Concussion (2015)

07 Thursday Apr 2016

Tags

Albert Brooks, Alec Baldwin, Brain injury, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, CTE, David Morse, Dr Bennet Omalu, Drama, Football players, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Mike Webster, NFL, Pathologist, Pittsburgh Stealers, Review, Suicide, True story, Will Smith

D: Peter Landesman / 123m

Cast: Will Smith, Alec Baldwin, Albert Brooks, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Morse, Arliss Howard, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Paul Reiser, Luke Wilson, Stephen Moyer, Matthew Willig, Richard T. Jones, Hill Harper, Sara Lindsey, Mike O’Malley, Eddie Marsan

America’s National Football League, the NFL, until recently, would have had us believe that there is no correlation between severe head trauma and mental deterioration. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that if you’re hit in the head repeatedly over a long period of time, that it’s going to have a long-term effect; we’ve all seen too many punch-drunk boxers to disbelieve that one. But the NFL, despite apparently being aware of the dangers inherent in such a violent contact sport, did nothing about it. Players who developed mental health problems would often take their own lives, so overwhelming was their condition(s). And for years, no one outside the NFL knew anything about it.

And then in 2002, an unlikely “hero” appeared in the shape and form of Nigerian-born pathologist, Dr Bennet Omalu (Smith). While performing an autopsy on Pittsburgh Stealers legend Mike Webster, Omalu was unable to determine why Webster’s brain showed no signs of disease or damage, and yet his character and personality had changed to the extent that he was pulling out his own teeth and then supergluing them back in. Omalu conducted further research and tests on samples of Webster’s brain, and in doing so, discovered evidence of what he named CTE – Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. Omalu realised that CTE was caused by the repeated blows to the head that football players experienced in every game, and that this something that needed to be brought to the attention of both the NFL and the public.

Omalu published his findings, and almost immediately the NFL began ridiculing his work and his theories (though within the medical profession it was regarded as an accurate representation of what was happening). Attacked on all sides, Omalu found an unexpected ally in the form of former Pittsburgh Stealers team doctor, Julian Bailes (Baldwin). He confirmed what Omalu was beginning to suspect: that the NFL were complicit in what was happening to a lot of former players. Omalu sought to open a dialogue with the NFL but they wanted nothing to do with him, and continued to criticise and rubbish his findings.

More former players died, usually from suicide. Omalu now had enough evidence to take to the NFL and prove his theory. But the NFL blindsided him, and when his boss (and friend), Dr Cyril Wecht (Brooks) was charged with multiple counts of fraud, Omalu was left with little room to manoeuvre. Unwilling to put his friends and colleagues in the line of fire, Omalu decided to quit and relocate to California with his wife, Prema (Mbatha-Raw). And then three years later, another ex-player killed himself, but this time, in such a way that not even the NFL could ignore. Now, Omalu had a chance to get his message across – but would the NFL listen?

Concussion is a small movie with a big message to pass on. That it does so intermittently, and with very little passion attached to it, makes for an uneasy ride as Omalu continually points out the obvious, and is then ignored for his temerity as a foreign national to be someone who doesn’t follow the game, or know who half the local players are. Various justifications are made on the game’s ruling body’s behalf, but the real question – why would you place such highly-paid, professional athletes in such a potentially harmful environment, and not do something to alert them to the risks they’re taking? – is never really answered.

Partly it’s because the focus is squarely on Bennet Omalu and his relationships with medicine and science and his faith (Omalu meets his future wife at church, where he’s asked to take her in as a favour to the parish). With the NFL refusing to engage with the issue unless forced to, the movie has to surmise much of the league’s reasoning, and this leads to awkward, melodramatic moments such as when ex-player and league bigwig Dave Duerson (Akinnuoye-Agbaje) confronts Omalu and dishes up a large plate of hostility and bile. The movie also marginalises a lot of the minor characters, from Dr Ron Hamilton (Moyer), who helped Omalu get the recognition he needed from other doctors and medical personnel, to Omalu’s own wife, Prema, who, one personal tragedy aside, appears to be there to remind audiences just how good a man Omalu is.

As the emabttled pathologist, Smith makes up for the soulless, joyless performance he gave in After Earth (2013) by making Omalu an earnest, justice-seeking missile of the truth. It is a better performance – by quite some margin – but it’s a relentlessly dour one as well, with Smith constantly frowning as if he’d lost something and couldn’t find it. Smith is a more than capable actor – see Ali (2001) if confirmation is needed – but here he’s let down by the movie’s pedestrian, made-for-home video tone, the connect-the-dots approach of the script, and Landesman’s unfocused direction. And there are too many scenes where the time to be passionate about the subject is given the equivalent of a hall pass.

The movie ends up being a lengthy one-sided examination of the head trauma issue as seen through the eyes of a moral evangelist – Omalu implores more than one person to “tell the truth”. But once Omalu has established that CTE exists and is a very real killer, the NFL’s intractability comes into play (no pun intended), and the audience is left waiting for a resolution that looks increasingly unlikely to happen. And yet, when it does, it lacks the impact required to have audiences cheering in their seats at seeing justice prevail. And as if to add to the dourness of Smith’s portrayal, the pre-end credits updates reveal the degree of inertia the issue has suffered since Omalu brought CTE to the public – and the NFL’s – attention.

Rating: 6/10 – anyone doubting the existence of CTE should look to Concussion‘s uncompromising approach to the subject and rethink accordingly; sadly though, as a movie, it lacks the crusading zeal that would have made the issue that much more exciting and/or gripping.

The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016)

05 Tuesday Apr 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Action, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Drama, Dwarves, Emily Blunt, Fantasy, Goblins, Ice Queen, Jessica Chastain, Magic, Mirror, Nick Frost, Prequel, Review, Rob Brydon, Sequel, Sorcery

D: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan / 114m

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt, Jessica Chastain, Nick Frost, Rob Brydon, Sam Claflin, Sheridan Smith, Alexandra Roach, Sope Dirisu

Once upon a time there were two sisters. One, Ravenna (Theron), lusted for power, and used her dark magic to take over kingdoms and rule them with an iron fist. The other, Freya (Blunt), had yet to find the magic gift she possessed, but Ravenna assured her the day would come when her power would assert itself. And then Freya fell pregnant, and had a baby. But then a tragedy occurred and her baby died in a fire, apparently caused by her baby’s father, her one true love. Her powers exerted themselves then, and Freya’s gift was to be able to control ice in all its forms. She exerted her revenge on her one true love, then left Ravenna’s care to make a kingdom for herself in the North. She became known as the Ice Queen, and she was feared by all.

Her pain found expression in a strange way. She would order the children from the villages in her kingdom to be rounded and trained as warriors for her growing army. All these children had to do was swear allegiance to her and foreswear any notion of love. In return she would give their lives meaning in their service to her. But love will out, and two children grew up to love each other, despite Freya’s law. Eric (Hemsworth) and Sarah (Chastain) made plans to leave Freya’s stronghold and their roles as huntsmen. But Freya learned of their plans and saw to it that they didn’t come to fruition. Eric saw Sarah killed, and he was knocked unconscious and thrown into the river to die.

But Eric survived. Time passed. Seven years, during which time he helped Snow White rid her kingdom of the villainous Ravenna. But now a new threat is in place. Ravenna’s mirror, a source of very powerful magic, has been stolen, and Eric is tasked with finding it and taking it to a sanctuary where it can be made safe. He agrees to the task, and is joined by two dwarves, Nion (Frost) and Gryff (Brydon). Soon they discover that Freya is trying to find the mirror as well. They seek help from two female dwarves, Mrs Bronwyn (Smith) and Doreena (Roach), and journey into a hidden forest inhabited by goblins to take back the mirror. But once they do they find themselves caught in a trap of Freya’s devising, leading to the mirror’s capture, and only one course of action left to them: to follow the Ice Queen back to her stronghold and destroy her and the mirror once and for all.

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) was an unexpected success, trading on Theron’s evil hearted queen and Kristen Stewart’s take on Snow White as a fantasy version of Joan of Arc. It had an impressive budget – $170 million – and made back nearly $400 million at the international box office. A sequel was always on the cards, it was just a matter of when. But here’s the rub: The Huntsman: Winter’s War isn’t just a sequel, it’s also a prequel. In it we see the Huntsman’s back story, his childhood years as a trainee in Freya’s huntsman army and his eventual love affair with Sarah, whom he marries in secret. When she dies, fate spares his life and the movie skims over the events of its predecessor with a single line of narrated dialogue (courtesy of Liam Neeson).

Then we’re fully in sequel mode, as Sam Claflin’s earnest prince convinces Eric to look for the mirror. And Freya, who has been adding nearby kingdoms to her own over the past seven years, gets wind of the mirror and its magical properties. A race against time, then, to see who reaches the mirror first. Alas, no, not really. Instead, after an eventful and encouraging first half hour, the movie settles down into fantasy adventure mode, with humour provided by Frost and Brydon. Freya’s threat is put on the back burner and Eric is confronted with a figure from his past who provides complications for his quest. It’s all serviceable enough, and despite everyone’s best efforts, all entirely forgettable.

The problem lies both with the script by Evan Spiliotopoulos and Craig Mazin, and Nicolas-Troyan’s direction. The script lumbers from one unconnected scene to the next, straining the audience’s patience thanks to semi-amusing quips and snide remarks courtesy of Brydon, cowardly assertions from Frost, an drab, wearing performance from Chastain, and Hemsworth’s assumption that a big grin can pass for acting when he so desires (sorry, Chris, it doesn’t). Ravenna remains the primary adversary, despite being off screen for two thirds of the movie, and Freya’s delusional take on love and its inability to offer true contentment is recounted so often it’s as if the makers weren’t sure an audience would grasp the idea the first time around.

But if the movie’s storyline and plotting are a cause for alarm, spare a thought for Nicolas-Troyan, bumped up from second unit director on the first movie, and a poor second choice after Frank Darabont, who was attached to the project for some time before he dropped out. He’s not so bad when it comes to the action sequences, but in between times, when the characters have to display their feelings, or the script calls for another bout of humorous insults (which are pretty much all of Brydon’s lines), his lack of experience shines through. Too many scenes fall flat or fail to make much of an impact, and the cast are left to inject whatever energy they can, but with the script and their director seemingly working against them, it’s an uphill struggle for all of them.

This being a big budget fantasy movie, however, it does score highly for its production design, its costumes, and its special effects (though an encounter with a goblin isn’t as effective as it should be, thanks to its looking like an angry ape with a liking for bling). The ice effects are cleverly done, and there’s a pleasing sense of a real world lurking behind all the CGI, while James Newton Howard contributes a suitably stirring score to help prop things up when it all gets a little too silly (which is most of the middle section). And of course, the makers can’t help themselves at the end, and leave a way open for a further (full-fledged) sequel. But if anyone really cares by that stage, then the movie will have truly worked its magic.

Rating: 5/10 – a superficially appealing prequel/sequel, The Huntsman: Winter’s War isn’t the most memorable of fantasy movies, and chances are, viewers will have forgotten most of its content a short while after seeing it; it’s not a bad movie per se, but then it’s not a good movie either, and sometimes, that’s the worst anyone can say about any movie.

Notes on a Scandal (2006)

04 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Affair, Bill Nighy, Cate Blanchett, Drama, Judi Dench, Lesbian, Literary adaptation, Patrick Marber, Review, Richard Eyre, St George's School, Student/teacher relationship, Zoë Heller

D: Richard Eyre / 92m

Cast: Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Bill Nighy, Philip Davis, Andrew Simpson, Michael Maloney, Juno Temple, Max Lewis, Joanna Scanlan, Tom Georgeson, Julia McKenzie

Adapted by Patrick Marber from the novel by Zoë Heller, Notes on a Scandal should be sought out for three reasons: the acting masterclasses given by Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, a superb, unsettling score by Philip Glass, and the script itself, a beautifully constructed piece that delves into some very dark corners indeed, and which still allows itself the luxury of including a mordaunt sense of humour.

The story centres around two outwardly very different teachers in a London comprehensive school, St George’s. Dench is Barbara Covett, a history teacher who is approaching retirement. She’s never married, doesn’t have a significant other, is respected but not liked by the other teachers, and adopts a disdainful air that keeps everyone at a distance. Blanchett is Sheba Hart, a much younger art teacher who lacks Barbara’s experience and thick skin. She’s married to an older man, Richard (Nighy), and has two children, Polly (Temple) and Ben (Lewis). Sheba is the kind of teacher who often finds themselves out of their depth, and it’s on one such occasion that Barbara comes to her rescue.

Grateful to her, Sheba begins a friendship with Barbara that sees the older woman visiting Sheba’s home more and more often. Sheba effectively becomes Barbara’s protegé, although there is still a wide gulf between them, stemming mostly from Barbara’s dislike of Sheba’s middle-class lifestyle. One evening, Barbara waits for Sheba to attend a school drama performance, but Sheba is late. Barbara goes in search of her, and discovers Sheba having sex with a pupil, Steven Connolly (Simpson). Shocked, and feeling betrayed, Barbara confronts Sheba. The younger woman pleads with Barbara not to tell anyone. To Sheba’s surprise, Barbara has no intention of telling anyone – because they’re friends (though Barbara does insist Sheba end the affair immediately). Barbara sees her chance to become closer to Sheba, or destroy her if Sheba doesn’t agree to spending more time with her.

But Steven won’t be put off by Sheba’s pleas to stop the affair. He continues to see her, and Sheba allows their relationship to continue (though she keeps this a secret from Barbara). But it’s not long before Barbara discovers Sheba’s duplicity, and when she attempts to blackmail Sheba into spending time with her – to be with her at the expense of spending time with her family – Sheba has no choice but to put her family first. Angry and spiteful, Barbara seizes an opportunity presented to her by another teacher, Brian Bangs (Davis), and it’s not long before Steven’s mother is at Sheba’s house and the whole affair is revealed.

Richard leaves Sheba in order to have time to think about their relationship, and unable to face being in their home without him, asks Barbara if she can stay with her for a few days. Barbara quite naturally agrees, but a chance discovery leads to Sheba finding out the true extent of what their friendship means to Barbara, and how their relationship has been manipulated by Barbara from the beginning. With the future of her marriage looking uncertain, and facing jail because Steven is only fifteen, Sheba has no option but to confront Barbara over what the older woman has done.

Simply put, Notes on a Scandal is gripping stuff. Patrick Marber’s script hustles and bustles with undisguised hostility towards its two central characters, revealing their darkest traits and baser instincts with a scalpel-like precision that flays their more self-serving attributes to the metaphorical bone. Both Barbara and Sheba have their secrets, and both struggle to keep them hidden, but Marber won’t allow them any such luxury. As they interact with each other, lying and obscuring the truth about themselves, Barbara and Sheba become more and more unlikeable as the movie continues. Barbara’s domineering, manipulative demeanour is barely hidden at times, but she covers it well enough to fool Sheba, whose self-centred moral nihilism means she can’t see when someone has seen through her own carefully constructed façade.

The two women become involved in a one-sided battle, one-sided because Sheba doesn’t realise that Barbara wants nothing less than complete capitulation, and on her terms alone. Sheba is to be the sacrifice to Barbara’s vanity, another in a (conceivably) long line of hand maidens to Barbara’s idea of friendship. (The viewer may deduce that Barbara is a lesbian because of her intentions toward Sheba, but Marber’s script is too clever for that; instead, Barbara is more asexual than sexual, and is horrified at the suggestion – made by Sheba late on in the movie – that her motives lie in that direction.) Sheba, however, is very definitely a sexual creature, one who defines herself and her existence by the way in which she is found attractive and desired (once, after they’ve had sex, Steven tells Sheba she is “fit”, and Sheba positively glows under the praise). Both women are confused about love, Barbara seeing it as a kind of managed companionship, and Sheba as a validation of her sexual appeal. These confusions amount to huge fault lines in both their personalities, and when they eventually clash, the end result is force majeure.

As noted above, this is a movie that features two very impressive performances, and there’s not even a hair’s breadth between them in terms of how good they are. Dench is icy and abrupt as Barbara, calculating and insidious, a woman used to being respected (and feared even) and getting her own way. Dench doesn’t shy away from examining Barbara’s less savoury characteristics, using Marber’s script to highlight the way in which she expects everyone around her to fit in with her ideas and prejudices. Dench is also good at portraying Barbara’s emotional sterility through a succession of expertly judged expressions, all testifying to the void in both her heart and her feelings.

Blanchett has what feels like the more compelling, emotionally wrought role, but Sheba is a pleasure seeker, and can only justify her actions in ways that are meant to elicit sympathy for what she sees as her unexciting lifestyle. It’s interesting that she was one of Richard’s students when they first met (though she was twenty and not fifteen when he seduced her – or she seduced him; which it is we’re not told), and she does use this as an attempt to excuse her behaviour and the affair, but Richard quite rightly decries this, leaving Sheba unable to gain any sympathy or acceptance for what she’s done. Blanchett embraces the complex neediness that infuses Sheba’s personality and doesn’t shy away from portraying the character’s selfish obsessions and somewhat childish naïvete. Like Barbara, Sheba is used to getting what she wants; the only real difference between them is that Barbara has grown used to being on her own, whereas it’s a situation that scares Sheba unreasonably.

Acting as an extra layer of emotional intensity, Philip Glass’s insistent, urgent score ramps up the tension as the story unfolds. It acts as an unseen musical narrator, underscoring (if that’s an appropriate analogy) the drama as it heads towards a necessarily downbeat ending. Coordinating this and the performances of Dench and Blanchett, director Richard Eyre, along with DoP Chris Menges, uses his theatrical flair to keep the movie both visually and dramatically exciting, and he teases every nuance and vicious piece of brinkmanship out of Marber’s acerbic screenplay. With great supporting turns from Nighy, Davis and Simpson, as well as some equally adept editing by John Bloom and Antonia Van Drimmelen, this is an exceptionally well crafted movie that still stands out ten years after it was released.

Rating: 9/10 – with human frailty and arrogance brought to uncomfortable life by two of today’s finest actresses, Notes on a Scandal has enough positive attributes for two movies; richly detailed and endlessly fascinating, it’s a movie whose value is unlikely to deteriorate or become degraded by repeat viewings, and which remains a remarkable convergence of talent.

Allegiant (2016)

03 Sunday Apr 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Ansel Elgort, Bureau of Genetic Welfare, Chicago, Divergent Series, Drama, Jeff Daniels, Literary adaptation, Miles Teller, Naomi Watts, Providence, Review, Robert Schwentke, Sci-fi, Sequel, Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Thriller, Veronica Roth

D: Robert Schwentke / 120m

Cast: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, Jeff Daniels, Zoë Kravitz, Ansel Elgort, Miles Teller, Keiynan Lonsdale, Daniel Dae Kim, Maggie Q, Bill Skarsgård, Jonny Weston, Ray Stevenson, Mekhi Phifer, Ashley Judd

And so Jeanine is dead, killed by Four’s mother, Evelyn (Watts). Everything’s okay and peace has been restored. Except that Evelyn is making sure it comes at a further price: everyone who was on Erudite’s side has to be put on trial and their “crimes” answered for. This means executions on a wide scale, and although Tris (Woodley) has disowned her brother, Caleb (Elgort), he faces the same fate. With the message from outside Chicago still indicating that there are more answers to be found outside the city than in, Tris and Four (James) opt to breach the wall and go in search of those answers. Four decides to help Caleb escape, and the trio are joined by Christina (Kravitz), Tori (Maggie Q), and Peter (Teller). Despite an attempt to stop them by Evelyn’s lieutenant, Edgar (Weston), they climb over the wall and down to the other side.

There they find a toxic wasteland, where the earth is a scorch blasted red. Having been followed by Edgar, the group are relieved when they reach a force field that opens to reveal an armed force. This group protects Tris and her friends from Edgar, and with his threat neutralised, they take Tris and company to their base far out in the wasteland, the so-called Bureau of Genetic Welfare, where Tris in particular is welcomed by the Bureau’s director, David (Daniels). With Tris being the fruit of an experiment to right a wrong perpetrated long ago, David is keen to run tests on her, while keeping Four and the others occupied and away from her as much as possible. But Four is quick to suspect that David isn’t as honest as he makes out, but Tris doesn’t see it.

Meanwhile, back in Chicago, Johanna (Spencer) has formed a group she calls Allegiant, and who are at odds with Evelyn’s way of running things. Another war of attrition is about to take place between the two factions, and though Tris wants David to intervene – after all, he has been monitoring Chicago for a long time because of the experiment – but instead of doing so, he sends Peter back with a nerve gas that will render everyone who comes into contact with it, unable to remember anything that happened to them before they were exposed. And while David takes Tris to meet the Council who ultimately decide everyone’s fate, Four discovers what the gas has been used for in the wasteland. And when Tris finally becomes aware of David’s duplicity, she and Four, along with Christina and Caleb, return to Chicago to stop Evelyn from using the gas on Allegiant.

Three movies in and the Divergent series is showing serious signs that it’s running out of ideas. Allegiant is superficially entertaining, but in comparison with parts one and two, it lacks anything fresh to entertain either fans or newcomers. It’s also the first time that the series gives up on Tris as an independent, strong-minded female, and instead hands over leadership duties to Four – which wouldn’t be such a bad idea if he wasn’t written as a bit of a pompous told-you-so kind of character. (Throughout the series, Four has been the gloomiest character of them all, unable to smile or express his feelings about anything without a frown.) And with Tris relegated to a secondary role, there’s only Daniels left to pick up the slack, as everyone else (James excepted) is afforded only enough screen time to either provide any relevant exposition, or keep the plot ticking over (Spencer and Watts are wasted, while Judd is brought back yet again to add some more of her character’s turgid back story).

The problem with the movie is twofold: one, it’s the first half of the third book in the series, and as such, doesn’t have a credible ending, just another narrowly avoided cliffhanger that leaves things open for part four (or should that be part three-point-five?); and two, the action seems more than usually contrived once Tris et al leave Chicago. The wasteland is less than threatening, and the Bureau is predictably shiny on the surface (and in David’s “office”), while the barracks Four and Christina are assigned to are remarkably similar to those inhabited by Dauntless in the first movie. It’s all brightly lit and commendably shot by esteemed DoP Florian Ballhaus (returning from Insurgent (2015) and already hired for the next instalment), but it’s becoming hard to care what happens to anyone.

At its heart, the Divergent series is about DNA profiling and the perils that can follow on from it. It’s a concept that’s been there in the first two movies, but which hasn’t been addressed directly. But now that it has, and through the medium of video no less, the truth behind the use of Chicago as a test ground, and the true meaning of being Divergent, all sounds quite dull and unexciting. The movie fails to make Tris’s nature important to its own story, and instead opts for being yet another race-against-time thriller, abandoning the ethical and moral debate it wants to engage in and relying on tried and trusted action movie clichés to wind up its narrative.

