought him happiness: his sexuality. This allows the movie to end on a triumphal note that is both unexpected and incredibly moving, and though you might argue that Chiron’s life won’t change irrevocably, he does now have a chance at changing some things for the better.

Moonlight is an audacious movie that explores notions of identity and belonging with a great deal of conviction and confidence. Jenkins and McCraney have constructed a delicate, thought-provoking screenplay that offers no easy answers to the various predicaments Chiron experiences, and which does so out of a sense of fidelity to their own lives growing up. There are further themes around personal responsibility, parental neglect, peer pressure, and flexible morality, and Jenkins juggles all these elements with admirable ease, presenting Chiron’s world with a deceptively fluid directing style that’s enhanced by James Laxton’s often luminous cinematography, Joi McMillon and Nat Sanders’ intuitive, languorous editing, and a beautifully redolent score by Nicholas Britell. But it’s the performances that impress the most. As the three incarnations of Chiron, Hibbert, Sanders and Rhodes are all equally impressive, while Ali underplays his role as Juan to such good effect that you really want him to break the stereotype and be the male role model Chiron needs. And for someone who didn’t initially want to play the role, Harris is magnificent as the mother whose love for her son is diminished by addiction but not abandoned entirely.

Rating: 9/10 – an immensely personal and rewarding movie that paints a vivid picture of a life recognised but rarely this effectively examined, Moonlight is unapologetic and touching at the same time; treating its characters with a compassion and a tenderness that belies the life that Chiron is a part of, the movie is a wonderfully realised testament to the idea that connections can be made in the most inauspicious of situations, and that love – really and truly – can make all the difference.

10 Reasons to Remember Emmanuelle Riva (1927-2017)

28 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Actress, Amour, Career, Emmanuelle Riva, Hiroshima Mon Amour

Emmanuelle Riva (24 February 1927 – 27 January 2017)

For many, Emmanuelle Riva will be best known for her Oscar-nominated role as Anne in Michael Haneke’s profoundly moving and riveting exploration of love under pressure, Amour (2012). But Riva’s career began in 1957, and sixty years on, she remains a well-respected actress who made a lasting impression in a string of movies made in the Sixties, and who had an equally impressive career on the stage.

Like John Hurt, who also died on 27 January 2017, Riva wanted to act at a young age but was given little support by her family. She moved from her rural home to Paris in 1953, and was soon awarded a scholarship. Though too old to enter the French National Academy of Dramatic Arts, word of her abilities as an actress soon landed her roles, beginning with a production of George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man. But it was her role as Elle in Alain Resnais’ haunting Hiroshima mon amour (1959) that brought her instant, worldwide recognition. From there she made a number of critically and commercially successful French films that cemented her reputation, and allowed her to continue working in the theatre and occasionally in television.

In the Seventies and Eighties, Riva’s movie career suffered through a mixture of poor choices and the perception that she was entirely a serious dramatic actress (she would have liked to have appeared in some comedies, but always blamed her performance in Hiroshima mon amour for establishing that perception). In the Nineties she made an appearance in Three Colours: Blue (1993), but although she was singled out for praise, and the performance served as a reminder of what she could do, Riva’s movie career remained largely unappreciated until Michael Haneke came along in 2010. She wrote poetry in her spare time (and was published), and enjoyed photography; photographs that she took while making Hiroshima mon amour were exhibited and turned into a book around fifty years after she took them. She was a creative force who didn’t always get the breaks she needed, but her career was, nevertheless, varied and intriguing in its choices. She was a confident, inspiring actress whose naturalistic style spoke to the heart of the characters she played, and she was incapable of giving a less than committed performance. She never wanted to be a star, and perhaps would have been horrified to have been regarded as one, but Riva had that star-like quality, and thanks to her body of work, that quality still lives on.

1 – Hiroshima mon amour (1959)

2 – Kapò (1960)

3 – Léon Morin, Priest (1961)

4 – Thérèse Desqueyroux (1962)

5 – Thomas the Impostor (1965)

6 – Bitter Fruit (1967)

7 – The Eyes, the Mouth (1982)

8 – Venus Beauty (1999)

9 – Le Skylab (2011)

10 – Amour (2012)

10 Reasons to Remember John Hurt (1940-2017)

28 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Actor, Career, Doctor Who, John Hurt, Quentin Crisp, RADA

John Hurt (22 January 1940 – 27 January 2017)

With his distinctive voice, and even more distinctive features, John Hurt was an actor who was rarely out of work, from his first appearance in 1962 in an episode of the British TV series Z Cars, to his final role as Neville Chamberlain in Darkest Hour (due in November 2017). But Hurt’s acting career might never have started; when he was a young boy he lived opposite a cinema but his parents forbade from seeing movies there. It wasn’t until he went to an Anglican Preparatory School that he developed a desire to act. However, his parents didn’t encourage him, and his headmaster told him he “wouldn’t stand a chance”.

Luckily, Hurt persevered, and he won a scholarship to RADA in 1960. Two years of studying later and he was finding work on TV and in movies, and making a name for himself. It was A Man for All Seasons (1966) that brought him to the attention of a wider audience, and from there he never looked back, and over the next fifty years he made over a hundred and twenty movie appearances as well as numerous TV and video appearances. Aside from the movies listed below he was notable for being the mad Emperor Caligula in I, Claudius (1976); the first victim – spectacularly so – of the Xenomorph in Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979); himself in Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs (1987); and the renowned wandmaker Garrick Ollivander in the Harry Potter movies. His commitment and passion to acting were rewarded twice: with a CBE in 2004, and a knighthood in 2015.

His career also encompassed various outings as a narrator or voice actor on a variety of animated projects, from Watership Down (1978) (and the 1999-2000 TV series) to Thumbelina (1994), and Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie (2010). But whatever the movie, Hurt was one of those actors you could always rely on to give a great performance however good or bad the material was. He had a natural integrity, and a straightforward approach to acting that focused on the character almost exclusively, which led to so many compelling performances over his fifty-year plus career. Despite his slight frame, he was a persuasive physical presence, unafraid to push himself in the search for the reality of the role he was playing, whether made up as Quentin Crisp, or suffering torture as Winston Smith. And he was a member of a rare group of actors, those who’ve played the Time Lord, Doctor Who. With his passing, Hurt leaves behind an incredibly varied and impressive body of work that will continue to provide endless hours of entertainment for fans and future generations alike.

1 – 10 Rillington Place (1971)

2 – Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs (1974)

3 – The Naked Civil Servant (1975)

4 – Midnight Express (1978)

5 – The Elephant Man (1980)

6 – 1984 (1984)

7 – The Field (1990)

8 – Love and Death on Long Island (1997)

9 – Hellboy (2004)

10 – Shooting Dogs (2005)

Poster of the Week – Leviathan (2014)

27 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Andrey Zvyagintsev, Drama, Leviathan, Poster of the week, Russia

For the most part, movie posters only need one direct or striking image to grab the attention and turn someone from a potential viewer into someone whose interest is so piqued they’ll want to see the movie as soon as possible (well, mostly – there’s always someone who’ll resist). One such poster is for the Russian movie Leviathan.

From the start, it’s easy to see why this poster is so effective. A man sits on a rock on the edge of the sea. His back is turned to us, and if this was the only part of the image we could see, then we could assume that he’s looking out across the water, perhaps watching the mountains we can see in the distance, or the horizon. We might think he’s looking wistfully, or anxiously, or even desperately, but still we wouldn’t know for sure. But the wider image – the whole image that we can see at once – tells us he’s looking at the remains of a large sea creature, in all likelihood a whale. He’s looking at this giant collection of bones, but the best part is: why can’t he still be looking at it wistfully, or anxiously, or even desperately?

Of course, none of these things might apply, but it’s still a lonely, melancholy image to look at, and a reflection of the tone of the movie perhaps. It prompts many questions as well. Why is the man there in the first place? What has brought him to this spot? And why are the whale’s remains still there so long after the flesh and muscle and sinew has been picked from it? Why haven’t the bones been removed? (Perhaps it doesn’t matter if they’re there or not; are they worth so much attention?) Is the man fascinated or horrified, or unmoved even, by this display of the apparent complacency of nature? Is he there out of curiosity, or respect? Does he see himself, or his future perhaps, there in the jutting bones of a once-proud sea creature? Or is it a more immediate reflection of the man’s life and circumstances?

Of course, it could all be none of these things; none of them might be relevant. But that’s the beauty of the poster: it provokes so many ideas about what the image might mean, both in terms of the character, and the movie itself. So the movie becomes a challenge: to see if any of these ideas are correct. And if they aren’t it doesn’t matter, because it’s important enough to enagage with the poster and give it that much thought. It’s a thought-provoking image, very carefully chosen (make no mistake about that), and in some way it speaks to everyone that sees it. And yes, it is haunting, but for reasons that may only become apparent if you watch the movie.

Otherwise, it’s quite a straihgtforward poster, design-wise, with a handful of fulsome, praiseworthy quotes above the title, all indicating just how good is the movie, and reinforcing the potential viewer’s need to see it, and how well they’ll be rewarded for doing so. These kinds of critical soundbites emphasise how well recieved the movie has been amongst the critics, and promise an exceptional viewing experience, and on a par with the poster’s salutary effectiveness. Add the regular formatted credits aong the bottom of the image and you have another poster that acts as an intriguing reference to the movie it’s promoting, and an arresting, complex, mysterious image all by itself.

Manchester by the Sea (2016)

26 Thursday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Boston, Brothers, Casey Affleck, Drama, Grief, Guardian, Kenneth Lonergan, Kyle Chandler, Lucas Hedges, Michelle Williams, Nephew, Relationships, Review, Uncle

D: Kenneth Lonergan / 137m

Cast: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, Lucas Hedges, C.J. Wilson, Gretchen Mol, Kara Hayward, Anna Baryshnikov, Tate Donovan, Heather Burns, Josh Hamilton, Matthew Broderick

Lee Chandler (Affleck) works as a janitor in the Boston suburb of Quincy. He lives alone, he can be rude to some of the residents he comes into contact with (which causes problems with his supervisor), and he picks fights in bars. He’s withdrawn, melancholy, and difficult to get to know. Then, one day, he receives news that his brother, Joe (Chandler), who still lives in their hometown of Manchester by the Sea, has had a massive heart attack. He rushes to the hospital, but by the time he gets there, Joe has died. Lee doesn’t really know how to react, but an old friend, George (Wilson), helps him out and between the two of them, family and friends are contacted, and the funeral is arranged.

Joe has a sixteen year old son, Patrick (Hedges). Lee’s plan is to stay with him until the funeral takes place and then head back to Quincy, but circumstances conspire to keep him in Manchester for longer: the ground is too hard for Joe to be buried, so his body has to go into cold storage until the spring, and Joe’s lawyer (Hamilton) informs Lee that under the terms of Joe’s will, Lee is to be Patrick’s legal guardian until he’s eighteen. Accepting the role of Patrick’s guardian means Lee moving to Manchester permanently, something that he doesn’t want to do; the reason he left Manchester in the first place, was in the wake of a personal tragedy, one that he has no wish to revisit by being in the one place that is a constant reminder.

While Lee tries to find an alternative solution to being Patrick’s guardian, including Patrick living with him in Quincy, his nephew continues with his life, and appears to be dealing with it all quite well. He has two girlfriends (neither knows about the other), and he spends time with them both, while one of them tries to set Lee up with their mother (Burns). At the same time, Patrick is secretly in touch with his mother, Elise (Mol). She and Joe divorced years before due to her being an alcoholic, and while Lee doesn’t trust Elise because of her past behaviour, when Patrick asks to visit her, Lee agrees to take him. When they arrive they find that Elise has remarried, to Jeffrey (Broderick), and is now a devout Christian. Patrick has hopes of living with her, but the visit goes badly, and later Jeffrey advises against further direct contact between them.

When the funeral can finally go ahead, Lee is reunited with his ex-wife, Randi (Williams). She is pleased to see him, but their past keeps him at a distance, and sometime later, when they run into each other in the street, Randi reveals how she truly feels about him after everything that happened. It’s an uncomfortable moment for Lee, but it is his last encounter with her, as a resolution is arrived at as to the question of whether or not Lee will be Patrick’s guardian.

There is a moment in Manchester by the Sea that takes place at Joe’s funeral. Lee and George are standing off to one side and greeting people as they arrive. Randi arrives with her new husband, Josh. While Randi embraces George, Lee looks at Josh as if he can’t understand why this man is there, at his brother’s funeral. And then it’s his turn to be embraced by Randi. We see his face over her shoulder, and his eyes are looking away from her, as if by looking away he could actually be away, anywhere else in fact. It’s a small moment, tiny even, but so indicative of Lee’s state of mind: he cannot connect with anyone, complete stranger or onetime intimate. If any viewer is in any doubt about what afflicts Lee Chandler, it’s way beyond everyday ennui; this is almost debilitating emotional sadness, and so profound that you can’t help but wonder how he gets out of bed each day, how he manages to motivate himself to do anything. He’s given up on life, on his future, and worst of all, he’s given up on himself.

With that in mind, you’d expect his return to Manchester to be all about personal redemption, that his relationship with Patrick (already well established thanks to a series of flashbacks) would enable Lee to begin to rebuild his life, and to put the terrible tragedy that happened to him and Randi firmly in the past. But this isn’t that kind of movie. By the movie’s end, Lee isn’t transformed, he isn’t “saved”, in fact he’s still very much the same man we see at the beginning, shovelling snow off of the path outside his home. Lee’s journey isn’t one of renewal or acceptance, and it’s not one where his return home provides him with a restorative environment. What’s important to remember is that Lee is living the life he believes is right for him. Is he happy? Clearly not. Is he contented? Probably not that, either. But is he settled? Well, perhaps not even that, but living and working in Quincy – for Lee – may be the best answer he has to what ails him.

That said, Lonergan’s hugely impressive script does allow Lee opportunities for rehabilitation, but it also recognises that Lee is someone who doesn’t want them. And as the movie unfolds, and we meet the other characters, we learn that moving on isn’t something that anyone else is able to do with any conviction either. Randi has residual feelings for Lee that she hasn’t been able to deal with; Elise has supposedly conquered her demons thanks to her relationship with Jeffrey but it’s clear her newfound faith doesn’t bear up under scrutiny; and Patrick, who has inherited his father’s rundown boat, won’t sell it because it holds too many memories. Too many times we see instances where regret has taken hold of someone and they’ve not been able to shake it off. And too many times, that regret has settled like a heavy mantle across people’s shoulders.

Despite the apparent doom and gloom surrounding Lee’s return home, and despite the themes of guilt, loss and emotional trauma that the movie explores in some depth, Manchester by the Sea is leavened by a tremendously dry sense of humour (at one point, when asked if it’s okay for Patrick to have one of his girlfriends stay the night, Lee replies, “Am I supposed to tell you to use a condom?”). Here, the humour arises from the characters themselves rather than any situational approach, and Lonergan is able to insert these much-needed moments of levity when they’ll have the most effect, making the movie a little less predictable, and a whole lot more enjoyable than expected. Sometimes it requires a delicate balancing act, but Lonergan is as confident a director as he is an intelligent screenwriter, and he handles each comic moment with ease.

As the emotionally disabled Lee, Affleck gives the finest performance of his career and of 2016. He was in two other movies in 2016 – The Finest Hours and Triple 9 – and in both he wasn’t allowed to match his talent to the material. But here he gets to provide us with a multi-layered portrayal that makes those movies look like poorly set up practice runs. It’s a largely internal performance, with Affleck using his eyes to powerful effect to display just how disengaged he is from everything around him. He’s equally effective at communicating his grief at what happened in the past, and he achieves this by physically withdrawing into himself at moments when that grief is too near the surface, almost as if he’s trying to squeeze it back inside, or push it down. And there’s a fragility to Lee that’s exposed from time to time, leaving the character with an anguished, wounded expression that Affleck conveys so convincingly you can easily forget he’s an actor playing a role. As Lee’s ex-wife, Randi, Williams is on equally fine form, although she has much less to do and is off screen for two thirds of the movie. However, the scene where she reveals her feelings for Lee is one of the most searing and compelling moments not just of the movie itself, but of any other movie you care to mention.

Credit is due to Hedges as well, putting in a mature, richly textured performance as Patrick that highlights the character’s teenage naïvete while also showing signs of the emerging adult that he’ll become. It’s a fearless portrayal in places, brave and audacious, particularly in a scene involving a freezer compartment and a stack of frozen meat that comes out of left field but which perfectly expresses the feelings and concerns that Patrick is experiencing. Elsewhere, Chandler is good in what is very much a secondary role as Joe, while Mol excels as both incarnations of Elise.

In the end, Manchester by the Sea is a triumph for all concerned, a multi-faceted, engrossing, and surprisingly sweet in places movie that doesn’t offer its characters any easy answers to their dilemmas, and which provides an incredible amount of food for thought for its viewers. It’s a defiantly mature piece of movie making, with a raft of standout performances, a perfectly assembled, nuanced script, and direction from Lonergan that subtly orchestrates and highlights each emotional downbeat and upturn, and which also draws out the varied strands of dismay and bitter experience that keep Lee and everyone else trapped in their own versions of Manchester by the Sea. If it sounds like a tough movie to watch, rest assured it isn’t. Put simply, it’s one of the finest movies out there at the moment, and completely deserving of its six Oscar nominations.

Rating: 9/10 – one of the best movies of 2016 – if not the best – Manchester by the Sea is a movie about real people living real lives, and dealing with real and difficult emotions in the best way that they can – and it doesn’t short change them or the audience at any point along the way; funny, sad, poignant, challenging, uplifting, painful, engrossing, bittersweet, and absorbing, this is a movie experience well worth taking up, and which rewards on so many levels it’ll take you by surprise.

The 2017 Oscar Nominations

24 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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2017, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Film, La La Land, Nominations, Oscars, The Academy

And so, it’s that time of year again, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences reveals its nominations for the Oscars, and the Internet lights up like a nuclear-fuelled firecracker in its efforts to assess, evaluate, consider, and scrutinize with a fine toothcomb the nominees and their suitability in being nominated. It’s an established practice, carried out the world over, as everyone and his auntie (even the ones who haven’t seen any of the movies concerned), pick over the bones of the nominations and declare their approval or disapproval. Last year, there was controversy over the Oscars being too “ethnically under-represented”, but at least this year that’s not a problem. So without any of that furore on the horizon again, perhaps we can all agree that the nominations this year should be judged purely on merit. Anyone with an agenda – get on to the back of the queue.

Like everyone else, thedullwoodexperiment can’t help but chip in with its thoughts and opinions, and provide a pre-ceremony appraisal of the Academy’s choices. Here are the main nominations, with particular emphasis on the movies or people who should be listed but aren’t. It seems every year the Academy omits a movie or someone who should be nominated seemingly without question – Carol as Best Film from last year’s nominations springs to mind. So let’s see if the Academy has got it entirely right this year (unlikely, but you never know).

NOTE: Movies/people in bold are the ones who should be winners on the night.

Best Motion Picture of the Year

Arrival; Fences; Hacksaw Ridge; Hell or High Water; Hidden Figures; La La Land; Lion; Manchester by the Sea; Moonlight

Now that this list can go to a maximum of ten, it’s curious that with the inclusion of more movies each year, and each apparently deserving of the recognition, that there’s always two or three that could easily be jettisoned and it wouldn’t make any major difference. This year those movies are Hell or High Water, Hidden Figures, and Lion, all great movies in their own right, but not Year Best material when compared to the rest of the list. But otherwise this should be La La Land‘s night, and rightly so, for bringing some much needed mainstream magic back to movie going, and for reminding us that doomy, gloomy tales of the lives of people struggling against disability or deprivation or both, aren’t always what we want to see winning awards.

Best Achievement in Directing

Damien Chazelle – La La Land; Mel Gibson – Hacksaw Ridge; Barry Jenkins – Moonlight; Kenneth Lonergan – Manchester by the Sea; Denis Villeneuve – Arrival

Best Film and Best Director should always go hand in hand, something the Academy ignores from time to time, but this year they’ve chosen well, though room could perhaps have been made for Paul Verhoeven (for Elle) and Denzel Washington (for Fences). That said, Chazelle should get the nod, although if there’s going to be one major upset on the night, it could be Lonergan accepting the award instead – and you know what? That actually wouldn’t be so bad.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

Casey Affleck – Manchester by the Sea; Andrew Garfield – Hacksaw Ridge; Ryan Gosling – La La Land; Viggo Mortensen – Captain Fantastic; Denzel Washington – Fences

In the acting awards, La La Land may not be as successful as it was at the Golden Globes, and it’s a brave individual who’d vote against Affleck after seeing his performance… but if you had to then Washington would be the outside bet worth making. Both performances are astonishing, albeit for different reasons, but Washington’s success with Fences on stage may be the mitigating factor that gives Mrs Affleck’s younger boy his first Oscar.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

Isabelle Huppert – Elle; Ruth Negga – Loving; Natalie Portman – Jackie; Emma Stone – La La Land; Meryl Streep – Florence Foster Jenkins

It’s hard to imagine a year when Meryl Streep doesn’t get nominated for an Oscar, but somewhere along the way, the Academy screwed up royally by nominating Streep over Amy Adams’ career best performance in Arrival. It’s a head scratcher, that’s for sure. But even if they had voted for Adams, there’s still no one to touch Huppert’s superb portrayal in Elle, a performance that is several shades and nuances and quirks and intuitions ahead of everyone else on the list… and then some.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

Mahershala Ali – Moonlight; Jeff Bridges – Hell or High Water; Lucas Hedges – Manchester by the Sea; Dev Patel – Lion; Michael Shannon – Nocturnal Animals

Somehow, this year’s list seems a little underwhelming. Are these really the best supporting roles by an actor? While it’s true that Shannon was one of the best things in Nocturnal Animals (along with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who could also have been nominated), and Patel helps raise the bar for Lion, only Ali’s brief appearance in Moonlight comes even close to the amazing work of Hedges, who held his own against a powerhouse performance by Affleck, and showed a confidence that belied his years and his acting experience.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Viola Davis – Fences; Naomie Harris – Moonlight; Nicole Kidman – Lion; Octavia Spencer – Hidden Figures; Michelle Williams – Manchester by the Sea

All hail Queen Viola! In any other year, Harris’s incredible performance in Moonlight would be a sure-fire winner, but this is one of the few, truly can’t miss nominations. Davis’ performance in Fences is on another level entirely, and if by some miracle or cosmic intervention she doesn’t win, then it will be one of the few times when the word “travesty” can be used with complete accuracy.

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year

Land of Mine; A Man Called Ove; The Salesman; Tanna; Toni Erdmann

A German comedy? As an Oscar winner? It doesn’t seem right, somehow, and yet Maren Ade’s astonishing movie – a comic nightmare of grand proportions – is quite simply in a league of its own. The one movie that could have challenged it for the Oscar, Elle, was snubbed by the Academy (shame on them!), and though the other nominated movies are all fine and worthy in and of themselves, Toni Erdmann is, like the title character himself, simply from another world.

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year

Kubo and the Two Strings; Moana; My Life as a Zucchini; The Red Turtle; Zootopia

Disney had their best year ever thanks to their previous acquisitions of Marvel and Pixar, but Zootopia was the in-house production that proved to be smarter, funnier, and more enjoyable than all the other movies they had a hand in. Zootopia was also the unexpected hit that grossed over a billion dollars, and its inclusion here, a movie that was released in March 2016, thankfully shows that the Academy doesn’t suffer from short term memory syndrome. But Moana? Really?

Best Adapted Screenplay

Luke Davies – Lion; Eric Heisserer – Arrival; Barry Jenkins, Tarell Alvin McCraney – Moonlight; Allison Schroeder, Theodore Melfi – Hidden Figures; August Wilson – Fences

This category should be one of the hardest to pick out a winner, but Wilson’s already acclaimed play, and its big screen adaptation, aren’t too far apart from each other, so how can it lose? Moonlight is its strongest challenger, but like Huppert’s performance in Elle, and La La Land‘s shoo-in status for Best Film, this is one award that can only go one way – and if it doesn’t, then Wilson should be contacting Viola Davis for the name of her lawyer.

Best Original Screenplay

Damien Chazelle – La La Land; Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Filippou – The Lobster; Kenneth Lonergan – Manchester by the Sea; Mike Mills – 20th Century Women; Taylor Sheridan – Hell or High Water

Of all the sections listed here, this one feels like the Academy had the hardest struggle to come up with five best original screenplays. Lonergan and Chazelle certainly belong here, but in making up the numbers, the Academy appears not to have tried too hard in putting together a decent list. While not trying to denigrate the other nominees entirely, a list that doesn’t include the likes of Matt Ross (for Captain Fantastic) or Jim Jarmusch (for Paterson) just isn’t doing itself justice.

Best Achievement in Cinematography

Greig Fraser – Lion; James Laxton – Moonlight; Rodrigo Prieto – Silence; Linus Sandgren – La La Land; Bradford Young – Arrival

In a group of very strong, and individual achievements in cinematography, this could really go any way on the night, and Sandgren’s contribution to La La Land could well see him going home with a coveted Oscar, but Prieto’s work has a sublime beauty to it that the other movies lack, and his sense of composition makes every frame look impressive. And you would be forgiven for thinking that a good outside bet would be Laxton for Moonlight, a movie that looks far more lustrous than you might think from knowing its subject matter.

If you disagree with any of the above, feel free to voice your concerns by commenting, or by waiting until 26 February, when the Oscars take place, and millions of us will take our places in front of our TVs or computers. Only then will we know who got it right – us or the Academy.