It’s no surprise that the movie has underperformed at the box office (leading to the final movie, Ascendant, due next year, having its budget cut), because even though Tris makes it out of Chicago, once she does, the movie doesn’t know what to do with her, and for a character as intriguing and interesting as Tris, that’s a terrible decision to make on any level. And it doesn’t help that your central villain is ultimately a harried bureaucrat, a futuristic pen-pusher if you will. That’s another stumble, and especially bad after having Kate Winslet fill the villain’s shoes for the first two movies. It all adds up to a movie that coasts on the success of its predecessors, and feels and looks like a stopgap before the real conclusion in part four.

Rating: 5/10 – another series instalment that will have newcomers wondering what all the fuss has been about, Allegiant is a movie that has little to offer in terms of its characters’ development, or in terms of expanding the wider narrative; Woodley – this series’ biggest asset – is sidelined for much of the movie, and though James is a competent enough actor, he doesn’t have his co-star’s presence on screen, which makes large chunks of the movie something of a chore to sit through.

Exposed (2016)

02 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Ana de Armas, Angels, Christopher McDonald, Crime, Daughter of God, Declan Dale, Drama, Gee Malik Linton, Keanu Reeves, Lionsgate, Melody London, Mira Sorvino, Murder, Pregnancy, Review, Thriller

aka Daughter of God; Wisdom

D: Declan Dale / 102m

Cast: Ana de Armas, Keanu Reeves, Christopher McDonald, Mira Sorvino, Big Daddy Kane, Venus Ariel, Gabriel Vargas, Melissa Linton, Michael Rispoli

Hands up anyone who’s heard of Declan Dale. Maybe you’ve seen his last movie. Well, actually, you couldn’t have because Declan Dale doesn’t exist, he’s the pseudonym of writer/director Gee Malik Linton, Exposed‘s director when it was called Daughter of God, and when it didn’t try to be two movies at the same time. Thanks to the intervention of distributor Lionsgate – who thought they were getting a gritty police drama starring Keanu Reeves – Linton’s stark, character-driven bi-lingual drama focusing on child abuse and violence towards women was emasculated, and the movie became a sluggish crime thriller instead (just watch the trailer below to see how determined Lionsgate were to make Exposed seem like an exciting, must-see thriller).

The result is astonishingly bad. In its current form, Exposed has the potential of being one of the year’s worst movies, a terrible disaster brought about, not by one of the production companies involved, but by a distributor who thought it knew better. In downplaying Isabel’s story in favour of Galban’s glum search for his partner’s killer, the less than competent folks at Lionsgate have made a potentially absorbing, surrealist drama into a muddled snoozefest that clumps along like an amputee getting used to a badly fitting prosthesis. Again, the result is astonishingly bad – really, seriously, completely, astonishingly, bad.

It’s hard to believe, but the movie’s editor, Melody London, has a great track record. She’s worked with Jim Jarmusch on movies such as Down by Law (1986) and Mystery Train (1989), and contributed greatly to the success of documentaries such as Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry (2004) and Apache 8 (2011). With that in mind, it’s hard to understand just how wretchedly Exposed has been stitched together, and just how deluded the “good” folks at Lionsgate were when they came to giving London their feedback on how to “improve” the movie’s chances at the box office. Because ultimately that was Lionsgate’s fear: that Linton’s original version, Daughter of God, would fail to make a dent at the box office. They were actively saying to Linton, this movie will sink without trace unless we intervene.

Well, hubris is a wonderful thing – except when it’s unfounded. Exposed has been released in eight countries at time of writing, and while exact figures aren’t available, the movie appears to have made only $205,703 worldwide (it made just $122 in the UK, while US returns haven’t even been revealed). If anyone at Lionsgate is still trying to say they did the right thing, then any production companies planning to let them distribute their latest feature, should turn around and run as far away as possible in the opposite direction.

So just how bad is Exposed? It’s astonishingly bad (but we’ve established that). Why is it so bad? Here are just three examples (there could have been more but this review has to end at some point): Detective Galban (Reeves) is allowed to investigate the death of his partner, Cullen, even though he’s still grieving over the loss of his wife; when it becomes clear that his partner was corrupt, Galban is warned off the investigation by his boss, Lieutenant Galway (McDonald), in order to avoid Cullen’s wife, Janine (Sorvino), losing out on his pension rights; and when Janine is informed that her husband’s death isn’t going to be investigated, she’s incensed – until the next scene where she attempts to seduce Galban while also admitting that Cullen was as crooked as everyone said.

What investigation there is – Janine insists her husband’s murderer is caught – depends on photos found on a camera at the murder scene. In them, there are several Latinos, including Manuel de La Cruz (Vargas) and his sister-in-law, Isabel (de Armas). Manuel seems to be focus of Cullen’s surveillance, and when the other people in the pictures start turning up dead, the main suspect in their deaths, and Cullen’s, is local crime boss Jonathan “Black” Jones (Kane). He denies any involvement but Galban is convinced he’s guilty. All Galban really knows for sure is that the girl in the photos is probably the key to everything. But Galban is such a terrible detective that he can’t even track her down, even though it should be easy.

Meanwhile, Isabel has problems of her own. On the night that Cullen was killed (and on the same subway platform) she has a vision: an albino man who walks on air above the tracks. With her husband away in Iraq, and living with her devout in-laws, Isabel’s faith is challenged when she begins seeing another strange being. She comes to believe that God has a plan for her, and that these beings she’s seeing are angels. But when her husband is killed and she later discovers that she’s pregnant, her in-laws disown her, despite her saying it’s a miracle (her husband was in Iraq for over a year). Ostracised, she turns her attention to a little girl, Elisa (Ariel), who appears to be suffering abuse at the hands of her father. This leads to a tragedy that reveals the reason for her pregnancy, and explains much of what happened the night that Cullen died.

In essence, there are two very different stories here, and they clash with each other at every turn. Galban’s investigation goes nowhere, partly because he’s apparently useless at his job (at one point he whinges that “nobody’s talking”), and partly because the revised storyline doesn’t know what to do with him. Reeves is a producer on the movie; one would have thought he would have more input into how the character is presented, but it’s soon obvious he either didn’t have as much clout as you’d expect, or he realised early on that, once Lionsgate got their hands on the movie, it was all over bar the crying. Either way, Reeves gives one of the most lethargic, barely involved performances of his career. For everyone who thought he’d turned his career slump around with John Wick (2014), think again. This and Knock Knock (2015) are clear indicators that John Wick was an unexpected blip on the radar.

de Armas has the better, more developed role, and she’s very effective in an emotionally confused, gamine kind of way, but as Isabel’s story takes her to some very dark places indeed, the actress’s performance is undervalued by the arbitrary twists and turns of Lionsgate’s re-edit. There are moments when the power of Linton’s original cut is able to shine through, notably in the sequences with the angels, and later as we realise just how fragile Isabel’s grip on reality really is. But there are long stretches where her story sits there like a stalled car, and as with Galban’s story, this version of her story doesn’t always know how to move forward without looking and feeling clumsy (and which it never comes close to overcoming).

At least there is some closure to Isabel’s story, even if it is rushed and overly melodramatic. Other characters come and go without the viewer even realising, and there’s a confrontation between Manuel and “Black” Jones that comes out of nowhere and then returns there as soon as it’s done. But by the time this encounter pops up the average viewer will be checking their watch and wondering just how longer this farrago has got to go. There are just so many wretchedly glum and dispiriting scenes that have come before, suspended moments that lack resonance or emotion, for anyone to really care how it all turns out. And when it finally does, the only reaction left to the viewer who’s got that far is relief.

Rating: 3/10 – a spectacular misfire of a movie, Exposed is so bad that William Goldman’s classic quote, “In Hollywood, nobody knows anything”, should have the qualifier, “especially Lionsgate” added to it; let’s hope that Linton’s original cut eventually sees the light of day, and this dull, leaden, dreary mess can be consigned to the cinematic landfill where it belongs.

Free the Nipple (2014)

01 Friday Apr 2016

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Casey LeBow, Censorship, Drama, Girlrillaz, Lina Esco, Lola Kirke, Monique Coleman, Nipples, Protest, Public nudity, Review, Topless women, True story

D: Lina Esco / 79m

Cast: Lina Esco, Lola Kirke, Casey LeBow, Monique Coleman, Griffin Newman, Zach Grenier, Jen Ponton, Sarabeth Stroller, Janeane Garofalo

Originally filmed in 2012, Free the Nipple occupies a curious place in both movie history and the history of feminist activism. Made to highlight the lack of conformity in the US when it comes to a woman appearing topless in public – some states have legalised it, many more haven’t – the movie failed to attract a distributor, and it seemed it would never be released, even to the home market. In order to combat this, the movie’s director and star, Lina Esco, started the movement that can be seen in the movie itself, and with the real life campaign gaining enough publicity, Free the Nipple eventually secured a release date towards the end of 2014 (and is now available to own).

It must be an odd situation for a movie maker to find themselves in: in order to get their movie noticed, they’ve got to orchestrate the very movement their movie is depicting. Is it life imitating art, or art defining life? Either way, Esco should be congratulated for not giving up on her movie, because even though it’s an uneven mix of female empowerment, feminist polemic and relationship drama, the movie has a great deal of charm, and a great deal of low budget energy.

Esco plays With, a journalist whose friendship with Liv (Kirke) leads to her writing an article on Liv’s views that society discriminates against women by allowing men to go bare chested in public without being challenged, whereas if a woman does it she’s likely to be arrested for indecency. But With’s article is dismissed, and she loses her job. Liv is secretly pleased: now With can devote her energies full time to challenging the law over public nudity. But With is initially hesitant, not knowing where to begin, but she seeks help from her friend Orson (Newman), and her mentor Jim (Grenier), and soon she and Liv are interviewing women who are prepared to support their efforts in gaining attention to the issue, and being a part of an organisation that is dedicated to “free the nipple”.

Of course, there are obstacles along the way, financial ones and personal ones, and when Liv is arrested, but With refuses to give up, partly out of loyalty to the cause, partly out of guilt surrounding Liv’s arrest and subsequent detention pending bail. In-fighting in the group also takes its toll, but throughout all the drama and the setbacks and the struggle to organise a rally in Washington D.C. featuring a hundred thousand topless women, the issue of gender equality is maintained at the forefront of what With and Liv are trying to achieve.

As mentioned above, Free the Nipple has a great deal of charm, and its indie vibe is a welcome approach, but while it’s a likeable movie that has much to say about the issue of gender equality, not all the elements fit so well together. Too often, Hunter Richards’ script opts for downplaying the difficulties of kickstarting a politically motivated movement – With et al are always broke, unable to get permits, ignored by the media – but they always come through, and while the mechanisms that keep them going don’t have to be seen in detail, an acknowledgment as to how they’ve managed it would have made quite a difference. As it is, each crisis that comes along appears easily dealt with, leaving the inherent drama feeling trivial and under-developed.

There’s also something of a romantic subplot involving Liv’s obvious attraction to With. Esco the director serves up several lingering shots of Liv looking at With longingly, and even has Esco the actress returning said looks with a degree of emotional uncertainty from time to time, but the script offers no resolution or definitive outcome. It’s almost as if, with all the other gender issues the movie is doing its best to address, that the idea of a same sex relationship being added to the mix was perhaps one “issue” too many. It’s a shame, as the concept of love borne out of political activism isn’t one that cinema tackles very often.

The movie also downplays the contributions of the secondary characters, preferring to focus on With and Liv. As a result, most of these characters remain overshadowed throughout, with only LeBow (as the perpetually doubting Cali) and Grenier making much of an impact. Esco gives a spirited, invigorating performance, balancing With’s sense of injustice with her all too reasonable self-doubts, though With’s initial reluctance to go topless herself seems more of a clumsy storyline device than a real piece of character motivation. Kirke, meanwhile, cements her rising reputation as an actress to watch, with a portrayal of Liv that combines vulnerability, emotional longing, an impetuous nature, and enough quirky behaviour to make her immensely likeable at first meeting (even if she is a little naïve as well). And there are some lovely moments when Liv’s need to be a follower rather than a leader are expressed with just the right amount of insecurity and unspoken pliancy.

Elsewhere, the political elements hold sway, but while these are the movie’s main focus, sometimes it gets itself caught up in its own rhetoric. One minor character is heard to say that revolution isn’t the right word for what is happening; instead it should be an evolution. Unfortunately the script, and Esco’s direction, doesn’t make it clear if this is meant to be satirical or not, so the viewer is left with the uneasy feeling that the character is being serious. The movie also makes more of the movement’s “struggle” than it needs to. There are times when their cause is regarded – by its followers at least – as world-changing, even though most countries already have a relaxed approach to women going topless (legally or otherwise), and the which is worse argument, violence or sexual imagery, is trotted out as if it was the only argument needed to settle the debate (though to be fair, there’s very little debate involved; the Girlrillaz, as they’re dubbed, organise their rally quite easily in the end, and other groups in other countries follow suit, and there you have it).

For a movie that espouses the freedom to go topless in public, Free the Nipple does evidence some confusion over whether to show the “offending” objects or not. Early on, and at different times in the movie, women seen going about New York with their breasts exposed have them pixellated. It’s only when Kirke and Esco go topless later in the movie that the pixels are (mostly) abandoned for good. If there’s any kind of message here then it seems to have been lost in the editing stage because there doesn’t appear to be any reason for it. And while Esco the director eventually does as the title suggests, there’s lot of occasions where her framing and shot choices still leave any exposure struggling to be just that. This leaves the movie looking like somewhat of a tease in certain scenes (which Esco is unlikely to have intended), whereas if the viewer had been confronted with bare breasts from the start, their very matter-of-factness may well have achieved exactly what the movement wanted in the first place: for no one to be bothered by the sight of a free nipple.

Rating: 6/10 – though it struggles from time to time in telling its story with a clear sense of purpose, Free the Nipple is nevertheless an enjoyable, if disappointing, look at how distorted our view of the female form has become over the years; when it’s able to overcome its more zealous moments, the movie has some pertinent things to say about sexist attitudes in general, but they’re not always easy to find amongst all the distractions provided by the script.

Monthly Roundup – March 2016

31 Thursday Mar 2016

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Andy Mikita, Australia, Comedy, Cricket, Crime, Death of a Gentleman, Deathgasm, Devil worship, Disaster, Documentary, Drama, Ed Cowan, Edgar Ramirez, Ericson Core, Extreme Sports, FBI, Fred Durst, Horror, Ice Hockey, India, James Blake, Jarrod Kimber, Jason Bourque, Jeremy Sisto, Johnny Blank, Luke Bracey, Michael Shanks, Michelle MacLaren, Milo Cawthorne, Movies, Mr. Hockey: The Gordie Howe Story, Murder, Paul Johansson, Point Break (2015), Population / 436, Ray Winstone, Religion, Remake, Reviews, Robbery, Rockwell Falls, Sam Collins, Sci-fi, Sebastian Spence, Sports, Stonados, SyFy, Test match cricket, Twenty 20, Water spouts

Deathgasm (2015) / D: Jason Lei Howden / 86m

Cast: Milo Cawthorne, James Blake, Kimberley Crossman, Sam Berkley, Daniel Cresswell, Delaney Tabron, Stephen Ure, Andrew Laing, Colin Moy, Jodie Rimmer

Rating: 7/10 – when a teenage wannabe death metal band come into possession of sheet music that, when played, summons a demon called the Blind One, it’s up to them to stop both a zombie outbreak and the Blind One from destroying the world; raucous, rough around the edges, and with a liberal approach to gore, Deathgasm is a good-natured horror comedy that stumbles on occasion but, luckily, never loses sight of its simple brief: to be loud, dumb and lots of fun.

Mr. Hockey: The Gordie Howe Story (2013) / D: Andy Mikita / 87m

Cast: Michael Shanks, Kathleen Robertson, Dylan Playfair, Andrew Herr, Emma Grabinsky, Martin Cummins, Andrew Kavadas, Teach Grant, Ali Tataryn, Lochlyn Munro, Tom Anniko, Donnelly Rhodes, Erik J. Berg

Rating: 6/10 – the true story of ice hockey legend Gordie Howe who, after retiring in 1971, came back two years later and played not only with his two sons but in a new league altogether – and maintained his winning ways; looking like a strange hybrid of TV movie and abandoned big screen project, Mr. Hockey: The Gordie Howe Story does its best to avoid being a formulaic biopic, but is let down by the episodic nature of the script and a tendency to raise issues but not always follow them through.

Point Break (2015) / D: Ericson Core / 114m

Cast: Edgar Ramirez, Luke Bracey, Ray Winstone, Teresa Palmer, Matias Varela, Clemens Schick, Tobias Santelmann, Delroy Lindo, Max Thieriot, Nikolai Kinski

Rating: 4/10 – ex-extreme sportsman Johnny Utah joins the FBI and is given the opportunity to infiltrate a group of extreme sports fanatics who may or may not be responsible for a string of daring robberies; pretty to look at and featuring some great extreme sports sequences, Point Break is nonetheless a pointless remake with poor performances from all concerned, a woeful script, and lacks the edge Kathryn Bigelow brought to the original, leaving the viewer to wonder – yet again – why Hollywood insists on making so many dreadful remakes.

Stonados (2013) / D: Jason Bourque / 88m

Cast: Paul Johansson, Sebastian Spence, Miranda Frigon, Jessica McLeod, Dylan Schmid, William B. Davis, Grace Wolf, Thea Gill

Rating: 3/10 – off the coast of Boston, freak water spouts appear and hurl large stone chunks in all directions, putting everyone in danger and hoping they don’t hit land and become… stonados!; made in the same year as Sharknado, this tries to take itself seriously, but without a sense of its own absurdity it stutters from one poorly staged “stonado” sequence to another while – ironically – being unable to shrug off a whole raft of ineffective, embarrassing performances.

Population / 436 (2006) / D: Michelle MacLaren / 88m

Cast: Jeremy Sisto, Fred Durst, Charlotte Sullivan, Peter Outerbridge, David Fox, Monica Parker, Frank Adamson, R.H. Thomson, Reva Timbers

Rating: 6/10 – a census taker (Sisto) comes to the small town of Rockwell Falls and begins to suspect a terrible conspiracy, one that keeps the town’s population fixed at the same number; an uneasy, paranoid thriller with horror overtones, Population 436 features a good performance from Sisto and a well maintained sense of dread, but is held back from being entirely convincing by some awkward soap opera moments and a mangled reason for the town keeping its numbers to 436.

Death of a Gentleman (2015) / D: Sam Collins, Jarrod Kimber, Johnny Blank / 99m

With: Sam Collins, Jarrod Kimber, Ed Cowan, Giles Clarke, Narayanaswami Srinivasan, Lalit Modi, Gideon Haigh, Mark Nicholas, Chris Gayle

Rating: 8/10 – journalists Collins and Kimber set out to make a movie about their love of cricket and the challenges it faces, both commercially and culturally, and discover a scandal that threatens an end to test match cricket; not just for fans of “the gentleman’s game”, Death of a Gentleman is a quietly impressive documentary that sneaks up on the viewer and exposes the level of corruption at the very top of the game, revealing as it does the way in which the sport is being held to ransom by Srinivasan and a handful of others.

Trailers – Elstree 1976 (2015), The Nice Guys (2016) and Lights Out (2016)

30 Wednesday Mar 2016

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Action, Comedy, David F. Sandberg, Documentary, Elstree 1976, Horror, james Wan, Jon Spira, Lights Out, Previews, Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Shane Black, Star Wars, The Nice Guys, Trailers

A big hit at the BFI London Film Festival last year, Elstree 1976 is a lovingly crafted ode to ten people who worked on a little movie called Star Wars, but who won’t necessarily be known to the wider public (well, Dave Prowse might argue about that). That none of them went on to find worldwide fame and fortune isn’t the point of Jon Spira’s documentary; rather it’s the communal joy that came out of working on a project that none of them could have known would have been so successful, and which has enriched their lives in ways they couldn’t have imagined (even if it didn’t feel like it at the time).

The latest movie from the mercurial mind of Shane Black, The Nice Guys is the kind of uproarious mismatched buddy movie that only Black can put together. The teaming of Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling looks inspired, and the Seventies setting looks so vivid it’s hard to believe it wasn’t filmed in 1978 and has been sitting on the shelf ever since. The plot concerns the apparent suicide of a fading porn star, but don’t be surprised if there are larger shenanigans afoot, along with lashings of stylised violence, visual gags galore, and whip-smart banter between the leads.

The latest chiller from producer James Wan, Lights Out takes writer/director David F. Sandberg’s short movie – just three minutes long – and expands it to feature length. Its tale of a supernatural entity stalking three generations of the same family may suffer from being extended from its original set up, but hopefully Sandberg has crafted a back story that will explain everything satisfactorily. Either way, expect plenty of scares, lots of spooky rooms for the scares to take place in, and an array of characters who keep turning the lights off when they know they really shouldn’t.

10 Reasons to Remember Patty Duke (1946-2016)

29 Tuesday Mar 2016

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Actress, Career, Helen Keller, Manic depression, Movies, Oscar, Patty Duke Astin, The Miracle Worker

Patty Duke (14 December 1946 – 29 March 2016)

An actress who had more success in television than in the movies, Patty Duke was nevertheless a dependable star who rarely subjected an audience to a poor performance. When she was in her teens she appeared in the Broadway production of The Miracle Worker (1959-61), playing Helen Keller, and when it was adapted for the screen in 1962 there was no question as to who should play the role of Helen; it had to be Patty. She won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role, and she was able to use that win to transfer to the small screen and her own show (imaginatively titled The Patty Duke Show). Success followed for a third time, and occasional excursions into movies aside, she continued to fare well in TV, including a remake of The Miracle Worker (1979) in which she then played Annie Sullivan; for that portrayal she won an Emmy. In the Eighties she was diagnosed with manic depression, but it didn’t stop her from continuing to give good performances and adding a touch of class to the projects she took on, even if they were largely guest spots on TV shows or TV movies (and where she was usually billed as Patty Duke Astin). She was an instinctive actress, unafraid to give of herself when a role required it, and though she may not be regarded as an A-lister, she did more than enough to earn the respect and admiration of her peers, as well as fans around the world.

1 – The Miracle Worker (1962)

2 – Billie (1965)

3 – Valley of the Dolls (1967)

4 – Me, Natalie (1969)

5 – You’ll Like My Mother (1972)

6 – Deadly Harvest (1972)

7 – Killer on Board (1977)

8 – The Miracle Worker (1979)

9 – The Violation of Sarah McDavid (1981)

10 – Call Me Anna (1990)

Z for Zachariah (2015)

29 Tuesday Mar 2016

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Chiwetel Ejiofor, Chris Pine, Contamination, Craig Zobel, Drama, Literary adaptation, Margot Robbie, Radiation, Review, Valley

D: Craig Zobel / 98m

Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Margot Robbie, Chris Pine

In an abandoned town, a young woman (Robbie) scavenges for food and other supplies. She wears home made protective clothing that protects her from the air. Once she has what she needs she heads out of town and into the nearby hills. Once she’s reached a certain distance she removes the protective clothing and continues on into a valley where it appears the air isn’t contaminated. She’s met by her dog, and together they reach her home, a farm where they live by themselves. There’s no electricity or gas, no working generator, but at least the weather is good, and the young woman has plenty of food.

It’s a lonely existence, but one borne out of necessity. The world has suffered a catastrophe, and the young woman, whose name is Ann, is a survivor, trapped/saved by the valley she lives in, which somehow acts as a natural barrier against whatever has happened. She’s already survived a hard winter where she nearly ran out of food, but she’s better prepared now, and is growing vegetables, tending chickens, and keeping a cow. She is becoming used to being alone, but still longs for human company.

One day her unspoken wish is answered. She discovers a man (Ejiofor), dressed in an anti-radiation suit, on the road near her home. He has a portable Geiger counter and is taking readings. When he realises that the area is unaffected he removes his suit. When Ann moves closer she finds him gone from the road and bathing at the base of a nearby waterfall. She implores him to get out, quickly, as the water is contaminated. Back at the farmhouse his sickness threatens his life, but thanks to drugs he has in his possession, Ann is able to save him from dying. The man, whose name is John, recuperates slowly, but he helps Ann as much as he can and even comes up with a plan to get the tractor going again. Ann and John begin to rely on each other, and as they do they become closer, forming a bond of mutual reliance and affection. And then they discover that there’s somebody else in the valley as well…

Those familiar with Robert C. O’Brien’s novel will know that there are only two characters in Z for Zachariah, and that the novel concerns itself with themes of science versus nature, and the clash of identities between Ann and John. But in Nissar Modi’s adaptation these themes are missing, and the viewer is left with themes of sexual jealousy and remorse, and John’s need to control the people around him (even if it’s just Ann). With the introduction of Caleb (Pine), Modi not only changes the nature of the struggle between Ann and John, he also changes irrevocably the tone of the movie and makes it less intriguing to watch.

What begins as a clever survivalist movie soon develops into a relationship drama where two people, who previously thought they were the only ones alive in their part of the world, adapt to coexisting again. It’s this section of the movie, where it’s just Ann and John and their relationship takes hold that offers the most rewards. As portrayed by Robbie, Ann is a gauche, likeable character who has a simple sincerity about her. It’s a good contrast to John’s anguished, bitter personality, and Ejiofor shows us the man’s deep-rooted insecurities slowly but surely, until the viewer is forced to realise that he’s not quite the “good man” that Ann believes he is. Pitted against her God-fearing background – her father built and preached in the nearby church – John treads carefully enough, but still leaves enough clues that he’s not fully to be trusted.

And it would have been great to see that dynamic play out with just the two characters, with Ann perhaps coming to terms with living with a man she’s attracted to but can’t trust. But again Modi doesn’t want to do that. Instead he introduces Caleb and makes the movie about sexual desire, a ménage à trois, with both John and Caleb circling each other and looking for ways to impress Ann. But where Caleb is supportive and charming, John reacts boorishly, and it’s at this stage of the movie where it becomes uncomfortably like a soap opera, and where the script struggles to maintain a clarity of purpose. At one point tells Ann that he’s okay with her being attracted to Caleb, that it’s okay if they want to “go and be white people together”. This remark is said in an almost offhand manner by John, but it’s indicative of the way in which the script suddenly lacks purpose. It’s a casual, racist comment, and should be powerful in its own way for being voiced by someone who’s black, but the script leaves it hanging, and never goes back to it.

With the last third hamstrung by needing to be more dramatic, the good work of the first hour is left behind. Pine is appropriately charismatic but as Caleb worms his way into Ann’s affections, the combination of the script, Pine’s performance, and Zobel’s now wayward direction, makes the whole thing seem implausible. All three elements fail to make a cohesive whole, and while the trio toil away at harnessing the energy of the waterfall to provide power for the generator, the viewer is left to watch things develop in such a way that the inevitable confrontation between John and Caleb lacks any bite, and the movie tries to end on a note of ambiguity that doesn’t really hold up.

Robbie, who is definitely an actress to watch at the moment, is very good as Ann, capturing the character’s innate trusting nature and revealing the pain she feels when that trust is abused. Ejiofor is equally good but John is a flawed character in more ways than one, and the script is less than subtle when it comes to revealing his motivations, leaving the actor to make the most of some very clumsy dialogue and direction. Along with Pine, Ejiofor seems to have been left to figure things out for himself in the final third, and Zobel’s influence wanes on the material the longer the movie goes on. By the end it’s almost as if the cast have directed themselves, but it’s at odds with what Zobel’s done up til then, and it shows.

Narrative and character disappointments aside, the movie at least looks absolutely beautiful, the New Zealand backdrops shot with an exquisite eye by Tim Orr, who did some equally impressive work on The World Made Straight (2015). It’s the one aspect of the movie that’s consistent throughout, and in conjunction with Robbie’s performance, makes the movie worth seeing, but both have to work hard to offset the slow pace made at the beginning, and the tired resolution at the end.

Rating: 6/10 – a movie that never quite gels into a satisfying whole, Z for Zachariah still has enough going for it to warrant a look; with all due respect to Pine, perhaps it’s also one to watch up until the actor makes his appearance – then you’ll have seen the best of it.

Showdown in Manila (2016)

28 Monday Mar 2016

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Action, Alexander Nevsky, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Casper Van Dien, Crime, Cynthia Rothrock, Don 'The Dragon' Wilson, Drama, Manila, Mark Dacascos, Philippines, Review, Thriller, Tia Carrere

D: Mark Dacascos / 86m

Cast: Alexander Nevsky, Casper Van Dien, Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa, Tia Carrere, Matthias Hues, Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson, Cynthia Rothrock, Olivier Gruner, Dmitriy Dyuzhev, Maria Bravikova, Iza Calzado, Jake Macapalga, Hazel Faith Dela Cruz, Mark Dacascos

There’s a saying that if it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and looks like a duck then it must be a duck. But if the ‘it’ in question walks like Arnold Schwarzenegger, sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger (in certain circumstances) then it must be Alexander Nevsky. The Russian-born former body builder turned actor/writer/producer has modelled his acting style so closely on that of the former Governor of California that if make up was judiciously applied in the right places they could pass for brothers (or maybe even twins – sorry, Danny DeVito).

In Showdown in Manila, this is most apparent during the extended showdown that happens not in Manila but in the jungle. Here Nevsky adopts Schwarzenegger’s trademark stance from his Eighties heyday, fires off rounds one-handed, and turns his whole body to face a new opponent. Nevsky also sounds like Schwarzenegger, his phrasing and accent often completely the same. If it isn’t intentional then it’s an incredible feat of unconscious mimicry.

But Nevsky’s troublesome performance aside, the movie has several other distractions for the viewer to contend with. Following a botched mission to apprehend local crime kingpin the Wraith (Tagawa), Nevsky’s character, Violent Crimes Unit detective Nick Peyton, takes the rap for his team being wiped out and leaves the force. It’s a strange reaction for such a tough guy, and if it’s intended to provide the character with a degree of debilitating guilt (or any kind of guilt), then it’s soon abandoned. Instead, we fast forward two years. Now we’re introduced to vacationing FBI agent Matthew Wells (Dacascos) and his wife (Carrere). Spotting the Wraith at the hotel where they’re staying, Wells engages his men in a fight but ends up being killed by the Wraith himself.

As a witness, Mrs Wells is soon targeted by the Wraith, but a VCU agent (Calzado) has the bright idea of putting her in the safe hands of Nick (now a private eye) and his partner, sex addict Charlie Benz (Van Dien). At this point, viewers might want to hit the pause button and ask themselves, he’s a private eye? With a sex addict partner? And he’s the first choice to protect the chief witness in a murder investigation? Against an untouchable crime boss? Am I hearing this properly? Well, yes. But things get even more incredible. Mrs Wells then hires Nick and Charlie to track down the Wraith and bring him to her alive.

Cue a series of scenes where Nick and Charlie intimidate various low-level criminals about the whereabouts of the Wraith and his principal henchman, Dorn (Hues) (and which also feature Charlie letching at almost every female he meets/sees/catches a brief glimpse of). Eventually they apprehend Dorn and they learn about the Wraith’s jungle hideout. Nick contacts his old captain at the VCU (Macapalga), but instead of passing on the information, he asks for help, and that help proves to be his “old team”.

It’s at this point that fans of Eighties/Nineties action flicks will smile appreciatively at the introduction of Messrs, Rothrock, Gruner, and Wilson. Together with Dyuzhev, they join Nick and Charlie on a raid on the Wraith’s hideout that involves lots of shooting (at unidentified targets), and get to show off their trademark moves. It’s a lengthy sequence, choppily edited and lacking exactly the kind of thrills that low budget Eighties action movies lacked. There’s a less than satisfying coda to wrap things up, and the moment where full effect of Nevsky’s “impersonation” of Schwarzenegger is cemented for all to see.

Unsurprisingly, Showdown in Manila isn’t the best example of the dozens of Philippine-based actioners that are made each year for the international market. Even with the presence of Rockroth, Gruner and Wilson, the movie slips into first gear early on and never manages to reach second, settling instead for an even rhythm that robs the action sequences of any excitement, but which also highlights the paucity of Nevsky’s story idea. The script, by Craig Hamann, who co-wrote Quentin Tarantino’s very first, uncompleted movie, My Best Friend’s Birthday (1987), takes the usual continuity short cuts in connecting the dots of Nick’s search for the Wraith, and the distractions mentioned above include a foot chase that couldn’t have been pitched at a faster pace if Nevsky and Hues had been using zimmer frames, Dacascos orchestrating the best fight sequence for himself, and Tagawa’s disinterested performance.

Alas, Tagawa isn’t the only one. Van Dien, employed to provide a degree of comedy via Charlie’s sex addiction, looks bored and resigned for most of the time, while Hues merely looks smug for no reason at all. Nevsky is as wooden as you’d expect, Carrere does crazed, vengeance-seeking widow as if her life depended on it, and the inclusion of Rothrock, Gruner and Wilson is brief enough that they avoid having to make too much of an effort and in doing so remind viewers why they never won any acting awards back in the day. And Dacascos does a perfunctory job behind the camera, but doesn’t engage enough with his cast to make a difference.

Rating: 4/10 – forgettable and unrewarding, Showdown in Manila acts as a showcase for Nevsky, but the actor/writer/producer lacks the necessary screen presence to make that much of an impact; once again, a low budget actioner that never overcomes or exceeds its limitations, despite having more potential to do so than most.

Get a Job (2016)

27 Sunday Mar 2016

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Advertising, Alison Brie, Anna Kendrick, Bryan Cranston, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Comedy, Dylan Kidd, iStalkYou, Job hunting, Marcia Gay Harden, Miles Teller, Review, Teaching, The Decision Maker, Videos

D: Dylan Kidd / 83m

Cast: Miles Teller, Anna Kendrick, Bryan Cranston, Nicholas Braun, Brandon T. Jackson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Marcia Gay Harden, Alison Brie, Jay Pharaoh, Bruce Davison, Cameron Richardson, Greg Germann, Jorge Garcia, John C. McGinley, Seth Morris, John Cho

Be yourself. The movies are always telling us to be ourselves. If we do that then the world is our oyster, and we can achieve anything. But what if your name is Miles Teller? What if, back in 2014 you appeared in a movie called Whiplash, and right at that moment when the world was your oyster and you were on the brink of achieving anything, what would you do next? Would you capitalise on the recognition you’ve received as a dramatic actor and use it to land bigger, better roles? Or would you continue making comedies (romantic and straightforward), or would you try something a little different?

Since Whiplash, Teller’s cinematic output has been patchy at best. He’s appeared in all three Divergent movies (albeit in a supporting role), a romantic comedy, Two Night Stand (2014), an out-and-out comedy, That Awkward Moment (2014), and some superhero movie it’s best not to talk about. Later this year he’ll be back on funny man duties with Jonah Hill in War Dogs. It won’t be until either much later this year or in 2017 that we’ll see Teller in serious mode again. In the meantime, we have another comedy to wade through, the sporadically amusing Get a Job, a movie that feels like the kind of project Teller should have been making at the start of his career.

He plays Will Davis, recently graduated and with a job at a local newspaper. His specialty is video reviews, but he’s soon fired thanks to cutbacks. Looking around for a job that suits him he ends up working for a recruitment firm that specialises in making video CVs for professionals looking to make an impression on potential employers. Meanwhile his father, Roger (Cranston) also finds himself out of a job after thirty years. He quickly identifies an ideal job for his skills, but he can’t get to the one man who has the power to say yes or no, the fabled decision maker. And while the Davis men face a variety of obstacles both in and out of work, Will’s friends – stoner Charlie (Braun), commodities broker Luke (Jackson), and sleazy app designer Ethan (Mintz-Plasse) – have similar problems navigating the choppy waters of employment. And then Will’s girlfriend, Jillian (Kendrick), also loses her job.

Right from the movie’s start it’s clear that the script by Kyle Pennekamp and Scott Turpel isn’t going to be as tightly constructed or relevant to today’s modern day job market as it may have intended, and actually that’s okay. Get a Job is a piece of fluff, an inconsequential movie whose message – be yourself, remember? – floats on the surface of its semi-humorous approach to job-seeking. It’s a movie to be watched when there’s nothing better on, or when you need to switch off your brain and let a movie just wash over you. And thanks to Messrs Pennekamp and Turpel, along with the movie’s director, that’s exactly what you get.

But even inconsequential movies need to entertain, and Get a Job drops the ball too often to succeed. Three things we’re meant to find funny: Will taking dexedrine in order to work late(!) and behaving manically; Luke being coerced into drinking deer sperm to get ahead at work; and Ethan’s pervy iStalkYou app, that lets the user find someone even if they don’t want to be. With these and many more uneven attempts at provoking laughter, the movie is in constant search of a consistent comedic tone, and while there are some occasions when it’s successful, it does so against the odds. Teller and Kendrick are old hands at this sort of thing but even they can’t drag the material out of the rut it imposes on itself. The only cast member who seems to have the measure of things is Cranston; next to everyone else his is the only character whose situation you can sympathise with, and whose performance is actually enjoyable.

And like a lot of modern comedies, the viewer isn’t invited to like the characters in the movie, or even get to know them. They all have prescribed character arcs, and they all face challenges that are meant to show they can grow and be responsible as they take on adult roles. And although there is a definite “be yourself” vibe, and one that the movie maintains throughout, ultimately it’s done in such a conservative way that the message is worthless. Like so many other movies of its ilk, what Get a Job is really saying is be yourself for a while but only until regular society says it’s time to put that behind you, and be like everyone else. (American movies celebrate the individual with such persuasion.)

The movie also falls back on too many tried and trusted scenarios to be fresh enough to work (ironically). Will has a boss, Katherine (Harden), who proves to be a ballbuster, but a fortunate discovery redresses the balance; Jillian won’t smoke from a bong – until the script decides she has to; Charlie appears to have no clue about being a teacher but he turns out to be inspirational; and Will’s early encounter with a pimp (Pharaoh) proves to be the most important working connection he ever makes. The performances, with many of the cast treading water (and with Teller and Kendrick proving the main offenders), are adequate without being memorable, and many scenes fall flat as a result.

Overseeing everything, Kidd doesn’t seem able to add any panache to proceedings, leaving the movie to coast along in its own wake, or run aground when the script loses momentum. However, there is one moment where the movie makes a relevant observation: when Jillian tells Will she’s been let go she mentions that she’s ninety thousand dollars in debt, no doubt a reference to the student loans she took out in order to get through college and/or university. It’s a throwaway comment, but it’s a better angle for a movie than the one used here.

Rating: 5/10 – the kind of movie that looks as if it’s a contractual obligation for all concerned, Get a Job could be retitled Get a Grip, or Get a Move On, or even Get a Life, such are the various ways it approaches its basic storyline; formulaic and only mildly amusing, it’s a movie that doesn’t really try too hard, but when it does, the extra effort doesn’t add up to much.

Suffragette (2015)

26 Saturday Mar 2016

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Anne-Marie Duff, Ben Whishaw, Brendan Gleeson, Carey Mulligan, David Lloyd George, Derby Day, Drama, Emmeline Pankhurst, Equality, Helena Bonham Carter, Historical drama, Laundry worker, Meryl Streep, Panks, Review, Sarah Gavron, True story, Voting rights, Women's rights

D: Sarah Gavron / 106m

Cast: Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne-Marie Duff, Brendan Gleeson, Ben Whishaw, Romola Garai, Natalie Press, Geoff Bell, Samuel West, Finbar Lynch, Adrian Schiller, Meryl Streep

If you were to ask a hundred people, what was the Women’s Social and Political Union, and what was its purpose, most, if not all, wouldn’t be able to tell you. And yet the WSPU is perhaps one of the most important organisations in British history. Without its members and their tireless work, often in the face of police brutality and political intransigence, it’s very likely that women in the UK would not have been given the right to vote as early as they were (and even then it wasn’t until 1928). Suffragette, which looks at the Union’s activities in the run up to World War I, makes clear the level of sacrifice some of its members had to make in order to change the British political system for the better.

The struggle is seen through the eyes of laundry worker Maud Watts (Mulligan), wife of Sonny (Whishaw) and mother of their son, George. Maud is hardworking, has gained a certain degree of respect in the workplace, but at twenty-four has little future beyond what she’s already achieved. She appears to be accepting of her lot in life, but when a co-worker, Violet Miller (Duff), falls foul of their boss, Norman Taylor (Bell), Maud comes to her rescue and the two women strike up a friendship. Maud learns that Violet is a supporter of the women’s movement, and while she admires Violet’s courage and determination, she has no intention of becoming a suffragette.

An invitation to speak before then Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George (Schiller), is arranged for Violet, but she is unable to speak. Maud stands in for her, and is invited to tell her story. Lloyd George is clearly sympathetic, but when an announcement is made some time later, the law remains unchanged. Caught up in the violent struggle that ensues, Maud is arrested. She is questioned by Inspector Arthur Steed (Gleeson), who has been tasked with rounding up the Union’s ringleaders, including its head, Emmeline Pankhurst (Streep). Maud denies being a suffragette, but when she’s released a week later, it’s obvious that people think she is. Sonny is upset by her involvement, and she promises to stay away from the WSPU and its members. But when a secret meeting, to be addressed by Emmeline Pankhurst is arranged, Maud can’t help but attend.

From there, along with Violet and a local pharmacist, Edith Ellyn (Carter), Maud becomes more and more involved in the WSPU and its plans. Unable to deal with her increasing involvement, Sonny kicks her out, and refuses to let her see George. In the meantime, she leaves the laundry as well, and devotes her time to the Union. She takes part in the destruction of postboxes and telephone lines, and other acts of civil disobedience. She’s arrested again, and Steed offers her a choice: inform on the Union’s activities, or face longer spells in jail. With the women under both suspicion and surveillance, and with Pankhurst exhorting them to increase their attacks on the establishment, Maud has to decide if her future resides with the WSPU.

Suffragette wears its heart on its sleeve right from the start. As a movie about the struggle of women to gain the right to vote it takes an earnest, pragmatic approach, and while it often strays from the truth in its efforts to shoehorn Maud into the events that did happen (particularly in the scenes set at Epsom on Derby Day, when Emily Wilding Davison was run down by the King’s horse), it also narrows its focus too much in its efforts to tell its story.

By choosing to tell the story of the WSPU’s struggle through the eyes of Maud, a neophyte in terms of the political landscape of the times, Abi Morgan’s script reduces the efforts and the sacrifices made by the real-life women of the time to the stuff of soap opera. From the disapproving looks of her neighbours as Maud walks home, to the reaction of Sonny after she goes back on her word, and even to the moment when she takes her long awaited “revenge” on Taylor for his bullying, rapacious behaviour, Maud’s journey from reluctant laundry worker to political activist is dealt with in such a clichéd, tick-box way that it robs the movie of any real drama. Indeed, the only time the movie achieves any kind of dramatic focus is when it opts to have Maud force-fed (something that happened to Davison forty-nine times; ironically, force-feeding was introduced after fellow suffragette Marion Wallace Dunlop was released from prison after being on hunger strike for ninety-one days).

With the politics of the time reduced to the simplest level possible, and the history of the struggle barely referred to, the movie operates in a kind of historical vacuum. And worst of all, it lacks passion. With everything that happens (and was happening at the time), Suffragette lacks a true sense of the anger and frustration that women must have felt back then. Morgan’s script shows the determination they had, but between that and Gavron’s emphasis on making sure that each scene moves on to the next as quickly as possible, any potential exploration of what women truly felt about their social and political situation back in the pre-War years is avoided. Instead, Maud is used as a kind of generic marker; if it happens to her then it happened to every woman, and that was very bad indeed (that sounds very simplistic, but then so is the movie).

On the performance side, Mulligan is dependable but is often asked to stand around observing while the likes of Duff and Carter do the heavy lifting. Gleeson does well as the Voice of Authority until a late script decision undoes all the good work he’s put in ’til then, Whishaw is the generally supportive husband who soon turns horrible simply because the movie needs him to, Garai is lost in a supporting role that keeps her on the edge of things throughout, Bell is once again called upon to be unconscionably malevolent, and Streep’s cameo lacks the gravitas it needs to be effective.

With radicalisation currently a hot topic, it would have been good to see Maud’s joining the WSPU in terms of indoctrination; after all, with their civil disobedience stretching to blowing up Lloyd George’s country home, it’s likely that they would have been described as terrorists if the word had existed in that context back then. But it’s an idea that’s never taken up, and like so many other areas where the movie could have gained some much needed depth, the need to keep it simple overrides all other considerations.

Rating: 5/10 – a so-so retelling of events leading up to 1914 and the outbreak of World War I (which really helped the suffragettes and their cause), Suffragette adopts a pedestrian approach to events of the time, and never comes alive in the way its makers probably intended; it’s ironic then, that in attempting to highlight the suffragettes’ fight for equality, the movie ends up portraying that fight in less than heroic terms.

Oh! the Horror! – Little Dead Rotting Hood (2016) and The Inhabitants (2015)

25 Friday Mar 2016

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Bianca A. Santos, Den mother, Elise Couture Stone, Eric Balfour, Horror, Jared Cohn, Little Dead Rotting Hood, Michael Rasmussen, Michael Reed, Missing children, Review, Shawn Rasmussen, Stillwater, The Carriage House, The Inhabitants, Werewolves, Witchcraft

Little Dead Rotting Hood (2016) / D: Jared Cohn / 88m

Cast: Eric Balfour, Bianca A. Santos, Romeo Miller, Patrick Muldoon, Heather Tom, Brendan Wayne, Marina Sirtis, Amy Argyle, Tony Ketcham

In the small town of Stillwater in the state of Backwoods USA, there’s a bit of a problem with wolves. It seems the hairy devils are attacking and killing the townsfolk, which according to State Officer Victoria (Tom) shouldn’t be happening… unless of course these wolves are some kind of genetic mutation (which would explain why they don’t hunt in a pack). But the problem is a much more serious one: these aren’t just any old wolves, even genetically mutated ones. No, they’re werewolves, and they have a den mother who wants to kill all the townspeople on the night of the autumn equinox (basically, in a few days’ time). Can town Sheriff Adam (Balfour), Deputy Henry (Muldoon) and the usual handful of eager locals/dialogue-free extras, including town weirdo Benson (Ketcham), bring these supernatural entities to heel and save the day?