A Monster Calls (2016)

23 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Cancer, Drama, Fantasy, Felicity Jones, Grief, J.A. Bayona, Lewis MacDougall, Liam Neeson, Literary adaptation, Patrick Ness, Sigourney Weaver, Stories, Toby Kebbell, Yew tree

D: J.A. Bayona / 108m

Cast: Lewis MacDougall, Liam Neeson, Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, Toby Kebbell, James Melville, Geraldine Chaplin

Thirteen year old Conor O’Malley (MacDougall) is experiencing nightmares. In them, the church near his home collapses when the ground around it splits open, and Conor has to try and save his mother (Jones) who is in danger of disappearing into one of the fissures this devastation has wrought. When he wakes from these nightmares each night it is always 12:06. But the nightmares aren’t the only problem Conor has to deal with. His mother is suffering from cancer, and she’s not responding well to her treatment. His grandmother (Weaver) keeps mentioning that at some point, Conor will have to come and stay with her, but he doesn’t want to leave his mother; he still clings to the hope that she’ll get better. His father (Kebbell) lives in the US and is generally unsupportive, using the physical distance between them as an excuse. And at school, he’s the victim of bullying by one of the other boys in his class, Harry (Melville).

One night, at 12:07, Conor is drawing a picture of the view from his bedroom window when the large yew tree that is situated in the nearby graveyard transforms into a monster (Neeson) made from the tree’s trunk and branches. It approaches the house and after grabbing Conor from his bedroom, tells him that he’ll receive further visits from the monster, and that the monster will tell him three stories, after which Conor will then tell a fourth story, the truth behind his nightmares, which only he can tell. The monster is true to his word. On the first visit, he tells Conor the story of an old king who marries a young woman who many regard as a witch. When he dies she rules as regent until his grandson comes of age. She rules fairly but doesn’t want to relinquish her position, intending to marry the grandson instead. But the murder of the grandson’s true love leads to her being convicted of the crime, and she is only saved by the monster at the last moment.

The second story concerns an apothecary whose livelihood is condemned by the local parson. When a terrible sickness breaks out, the parson’s two daughters fall ill, and he begs for the apothecary”s help, and swears he will do anything in order for his daughters to live, but the apothecary refuses, and the girls die. The monster appears and demolishes the parson’s house as a further punishment for his lack of faith. The third story concerns a man who feels himself to be invisible because no one ever takes notice of him, but when the monster aids him in this, it doesn’t solve things, merely adds further problems for him to deal with. These stories help Conor to deal with the various emotions he’s struggling with, and to make sense of them, leading inevitably, as the monster predicted, to his telling the fourth story, the truth about his nightmares…

At its heart, A Monster Calls is about impending loss and the grief that comes with it, both before and after. Adapted by Patrick Ness from his own novel, the movie is a dark, compelling, visually innovative tale of personal redemption in the face of overwhelming emotional distress. It’s a children’s tale about adult themes and how they can affect someone who is “too old to be a kid, too young to be a man”. By making Conor and his struggle to manage the full implications of his mother’s illness – her terminal illness – the focus of the story, Ness and director J.A. Bayona allow the movie to express the kind of feelings and emotions that we forget children can and do experience in these kinds of circumstances. It’s an obvious lesson, but presented in such a clear, immediate manner that Conor’s plight is readily acceptable, and convincingly played out.

There may be some who will query why Conor’s road to the acceptance of his mother’s impending demise needs the presence of a fantasy giant made out of a yew tree. But allegory has always been a pertinent and effective way of dealing with, and expressing, the kinds of emotions that we keep buried inside us because of how painful they are. Conor’s emotions spill out through his nightmares, and in his search for an answer he calls on the monster, albeit unwittingly. When they first meet, Conor makes it clear he’s not scared, and nor should he be; after all, the monster is a creation formed from Conor’s own subconscious. But the stories the monster tells are far more than stories – they’re explanations of the various emotions and feelings that Conor is struggling with. And they pave the way for the truth, the real hurdle he must overcome in order to move forward. All this is relayed in such a plausible, non-sensationalist, and poignant fashion that any doubts as to the efficacy of such an approach is dismissed moments after the movie has begun.

The look of the movie is very important too, and here Bayona mixes a variety of styles to potent effect. There’s an almost documentary feel to the scenes where Conor is at school, as if the camera is eavesdropping on him. Then there are the scenes at home, the modest environment that looks like an inviting update on homes from the Seventies, what with Eugenio Caballero’s production design making everything look that just a little bit lived in, and Pilar Revuelta’s sterling set decoration as well. And then there are the animated interludes, the stories themselves, rendered in a mixture of styles, and each one enhancing the story it portrays. The movie is at its most confident in these sequences, taking the viewer away from the grim real world, and painting portraits of worlds where life is even harsher and less likely to offer the kind of solace Conor needs – at first glance, that is. It’s a brave decision, but one that pays off handsomely, as each sequence is captivating in its own right.

The look of the monster is endlessly fascinating as well, with Neeson’s mo-capped features and physique a perfect fit for such an iconic creature. Despite not being “real”, the monster’s presence in the movie serves as a reminder that fantasy doesn’t have to mean an absence of credibility, and thanks to Ness’s tightly developed screenplay, this isn’t an issue the movie has to deal with at all. As the monster, Neeson delivers a perfectly modulated vocal performance, one replete with emotional nuances and textures that support the drama and justify his role in the production. As the two mothers connected by their shared love for each other, Weaver and Jones both give heartfelt performances that avoid unnecessary sentimentality, while Kebbell’s role calls for him to be affectionate yet callow, sympathetic yet distant, and emotionally obtuse. But it’s MacDougall’s performance that stands out, a complex, yet honest portrayal of a young boy’s struggle to acknowledge his own deep-rooted and frightening feelings about his mother, and what those feelings might do to him if he faces up to them. It’s a quietly bravura performance, generously encouraged by Bayona and the rest of the cast, and is as good as any performance by an adult actor in 2016.

There will be accusations that A Monster Calls is unremittingly bleak, and that its subject matter is not best suited to the so-called Young Adult market that many people will believe this is aimed at. Though Ness wrote the novel with that particular audience in mind, this version transcends notions of age and worldly experience by making Conor’s feelings universal, and for children and adults alike. Yes, it is bleak at times, and yes, it’s not an openly optimistic movie, but it is an uplifting, inspiring movie that celebrates maternal love, the sacrifices adults sometimes have to make to ensure that children remain children for just that little bit longer, and the resilience that we often forget children have when it comes to dealing with the darker aspects of growing up. This is a movie that does something completely unexpected: it challenges us to look at ourselves and ask, if we were in Conor’s shoes, would we beahve any differently? We might not call upon a monster to help us, but then, would it be such a bad idea?

Rating: 9/10 – an impressively mounted exploration of identity, hidden grief, and growing emotional despair, A Monster Calls is a crushingly honest look at how it feels to be losing someone you’re incredibly close to, and how those feelings can affect everything else around you; brilliantly realised, and with a tremendous performance from MacDougall, this is exceptional stuff indeed, and proof that intelligent, thought-provoking movies can also be beautiful and moving at the same time.

Mini-Review: Underworld: Blood Wars (2016)

22 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Anna Foerster, Charles Dance, Drama, Fantasy, Kate Beckinsale, Lara Pulver, Lycans, Review, Selene, Sequel, Theo James, Thriller, Tobias Menzies, Vampires

D: Anna Foerster / 91m

Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Theo James, Tobias Menzies, Lara Pulver, Charles Dance, James Faulkner, Peter Andersson, Clementine Nicholson, Bradley James, Daisy Head, Oliver Stark

Seconds out… round five! Yes, four years after the resoundingly awful Underworld: Awakening (2012), the world is treated to yet another unwanted, unneeded, unnecessary, and unwatchable Underworld movie. Nothing has changed. The Vampires and the Lycans are still at war with each other (though the Lycans appear to have the upper hand), Selene is still an outcast from her fellow bloodsuckers for killing Victor way, way back in Underworld (2003), blood is still the most important commodity on both sides, Kate Beckinsale still looks great in skin-tight black leather, and the plot makes about as much sense as building a dam from ten packs of waffles. It’s complete and utter tosh, and you get the sense that no one was really taking this seriously; not one person.

What plot there is concerns the Lycans reducing Vampire numbers by the coven load, thanks to the inspired leadership of Marius (Menzies), who appears to be a kind of enhanced werewolf. On the Vampire side, Elder Thomas (Dance) is supported by Vampire Council member Semira (Pulver) in bringing Selene (Beckinsale) back into the fold in order for her to use her unique skills in fending off/killing the Lycans. Selene relcutantly accepts but is soon betrayed by the scheming Semira, and flees to the Nordic Coven, where a Lycan attack led by Marius leaves her dead beneath the ice. With Semira further emboldened by news of Selene’s death, she allows the Lycans access to the Eastern Coven, and soon the place is overrun by werewolves. With only Thomas’s son David (James) to lead them – which is handy as he’s the true heir to the Vampire leadership – the Vampires are in danger of being wiped out once and for all…

By now, any movies in the Underworld franchise that find a release (and Alexander Corvinus help us, there’s another one in the works), are purely for the fans only. They will make a certain amount of money – so far Blood Wars has made over $75 million, more than double its production budget – and they’ll gain a respectable (new) lease of life on home video. For the makers, it’s a win-win situation, and to some degree, it’s the same for the fans. Kate Beckinsale as Selene + warring Vampires and Lycans + shoddy CGI effects + incomprehensible storylines and dialogue + the same steel blue lighting effects in each movie + poorly edited action sequences = the franchise that good taste can’t kill.

Like the Resident Evil series, which also foists a movie on us every few years, the Underworld movies feature a strong-minded, invincible heroine, and the merest interest in logic or credibility. As long as there’s a fight scene every ten minutes, and the villains are appropriately nasty and conniving and amoral, then nothing else is really needed. Well, except for an establishing shot to set up the next instalment, that is. That these movies continue to attract the likes of Beckinsale and Dance is possibly the only thing that’s impressive about them, but not even Beckinsale can do anything with lines such as, “There is no beginning, there is no end. There is only the coming.” That’ll be Underworld: Dead Poor then.

Rating: 3/10 – the first truly “meh” movie of 2017, Underworld: Blood Wars has all the attraction of root canal work and a rectal exam put together; unfailingly predictable, and trite on almost every level, the directorial debut of TV helmer Foerster readily shows that the producers are firmly in charge and there’s no room for originality – at all.

Patriots Day (2016)

22 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Bombing, Boston Marathon, Boston Strong, Drama, J.K. Simmons, John Goodman, Kevin Bacon, Literary adaptation, Manhunt, Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Monaghan, Peter Berg, Review, Thriller, True story

D: Peter Berg / 133m

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Kevin Bacon, John Goodman, J.K. Simmons, Michelle Monaghan, Alex Wolff, Themo Melikidze, James Colby, Michael Beach, Rachel Brosnahan, Christopher O’Shea, Jake Picking, Jimmy O. Yang, Vincent Curatola, Melissa Benoist, Khandi Alexander, Adam Trese, Dustin Tucker

At 2:48pm on 15 April 2013, the 117th annual Boston Marathon was taking place, and was proceeding as smoothly as in previous years. It was already nearly three hours since the winner had crossed the finish line, and the remainder of the runners – some 5,700 – were still to complete the course. A minute later, at 2:49pm, a bomb exploded in the crowd of onlookers near the finish line; approximately thirteen seconds after, a second bomb exploded one block further away. Between them, the blasts claimed the lives of three people, and injured hundreds of others, including sixteen people who lost limbs. It was a terrorist attack that no one saw coming, and such was the confusion at the time of the blasts that runners still crossed the finish line for another eight minutes.

This is the core event of Patriots Day, a recreation of the bombings that occurred that fateful day, and the subsequent manhunt that took place over the next four days. It begins with Boston Police Department Sergeant Tommy Saunders (Wahlberg) and moves on to introduce a variety of individuals whose lives will be affected by the bombing and subsequent events. These include Tommy’s wife, Carol (Monaghan), Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis (Goodman), young couple Jessica Kensky (Brosnahan) and Patrick Downes (O’Shea), Chinese student Dun Meng (Yang), MIT police officer Sean Collier (Picking), district of Watertown police Sergeant Jeffrey Pugliese (Simmons), Boston Police Superintendent Billy Evans (Colby), naturalised U.S. citizen Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Wolff), his brother Tamerlan (Melikidze), and Tamerlan’s American-born wife, Katherine (Benoist).

By the time the race starts we know that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar will be the people who place the bombs. And as the race begins, and we see them moving amongst the crowds, what has been a fairly straightforward, and somewhat leisurely approach to the events of 15 April 2013 begins to become something altogether more focused, and darker. When the bombs do go off – and we know they will – the explosions, and the devastation they cause, are still shocking. And it’s as this point that Patriots Day, which could have so easily been a tale of jingoistic heroism sprinkled with Hollywood-ised action beats, becomes something even richer and more surprising: a movie based on true events that incorporates an incredible level of detail, and better still, includes actual footage from the time. It’s this aspect of the movie, the mixture of real and realised that impresses the most, as it makes the verisimilitude that much more potent.

In adapting the book, Boston Strong by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge, director Peter Berg has made his most accomplished and impactful movie to date. Reuniting with Mark Wahlberg for the third time after Lone Survivor (2013) and Deepwater Horizon (2016) – also true stories – Berg has finally crafted a movie that resonates on more than one level, and which doesn’t rely on the jingoistic heroism mentioned above. It does celebrate the way in which the residents of Boston came together in the wake of a terrorist attack, but Sergeant Pugliese’s incredibly brave confrontation with Tamerlan Tsarnaev aside, there aren’t any moments of gung ho courage, just an acknowledgment of how determined everyone – law enforcement and public alike – were in making sure the bombers were captured. It’s not often that a movie gives you a true sense of a community coming together in such a way, but this is definitely one of them, and it does so powerfully and succinctly.

The various storylines are cleverly interwoven as well, with each character given a relevant amount of screen time, and their lives, even Wahlberg’s composite policeman, explored with a tremendous surety of touch. Admittedly, some of the investigators – Bacon’s overly experienced FBI agent Richard DesLauriers, Goodman’s shocked and angry Police Commissioner – fare less well in this respect due to the nature of their involvement, but otherwise, people such as Downes and Kensky, who had reached the finish line when the first bomb went off, are afforded due recognition because of what happened to them not only then but subsequently. The same is true of Steve Woolfenden (Tucker), who was injured and separated from his young son, Leo. Away from the injured, the fates of people such as Dun Meng and MIT police officer Sean Collier are played out with sincerity and a lack of sensationalism, or the kind of made-for-TV banality that offsets any strived-for veracity.

Once the manhunt is under way and an initial identification of the suspects has been made (one of the movie’s cleverest moments), the movie steps up a gear, and becomes intensely exciting. The scenes involving Dun and the Tsarnaevs are mini-masterclasses in how to keep an audience on the edge of their seat, and all this is achieved by precision editing (courtesy of Gabriel Fleming and Colby Parker Jr) and an emotional undercurrent that permeates the movie as a whole. Berg makes you care about the people in this movie, these people who experienced so much and came out the other side so much stronger (albeit not all of them). The same can be said of the shootout on Watertown’s Laurel Street, a literally explosive confrontation between the police and the Tsarnaevs that stands head and shoulders above most movie shootouts, and which again, thanks to Fleming and Parker Jr, leaves the viewer gasping at how insane it all was, and how frightening it must have been to be a part of it all.

Berg’s commitment to telling this story as honestly and passionately as possible, while not sensationalising it in any way, is the reason why it works so well, and why it deserves every possible accolade. He’s helped tremendously by a cast so committed to meeting his vision of the story that there’s not one performance that’s out of place or not operating in service of the material. Wahlberg, who always seems to feel more comfortable playing blue collar workers, puts in his best work since The Fighter (2010), while the likes of Goodman, Bacon, Monaghan and Simmons all deliver solid, credible supporting performances that enhance the narrative whenever they’re on screen. As the Tsarnaevs, Wolff and Melikidze are an impressive teaming, establishing both the bonds and the boundaries between the two brothers with almost nonchalant ease; it’s an adversarial relationship in many ways (as with so many brothers), but you never once question their commitment to their cause and each other. But if there has to be one actor or actress who stands out for any reason, then that is unquestionably Melissa Benoist, TV’s current Supergirl. Watch the scene where Katherine is interrogated by a nameless “spook”: it’s an exemplary display of a character’s doubt, fear, loathing, and blinkered self-assurance, and is as surprising for its conclusion as it is for the iciness of the scene as a whole.

The movie ends as most movies attempting to tell a true story often do: with an update on some of the people whose lives were affected on that terrible day in April 2013. And then it goes one step further, and you hear the voice of the real Patrick Downes, and then you see both him and Jessica Kensky as they talk about that day and what it’s meant to them since. You see officials such as Ed Davis and Richard DesLauriers, and as they talk about the notion of Boston Strong, the unifying concept that sprang up in the wake of the bombings, the idea that Boston and its people would not be intimidated by acts of terrorism – listening to them you understand just why Berg and his team were so determined not to make this an exercise in hyperbole or the cinematic equivalent of yellow journalism. Because if they had, then the movie’s final image – its message if you like – would have meant nothing. It would have lacked context, and it would have lacked the emotional jolt that the movie leaves you with. And what was that image? Ah, now that would be telling…

Rating: 9/10 – a superb retelling of the Boston Marathon bombings and the manhunt that followed over the next one hundred and five hours, Patriots Day is a movie devoid of frills, unnecessary plot devices, or political finger-pointing; a tribute to all those who survived the bombings, and the extraordinary levels of cooperation between a city and its law enforcement – a de facto curfew was in place following the shootout in Watertown – the movie focuses on telling its story matter-of-factly and audaciously, and by concentrating on the people who were caught up in it all, an approach that many other movies “based on real events” should try adopting as well.

Hidden Figures (2016)

21 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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1961, Drama, Friendship 7, Janelle Monáe, Jim Parsons, Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Literary adaptation, NASA, Octavia Spencer, Racism, Review, Taraji P. Henson, Theodore Melfi, True story

D: Theodore Melfi / 126m

Cast: Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Mahershala Ali, Aldis Hodge, Glen Powell, Kimberly Quinn, Olek Krupa

In 1961, the USA and the USSR were in a race to put a man into space. The Russians had managed to send up a mannequin and a dog on separate missions, while the Americans were struggling to stop their unmanned rockets from blowing up shortly after take-off. The team responsible for this string of non-fatal disasters was based at the NASA complex in Langley, Virginia. In fact, there were several teams working there, including a coloured section overseen by Vivian Mitchell (Dunst). Of the women that worked there, three were best friends: Katherine Goble (Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Monáe). Each had their own specialty: Katherine was a maths genius, Dorothy was a more than competent supervisor (and latent programmer), while Mary was an engineer.

Despite their obvious capabilities, the institutionalised racism of the time ensures that each of them remains in a pool of temps to be drawn on as and when required. Dorothy is the de facto supervisor of the group, but isn’t officially recognised as such. Mary’s desire to be an engineer is hampered by her needing to take a specific engineering course – which is taught only at a non-segregated school. And Katherine’s intuitive knowledge of advanced mathematics is under-utilised on a regular basis. Things begin to change though, when Katherine is seconded to the Space Task Group, the team responsible for calculating the launch and landing coordinates for each rocket mission.

Led by Al Harrison (Costner), the team is as inherently racist as an all-white male environment could be. Only Harrison seems able to look past the colour of Katherine’s skin, but he has too much on his plate to ensure that everyone else does. With her work constantly undermined by Harrison’s second-in-command, Paul Stafford (Parsons), and having to spend too much time checking other people’s calculations, Katherine struggles to make any headway in having her talents recognised. When the USSR succeeds in sending Yuri Gagarin into space (and bringing him back), the pressure is on to do the same with a US astronaut. With the arrival of an IBM mainframe computer that will process mathematical formulae and calculations much quicker than Harrison’s team of “computers”, Katherine faces an even bigger challenge: how to retain a human element amongst all the mathematics, and how to ensure that any future manned space flights remain as safe as humanly possible. It all leads to the first manned orbital flight, and making sure that astronaut John Glenn (Powell) returns home in one piece.

Those with a good memory for last year’s Oscars will remember the outcry over the Academy appearing to be racially biased against black and ethnic movie makers. Stars such as Will Smith boycotted the Oscar ceremony, while contention reigned over the nominations the Academy had made in the first place. A year later, and we have Hidden Figures, a movie almost designed to address the issue, and which should see itself gain a slew of nominations. However, the movie is the victim of felicitous timing, having gone into production a full year before last year’s Oscars. Nevertheless, it’s the kind of feelgood, inspiring, let’s-throw-a-light-on-a-little-known-aspect-of-recent-US-history movie that charms audiences and critics alike. And it doesn’t hurt that co-writer/director Theodore Melfi has assembled a great cast to do justice to his and Allison Schroeder’s screenplay, itself adapted from the book by Margot Lee Shetterley.

While Hidden Figures doesn’t necessarily stand or fall on its performances, having such a (mostly) seasoned cast pays off tremendously. Henson is terrific as Katherine, the unsung hero of the Friendship 7 mission who is more than just a maths genius, while Spencer and Monáe provide equal measures of grit and determination as Dorothy and Mary, guiding their real-life characters through the many professional, personal, and racial pitfalls the two women experienced at the time, and their inspirational, dedicated responses to each potential setback. Both actresses are equally as terrific as Henson, even if they have a little less to do in comparison, but as a trio they prove to be inspired casting. The same can be said for Costner, playing yet another (fictional) fair-minded, no-nonsense authority figure, but doing so with a great deal of charm and delivering his lines with the necessary amount of gravitas and persuasion. The only character who sticks out as unnecessarily stereotypical is Parsons as Katherine’s racist, jealous colleague, who constantly feels threatened by her presence and her abilities. Reduced to giving her glowering looks and blocking her attempts at personal recognition, Parsons’ performance does the actor no favours and will have many viewers thinking, “he’s just playing an evil version of Sheldon Cooper”.

As Mrs Mitchell, Dunst at least gets to see the error of her ways by the movie’s end, while there’s solid support from Ali and Hodge as Katherine’s love interest and Mary’s husband respectively. And there’s a mischievous turn from Powell as John Glenn, who won’t take off unless Katherine has checked the numbers. With so many enjoyable, and finely-tuned performances, the movie is free to explore the ways in which Johnson et al became so integral to the success of the Friendship 7 mission after so many failures. There’s subterfuge (on Dorothy’s part), legal wrangling (by Mary), and pure dogged persistence by Katherine. While it’s true that all three were in the right place at the right time, it’s still equally true that they took advantage of the chances given them, and made the most of those opportunities. In doing so, they forged a path for women (and not just black women) that is still being benefitted from today, and the movie is eager to highlight their achievements – which is as it should be.

But though these achievements are rightly recognised and celebrated, and the tensions inherent in the efforts to put Glenn into orbit are confidently addressed and shown, it’s when the movie steps away from the base at Langley and tries to paint a wider picture of the period that it proves to be less successful in its efforts. There are references to the growing civil unrest in the country, and we get to spend time with the trio’s family and friends on various occasions, but Katherine’s romance with Colonel Jim Johnson (Ali) aside, much of these scenes and sequences feel like filler, particularly the political discussions between Mary and her husband, which seem like they’re prodding the movie in another direction, but which ultimately amount to nothing.

Otherwise though, Hidden Figures is a lovingly rendered tribute to three women who smashed through not one but two glass ceilings and contributed greatly to the US winning the space race and eventually landing on the Moon. That their contributions have taken so long to be recognised and honoured by the wider public is a travesty that the movie addresses with no small amount of style and grace. Melfi is to be congratulated for taking such an inspiring, untold tale and doing it full justice, and in the process, making one of the most enjoyable, inspiring and rewarding movies of recent years.

Rating: 8/10 – shining a light on an overlooked story from the early Sixties, Hidden Figures is a generous, captivating movie that plays equally well as both an historical drama and a comedy of manners; with a trio of memorable performances, and richly textured direction from Melfi, this is an object lesson in bringing history alive and making it completely accessible.

All About Them! (2015)

21 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Anaïs Demoustier, Á trois on y va, Comedy, Drama, Félix Moati, Jérôme Bonnell, Love, Relationships, Review, Romance, Sophie Verbeeck

Original title: Á trois on y va

D: Jérôme Bonnell / 86m

Cast: Anaïs Demoustier, Félix Moati, Sophie Verbeeck, Patrick d’Assumçao

Mélodie (Demoustier) is a young defence lawyer working and living in Lille. She’s also in a relationship with Charlotte (Verbeeck) that’s lasted for five months. Unfortunately, Charlotte has also been in a relationship with Micha (Moati) for four years. Mélodie and Charlotte have managed to keep their affair a secret from Micha, but for Mélodie it’s reached a point where she wants Charlotte to commit to her. Charlotte has been a little distant recently, and following Micha’s return from a trip away, an evening spent together leads to Micha unexpectedly declaring to Mélodie that he has feelings for her. Against her better judgement she kisses him.

Over the next few days, Mélodie becomes further involved with Micha, while both of them attempt to maintain their individual relationships with Charlotte. They take chances that could lead to them being found out, and Mélodie does the same with Charlotte. While all this is going on, Mélodie receives bad news from her boss, William (d’Assumçao); he needs to let her go due to the likelihood of his being disbarred. He does at least recommend her to another law firm based in Paris, but with everything that’s happening, she doesn’t know if she wants to take up the offer.