Not by themselves, no. As it turns out they need help from the Keeper of the Forest. And who’s that you ask. That’s Samantha (Santos), the granddaughter of the town’s other weirdo, Mrs Winfield (Sirtis) aka the Wolf Lady. You see, Samantha has inherited her grandmother’s supernatural abilities, albeit in very unfortunate circumstances: following a werewolf attack, Samantha died, but her grandmother used her powers to resurrect her. Now Samantha is able to kick werewolf butt and aid the Sheriff in his attempts to hunt down the werewolves that are running amok, and also track down their den mother.

Viewers expecting a fun time with Little Dead Rotting Hood would be advised to lower their expectations – and they probably will when they see “The Asylum Presents” show up during the movie’s opening credits. Small town werewolf movies have become reasonably popular in recent years, what with the likes of Late Phases (2014) and WolfCop (2014), but Little Dead Rotting Hood isn’t likely to join them in the public’s affection anytime soon. It’s clear that the title came first and screenwriter Gabriel Campisi was left to come up with a story to match it to, but as he hasn’t written a script since Alien Agenda: Endangered Species (1998), it soon becomes obvious the task was beyond him. When he can’t even decide if the werewolves can be killed by ordinary gunfire or not you know the movie’s in trouble (before we learn that they’re werewolves they can, afterwards they can’t).

Things aren’t helped by the hiring of Jared Cohn in the director’s chair. Cohn gave us the incredibly stupid Buddy Hutchins (2015), and he’s on equal form here, stifling what little tension Campisi has managed to create by virtue of poor staging, failing to address the absurdities of the script (difficult as there are so many), and failing to encourage even one halfway decent performance from anyone. Balfour looks as if his agent said yes without consulting him in the first place, Santos looks baffled in the way that someone does when they’re not sure if they’re in the right place, and Sirtis gets off lightly by only appearing in a cameo role. Even the special effects reflect the bargain basement budget and lack of creativity, with Santos’ Little Dead Rotting Hood look reminiscent of the kind of “scary” make up worn by kids at Halloween.

Rating: 3/10 – one to avoid, Little Dead Rotting Hood pays lip service to the zombie aspect of its title, and squanders any attempt at being hokey fun by running away from the possibility whenever it seems likely to happen; basically a random selection of scenes that barely relate to each other, the movie is neither entertaining or rewarding, and seems only to have been made on some kind of dare.

The Inhabitants (2015) / D: The Rasmussen Brothers / 90m

Cast: Elise Couture Stone, Michael Reed, Judith Chaffee, Rebecca Whitehurst, India Pearl

Jessica (Stone) and Dan (Reed) decide to buy a New England bed and breakfast, the isolated, three hundred and fifty year old Carriage House. Previously run by an elderly couple, the wife has become too infirm to run things by herself since the death of her husband, and her family are looking for a quick sale that includes all the fixtures and fittings. Jessica and Dan have plans to continue running the place as a bed and breakfast, and once they’ve moved in they set about fixing what needs fixing and upgrading what needs upgrading. But it isn’t long before they each begin to hear things – strange noises – and Ben discovers that one of the fuses relates to somewhere in the main house that he can’t track down.

An encounter with some of the locals leads to Jessica finding out that the Carriage House was built in the 1600’s and was home to a midwife, Lydia Marsh (Pearl), who was charged with witchcraft when several children she nursed grew sick. After her death, a number of children went missing and were never seen again. Dan leaves on a business trip, and while he’s away Jessica has a supernatural encounter that leaves her distant and uncommunicative. Her newly-odd behaviour leads to Dan discovering which part of the house the mystery fuse relates to: an attic space that contains a bank of video screens and recorders. But his discovery that the previous owner was spying on his guests also reveals a greater secret, one that the house has been hiding for over three centuries.

When a movie poster boasts that the movie it’s supporting is “From the writers of John Carpenter’s The Ward” it’s likely to provoke one of two responses: first, “John Carpenter made a movie called The Ward?”, and second, “Is that really the best recommendation anyone could come up with? Have they seen The Ward?” Either response would be appropriate for this slow-moving, less than atmospheric chiller that ticks off the clichés as it navigates its way from its inauspicious beginning to its predictable resolution. With nothing new to keep the viewer interested, The Inhabitants is a dreary, tension-free affair that signposts its few scares and offers one of the most tired horror set ups there is: the house with a bad history (cue disappointment and yawning).

In the hands of the Rasmussen Brothers, Michael and Shawn, the movie doesn’t even attempt to get us to like its central characters. Jessica and Dan lack a back story, and thanks to the vagaries of the script in its first third, we never get to know them as a couple. Once the house begins to exert its influence on Jessica, any potential development is abandoned in favour of Dan’s discovery of the surveillance system, and having her wander around the house in a trance. The movie also favours the type of dark, hollow-eyed make up (that we’ve now seen done to death) to make its spectres look chilling, a creative decision that doesn’t work thanks to that particular look being so prevalent in horror movies right now. By the end you won’t care what happens to either Jessica or Dan; instead you’ll be glad you can leave the Carriage House behind and never have to go back.

Rating: 4/10 – lacking in many departments, but let down most of all by its derivative nature, The Inhabitants is a so-so horror movie that barely feels as if it’s “alive”; and when a movie has to include the deaths of some minor characters in order to bring some energy to proceedings then you know it’s in trouble.

Happy Birthday – Lara Flynn Boyle

24 Thursday Mar 2016

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Actress, Afterglow, Birthday, Have Dreams Will Travel, Land of the Blind, Lara Flynn Boyle, Movies, Red Rock West, Speaking of Sex

Lara Flynn Boyle (24 March 1970 -)

With her angled features highlighted by big piercing eyes, Lara Flynn Boyle has always brought a distinctive, attractive element to her movies, ever since her big screen debut in (sadly) Poltergeist III (1988). And yet beneath the model looks and slightly aloof exterior, Boyle has displayed a natural talent for acting that some of her peers would kill for (if they’d only admit it). She found fame though away from the big screen with the role of Donna Hayward in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks (1990-91), but like her female co-stars Sherilyn Fenn and Mädchen Amick, was never really able to capitalise on the show’s success in terms of bigger, better movie roles. Boyle has nevertheless appeared in a number of movies whose reputations preceed them, and even if she’s made the odd movie that doesn’t add anything to her CV – Hansel & Gretel Get Baked (2013) for example – her performances have always carried a sincerity about them that adds to the movie in question. She hasn’t made many movies in recent years, and some recent plastic surgery choices have kept her in the public eye for all the wrong reasons, but hopefully we haven’t seen the last of her on the big screen, not when the following five movies all show just how good an actress she really is.

Afterglow (1997) – Character: Marianne Byron

Alan Rudolph’s dramedy of marital infidelities cast Boyle as the sexually frustrated wife of an ambitious businessman (played by Jonny Lee Miller) who develops an unhealthy crush on a handyman (played by Nick Nolte) who has marital problems of his own. More than holding her own amongst a very talented cast that also includes an Oscar-nominated Julie Christie, Boyle’s performance overcomes some of Rudolph’s more unhelpful character decisions, and she handles the comedic elements with a clear understanding of the darkly comic aspects woven throughout the material.

Speaking of Sex (2001) – Character: Dr Emily Paige

Rarely seen, but well worth seeking out (though some would say otherwise), this comedy from John McNaughton thankfully is more hit than miss, and sees Boyle playing a marriage counsellor who teams up with an expert on depression (played by James Spader) to try and solve a couples’ marital problems. The humour is situational rather than reliant on one-liners, anyone who’s even remotely prudish won’t enjoy most of it, and Boyle is terrific in a cast that also includes Jay Mohr and Melora Walters as the couple, Catherine O’Hara, Megan Mullaly, and Bill Murray.

Red Rock West (1993) – Character: Suzanne Brown

As the unfaithful wife who has a contract taken out on her by her husband, Boyle is never less than compelling as the intended victim who hides a secret of her own and who isn’t as easy a target as Nicolas Cage’s wrong-person-in-the-wrong-place soon discovers. John Dahl’s modern day film noir gives Boyle the chance to play the femme fatale, and she seizes the opportunity with undisguised relish, imbuing Suzanne with the kind of icy immorality that we all like to see in our tarnished heroines.

Have Dreams, Will Travel (2007) – Character: Ben’s mother

A coming of age tale that somehow manages to avoid the clichés of the genre and provide viewers with a refreshing approach to otherwise familiar territory, Have Dreams, Will Travel (aka A West Texas Children’s Story) features Boyle, but this time in a supporting role as a young boy’s mother whose obsession with Hollywood and its movie stars means that she neglects him. Despite the focus being on her son, the female friend he makes, and their subsequent relationship, Boyle grabs the attention whenever she’s on screen and gives another indelible performance.

Land of the Blind (2006) – Character: First Lady

In this ambitious and largely successful political thriller, Boyle plays the wife of a dictator (played by Tom Hollander) whose imprisonment of a dissident (played by Donald Sutherland) drives the narrative. It’s a dark, pessimistic movie, shot through with the kind of black humour that is funny and uncomfortable at the same time, and features superb performances from all concerned (particularly from Ralph Fiennes who plays Sutherland’s guard), and though Boyle’s role is a secondary one, nevertheless there are strong enough echoes of Lady Macbeth to make her performance a chilling one.

Trailers – The Shallows (2016), All the Way (2016) and Too Late (2015)

23 Wednesday Mar 2016

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All the Way, Blake Lively, Bryan Cranston, Civil rights, Crime, Dennis Hauck, Great white shark, Jaume Collet-Serra, Jay Roach, John Hawkes, Lyndon B. Johnson, Previews, Racial equality, The Shallows, Thriller, Too Late, Trailers, True story

Forty-one years after we all thought it was safe to go back into the water, and despite movies such as the Jaws sequels, Open Water (2003), and The Reef (2010), it’s time to really crank up the terror and put Carcharodon carcharias back where he belongs: prowling the waters and looking for people to munch on. Or in this case, a person to munch on, as Blake Lively’s unfortunate surfer finds herself trapped two hundred yards from shore, injured, and with the least friendliest denizen of the deep idly swimming about between her and safety. Anthony Jaswinski’s screenplay was on the 2014 Blacklist, and has been picked up by Jaume Collet-Saura – Orphan (2009), Run All Night (2015) – so there’s every chance that this will have aquaphobics everywhere repeating “It’s only a movie” over and over.

American politics in the Sixties was dominated by one issue: racial equality. But what few people remember is that the Civil Rights Bill was passed during Lyndon B. Johnson’s time in office, and that he was more instrumental in getting the Bill through Congress than you’d expect. All the Way is an adaptation of the Tony award winning play by Robert Schenkkan that also starred Bryan Cranston as LBJ, and which reunites Cranston with his Trumbo (2015) director, Jay Roach. So, in essence another biopic set against the backdrop of turbulent political times in America. But with the prospect of a certain wild-haired businessman sitting in the White House in nine months’ time, this may well serve as a timely reminder that what a country really needs in a leader is the will to do what’s right, and not what his party thinks is right.

In Dennis Hauck’s first feature, John Hawkes is the world weary private eye tasked with finding a missing woman in this modern day film noir that consists of five “acts”, all of which have been filmed in a single take. What may seem like an awkward way of presenting a traditional kind of Hollywood movie looks to have been overcome by the cleverness of the script and the freshness of the direction, and the presence of a terrific cast, headed by one of current cinema’s best character actors. With the investigation taking a back seat to the effects on the characters involved, this should be quirky and rewarding, and prove to be one of those movies that rewards the lucky viewer who seeks it out.

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

22 Tuesday Mar 2016

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Aliens, Car crash, Cloverfield, Dan Trachtenberg, Drama, Fallout shelter, John Gallagher Jr, John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Review, Thriller

D: Dan Trachtenberg / 103m

Cast: John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Gallagher Jr, Suzanne Cryer

Much like its unofficial predecessor, 10 Cloverfield Lane arrives out of the blue with little fanfare but carrying the huge weight of anticipation. In these days of overhyped mega-budget superhero-thons and the perception that the public needs to know everything about a movie before it’s released, the fact that this latest from producer J.J. Abrams has slipped so easily under the radar is a very welcome fact indeed. While some movies thrive on the hype that accompanies them, this blend of claustrophobic thriller and sci-fi action movie has been released to a world that barely knew it was waiting for it. So how does it fare?

Well, the first thing to mention is that this isn’t a sequel to Cloverfield (2007). Yes, Cloverfield is in the title, but this exists in a different world to that movie, and while the notion of marauding aliens is present – in the final twenty minutes at least – what we have here is a decent thriller that pulls off a couple of neat narrative tricks on its way to an unnecessary, tacked-on finale. It begins with Michelle (Winstead) deciding to leave her husband, Ben. She takes off in her car and is soon driving through some very deserted countryside. It gets dark and as she navigates both the road ahead and calls from Ben, a truck collides with her and her car goes off the road. When she comes to she’s in a small, bare room and her right leg, which is strapped up, is chained to the wall.

Her rescuer proves to be called Howard (Goodman), a survivalist who tells her that she’s in a fallout shelter that he’s had built, and that there’s been an attack which has left the atmosphere poisonous and unsafe. Disbelieving at first, Michelle learns that she and Howard aren’t alone. Also there is Emmett (Gallagher Jr), a young man who helped Howard build the shelter, and who “fought” his way in when Howard was about to seal it up. He corroborates Howard’s story of an attack, but it’s clear that he doesn’t really know what’s happening above ground, and as Michelle increasingly suspects, neither does Howard.

In time, Michelle manages to steal Howard’s keys and incapacitate him long enough to reach the shelter’s main door. As she does so, a woman (Cryer) appears at the door, apparently suffering from radiation burns and demanding to be let in. Now afraid that Howard has been right all along, Michelle retreats back down into the shelter. In the days that follow, Howard makes mention of his daughter, Megan. He shows Michelle a picture of her and laments that his wife left him and took Megan with her to Chicago. But a problem with the air filtration unit leads to Michelle finding an earring that Megan was wearing in the photo. She tells Emmett what she’s discovered, but he has further worrying news for her, news that prompts them to collude in getting one of them out of the shelter and going for help.

What’s fresh and exciting about 10 Cloverfield Lane is the very fact that it’s not taking place in the same world as Cloverfield, and where that movie was one long example of undesirable shaky-cam, this has been made under more traditional means, with carefully composed shots and fluid camerawork throughout. For some this will be a relief but in reality the storyline doesn’t support such an approach, and it would have looked idiotic. And the movie’s tagline, “Monsters come in many forms”, has a neat vibe to it that underlines the events that happen in Howard’s shelter all too cleverly.

Thanks to a well-constructed screenplay by Josh Campbell and Matthew Stuecken, with input from Damien Chazelle (Whiplash), the movie works well as a tense thriller, and a survivalist drama. Once inside Howard’s shelter, Michelle’s back story is abandoned, and deliberately so; it’s her life now that’s important. Along with Emmett she has to adjust to being confined for possibly two years with a man who has violent mood swings and a Messiah complex. Howard is a frightening creation, his ability to justify his actions with an icy yet contemplative calm one of the main things the movie gets completely right. Goodman is superb in the role – his finest for quite some time – and he takes full advantage of a part that allows him to flex his considerable acting muscles and remind people just how good a dramatic actor he is. Whether he’s being sociable or psychotic, Howard is someone you just can’t take your eyes off of, and Goodman makes sure you don’t.

Winstead is equally impressive, imbuing Michelle with a resourcefulness and a determination to survive that matches Howard’s. Gallagher Jr has the smaller role, and while Emmett isn’t as pivotal to proceedings as Howard and Michelle are, the actor is still able to make the character’s presence in the shelter both credible and necessary. Otherwise, there are a couple of minor roles and for viewers with a good ear for voices, a cameo by Bradley Cooper as Ben. By paring down the cast and concentrating on the dynamics of living underground with someone who may or may not be a homicidal monster, the movie ratchets up the tension and proves completely absorbing.

And then, it all goes wrong. The last twenty minutes find Michelle outside the shelter at last but now faced with fending off a creature attack that changes both the movie’s tone and its sense of purpose. The unlucky viewer now has to contend with a crash course in action movie clichés that all hurt the movie, and leave the ending feeling like the set-up for a third entry (The Final Cloverfield, perhaps?). It’s as if the makers have suddenly remembered that the connection to Cloverfield needs to be addressed, and they’ve scripted accordingly. And Trachtenberg, who has done a sterling job up til now, doesn’t have the answer to combat this uneasy transition. It’s unfortunate, and undermines everything that’s gone before.

But there’s still plenty to recommend the movie, not the least of which is a killer sound design that emphasises the effects of loud noises in the shelter, as well as external sounds that are both ominous and sinister at the same time. And Ramsey Avery’s production design, allied with Michelle Marchand II’s set decoration, gives the shelter a degree of verisimilitude that benefits the movie greatly. There’s always something to look at, and the level of detail is very impressive indeed.

Rating: 7/10 – two separate stories spliced together to make an unfortunate whole, 10 Cloverfield Lane quickly runs out of ideas once it lets its heroine out of the shelter; however, Goodman’s performance is worth the price of admission by itself, and there’s a sense of impending doom that the movie maintains effectively throughout its time below ground.

Mistress America (2015)

21 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Comedy, Drama, Greta Gerwig, Indie, Investors, Lit Group, Lola Kirke, Matthew Shear, Mom's, Noah Baumbach, Review, Step-sisters

D: Noah Baumbach / 84m

Cast: Greta Gerwig, Lola Kirke, Matthew Shear, Heather Lind, Michael Chernus, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Kathryn Erbe, Cindy Cheung, Dean Wareham

Though not as prolific as Woody Allen, writer/director Noah Baumbach has made a name for himself by operating in the same milieu as Allen (though without the need for including May-December relationships), and for making witty, intelligent comedies that examine the human condition in a warm, deeply rewarding manner. Since his debut with Kicking and Screaming (1995), Baumbach has consistently entertained audiences with his mix of angst-ridden characters facing uncertain futures and sparkling dialogues. He’s a clever, erudite writer and a carefree, spontaneous director, and with movies such as The Squid and the Whale (2005) and Margot at the Wedding (2007) propping up his resumé, he’s a movie maker whose indie sensibilities often make for an enjoyable viewing experience. (By now you’re probably thinking, “there’s a but coming”, and you’d be right, though it’s not coming right now.)

In his latest, Baumbach, along with star and co-writer Gerwig, has fashioned a tale of self-imposed isolation and longing that finds itself butting heads with an examination of self-deception and longing. Tracy (Kirke) is a college student with a superiority complex and a consuming need to be accepted by the Lit Group, the one group she feels are of the same intellectual merit as herself (so it’d be okay to be a member). She submits a short story but is rejected. Faced with spending the approaching Thanksgiving by herself – unsurprisingly, Tracy has no real friends – a reminder from her mother (Erbe) that her soon-to-be step-sister Brooke lives in New York as well leads her to getting in touch and the two of them meeting up.

In comparison to Tracy’s mostly solitary, mostly unfulfilling existence, Brooke is gregarious, constantly upbeat, well-liked, and in a relationship with a man who is helping her to open a restaurant. Tracy is dazzled by the range of Brooke’s social, personal and business involvements, and the evening (and next morning) they spend together inspires her to write another story for the Lit Group. Before she submits it she shows it to a fellow student who’s also keen to join the Lit Group, Tony (Shear). Tracy once had a crush on Tony but since they met he’s started dating Nicolette (Jones), a development Tracy doesn’t quite understand or agree with.

Tracy begins spending more and more time with Brooke and their sisterly relationship grows stronger and deeper. But Brooke’s plans to open her restaurant are thrown into disarray when her boyfriend dumps her and pulls out of the deal. Advised by a psychic that she needs to reconnect with someone from her past, someone who owes her money, Brooke is convinced she should visit an old friend, Mamie-Claire (Lind). Mamie-Claire not only stole Brooke’s boyfriend, Dylan (Chernus) and married him, she also stole Brooke’s T-shirt design (“hard flowers”) and made a mint out of it. Tracy enlists the aid of Tony (who has a car) to get there, and Nicolette goes too, her jealousy unable to let her stay behind if Tony is going to be alone with two other women.

At Mamie-Claire’s, Brooke’s old friend proves to be less than agreeable to the idea of investing in the restaurant. Brooke persists, wanting to speak to Dylan who isn’t there. When he finally arrives home he’s more enthusiastic than Mamie-Claire and agrees to lend Brooke the money she needs but not for the same reason as she needs it. Meanwhile, Nicolette confronts Tony over her belief that he and Tracy are sleeping together, and when the opportunity to read Tracy’s story (which is about Brooke and isn’t exactly flattering) presents itself, Nicolette uses it to confront Tracy. In the end, everyone there reads it, but it’s Brooke’s reaction that has the biggest effect on Tracy, an effect that has unexpected implications.

(Now for that but.)

Maybe it’s the involvement of Gerwig in the writing process, or maybe Baumbach was just having an off-script, but Mistress America – the title refers to a female superhero Brooke can see herself being – has one crucial flaw that it never overcomes, or even appears likely to overcome: that in Tracy and Brooke it has two central characters that it’s almost impossible to care about. Tracy is an emotional and social leech, a hanger-on to Brooke’s coat-tails who has little or no discernible personality away from the people she manages to be around. She mirrors everyone and reflects nothing of herself – because there’s nothing to reflect. She should be a sympathetic character because of this, but in the hands of Baumbach and Gerwig she’s just another sad, lonely character who’s chosen to be that way; she doesn’t even try to be different, or change, and at the movie’s end we see exactly the same person we met at the beginning.

In contrast, Brooke is so self-absorbed, so lacking in emotional acuity and self-awareness that when she talks about the problems she faces it’s like listening to someone who has no idea that all the things she’s feeling are no different to what anyone else feels. Take this for example: “Of course it’s possible to hurt me. I’m the most sensitive person.” It’s said at a moment when the movie attempts to be dramatic and ironic at the same time, but the irony is miscued and the drama is heavy handed, leaving the viewer to either laugh because it’s probably expected, or shake their heads in disappointment. (It’s also the one time in the movie where the “action” really feels like action and not passive observation, a trait the movie relies on far too often.)