Things almost come to a head at a party that all three attend. Charlotte invites Mélodie who initially begs off because of work, when instead she’s arranged to meet up with Micha. Micha has told Charlotte that he’s going out with work colleagues; she’s told him that she’s tired and will be staying at home. Micha and Mélodie arrive together, but she manages to make it look as if she’s come alone, and Charlotte remains unsuspicious of any relationship between her boyfriend and her lover. Later that night, and back at Micha and Charlotte’s apartment, both of them sneak into Mélodie’s room on separate occasions and attempt to reassure her that each will try and convince Mélodie to live with them now her job is winding up. But when she’s called out to provide defence counsel for someone she’s defended before, it triggers a response for honesty in Mélodie that brings matters to the fore, and the trio to a place that none of them could have predicted.

Ah, the French – they do love an off-beat, quirky romance, especially if it involves two women and a man. Over the years they’ve explored probably every possible twist and complicated convolution in their efforts to provide a wide-ranging exploration of love and romance and the highs and lows that go with them. But All About Them! is possibly the first time that the phrase ménage à trois has turned out to be a completely inadequate description for writer/director Bonnell’s charming, if mostly too broad, romantic drama. By making the inter-relationships between Mélodie, Micha and Charlotte so complicated in terms of arranging the characters from scene to scene, there are times when the movie borders on farce, though thankfully it never falls into the trap completely.

But while Bonnell’s screenplay tries to play it straight with the characters’ feelings, some of the motivations remain obscured by the dramatic need for secrecy between them. Mélodie’s work as a defence lawyer reveals a pride in winning; we see her winning cases involving a pervert and a suspected terrorist. Her ability to avoid the truth of her clients’ innocence or guilt goes some way to explaining why she keeps her relationship with Charlotte a secret, but at the same time she clearly enjoys getting her own way. Why she’s allowed things between them to go on for so long is never properly addressed. Equally, Charlotte’s inability to choose between Mélodie and Micha smacks more of convenience that an actual emotional dilemma. And Micha’s admission of his feelings for Mélodie, although clearly the means by which the main narrative is set up, never loses the sense of its being engineered rather than an organic development.

With the various romantic entanglements lacking any appreciable depth, the movie is rescued by its trio of central performances. Demoustier is a particular delight, her pale, delicate features capable entirely of showing the various degrees of romantic confusion and commitment that Mélodie experiences throughout, as well as a moment of tearful epiphany after she’s called out to attend the local police station. There are times when Demoustier’s open, expressive face tells the viewer everything you need to know about how Mélodie is feeling at any given moment, and it’s her skills as an actress that often elevates the material. As Micha, Moati has the enviable task of being in love with two striking women at the same time, and he plays the role with obvious relish, though not without recognising the often callow nature of his romance with Mélodie. In some ways it’s an awkward role, precisely because of Micha’s carefree, unconcerned attitude towards betraying Charlotte, but Moati makes him surprisingly likeable. As the third member of the trio, Verbeeck has the least to do, and beyond looking melancholy and withdrawn for the most part, plays Charlotte as a free spirit drawn into relationships that she doesn’t feel entirely comfortable with. Even though it’s the minor role of the three, Verbeeck’s distant glances and sanguine approach to the character makes her the most interesting, and when she’s on screen the viewer can’t help but be drawn to her.

Bonnell orchestrates the various “near misses” with easy-going aplomb, though he does misjudge a scene where Mélodie and Charlotte are kissing in a bar and Micha is outside, oblivious to their presence behind him. Otherwise he avoids banality by peppering the script with witty observations on romance and the craziness of the characters’ situation. The drama remains parboiled throughout but is absorbing enough, though the movie ends too suddenly with one of the characters making an abrupt decision that allows for an unnecessary, and too pat, resolution. By this stage, though, Bonnell and his talented cast have done enough to involve the audience to the degree that they’ll want to know how things pan out (even though they may find themselves feeling disappointed). There are a couple of subplots threaded into the narrative, but Mélodie’s reacquaintance with her pervert client aside, they remain largely ineffective, and add little to the overall proceedings.

Rating: 6/10 – a romantic drama suffused with awkward comic moments, All About Them! shows a lot of promise, but ultimately lets itself down on the drama front by making each relationship less than absorbing; good performances from Demoustier, Moati and Verbeeck keep Bonnell’s semi-effective script from falling down completely, and there’s enjoyment to be had from the various ways that Bonnell keeps his characters in the dark about each other, but otherwise this won’t meet most viewers’ expectations.

Trespass Against Us (2016)

21 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Adam Smith, Brendan Gleeson, Crime, Drama, Father/son relationship, Lyndsey Marshal, Michael Fassbender, Review, Rory Kinnear, Travellers

D: Adam Smith / 99m

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Brendan Gleeson, Lyndsey Marshal, Georgie Smith, Rory Kinnear, Killian Scott, Sean Harris, Gerard Kearns, Tony Way, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Barry Keoghan, Kacie Anderson, Peter Wight, Alan Williams, Anna Calder-Marshall, Mark Lewis Jones

Chad Cutler (Fassbender) is part of a Travellers community whose patriarch is his father, Colby (Gleeson). Chad doesn’t know how to read or write, but he does know how to drive a car, especially if that car is being pursued by the police and it needs not to be caught. He’s also married, to Kelly (Marshal), and has two children, Tyson (Smith) and Mini (Anderson). Kelly wants more for their children than living in a caravan in a field, and though they go to a local school, it’s the only aspect of “normal” life they’re familiar with. Kelly wants them to move into a proper home – a house – and Chad is in agreement with her: he doesn’t want his children growing up in the same environment he did, and settling for less. But there’s a problem. If Colby finds out what they’re planning, he’ll never agree to it, and he’ll make sure they don’t leave.

While Chad sources a home for them nearby, Colby insists on his involvement in the robbery of a large house that proves to be the home of the Lord Lieutenant for the county. Though the robbery is successful, and Chad evades capture by the police – led by PC Lovage (Kinnear) – he’s not “out of the woods” just yet. Lovage is determined to arrest Chad, but if he can’t do it by fair means then he’ll twist the rules to suit his own agenda. This involves raiding the Travellers’ camp, and intimidating them as well as Chad and Kelly. When Chad learns that his father has intimidated the owner of the home he and his family were going to move into, and it’s no longer on offer, a showdown looms between Chad and Colby, one that Colby wins.

In the meantime, Tyson and Mini go missing from the school. Chad searches for them, but it’s not until Kelly goes to the police that anyone knows the children are with them, and not actually missing or lost. Lovage tries to use their presence at the station as leverage in getting Chad or Kelly to admit his involvement in the robbery, but it doesn’t work. It’s not until Chad, attempting to buy a puppy as a birthday present for Tyson, is refused due to who he is that circumstances conspire to fix the issue of his family’s future once and for all.

Stories about the Travelling community are relatively thin on the ground, which makes Trespass Against Us all the more welcome. Highlighting the darker side of a life that most people will only know about from TV reality shows such as My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, Adam Smith’s directorial debut is keen to show how hierarchy and loyalty play very important roles in the lives of Travellers, and how aspirations, no matter how much they may be needed, go against the established order of things. Whether or not Chad is a typical example of a “new generation” that sees the traditions of the Travelling community as old-fashioned or no longer socially relevant, isn’t addressed directly by Smith and screenwriter Alistair Siddons, but it certainly fuels the story of Chad’s “defection”.

Played with grit and determination by an on-form Fassbender, Chad is aware of his limitations and the possibilities available to his children, but he’s fighting a losing battle against his father. Colby asserts an unhealthy authority over his grandchildren, and at times is far more of an authority figure to them than Chad is. He tells Tyson to ignore what his teacher tells him at school, and looks to reinforce the sense of being part of a tight-knit community that keeps its own counsel (or particularly, Colby’s). Chad has no immediate answer to his father’s belligerence, and is too scared to challenge him openly. Chad and Kelly may want better lives for their children, but Colby doesn’t even see it as an issue; he believes the life they all lead is the right one for them, and any other opinion is a betrayal. As Colby, Gleeson delivers the kind of intense, brooding performance he’s so good at, and he shows Colby’s anger at being challenged in a way that mixes resigned authority and the enjoyment he derives from being a bully.

But while the family dynamic, and the battle, between Chad and Colby forms the central storyline, other aspects of the script lack the same intensity or fail to engage the audience as effectively. Kinnear has the thankless task of making PC Lovage anything more than a pasty-faced thug in a police uniform, his determination to arrest Chad made into an obsession that causes him to behave in ways that steer away from credibility at every turn. Likewise, Harris is back playing the kind of role that casting directors seem eager to offer him. Gordon Bennett – yes, really – sports a close-cropped scalp and rat’s-tail extensions, and looks as if he hasn’t had a bath in weeks. He’s the community halfwit, protected by Colby, derided by Chad and the others, and capable of acts of unwitting cruelty. Harris is a very good actor, but Gordon as written adds little to the narrative, and the script uses him on occasion to move things along, but he’s often a distracting presence, and an unnecessary one at that.

The twin themes of community and tradition are given enough space and time to be explored with a fair degree of depth, and though in truth, this is a story that could have been applied to any number of other, different family units, Smith and Siddons do their best to show how relevant these themes are in Traveller life. The austerity of tradition is touched on to good effect, but the reasoning behind continuing such traditions isn’t explored at all, leaving the viewer to wonder just why living in a field – no matter how much it keeps society away from the Travellers in general – is so preferable to the alternative. It’s an exclusionist stance that needed referencing, if only to provide viewers with a broader perspective.

As a drama, Trespass Against Us sometimes feels forced, as events drift into melodrama and Chad’s dream of emancipation from his father drifts further and further away. By the end, and the unlikely convergence of people and circumstance that provides Chad with a solution, some viewers may well be experiencing a kind of emotional ennui. There’s no payoff, or distinct resolution to Chad’s plight, only a hope that the decision he makes will have the required effect, and allow Kelly and the children to escape Colby’s clutches. But it’s a puzzling conclusion to a story that starts off well, includes a couple of impressively mounted car chases, but which soon loses dramatic focus and traction, and in doing so, looks and feels as if it’s lost sight of that very same story it started off with.

Rating: 7/10 – a mixed bag in terms of drama and the overall material, Trespass Against Us never quite scales the heights of its own ambitions, but it does feature two commanding performances from Fassbender and Gleeson, and a refreshing mise-en-scéne; let down by its own inconsistencies, it’s nevertheless a movie that shouldn’t be avoided, and which may in time, find itself ripe for reassessment.

Goat (2016)

21 Saturday Jan 2017

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Andrew Neel, Ben Schnetzer, Brad Land, Brothers, Danny Flaherty, Drama, Fraternity, Gus Halper, Hell Week, Literary adaptation, Nick Jonas, Phi Sigma Mu, Pledges, Review

D: Andrew Neel / 102m

Cast: Ben Schnetzer, Nick Jonas, Gus Halper, Danny Flaherty, Virginia Gardner, Jake Picking, Brock Yurich, Will Pullen, Austin Lyon, Eric Staves, James Franco

Across America there are hundreds if not thousands of colleges. And these colleges have what are called fraternities, male-only “clubs” whose membership is often highly sought after, and which confers a certain level of social acceptance on the member. If you’re a student who doesn’t belong to a fraternity, the inference is that you’re somehow not worthy, or an outsider and to be avoided. But if you are a student and you do want to fit in, then the price of membership is called Hell Week. During this period, the students who head up the fraternities will play practical jokes on potential members (called pledges), get them to perform painful or humiliating tasks, keep the pledges at the fraternity’s beck and call, and generally make their lives – appropriately – hell. The idea, officially, is to weed out the weak from the strong, and only allow in those who meet whatever criteria the fraternity is looking for. Unofficially, it’s an opportunity for existing members to bully and humiliate pledges, and all in the name of accepted tradition.

It’s this period of time in a college student’s life that is explored in Goat, an adaptation of the autobiographical book by Brad Land. Land (Schnetzer) is on the brink of going to the same college where his older brother Brett (Jonas) is studying, but he’s having second thoughts. However, an ill-fated decision to give two strangers a ride home late one night leads to Brad being robbed and assaulted, and his attackers disappearing. Stricken by guilt and self-reproach over not fighting back, Brad makes the decision to attend college, and though it means leaving behind his friends, and the one girl he likes (and who seems to like him), for Brad it’s akin to making a fresh start. Brett is happy that they’ll be on campus together, and so is Brad, who is soon getting to know his roommate, Will (Flaherty). It isn’t long before Brett’s fraternity comes calling, and he’s asked to join, along with Will.

Hell Week begins and the various tasks Brad and the other pledges are required to endure at first are largely alcohol-related. But as the week continues, and the tasks become more aggressive and humiliating in nature, Brett begins to believe that Brad shouldn’t be a pledge at all. But Brad is insistent that he’ll see it through, whatever happens to him. And see it through he does, but he and the others, including Will, have another month of hazing to endure before they become full-fledged fraternity members. During this period, a wedge is driven between the two brothers, the police contact Brad with news that they may have apprehended one of his attackers, and a tragedy threatens the existence of the fraternity and Brad’s continued attendance at the college…

True stories about horrific experiences, or periods in a person’s life, can often be a trial to sit through as well, and Goat, despite the best of intentions, is one such movie. Despite everything that happens to Brad in the course of Goat, one thing remains truer than any of the events of Hell Week, or even the carjacking-cum-assault and battery he suffers at the beginning, and it’s the one thing that lets the movie down throughout: we never get to know him. We learn some basics about him, but there’s too much that remains a mystery. We never get to know why he’s reluctant to go to college in the first place. We never learn why he decides not to stay in contact with the girl he likes. We never learn what his aspirations are, or why he’s at college to begin with (at one point he states he doesn’t know what he’ll major in). And most bewildering of all, we never learn why he wants to be a member of Phi Sigma Mu (other than that his brother is already). With the movie keeping Brad’s motivations in the dark, and by making him a less than self-reflexive character, Goat struggles to make his experiences ones that the viewer can sympathise with, or indeed, relate to. For anyone who has never taken part in a Hell Week, or the subsequent hazing period, why anyone would want to go through such a demeaning experience just to join a fraternity is completely baffling.

With the viewer asked to just accept this notion wholesale, the movie focuses on an unwelcome series of ritualised pranking and so-called character-building “exercises” that take up too much of the running time, and which proves futile in creating any tension, or dramatic traction. Scenes that should appal and horrify for their content are instead frustratingly matter-of-fact, and whatever happens to the pledges goes unchallenged in terms of bullying or deliberate mistreatment. It’s only when there’s a tragedy that the screenplay – by David Gordon Green, director Neel, and Mike Roberts – begins to question the morality of Hell Week, and even then it’s to set up a clumsy confrontation between Brett and fraternity bigwig Chance (Halper).

As the beleaguered Brad, Schnetzer is earnest or glum, depending on the scene, and has trouble portraying the range of emotions his character goes through, mainly because the script lacks consistency in determining them. Jonas is kept on the sidelines for the most part, and seems there only to deliver the occasional brotherly pep-talk, Halper oozes insincerity as the leader of Phi Sigma Mu, Picking is the principal bully-boy with few other recognisable characteristics, and Flaherty is the obvious “runt” who’ll suffer more than the others. There’s also a cameo from Franco as the owner of the fraternity house, an ex-fraternity member who still craves his old life even though he’s married and has a child. Sadly, his appearance makes no impact on the overall story, and his character is forgotten about after five minutes.

Whatever the truth of Land’s experiences in college, and even if the content of his Hell Week is accurate, thanks to an injudicious script and muddled direction by Neel, Goat remains a lost opportunity to examine the psychology of both the pledges and the fraternity members who torment them so willingly. Though you could argue that Brad takes part as a way of punishing himself for not fighting back against his attackers, it’s a theory that the movie fails to confirm or deny, and in holding back, it makes Brad’s journey even less appealing. In the end, the movie ends back where Brad was attacked, but even there it prompts more questions, and leaves the viewer still wondering what it was all for.

Rating: 5/10 – as a straightforward piece of movie making, Goat is a blunt, what-you-see-is-what-you-get feature that never gets inside the head of its main protagonist, and lacks the interest to do so; flatly directed by Neel with performances to match, the movie feels as if it’s about to “reveal all” on several occasions, but instead it remains vague and under-developed, and does its best not to let the audience in on why everything is happening.

Mini-Review: Live by Night (2016)

21 Saturday Jan 2017

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Ben Affleck, Brendan Gleeson, Crime, Dennis Lehane, Drama, Elle Fanning, Gangsters, Ku Klux Klan, Literary adaptation, Prohibition, Review, Sienna Miller, Thriller, Ybor City, Zoe Saldana

D: Ben Affleck / 128m

Cast: Ben Affleck, Elle Fanning, Remo Girone, Brendan Gleeson, Chris Messina, Matthew Maher, Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldana, Robert Glenister, Chris Cooper, Miguel J. Pimentel, Titus Welliver, Max Casella

Undermined by a leaden script, Live by Night is writer/director/actor Ben Affleck’s third movie as a multi-hyphenate, but after the successes of Argo (2012) and The Town (2010), his latest project is a plodding affair that looks good thanks to Robert Richardson’s usual exemplary cinematography, but otherwise remains remote and uninvolving. The tale of a small-time Boston crook, Joe Coughlin (Affleck), who finds himself at odds with Irish gangster Albert White (Glenister) through his relationship with White’s girlfriend, Emma Gould (Miller), this adaptation of the novel by Dennis Lehane starts off well but soon gets bogged down by messy plotting and too many characters who randomly come and go.

Coughlin’s romance with Emma ends badly, leading him to offer his “services” to White’s rival, Maso Pescatore (Girone). Pescatore sends Coughlin down to Florida, to Ybor City, with instructions to take control of his rum-running operation and ensure that White’s activities in the area are curtailed. Once there, Coughlin, aided by trusted friend Dion (Messina), soon streamlines Pescatore’s operation and squeezes out all the competition. In the process he establishes a business relationship with a Cuban family, and begins an affair with the sister, Graciela (Saldana). Things run smoothly until Coughlin’s working with the Cubans as well as a group of local Negroes, attracts the ire of the Ku Klux Klan. Coughlin tries to come to an amicable arrangement with them, but the Klan’s leader, RD Pruitt (Maher) refuses to play ball, leading Coughlin to make an arrangement with Pruitt’s brother-in-law, Chief Figgis (Cooper) that has unforeseen consequences.

The Chief’s daughter, Loretta (Fanning), begins making evangelical protests against a casino that Coughlin is building in anticipation of Prohibition being repealed. Her protests lead to the project stalling, which makes Pescatore angry enough to forget all the money Coughlin has made for him, and travel down to Florida to oversee matters for himself, a development that leaves Coughlin vulnerable, and his future in doubt.

For all the convincing period detail and the impressive production design, Live by Night is let down by Affleck’s inability to craft a cohesive screenplay from Lehane’s novel. While Coughlin’s story is told against a backdrop of violence and betrayal, the movie remains a staid, pedestrian affair that moves at a steady pace despite Affleck’s best efforts to inject some energy and verve into proceedings. Part of the problem is the number of characters that appear for a short time then disappear or pop up again for another short period. Despite the cast’s best efforts, they’re let down by Affleck’s script, which uses each character to advance the narrative, but without investing in them to any great degree. This leaves actors of the calibre of Gleeson, Saldana and Glenister stranded for the most part, with only Miller and Fanning making much of an impression. It doesn’t help that Affleck’s portrayal of Coughlin also lacks range or depth, leaving the viewer hoping that things will improve over time, and that a way in to the material with eventually arise, something that, unfortunately, never happens.

Rating: 6/10 – curiously turgid and flat, Live by Night has clear aspirations to be a crime drama with operatic overtones, but instead, remains resolutely commonplace; with too many strands that make for a stop-start narrative, and characters that aren’t allowed to make much of an impact, the movie keeps its audience at a distance, and never looks as if it will close the gap at any point throughout.

The Young Offenders (2016)

21 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Alex Murphy, Bicycles, Chris Walley, Cocaine, Comedy, Cork, Drama, Fake Billy, Hilary Rose, Ireland, Peter Foott, Review, True story

D: Peter Foott / 83m

Cast: Alex Murphy, Chris Walley, Hilary Rose, Dominic MacHale, PJ Gallagher, Shane Casey, Pascal Scott, Michael Sands, Ciaran Bérmingham

It’s the summer of 2007 in Cork, and best friends Conor (Murphy) and Jock (Walley) are spending their time differently: Conor is helping out his mother, Mairead (Rose), where she works at a fish market, while Jock is busy stealing bicycles and masquerading – literally – as a local thug called Billy (Casey) (helpfully he’s known as Fake Billy). Conor’s father died when he was four, and Jock’s mother only a year ago. Conor’s mother is hard on him, and is always calling him a moron, while Jock’s dad (Sands) has taken to drinking to deal with his grief; both boys wish for better family lives but don’t know how to make things better.

The big news story of the summer is a shipwreck further west that has seen bales of cocaine washed up along the shoreline. With each one reckoned to be worth around seven million Euros, Jock decides they should travel down to where the wreck occurred, grab themselves a bale, and make themselves rich on the proceeds (though how they’ll do that they haven’t worked out yet). Jock steals a couple of bicycles, and off they go, unaware that one of the bicycles has been fitted with a GPS transmitter, the brain child of obsessive Garda officer, Sergeant Healy (MacHale). Healy is determined to catch Fake Billy, and will do everything in his power to do so, even if it means tracking him across half of southern Ireland.

On their way they manage to elude Healy, but once they get to the site of the wreck, Conor and Jock are dismayed to learn that all the bales have been recovered by the Garda. But their fortunes change when they discover a man (Gallagher) sleeping with what looks suspiciously like one of the bales. They take the bale, strap it to the back of Conor’s bicycle, but as they set off back to Cork, something unforeseen happens, something they don’t discover until they get back home. With their luck already going from bad to worse – Healy is still hot on their trail – the sleeping man manages to track them down, resulting in a standoff in Conor’s kitchen that involves the two friends, Mairead, Healy, real Billy, the sleeping man, a large quantity of flour, and a nail gun.

Apparently based on true events, The Young Offenders has charm, laughs aplenty, and a huge amount of heart – and two utterly beguiling performances courtesy of Murphy and Walley. It’s safe to say that you won’t see two more convincing portrayals of what the Irish call “eejits” than here, as Murphy and Walley reach new heights of comic stupidity as best friends Conor and Jock, two young lads who know nothing and seem content with their ignorance. At one point, Jock mentions their country’s forefathers, and Conor asks who he means. Jock’s response? “Eh, Saint Patrick, Saint Bridget… I don’t know…” Of course, the level (or depth) of their stupidity is due to the wonderfully acerbic dialogue that writer/director Peter Foott (making his feature debut) has created, but the two young actors bring both characters to life such a measure of deadpan delight, that you can’t be helped but won over by Conor and Jock’s naive self-belief and disingenuous approach to life.

With two such convincing and commendable performances at the movie’s centre, you could be forgiven for thinking that the supporting characters would be less engaging, but thanks again to Foott’s considered and surprisingly layered script, such is not the case. Mairead, ostensibly a mother in constant despair at the juvenile antics of her only son, proves to be a thoughtful and supportive parent who genuinely wants what’s best for him. A scene towards the end where she and Conor find the common ground that’s been between them all along, is both funny and poignant, and emotional as well. Rose is terrific as Conor’s mother, and her scenes with Murphy provide the heart and soul of the movie just as much as the friendship between Conor and Jock does; she’s also great when dishing out insults to Jock (who thinks she’s kidding): when she points out a sucker fish to him, she tells him that will be his nickname in prison.

Elsewhere, the obsessive Sergeant Healy is played with fierce determination by MacHale, and while the role could have been entirely one-dimensional, the actor makes him both sympathetic and understandable, a man who views his position within the Garda as one that carries great civic responsibility (even if it is a little too tightly focused). As the sleeping man, Gallagher is a joy, resourceful and clever despite having a withered arm and a club foot, and permanently astonished at how things are turning out (the scene where he acquires the nail gun is beautifully played). And there’s a wonderfully absurd, poignant, and unexpectedly heartfelt sequence involving a farmer (Scott) who suffers from a combination of alcoholism and confusion. Conor and Jock want to do right by him when they realise what his problems are, and they spend the evening with him, leading Conor to remark that “that was the closest we’d all got to a normal night in”.

It’s these moments when Foott reveals the sadness and the emotional complexity behind the characters, and lets on that they’re not entirely the “eejits” they appear to be that gives the movie a resonance and a warmth that makes it all the more impressive. Foott isn’t solely interested in making us laugh, he also wants us to experience the truth of Conor and Jock’s lives away from the obvious camaraderie they have with each other, where pain and heartache linger, but where they themselves are determined to keep them when they’re together. They’re always dreaming of what their lives could be like – the opening scene sees Jock ask Conor what he’d do if he had a million Euros – and deep down they just want ordinary home lives. By the movie’s end, Conor is well on the way to having achieved that, while Foott is careful to ensure that there’s no obvious happy ending for Jock, merely the possibility of one.

In essence, The Young Offenders is a movie about friendship and dreams, and how the two can sometimes, if we’re lucky, go together hand in hand. Foott is a talent to watch, and translates his script to the screen with confidence and aplomb. He extracts wonderful performances from all concerned, and there’s not one moment that feels forced or out of place. The comedy is fresh, laugh out loud funny, and deftly played by all concerned, while there’s plenty of pathos and bittersweet emotion in amongst all the levity. The movie looks great as well thanks to Paddy Jordan’s crisp, sky-bright cinematography, and on the soundtrack, there’s the more than welcome inclusion of Where’s Me Jumper by Sultans of Ping E.C., a proto-punk song that fits in well as a way of seeing out the movie on a musical high.

Rating: 9/10 – a perfectly balanced mix of comedy and familial heartbreak, The Young Offenders is the kind of movie that makes you want to spend more time with its central characters, and as soon as possible; Foott is to be congratulated for making a movie that operates so effectively on so many unexpected levels, and for keeping the friendship between Conor and Jock entirely credible throughout, an achievement that boosts the movie’s entertainment value and at the same time, ensures that it’s a rewarding viewing.

A Brief Word About Holidays

21 Saturday Jan 2017

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Holidays, Internet, Movies, Reviews, thedullwoodexperiment

Holidays – we all like them, we all enjoy them (usually), and we all wish they could go on just that little bit longer. I went on holiday last Saturday (the 14th), to a lovely cottage near the North Norfolk coast that had a log fire, a pub within five minutes’ walking distance, and long, long, loooonnnnggg stretches of beach around fifteen minutes’ drive away. Perfect – right?

Well, almost. I should have checked before I got there, because when I arrived I discovered there was no Internet coverage at the cottage – no Internet coverage whatsoever. Now, this came as quite a blow, as you might imagine. How was I supposed to survive for a whole week without being able to watch the latest trailers (and discover that the second trailer for Logan tramples over all the good work that went into the first one)? How was I supposed to find out the latest movie news (like the Sundance Film Festival box office being cyber attacked)? And how was I going to find out if Split won the battle at the box office against xXx: Return of Xander Cage (it did)? All these issues and more ran through my head at the realisation that for a week – a whole week – I was going to have to remain in the dark about all these things.

But it wasn’t all bad. There were still movies to watch – lots of movies – and time to write reviews of some of those movies. So later tonight, there will be half a dozen reviews appearing on thedullwoodexperiment that were written over the last seven days, with two more appearing tomorrow. Obviously these should have appeared over the past week, but that wasn’t possible. I actually hate it when I don’t have the time or the opportunity to write a review or another post, and in that sense, this past week has been horrible. Not as horrible as witnessing Donald Trump become President of the United States, thankfully, but horrible enough. So, for me, a late New Year’s resolution will be this: no more holidays where I won’t have access to the Internet.

Oh! the Horror! – The Disappointments Room (2016) and The Bye Bye Man (2017)

13 Friday Jan 2017

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Cressida Bonas, D.J. Caruso, Douglas Smith, Drama, Grief, Haunted house, Horror, Kate Beckinsale, Lucas Till, Lucien Laviscount, Paranoia, Review, Stacy Title, Supernatural

The Disappointments Room (2016) / D: D.J. Caruso / 85m

Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Mel Raido, Duncan Joiner, Lucas Till, Gerald McRaney, Celia Weston, Jennifer Leigh Mann, Ella Jones, Marcia DeRousse

After the tragic death of their baby daughter, Dana (Beckinsale) and David (Raido), and their son, Lucas (Joiner), relocate to a rundown, rural dream home. Haunted by their daughter’s death, Dana soon begins to hear the sounds of a baby crying, and also the sound of dripping water. She traces the dripping water sounds to a leak from the roof, but still hears a baby crying and other noises; she also sees a strange dog outside. David is oblivious to all this, and doesn’t think it’s at all mysterious when Dana discovers a hidden room in the attic that isn’t on the plans. Investigating it further the next day, she finds herself locked in and threatened by a malevolent force. Hours pass, but when she finally manages to get out of the room, she learns that only minutes have passed, and not hours; and that David is worried she’s not taking her medication (to help her deal with her grief).

With the help of a local historian (DeRousse), Dana discovers that the house has a disappointments room, a room that would have been used to hide away a child born with a deformity or some such, and which would have been highly embarrassing to its (usually) upper class family. Dana’s research uncovers a previous owner, Judge Blacker (McRaney), whose daughter, Laura, was believed to have died in childbirth. But Dana suspects Laura was the inhabitant of the disappointments room, and that it’s her spirit that is haunting the house. With a local workman (Till) helping restore the house, and Dana becoming increasingly disturbed by the things she’s seeing, the truth behind the disappointments room slowly begins to unfold, and Dana begins to understand that there’s a far more malevolent force at work…

For a horror movie to have the word “disappointment” anywhere in its title is asking for trouble (or it’s being incredibly reckless). And The Disappointments Room, ah, doesn’t let us, or itself, down in that respect. It’s yet another haunted house movie where things happen for no reason at all, and scenes take place that are by-and-large independent of each other and only fit together if the viewer is lucky. The script – by director Caruso and Wentworth Miller – likes to play with visual motifs, like a child’s kite seen in historical photos floating above the house, even though it would have been proof of a child’s existence when there shouldn’t have been any; and it likes to have things happen outside the house when it’s clear that the ghost responsible for all the shenanigans doesn’t stray outside at all (so shouldn’t have that much influence).

Away from the kind of plot holes that you could fit an entire haunted house through twice over, the movie aims very low in its attempts to be scary or frightening, and falls back too often on the kind of traditional haunted house set ups that now invoke yawns rather than tension. Against such a plain, derivative backdrop, Beckinsale has no option but to put in a generic genre performance and walk away with as much dignity as she can manage. The rest of the cast lack for things to do, especially Raido, and Caruso’s directorial style largely involves ignoring how tedious and pedestrian the script is, and that the whole thing – though no more preposterous than usual – lacks energy and any kind of visual panache. It’s a glum, uninvolving movie to watch, and it isn’t helped by Brian Tyler’s overbearing, cliché-driven score.

Rating: 3/10 – bad horror movies are ten a penny these days – in fact, they’re ten a penny on most days – but The Disappointments Room is a particularly bad horror movie, one that can’t be bothered to be better than it is; hackneyed, with poor/lazy performances, and a terrible sense of its own effectiveness, it outstays its welcome within the first five minutes, and never once feels as if it’s about to surprise the viewer or give them something/someone to care about.

The Bye Bye Man (2017) / D: Stacy Title / 96m

Cast: Douglas Smith, Lucien Laviscount, Cressida Bonas, Doug Jones, Michael Trucco, Jenna Kanell, Erica Tremblay, Marisa Echeverria, Cleo King, Faye Dunaway, Carrie-Anne Moss, Leigh Whannell

In 1969, a reporter, Larry Redmon (Whannell), goes on a killing spree in the town of Madison, Wisconsin. Fast forward forty-seven years and three university students – couple Elliot (Smith) and Sasha (Bonas), and best friend John (Laviscount) – rent an old house on the outskirts of town, and soon they’re having more than their fair share of weird experiences. After a housewarming party, a friend of Sasha’s, Kim (Kanell), performs a cleansing ceremony, but it doesn’t work. Soon she’s telling them that “something” is coming. Later, Elliot finds a sheet of paper with the words “Don’t think it” and “Don’t say it” written on it over and over again. These words are a caution relating to a supernatural entity known as the Bye Bye Man. If you say or think his name, he will come for you and he will make you do terrible things – like Larry Redmon did.

Soon the trio are seeing things and their own inner fears are being exploited. Elliot digs into the origins of the Bye Bye Man, while at the same time becoming ever more certain that Sasha and John are sleeping together. Sasha becomes increasingly ill, while John becomes more and more paranoid. When Kim is killed, the police become involved. And when Elliot tracks down Larry Redmon’s widow (Dunaway), he discovers a way to defeat the Bye Bye Man. But when he returns to the house, circumstances dictate that he might never get the opportunity to use his newfound knowledge, as the Bye Bye Man is there already…

A better tagline for The Bye Bye Man would be “Don’t try it, don’t see it”, as this adaptation of The Bridge to Body Island, a chapter from Robert Damon Schneck’s non-fiction book The President’s Vampire, is one of the most poorly written, directed, and acted horror movies of recent years. Aside from the bravura pre-credits sequence where Larry Redmon goes on the rampage, The Bye Bye Man struggles at almost every turn in its attempts at telling a cohesive, halfway credible story, and fails to deliver any tension, any shocks, any drama, or any let-up from the crushing banality of Jonathan Penner’s screenplay. It’s as if Penner has watched a dozen or so recent horror movies featuring supernatural creatures, taken the worst aspects of those movies’ scripts, and put them all together to make this movie look and sound as atrocious as possible.

Things are further compounded by Title’s haphazard, scattershot approach to the material, directing most scenes as if she had no idea what was going to happen next (which would be odd, as Penner is her husband). She’s also unable to elicit one decent performance from anyone in the whole movie; even the likes of Dunaway and Moss have no chance when faced with such terrible dialogue and even worse character motivation. Bonas favours one facial expression throughout (sleepy), Laviscount does angry young man whatever the scene, and Smith is so bad you hope the Bye Bye Man gets him first. Things are further hampered by James Kniest’s unimaginative framing and cinematography, and worst of all, Ken Blackwell’s laissez-faire editing, which takes the movie to new depths of awfulness.

Rating: 3/10 – sometimes you wonder how some horror movies get a general release and don’t go straight to video, and The Bye Bye Man is one such horror movie; a real stinker, it insults its audience at every turn, can’t even rustle up an origin story for its title character, tries for franchise levels of integrity that are never achieved, and should be used as an object lesson in how not to make a supernatural creature feature.

Poster of the Week – The Unearthly (1957)

11 Wednesday Jan 2017

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Horror, John Carradine, Poster of the week, The Fifties, The Unearthly, Tor Johnson

Another jam-packed poster from the Fifties, this tells you all you need to know about the movie it’s promoting in so many sections it’s a wonder they had room for the title. A ghastly horror movie made on a B-movie budget and with Z-movie aspirations, The Unearthly has to be seen to be believed (yes it’s that bad/good), and yet, this particular broadsheet once again confirms that often enough, the humble poster has more to offer than the movie it’s advertising.

The eye literally has too many places it can go at first glance, but the top left hand corner is a good place to start. “Lured!” it says, a comment that is at once alluring itself – lured? lured by what exactly? – and also slightly dangerous in intent. Lured – that can’t be good. And so it proves: the rest of the strapline makes it clear with its reference to monsters. But the poster’s designer then adds something that’s a little bit clever and unexpected. He or she drags the word “monsters…” down towards the doorway that an amply proportioned woman is about to enter. While John Carradine looks in her direction, almost urging her through the doorway, the woman looks uncertainly, and worriedly, behind her. (Modern day audiences might wonder if she’s thinking, does my bum look big in this? She probably isn’t, though.) It’s a neat way of drawing the viewer’s attention in a specific direction, and having a shapely damsel in imminent distress is always an attention grabber.

Across the middle of the poster is the title, with its large, uneven lettering and promise that “there’s no escape from…” The red letters against the sickly green background make for an effective colour counterpoint, and there’s definitely no escaping that. And then there are those eight images from the movie itself, several of which feature men transformed into hairy beasts with wild, staring eyes (Carradine’s evil Dr Conway performs illegal experiments to prolong life but for some strange, inexplicable reason they always go wrong; talk about persistence over experience). These identikit Mr Hydes look like the special effects department raided the Cro-Magnon man exhibit at the nearest natural history museum, and as such are about as frightening as hairy mannequins can get.

Other images display one of Dr Conway’s ill-fated operations, a man trying to embrace the bars of his cell, and dear old Tor Johnson carrying a bosomy starlet. If for no other reason than that the movie featured Tor Johnson, you’d know it was bad; he played the same character in every one of his movies and, sad to say, he was awful in all of them. With Tor’s expression-free features on the poster, any remaining likelihood that the movie will be worth watching is despatched immediately. And further evidence that suspicions about the movie should be encouraged lie with the credits and the director’s name: Brooke L. Peters. Never heard of him? That’s no surprise, as it’s a pseudonym for Boris Petroff. Never heard of him? That’s no surprise either.

While the credits occupy a modicum of space and focus on the leading actors, the poster manages to include one last “surprise”: a rosette declaring that the movie is “guaranteed to frighten”. Similar claims were foisted on dozens of low budget horrors during the Fifties, almost as if the makers were daring people to come and watch their movie. But the rosette is a nice touch – if a trifle over-confident – and as a final flourish to the poster and its overall effectiveness, it’s a little like having a piece of cake with a cherry on top. The Unearthly may not be the best movie in the world – it’s probably not even the best movie released on 28 June 1957 – but this poster has far more going for it than the movie, and has too many elements that work well individually and taken as a whole. A deceptively clever poster then, and one where its design and construction can be rightly celebrated.

And for fans of dear old Tor Johnson, here’s a lobby card where he features more prominently:

Elle (2016)

10 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Anne Consigny, Charles Berling, Drama, Isabelle Huppert, Laurent Lafitte, Literary adaptation, Paul Verhoeven, Philippe Djian, Rape, Revenge, Review, Thriller, Video games

D: Paul Verhoeven / 131m

Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Laurent Lafitte, Anne Consigny, Charles Berling, Virginie Efira, Judith Magre, Christian Berkel, Jonas Bloquet, Alice Isaaz, Vimala Pons, Raphaël Lenglet, Arthur Mazet, Lucas Prisor

“She” of the title is Michèle Leblanc (Huppert). Michèle is divorced – from Richard (Berling) – has one adult son, Vincent (Bloquet), runs a video games company with her best friend, Anna (Consigny), is having an affair with Anna’s husband, Robert (Beckel), and lives alone with her cat. She is independent, self-assured, and a little reserved around others. And then, one day, a masked intruder breaks into her home and rapes her. But Michèle’s response to this isn’t typical. She cleans up the mess made during the attack, and carries on with her life as if – outwardly at least – nothing has happened.

Inwardly, though, Michèle begins to wonder if her attacker is someone she knows. At first she thinks it might be one of the designers at the company, some of whom don’t like her for her abrasive, no-nonsense attitude. She buys some pepper spray, and a small axe that she takes to sleeping with. But all the while she tells no one what’s happened, not even her mother, Iréne (Magre). She and her mother, though, have other issues. Iréne wants Michèle to visit her father, who is prison for mass murder, but Michèle wants nothing to do with him. The murders occurred when she was ten, and afterwards, her father involved her in the aftermath, something she has never forgiven him for.

Because of this, Michèle refuses to involve the police, as it will also stir up memories of the past and she will again be the subject of press attention. When it becomes clear that her attacker isn’t one of her male employees, it seems as if it could be anyone. But when she is attacked again by the same masked intruder, she is able to defend herself and pull off his mask. Her attacker proves to be someone she knows, but again, she doesn’t report it to the police, and she resumes her life, again as if nothing has happened. Instead, she develops a closer relationship with the man, gaining his trust and encouraging him and his sexual desires. Believing her to be something of a kindred spirit, he also believes their relationship will continue, but Michèle has another plan entirely…

It’s entirely likely that, if you’re a feminist, you’re not going to like Elle. It’s main character is raped, but doesn’t report it; in fact, she gets on with her life as if nothing has happened. And later, when she knows the identity of her attacker, she begins a complicit relationship with him where his raping her gives him sexual satisfaction (while she doesn’t even get any masochistic pleasure out of it). And when she does admit to her friends that she’s been raped, she’s so matter-of-fact about it, and so dismissive of their concerns, she might as well not have told them for all the difference it makes. In short, she’s not reacting in the way that a woman who’s been raped should react; she’s not behaving in the way that she should behave.

At Cannes last year, where the movie was first shown, Elle was branded a “rape comedy”, an invidious term that was trying to be clever but which does have some relation to Elle’s complex, unflinching narrative. While the rape itself is sufficiently horrible (even when it’s only heard at the movie’s beginning, it’s still disturbing), it’s not the whole movie. As we begin to learn more about Michèle, humour begins to creep into the material, and largely from the way in which she interacts with her family and friends and colleagues. She’s caustic when she feels it’s necessary, and this leads to us smiling at her behaviour, and appreciating her all the more. She’s not letting being raped define her, or hold any power over her; and when she suspects one of her staff, she takes charge and does her best to find out who it could be. Like it or not, Michèle is being proactive, but in a way that we don’t often see in movies, even in so-called rape-revenge flicks.

Of course, there’s a strong psychological element to all this that drives the movie forward, with Michèle’s past informing and determining her present, and the feelings that she’s not quite in touch with. Part of the strength of the movie is the way in which it refuses to confirm or deny just what Michèle is doing, or how she’s feeling. It’s left to the viewer to decide for themselves what her mindset is – but be warned, for the most part you’re likely to get it wrong. This is also due to an absolutely magnificent performance by Huppert that is a masterpiece in delicate emotional shading. Verhoeven has praised Huppert for bringing things to the character of Michèle that he would never have thought of, and the actress – as ever – is fearless in the role, and endlessly inventive. It’s an hypnotic portrayal, fascinating and complex, and she doesn’t miss one single emotional beat throughout the entire movie. If there really is such a thing as “being true to the character”, then Huppert achieves that, and does it with consummate skill.

But while Huppert gives a stunning, tour-de-force performance, she’s matched in directorial terms by Verhoeven, here making what many regard as his best movie. (Away from his fantasy and sci-fi movies they’re right; otherwise an equal number of people will say that RoboCop (1987) is his best movie.) The Dutch director effortlessly weaves together the main storyline and its various subplots with the same consummate skill that Huppert brings to the role of Michèle. Thanks to Verhoeven’s sureness of touch, Elle remains endlessly provocative as a psychological drama, and equally riveting as a daring thriller. He also treads a fine line between the aforesaid drama and the movie’s humour, expertly blending the two elements into an unforgettable whole. As the story unfolds, and Michèle’s actions become clearer, the veteran director still manages to use the material at hand to wrongfoot the audience and keep them guessing – a neat trick in this day and age of Internet transparency.

There will be some who will write this off as just another revenge movie, but that isn’t the movie’s raison d’etre. Instead it’s about a woman taking a courageous and difficult route to self-empowerment; and she does it all on her own terms. This is to be applauded, whatever the circumstances, and in the hands of the masterful Huppert and the on-form Verhoeven, Elle paints a vivid portrait of how one woman strives for and maintains her own unique place in both a grossly misogynist workplace, and in the wider world at large. It’s often uncomfortable to watch – after Michèle is raped she has a bath, and blood rises to the water line, a terrible indication of just how violent the attack was – and it offers no easy answers, either in terms of whether or not Michèle’s reaction to being raped is the right one (whatever that is), or whether her search for her attacker is motivated by revenge or curiosity or a mixture of both. It’s a movie that is likely to provoke intense debate for some time to come, but even if it does, one thing is for sure: this is a movie that won’t be forgotten too easily by anyone who sees it.

Rating: 9/10 – a superb thriller unjustly snubbed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as an entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Oscars, Elle is a brilliant, elaborate movie that doesn’t pull any of its punches, and makes a virtue out of being uncompromising; with a daring, exceptional performance by Huppert, and Verhoeven fully in command of the material, the movie deserves every bit of praise it’s received so far, and should be on many people’s Top 10 lists come the end of the year.

A Brief Word About La La Land (2016)

09 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Awards, Damien Chazelle, Golden Globes, La La Land, Oscars

So La La Land has broken the Golden Globes record for the most number of wins (with seven, if you’re interested). It was a great night for Damien Chazelle and his cast and crew, and quite rightly so. Once in a while a movie comes along that everyone agrees is special, and at the moment, La La Land is one of those movies. From this you could deduce that it’s a shoo-in for the Best Film Oscar, with Chazelle cleaning up in the Director and Original Screenplay sections. If so, then what does that say about the rest of the movies released in 2016? Is there room for anyone else at the awards table? Should La La Land just sweep the board at every awards ceremony it’s a part of?

The answer – of course – is yes. If a movie is that good, then yes it absolutely, positively should sweep the board every time. And there should be rejoicing at every turn – and why? Because all too often movies that are fun, uplifting, vibrant and joyful don’t get to win awards (at least, not as many as La La Land has already). The last romance movie to win the Oscar for Best Film? Arguably, The Artist (2011). The last musical to win the Oscar for Best Film? Chicago (2002). The last comedy to win the Oscar for Best Film? Even further back: Annie Hall (1977). So before we start to hear all the complaints that “someone else should get a look in” – and it will happen if La La Land continues its merry run of winning awards – let’s remember that this is one of the most amazing, audacious, ravishing, beautifully constructed and acted movies in a very, very long time. And that’s all we need to know.

Closet Monster (2015)

08 Sunday Jan 2017

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Aaron Abrams, Aliocha Schneider, Buffy, Coming of age, Connor Jessup, Drama, Gay, Hamster, Isabella Rossellini, Review, Sexuality, Stephen Dunn

D: Stephen Dunn / 90m

Cast: Connor Jessup, Isabella Rossellini, Aaron Abrams, Aliocha Schneider, Joanne Kelly, Sofia Banzhaf, Jack Fulton, Mary Walsh

A coming of age tale, Closet Monster seems hell-bent on making things ultra-difficult for its central protagonist, eighteen year old Oscar (Jessup). Not only is his surname Madly – no, really – and not only are his parents divorced, but he’s pretty sure he’s gay, though at this point he’s still pretty much in the closet of the title. As if that wasn’t enough, when he was much younger he witnessed a brutal homophobic attack that left its victim paralysed from the waist down. The combination of these events has left Oscar with mixed feelings about himself, his life, and his sexuality. The only thing he’s sure about is that he wants to be a make-up artist in the movies, and to this end he’s putting together a portfolio that will hopefully get him accepted into a Joe Blasco training centre. He’s helped in this by his best friend, Gemma (Banzhaf), who, as if he didn’t have enough problems, likes him a little too much.

Oscar lives with his dad, Peter (Abrams), and sometimes spends time at his mother’s new home. His mother, Brin (Kelly), has another family now (“the Brady Bunch”), and Oscar still hasn’t forgiven her for being the one to leave. But he’s also got issues with his father, and their relationship is nearly as strained. Add a drab, dead-end job at a local hardware store to the mix, and Oscar has so many problems he could keep a TV soap opera going for months. And then, as if things couldn’t get any more confusing or difficult, Oscar meets Wilder (Schneider), a guy at work, and straight away he’s head over heels in – well, not love per se, but definitely infatuation. The only problem (as if)? Oscar can’t tell if Wilder is definitely gay. What’s a horny, probably gay young man to do?

The answer involves one of Wilder’s shirts and a bathroom cubicle at work, and it’s here that writer/director Stephen Dunn begins to pull together all the jigsaw pieces that make up Oscar’s life. As Oscar indulges in a spot of self-release he experiences flashbacks to the assault he witnessed when he was younger. These images shock him out of his sexual reverie, and point toward the reason why he hasn’t “come out” yet: if he does, what happened to that other teenager could happen to him. It’s a recognisable and understandable fear, and goes some way to explaining why Oscar, through his make-up ambitions (his designs are all heavily influenced by fantasy and horror), retreats so often into a world where he feels safe, and where his best friend isn’t Gemma, but his talking hamster, Buffy (Rossellini).

Yes, that’s right, a talking hamster called Buffy. Now, if at this point you’re asking yourself, can this movie get any stranger, well, yes it can, and it does. But Dunn is canny enough to introduce us to Buffy when Oscar is younger, where a small boy talking and listening to a hamster doesn’t seem so strange. And so well established is Buffy’s presence in Oscar’s interior life, it makes it that much easier to accept when he’s eighteen and still struggling to make sense of things. And the way in which Rossellini brings Buffy to life, so to speak (excuse the pun), is charming and agreeable. And Buffy proves to be pretty much the only source of humour in a movie that’s often deliberately downbeat and angst-ridden.

The movie is based on Dunn’s own experiences of growing up as a gay teenager in Canada, and while it’s probably safe to assume that he’s taken a degree of artistic licence with his own life, there are times throughout the movie where it seems that he’s trying a little too hard in getting across the message that making sense of being gay when you’re a teenager isn’t easy. While this may be true – and the movie goes some way to make sure the audience understands this – Dunn’s message isn’t helped by Oscar being resolutely unsympathetic (and let’s hope Dunn wasn’t like this when he was younger). Yes, Oscar has a lot of problems, and yes, getting out of his hometown will probably go a long way towards helping him get past some of those problems, but in the meantime all he does is act petulantly, antagonise or upset everyone (except Wilder), and generally behave in a selfish, dismissive manner. Though Jessup is very good as Oscar, he can’t quite bring the viewer over to Oscar’s side, and by the time he’s punting his father into a wardrobe and heading off to a party to (hopefully) get somewhere with Wilder, you can’t help but wish for him to experience a massive fail (and in some ways he does).

There are problems too with Oscar’s father, Peter. In the beginning, Peter is the kind of dad every child wishes they had: loving, supportive, and there. But divorce brings out the moody, boozy homophobe in him, and the character quickly descends into a slightly more challenging stereotype than usual, but a stereotype nonetheless. By the time he’s shouting at Brin on the front lawn and the movie is morphing into a David Cronenberg body horror, his transformation is complete, and Oscar’s view of him as Deadbeat Dad has come to fruition. It’s a shame, but you can see why Dunn has chosen to make Peter such a douchebag: it’s one more thing that Oscar has to deal with, and it adds a degree of conflict that doesn’t exist solely within Oscar’s head.

With all this – and more – Dunn’s narrative stumbles from time to time, and certain scenes don’t flow as easily as others. As mentioned already, Jessup is very good as Oscar, and even if he can’t make him sympathetic, he does make his predicament a credible one. There’s fine support from Abrams, who does his best to ground Peter even when he’s behaving badly thanks to the script, and Schneider as Wilder, who may or may not be gay, or straight, or bisexual; neither Dunn nor Schneider makes any attempt to confirm Wilder’s sexual orientation, and this ambiguity is something that strengthens the movie and makes the potential in Oscar and Wilder’s relationship all the more intriguing.

Dunn has made a movie out of his own personal experiences that looks and feels like the fevered imaginings of a kid in great need of psychiatric help. Oscar behaves foolishly and without due care for the people around him, and the movie doesn’t offer him any happiness, which amounts to a bitter pill indeed – for Oscar, and the audience. It’s a movie that paints a portrait of an angry, confused young man, then puts him through even more of an emotional wringer than he’s already been through, and finally offers him a way out through the experience of a waking nightmare. It’s a tough love movie about a teenager who doesn’t know how to love, and thanks to Dunn’s confidence as a director, where his script lets him down, he’s able to compensate by showing us Oscar’s world as he sees it: compromised, disheartening and frightening. And unfortunately, that’s a world that many teenagers will recognise.