In their roles, Gerwig is garrulous and whiny, while Kirke is listless and needy, four qualities that would cause most people to look the other way, and with Mistress America it’s no different. And faced with such an uphill struggle, the viewer has no choice but to hope that character arcs will be achieved, lessons will be learnt, and personalities will be rebuilt for the better. Alas, Baumbach and Gerwig have other ideas and none of these things happen. In the end it’s better to spend time with Tony and Nicolette, whose romantic war of attrition is one of the movie’s better attractions (Jones in particular is a deadly delight as the disbelieving Nicolette, all spite and anger and acid one-liners). In fact, it’s a better idea to spend time with any of the supporting characters, as they generate far more interest than the movie’s two spinsters in the making.

It also doesn’t help that he movie feels self-congratulatory throughout, as if it’s pulled off a clever piece of artistry. But while there are flashes of the confidence and the brio that Baumbach brought to some of his earlier work, there aren’t enough to make Mistress America more interesting or intriguing. If Brooke had been a little less erratic in her thinking, and Tracy a little less uptight about her social position then the viewer might have had a better understanding and/or liking of them, but without these tweaks it leaves said viewer wondering why they, like Brooke’s business partners, shouldn’t just get up and walk away.

Rating: 5/10 – a misfire that only occasionally engages its audience, Mistress America proves difficult to like thanks to the limited scope of its central characters and their misplaced sense of entitlement; when a line such as “Why don’t you just put pasta up her pussy?” (yes, it’s Nicolette) carries more weight and emotional honesty than the patronising “Being a beacon of hope for lesser people is a lonely business”, then you know something isn’t right in indie land.

Irrational Man (2015)

20 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Comedy, Drama, Emma Stone, Existentialism, Joaquin Phoenix, Murder, Philosophy, Relationships, Review, Romance, Romantic comedy, Woody Allen

D: Woody Allen / 95m

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Parker Posey, Jamie Blackley, Betsy Aidem, Ethan Phillips, Sophie von Haselberg, Kate McGonigle, Tom Kemp

In the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, Woody Allen’s annual offering to a grateful movie-going public was something to look forward to. With the turn of the century though, the cracks began to show, and the triple threat of Match Point (2005), Scoop (2006) and Cassandra’s Dream (2007) seemed to indicate that Allen had lost his story telling mojo. Since then he’s managed to regain some of that mojo but the last decade has been patchy at best. When he’s on top form, as with Blue Jasmine (2013), there’s no one who can touch him. But he’s just as likely to release something as oddly unrewarding as You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010).

Irrational Man, Allen’s latest, is a movie that at first glance looks to be one of his on-form releases. A romantic comedy of philosophical manners, Allen introduces us to Abe Lucas (Phoenix), a philosophy professor who comes to teach at Braylin College in Rhode Island. Abe is a troubled soul, weighed down by despair and the kind of melancholy that won’t let him be happy or find joy in the world. He also has a reputation as a womaniser and an alcoholic, but these are overlooked because of the high regard in which he’s held and the caché the college gains by having him there.

Despite his depressed airs and less than sunny disposition, Abe still manages to attract the attention of two very different women: fellow professor, Rita Richards (Posey), who is unhappy in her marriage and looking for a lover, and philosophy student Jill Pollard (Stone), who is attracted to Abe’s intellect and wants to help him out of the existential crisis he’s experiencing. At first, Abe resists both women’s approaches, and continues to live a bland, unfulfilling existence, refuting their beliefs that they can help him and refusing to accept that there is an answer to his particular personal crisis.

Both women persist in their attentions, with Jill having the better fortune. She begins spending more and more time with Abe, listening to his pessimistic outlook on life and love, and refusing to believe that he’s entirely right. But she’s still not able to gain any real headway… until the day they overhear a woman in a coffee shop complaining about the judge (Kemp) who’s unfairly dealing with her custody battle. Abe is suddenly galvanised into helping the woman with her predicament. His solution: to kill the judge in question. Once the decision is made, Abe finds his whole attitude has changed. He enjoys life again, appears happy and relaxed, and sleeps with Rita. With Jill agreeing in principle that the judge is too mean to live, he sets about concocting the perfect murder.

Boosted by this newfound purpose, his relationship with Jill deepens, so much so that she splits from her boyfriend, Roy (Blackley). Caught up in Abe’s more positive outlook, she comes to believe that she loves him, and does her best to persuade him that he loves her. As they grow closer, Abe’s scheme to murder the judge is successful, and he and Jill celebrate the man’s demise (though Jill retains her initial discomfort about doing so). But when Jill begins to suspect that Abe really has committed murder, her suspicions, as well as the police arresting an innocent man, lead her to make a fateful decision.

Taking Irrational Man at face value, Allen appears to have constructed a romantic comedy that has a few telling things to say about the nature of free will and moral choices. But beneath the movie’s attractive sheen – the Rhode Island locations are given added lustre thanks to DoP Darius Khondji – Allen’s philosophical insights prove less than convincing, and the justification Abe gives for his actions come across as self-serving rather than fully thought out reasons made from the moral high ground. Along with such telling remarks as “So much of philosophy is just verbal masturbation”, and “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom”, the movie looks and sounds like it knows what it’s saying, but when Jill challenges Abe’s assertions later on, the hollow nature of his reasoning becomes clear and the viewer is faced with the idea that Allen may not be as en point as he himself would like.

As a result, concerns over Abe’s philosophical stance remain throughout the movie, and Allen never really addresses the contradictions that arise through the narrative’s insistence on making murder into some kind of aphrodisiac for the soul and mind. But while this is problematical at best, the movie suffers even more thanks to the tired mechanics employed to bring Abe and Jill together. Their relationship has the feel of an intellectual exercise rather than the organic outcome of their proximity in the classroom. Jill’s upbeat demeanour and determination to make Abe “happier” borders on obsession, while her change of heart later on is as abrupt as it is convenient for the narrative. Stone does her best but she’s continually hampered by Allen’s insistence on making Jill a paragon of positivity, a decision that doesn’t give the actress much room for manoeuvring.

Phoenix fares slightly better by virtue of having the lion’s share of the screen time, but like Jill, Abe is the kind of character who only exists in the movies and as such is more annoying than sympathetic. Allen doesn’t even allow the character (or Phoenix) to display any self-doubt once he decices to kill the judge, and as with Jill’s change of heart, Abe’s road-to-Damascus moment seems forced. Phoenix also appears to be having more fun as the depressed Abe than he is as the energised Abe, something that seems counter-intuitive but on occasion does at least allow the material to feel more natural.

With Allen preferring to show how witty he can be at the expense of various philosophers’, the romance between Abe and Jill takes a back seat, and the other characters, Posey’s desperately lovelorn Rita aside, fade into the background (and often during a scene). A subplot involving Jill’s boyfriend proves distracting and underdeveloped, and a further subplot addressing Rita’s dissatisfaction with her marriage seems included to give the character some measure of depth (or Posey something more to do than look bored and/or frustrated). Ultimately it’s hard to care for anyone in Irrational Man, and that includes Abe and Jill, a couple who look and sound too much like an approximation of a couple than the real thing. All in all, the movie struggles to address the issues it raises and lacks the finesse Allen has brought to other, more successful projects.

Rating: 5/10 – mildly diverting, and superficially amusing, Irrational Man should be filed under Minor Allen; while not entirely unrewarding, the movie isn’t particularly inviting either, and anyone thinking of watching it should do so only if they’re Allen completists or fans of Phoenix or Stone.

Jane Got a Gun (2015)

19 Saturday Mar 2016

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American Civil War, Drama, Ewan McGregor, Gavin O'Connor, Joel Edgerton, Natalie Portman, Production problems, Review, The Bishop Gang, Western

D: Gavin O’Connor / 98m

Cast: Natalie Portman, Joel Edgerton, Ewan McGregor, Noah Emmerich, Rodrigo Santoro, Boyd Holbrook

Since its announcement back in 2012, Jane Got a Gun has had a difficult production history. Lynne Ramsay was the movie’s original director, but with a week to go before actual filming began, disagreements with the producers caused her to leave the project. Natalie Portman remained attached to the project, while her male co-stars changed almost as quickly as they were announced. Michael Fassbender was cast as Jane’s ex-lover, Dan Frost, but had to drop out thanks to scheduling conflicts with X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). Joel Edgerton, originally cast as the movie’s villain, John Bishop, was recast as Frost. And to take over the vacated role of Bishop, Jude Law was brought on board. However, Law had only signed on because Ramsay was directing; when she left the production, so did Law. Next up as Bishop was Bradley Cooper, but scheduling conflicts would again rob the movie of one of its stars, as the actor was needed on American Hustle (2013) (thank God Ewan McGregor wasn’t too busy).

The script also underwent a rewrite. Brian Duffield’s original screenplay, which had appeared on the 2011 Blacklist, was given an overhaul by Anthony Tambakis and Edgerton, and just in case the changes in acting personnel weren’t enough, first choice DoP Darius Khondji left the project along with Ramsay and was replaced by Mandy Walker. With Gavin O’Connor on board as the movie’s new director, the New Mexico shoot went off relatively smoothly, and a mid-2014 release was pencilled in. But this was pushed back to early 2015, and then delayed again until September. A further delay saw the world premiere arranged for 16 November in Paris, but the terrorist attacks that occurred three days before caused the premiere to be postponed. And to add insult to injury, when the movie was finally released in the US by the Weinstein Company it proved to be the worst wide release in the company’s history.

But what of the movie itself? Is its tortured production and release history reflected in the quality of the movie, or has it managed to overcome all the setbacks that waylaid it over the course of three years? The answer – unsurprisingly – is yes and no. Even if you’re not aware of the movie’s history, watching it will soon give the impression that something’s not quite right, that there’s something missing, something that went astray during filming. And it won’t take the interested viewer long to realise that part of that “something” is cohesion.

Jane Got a Gun takes a non-linear approach to its narrative, offering flashbacks at every opportunity in order to fill in its back story and explain its characters’ motives. While it’s not the first movie to adopt this strategy, it is one that makes a particularly awkward fist of it. And it does so in such a piecemeal fashion that it’s hard to work out if it was a deliberate decision by Tambakis and Edgerton, or was present in Duffield’s original script. Either way, the narrative lacks momentum and comes across as unavoidably fractured. The basic story – frontier wife seeks ex-lover’s help when the gang her husband double-crossed comes looking for them – is strong enough to withstand too much tampering, but here the back story of Jane and Dan just gets in the way. A more straighforward storyline would have benefitted the movie greatly, and maybe there’s another cut of the movie out there somewhere where that approach has been adopted, but otherwise, Jane Got a Gun too often lacks focus in the time it takes for Bishop and his gang to reach Jane’s home.

The movie also struggles with the quality of its dialogue. Some viewers might be convinced that Brian Duffield is a pseudonym for George Lucas, such is the arch, clichéd nature of some of the lines (or that Tambakis and Edgerton shouldn’t be allowed to collaborate on a script ever again) and there are too many moments where the by now trapped viewer will be wincing at some of the utterances that were allowed to stay in place. Whether or not anyone noticed seems irrelevant now given the whole raft of other problems the movie had to deal with, but sometimes the dialogue is so clunky and uninspired that anyone watching will wonder if it had to be that bad.

Thankfully, though, the movie isn’t that bad all the way through. As the beleaguered and heavily put upon Jane of the title, Portman maintains a stoicism and a sense of her rightful place (by her husband) that when Frost’s past relationship with her becomes clearer, along with the undercurrents that bind them together, these aspects give the movie an emotional depth that is pleasantly surprising (and welcome). Portman also knows when to rely on her passivity to speak volumes for the character, as in the early scenes where Jane’s pride is put aside due to the necessity of speaking to Frost. For his part, Edgerton matches Portman for moody introspection, paring Frost down emotionally and physically, letting his injured feelings seep out through the looks and glances he gives Jane. Together, Jane and Frost make for an affecting couple, both tied down by the bad decisions that each has made, and Portman and Edgerton both show the limiting effects those decisions have had, and the overwhelming sense of regret that comes with them.

As the villainous trail boss and outlaw Bishop, McGregor has a hard time making him less unctuous and more intimidating than the character appears at first, and he’s not helped by the kind of moustache that cries out to be twirled (while he makes mwah-hah-hah sounds). Emmerich’s role is fleshed out by the flashbacks, and there are efficient turns in minor roles from Santoro and Holbrook, otherwise it’s all Portman and Edgerton, one decision the script gets right all along. There’s a fiery showdown that is let down slightly by the same shot being included twice, and a twist in the tale that facilitates a happy ending the movie didn’t really need, but all in all the tone and the pacing allow the movie to breathe when it needs to, and gives the viewer the chance to appreciate the movie’s better qualities, buried as they are beneath some of the less effective narrative decisions.

In addition it’s beautifully shot by Walker, and the editing by Alan Cody, who did some excellent work on the mini-series The Pacific (2010), matches the laconic, melancholy mood so perfectly at times that, again, you wish the script had been tighter. O’Connor doesn’t give the audience anything too spectacular or impressive to look at – what Ramsay would have made of the material remains a tantalising prospect – but he does keep a firm rein on proceedings and doesn’t make the mistake of including too many obvious directorial flourishes (though there are a few too many moments where the action is seen through a window or is distorted by glass). Backed up by a low-key yet expressive score from Lisa Gerrard and Marcello De Francisci, Jane Got a Gun may not be a movie that has overcome its troubled production history entirely, but it does get more things right than wrong.

Rating: 6/10 – good Westerns are hard to find these days, and while Jane Got a Gun suffers from a lack of cohesion in its story elements, it still contains enough good material to be worth watching; with good performances from Portman and Edgerton to help things along, this is one movie that deserves to be known for something more than the difficulties it faced in getting made.

Oddball (2015)

18 Friday Mar 2016

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Alan Tudyk, Chicken farmer, Coco Jack Gillies, Comedy, Drama, Foxes, Maremma, Middle Island, Penguins, Review, Sanctuary, Sarah Snook, Shane Jacobson, Stuart McDonald, True story, Warrnambool

aka Oddball and the Penguins

D: Stuart McDonald / 95m

Cast: Shane Jacobson, Sarah Snook, Alan Tudyk, Coco Jack Gillies, Richard Davies, Terry Camilleri, Deborah Mailman, Stephen Kearney, Tegan Higginbotham, Frank Woodley, Dave Lawson

When it comes to family movies, Australian movie makers tend to imbue their releases with a wistful, heartwarming feel that is at odds with the kind of syrupy, sentimental and ultimately cloying approach of their US brethrens. Movies such as Babe (1995) and The Black Balloon (2008), while tonally different, are nevertheless terrific examples of the ways in which Australian movie makers approach these kinds of movies, and don’t underestimate their target audience. Make the kids happy – absolutely; but don’t forget to add stuff for the adults.

At first glance, Oddball looks as if it’s going to fit alongside Babe and The Black Balloon quite easily. Taking its cue from the true story of the efforts to save the dwindling little penguin population on Middle Island, a rocky outcrop off the coast of Australia’s Victoria State, the movie wastes no time in outlining the problem: the penguins are at the mercy of marauding foxes who have learned that they can cross from the mainland and wreak as much havoc as they like. With the penguins’ numbers decreasing rapidly, the island’s status as a sanctuary is in jeopardy.

The sanctuary is overseen by dedicated conservationist Emily Marsh (Snook). Fearful of seeing the penguins’ eradicated once and for all, she is losing all hope of finding a solution. With the mating season approaching she needs the numbers to stay at ten or above; if the count at that time is anything less the sanctuary closes and she loses her job. But when her father, an eccentric chicken farmer nicknamed Swampy (Jacobson) rescues an injured penguin and takes it home with him to recuperate, the attentions of a fox leads to the revelation that his dog, Oddball, has a natural aptitude for protecting the penguins.

There’s a problem, though. Oddball is effectively under house arrest after his boisterous nature causes mayhem (and some considerable damage) in Warrnambool, the local town. Confined to his master’s chicken farm, Oddball’s presence on the island would be frowned upon, so Swampy elects to put his effectiveness to the test by himself and in secret. Oddball’s first night is a success, which leads Swampy to enlist the help of his granddaughter, Olivia (Gillies), in keeping his plan a secret from Emily. (You could ask why he really needs to do this but you’d still be waiting for an answer once the movie has ended.) With the decline in the penguin population halted, and Emily finding out anyway quite soon after, Oddball’s nightly watch continues.

Inevitably, things take a turn for the worse. A mystery saboteur incapacitates Oddball and releases a fox onto the island. The number of penguins left drops to nine. With little doubt that the saboteur will return the next night to wipe out the penguins completely, the discovery of an egg that will bring the count up to ten and save the sanctuary, makes it even more important that the saboteur is stopped.

While Oddball, both the dog and the movie, are friendly and quite endearing in their own way, and while the penguins’ plight is affecting, the truth is that Oddball doesn’t really work. It’s a disappointing realisation to make, because all the elements are in place to ensure that it does work, but thanks to Stuart McDonald’s pedestrian direction and Peter Ivan’s depth-free script, the movie meanders through redundant scene after redundant scene offering little more than gorgeous shots of the Victoria coastline – beautifully framed and shot by DoP Damian Wyvill – and occasional bursts of humour that raise a smile (but none that linger). It’s a movie that quickly settles for doing just enough to get by.

Elsewhere, the movie relies on poorly realised and developed characters who interact with each other in ways that are entirely baffling. Chief amongst these is Tudyk’s awkwardly imported Yank, Bradley Slater, tasked with putting Warrnambool on the map tourist-wise and being Emily’s choice of partner (what happened to Olivia’s father is never mentioned, something else you might wonder about but will never get the answer to). Bradley is a source of amusement throughout, but of the kind that makes the viewer want to reach into the screen and slap him for behaving so idiotically. He’s afraid of Swampy for no apparent reason other than that Swampy doesn’t like him (and yes, you don’t find out why). And he behaves in a predictably cowardly fashion when a subplot involving a whale watching centre being built on the island if the sanctuary closes, puts him in a difficult situation with Emily. Tudyk is a talented actor, but here his sojourn Down Under hasn’t done him any favours.

Luckily for Tudyk though, his character is a secondary one. Hogging most of the screen time and working through his entire repertoire of facial tics and bewildered expressions, Jacobson, who made such a great impression in Kenny (2006), plays the real life Swampy Marsh as if he were only occasionally united with his full faculties; a kindly, irresponsible old man who comes good by accident. The real Swampy Marsh has an associate producer credit on the movie, so it’s likely he wasn’t entirely upset with Jacobson’s portrayal of him, but there are moments when you have to wonder if McDonald was even on set when certain scenes were being filmed, so painfully “humorous” is Jacobson’s performance.

For much of its running time, Oddball is too reminiscent of the kind of Disney-backed teen movie that offers ninety minutes of saccharine-drenched “entertainment”, and which leaves the viewer feeling drained of any remaining will to live. It has little to say beyond its obvious ecological message, and spends most of its time being defiantly innocuous, while wasting its cast’s time and effort. With much of Australia’s recent output proving so lacklustre, Oddball can be seen as yet another project where the very attributes that make Australian movies so distinctive and so richly rewarding are abandoned in favour of an unnecessarily bland, “let’s please the international market” approach. By the movie’s end you could be forgiven for thinking that the penguins’ plight is a metaphor for Australian cinema itself – but not necessarily with a happy ending to look forward to.

Rating: 4/10 – seriously disappointing, Oddball is superficially amusing and enjoyable only if you leave any expectations behind at the door; beautiful to look at but otherwise an empty shell, the movie, like its penguins, never takes flight and remains resolutely grounded, both dramatically and comedically.

Trailers – Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016), A Hologram for the King (2016) and Trapped (2016)

15 Tuesday Mar 2016

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A Hologram for the King, Abortion, Documentary, Drama, Eva Green, Fantasy, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Movies, Previews, Tim Burton, Tom Hanks, Tom Tykwer, Trailers, Trapped

If there was ever any doubt as to who would be the first choice to direct the movie version of Ransom Riggs’ best-selling novel, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, then those doubts will have been allayed with the appointment of Tim Burton to the director’s chair. A perfect match of visionary and material? Perhaps. A great combination of visual flair and dramatic invention? Perhaps again. But if you’ve read the first of Riggs’s Peculiar Children trilogy then you’ll know that it’s a lot darker than what’s glimpsed in the trailer, which highlights the idyllic nature of the children’s existence. The script is by Jane Goldman – always a good sign – so this may be one fantasy adaptation that retains the source’s vitality and creative energy and sticks closely to the story, but if Burton is still finding it difficult to connect with the material, as seems to have been the case in recent outings, then we may be faced with a movie that only achieves a portion of what it sets out to do – and that would be a shame.

One of four Tom Hanks’ movies planned for release in 2016, A Hologram for the King sees the rubber-faced everyman on the cusp of a (late) mid-life crisis, and travelling to Saudi Arabia in the hopes of pulling off that one last deal that will help him regain his self-respect and solve all manner of other issues that he has. Aided by the likes of Ben Whishaw and Tom Skerritt, Hanks’s character, Alan Clay, is the traditional fish out of water, ignorant of the customs of the country he’s in, and out of his depth – at first -when it comes to making his comeback. With a romantic sub-plot involving the lovely Sarita Choudhury thrown in as well, this adaptation of Dave Eggers’ novel, written and directed by Tom Tykwer – Run Lola Run (1998), Cloud Atlas (2012) – looks and sounds great, and hopefully, will prove to be a rewarding alternative in amongst all the big budget superhero movies coming our way in 2016 (and it includes a fantastic Talking Heads parody).

A powerful documentary that won a Special Jury Award at this year’s Sundance Festival, Trapped looks at the increasing number of US states that are introducing so-called “trap” laws, or Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers. As these states seek to take away a woman’s right to legalised abortion, and in doing so, put many women’s lives in danger, Dawn Porter’s unflinching look at the potential consequences that these decisions could have both in the short and long term is both frightening and appalling. By focusing on the lives of the men and women who are taking the fight to the lawmakers, and who refuse to back down in the face of so much blinkered, often Christian-centric prejudice, the movie becomes a rallying cry for anyone who still believes that the decision in Roe vs Wade still gives a woman the right to choose what happens to her body.

Kill Your Friends (2015)

14 Monday Mar 2016

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Black comedy, Blackmail, Craig Roberts, Drama, Drugs, Ed Skrein, Georgia King, James Corden, John Niven, Junkie XL, Literary adaptation, Murder, Music industry, Nicholas Hoult, Owen Harris, Review, Unigram

D: Owen Harris / 103m

Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Craig Roberts, Georgia King, Joseph Mawle, Edward Hogg, Tom Riley, Jim Piddock, James Corden, Ed Skrein, Rosanna Arquette, Moritz Bleibtreu, Dustin Demri-Burns, Osy Ikhile, Ella Smith

For a movie that’s set in 1997 and focuses on an ambitious A&R man, Kill Your Friends actually has little to do with the music of the time (except when it comes to its soundtrack), and instead creates its own musicians and bands for the audience to groove to. It’s a curious thing to experience, that such a movie would choose to ignore the music that was around at the time, especially when there was so many good records out there. ’97 was the year that The Verve gave us their Bitter Sweet Symphony, Chumbawamba were Tubthumping, Natalie Imbruglia was Torn, and Elton John reworked Candle in the Wind in tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales. But Kill Your Friends operates in a bubble of its own making, restricting itself to a narrow musical world where the deal is all important and not the music, and the means absolutely justifies the end.