Rating: 6/10 – Dunn the screenwriter lets down Dunn the director too many times for Closet Monster to work completely, but there are enough good ideas and directorial flourishes for Dunn to be someone to keep an eye on as their career unfolds; slow-paced but aided by a terrific soundtrack and some effective, roving camerawork courtesy of Bobby Shore, the movie has enough thought behind it that it shouldn’t be dismissed as superficial, and is surprisingly rewarding despite its flaws.

Assassin’s Creed (2016)

07 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Abstergo, Action, Aguilar de Nerha, Apple of Eden, Drama, Jeremy Irons, Justin Kurzel, Knights Templar, Marion Cotillard, Michael Fassbender, Review, The Animus, Ubisoft, Video game

D: Justin Kurzel / 115m

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Charlotte Rampling, Michael Kenneth Williams, Denis Ménochet, Ariane Labed, Khalid Abdalla, Essie Davis, Matias Varela, Callum Turner, Carlos Bardem, Javier Gutiérrez, Hovik Keuchkerian

Another video game adaptation, more raised expectations (after all, it’s been something of a passion project for Michael Fassbender, so it should be good – or better than the rest, at least), the usual hype surrounding these sort of things, and what are we left with? A genre defining moment that sees, at last, a video game adaptation delivering on everything it promises, or yet another failed opportunity to prove that video game adaptations can work, even if it’s due solely to the people involved? Well, with Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft’s wildly successful video game series, the answer is: a bit of both.

First off, if you’re a gamer, then chances are you’ll enjoy the movie for the same reasons you like the game. It retains the parkour chases from the games, keeps an historical backdrop for the game elements to take place in, includes but doesn’t expand on the Bleeding Effect, makes continually good use of the hidden blades set in bracers on the assassin’s arms, and focuses on the eternal battle between the Assassin’s Creed and the Knights Templar (though this time for the Apple of Eden and not the Pieces of Eden). In short, much of the movie will be familiar to anyone who’s played at least one of the games.

Secondly though, if you’re not a gamer, and this is all new to you, then you might find yourself less impressed by all of the above, and more concerned as to why many of the narrative elements don’t make any sense whatsoever. Take the manner in which Callum Lynch (Fassbender) is co-opted by Abstergo Industries into their genetic memory programme: about to be executed for murder, he’s strapped down and about to be given a lethal injection. He blacks out and when he comes to he’s in Abstergo’s complex outside Madrid. Dramatic, eh? Well, not really. We all know Lynch can’t be killed off so early in the movie, so why all the Death Row stuff? Why have him on Death Row at all? We see him running away from the Knights Templar when he’s a young boy; why not have him captured after being on the run (albeit for thirty years – which begs the further question: why did Abstergo take so long)? If you can think of a really good reason for any of this, please let director Justin Kurzel and his screenwriters, Michael Lesslie, Adam Cooper and Bill Collage know, so they can maybe put together Assassin’s Creed – The Recut.

Obscure narrative decisions aside (let’s not even think about the woolly-minded inclusion of Lynch’s dad as an old man (Gleeson), a subplot that hints of excised scenes that might have explained it all a bit more), Assassin’s Creed is a video game adaptation that makes the same basic mistakes that every other unsuccessful video game adaptation makes: it lacks emotion and characters we can care about. Despite the best efforts of all concerned, Callum is just another stereotype whose aptitude for violence (in the pursuit of peace, no less) is exploited to the fullest time and time again. As for Cotillard’s character, the outwardly concerned and considerate scientist, Dr Sofia Rikkin, her attempts at showing sympathy for Lynch’s predicament remain unconvincing throughout, as if it was the only trait the screenwriters could come up with, so often is it trotted out. And if there’s a badly hidden riddle that the movie fails to address, it’s why employ an actress of Cotillard’s calibre, and then give her a supporting role with so little to do?

As frustrating as much of the movie is, Assassin’s Creed does impress with its action scenes, though even then there are caveats. These scenes are carved up into tiny bite-sized pieces – scraps, if you like – by the kind of rapid-fire editing that obscures what’s going on and who’s doing exactly what to whom, and makes it all too difficult to follow. There’s a tremendous amount of athleticism on display here, and Fassbender is a part of some of it, but overall his stunt double is put through his paces as Lynch’s Spanish ancestor, Aguilar de Nerha, hurtles over rooftops and engages in plenty of Dark Ages fisticuffs. It’s all done at breakneck speed but exciting as these sequences are – and they are – the editing gets in the way. The sequences are certainly kinetic, but with editor Christopher Tellefsen determined to make everything go by in a blur, and Kurzel apparently happy with the way these fight sequences look, what should be impressive, awe-inspiring and crowd-pleasing stuff lacks the true impetus that would elevate them to a point where every viewer is saying to themselves, “Good God, wow!” Instead you can applaud the effort that’s gone into assembling them, but that’s as far as it goes.

In between the action sequences, Kurzel and his cast get bogged down by endless reams of exposition, while subplots build quietly in the background. Fassbender does what he can but this isn’t one of his best performances, largely because the script gives him very little to be getting on with (though to be fair it’s the action that’s important, not the characters). Irons is an unsurprising bad guy, Rampling and Gleeson are brought in for five minutes apiece, and the likes of Williams, Ménochet and Davis have to make do with roles that are even more underwritten than the main ones. Only Labed makes a real impression, as Maria, one of Aguilar’s fellow assassins; against the odds she stands out where everyone else seems to fade into Andy Nicholson’s murky production design.

If all this makes it sound as if Assassin’s Creed is an awful movie that deserves to be avoided, then that’s not strictly true. It’s just that with all the talent involved, this particular video game adaptation stood a good chance of bucking the trend and actually working on its own merits. That it doesn’t is an indication – as if it were needed – that video games are incredibly difficult to adapt for the big screen, and it’s likely they always will be. But if you go into this with an open mind and don’t expect too much from it, there’s a lot to enjoy; it’s just that what’s on display isn’t as exciting or as fresh and rewarding as its makers will have intended.

Rating: 5/10 – another missed opportunity, Assassin’s Creed adds itself to the ever growing pile of video game adaptations that have fallen way short of matching the success of their original incarnations; having set things up for a sequel, the makers will have to find a better way than this to bring audiences back for another rousing adventure in history, and retain the services of Kurzel, Fassbender and Cotillard.

10 Reasons to Remember Om Puri (1950-2017)

06 Friday Jan 2017

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Actor, Career, East Is East, India, Om Puri

Om Puri (18 October 1950 – 6 January 2017)

The third actor to be taken from us so far in 2017 (after Argentinian actor Luis Mazzeo and Syrian actor, writer and director Rafiq Subaie), Om Puri will be best known to Western audiences as the immigrant fish and chip shop owner living in Bradford and trying to keep his Anglicized children from continually ignoring their heritage in East Is East (1999) and its predictably titled sequel West Is West (2010). He had a blunt physicality in later years that belied a sharp intelligence as an actor, and if Western movie makers didn’t quite know what to do with him other than cast him as an overbearing patriarch, then it was their loss, as he made many, many movies in India that showcased his varied talents as an actor. That many of them remain unseen outside of India is a shame, as Puri was a phenomenal talent who added lustre to each project he was involved with. For once, putting together a list of just ten movies to represent an actor’s career is really difficult, as with around three hundred roles and movies to choose from, and with Puri often in a category all his own in terms of performances, it’s entirely likely that some performances will be left out that perhaps shouldn’t be. That’s a testament to the man and his career, and his indelible contribution to Asian cinema.

1 – Aakrosh (1980)

2 – Bhavni Bhavai (1980)

3 – Ardh Satya (1983)

4 – Mirch Masala (1987)

5 – City of Joy (1992)

6 – Maachis (1996)

7 – East Is East (1999)

8 – AK 47 (1999)

9 – Dhoop (2003)

10 – Road to Sangam (2010)

John Travolta’s Top 10 Movies at the International Box Office

06 Friday Jan 2017

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Actor, Career, International Box Office, John Travolta, Movies, Top 10

The career of John Joseph Travolta has had its fair share of ups and downs (though in recent years it’s consisted mostly of downs). Inhabiting the strange netherworld of DtV movies nowadays, Travolta seems to be flitting from one career-killing project to another with no apparent concern for his legacy as an actor (something that could be attributed to a lot of other actors as well – eh, Nicolas Cage?). But overall, Travolta has had a great career, and appeared in several modern classics over the years, and this is reflected in the movies that make up the list below. The most recent movie in the list may be from 2008, but a recent return to form in The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story (2016) hopefully will see the tide turn. But if it doesn’t, we’ll still have all these great movies to remember him by.

10 – Broken Arrow (1996) – $150,270,147

John Woo + John Travolta + Christian Slater + more exploding helicopters than you can shake an AK-47 at = a hundred and eight minutes of loud, dumb, spectacular fun. Not the greatest of movies on Travolta’s CV, nevertheless Broken Arrow is hugely enjoyable in a crass, leave-your-brain-at-the-door kind of way, and should best be looked on as a guilty pleasure. It features Travolta hamming it up like crazy (and smoking in the most affected way ever seen on screen), and delivering one of action cinema’s most memorable lines (courtesy of Speed scribe Graham Yost): “Would you mind not shooting at the thermonuclear weapons?”

9 – Phenomenon (1996) – $152,036,382

In the year that also saw Travolta play an angel in Michael, Phenomenon gave us a chance to see him as, possibly, the recipient of a gift from God. Newly imbued with super-intelligence and telekinesis after seeing a bright light in the sky, Travolta’s ordinary Joe becomes an object of fascination, and notions of faith arise too. It’s an uneven movie, but Travolta is good in the central role of George, and if the whole thing falls apart by the end it’s not because of bad intentions, but purely because the script paints itself into a corner it can’t get out of.

8 – Hairspray (2007) – $202,548,575

John Waters + John Travolta in a female body suit + song and dance numbers = one of Travolta’s most enjoyable movies. He may not have been everyone’s first choice for Edna Turnblad, but Travolta gives one of his most relaxed and engaging performances alongside “hubbie” Christopher Walken. A movie bursting with energy and giddy vitality, Hairspray is still as vibrant today as it was ten years ago, and Travolta is a big part of why that’s the case, reminding us that he can still move it and groove it.

7 – Pulp Fiction (1994) – $213,928,762

Quentin Tarantino’s second movie has been pulled part, analysed from the first frame to the last, and generally obsessed over by critics and fans alike ever since its release. It’s simply an incredible breath of fresh cinematic air, and remains a true one of kind over twenty years later. It’s also the movie that brought Travolta back in out of the cold after a career slowdown that had left those same critics and fans wondering if he’d ever get his career back on track after a string of duds that included Two of a Kind (1983) and Chains of Gold (1991). In terms of his performance, it’s arguable that he’s never been better, and his scenes with Uma Thurman are as mesmerising now as they were back then.

6 – Saturday Night Fever (1977) – $237,113,184

The movie that brought Travolta everlasting fame, Saturday Night Fever is a gritty wish-fulfilment tale that’s become overshadowed by its soundtrack, but forty years on it still has a power and a coarse energy that keeps it feeling fresh and not just a time capsule look at an era now long gone. Travolta is so convincing as Tony Manero that you can’t imagine anyone else playing the role, and though it spawned a million and one parodies – the best being in Airplane! (1980) – that white suit and Travolta’s defiant strutting, both on and off the dancefloor, are still as iconic as ever.

5 – Face/Off (1997) – $245,676,146

John Woo given (nearly) free rein + John Travolta + Nicolas Cage + more mayhem and carnage than you can shake a church full of doves at = an even barmier and over the top movie than Broken Arrow. Face/Off is one of the maddest, strangest, but totally enjoyable action movies of the Nineties. Woo directs as if he doesn’t care how looney it all is, and Travolta – along with his future DtV compatriot Cage – goes along for the ride, hamming it up as much as he can and having a whale of a time. He’s out there, and he wants you to come with him… and how can you refuse?

4 – Wild Hogs (2007) – $253,625,427

At this point, you might be saying to yourself, “Wow! Really? Wild Hogs? Over two hundred and fifty million? How did that happen?” And on the surface, you’d be right, but dig a little deeper and the movie has some (well) hidden depths, as well as a quartet of hugely enjoyable performances, including Travolta as the de facto leader of the Hogs. It’s an undemanding movie, but Travolta is easy-going (even when playing uptight) and immensely likeable, and when his character gets easily flustered, it’s a sight to see – purely because it’s a trait he rarely gets to display elsewhere. One to file under Don’t Knock It If You Haven’t Seen It, and a lot funnier and warm-hearted than you’d expect.

3 – Look Who’s Talking (1989) – $296,999,813

The first of three – Travolta appears in all of them – Look Who’s Talking was a surprise box office success back in 1989, but though the basic premise is clever: baby expresses his thoughts and feelings as he would if he were an adult (and with Bruce Willis’s voice), the movie is genuinely funny, and has a lot of heart, making it easy to like. Travolta plays a more charming version of Tony Manero, and there’s a definite chemistry with Kirstie Alley that allows Travolta to show he can do a straightforward romantic role as well. Now if only they’d left things well alone and not made two more movies…

2 – Bolt (2008) – $309,979,994

To date, Bolt is Travolta’s second and last animated movie, after Our Friend, Martin (1999). Unfairly overlooked when it was first released, there’s a lot to be said for the first movie that John Lasseter oversaw upon jumping ship from Pixar to Disney, not the least of which is the unexpectedly inspired choice of Travolta as the title pooch. He’s clearly having fun with the role, and that comes across in his performance; which begs the question, why hasn’t he made more animated movies? Whatever the reason, Travolta is definitely one of the main reasons for the movie’s success, and his performance more than justifies the producers’ making him first choice for the role all along.

1 – Grease (1978) – $394,955,690

As the Kurgan (Clancy Brown) put it in Highlander (1986), “There can be only one”, and sure enough it had to be Grease. Even if you’re not a fan of musicals, you have to admire the sheer exuberance and exhilaration of the dance sequences that make up most of Grease‘s allure, along with its way-too-catchy songs and endlessly quotable dialogue (“Let’s hear it for the toilet paper!”). As the belligerent/charming Danny Zuko, Travolta makes a virtue (of sorts) of thrusting his hips as often as he can in Olivia Newton-John’s direction, as well as looking out of his depth, and all with a virile swagger that recalls any number of teenagers from those Sixties beach movies. A great performance in a classic musical, pure and simple.

Kids in Love (2016)

05 Thursday Jan 2017

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Alma Jodorowsky, Cara Delevingne, Chris Foggin, Comedy, Drama, Jamie Blackley, Love, Preston Thompson, Relationships, Review, Romance, Romantic drama, Sebastian De Souza, Will Poulter

D: Chris Foggin / 87m

Cast: Will Poulter, Alma Jodorowsky, Jamie Blackley, Sebastian De Souza, Preston Thompson, Cara Delevingne, Gala Gordon, Geraldine Somerville, Pip Torrens

Ahhh… to be young and in love… Movies about teenagers attempting to deal with their feelings when in the flush of first love are plentiful, so any new movie trying to tell such a well established story needs to bring something new to the table. Kids in Love, co-scripted by co-stars De Souza and Thompson, does its best but while it’s enjoyable enough and features a terrific performance from Poulter, the drama is lacking and the romance is too bittersweet.

Poulter plays Jack, heading off to university but taking a gap year to travel to South America with his best friend, Tom (Blackley), and take up an internship at a law firm. His life seems set on its course: gap year, university, work as a lawyer (probably marriage and 2.4 children), but Jack is a little restless. He’s not sure he wants the life his parents (Somerville, Torrens) expect of him, but he doesn’t know how to change things. With doubt nagging away at the back of his mind, fate steps in in the form of French girl, Evelyn (Jodorowsky). Carefree and open-minded, she’s the antithesis of the girls Jack knows, and when she invites him to drop in anytime at a bar she frequents, he’s quick to take up the offer.

Through Evelyn and her group of friends – Cassius (Thompson), Viola (Delevingne) and Elena (Gordon) – Jack is introduced to a world that completely alters the way he views his own life. Free-spirited and seemingly impervious to the more mundane aspects of everyday life, Evelyn et al pursue and enjoy a never-ending party-style existence where responsibility is positively discouraged. Jack finds himself being won over by this hedonistic lifestyle, so much so that his home life and friendship with Tom begins to falter. Smitten with Evelyn – though she has a boyfriend, Milo (De Souza) – Jack spends more and more of his time with this new group of friends he’s made, and in the process he tells Tom he doesn’t go to South America anymore, and he quits the internship before he even starts.

He also learns something about Milo that Evelyn doesn’t know about, but resists telling her. Making the decision to leave home, he heads for Viola and Elena’s place (where everyone hangs out during the day) hoping to crash there, and arrives just as Evelyn and Milo have had a huge row. Viola suggests the two of them get away for a while at her family’s place in the country. Jack and Evelyn take off, but when they arrive, their first night alone together leads to what may well prove to be a mistake that ruins their relationship irrevocably.

Again, movies about young love are plentiful, and Kids in Love, though made with an obvious amount of care and thought, still manages to fall short in its aspirations. That’s because there are only so many ways you can make a compelling story out of “boy-meets-girl, boy-falls-in-love-with-girl, girl-loves-boyfriend, boy-waits-for-chance-to-be-with-girl” and make it seem fresh. To be fair, it appears that co-writers Thompson and De Souza are aware of this, which is why it’s a shame that the movie isn’t more successful in achieving its aims, but given the path they’ve taken narratively, it’s not surprising. And while Jack is engaging and enjoyable company – thanks in no small measure to Poulter’s winning performance – Evelyn is the enigma that he, and the audience, have to contend with.

By making Evelyn so “complex” – or awkward, depending on your point of view – Thompson and De Souza paint themselves and the character into a corner. Her relationship with Milo is clearly an unequal one, and he’s abusive towards her at almost every opportunity. The script never manages to explain why she stays with him, or why an alternative life/relationship with Jack is so impossible. Without these distinctions, Evelyn’s interest in Jack becomes a convenience that keeps the storyline going, but which proves frustrating for the audience. And any prolonged interest in Jack’s pursuit of her – which means his looking forlornly at her at every opportunity – wears thin also. In the end it’s a relationship you can’t actually root for.

With the central romance lacking the necessary spark to keep it interesting, the audience has to look for distractions elsewhere. Thankfully, Thompson and De Souza do manage to make the carefree, wild-child lifestyle of Jack’s new friends look and sound like something we’d all want to be a part of, and though things never get too hedonistic (the beginnings of a threesome in a bathroom is the closest it gets), there aren’t any darker strands involving drugs either. Milo’s “occupation” is the nearest the movie gets to being edgy or upsetting, and even then it’s all over in the blink of a scene. Add to that a clumsy “break up” between Jack and Tom (“Why are you in my room, Tom?”), and you can appreciate that Thompson and De Souza’s inexperience as writers is the movie’s biggest handicap.

Overseeing it all is first-time feature director Foggin. Best known as third assistant director on movies such as The Iron Lady (2011) and The World’s End (2013), Foggin exercises a steady control over the material but keeps things bland and unremarkable for the most part, and there are certain scenes that should be much more affecting and dramatic than they actually are. It’s not hard to watch overall, and Foggin is helped by good performances all round, especially from Poulter who makes Jack’s initial, unaffected nervousness a joy to behold, but when everything is put together the movie lacks cohesion or a central relationship that is strong enough to carry the rest of the material along with it. In fact, sometimes it feels very much like it’s the other way round.

Rating: 6/10 – an appealing, funny, low-key movie with lively performances and a good sense of the milieu it wants to portray, Kids in Love nevertheless falls short of being the terrific little charmer it should have been; that said, it’s still head and shoulders over most of the low budget movies being made in the UK, and it at least tries, something that on this occasion, should be applauded.

Mini-Review: The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015)

04 Wednesday Jan 2017

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Dev Patel, Drama, Jeremy Irons, Mathematics, Matthew Brown, Partitions, Proofs, Review, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Trinity College, True story, World War I

D: Matthew Brown / 108m

Cast: Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons, Devika Bhise, Toby Jones, Jeremy Northam, Kevin McNally, Richard Johnson, Anthony Calf, Raghuvir Joshi, Stephen Fry

Madras, India, 1914. Humble clerk Srinivasa Ramanujan (Patel) has a special affinity for mathematics; he can see formulas in his head, and he can write them down without having to pause or check what he’s writing. Spurred on by his employer, he writes to the British mathematician, and professor at Trinity College, Cambridge, G.H. Hardy (Irons). Hardy is impressed enough to pay for Ramanujan’s passage to England, and with a promise of ensuring the young Indian’s work is published. Once at the college however, Ramanujan finds himself pressed to explain just how his formulas work. Hardy needs him to provide “proofs” – how he works things out – but at first it’s an alien concept that Ramanujan fights against.

Back in Madras, Ramanujan’s wife, Janaki (Bhise) is reliant on his letters for news of when she can travel to be with him. But his jealous mother, Narasimha (Joshi), hides his letters and confiscates hers. In England, his wife’s apparent silence adds to his further woes: experiencing institutionalised racism, the delays in being published, and the onset of tuberculosis. As he struggles to meet the demands that Hardy imposes, Ramanujan begins to feel despair at the thought that all his theories and formulas will die with him. It’s only when he and Hardy challenge another member of the faculty, Major MacMahon (McNally), over partitions, that his work begins to be recognised, and his position as a gifted mathematician is guaranteed.

A true story about a most remarkable man, The Man Who Knew Infinity is a fairly standard biopic that benefits greatly from the participation of Patel and Irons, both of whom give strong, inspiring performances, and from the work of production designer Luciana Arrighi Rajeevan, who recreates the period covering World War I with style and attention to detail. Beyond this, though, this is very much a standard tale of one remarkable man’s struggle to be heard and understood against an environment that appears unable to entertain original thought. There are many such stories throughout history, and many have been into serviceable movies, and while The Man Who Knew Infinity is certainly an interesting story, it’s too similar to many other stories to have much of an impact.

Partly this is due to the period of time over which the movie takes place – six years – which leaves the narrative necessarily fragmented. As a result, Ramanujan’s story feels incomplete, with too many scenes that are replays of earlier ones (Hardy’s insistence on proofs is played out on several occasions). The movie isn’t too subtle in depicting the racism of the time, doling out exactly the kind of scenes you’d expect to see in a movie such as this – Ramanujan is verbally abused, physically assaulted, and generally despised by the majority of the teaching staff – and there’s the classic movie moment where after a number of scenes where Ramanujan is prone to coughing fits, he finally coughs up blood into a handkerchief. Watching the movie, you can practically predict every beat of the narrative, and every advance in the material. But on a basic level it remains entirely watchable – just don’t expect too much from it.

Rating: 6/10 – an inspiring tale told with a minimum of passion, The Man Who Knew Infinity relies on a number of biopic clichés in telling its story, and in doing so, dulls the drama inherent in Ramanujan’s life; boasting two clever, intelligent central performances, and often glorious cinematography by Larry Smith, the movie feels as if it was aiming for more, but didn’t quite have the resources to achieve it – but at least it tried.

Indignation (2016)

03 Tuesday Jan 2017

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Drama, James Schamus, Korean War, Literary adaptation, Logan Lerman, Philip Roth, Religion, Review, Romance, Sarah Gadon, Tracy Letts, Winesburg

D: James Schamus / 111m

Cast: Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, Tracy Letts, Linda Emond, Danny Burstein, Philip Ettinger, Ben Rosenfield, Pico Alexander, Noah Robbins

In New Jersey in the early Fifties, Marcus Messner (Lerman), the son of a local butcher, has been awarded a scholarship to attend Winesburg College in Ohio. His father (Burstein) is over-protective and fearful that something will happen to Marcus when he’s there, but Marcus is having none of it; he can’t wait to get away. At Winesburg he finds himself boarding with two other Jewish students, Ron Foxman (Ettinger) and Bertram Flusser (Rosenfield). He throws himself into his studies, takes on a job at the college library, and generally keeps himself to himself. He doesn’t socialise, and when he’s offered a chance to join a largely Jewish fraternity, he refuses.

Marcus is drawn out of his self-contained world by the presence of Olivia Hutton (Gadon), an elegant fellow student he’s immediately attracted to. He plucks up the courage to ask her out on a date; at the evening’s end, Olivia surprises him by doing something so unexpected that he doesn’t know what to think of Olivia, or how to assimilate what happened within his limited experience of girls. He decides to avoid Olivia while he comes to a decision about how he feels, but this has the consequence of Olivia believing he doesn’t like her. Simmering tensions with his roommates come to a head in the meantime, and his decision to find alternative lodging within the college brings him to the attention of the dean, Hawes D. Caudwell (Letts). During a meeting between them, the conversation becomes heated, with Marcus decrying some of Winesburg’s traditions, including the mandatory attendance of chapel each week, especially as Marcus regards himself as an atheist. As he attempts to leave, he collapses and ends up in hospital thanks to a ruptured appendix.

Olivia makes several visits, and their relationship develops further. She reveals a secret about herself, one that complicates matters when he receives a visit from his mother (Emond) as well. The two women are introduced to each other, which makes an initially nervous Marcus quite happy. But his mother warns him that he should have nothing further to do with Olivia, a piece of advice that he ignores once he’s allowed out of the hospital. But his pursuit of Olivia, and his making a foolish decision in relation to attending chapel, leads to another encounter with the Dean, one that will have far-reaching consequences.