That the world of the A&R man is a cutthroat world where everyone is out to succeed at the expense of everyone else shouldn’t come as any surprise, but the movie is often grindingly obvious in its approach to this idea, and the level to which it takes this idea is often glaringly excessive. The movie’s anti-hero, Steven Stelfox (Hoult), is determined to get to the top and he’s not too worried how he gets there. When we first meet him he’s in the company of fellow A&R man Waters (Corden), snorting cocaine and mixing drug-fuelled cocktails in an attempt to render his colleague either dead or too far gone to function. (Sadly for Steven, Waters’ ability to ingest hard drugs and still come to work the next day is quite impressive.)

With record deals to be made and hits to be manufactured, Steven takes a young talent scout called Darren (Roberts) under his wing, and starts to teach him how to get ahead in the music business. But Steven’s idea of “teaching” consists of constant reminders that no one knows anything (as in the movie industry?), and to misquote Sparks, that “talent isn’t an asset”. When an old friend of Steven’s, Rent (Skrein), introduces him to the girl band he’s managing, it’s no surprise that they’re four tuneless, talentless wannabes, manufactured into producing a “surprise” number one record. It’s at moments like these that the satire slaps the viewer in the face and yells, “Did you see what we did there? Did you?” If the movie wasn’t so tiresome and cynical, the viewer wouldn’t be either.

As Steven connives and manipulates and eventually murders his way to the top, the movie does its best to get the audience to root for him, but it’s not actually possible. Despite Hoult’s best efforts to make him likeable, Steven is a crude caricature of a man, his better qualities stifled to the point of non-existence and lacking any kind of moral attributes – however deeply buried – for the viewer to latch onto. He’s an ambitious, soulless, predatory, evil-minded bastard, a lower-tier monster who doesn’t deserve to make it to the top, or gain our attention. There’s a moment when he’s talking to a band in a club and they’re asking him what will happen if they sign with his record company. For around thirty seconds Steven regales them with the various ways in which he and his company will abuse and mistreat them, and then spit them out when they’re no longer viable. It’s meant to be funny and disturbingly honest all at the same time, but instead it’s another heavy-handed example of what we already know: that in the music industry you should always beware: because you’re swimming with sharks. (And, predictably, it’s all a dream sequence.)

With the movie lacking subtlety or appreciable flair throughout, there’s little beyond the traditional topics of sex and drugs and work envy to get excited about. Owen Harris’s direction consists of throwing the characters into sharp relief, such as when Steven’s PA, the equally ambitious Rebecca (King), blackmails him into helping her reach the top. It’s not exactly a surprise – this movie doesn’t do surprises – and most viewers will have been waiting for her to drop the faithful servant routine, but as one of the few characters we can have some sympathy for (at least to start with), her transformation into calculating co-conspirator smacks of laziness on the part of John Niven (here adapting his own novel).

With so much amoral, yet banal behaviour going on, it’s amazing then that the movie retains as much energy as it does, claiming the viewer’s undivided attention from time to time (often in its club scenes) and using said energy to push the rest of the scenes through in a kind of bizarre version of cinematic life support. There are also sporadic moments of humour, but none memorable enough to help the movie overall, and certainly not enough to help erase the memory of Edward Hogg’s dumb-as-a-bag-of-nails policeman, a character so brain-curdlingly simplistic in his creation that he’s not even of the rank of caricature.

But what of the music itself? As created by Junkie XL (aka Tom Holkenborg), the original songs are the movie’s best feature, an apropos mix of Nineties indie vitality and modern day stylings, anthemic when necessary, and completely free of any relevance to the story or the plot. You could take each tune and play it in a club or music venue and attract people’s attention. It’s the same here, and leads the viewer to wonder if there’s a cut of the movie where every scene takes place in a club or at a concert. But anyone paying attention will appreciate the dichotomy of what the movie is saying, that the music isn’t important, that it’s the last element of the deal that’s taken into consideration, but thanks to Mr Holkenborg and his “killer” tunes, it’s a boast that Kill Your Friends gets spectacularly wrong.

Rating: 4/10 – if you’re going to make a movie about the cutthroat nature of the music industry, then it’s important that your characters are at least halfway relatable – a point that Kill Your Friends ignores deliberately – otherwise it will look and sound like the naïve fantasy of a teenager; with thematic nods to American Psycho (2000) that are awkward and misjudged, this is a movie that skimps on the pleasantries and drags the viewer through a mire of its own choosing, and without ever offering said viewer any reward for the experience.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)

13 Sunday Mar 2016

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Burr Steers, Drama, Elizabeth Bennet, Horror, Jane Austen, Lena Headey, Lily James, Literary adaptation, Mr. Darcy, Parody, Regency England, Review, Sam Riley, Seth Grahame-Smith, Thriller, Zombies

D: Burr Steers / 102m

Cast: Lily James, Sam Riley, Matt Smith, Jack Huston, Bella Heathcote, Douglas Booth, Lena Headey, Sally Phillips, Charles Dance, Ellie Bamber, Millie Brady, Suki Waterhouse

From the 1814 Alternate Universe Almanac, 21 January:

Revealed to a waiting world with all the fanfare that the firm of Butan, McKittrick, Oliver, Portman, Savitch, Shearmur & Thompson can muster, these kindly souls have enjoined us to a world that has no equal or predecessor in the annals of the flickering image. Miss Jane Austen’s latest novel, published to great acclaim last year, has been fashioned into a drab, humourless affair that strains the credulity of every right-thinking person in the land, and which purports to imagine an England overrun by an army of the dead.

Preposterous you may say, and this author would heartily agree with you. Concocted with a clear disdain for the exquisite talent of Miss Austen, Mr. Burr Steers and Mr. Seth Grahame-Smith – both Americans, no doubt – have taken her sterling work and made a mockery of its literary merits by inserting strange creatures that resemble vampires, but with the exception that they seek flesh to eat rather than blood to drink. It is not uncommon to find examples of this kind of unabashed traducery made as low entertainment for the masses, but it is for the more discerning viewer of these “tragedies” to be of one voice with his equally appalled brethren and shout loudly, “No more! No more repellent travesties created to provide succour for the poor in spirit and the easily tempted! No more!”

A crueller distraction could no more be found than Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The subtlety of Miss Austen’s prose is retained for the most part, but be not gladdened by this admission, for it is used in such a paltry way that readers familiar with Miss Austen’s work will be distraught at the way in which emphasis is abandoned in favour of recitation, and her characters speak as if they had not the wit to understand their own utterances. It is a folly to assume that Mr. Steers and Mr. Grahame-Smith have generated this debacle with any concern for the respect Miss Austen’s work has accrued since her debut some two years ago. While it can be said that the settings they have chosen give some degree of pleasure to the eye, as do the ladies chosen to portray the Bennet sisters, it is nevertheless an endeavour that lacks finesse, and proves of little consequence once experienced from beginning to end.

Be warned: the inclusion of “zombies” marks a low point in our nation’s proud literary and (short-lived) zoetropic history. What possible good can come of this exhibition’s existence it’s doubtful anyone will be able to determine, and this august periodical can see no reason for its existence beyond a scurrilous and repugnant attempt to separate the hoi polloi from what little earnings they make – earnings that would no doubt be put to better use in the purchase of potatoes for the nurturing of their families. For make no mistake, here is no nurturing of the mind or the finer senses to be gained from viewing Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It is an ill-conceived distraction, filled with moments that are both violent and reprehensible, and which paint such a dismal alternative to the beauteous world we live in that one must question the motives of the men and women who have found this a suitable piece to put before the public.

There can be no doubt that the assembly called upon to inhabit the various roles Miss Austen went to great pains to construct – and with such great artistry – have little to offer in terms of imagination or grace. Special mention must go to the esteemed Mr. Dance, an actor of such renown that his presence here is difficult to fathom, surrounded as he is by artists who lack the graces God gave them to fully articulate the feelings and emotions that occupy our hearts and minds on each and every blessed day of our existence. That Miss Austen wrote of romantic involvement with such subtlety and perspicacity appears to have been put aside in favour of feeble declarations of ardour, declarations that carry the barest weight of conviction.

In conclusion, the efforts of Mr. Steers and Mr. Grahame-Smith have proved to be of such a disservice to those of us who champion the potential of the zoetropic arts that we would be forever indebted to them if they refrained from making any further assaults on our senses. Let us say again: “No more!”

Rating: 3/10 – a dire movie that plods along in search of a reason to exist (like its titular creatures perhaps), Pride and Prejudice and Zombies sounds like a great twist on an old classic, but in truth is uncomfortable to watch as a period piece, and as a horror movie; when the zombies have more personality – and evoke more sympathy – than your main characters, then you have a movie that’s in trouble in more ways than one, and this movie courts trouble like an aging Lothario looking to impress one young woman too many.

10 Reasons to Remember Ken Adam (1921-2016)

12 Saturday Mar 2016

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Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, Career, James Bond, Ken Adam, Production designer, RAF, William Cameron Menzies, World War II

Ken Adam (5 February 1921 – 10 March 2016)

One of the movie industry’s most accomplished and creative production designers, Ken Adam was responsible for some of the most iconic images seen on screens over the last sixty years. During World War II he was one of only three German-born pilots allowed to fly for the RAF (and was trained by Michael Rennie). After the war he began his career in the movie industry as a draughtsman on This Was a Woman (1948), a modest British crime drama starring Sonia Dresdel. From there he did a lot of uncredited work on movies as varied as Dick Barton Strikes Back (1949) and The Crimson Pirate (1952) before landing a job supporting the esteemed William Cameron Menzies as an art director on Mike Todd’s ambitious and lavish Around the World in Eighty Days (1956). Menzies inspired Adam to “forget my inhibitions and let myself go”. This proved to be wise counsel indeed, and Adam continued to work on lavish movie projects like Ben-Hur (1959) (albeit still uncredited).

With his career beginning to take off, and his work attracting significant notice, Adam struck gold with his work on The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960), a movie that introduced him to producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli. When Broccoli needed a production designer for a movie he was making about a spy created by Ian Fleming, he approached Adam, who took the job even though he felt he was “prostituting” himself. Dr. No (1962) proved to be the first of seven Bond movies Adam worked on, and each one earned him an increasing level of recognition, especially Blofeld’s volcano lair in You Only Live Twice (1967). But while his lasting association with the Bond movies cemented his reputation, Adam was equally adept at working with directors of the calibre of Stanley Kubrick, Herbert Ross and Norman Jewison. As his career progressed he won two Oscars – for Barry Lyndon (1975) and The Madness of King George (1994) – and in 2003 he was knighted. His style was always to marry the old and the new in ever more unusual ways, while somehow managing to retain a feeling for the now. He could be grandiose for Bond, and yet equally at home with something less visually dramatic, such as Agnes of God (1985). He was an original, a talented individual that producers and directors could always rely on to give them something unexpected, and unexpectedly brilliant… such as the car in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), and how much more unexpectedly brilliant was that?

1 – Night of the Demon (1957)

2 – Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

3 – Goldfinger (1964)

4 – You Only Live Twice (1967)

5 – The Ipcress File (1965)

6 – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)

7 – Barry Lyndon (1975)

8 – The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976)

9 – The Freshman (1990)

10 – The Madness of King George (1994)

Mini-Review: Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)

11 Friday Mar 2016

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Alessandro Carloni, Angelina Jolie, Bryan Cranston, Chi, China, Comedy, Dragon Warrior, Dustin Hoffman, Famous Five, J.K. Simmons, Jack Black, Jennifer Yuh Nelson, Kai, Master Shifu, Po, Praying Mantis, Review, Sequel, Seth Rogen, Spirit Warrior, Spirit World, Tiger

D: Jennifer Yuh Nelson, Alessandro Carloni / 95m

Cast: Jack Black, Bryan Cranston, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, J.K. Simmons, Seth Rogen, James Hong, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Jackie Chan, Kate Hudson, Randall Duk Kim

In the Spirit World, Master Oogway (Kim) has his chi stolen from him by the villainous Kai (Simmons). With Oogway’s chi and those of the other denizens of the Spirit World, Kai can regain his human form and seek out the only warrior who can defeat him, the Dragon Warrior, aka Po the panda (Black). Meanwhile, Po has his own problems. Master Shifu (Hoffman) has given him the role of teaching the Famous Five, and subsequently he meets his real father, Li (Cranston). When Kai sends his emissaries to challenge Po, the Famous Five intervene but aren’t strong enough to defeat them; one by one they have their chi’s taken from them. Only Po has the strength and skill to best Kai, but first he must travel with his father to the village of his birth, and take instruction in how to become a Chi master; only then will he be able to defeat Kai and banish him back to the Spirit World.

Sequels with 3 in the title are often tired, limited affairs that trade on former glories while lacking the energy and freshness of their predecessors. However, Kung Fu Panda 3 bucks the trend and delivers a movie that is as energetic as 1 and 2, and proves to be just as entertaining. The kung fu moves are as impressive as ever, and the animated stylings that go with them are particularly exciting, especially in the Spirit World, where physics is a concept that’s easily ignored. In the real world, Po’s dilemma at discovering his real father after being raised so faithfully by Mr Ling (Hong) is played out amidst a strong mix of comedy and pathos, and the depiction of the panda village is bursting with wonderful characters and visual humour.

Kai is a villain in the mold of the first movie’s Tai Lung, and as a result is the movie’s weakest link, but Simmons is obviously having fun with the role (as is everyone else), and in comparison with the rest of the story, the character’s familiarity is not a major flaw. The burgeoning relationship between Po and Li is a definite bonus and has been handled well by scriptwriters Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, their inclusion of Mr Ling doing justice to the relationship established in parts one and two. The visuals are as stunning as ever, and the colours have a photo-realistic sheen to them that haven’t been seen in previous outings, making it all the more superb than before.

Rating: 8/10 – a treat for the eyes (and as rewarding for the mind), Kung Fu Panda 3 is something of a retread of the first movie but in this case, it’s not a bad thing; with a superb voice cast and stunning animation throughout, this sequel proves that putting a lot of heart and soul into a movie pays off every time.

Crack-Up (1946)

10 Thursday Mar 2016

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Art, Claire Trevor, Crime, Drama, Fraud, Herbert Marshall, Irving Reis, Murder, Museum, Mystery, Pat O'Brien, Ray Collins, Review, RKO, Thriller, Train crash, X-rays

D: Irving Reis / 93m

Cast: Pat O’Brien, Claire Trevor, Herbert Marshall, Ray Collins, Wallace Ford, Dean Harens, Damian O’Flynn, Erskine Sanford, Mary Ware

Suggested by the wonderfully titled short story, Madman’s Holiday by Fredric Brown, Crack-Up is, on face value, yet another cheap throwaway movie made by RKO in the post-war years, and of little interest to anyone who isn’t a fan of Pat O’Brien, Claire Trevor or Herbert Marshall. But look more closely and you’ll find a neat little thriller, still modest by the standards of the day, but with an approach to the material that makes it a fascinating piece to watch.

O’Brien is noted art critic and curator George Steele. When the movie begins we see him desperately trying to break into a museum late one evening. He appears drunk and he’s violent towards the policeman who tries to stop him. Once inside the museum the policeman manages to knock him unconscious. When he comes to he’s surrounded by Barton and some of the other museum trustees, as well as Terry, a visiting Englishman called Traybin (Marshall), and a police lieutenant called Cochrane (Ford). When Steele starts talking about being involved in a train crash earlier, it’s Cochrane who breaks the bad news: there hasn’t been a train crash (and his mother isn’t in the hospital). Certain there has been a crash, Steele allows himself to be pacified by one of the trustees, Dr Lowell (Collins). Lowell asks Steele if he can remember anything before the so-called crash, and though his mind is obviously disturbed, Steele recounts events from earlier in the day.

He gives a lecture at the museum, and is particularly interested in debunking the idea that art and culture are the exclusive properties of the rich and prosperous. He wants to see art made more available to the general public, an idea that worries the museum’s director, Barton (Sanford). When Steele goes further, and voices his plan to allow the public to see paintings being x-rayed so as to see how some artists have painted over an existing work, Barton is incensed and tells Steele he will do his best to block the idea and ensure it never happens.

Unperturbed by Barton’s waspish attitude, Steele hooks up with an old flame, Terry Cordell (Trevor) and they go for a drink together. Steele receives a call that tells him his mother is sick in hospital. He heads straight for the train station where he boards the first available train north. But as the train approaches one of its stops, Steele sees another train that he’s convinced will crash headlong into his. The other train gets nearer and nearer, and beyond that Steele can’t remember anything else, and certainly not breaking into the museum. With Traybin intervening to stop Cochrane from arresting Steele for assaulting the policeman, and with the trustees all wanting the whole affair being kept out of the press, Steele is allowed to go home.

But you can’t keep a confused art critic down and soon Steele is determined to find out what happened to him. He makes the same journey by train and learns enough to know that there’s something suspicious going on at the museum, and that it has something to do with a painting by Gainsborough that was recently lost at sea. With Terry’s aid he begins to piece together the fragments of a conspiracy that brings together the museum, a collection of old masters, and his own unwitting involvement.

There’s something undeniably charming about Crack-Up, with its murky lighting and frazzled hero, its well-oiled narrative and pleasing performances. For modern audiences it’ll prove too familiar perhaps, but if viewed with the eyes and ears of a contemporary viewer, there’s a lot that won’t seem as predictable or commonplace as it would do today. And a large part of the movie’s charm is the freshness the script – by John Paxton, Ben Bengal and Ray Spencer – brings to its central mystery: did George Steele experience a train crash, and if he didn’t, then why does he think he did? And as the story unfolds there are enough twists and turns to keep things lighhhearted and playful.

This is largely due to Irving Reis’s exemplary direction. Reis was a director who by 1946 had made a number of low budget thrillers including three featuring The Falcon. But while the projects he worked on were largely prosaic and uninspiring, Reis himself didn’t see it that way, and he worked hard to elevate the material he had to work with. This can be evidenced by the way in which Crack-Up is structured – there are breaks in the narrative where the viewer could convince him- or herself that they’ve missed something (just as Steele does) – and the way in which Steele is never able to fully convince himself that his sanity is as secure as he’d like it to be (he’s not quite the tortured hero of other film noirs, but his insecurity is a definite plus).

Reis is aided by strong performances from O’Brien and Trevor, with the latter given the chance to be more than just a piece of attractive window dressing to pose beside the lead actor. While O’Brien is steadfast and determined (while remaining unsure deep down), Trevor is angry and tenacious, refusing to believe her man is of unsound mind, and willing to support him no matter what. It’s a tough, unwavering performance, and Trevor, who was always an actress capable of far more than she was usually asked to provide, here makes Terry the equal of any of the male characters, and someone who the audience can identify with and be sympathetic towards. As the urbane Traybin, Marshall plays to type and uses his sleepy-eyed features to good effect, drawling his way through the material with a casual deference that balances O’Brien’s gruffer, more aggressive portrayal.

For fans of the genre (and the era) there are cameos from the likes of Edward Gargan (an arcade cop), Eddie Parks (a drunk in the same arcade), and Gertrude Astor (a nagging wife), and there’s an above average score by Leigh Harline that includes a couple of unsettling motifs that are used during some of the more intense sequences. It all builds to a satisfactory climax, with the villain – and their accomplice – proving not quite as obvious as usual (though, again, fans of the genre may think otherwise). It all adds up to a surprisingly rewarding film noir, and a movie well worth checking out if you get the opportunity.

Rating: 7/10 – an unassuming, modest little thriller that features a robust script, adroit performances, and assured, confident direction, Crack-Up is a movie that goes some way to proving that not all post-war mysteries were derivative and/or bland; not just for fans, this is a welcome addition to the genre that doesn’t settle for being second best or tired and predictable.

NOTE: Alas, no trailer for Crack-Up is available.

Lost and Delirious (2001)

09 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Boarding school, Drama, Falcon, Jessica Paré, Léa Pool, Lesbianism, Literary adaptation, Love, Mischa Barton, Piper Perabo, Prejudice, Relationships, Review, Susan Swan

D: Léa Pool / 103m

Cast: Piper Perabo, Jessica Paré, Mischa Barton, Jackie Burroughs, Mimi Kuzyk, Graham Greene, Emily VanCamp, Amy Stewart, Caroline Dhavernas, Luke Kirby

A female-only boarding school. A new pupil still mourning her recently deceased mother. Two roommates who seem especially close. An atmosphere of prejudice and privilege. The attentions of a teenage boy from another, nearby school. Peer pressure. Love rejected and dismissed. An injured falcon. High emotions left unchecked and leading to tragedy. All these and more form the meat of Lost and Delirious, a movie that comes very close to capturing the urgency and intensity of first love, and the spiralling madness that follows in the wake of that first love being rejected out of self-preservation.

The movie opens with the arrival of fourteen year old Mary (Barton) at a semi-remote all-girls boarding school somewhere in Ontario, Canada. She’s shy and hesitant, so obviously a naïf that she might as well have it written across her forehead. Fortunately, the headmistress, Miss Vaughn (Burroughs), places her with Paulie (Perabo) and Tori (Paré), two older girls who take her under their combined protection and help her adjust to being away from home. It isn’t long though before Paulie and Tori’s relationship becomes much clearer: they’re lovers, but only Mary knows.

Of the two, Paulie is the more rebellious, challenging authority at (almost) every turn, and behaving with a reckless abandon. Tori is more studious, less willing to antagonise the teachers in the way that Paulie does, and their differences seem to have brought them closer together. As time goes by they drop any pretence around Mary that they’re not a couple, and she becomes a confidant to their affair. But as with all breathless (and secret) love affairs in such an environment, exposure isn’t too far away, and one morning Tori’s younger sister, Allison (VanCamp), with some of her friends burst into their room and find Tori and Paulie naked in Tori’s bed.

It proves a turning point for their relationship. Tori is unwilling to admit her feelings, or that she and Paulie are more than friends, and she tells her sister very forcefully that she isn’t a lesbian, and that she didn’t even know Paulie had got into her bed with her the night before. Allison accepts Tori’s explanation and agrees not to mention it to anyone, and especially their father who Tori knows is staunchly homophobic. Her withdrawal from Paulie though has the effect of driving Paulie to ever more extreme actions, including declaring her love for Tori in front of the other students. Embarrassed and afraid of being disowned by her family, Tori maintains her rejection of Paulie, and ever more desperate to win her back, the increasingly disturbed Paulie resorts to her most extreme actions yet.