Adaptations of novels by Philip Roth have proven a mixed bunch in recent years, with the likes of Elegy (2008) and The Humbling (2014) receiving a lukewarm welcome with critics and audiences alike. And at first, Indignation seems as if it’s going to buck the trend of its predecessors. It opens with a sequence set during the Korean War, with Korean soldiers attempting to kill a US soldier. The soldier appears to avoid being killed, and we’re then transported to Newark and the funeral of a young Jewish soldier. We meet Marcus, fresh-faced, and anxious to get away from the stifling attention of his father. He’s well-liked in the neighbourhood, obviously bright, and will be the first Messner to attend college. It’s a neat, concise set up, and writer-director Schamus introduces us to the Messners and their milieu with a minimum of effort and a maximum of probity.

Once at Winesburg, though, and Schamus’s efforts begin to unravel. Marcus becomes a withdrawn, mirthless individual, and not without a degree of arrogance about his manner. This change of character is disturbing, as it challenges the viewer’s ability to feel sympathy for Marcus as the movie unfolds. His interaction with his fellow roommates borders on petulant, while he pursues Olivia with an eagerness that borders on obsession (he’s won over by the sight of her bare leg dangling over the arm of a chair). Only his inexperience with girls and obvious social naïvete spares him from being regarded as a jerk, but it’s a close run thing. His dismay at Olivia’s behaviour only adds to the impression of Marcus as a bemused but intolerant, shallow young man, and Schamus doesn’t do enough to offset that belief with anything more convincing or conclusive.

The encounter between Marcus and Dean Caudwell is the movie’s highlight, a near-fifteen minute masterclass in screen acting and writing that eclipses everything that comes before and after it. It’s somewhat of a shame that the scene is that good, because it exposes Marcus’s contempt for the college, and his disaffection with everything around him. This is where the “indignation” of the title is supposed to be revealed, from Marcus being made to do things that he doesn’t like or want to do (like join a fraternity), and railing against them. But Marcus’s indignation is misplaced and misappropriated; he’s an angry young man fighting for what he believes is just and right, but based on too little experience of life and the demands it can make on a person. He’s the classic angry young man/anti-authority figure, cocksure and heading for a fall.

And so it plays out, with Schamus guiding Marcus – and the viewer – to an inevitable downfall, one where Roth, via Schamus, reveals the truth behind Marcus’s animosity: that he’s the victim of his own poor choices, and has no one else to blame but himself. There’s a wider argument: that when we make decisions we do so mostly without giving those decisions proper consideration, and Marcus’s story is a perfect example. But in adapting Roth’s novel, Schamus – known as a screenwriter and making his directorial debut here – pares back the drama so that there are long stretches where Marcus’s search for recognition (of his needs in others) occupies too much screen time. The tentative romance between Marcus and Olivia is also an issue, as Olivia’s dialogue is almost entirely given over to evasive, tissue-thin comments about relationships, and sidestepping questions about herself. And there’s a grim inevitability to it all that Schamus isn’t able to hide or exploit, despite the tragedy that surrounds her.

Thankfully, Schamus is well-served by his cast. Lerman, who despite appearances in movies such as Noah (2014) and Fury (2014), still carries the aura of being Percy Jackson with him, here embraces Marcus’s faults and growing cynicism with such confidence that it’s perhaps his most intuitive and perceptive performance to date. He’s not able to engender too much sympathy as Marcus, but perhaps that’s the point, that Marcus shouldn’t be too likeable, because if he was, his attitude and displeasure with college life (and much else) wouldn’t be as strident. In support, Gadon is radiant, her blonde hair, marbled skin and ruby red lips – such perfection – covering a damaged soul whose emotional needs are unlikely to ever be met. And then there’s Letts, his stern yet worryingly blank features proving the perfect foil for Lerman’s anguished expressions in their mid-movie encounter, his stillness and slightly menacing approach to his dialogue adding unexpected layers to the performance.

While Indignation does touch on elements and notions of anti-semitism, sexual mores, and the wider political and social worries of the time, including the shadow of the Korean War, at its heart it’s the story of a broken romance. Marcus and Olivia are a good match, one of them with too little experience of the world, one with too much; one of them has yet to make any real, life-changing decisions in their life, the other has made one too many. Again, as Roth says, it all comes down to choices, and when we make them, how we respond when they don’t work out. The consequence for Marcus can be seen at the movie’s end, and if there’s a degree of justice in that consequence, then should we be surprised?

Rating: 7/10 – with too many of its source novel’s subtleties and nuances jettisoned in favour of a more straightforward retelling, Indignation doesn’t have the impact that it should, and as a result, it only delivers emotionally and/or dramatically on a few, isolated occasions; bolstered by a trio of very good performances, and a feel for the period that helps ground the narrative, the movie struggles to make you care about Marcus or his “indignation”, and is only gripping when Marcus and the Dean go toe to toe.

Silence (2016)

02 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Adam Driver, Andrew Garfield, Buddhism, Christianity, Drama, Historical drama, Issei Ogata, Japan, Liam Neeson, Literary adaptation, Martin Scorsese, Religion, Remake, Review, Shûsaku Endô, Tadanobu Asano

D: Martin Scorsese / 161m

Cast: Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Tadanobu Asano, Issei Ogata, Liam Neeson, Shin’ya Tsukamoto, Yoshi Oiza, Yôsuke Kubozuka, Ciarán Hinds

Seventeenth century Portugal: news has reached the Jesuit ministry that a missionary to Japan, Father Ferreira (Neeson), has renounced his faith and embraced not only the Japanese way of life, but their Buddhist teachings as well. Two of his pupils, Father Rodrigues (Garfield) and Father Garrpe (Driver), believing the news to be unsubstantiated rumour, are tasked with travelling to Japan and learning for themselves if the news is true. Needing a guide to help keep them safe once in Japan – the Japanese are persecuting anyone who promotes or follows the Christian faith – the two priests enlist the aid of Kichijiro (Kubozuka), a man whose contact with Christianity in his homeland has left him with a variety of personal demons.

Once in Japan, Rodrigues and Garupe soon discover how dangerous it is to be associated with Christianity. They witness the torture and murder of several villagers who have taken up the Christian faith, and are kept in hiding so that they don’t fall victim as well. They decide it will be safer for both of them if they split up, and make it easier to continue their search for Father Ferreira. But Rodrigues is soon captured. He’s assigned an interpreter (Asano), and is kept under the watchful eye of the local Inquisitor, Inoue-sama (Ogata). It soon transpires that Inoue wants Rodrigues to apostatize (renounce his belief in God) by stepping on an image of Christ. By this token, any Japanese who have been practicing Christianity will be allowed to live, and so will Rodrigues. Despite witnessing more atrocities, Rodrigues holds firm in his belief, even though his prayers remain frustratingly unanswered.

Rodrigues’ faith is tested time and again, and Inoue continually informs him of the obstacles that Christianity will always face in becoming established in Japan. Despair begins to set in when Garrpe is also found and his fate determined by an act of valour. For Rodrigues it’s the first of several turning points, all designed to bring him to the point of apostatizing, but when he finally comes face to face with Father Ferreira, instead of the encounter reaffirming his faith and his weakening determination to stand firm against the violence perpetrated by his captors, the priest finds himself even more stranded, both in terms of his faith and his emotions. With Inoue’s tactics beginning to finally wear him down, Rodrigues finds himself having to decide which is more important: his life and the lives of others, or his faith.

An adaptation of the novel by Shûsaku Endô (and previously made in 1971 by Masahiro Shinoda), Silence has been a project that Martin Scorsese has been looking to make for around thirty years. Passion projects don’t always turn out so well for their makers, their closeness to the material producing a kind of tunnel vision that filters out any flaws, but with this, Scorsese has made a riveting movie about faith, religious idealism, and agonising self-doubt. It’s a measured, deliberately paced movie that is unlikely to satisfy everyone who sees it, but if you give yourself over to it, then it’s a movie that will reward you over and over again.

It opens with a blank screen and a cacophony of natural sounds including insects that builds to a crescendo before we see the title displayed briefly, and then the picture cuts to a medium shot of two severed heads resting on a piece of wood. It’s an arresting opening, and what follows isn’t for the faint hearted as Christian converts are tortured and left to die, with Neeson’s anguished priest looking on. This is the backdrop the movie keeps returning to, the resolute dispassion with which the Japanese treat all Christians in their country unless they apostatize themselves. And this is the very cauldron of hate that Fathers Rodrigues and Garrpe throw themselves into thanks to their naivete and, it must be acknowledged, no small degree of religious arrogance. And it’s not long before they, and the viewer, realise that they’re out of their depth.

A major part of the narrative is taken up with the argument that Christianity has no place in the Japan of the seventeenth century, that the country’s Buddhist principles, although sharing many similar facets and ideas with the Christian faith, will never be superseded. Scorsese and co-writer Jay Cocks make much of this battle for hearts and minds, and the script is often eloquent on the subject, highlighting not the differences between Christianity and Buddhism, but their similarities. And the Japanese argument for religious isolationism has its merits when stood up against the arrogant assumption that the Japanese need Christianity to make their lives better. But while all this makes the argument sound quite a simple one, Scorsese and Cocks are also aware that faith – which can apparently move mountains – can also be stubbornly resistant to notions of change. Thus, Rodrigues endures physical torture and mental anguish, and has to be broken psychologically by Inoue (aided by the interpreter’s cruel barbs).

It’s always a difficult matter showing religious faith on screen without the characters seeming like zealots. Thanks to Scorsese’s meticulous direction, and Garfield’s magnificent central performance, Silence isn’t burdened by any notions of extreme religious belief, and nor is it hampered by too much exposition. Rodrigues’ and Garrpe’s mission is, on the face of it, a simple one, but as strangers in a strange land they underestimate their ability to make a difference. All they have is their belief in God, and it strengthens them. But when Rodrigues begins to doubt that God is even listening to his prayers, then it’s only a matter of time before that belief will be tested, and how strong that belief really is. Scorsese keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat, piling on the pressure, but in such a way that you don’t know which way Rodrigues will fall: back into renewed faith, or forward into religious exclusion.

With the religious and cultural backdrops firmly established throughout, Scorsese refrains from adding the political upheaval Japan was experiencing at the time, and which played such a heavy part in the country’s rejection of the Christian faith. It’s a wise move, as the narrative isn’t about politics per se, but Inoue makes an important point at one stage, likening Spain, Portugal, Holland and England to the four courtesans of a king who wisely sends them away to guarantee himself a quiet life. The question is, why should Japan open its borders to other countries and see its lifestyle and traditions trampled upon? Again, Scorsese keeps the material focused on the battle for the hearts and minds of the Japanese people, and the audacity of the Jesuits for believing they could, and should, undermine a foreign culture.

Away from ideas of faith and religious fundamentalism, Silence is also a quietly beautiful movie to watch, with almost painting-like vistas and compositions delicately brought to the screen by the extraordinary combination of Rodrigo Pietro’s exquisite cinematography, Thelma Schoonmaker’s matchless editing skills, and Dante Ferretti’s outstanding production and costume designs. This is organic movie making at its best, a never-ending feast for the senses that’s rounded off by a lilting, elegant score courtesy of Kathryn and Kim Allen Kluge. And then there’s the performances. Garfield – maybe not everyone’s first choice for the lead role – impresses at every step, giving a passionate, despairing portrayal of a man facing a seemingly impossible choice: renounce God (and himself), or be complicit in the deaths of potentially thousands of people. Garfield is growing in stature as an actor, and with this and Hacksaw Ridge (2016) under his belt, is heading for the A-list at a rate of knots. He’s ably supported by Driver (though he doesn’t have a lot of screen time), a slyly vindictive turn from Asano, and Ogata’s distinctive, hypnotic, somewhat casual portrayal of a man who uses physical and psychological torture to ensure his country’s religious status quo. As for Neeson, his presence is necessarily limited, but when he is on screen, his appearance serves as a reminder that, outside out of certain recent movies he’s appeared in, he’s more than capable of giving a nuanced and intuitive performance.

As mentioned above, and at 161 minutes, Silence and its subject matter will no doubt put off some potential viewers, and it’s likely that many who do see it will not be swayed by its content, or Scorsese’s approach to the material. But this really is the work of a director operating at a very high level indeed, and his confidence and expertise is there in every scene and every shot. It’s a rare movie that examines religious morality and personal faith with such authority and poise, but Scorsese has pulled it off, and with no small measure of style.

Rating: 9/10 – superb on just about every level (only Garfield’s wandering accent is any cause for annoyance or concern), Silence is a demanding yet rewarding watch made by a director whose engagement with the material is masterful; a devastating movie about ideas that is intelligent and precise in its meanings, this is a very (very) early contender for Movie of the Year.

2016 – A Review

01 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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10 Best movies, 10 Highest Grossing Movies Worldwide, 10 Worst movies, 2016, 2017, Disney, International Box Office, Marvel, Posters, Review

If 2016 had to be summed up in one word, that word would be: Nooooooooo!!

Time and time again we were led up the proverbial garden path, promised so much, and by studios and production companies who must have known that their promises were emptier than the mind of a Republican voter on November 8. Sequels and remakes and reboots that nobody wanted clogged up our multiplexes and taught us to run for the hills in search of movies that didn’t play to the common denominator, and which wouldn’t treat us like sheep.

But luckily there were enough movies that fit that particular bill, and so 2016 wasn’t a total bust, and even though there are many who feel that 2016 was a good year for movies, the negative reaction that surrounded releases such as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Ghostbusters (to name but two) was a clear indication that the public wasn’t buying everything they were being told or sold. Inevitably, there was the battle between fans of Marvel and DC about whose product was the best, but it was a waste of time and data bytes: the problem for DC is that Marvel know exactly what they’re doing, and Warner Bros. (who are overseeing the DC Extended Universe) absolutely and positively don’t.

But aside from the continuing glut of superhero movies we were “treated” to, it was Disney’s year, with the top four highest grossing movies worldwide all being Disney-backed productions. The House of Mouse, in acquiring Pixar, and Marvel, and Lucasfilm, has put itself firmly on top of the pile in Hollywood, and there’s no likelihood of anyone toppling them anytime soon. That’s not necessarily a good thing, perhaps, but fortunately for Disney – and for us – they seem to know what they’re doing, and the high ranking for Zootopia is a perfect example.

10 Highest Grossing Movies Worldwide in 2016

10 – Rogue One – $706,054,705

9 – Suicide Squad – $745,600,054

8 – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – $772,540,251

7 – Deadpool – $783,112,979

6 – Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – $873,260,194

5 – The Secret Life of Pets – $875,457,937

4 – The Jungle Book – $966,550,600

3 – Zootopia – $1,023,784,195

2 – Finding Dory – $1,027,771,569

1 – Captain America: Civil War – $1,153,304,495

There were some surprise successes in 2016, with perhaps the top honours going to The Conjuring 2, a muddled, middling sequel that somehow managed to rake in over $300 million at the worldwide box office. Then there was Sully, Clint Eastwood’s under-rated re-telling of the Miracle on the Hudson, starring Tom Hanks and profitable to the tune of over $200 million. And also there was Don’t Breathe – made on a budget of $9.9 million and finding enough favour to bring in over $150 million. Conversely, there were several movies that proved unable to recoup even their production budgets, movies such as Snowden, Free State of Jones, and Keeping Up With the Joneses (though that shouldn’t be a surprise with the last one).

Looking ahead to 2017, there are enough superhero movies on the horizon for one of them to claim the top spot again, though which one is more open to debate than in 2016. Away from all the spandex, it’s even harder to predict which movies might break free of any box office preconceptions, though it would be hard to bet against the likes of War for the Planet of the Apes, or Dunkirk.

If there was one area where 2016 did excel, it was with its movie posters. There were some great examples seen throughout the year, and sometimes they were the best thing about the movies they were promoting (Alice Through the Looking Glass, for example). Here are six of the best:

If 2016 reminded us of any one thing it was that when movies are bad, they’re really bad. It was one thing to realise that the reboot of Ghostbusters was unlikely to work, but it was also unlikely anyone realised in advance just how unfunny it would be (except for maybe the cast and crew). Time and again, movies that were hyped to the skies and back again proved disappointing at best, and cruelly exposed at worst. Three sequels did their best to ride roughshod over their predecessors – even Ride Along (2014) is a far better movie in comparison with its sequel – and Anthony Hopkins appeared in a brace of “thrillers” that gave new meaning to the phrase “overwrought”. Elsewhere, Sacha Baron Cohen appeared contemptuous of his fans, the Earl of Greystoke was tasked with looking realistic against a constant backdrop of CGI vistas and jungle foliage, Blue Steel was shown to be a tired relic from fifteen years ago, Jackie Chan made one of the most poorly edited and assembled movies of the year, the Ghostbusters reboot had to rely on overseas ticket sales to recoup its budget, and the worst movie of the year – by a huge distance – trampled repeatedly over the legacy of one of British TV’s finest comedy series. What a year, indeed.

10 Worst Movies of 2016

10 – The Legend of Tarzan

9 – Ghostbusters

8 – Misconduct

7 – Zoolander 2

6 – Skiptrace

5 – Grimsby

4 – Ride Along 2

3 – Solace

2 – Independence Day: Resurgence

1 – Dad’s Army

To be fair, there were worse movies made and released in 2016, but it’s equally unfair to pick on the likes of, say, Steven Seagal – seven movies released, all of them bad – because his movies are made on modest budgets, with modest ambitions, and with a minimum of effort. They’re never going to be anything more than what they are, and weirdly, there’s a strange “nobility” in that. But the movie’s on the 10 Worst list aren’t made by the likes of Seagal or his direct-to-video compatriots, they’re made by people and studios with resources and actors and crews that should be able to make better movies. And the most annoying thing about it all? That they just don’t care, as long as we pay to see their movies.

Thank heavens then, that there were plenty of movies to shout about in 2016. All were varied, distinctive, and most importantly, able to connect with audiences on an emotional level – yes, even Captain America: Civil War. They were all beautifully shot, edited and assembled, provided enough thrills, laughs and teary-eyed moments for another twenty movies, and featured some amazing performances – step forward Amy Adams, Paula Beer, Julian Dennison, Kate Beckinsale, and Géza Röhrig. And if all that wasn’t impressive enough, the movie at Number One created its own visual and aural languages in order to tell its story, an incredible achievement at a time when the majority of movies made won’t take even the smallest of risks on their way to the screen.

10 Best Movies of 2016

10 – Love & Friendship

9 – Everybody Wants Some!!

8 – Kubo and the Two Strings

7 – Zootopia

6 – Captain America: Civil War

5 – Life, Animated

4 – Frantz

3 – Arrival

2 – Hunt for the Wilderpeople

1 – Son of Saul

Of course, Son of Saul was released in 2015, but with release dates as they are in the UK, it was never going to be seen back then. It’s likely that 2017 will see the same thing happen, and a movie (or maybe more) making their way into the Top 10. With the likes of Toni Erdmann and Elle still to be caught up with, as well as A Monster Calls and Silence newly arrived at UK cinemas, it’s encouraging that 2017 looks promising already.

Happy New Year!

31 Saturday Dec 2016

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2017, Happy New Year, thedullwoodexperiment

To everyone who’s visited thedullwoodexperiment during 2016, and especially those of you who’ve elected to follow the site, let me take this opportunity to thank you all, and wish you all a very Happy New Year. Have a great 2017, and may all your dreams and aspirations come to fruition.

Monthly Roundup – December 2016

31 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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50's sci-fi movie, A Perfect Man, Action, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Ana Girardot, Barry Sonnenfeld, Cameron Mitchell, Cat, Cell, Chandler Riggs, Christopher Walken, Comedy, David Tomlinson, Devil's Crag, Diana Dors, Drama, Edward Kemmer, Eliminators (2016), Flight to Mars, Frances O'Connor, Giant from the Unknown, Hard Target 2, Horror, Hostile takeover, Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary, James Bobin, James Nunn, Jennifer Garner, John Cusack, Johnny Depp, Kevin Spacey, Lesley Selander, Literary adaptation, Marguerite Chapman, Mars, Maurice Elvey, Mercy (2014), Mia Wasikowska, Murder, Myanmar, Nine Lives, Peter Cornwell, Pierre Niney, Reviews, Rhona Mitra, Richard E. Cunha, Robert Knepper, Roel Reiné, Sally Fraser, Samuel L. Jackson, Scott Adkins, Sequel, Shirley Knight, Stephen King, The Mad Hatter, The Red Queen, Thriller, Tod Williams, Vargas, Wade Barrett, Wonderland, WWE Films, Yann Gozlan

Cell (2016) / D: Tod Williams / 98m

Cast: John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Isabelle Fuhrman, Clark Sarullo, Ethan Andrew Casto, Owen Teague, Stacy Keach, Joshua Mikel

Rating: 4/10 – a mysterious cell phone signal turns people into crazed, zombie-like creatures, but one man (Cusack) is determined to find his son while society disintegrates around him; a Stephen King adaptation (and co-scripted by him), Cell is another reminder that his work rarely translates well to the screen, and this is no exception, being dramatically incoherent, a waste of its talented cast, and lumbered with an ending that makes absolutely no sense at all.

A Perfect Man (2015) / D: Yann Gozlan / 104m

Original title: Un homme idéal

Cast: Pierre Niney, Ana Girardot, André Marcon, Valéria Cavalli, Thibault Vinçon, Marc Barbé, Sacha Mijovic

Rating: 7/10 – aspiring author Mathieu Vasseur (Niney) isn’t getting anywhere until he finds an unpublished novel and claims it as his own, a move that leads to fame, fortune, blackmail, and ultimately, murder; a clever, twisty thriller that benefits from a splendidly nervous, anxious performance from Niney, A Perfect Man may have many familiar elements, but it’s a movie with a great deal of style, and it holds the attention in such a way that there are times when you won’t realise you’re holding your breath.

Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary (1953) / D: Maurice Elvey / 80m

Cast: David Tomlinson, Diana Dors, Bonar Colleano, Sidney James, Diana Decker, Audrey Freeman, MacDonald Parke

Rating: 5/10 – returning to the UK with his new bride (Decker), US soldier Laurie Vining (Colleano) is horrified to learn that he may still be married to his first wife, glamour girl Candy (Dors), a situation that leads to his desperately trying to avoid his new bride – or anyone else – from finding out; a bedroom farce based on a successful stage play, Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary has dated somewhat, but for fans of the cast and this type of Fifties UK comedy, there’s much to enjoy, from the frantic mugging of Colleano and Tomlinson, Elvey’s efficient direction, and a surprisingly nuanced performance from Dors.

Eliminators (2016) / D: James Nunn / 94m

Cast: Scott Adkins, Wade Barrett, Daniel Caltagirone, James Cosmo, Ty Glaser, Olivia Mace, Lily Ann Stubbs

Rating: 3/10 – when a home invasion means his Witness Protection identity is compromised, ex-Federal Agent Martin Parker (Adkins) finds himself the target of a hitman (Barrett) and forced to go on the run; a WWE Films production shot on location in and around London, Eliminators is a bog-standard actioner that stretches credulity, invites disbelief, and warrants avoidance as it does its best to cram in as many dull action scenes as it can in ninety minutes, and serves as yet another reminder that being a WWE superstar doesn’t mean you can act.

Giant from the Unknown (1958) / D: Richard E. Cunha / 77m

aka The Diablo Giant; Giant from Devil’s Crag; Giant from Diablo Point

Cast: Edward Kemmer, Sally Fraser, Bob Steele, Morris Ankrum, Buddy Baer, Jolene Brand, Gary Crutcher, Billy Dix

Rating: 4/10 – animal mutilations and murder plague a small town – and that’s before a giant Spanish conquistador is released from suspended animation by a lightning bolt, and threatens both the town’s inhabitants and the research team trying to ascertain if the legend about him is true; not the best example of a Fifties “creature feature”, Giant from the Unknown takes so long to get going that it’s nearly over before it’s begun, features a raft of irritating performances, and is so flatly directed by Cunha that once the Giant is awakened, you can’t help but pray that he’s the first victim.

Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) / D: James Bobin / 113m

Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, Rhys Ifans, Matt Lucas, Lindsay Duncan, Leo Bill, Ed Speelers, Geraldine James, Andrew Scott, Alan Rickman, Stephen Fry, Michael Sheen, Barbara Windsor, Timothy Spall, Matt Vogel, Paul Whitehouse

Rating: 5/10 – Alice (Wasikowska) returns to Wonderland to save the Mad Hatter (Depp) from suicidal depression(!) and the attentions of Time (Cohen) and the Red Queen (Carter) who are working in tandem and holding the Hatter’s family hostage for no convincing reason you can think of; another sequel no one asked for (and nowhere near as successful as its predecessor), Alice Through the Looking Glass is ravishing to look at, boasts some fine visual effects, and a great performance by Cohen, but everything else is a mess: bloated, derivative, witless, and with yet another wasteful performance from Depp (who clearly can’t be bothered).

Hard Target 2 (2016) / D: Roel Reiné / 104m

Cast: Scott Adkins, Robert Knepper, Rhona Mitra, Temuera Morrison, Ann Truong, Adam Saunders, Jamie Timony, Peter Hardy

Rating: 4/10 – ex-MMA fighter Wes Baylor (Adkins) finds himself in Myanmar with one simple objective: reach the Thai border while he’s pursued by a motley group of “hunters” who are out to kill him; a movie that definitely comes under the heading of “another sequel no one asked for”, Hard Target 2 is betrayed by its low budget origins, a script that lurches from one unmemorable action scene to another, and Knepper’s one-note portrayal of the villain.