Fans of all-girl boarding school stories will no doubt be expecting some melo- to go with their drama, and while Lost and Delirious certainly has its moments it’s a much better example of the genre that starts off quietly, taking care to establish its trio of leading characters and affording time to provide a (mostly) convincing backdrop for the action that unfolds. Adapted by Judith Thompson from the novel by Susan Swan, the movie’s isolated locale and sense of modulated behaviours is given potent expression through Mary’s initial feelings of abandonment by her newly remarried father. Seeing her wide-eyed dismay at the enormity of both the school and the task of fitting in that lies ahead of her, Mary’s story is likely to be the movie’s focus, the classic tale of the young girl who seeks acceptance but is rebuffed at every turn. But instead Mary is the young girl who finds herself caught up in someone else’s story, and learns a heartfelt lesson because of it.

By subverting our expectations in this way, the movie shows it’s not afraid to take risks, even if those risks incur some narrative wobbles later on. As Paulie and Tori’s relationship becomes the movie’s true focus, and Mary becomes their “accomplice”, the screenplay becomes playful and carefree, celebrating the girls’ love for each other, and paying no heed to any possible downfall that may be around the corner. It’s during this period that Lost and Delirious is at its most tolerant, placing Paulie and Tori in a perfect bubble of acceptance and indulging itself in their happiness. But from the moment that Allison bursts into their room and shatters that perfect bubble of acceptance, there’s nowhere else their relationship can go but downhill, and with terrible consequences.

But again, the movie wrong foots the viewer. Instead of Paulie and Tori finding sufficient strength from their relationship to allow them to overcome any prejudice or homophobic resentment towards them, Tori folds under the pressure of family ties and the loss of the life she’s used to. On the surface it seems a cowardly, awful thing to do, to deny your love for someone, but Tori is a product of her privileged background and she has no more choice in the matter than Paulie does in how she reacts. Torn by her sense of duty to her father and her feelings for Paulie, it’s the insidious nature of a “traditional” upbringing that is the villain, and Tori doesn’t have the strength to fight against it.

So it’s left to Paulie to fight against the injustice of losing the one person she loves with all her being. But she’s a tragic figure with a tragic future waiting just ahead for her. The script does nothing to allay our fears on this matter, letting Paulie’s unhappiness shred any remaining inhibitions or emotional restraints until the only outcome that’s possible is one that will have repercussions for all that witness it. As this event draws ever closer, and Paulie’s actions become ever more desperate, it becomes all the more awful to see her floundering in her search for a way to ease the pain she’s feeling.

As Paulie, Perabo is excellent, putting in the kind of performance that is both affecting and heart-rending at the same time. This came after Coyote Ugly (2000), and while that movie brought Perabo to everyone’s attention, this is the movie that should have cemented her reputation. As it is, it’s possibly her very finest role, one that’s tinged with melancholy, vulnerability, despair, longing, fearlessness, and above all, the joy that only true love can bring. It’s a fierce, impassioned performance, poignant and sincere, and the movie exploits it at every opportunity. Paré is somewhat sidelined by Tori’s self-imposed split from Paulie, but she does a good job in showing the pain Tori herself feels at giving up her own true love. She’s also asked to deny her love for Paulie once or twice too often for narrative comfort, which some viewers may find distracting as well as repetitive. But like Perabo, Paré is equally good at displaying the elation of first love, and their early scenes together are full of the exuberance that comes with loving unconditionally.

Tying all this together neatly and with a studied panache, Pool illustrates the various pressures and required conformities of single sex school life with a greater attention to detail than is at first apparent (this is definitely a movie that delivers more from a second viewing). She focuses on the girls’ emotions to very good effect, and shows a confident grasp of the sexual politics inherent in such an environment, while also displaying a keen eye (and ear) for the other exigencies that come with it. If she has slightly more trouble explaining how Paulie can be consistently rude to Miss Vaughn and her teachers, or that her increasingly disturbed behaviour can go equally unchallenged, then it’s a small price to pay for the quality achieved elsewhere.

Rating: 8/10 – a modest coming-of-age drama that succeeds in elevating itself by virtue of a superb central performance and careful attention to detail, Lost and Delirious is deserving of being “rediscovered” by a wider audience; with an emotional thrust that is both honest and credible, it’s a movie that resonates long after its tragic yet powerful ending.

The Ones Below (2015)

07 Monday Mar 2016

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Clémence Poésy, David Farr, David Morrissey, Drama, Laura Birn, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Review, Stephen Campbell Moore, Thriller

D: David Farr / 87m

Cast: Clémence Poésy, David Morrissey, Stephen Campbell Moore, Laura Birn, Deborah Findlay

Kate (Poésy) and Justin (Moore) are expecting their first child. They live in an upstairs flat, have a comfortable lifestyle, and appear to be secure in their relationship. But Kate has doubts about her suitability as a parent, and these doubts plague her so much that she fears she won’t bond with her baby when it arrives. Justin does his best to reassure her, but Kate’s doubts linger. Kate gives birth to a son, but once she’s home she finds her fears coming true and dealing with a newborn begins to take its toll.

The arrival of new neighbours in the flat below, Jon (Morrissey) and his pregnant Scandinavian wife Teresa (Birn), offer a distraction, and the two couples begin to get to know each other. Jon is a successful businessman who seems aloof and manipulative, his treatment of Teresa appearing controlling and stern. Kate and Teresa bond over Kate’s son, and the husbands seem to get along as well. But at a dinner party held by Kate and Justin, and after a few drinks too many, Teresa reveals to Kate that she is afraid of Jon; shortly after, Jon forces her to leave early. Their friendships continue to develop but at a subsequent dinner party, again held in Kate and Justin’s flat, a terrible accident occurs and Teresa falls down the stairs. As a result she suffers a miscarriage.

The next day there is an angry exchange between the two couples, and Teresa tells Kate that she doesn’t “deserve that thing inside you!” Jon and Teresa leave soon after for Europe, but retain their lease on the flat. Kate and Justin continue with their own lives, and try to put things behind them. And then one day she comes home to find shoes outside the door to the downstairs flat – Jon and Teresa are back. When the two couples eventually run into each other, Jon and Teresa reassure Kate and Justin that they harbour no ill will over the circumstances of Teresa’s miscarriage, and just want to move on with their lives.

However, Kate soon becomes paranoid about what she believes is their true motive in returning, which she thinks is to undermine her relationship with her child, and in time, steal him away from her. Justin is disbelieving, but Kate’s increasing paranoia leads her to find ominous portents in the simplest of Jon and Teresa’s behaviour, particularly as Teresa has taken to helping Kate with her son, babysitting for her and allowing her to regain some of the life she’d thought she’d left behind. Kate becomes suspicious of Teresa’s help, and eventually this leads to her breaking into their flat in the hope of finding something that will prove she’s not being delusional, but when she does it leads to not only a terrible confrontation but the culmination of her worst fears.

A fertile little thriller with dark psychological overtones, The Ones Below arrives in cinemas after having been well received at the 2015 Toronto and London Film Festivals. And yet, while it maintains a chilly (mis)demeanour throughout its commendably brief running time, certain narrative missteps cause the movie to fall short of achieving its full potential. Part of the problem is that Kate’s mental acuity is questionable from the start and despite rare moments of contentment, she never seems as if she’ll ever banish her concerns over being pregnant, and what the future will hold once she’s given birth. With a character who’s already struggling with a form of paranoid delusion, the idea that she might be suffering psychological torment thanks to her grieving neighbours is never in question.

So instead of a movie where the audience is never sure if Kate has cause to be paranoid over the actions of her neighbours, the issue is never in doubt, and the script by writer/director Farr tips its hand far too early thanks to the decision to tap into unnecessary thriller conventions, and by having David Morrissey look menacing even in moments of repose (some actors should not be cast in certain roles). Jon and Teresa behave oddly from the start, and while some of their actions can be construed as “normal”, we’re still in thriller territory, and with all the expectations that go with that, expectations that Farr doesn’t really know how to circumvent. Once the baby is born and the grieving couple return, we all know what’s going to happen next, and if the details are somewhat sketchy, we still know the inevitable outcome.

By making the outcome so predictable, Farr lessens the impact of the good work he puts in in the movie’s first half, where marital tensions are kept simmering away in the background, and the idea of domestic violence in leafy suburbia adds a frisson of apprehension as to how the movie will pan out. In these early scenes, Poésy does well to keep Kate’s emotional fragility from defining her completely, and her scenes with Moore are cleverly staged to show the distance that is growing between them as a couple (Justin clearly hopes the baby’s birth will bring them closer together again). The introduction of Jon and Teresa, an outwardly fun-loving couple who seem to have (almost) everything they need, serves to highlight Kate’s increasing unhappiness, and the fault lines in her marriage to Justin. Farr keeps his characters on an emotional knife edge during this period, but once Teresa suffers her miscarriage, the movie drops any pretence about its intentions, and what has started out as a quietly disturbing examination of one woman’s alienation from herself, abandons this approach for the narrow confines of a thriller.

With the narrative making several attempts to wrong foot the viewer from this point on, The Ones Below becomes a game of cat and mouse between Kate (not crazy), and Jon and Teresa (certainly amoral) as she and the viewer begin to work out what Fate has in store for her, and her son. Morrissey ramps up the menace while Birn invests sunning herself on a lounger with as much unease as she can muster. It’s all staged with aplomb but as intimidating behaviour goes it’s remarkably lightweight, and speaks more to budgetary constraints than it does to narrative embellishments (and the viewer can see Morrissey standing in the rear garden only so many times before it becomes tiresome).

With the material and the plotting getting bogged down by Farr’s need to hurry things along, the movie loses traction and aims for the kind of subtlety-free denouement that leaves the viewer in no doubt (again) as to what’s happened – and why – and abandons any attempt at leaving the viewer in two minds as to whether or not Kate has imagined it all, or if there’s a darker, less obvious reason for the events she’s caught up in. If Farr had managed to inject some much needed ambiguity into his script, things would have been a whole lot better and more rewarding. As it is he’s served well by his cast, and by Birn in particular, and the movie’s best feature is an unsettling score by Adem Ilhan that is almost like a character of its own, supplementing the darker emotions on display, and allowing Farr to create a greater sense of unease when Kate’s paranoia runs riot.

Rating: 6/10 – with aspirations to be a better than average domestic thriller, The Ones Below sees first-timer Farr maintain an uneasy grip on the narrative, but steadfastly avoid providing the audience with anything to keep them off guard; by the time we see Teresa travelling to her new home, any surprises are unlikely and the final reveal has been signposted well in advance, leaving the viewer to wonder if the joke is on them rather than Kate.

Sisters (2015)

06 Sunday Mar 2016

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Amy Poehler, Booze, Childhood home, Comedy, Drugs, Ellis Island, Jason Moore, John Cena, John Leguizamo, Maya Rudolph, Mother/daughter relationship, Parents, Party, Review, Romance, Tina Fey

D: Jason Moore / 118m

Cast: Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, Ike Barinholtz, James Brolin, Dianne Weist, John Cena, John Leguizamo, Bobby Moynihan, Greta Lee, Madison Davenport, Rachel Dratch

Making the transition from TV to movies can be tough. For every Mike Myers or Johnny Depp, there are dozens more actors and actresses who make the leap only to find their particular schtick isn’t as popular with cinema audiences. Often it’s down to their choice of material, sometimes they make the mistake of doing exactly the same thing as they do on their TV show, and sometimes there’s just no explaining why their movie doesn’t click with audiences. Many persevere, trying time and again to make it work and be successful, and just as many fail.

Welcome then to Sisters, the latest attempt by Amy Poehler and Tina Fey to translate their TV personas into box office success. It’s a mix of teen party with adults, sibling dependency, and awkward romance, and it struggles to make any of these aspects even remotely entertaining. The teen party with adults is the worst of Sisters’ many creative decisions. Maura and Kate Ellis (Poehler, Fey) are middle-aged sisters. Maura is a nurse whose need to help others can be suffocating, and who hasn’t been in a relationship for some time. Kate is a nail technician who has a teenage daughter, Haley (Davenport), but no man, and has trouble keeping it together. When she loses her job it coincides with an invitation from their parents (Brolin, Weist) to come visit their childhood home before it’s sold.

Maura and Kate are horrified by this, especially as the invite has really been about them coming to clear out their room. Left to get on with it, Maura and Kate decide instead to have one last party in the house, and set about inviting all their old schoolfriends – with the exception of realtor Brinda (Rudolph) – along with a neighbour, James (Barinholtz), that Maura has the hots for. Everyone turns up as expected but as everyone is as middle-aged as the sisters are, the party isn’t as exciting as they’d hoped for. The intervention of local drug dealer, Pazuzu (Cena), leads to a much wilder, much more enjoyable party, and inevitably, the house suffering some extreme wear and tear. And then Kate learns that she and Maura stand to benefit from the sale of the house. But by now it’s too late to put a halt to all the damage that’s been done, and matters are made even worse by the efforts of Brinda to crash the party, and the imminent arrival of Maura and Kate’s parents.

There’s no denying that Poehler and Fey are two very fine comediennes – on TV. With Parks and Recreation, and 30 Rock respectively, both women have carved out hugely successful careers for themselves, and earned a sackload of respect and admiration in the process. But on the big screen the results haven’t exactly been that impressive. Fey’s attempts have included Date Night (2010), Admission (2013) and This Is Where I Leave You (2014), while Poehler, who admittedly has been trying for longer, has struck out with the likes of Spring Breakdown (2009), Freak Dance (2010), and A.C.O.D. (2013). The idea of them appearing together as sisters sounds like a great idea on paper (and the roles of Maura and Kate were written specifically for them), but it’s the movie itself that stops them from making much of an impact.

There’s plenty of scope to be had from making Maura and Kate as different as chalk and cheese – Maura is the dependable, slightly strait-laced sister, Kate is the carefree, mainly irresponsible free spirit – but without any friction between them until very late on, most scenes they appear in until then tend to focus on highlighting those differences to the point where even someone whose not even watching the movie will be aware of them. But still they’re no cause for disagreement or arguments or any kind of falling out. As a result, the movie plods along, content to find humour in the behaviour of secondary characters such as grinning hound dog Dave (Leguizamo), and mildly depressed Kelly (Dratch). But even then the laughter is thin on the ground, and has to be propped up by some actually quite funny verbal barbs courtesy of Kate.

And once the party gets really started, and several chocolate brownies have allowed the guests to loosen up, the movie encounters another problem. It wants to be a raucous comedy at this point, a la American Pie (1999), but as that series discovered when it arrived at American Reunion (2012), the idea of adults behaving like teenagers isn’t inherently funny, and something that audiences don’t really want to see. So the behaviour in Sisters is toned down to such an extent that whatever shenanigans or hijinks do happen, they’re about as funny as watching Amy and Tina trying on party dresses while a shop assistant drones that their outfits suit them (when of course they don’t).

Another part of the problem with Paula Pell’s script – and by extension Jason Moore’s direction – is that early on, scenes drag on past their proper length, partly in an effort to provide both actresses with equal screen time, and partly in an effort to wring out some extra laughs from situations and scenes that don’t support many laughs in the first place. That’s not to say that the movie isn’t funny it places, because it is, it’s just that it’s not funny consistently. It also tries too hard, and to the point where it tries to provoke a laugh from Weist using the C-word. When your comedy movie can’t manufacture enough laughs to maintain interest over nearly two hours, then you’ve got a problem.

As the sisters, Poehler and Fey are likeable enough, but even they can’t do much with a script that lacks substance as well as sustained humour. Rudolph pulls a lot of faces to make up for the one-note character she’s been given, Brolin and Weist have to settle for being constantly annoyed by their daughters’ behaviour, Leguizamo is wasted in the kind of minor supporting role he takes on every now and then, and Moynihan, tasked with playing the kind of too loud funny man whose jokes are always awful, is saddled with mimicking Al Pacino in Scarface (1983) in a charades scene that feels like it’s never going to end. Only Cena as the taciturn drug dealer (whose safe word is “keep going”) avoids being hampered by the material, and the movie picks up whenever he’s on screen.

Sisters would be a better movie if it was twenty minutes shorter and if Pell’s screenplay had concentrated on laughs rather than giving its two main characters “life lessons” to learn. Viewers looking for a great time in the company of two very talented comediennes would do better to try their respective TV series’, while anyone unfamiliar with their TV work, but thinking of giving the movie a try on the off chance that a movie featuring Poehler and Fey must be good (right?), should take a hasty step back and save themselves from being disappointed.

Rating: 5/10 – sporadic laughs do not a comedy make, and Sisters struggles repeatedly to get the mix of visual and verbal humour to work effectively, leaving it feeling and looking dull and uninspired for long stretches; best viewed as a valiant attempt to give Poehler and Fey their big screen breakthrough, but otherwise a movie that fails to deliver both for them and for the audience.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Deleted Scene feat. Jimmy Kimmel

06 Sunday Mar 2016

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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Ben Affleck, Deleted scene, Henry Cavill, Jimmy Kimmel, Spoof

If you’re at all familiar with the US chat show host Jimmy Kimmel, then you’ll know that he’s a big movie fan, and always has guests who are promoting their latest movies. (He also has an ongoing “feud” with Matt Damon, and some of you may be aware of a song relating to Damon and Kimmel’s then-girlfriend Sarah Silverman.) But every now and then Kimmel, whose onscreen persona is very much that of the lovable put-upon schlub, has a genius idea for a sketch, and this is definitely one of his best. This isn’t just Kimmel being photoshopped into a finished scene from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (as it looks at first), this is Kimmel in a scene that we think we’ve already seen in the trailers. Full marks to everyone concerned, and to Jimmy, if you can make ’em this good, keep ’em coming!

Man Up (2015)

06 Sunday Mar 2016

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Ben Palmer, Blind date, Bowling, Comedy, Lake Bell, Olivia Williams, Review, Romance, Romantic comedy, Rory Kinnear, Simon Pegg, Six Billion People and You, Waterloo Station

D: Ben Palmer / 88m

Cast: Simon Pegg, Lake Bell, Rory Kinnear, Sharon Horgan, Ken Stott, Harriet Walter, Ophelia Lovibond, Olivia Williams, Stephen Campbell Moore, Paul Thornley

Outside of his collaborations with Nick Frost and Edgar Wright, and his work on the Mission: Impossible and Star Trek franchises, Simon Pegg hasn’t had the kind of success on his own that you might have expected. Which is odd as Pegg has an agreeable, friendly persona that is instantly likeable. Perhaps the issue has been the choices he’s made over the years: a few mildly amusing comedies that haven’t really stretched his talents as a comic actor, or even been that funny. Movies such as Run, Fatboy, Run (2007) and A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2012). Otherwise there’s been a lot of voice overs, a couple of dramas, several shorts, and a role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015).

Thankfully though, Pegg made a very good choice when he decided to take on the role of recently divorced Jack in Man Up. It’s a smart (and more importantly) funny romantic comedy that focuses on Nancy (Bell), a thirty-plus woman whose track record with the opposite sex has been less than stellar. Continually pushed to meet a man and settle down before it’s too late by her sister, Elaine (Horgan), Nancy isn’t so sure that she’ll ever meet Mr Right, and probably not even Mr Not-Quite-Right-But-Near-Enough. But things are about to change. On a train to London – travelling to make her parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary celebrations – Nancy meets Jessica (Lovibond), an ambitious young woman who is on her way to meet a blind date. Jessica swears by a self-help book called Six Billion People and You, and believes Nancy could benefit from its advice. By the journey’s end Nancy has fallen asleep, the train has arrived at Waterloo, Jessica is nowhere to be seen, and she’s left her copy of the book behind.

Nancy gets off the train, taking the book with her, and soon finds herself talking to Jack (who believes he’s talking to Jessica). With her sister’s pleas to “take a chance” popping up in her head, Nancy pretends to be Jessica, and so she and Jack embark on “their” date. And thanks to Tess Morris’s deft screenplay, what follows is engaging, funny and credible as Jack and Nancy get to know each other and find they have quite a lot in common, even down to an affection for the same pop culture references. But there’s a fly in the ointment, in the form of Sean (Kinnear), who works in the bowling alley they go to, and who has maintained a stalker-type crush on Nancy since they were at school. When he overhears her being referred to as Jessica he sees his chance to worm his away into her affections.

Nancy manages to avoid being exposed, but only just. Jack’s suspicions taken care of they find themselves in a bar where his ex, Hilary (Williams) and her new husband, Ed (Moore), turn up. The four share a table and soon each couple is trying to outdo the other in terms of how happy they are. Nancy and Jack agree to pretend to have been together for longer, and they soon make Hilary and Ed feel uncomfortable. Having exorcised some of his demons, Jack and Nancy agree that they should see each other again, but Nancy’s decision to be honest about her deception proves to be a deal breaker, and back where they started at Waterloo Station, their potential love story comes to a halt. Or does it…?

Long-time fans of romantic comedies will know the answer to that one. And what follows does tread a predictable path, but it’s the way in which Morris’s script allows Jack and Nancy to get to know each other that is the movie’s main strength. As mentioned above, as a couple they’re engaging, funny together and the chemistry they develop is entirely credible. So much effort seems to have gone into making their liking for each other so believable, that watching them spark and riff off each other becomes immensely rewarding. A big part of this, of course, is down to the playing of Pegg and Bell, both of whom take to their roles with undisguised glee and enthusiasm. As a result, their efforts make spending time with Jack and Nancy as infectiously enjoyable as it must have been to portray them. They’re exactly the kind of characters you’d want to spend time with in real life.

The supporting characters are generously drawn and brought to life, but with the exception of Sean, whose inappropriate comments and references are given life by Kinnear’s adoption of manic mannerisms and wild-eyed mugging. It’s an over-the-top performance in a movie that otherwise takes good care to ground its other characters and make them believable. If Kinnear is playing Sean as he’s written then it’s the script and the movie’s most obvious failing; if he’s not then someone should have taken Kinnear aside and pointed him in the right direction.

Palmer, whose experience is largely in TV, and whose previous big screen outing was The Inbetweeners Movie (2011), directs with an understanding that, despite Pegg’s top billing, this is Bell’s movie. Nancy is the main character and we see almost everything from her perspective. And Bell is terrific throughout: vulnerable, appealing, funny, exuberant, and self-aware. You can see the character grow in confidence as the movie progresses, and by the end you can’t help but want Nancy and Jack to be together; nothing else would be appropriate or meaningful enough. Pegg is equally impressive, and supports Bell all the way, and together the duo are generous with each other in their scenes, allowing each other to shine and giving themselves the space to do so. In these days of risqué, gross-out gag-ridden romantic comedies that constantly refrain from doing anything as challenging as just putting two people together and seeing how their relationship develops, Man Up is a pleasing, enjoyable antidote to all the cynicism that can be found pretty much everywhere else.