Nine Lives (2016) / D: Barry Sonnenfeld / 87m

Cast: Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Garner, Christopher Walken, Robbie Amell, Malina Weissman, Cheryl Hines, Mark Consuelos, Talitha Bateman

Rating: 3/10 – businessman Tom Brand (Spacey) has no time for his wife (Garner) and daughter (Weissman), so what better way for him to learn the value of family (and some humility in the process) than by stranding his mind in the body of a cat?; the kind of inane, superficial comedy that Hollywood churns out with mindless regularity, Nine Lives gives Garfield 2 (2006) a run for its money in the stupid stakes, and hammers another nail into the coffin of Barry Sonnenfeld’s once-glorious career.

Flight to Mars (1951) / D: Lesley Selander / 72m

Cast: Marguerite Chapman, Cameron Mitchell, Arthur Franz, Virginia Huston, John Litel, Morris Ankrum, Richard Gaines, Lucille Barkley, Robert Barrat

Rating: 5/10 – the first manned flight to Mars gets there safely only to learn that the planet is inhabited, and by a human-like race that may or may not have an ulterior motive for helping them return to Earth; early-Fifties sci-fi hokum that throws in a tepid romance and some very, very short skirts for the female cast, Flight to Mars retains an odd charm – perhaps because of its naïve approach – that helps alleviate some of the more daffy moments the script insists on doling out.

Mercy (2014) / D: Peter Cornwell / 79m

Cast: Frances O’Connor, Shirley Knight, Chandler Riggs, Joel Courtney, Mark Duplass, Dylan McDermott, Amanda Walsh, Hana Hayes, Pepper Binkley

Rating: 4/10 – after a spell in a nursing home, Grandma Mercy (Knight) comes home to be looked after by her family – daughter Rebecca (O’Connor) and grandsons George (Riggs) and Buddy (Courtney) – but soon exhibits strange behaviour, behaviour that includes warning George that a supernatural force is coming to get him; adapted from the short story Gramma by Stephen King (yes, him again), Mercy aims for creepy and menacing, yet succeeds instead in being confused and uninspired, and with laboured direction and performances, a situation that devotees of King adaptations will appreciate, having been there many times before.

Collateral Beauty (2016)

30 Friday Dec 2016

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Actors, Bereavement, Comedy, David Frankel, Death, Drama, Edward Norton, Grief, Helen Mirren, Jacob Latimore, Kate Winslet, Keira Knightley, Letters, Love, Michael Peña, Naomie Harris, Review, Time, Will Smith

D: David Frankel / 97m

Cast: Will Smith, Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Michael Peña, Helen Mirren, Naomie Harris, Keira Knightley, Jacob Latimore, Ann Dowd

Sometimes, a movie arrives with very little fanfare or advance notice (in comparison to the supposed blockbusters of the day), and features a cast that makes the average viewer say to themselves, “Wow! What a cast! This movie’s got to be good!” Collateral Beauty is one of those movies, with its dream cast in service to a story that deals with unyielding grief, and which does so by employing magical realism as its main approach to telling the story. It’s meant to be an uplifting, emotionally dexterous movie – set at Xmas – that will leave viewers with a warm glow in their heart as they leave the cinema.

Alas, Collateral Beauty – and despite the best efforts of its dream cast – isn’t actually that movie. What it is, is a tragedy wrapped up in a comedy wrapped up in a magical realist fantasy wrapped up in an awkwardly staged feelbad movie. It’s a movie that revels in the pain and suffering of a group of individuals who are the very definition of stock characters. Some effort has been made with Smith’s character, a marketing executive whose six year old daughter has recently died from brain cancer. Unable to let go of his grief (and not really wanting to), Howard still shows up for work but spends his time creating elaborate domino structures and neglecting the business he built up with best friend, Whit (Norton). With the company on the brink of losing their biggest contract thanks to Howard having “zoned out”, Whit needs to prove to a prospective buyer that Howard, who has the controlling interest, is sufficiently non compos mentis for the sale to go ahead without his involvement.

But how to prove this? How, indeed. The answer arrives, like a gift from Heaven, in the form of budding actress Amy (Knightley). Through a process too unlikely to relate here, he hires Amy and her friends, Brigitte (Mirren) and Raffi (Latimore) to act as Love, Death and Time respectively, concepts that Howard has been writing to. Yes, Howard has been railing against Love, Death and Time for stealing his daughter away from him. Whit’s idea is for the trio to pop up at random and talk to Howard in various public places. These encounters will be filmed by a private investigator (Dowd), and the actors removed digitally before the footage is shown to the buyer, thus making Howard seem, at the very least, delusional, or at worst, completely bonkers.

Now, the thing to remember here is that Whit, along with his colleagues, Claire (Winslet) and Simon (Peña), is Howard’s friend. Let’s let that sink in for a moment. His friend. Who with Claire and Simon decides to play charades with a man whose grief is all-consuming and all in order to save the company where they all work. They want to do this not, in the first place, to help Howard deal with his grief, but so that they can save their jobs. And this is meant to be a good idea, both in practice and as the basis for a movie.

But not content with having them play mind games with their boss, the script also gives them their own problems to deal with. Whit has a young daughter who hates him because he had an affair that led to her parents’ divorce (as she puts it, he broke her heart). Claire has sacrificed her longing for a child in order to be successful at work. And Simon, who has fought off a serious illness twice before, is having to face up to the possibility that the third time might not be the charm. Throw in Naomie Harris’s grief counsellor, Madeleine (the only person Howard seems able to talk to about how he feels), who has also lost a daughter, and you have a group of people you’d cross the room to avoid at a feelgood seminar. They do glum with a capital G-L-U-M, and each time the script – by Allan Loeb, who has penned such classics as Here Comes the Boom (2012) and Just Go With It (2011) – indulges in their suffering it does so in a way that’s detrimental to the central storyline: Howard and his grief.

There’s also the problem of the movie’s tone. Collateral Beauty is about death, and the sorrow felt and experienced by the people left behind; it’s also about how grief can twist and contort feelings of pain and guilt into something much more violent and harmful. But Loeb’s script doesn’t want to address these issues head on, as quite rightly, this would make the movie a bit of a downer (and then some). So instead of making a straight-up drama about grief and loss, Frankel et al have made a middling comedy about grief and loss. While the themes in play remain serious, they’re all dusted with a light-hearted sheen that never feels right and never sounds right. The comedy elements distract from the drama of the piece, and in such an awkward, “oh no, they didn’t” way as to be confusing to the viewer. Is this a drama about grief, or a comedy about grief? But there’s no point in asking, as the movie doesn’t know any more than anyone else does.

With the whole premise undermined from the very beginning, Collateral Beauty becomes an exercise in perpetual wincing. When actors of the calibre of Norton and Winslet can’t make the material work then it’s time to head home and call it a day. Scenes come and go that make no sense dramatically, but seem intended to provide a level playing field for all the cast so they have enough moments to add to their showreels. As the actors with no background in psychotherapy but given carte blanche to say anything they can think of, Mirren, Knightley and Latimore are acceptable, but rarely do anything that takes them out of their thespian comfort zones (there’s also a suspicion that Mirren is playing a version of herself that fans have come to expect rather than an actual character).

Smith at least tries to inject some much needed dramatic energy into his role, but until the very end, when Howard is required to undergo an about face because the script needs him to, he’s held back by the script’s decision to make him appear either vague or angry (or sometimes, vaguely angry). Norton and Winslet coast along for long stretches, and a restrained Harris is the voice of wisdom that Howard desperately needs to hear. That leaves Peña, whose performance elicits some real sympathy late on in the movie, and who proves once again that he’s a talented actor who needs to be given better opportunities and roles than this one.

Overseeing it all is Frankel, whose previous movies include Marley & Me (2008) and Hope Springs (2012). You can understand why he got the job, but with the script unable to decide what approach it wants to take, Frankel is left stranded and unable to find an effective through-line with which to link everything together. It never feels as if he’s got a firm grasp on the narrative, or any of the underlying subtleties that Loeb’s script managed to sneak in when the writer wasn’t looking. In the end, he settles for a perfunctory directing style that keeps things moving along on an even keel but which doesn’t allow for anything out of the ordinary to happen. There’s no real dramatic ebb and flow here, and sadly, like so many other directors out there today, he’s not able to overcome something that is one of the movie’s biggest flaws.

Rating: 4/10 – near enough to “meh” as to be on close, personal speaking terms, Collateral Beauty is bogged down by its schizophrenic script, and an over-developed propensity for ridiculousness; rarely has magical realism felt so false or poorly staged, and rarely has a movie about grief instilled the same feeling in its audience for having seen it in the first place.

Mini-Review: Passengers (2016)

29 Thursday Dec 2016

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Avalon, Chris Pratt, Drama, Homestead II, Jennifer Lawrence, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Sheen, Morten Tyldum, Review, Romance, Sci-fi, Spaceship

D: Morten Tyldum / 116m

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt, Michael Sheen, Laurence Fishburne, Andy Garcia

The spaceship Avalon is on its one hundred and twenty year journey from Earth to colony planet Homestead II. On board are two hundred and fifty-eight crew and five thousand passengers, people looking to build new lives on the colony planet. Everyone is in a state of suspended animation, asleep in hibernation pods until the Avalon is a few months from reaching its destination. Thirty years into the journey, the ship is struck by a massive meteorite. Following this, one of the passengers, engineer Jim Preston (Pratt) is woken from hibernation. The only passenger who’s awake, and with no way of resetting the hibernation pod to put him back to sleep, Jim finds the only company he has is that of an android barman named Arthur (Sheen).

After a year by himself, Jim is joined by Aurora Lane (Lawrence), a writer looking to find a story in the migration from Earth. As time goes by, a romance develops between them. But the ship is constantly malfunctioning, sometimes to the extent of putting Jim and Aurora’s lives at risk. They do what they can to fix things as they happen, but it becomes obvious that there’s a bigger problem to contend with – they just don’t know what it is. When crew member Gus Mancuso (Fishburne) is also awoken by mistake, the trio begin to make a concerted effort to locate the source of all the malfunctions. But when they do, the potential arises for one of them to have to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to save the ship…

Ostensibly a sci-fi movie about a stricken ship and the stranded souls on board, Passengers works best as a romantic drama, but even then it lacks the depth and the courage of its own convictions. Jim and Aurora make for a seemingly perfect couple, but thanks to the way in which the movie is advertised, what you don’t learn until seeing the movie is that their relationship is founded on a lie. So you have a broad, generic romance where two people inevitably fall in love, and just as inevitably part ways before coming together again for the sake of the movie’s big finish (and an unnecessary coda). Lawrence and Pratt work well together, and there’s a certain amount of chemistry between them, but unfortunately the emphasis is on the spaceship rather than their characters’ straightforwardly handled romance.

Tyldum’s last feature was The Imitation Game (2014), another movie that lacked a sense of tension (or urgency) as it told its story, and his work here is no different, failing to make the ever-expanding crisis on board into the pulse-pounding race against time it needs to be to be fully effective. Instead, Jon Spaihts’ script has Pratt mouthing romantic platitudes at every opportunity, while Lawrence endeavours to make her character’s novelistic intentions at all interesting. Only Sheen rises above the blandness of the material, and he does so by means of some very detailed micro-expressions. Unsurprisingly, the movie looks very good indeed, with Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography highlighting and complementing the sterling production design of Guy Hendrix Dyas. But when a movie fails to make you care if either or both of the main characters lives or dies, then there’s definitely something that’s not working as it should be.

Rating: 5/10 – a decent premise that’s handled with too many broad brush strokes, Passengers wastes its cast on a characters in peril narrative that should have been given more prominence, and a romance that remains tepid throughout; Lawrence and Pratt do their best, but even they look as if they’ve lost interest by the time the third act hoves into view, and Tyldum never quite seems to know how to knit everything together into a satisfying whole.

10 Reasons to Remember Debbie Reynolds (1932-2016)

29 Thursday Dec 2016

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Actress, Career, Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, Hollywood Motion Picture Collection, Movie memorabilia, Musicals

Debbie Reynolds (1 April 1932 – 28 December 2016)

As if 2016 already hasn’t been a terrible year in terms of the stars we’ve lost, it seems that none can have been so tragic as the death of Debbie Reynolds. Coming just twenty-four hours after the death of her daughter, Carrie Fisher, Reynolds’ passing is as much a jolt to the system as Fisher’s unexpected demise. There’s a saying that no parent should outlive their children, and it looks clear that the shock of losing her daughter contributed to Reynolds being added to the (too) long list of people the entertainment world has been robbed of this year. But like everyone else we’ve had to say goodbye to, Reynolds has left us with an impressive body of work to remember her by.

Her career began when she was just sixteen years old and she won a beauty contest where she impersonated Betty Hutton. Four years later, and with no practical experience, Reynolds was chosen to be Gene Kelly’s dance partner in Singin’ in the Rain (1952). It wasn’t her first movie, but it was certainly her biggest challenge to date, and she was so good it was like she was making her twentieth screen appearance, and not her sixth. Success after success followed throughout the Fifties, but in the Sixties her career began to slow down. She found other projects to occupy her time, such as buying a Californian hospital with plans to turn it into a profitable business venture. She also founded the Hollywood Motion Picture Collection, a museum dedicated to movie memorabilia that included over three thousand costumes, from Judy Garland’s ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz (1939) to the white dress Marilyn Monroe wore in The Seven Year Itch (1955).

in the Seventies she made her Broadway debut, and though she appeared in only a handful of productions, her talent guaranteed her good reviews (it was also during this period that she picked up the nickname “Princess Leia’s mother”). Much later, she found her way into the consciousness of a younger generation through her recurring role as Grace’s mother in the TV show Will & Grace (1999-2006). She continued to work sporadically both in movies and on the small screen, but mostly she did voice work on animated productions such as Kim Possible (2003-2007), and even an episode of Family Guy.

She was a glamorous star who during her lifetime knew what it was to be down on her luck, even admitting at one point to living in her car. But throughout her career, whether she was up or down, Reynolds kept on smiling and proving herself to be a strong draw when a role came along. Her Fifties heyday was a remarkable period, and she was a remarkable performer during that period, and like many stars from that era, she became an instantly recognisable actress whose name equalled quality. Like everyone else we’ve had to say goodbye to this year, she’ll be sorely missed.

1 – Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

2 – Susan Slept Here (1954)

3 – The Tender Trap (1955)

4 – Bundle of Joy (1956)

5 – The Mating Game (1959)

6 – The Pleasure of His Company (1961)

7 – How the West Was Won (1962)

8 – The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964)

9 – Divorce American Style (1967)

10 – Charlotte’s Web (1973)

Poster of the Week – Julie (1956)

28 Wednesday Dec 2016

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Doris Day, Louis Jourdan, Mystery, Poster of the week, Thriller

At first glance, the poster for Julie appears to lack anything that would make the movie a must-see, but that would be doing it a disservice, because while it does seem like it’s not even trying, there’s much more going on than you might be aware of.

A thriller where Day’s terrified wife tries to escape the murderous clutches of her husband (played by Louis Jourdan), the poster adopts a psychological approach to the plot that actually makes the movie a more enticing prospect than it actually is. First, there’s the image of Julie and husband Lyle shown in the top left hand corner. There’s a possibility that they’re enjoying a romantic clinch, but upon closer inspection it’s clear that Day is trying to resist Jourdan’s “advances”. It’s all you need to realise that something’s not quite right between them, and it acts as a kind of shorthand for the central dynamic that the movie will expand on.

But where the poster really excels is with its depiction of Day running – for her life – along the zigzag line that dominates the poster (even more so than Day’s shocked face). With her efforts to escape Jourdan precipitated by that dangerous embrace, the poster shows her running away from him, and getting further and further away, but it also highlights her fear and distress at the situation she’s found herself in. Her body language makes it all too obvious. This is the crux of the movie: Julie’s attempt to escape from Lyle, to save herself, and the poster and its kinetic imagery perfectly encapsulates the urgency of the character’s need to find safety.

Less successful – or necessary – is the inclusion of Day’s face and its shocked expression. There’s a phrase: “over-egging the pudding” that applies perfectly here, as Day’s head takes up too much room on the poster as a whole, and almost takes attention away from the clever inclusion of the fleeing Julie and her descent of the zigzag line. She looks like she’s just been told something so shocking that she doesn’t know quite how to respond to it, and while it’s easy to understand the image’s inclusion, it dampens the carefully constructed impact of the rest of the poster.

For the rest of the poster, it’s business as usual, with the four main cast members listed on the left and Day’s name given a slight twist to differentiate her from everyone else (black lettering not green). The title is given a pleasing orange tone to temper the awkward font used, and there’s the unsurprising highlighting of Arwin Productions, Doris Day’s own production company. And only then do writer/director Andrew L. Stone and producer Martin Melcher get a look in.

Lastly, there’s the tagline, a question designed to pique the potential audience’s interest, and one whose answer can be construed as “something bad” (as though the images of Day running for her life weren’t a big enough clue). It’s the kind of question that will always get people thinking, and hopefully intrigued enough to watch the movie. Overall it’s a poster that successfully advertises the movie it’s been tasked with promoting, and it does so in a far more subtle, and impressive way than this one:

10 Reasons to Remember Carrie Fisher (1956-2016)

27 Tuesday Dec 2016

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Actress, Career, Carrie Fisher, Princess Leia, Script doctor, Star Wars

Carrie Fisher (21 October 1956 – 27 December 2016)

Carrie Fisher was the daughter of Hollywood “royalty”: Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, so it was perhaps fitting that she will be best remembered as Princess Leia Organa in Star Wars (1977) and three of its sequels. But there was more to Fisher than just a role in a space opera, even one cherished by millions, and away from that galaxy far, far away she was also a writer and well-liked celebrity. She wrote the novel Postcards from the Edge, and scripted the movie version too (it was released in 1990), and had a successful “career” as a script doctor, polishing dialogue and scenes for movies as diverse as Hook (1991), Outbreak (1995), Coyote Ugly (2000), and all three Star Wars prequels. She also wrote her cameo scene in Scream 3 (2000). Though she had several battles in her private life – with alcohol and prescription drugs – and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Fisher remained a fighter throughout.

Away from the Star Wars movies, Fisher’s acting career wasn’t always as compelling as she may have liked, but when she was asked if playing Princess Leia was the dark side of the Force in her professional career, she had this to say: “Oh, no. It was fun! I was young. People want it to be a problem for me. No. Those are great movies. Why shouldn’t I be proud of being in that? The dark side? You ever see Hollywood Vice Squad (1986) or The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)? How about Under the Rainbow (1981)? Was Star Wars the dark side? There’s so much competition for that one.” While it’s true that playing the Princess with the bagel-bun hairdo has proved to be her career high, let’s not forget that she made significant contributions to a lot more movies besides. And here are just ten of them.

1 – Shampoo (1975)

2 – The Man With One Red Shoe (1985)

3 – Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

4 – Appointment With Death (1988)

5 – The ‘Burbs (1989)

6 – When Harry Met Sally… (1989)

7 – Sibling Rivalry (1990)

8 – This Is My Life (1992)

9 – Wonderland (2003)

10 – Stateside (2004)

Blair Witch (2016)

27 Tuesday Dec 2016

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Adam Wingard, Black Hills, Burkittsville, Callie Hernandez, Drama, Horror, James Allen McCune, Review, Sequel, The Woods, Witch

D: Adam Wingard / 89m

Cast: James Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Corbin Reid, Brandon Scott, Wes Robinson, Valorie Curry

Twenty years after his older sister, Heather, disappeared in the Black Hills woods outside Burkittsville, Maryland, James Donahue (McCune) comes into possession of a video that he believes is evidence that his sister is – somehow – still alive. Determined to find out for sure, he co-opts film student Lisa Arlington (Hernandez) – who is making a documentary about Heather’s disappearance and James’s search for answers – and friends Peter (Scott) and Ashley (Reid) into going with him. The night before they’re due to set off into the woods, they meet locals Lane (Robinson) and Talia (Curry), who agree to go with them.

Having set up camp on the first night, Lane tells the rest of the group stories he’s heard about the history of the Blair Witch. That night, noises from the surrounding woods wake James and Lisa; they discover Lane outside the camp and looking scared. The next day, the group discover lots of stick figures hanging from the trees and that they’ve slept until two o’clock. Freaked out by this, they decide to go back, but after several hours of trying to retrace their steps, they find themselves back at the campsite. Circumstances lead to Lane and Talia leaving the group and attempting to make their own way back.

The remaining four are forced to stay there overnight. Peter disappears, and when James tries to find him he encounters Lane and Talia instead. They tell him they’ve been lost in the woods for five days. The couple are allowed to stay in camp, though Lisa is suspicious of them. James sets his alarm for seven o’clock in the morning, but when it goes off it is still pitch dark. There are also, more, larger stick figures hanging from the trees. Lane runs off, and something happens to Talia that terrifies the rest. James, Lisa and Ashley become separated. When James and Lisa find each other again, they hear what they think is Ashley screaming. With it now raining heavily, they discover the same house where James believes he’ll find his sister…

When The Blair Witch Project was released in 1999, it was a massive, unexpected success. Made on a budget of $60,000, it accrued nearly $250 million worldwide and to this day, is one of the most successful independent movies ever produced. It spawned a sequel, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) that was the antithesis of the original’s tone and approach, and which was so mangled in post-production by distributors Artisan Entertainment, that they wrecked any chances of it being even a fraction as successful as its predecessor. And now, we have a second sequel, one that ignores the events of Book of Shadows, and attempts to recreate the style and tone of the original movie.

The key word here is “attempts”. Writer Simon Barrett and director Adam Wingard have decided, somewhat wisely, to take viewers back to the Black Hills woods, but in doing so, have unwittingly reminded everyone just why The Blair Witch Project was such a major success. It was a movie that dared its audience to say this isn’t real, that three people haven’t really disappeared in mysterious circumstances in the Black Hills woods in Maryland. It also made a virtue of its found-footage approach, and was all the more impressive for it. It was a simple, very effective way of detailing the increasing terror being experienced by Heather and her two friends, Mike and Josh. But since then, the found-footage genre has been done to death and back again, and its very moribund nature is the biggest obstacle any movie maker has to overcome in tackling a movie such as this one. We’ve seen too many people who are lost in the woods and are being menaced by malevolent forces. We’ve seen too many movies where the footage consists of distressed video images that tell us nothing of what’s happening, and are often set up just to provide jump scares.

And Blair Witch is no different. Barrett and Wingard – who are no slouches when it comes to horror movies – fail to provide us with anything new, or memorable. Instead they fall back on the tried and tested formula of several other, similar movies – A Night in the Woods (2012), Evidence (2011), and Willow Creek (2013), to name but a few – and make the same mistake that everyone else makes: they don’t provide us with anyone to care about. This leaves the movie feeling more like a (very) belated cash-in designed to wring a few more dollars out of an unsuspecting fanbase and/or potentially interested public. The makers went to a lot of trouble to ensure that Blair Witch wasn’t on anyone’s radar during its production, and right up until its first showing at this year’s Comic-Con, it was known as The Woods. Perhaps they already knew this wasn’t going to be as good as they’d hoped.

In the end, the movie falls way short of being a worthy successor to The Blair Witch Project, and it falls way short of being even an above average found-footage movie. Several times, and particularly during the events that take place in the house, there are shots that are clearly made by a third person. The editing, by Louis Cioffi, is haphazard and draining, stretching some scenes out to longer than necessary, while truncating others unnecessarily, and Wingard’s control of the material is similar in execution, with a lack of focus that undermines the narrative – such as it is – and keeps the audience at a distance.

The movie makes yet another huge mistake in showing the Blair Witch herself (however briefly), where the original didn’t have the inclination or the need, being scary enough without her – and it doesn’t help that she looks like the second cousin of the creature from [Rec] 2 (2009). When a sequel doesn’t follow through on one of the most important and effective decisions its predecessor made, then you know that no one’s paying close enough attention. And if they’re not, why should you?

Rating: 4/10 – professionally made but lacking in real smarts, Blair Witch arrives like an unwanted guest at a funeral – they knew the deceased, but can’t think of anything worthwhile to say about them; a sequel that squanders its predecessor’s legacy, it soon runs out of things with which to engage the audience and worse still, it can’t even come up with an ending that is even halfway as disturbing as the fate that befell Heather.

Xmas Classics – A Christmas Carol (1914)

23 Friday Dec 2016

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Bob Cratchit, Charles Dickens, Charles Rock, Drama, Ebenezer Scrooge, George Bellamy, Harold M. Shaw, Jacob Marley, Literary adaptation, Review, Silent Era, Three Ghosts, Xmas

D: Harold M. Shaw / 23m

Cast: Charles Rock, George Bellamy, Mary Brough, Edna Flugrath, Franklyn Bellamy, Edward O’Neill, Arthur M. Cullin, Wyndham Guise, H. Ashton Tonge

The third movie adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic tale – after versions released in 1908 and 1910 – Harold M. Shaw’s masterful retelling remains a must-see for fans of the original story, and for fans of silent cinema as well. Shaw’s interpretation retains most of the key elements and scenes from Dickens’ novella, and thanks to a roster of good performances, brings them to life with a minimum of frenzied arm waving or histrionic face-pulling.

The story begins as ever in the counting house of Ebenezer Scrooge (Rock). His lowly clerk, Bob Cratchit (G. Bellamy), makes the mistake of lighting a piece of coal in the fireplace in an effort to keep warm. Enter Scrooge, aghast at Cratchit’s nerve, removing the coal, and throwing a couple of sprigs of holly down onto the floor for good measure. Not even a visit from his nephew, Fred (F. Bellamy) and his niece, Belle (Flugrath) with an invitation to join them at Xmas, can overcome his mean-spirited mood. And as if that wasn’t enough, he has to contend with a visit from two charity workers looking for donations. What’s a miser to do with all these demands on his time and his money?

The answer is make no changes whatsoever. At the end of the day, Scrooge visits a local tavern; even there his attitude spoils the evening for the other patrons. Meanwhile, Cratchit has returned home to the bosom of his family, and with his wife (Brough) and children – including poor old Tiny Tim – is able to be happy and carefree. Scrooge arrives home, but is startled to see the face of his old business partner, Jacob Marley (O’Neill), appear in place of the door-knocker. Scrooge, rattled by this, retires to bed but is soon visited by Marley’s ghost, who warns the old skinflint that he’ll be visited in turn by three ghosts.

The first, the Ghost of Christmas Past (Cullin), is a jolly, holly-bedecked phantom who takes Scrooge firmly by the wrist and drags him away back into Scrooge’s childhood, back when he was a much happier person than he is now. Reminded of better times makes Scrooge upset. The Ghost of Christmas Present (Guise) shows him how he’s regarded by others, from Bob Cratchit and his family, and his nephew Fred’s family and friends, and he learns that his manner has alienated him from them. The third ghost, that of Christmas Yet to Come (Tonge), shows Scrooge his tombstone, the blunt summation of his life. Returned to his bedroom, Scrooge wakes the next morning, determined to make amends…

This is a fine, straightforward adaptation that tells a very familiar story with a great deal of invention and, on occasion, wit. That it’s very faithful to its source is another aspect that helps the movie provide an entertaining experience, and Shaw handles the various scenes where Scrooge behaves atrociously with a restraint and a purpose that rescinds any idea that he wants to make an out-and-out melodrama. With his cast restricted from making too many broad, sweeping gestures with their arms – a staple of early movie making – or wild, gurning faces, Shaw ensures that, by playing it as naturally as possible, the audience reaps the reward of seeing more genuine feelings and emotions than would have been the norm back in 1914. Of course, there’s still the odd moment where this still happens, but they don’t detract from the overall effect.

Another plus is the decision to make Scrooge’s experiences with Marley and the three Ghosts a matter of his viewing things and events as seemingly a ghost himself. Using the simple technique of super-imposition, Shaw has Scrooge appearing as transparent as the Ghosts are themselves, a trick that reinforces the lack of control Scrooge has over these ghostly ministrations, and makes for some interesting scene transitions. If you look carefully as the Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge away from the “safety” of his bedroom, you’ll see the old miser begin to dematerialise slowly as they leave the room. It’s not a flashy effect, by any means, but it is a neat little touch that adds greatly to the effectiveness of the scene.

Again, Shaw is helped greatly by his cast, who all portray their roles with a credibility that anchors the story, and stops it from becoming just another costume drama, albeit one derived from a much-loved classic of literature. Rock is a convincing miser, but is most effective when realising the error of his ways, his despair and dismay written plainly on his face; when Scrooge is confronted with his tombstone, a moment that could have provoked an excessive amount of gesticulating and wild expressions, Rock conveys his character’s shock and horror with a minimum of fuss, and still manages to convey the utter terror that has been instilled in him.

As Bob Cratchit, George Bellamy provides a more mirthful performance, his wide-eyed surprise at his employer’s behaviour always a pleasure to witness lurking in the background, and balanced by the mournful look he gives when he donates what little money he has to the charity workers. It’s a moment that perfectly encapsulates the difference between the two characters, and also the reason why Cratchit has no qualms about drinking a toast to Scrooge at Xmas-time: he’s too good at heart not to. Elsewhere, O’Neill is a suitably mournful Jacob Marley, Brough is an amiable presence as Mrs Cratchit, and each of the Ghosts is presented (mostly) in the way that Dickens originally conceived them (seeing Tonge’s face does let the side down, though).

Rating: 8/10 – an atmospheric, sensitively handled version of Dickens’ classic tale, A Christmas Carol proves that silent era movies weren’t all about the “grand gesture” but could be considered, thoughtful, and emotionally astute; it’s all too easy to overlook silent movies that adapt literary successes, but when one is as successful at condensing the material as well as this movie does, then it shows that anything is possible – just like a committed miser having a change of heart.

NOTE: Unsurprisingly, there is no trailer for this movie.

The Hollow Point (2016)

22 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Bullets, Cartel, Drama, Gonzalo López-Gallego, Ian McShane, Jim Belushi, John Leguizamo, Mexico, Patrick Wilson, Review, Thriller

D: Gonzalo López-Gallego / 97m

Cast: Patrick Wilson, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo, Lynn Collins, Jim Belushi, David H. Stevens, Karli Hall, Derek Boone, Nathan Stevens

In a small, dusty town near the US-Mexico border there’s a new sheriff about to settle in. He’s a replacement for the current sheriff, Leland Kilbaught (McShane) who’s been suspended pending an investigation into his shooting and killing a young man, Clive Mercy (Nathan Stevens), attempting to smuggle bullets across the US-Mexico border. The new sheriff, Wallace (Wilson), brings with him some emotional baggage, thanks to an old relationship with Marla (Collins) that still prompts some animosity on her part. While Wallace attempts to fit back into his hometown, Clive’s brother Ken (David H. Stevens) waits in Mexico for him to arrive. When his contact from the Mexican cartel threatens him with death if his brother doesn’t turn up, Ken figures he’s got nothing to lose. He kills the contact and steals a load of money in the process.

Ken’s actions have a knock-on effect he couldn’t have predicted. Wallace begins to look into his brother’s case and starts to put two and two together. Figuring out Ken’s involvement, Wallace begins to look for him, unaware that the cartel have tasked a killer called Atticus (Leguizamo) with getting to him first. Wallace and Atticus find Ken at the same time; in the ensuing fight, Atticus cuts off Wallace’s right hand. Wallace escapes and manages to reach Kilbaught’s home. While his successor recovers, Kilbaught discovers that a local businessman, a car dealer called Shep Diaz (Belushi), is behind the runs the Mercy brothers have been making. With his dealership on the rocks, Diaz has been using the smuggling operation to prop it up. But the cartel aren’t satisfied that he wasn’t involved in Ken’s actions, especially when the money he stole isn’t found straight away. With Wallace determined to bring Diaz to justice, and protect Marla who becomes unfortunately involved in it all, Atticus is sent once more to clean up all the loose ends…

Fans of slow-burn, violent crime thrillers set in the American Southwest will find much to enjoy in López-Gallego’s latest feature. Assembling a great cast and setting them to work on a script that doesn’t provide anything new in the way the story pans out, but which nevertheless is admirable for its simplicity, López-Gallego has made a movie that resonates far beyond anything you might expect. One of the main reasons for this, is that well assembled cast. Wilson – a last-minute replacement for Timothy Olyphant – excels as the new sheriff who’s tested by the loss of his hand, but who won’t give up protecting the love of his life – even if she doesn’t want anything to do with him. Wilson has a knack for playing the everyday hero, and he uses that knack to provide an unexpectedly riveting performance, and one that makes the viewer wish he’d make more of these kinds of movies instead of any more Conjuring or Insidious sequels.

He’s more than ably supported by the likes of McShane – all grizzled disregard for the law and its finer distinctions – and Leguizamo as the hired killer who just won’t stop. Both are fine actors, and they inhabit their roles like second skins, with Leguizamo in particular, reminding us what a dangerous presence he can be. But both men are upstaged by a resurgent Jim Belushi, his performance as the duplicitous car dealer, Diaz, a shot in the arm for a career that has seen him take on too many undemanding minor roles in recent years. Diaz is as amoral as they come, and Belushi plays him to perfection, highlighting the sweaty, greedy machinations that will ultimately betray him.

The script – by newcomer Nils Lyew – plays with relative notions of revenge and karma, property and theft, and sneaks in a thin line of religiosity via Atticus’s relationship with Lilly. He further grounds the various relationships – criminal and otherwise – through keen observation and how each character deals with a variety of physical pain and emotional distress. The self-contained nature of events, and the way in which Lyew isolates the characters against the bleached desert backdrop, adds further to the sense of tragedy that percolates through the narrative once Kilbaught fires his gun. And that last scene? Justice or revenge? Actually, it’s both, and completely understandable as both, thanks to the previous interaction of the characters involved.

It’s a very violent movie in places, and López-Gallego doesn’t shy away from showing both the violence and the often bloody aftermath (though one character does appear to cheat death very conveniently at one point). Consequences are the order of the day, for everyone, and no matter how hard they try to avoid them, those consequences have a way of catching up with them and adding an extra layer on top. Even Wallace, who becomes the anti-hero of the story, insists on taking a path that will lead to more and more pain, but he’s a fatalistic anti-hero, and in his own way, just as stubbornly recidivist as Kilbaught.

Set against a pitiless desert backdrop, The Hollow Point has enough tension and undiluted malice for two movies, but López-Gallego is more than up to the task of maintaining that tension and then stretching it further, making some scenes feel hyper-realistic in the process. This isn’t a bad thing, as it all adds to the grim sense of inevitability that powers each confrontation and showdown, and each twist and turn in the narrative. As a result, the viewer is never too sure just how things will turn out, or even if the (relatively) good guys will triumph in the end. López-Gallego is also the movie’s editor, and he adopts an initially measured approach that develops over the course of the movie into a more rapid, insistent rhythm. It also helps that he has the assistance of regular DoP José David Montero, whose lensing brings out the rugged beauty of the desert surroundings, and the rundown, seen-better-days façades of the town and its buildings.

Rating: 8/10 – an underrated gem that could all too easily fail to atrract the attention it deserves, The Hollow Point benefits from a clutch of great performances, a tough, uncompromising script, and the careful ministrations of its director; it’s rare to see such a moderately budgeted project achieve so much and with such apparent ease, but this really is a movie that deserves a wider audience.

Poster of the Week – Masquerade (1965)

21 Wednesday Dec 2016

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Adventure, Cliff Robertson, Comedy, Masquerade (1965), Poster of the week

In the Sixties, there were a plethora of adventure comedies born out of the success of the James Bond movies, and Masquerade was one of them. The movie itself is a spirited, engaging romp that takes a while to get going, but once it does, it’s hugely enjoyable. There are no such problems with the poster, though, as it happily tells you all you need to know about the movie and right from the first glance.

Like many similar-themed movies of the period, Masquerade‘s poster revels in a sense of uproarious fun that it hopes will attract viewers to its cause. There’s a lot going on, both here and in the movie, and the poster is a more than adequate reflection of the exploits that Cliff Robertson, Marisa Mell etc. get up to. From the very top of the image where we find an Arab sheik astride a camel settled on the tail of a helicopter, to the bottom where we see a dangling belly dancer juggling a bomb, the poster is practically yelling at us, “This movie is so much fun!” By carefully recreating the mood of the movie, the poster acts as an extension of the movie, and reinforces the idea that the viewer will have a whale of a time.

But there are plenty of strange things going on in the poster as well, things that easily draw the eye and furrow the brow. For one there’s the hand with the gun appearing from within the umbrella held by Cliff Robertson. Then there’s the disembodied arm seen to the right of the image and emerging from the bridge brandishing a blade. Why both of these elements are present is a puzzle as they have no equivalent in the movie, and their very random nature seems to point to the artist having a) free rein over the poster’s content, or b) been given some very bizarre, but specific instructions (or maybe he saw a different version of the movie).

There are other strange elements, all of which – when taken by themselves – leads to the inevitable conclusion that no small measure of anarchy was required in the creation of the poster. There’s the man plummeting head first (from the bridge?) whose identity is too obscure to recognise. There’s the man dangling from the helicopter, who’s equally hard to identify; the rush of horsemen seemingly intent on hurtling over the edge of the cliff; the red car that has left the cliff road; and the man hanging off the bridge and seemingly about to join the horsemen and the red car. All humorous elements, and all in service to the notion that there will be an awful lot of unintentonal and accidental deaths in the movie (which is funny, right? Well, of course it is).

But hang on, there’s romance on display as well, represented by Robertson’s deferential, protective attitude towards his glamorous co-star, Miss Mell. And yet, once again, malice and potential death aren’t too far away: she’s trying to stab him! The poster hints at a love/hate relationship (even though it’s obvious she’ll fall into his arms by the end of the movie), and Robertson’s grin surely means he’s not worried by her attempt to kill him, but again, it’s all part of the fun.

The various elements that go to making up the main image are crammed together in a relatively small space, but with enough space deployed to stop it all from looking too messy. To the left is one of those requests that were born in the Fifties, a plea from the producers meant to play on the goodwill of the audience, but also meant to imply that there was something so strange/wonderful/impressive that the audience would want to tell everyone about it. But here this intention is undermined by the completion of the tagline (or the second part), that mentions the removal of “cloaks and daggers”. It’s a smart and witty line, and again serves as a reminder: “this movie is so much fun!”

The text is an awkward mix of styles and colours, but fortunately the main credits and the way they’re listed don’t detract from the overall effect of the poster, although it would have been nice to see Michael Relph and Basil Dearden – the co-conspirators if you like on this project – given more prominence. But this poster isn’t bothered about the dry, academic stuff, this poster is all about giving its target or expected audience as good a time looking at it, as they’ll have a good time watching the movie. And for the most part, it succeeds, unlike this British example from the same year:

Xmas Classics – Christmas Evil (1980)

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

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Brandon Maggart, Drama, Horror, Jeffrey DeMunn, Jolly Dream, Lewis Jackson, Review, Santa Claus, Toy factory, Xmas, You Better Watch Out

Original title: You Better Watch Out

D: Lewis Jackson / 100m

Cast: Brandon Maggart, Jeffrey DeMunn, Dianne Hull, Andy Fenwick, Brian Neville, Joe Jamrog

Xmas is a time for family – or so they say. If you’re young Harry Stadling, Xmas is a time for discovering that Santa Claus is actually your father playing dress-up and spending adult time with your mother rather than coming down the chimney and leaving presents for you and your brother, Philip. Disillusioned by this terrible discovery, Harry’s view on Xmas becomes twisted. As an adult, Harry (Maggart) spies on the children in his neighbourhood and makes notes on their behaviours in two large volumes: Good Boys and Girls 1980 and Bad Boys and Girls 1980. He works as a senior employee at a factory that makes children’s toys, but he’s tolerated more than respected, and one of the men who works the line, Frank Stoller (Jamrog), exploits his good nature. As Xmas approaches, Harry’s need to make people conform to his view of the importance of the Yuletide season – or his “tune” as he calls it – leads to his dressing up as Santa Claus on Xmas Eve and distributing presents.

Except, Harry’s plan doesn’t work out as he’d hoped. As well as handing out gifts for everyone at a children’s hospital, Harry finds himself handing out retribution to those who don’t share his love of Xmas, or respect how special it is. With his exploits attracting the attention of the police, Harry finds himself chased by a bloodthirsty mob who don’t take kindly to the “Xmas cheer” he’s dispensing. A narrow escape leads him to seek out his brother, but Philip (DeMunn) has his own issues surrounding Harry and the festive period, issues that mean a further escape for Harry, but not quite the one he’s looking for…

Christmas Evil is not your typical slasher movie set at Xmas, and is vastly different from movies such as Black Christmas (1974) or Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984). For one thing, it takes its time in establishing the mental state of its central character, the emotionally detached Harry. This is very important to the overall storyline, as writer/director Jackson strives to make Harry a character the audience can at least have some sympathy with, and not regard as just some whack job intent on killing people for no reason (or because he got a present without any batteries, or a Barbie doll instead of Action Man). This means the movie gets off to a slow start, as Harry struggles to maintain an outward air of calm – as much as he can, at least – while everyone around him fails to recognise how important Xmas is to him.

Once the prologue set in 1947 is over with (and Harry’s childhood rejection of the Xmas myth is in place), the movie begins a few months before Xmas actually comes around. This again allows Jackson the time and space to show the gradual deterioration of Harry’s mental state, and the casual malice he endures both at work and closer to home through his brother, Philip. With Philip feeling obliged to look after Harry as well as his own family, there’s a tension and an animosity there that Harry feels deeply. At one point he watches from outside his brother’s home, and sees the perfect picture of a happy family at Xmas-time. Etched on Harry’s face is a mixture of dismay and envy that explains everything you need to know about Harry’s view on Xmas, and why he’s so torn by his feelings about it. He can’t quite reconcile the good with the bad, or the notion that there can’t be one without the other.

While Harry finds himself struggling to find a balance that will help him deal with his feelings, certain events conspire to push him towards more violent responses, including the offhand remarks of his bosses at the factory, and the (until then) suppressed need for revenge on Frank Stoller. It’s notable that for every bad thing that Harry does, he does an equally positive thing as well, and Jackson is clever enough to ensure – even if this is a “slasher” movie – that Harry’s predicament can’t be viewed in plain old black and white. He’s helped in large part by the performance of Maggart as Harry, a singular portrayal that is surprisingly nuanced beneath all the outer trappings of increasing mania and moral confusion. Maggart’s career is littered with television appearances (including an episode of ER in 1995 where he played a Santa Claus figure), and very few movies; this is his finest hour without a doubt. Imbuing Harry with a strangely affecting melancholy, and showing his descent into madness by reining in any possibility of histrionics, Maggart gives an intuitive, unforgettable performance, and Jackson is wise enough to give him the room to explore the character as fully as he can.

But while on the acting front this is Maggart’s movie, on the cinematography side it’s Argentinian DoP Ricardo Aronovich’s. Persuaded by Jackson to work on the movie, Aronovich’s sombre lighting design and tight close ups on Maggart’s face make for a claustrophobic, unnerving visual approach to the material. There are moments where he also creates a kind of chiaroscuro effect, particularly when Harry is being chased by the torch-wielding mob, the flames creating an odd halo effect that seems almost supernatural. His framing and spatial awareness is impressive too, making much of what takes place look and feel like the real world and not some composite assembled for yet another movie.

In the end, Jackson’s commitment to his own script and the way in which it should be presented, pays off handsomely. At first glance, Christmas Evil looks like a hundred other gory slasher movies from the early Eighties, with their high body counts, splatter effects, and invincible killers. It also looks and feels like a low-budget slasher flick – Aronovich’s involvement notwithstanding – and it has a grimy, gloomy atmosphere that isn’t exactly an original approach. But as noted above, the movie takes its time before it provides its first kill, and it and all the subsequent kills are shot as cutaways, put together neatly and given a disturbing air by editors Corky O’Hara and Linda Leeds. These scenes have an almost sordid feel to them, thanks to the combination of mood and lighting, and Harry’s inability to quell his angry feelings.

There’s humour too, threaded throughout the movie, and like in any good, serious drama, it’s allowed to take centre stage on just the one occasion, when the police are trying to get witnesses to identify Harry from a line up of Santas. Otherwise, Jackson focuses on themes relating to family, loyalty, unmerited expectations, greed, and the endemic hypocrisy that the festive season seems to instill in everyone, where the phrase “goodwill to all men” really is just that: a phrase. There’s a sense that he’s tried to “keep it real”, and while he may not succeed in everything he’s attempted, he’s definitely got more right than he has wrong.

Rating: 8/10 – a superior horror thriller, featuring a great performance from Brandon Maggart, and a remarkably astute screenplay from its director, Christmas Evil is a much better movie than anyone could have ever expected (John Waters calls it “the greatest Christmas movie ever made”); as a portrait of one man’s struggle to make sense of his own conflicted feelings about the Yuletide season (and with a subtext of PTSD thrown in for good measure), it’s unexpectedly compelling, and makes good use of its Xmas backdrop, limited budget, and confident, measured pacing.

NOTE: The following trailer has French subtitles.

Life, Animated (2016)

19 Monday Dec 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Animation, Autism, Cornelia Suskind, Disney, Documentary, Family, Mac Guff, Owen Suskind, Review, Roger Ross Williams, Ron Suskind, Walter Suskind

D: Roger Ross Williams / 89m

With: Owen Suskind, Ron Suskind, Cornelia Suskind, Walter Suskind, Jonathan Freeman, Gilbert Gottfried

In Roger Ross Williams’ moving documentary, Life, Animated, we are introduced to Owen Suskind, a twenty-three year old on the verge of graduating from school and moving into his first apartment. There’s nothing special about that you might think, but for Owen it’s all an incredible achievement, because when he was three years old, Owen went from being an outgoing, happy child to a withdrawn, non-communicative autistic child. It happened virtually overnight, without any warning. But in one, very big way, Owen was fortunate. He had the love of his family: his father, Ron; his mother, Cornelia; and his older brother, Walter. After the initial shock of seeing Owen so unalterably changed, they all rallied round him and did their utmost to make his life as comfortable and as rewarding as possible. They simply never gave up hoping that Owen, somehow, would come back to them.

They had to wait four years, though, for the first sign that Owen wasn’t stranded in his own mind. A single line of dialogue from Disney’s The Little Mermaid – “Just your voice” – was said by Owen at a moment when that particular phrase related to what was happening in the Suskind home. The family began to realise that Owen could relate to what was going on around him by referencing dialogue from Disney movies. What they learned was astounding: Owen hadn’t just memorised certain lines of dialogue from Disney’s animated movies, he’d memorised all the dialogue from Disney’s animated movies. And later, Owen correctly deduced that Walter didn’t want to grow up like Peter Pan or Mowgli from The Jungle Book. By expressing such an emotionally complex idea, and at still a very young age, the Suskinds became convinced that they could communicate further with Owen, and using Disney movies, connect with him on a level they couldn’t have predicted before then.

Fast forward fifteen years and Owen is a (largely) well-adjusted young man on the cusp of leading an independent, adult life, away from his family and on the verge of getting his first job. And he has a girlfriend, Emily (who’s also autistic). He still spends a lot of time re-watching Disney movies, but now he’s better able to make sense of the “real world” thanks to the life lessons that Disney includes in its releases (on his first night alone in his apartment he watches Bambi – the one time the correlation seems forced, even though there isn’t another movie that would fit the circumstance). But even though things are going well for him, Life – animated or otherwise – still has the ability to add to the challenges he already faces…

What makes Life, Animated such an appealing viewing experience is, in part, its refusal to push an agenda. Where the majority of documentaries want you to take sides on whatever issue they’re focusing on, here it’s a different matter entirely. The story of Owen Suskind is an unforeseen triumph against the odds, and Williams is canny enough to show the before, the during and the after of Owen’s descent into autism. He also gives plenty of time to Owen’s family, to show how they felt and how they adapted during the years Owen was growing up. You get a clear sense both of how difficult it was for them, but also how tight-knit and committed they all were, to each other, and to Owen. Just in case anyone might be thinking that Disney are getting all the credit for Owen’s “recovery”, then guess again; his very dedicated family must take most, if not all, of the credit.

Williams tells the story of the Suskinds using a mixture of home movie footage – seeing Owen in his pre-autism years is particularly evocative, but is then trumped by a shot of him standing, just staring into space – talking heads recollections, and traditional hand-drawn animation courtesy of French outfit Mac Guff. It’s this last element that adds a huge degree of charm to a movie already in danger of charming its audience to death, but if that seems like a negative, then guess again. Charm is something the movie has in abundance, and the animated sequences act as further examples of the movie’s ability to bewitch and enchant, and tell the story in ways that talking about Owen and his journey just won’t do.

It’s through these sequences that we learn that Owen is an aspiring writer, with his tale of a hero whose job it is to keep Disney sidekicks such as Jiminy Cricket safe from harm. Mac Guff do a great job of expressing this tale, and also of replicating the world as Owen sees it himself. It’s easy to understand why Owen identifies so much with Disney’s sidekick characters, as he himself has always felt like someone on the outside, not the main hero. It’s interesting, also, that this is how Owen sees himself, as someone who needs to protect others, and the movie draws all this out thanks to some candid on-camera moments by Owen and by his quoting from his original story. From this also, we get a glimpse of just how vocal he is when challenged or cornered, and it all gets too much for him.

While Owen seems inordinately happy, there are plenty of moments where the audience is reminded that he’s really a “big kid” without all the manners or insights that go with being an adult. His relationship with Emily doesn’t go according to the Disney plan, which leaves him adrift, and there’s a wonderful moment where Walter laments the fact that Disney don’t “do sex”, something that would make certain things a lot easier to deal with if they did. There are references too to his time at school, and the bullying he experienced, as well as the dark days that shrouded that period, but again it’s the love and support from his selfless family that saw him through it all, and to a point now where he can travel to France to address a symposium on autism (and make his opening remarks in French).

While Owen’s remarkable comeback from a kind of catatonic autism is entirely worthy of Williams’ attention (not to mention the Disney movie club he runs, and which has two very special guests at one of the meetings), what really makes this documentary special is the love and care and determination of Owen’s family to ensure he has the best life possible that makes this such a moving and often incredibly profound movie. Ron, Cornelia and Walter all deserve the highest praise for how they tackled the issue of their son’s sudden onset of autism, and the moments where their love for him, and their commitment to him, shine through with an emotional honesty that can’t help but bring a tear – or two, or more – to the eye of the unwary viewer.

Rating: 9/10 – with Disney waiving any editorial control over the footage used in the movie, Life, Animated benefits immeasurably from Williams’ considered and astute use of the various storytelling formats used to tell Owen’s miraculous tale; a terrific achievement, and one that highlights the strengths in play within the Suskind family, this is immensely enjoyable, and a movie that makes the term “feelgood” seem hopelessly inadequate in describing the effect it can have on the viewer.

Impromptu Trailer/Question of the Week

17 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Amy Schumer, Preview, Question of the Week, Snatched, Trailer

You’re an accomplished comedienne known for being “edgy” (whatever that really means), and for your award-winning TV show. In 2015, you appear in a comedy drama playing a thinly-veiled version of yourself that picks up a fair degree of critical acclaim. The world, it seems, is your oyster. You can choose your next movie project with the confidence of someone who has put a great big dent in people’s conceptions of who you are. The movie you made is Trainwreck, and you are Amy Schumer. And the project you’ve decided to make next is Snatched (2017).

So, with that in mind, this impromptu, unexpected Question of the Week is really quite simple:

Amy Schumer – what were you thinking?

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