Rating: 8/10 – a wonderful romantic comedy that wears its heart on its sleeve, Man Up is a consistently amusing, and lively romantic comedy that features good performances from (almost) all concerned, and a script that never loses sight of what’s credible; one to watch on a rainy Sunday afternoon, or with the one you love curled up on the sofa, this is a movie that rewards time after time after time.

London Has Fallen (2016)

04 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Aaron Eckhart, Action, Alon Moni Aboutboul, Angela Bassett, Babak Najafi, Drama, Funeral, Gerard Butler, Heads of state, Morgan Freeman, Revenge, Review, Sequel, Terrorism, Thriller

D: Babak Najafi / 99m

Cast: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Alon Moni Aboutboul, Robert Forster, Jackie Earle Haley, Melissa Leo, Radha Mitchell, Sean O’Bryan, Charlotte Riley, Colin Salmon, Waleed Zuaiter

Three years have passed since the events of Olympus Has Fallen. Benjamin Asher (Eckhart) is in his second term of office as the US President, and Mike Banning (Butler) is still his most trusted Secret Service agent. Mike and his wife, Leah (Mitchell), are expecting their first child, and this newly approaching responsibility has prompted Mike to consider resigning from the Secret Service. But before he can make a final decision, the unexpected death of the British Prime Minister means a state funeral and the attendance of around forty heads of state from around the globe, including Asher.

In London, their arrival at the funeral triggers a series of terrorist attacks on some of the various heads of state: a barge explosion on the Thames that kills the French President, bombs going off at either end of Chelsea Bridge where the Japanese Prime Minister is held up in traffic, a further explosion at the Houses of Parliament where the Italian Prime Minister is canoodling with his latest girlfriend, and gunfire outside Buckingham Palace where the German Chancellor is mowed down. A firefight between the Secret Service and heavily armed terrorists ends with Asher, Banning, and Secret Service director Lynne Jacobs (Bassett) escaping by car and then by helicopter. But soon their helicopter is shot down, and Asher and Banning have to find safety before they’re found by the terrorists.

They find temporary sanctuary at an MI6 safe house, along the way learning that the main target of the attacks is Asher himself, and that he’s wanted alive so that he can be executed, live on the Net, for everyone in the world to see. At the safe house they also discover the reason why: two years before, Asher ordered a drone strike on a notorious arms dealer, Aamir Barkawi (Aboutboul). Barkawi survived, as did his son Kamran (Zuaiter), but his daughter was killed in the blast. This is his revenge. Aided by MI6 agent Jacquelin Marshall (Riley), Asher and Banning also discover that someone is aiding Barkawi by providing access to the British security systems.

With the safe house compromised, Asher and Banning escape but they’re ambushed, and Asher is taken. Banning learns the terrorists’ location at the same time the US and British security services do, and together with an SAS unit, he makes a last ditch effort to rescue Asher and put an end to Barkawi’s plan.

Olympus Has Fallen was a surprising success back in 2013, a thick-eared, jingoistic action movie that took its premise seriously and wasn’t afraid of being occasionally brutal and uncompromising (Banning’s interrogation technique). That it was also hugely absurd and as dumb as a bag of nails didn’t seem to hurt its performance at the box office, and it was helped immensely by Butler’s no-nonsense attitude in the role of Banning. Here he’s similarly resolute, only cracking a smile when discussing being a parent, or delivering occasional wisecracks as and when the script requires him to. And the rest of the returning cast all retain that poker-faced sincerity, pulling horrified faces when needed and looking shocked the rest of the time (except for Freeman, who remains passive pretty much throughout).

The narrative is predicatably inane, the kind of illogical mix of coincidence and haphazard plotting that sees perfectly orchestrated attacks occur in a matter of minutes, but which would have had to rely on the alignment of too many variables to ever work in reality (and yes, of course this isn’t reality, it’s escapism, but even escapism can keep a foothold in the real world). There’s a degree of fun to be had in seeing so many iconic London landmarks blown up or strafed by bullets or suffering incidental damage due to car chases, but it’s all strangely unimpressive. The first movie was made for $70m, but this time round it feels as if the budget was lower, and as a result, the CGI employed looks rougher and less convincing. And the action sequences have that speeded-up, over-edited approach that makes everything happen in a blur, and robs them of any impact.

London Has Fallen crams a lot into its relatively short running time, but most of it is to little effect. Once London has “fallen” the movie doesn’t really know what to do, and resorts to having Asher and Banning running around and killing bad guys at every turn. Barkawi is a better villain than Olympus‘s Korean antagonist, his personal vendetta a better reason for events than any political ideology, but his son Kamran is soon reduced from being his sister’s avenger to just another thug spouting anti-Western sentiments. Back home, Leah’s expecting a baby is meant to show that Banning isn’t all dour looks and grim forebodings (at one point he even suggests their baby has a Kevlar mattress), but with no likelihood of any threat being aimed in their direction, and with Banning being practically indestructible, all talk of his getting back safely to be a dad is redundant. And the subplot involving the mole? You’ll know who it is the moment they appear on screen.

The change of location means a further devaluing of the premise, as the series charges around London (and Romania) with all the subtlety of a Pamplona bull, and the city’s iconic landscape gives way to a series of nondescript back alleys and buildings that have all the character of slum dwellings. You can see the movie getting cheaper and cheaper as it progresses, and by the end you could be forgiven for thinking you were watching a DTV movie made entirely in Romania (something with Steven Seagal in it perhaps). And the freshness and creativity of the first movie’s action scenes is abandoned in favour of an abundance of hallway shootouts where Banning seeks cover behind every available nook and cranny, while the bad guys stand out in the open so they can be more easily despatched.

Replacing Frederik Bond in the director’s chair, Najafi makes a half-decent fist of things, but he doesn’t bring anything memorable or enticing to the movie, shooting it in a flat, perfunctory way that keeps things from getting too exciting or involving. But with a script that never tries to be anything more than simplistic or pedestrian, Najafi was unlikely to be able to elevate the material, and the result is a movie that stalls far too often on its way to its inevitably dreary conclusion. Scenes rarely connect one to the next, and the movie’s one attempt at tragedy is ruined by the predictable outcome attached to the phrase, “Yes, I’ll be a godmother”.

If there is to be a third movie – and it’s possible, Asher still has two years in office to see out – then it’s to be hoped that a better story can be found than this one to suit the needs of the series. Butler continues to be the main draw, dishing out punishment with a viciousness that few action heroes indulge in, and he also dishes out a handful of one liners with the appropriate acknowledgment of how corny/risible/absurd they are in the given circumstances. Eckhart has only to keep up and get punched repeatedly when captured, while Freeman dons his Mantle of Gravitas with all the enthusiasm of an actor given nothing to do that’s different from before. Forster, Leo, O’Bryan and Haley all get occasional lines of dialogue, and the British contingent, led by Salmon as a befuddled Chief Inspector(!), has its ineptitude made plain until Riley’s appearance as a smart, methodical, and cynical MI6 agent.

As action sequels go, London Has Fallen isn’t going to set the box office alight, and it isn’t going to impress many viewers with its uninspired plotting, featherweight storylines and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it direction from Najafi. With most of its final forty minutes shot at night, it’s also one of the murkiest, most visually unrewarding movies made in recent years, and by the time Butler as Banning is making googly-eyes at his son, audiences will have been moved to lethargy. All of which makes the final shot, where Banning decides whether or not to resign, one that carries a tremendous amount of hope with it – and not that he stays in the service.

Rating: 5/10 – not so bad that it should be avoided, and not so good that it should be applauded, London Has Fallen sets its stall out early on and doesn’t deviate from its intention of being as thick-eared as its predecessor; laughable in places – especially to anyone who lives in London – but determined to ignore how absurd it is, the movie lumbers through the motions and never shows any sign that it wants to be any better than it is.

Trailers – The Brainwashing of My Dad (2015), Ghostbusters (2016), and The Meddler (2015)

03 Thursday Mar 2016

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Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Jen Senko, Kirsten Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Previews, Susan Sarandon, Trailers

In The Brainwashing of My Dad, documentary movie maker Jen Senko asks the perfectly reasonable question: why did my father change from a life-long Democrat with no axe to grind against minorities, to a right-wing fanatic with no time for gays, blacks, or the very Democrats he was a part of? The answer lies in the rise of the right-wing media in the US, and shows just how pervasive it’s become – and with no clear way of redressing the balance. By using her father as a prime example of how persuasive the right-wing media phenomenon has become, Senko seeks to understand and explore the ways in which Americans are being drip-fed a steady diet of paranoia and xenophobia, and how the effect of this diet is both wide-ranging and a major reason for concern in the years ahead.

The reboot of Ghostbusters features four of today’s finest comediennes – Kirsten Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones – and plonks them down in many of the situations that made the original so entertaining. So is there likely to be a fresh approach to Ivan Reitman’s Eighties classic, or will we find ourselves awash in the kind of romantic nostalgia that provided the basis for Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)? It’s hard to tell from this first trailer, which combines two iconic moments from the original in its first twenty seconds, and then seems content to rehash scenes from Ghostbusters II (1989). That might be prove to be a good thing, but right now the jury’s still out on just how effective Paul Feig’s gender-switch update will be, and how funny.

With the unlikely name of Marnie Minervini, Susan Sarandon’s interfering mother – or The Meddler, if you prefer – has all the hallmarks of a woman who lacks boundaries and treats her kids as extensions of her own personality. In Lorene Scafaria’s offbeat yet heartwarming comedy, Sarandon doesn’t lack for opportunities to show off her comedic skills, but you can be sure that in amongst all the indie hijinks and scatterings of inappropriate behaviour, there’s a simple story about mother-daughter differences that are overcome in the end. A feelgood story? Very probably. A movie that offers us something fresh, or new? Maybe, but at least it looks as if you’ll have fun finding out.

Happy Birthday – Daniel Craig

02 Wednesday Mar 2016

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Actor, Birthday, Career, Daniel Craig, Hotel Splendide, Infamous, Layer Cake, Movies, Munich, The Mother

Daniel Craig (2 March 1968 -)

Since stepping into the shoes of everyone’s favourite British secret agent – no, not Johnny English – Daniel Craig has made fewer and fewer movies between 007 outings (between Skyfall and Spectre he made just one short movie, and even that was a promo for Spectre). But before he became licenced to kill, Craig’s career was full of interesting choices and appearances in movies you wouldn’t have suspected he’d be in the running for. From his debut in The Power of One (1992), Craig has given undeniably powerful performances throughout his career, and worked hard to vary the kind of movie he appears in (though he doesn’t seem to be anyone’s first choice for a romantic lead). While he can sometimes seem aloof in person, on screen he has a definite presence, and a physicality that can be a character in its own right. Here are five movies where the latest James Bond has shown he’s not all about gadgets and guns and glamourous women.

Munich (2005) – Character: Steve

In Steven Spielberg’s absorbing, somewhat controversial take on Mossad activity during the early Seventies, Craig’s low-key performance as South African driver Steve is one that rarely takes centre stage, but when he does, Craig displays a fierce determination to get the job done. While it might be regarded as a minor supporting role, Craig certainly doesn’t play it that way, and as a result, more than holds his own against fellow stars Eric Bana, Ciarán Hinds and Mathieu Kassovitz.

The Mother (2003) – Character: Darren

In this emotionally tense, absorbing drama, Craig plays the lover of a grandmother (played by Anne Reid) looking to regain some meaning in her life following the death of her husband. It’s a dour piece with tragic overtones, and Craig’s performance (as the handyman having an affair with the grandmother’s daughter as well as the old lady herself) is one laden with unnerving hints as to his true motives, and which is far subtler than might be expected.

Hotel Splendide (2000) – Character: Ronald Blanche

In this rarely seen, obscure drama, Craig is the head chef of the titular hotel, and one of many characters sucked into a bizarre mystery surrounding the return of the hotel’s former sous chef (played by Toni Collette). With everyone made to behave oddly, Craig fits in well amongst the ensemble cast, and he gives an unexpectedly moving performance that acts as an emotional anchor for the viewer.

Infamous (2006) – Character: Perry Smith

Perhaps Craig’s most well-known role outside of the 007 franchise, Infamous sees him play one of the two murderers immortalised by Truman Capote (played here by Toby Jones) in his book In Cold Blood. As the object of Capote’s “affection”, Craig uses his physical presence to good effect, and his character’s emotional and sexual confusion to even greater effect, resulting in a complex performance that really sees him stretch as an actor.

Layer Cake (2004) – Character: XXXX

Matthew Vaughn’s ambitious British gangster movie is given a boost by Craig’s taking on the lead role, a drug dealer aiming to quit the industry but who finds himself “asked” to find someone’s missing daughter. Craig’s cynical, world-weary yet smug performance keeps the movie focused when it wants to head off in other directions, and his confident swagger works as a clue as to how he might play a certain iconic role, should he be asked (oh, right, he was).

The 36th Golden Raspberry Awards

02 Wednesday Mar 2016

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Awards, Dakota Johnson, Fantastic Four, Fifty Shades of Grey, Golden Raspberry Awards, Jamie Dornan, Josh Trank, Movies, Nominees, Sylvester Stallone, The Razzies, Winners, Worst of 2015

With all the fuss and hullabaloo that comes with the Oscars, where the best of 2015 is celebrated (…and celebrated…and celebrated…), it’s easy to overlook the awards ceremony that “celebrates” the worst of 2015. Held on February 27th, the annual Golden Raspberry Awards “honour” the movies that we’ve all taken to beating with a stick over the last year, movies that contain breathless lines of dialogue such as these:

“You’re here because I’m incapable of leaving you alone.” – Fifty Shades of Grey

“I had no idea I was so deep in Her Majesty’s hole!” – Mortdecai

“The end of your world… is the beginning of mine!” – Fantastic Four

For those who missed out on congratulating the winners on their timeless efforts, here are the nominees for the 36th Golden Raspberry Awards with the winners highlighted in bold. How many have you seen?

Worst Picture

Fantastic Four (20th Century Fox) – Simon Kinberg, Matthew Vaughn, Hutch Parker, Robert Kulzer, Gregory Goodman
Fifty Shades of Grey (Universal/Focus Features) – Michael De Luca, Dana Brunetti, E. L. James
Jupiter Ascending (Warner Bros.) – Grant Hill, The Wachowskis
Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (Columbia) – Todd Garner, Kevin James, Adam Sandler
Pixels (Columbia) – Adam Sandler, Chris Columbus, Mark Radcliffe, Allen Covert

Yes, it’s a tie, even though Fantastic Four was far and away the worst movie of 2015, the kind of movie you sit through wondering if it can get any worse – and then it does, repeatedly. Fifty Shades of Grey went for po-faced seriousness and in the process made Christian Grey’s BDSM tendencies more laughable than erotic. Both movies were examples of projects that seriously let down their target audiences, and it’s no wonder that the proposed sequels of both movies are now being looked forward to with the minimal amount of enthusiasm.

Worst Director

Josh Trank – Fantastic Four
Andy Fickman – Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
Tom Six – The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)
Sam Taylor-Johnson – Fifty Shades of Grey
The Wachowskis – Jupiter Ascending

No one else came close in 2015 than Trank for ruining the hopes and dreams of superhero fanboys everywhere. That he defended those casting choices all the way to the movie’s release was either a sign of mental instability or the actions of someone carrying out a monumental dare. In either case, Trank’s direction was in a league all its own (and that’s not a recommendation).

Worst Actor

Jamie Dornan – Fifty Shades of Grey as Christian Grey
Johnny Depp – Mortdecai as Charlie Mortdecai
Kevin James – Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 as Paul Blart
Adam Sandler – The Cobbler and Pixels as Max Simkin and Sam Brenner
Channing Tatum – Jupiter Ascending as Caine Wise

Dornan’s oh-so-serious turn as Christian Grey was – and is – a very special performance requiring such a suspension of disblief in viewers he might as well have been flogging himself in lieu of the proverbial dead horse. Depp can count himself unlucky that his ersatz-Terry-Thomas portrayal didn’t have quite as much to unrecommend itself than Dornan’s slick turn. And as for Kevin James…

Worst Actress

Dakota Johnson – Fifty Shades of Grey as Anastasia Steele
Katherine Heigl – Home Sweet Hell as Mona Champagne
Mila Kunis – Jupiter Ascending as Jupiter Jones
Jennifer Lopez – The Boy Next Door as Claire Peterson
Gwyneth Paltrow – Mortdecai as Johanna Mortdecai

Thrust into the media spotlight, and finding her attributes exposed in more ways than one, Johnson’s tepid performance as Anastasia Steele was – and is – an example of an unknown being given an amazing opportunity… and not being ready for it at all. In fairness, she never had a chance, but it’s also true that in comparison with her fellow nominees, her lack of experience made her a dead cert for the award.

Worst Supporting Actor

Eddie Redmayne – Jupiter Ascending as Balem Abrasex
Chevy Chase – Hot Tub Time Machine 2 and Vacation as Hot Tub Repairman and Clark Griswold
Josh Gad – Pixels and The Wedding Ringer as Ludlow Lamonsoff and Doug Harris
Kevin James – Pixels as President William Cooper
Jason Lee – Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip as David “Dave” Seville

In a movie full of unrewarding sci-fi excess, it was Redmayne’s rasping, camp performace as the movie’s villain that acted as a kind of calm amid the storm, even if it looked and sounded like it should have been part of a pantomime rather than a huge, sprawling sci-fi disaster. And as for Kevin James…

Worst Supporting Actress

Kaley Cuoco – Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (voice only) and The Wedding Ringer as Eleanor and Gretchen Palmer
Rooney Mara – Pan as Tiger Lily
Michelle Monaghan – Pixels as Lieutenant Colonel Violet van Patten
Julianne Moore – Seventh Son as Mother Malkin
Amanda Seyfried – Love the Coopers and Pan as Ruby and Mary

Watching the former Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting on TV’s The Big Bang Theory is a satisfying experience that shows the actress has good comic timing and an endearing screen presence. Watching her on the big screen shows that being part of an ensemble is where her talents lie, and that striking out on her own should be avoided at all costs. And there needs to be a law that says phenomenal actresses such as Moore should be banned from appearing in silly fantasy movies (they should know better).

Worst Screen Combo

Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson – Fifty Shades of Grey
All four “Fantastics” (Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, and Jamie Bell) – Fantastic Four
Johnny Depp and his glued-on moustache – Mortdecai
Kevin James and either his Segway or his glued-on moustache – Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
Adam Sandler and any pair of shoes – The Cobbler

With all the on-screen chemistry of a psychopath and his victim (not entirely an inappropriate idea), Dornan and Johnson made their scenes together feel and sound like contractual obligations (still not entirely inappropriate), and the culmination of minutes’ worth of introspection. This particular combo is still preferable by a mile to the “talented” cast that make up the Fantastic Four though.

Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel

Fantastic Four (20th Century Fox) – Simon Kinberg, Matthew Vaughn, Hutch Parker, Robert Kulzer, Gregory Goodman
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (20th Century Fox) – Janice Karman, Ross Bagdasarian
Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (Paramount/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) – Andrew Panay
The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence) (IFC Midnight) – Tom Six, Ilona Six
Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (Columbia) – Todd Garner, Kevin James, Adam Sandler

Absolutely spot on on all points, the enormity of Fantastic Four‘s failure is still hard to grasp sometimes – didn’t anyone know how bad it was? – but all these studios should be taken out to the woodshed and soundly chastised for their profligacy. And it’s great to see an indie movie in there, proving that individual vision is no guarantee that a movie will be any good.

Worst Screenplay

Fifty Shades of Grey – Kelly Marcel, from the novel by E. L. James
Fantastic Four – Jeremy Slater, Simon Kinberg and Josh Trank from the Marvel Comics characters by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Jupiter Ascending – The Wachowskis
Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 – Nick Bakay and Kevin James
Pixels – Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling, story: Tim Herlihy, from the short film by Patrick Jean

An unsurprising win for E.L. James’s bonkbuster, but again, Fantastic Four should have won the award with ease; at least Fifty Shades of Grey had a recognisable structure, and whatever the Wachowskis were smoking when they wrote Jupiter Ascending is concerning on waaay too many levels.

The Razzle Redeemer Award

Sylvester Stallone – From all-time Razzie champ to 2015 award contender for Creed
Elizabeth Banks – From Razzie “winning” director for Movie 43 to directing the 2015 hit film Pitch Perfect 2
M. Night Shyamalan – From Perennial Razzie nominee and “winner” to directing the 2015 horror hit The Visit
Will Smith – For following up Razzie “wins” for After Earth to starring in Concussion

The award that seeks to redress the balance for previous nominations, the Redeemer Award goes to an actor whose career has been a triumph of populism over depth. The other nominees? Nowhere near as deserving of inclusion, and choices that reflect an acknowledgment that Stallone was in a class of his own in 2015 when it comes to making a comeback.

And there you have it: shorter and sourer than the Oscars, but even more entertaining. Whatever your feelings about the main winners, one thing is indisputably true: there’ll be plenty of 2016 movies in the firing line next year, and they’ll all be richly deserving of a Razzie.

Monthly Roundup – February 2016

29 Monday Feb 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The 88th Annual Academy Awards – The Oscars 2016

29 Monday Feb 2016

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Academy Awards, Chris Rock, Diversity, Oscars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best Live Action Short Film

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best Original Song

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Lady in the Van (2015)

28 Sunday Feb 2016

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

D: Nicholas Hytner / 104m

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Old Lady (2014)

27 Saturday Feb 2016

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

D: Israel Horovitz / 107m

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Brand Is Crisis (2015)

25 Thursday Feb 2016

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

D: David Gordon Green / 107m

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10 Reasons to Remember Douglas Slocombe (1913-2016)

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

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

Douglas Slocombe (10 February 1913 – 22 February 2016)

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

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

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

1 – Dead of Night (1945)

2 – Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

3 – The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953)

4 – The Servant (1963)

5 – The Lion in Winter (1968)

6 – The Italian Job (1969)

7 – Travels With My Aunt (1972)

8 – Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)

9 – Julia (1977)

10 – Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Mini-Review: Freeheld (2015)

22 Monday Feb 2016

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

D: Peter Sollett / 103m

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

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

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

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

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

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

Goodnight Mommy (2014)

21 Sunday Feb 2016

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

Original title: Ich seh ich seh

D: Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala / 100m

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Condemned 2 (2015)

20 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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

D: Roel Reiné / 90m

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She Killed in Ecstacy (1971)

19 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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

Original title: Sie tötete in Ekstase

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Hateful Eight (2015)

18 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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

D: Quentin Tarantino / 167m

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deadpool (2016)

17 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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

D: Tim Miller / 108m

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trailer – Mr. Right (2015)

17 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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

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

Short Movies Volume 2

15 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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

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

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

Cast: Alex Fitzalan, Steph Howe

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

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

aka One Too Many

Cast: Arianna Ceravone, Marco Stefano Speziali

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

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

aka Powerless

Cast: Benjamin De Bandt, Sylvie Morizot

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

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

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

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

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

Cast: Peter Greenall, Aggy Kukawka

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

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