The Intervention (2016)

18 Monday Jun 2018

Tags

Alia Shawkat, Ben Schwartz, Clea DuVall, Cobie Smulders, Comedy, Drama, Friends, Jason Ritter, Marital problems, Melanie Lynskey, Natasha Lyonne, Relationships, Review, Vincent Piazza

D: Clea DuVall / 89m

Cast: Clea DuVall, Melanie Lynskey, Natasha Lyonne, Vincent Piazza, Jason Ritter, Ben Schwartz, Alia Shawkat, Cobie Smulders

Annie and Matt (Lynskey, Ritter) are travelling to meet up with their friends, Sarah and Jessie (Lyonne, DuVall), Peter and Ruby (Piazza, Smulders), and Jessie’s brother, Jack (Schwartz), for a weekend get together. There is an ulterior motive for the get together: the rest are convinced that Peter and Ruby’s marriage is on the rocks and that an intervention is needed; they intend to suggest the couple divorce for both their sakes. When Jack arrives he brings a new girlfriend with him, Lola (Shawkat), but while this is initially regarded as inappropriate, it’s quickly forgotten with the arrival of Peter and Ruby. The couple bicker and squabble in front of their friends, and though Annie appears to the group’s prime mover, she fumbles a first attempt at confronting Peter and Ruby by getting drunk. Before another attempt can be made, divisions between the other couples are brought to the fore, partly because of Lola’s freewheeling sexuality, but also because of long-buried animosities. And things don’t improve when the intervention finally takes place, and Peter and Ruby react in ways that prove unexpected and which threaten the group’s friendship – perhaps irrevocably…

DuVall’s debut as a writer/director, The Intervention is a broadly optimistic, genial and amusing movie that works surprisingly well despite its largely conventional narrative and collection of characters. The basic premise plays out as you’d expect, adding fault lines in each relationship as the movie progresses, but thankfully not to the point where it looks as if each marriage/partnership needs their own intervention. Instead, DuVall does something that’s a little bit sneaky (maybe even underhanded): she pulls the rug out from under the viewer by revealing said fault lines but without wrapping them up neatly in a nice dramatic bow by the movie’s end. In doing this, she keeps the material fresher than it appears to be at first, and allows the main storyline and its various sub-plots to make much more of an impact than usual. Little betrayals and far from imagined slights have their place, but it’s the characters’ reactions to them – their bemused, uncomprehending reactions – that provide much of the enjoyment to be had from DuVall’s astute observations and the movie’s overall tone. If there’s one caveat, it’s that the drama is often underplayed in favour of the humour, but when it needs to, the script stings deliberately and painfully.

If DuVall’s first outing as a writer isn’t always successful – Lola is too obviously a catalyst for upset, the male characters aren’t as clearly defined as their female counterparts – as a director she’s on firmer ground, orchestrating matters with a great deal of confidence and precision in the way scenes are staged, and knowing when to focus on the appropriate dynamics relating to each couple. She’s aided by a terrific ensemble cast that’s headed by the always reliable Lynskey. As the commitment-phobic Annie, Lynskey invests her character with a pliable sense of responsibility and a survivor’s ignorance of individual culpability. It’s yet another performance that reinforces the fact that she’s one of the best actresses working today. Almost matching her (it’s really close) is Smulders, her portayal of Ruby as melancholy and subdued as you’d suspect in a woman whose marriage is visibly imploding (Smulders broke her leg shortly before shooting began; rather than re-cast, DuVall wrote it into the script). The rest of the cast enter into the spirit of things with gusto, and thanks to DuVall’s actor friendly approach, it’s the performances that prove to be the movie’s main attraction.

Rating: 7/10 – uneven in places, but with a sincerity and a sharpness to the material that keeps it (mostly) fresh and appealing, The Intervention is rewarding in an undemanding yet enjoyable way; bolstered by a raft of good performances, it’s unpretentious stuff that doesn’t outstay its welcome, and which knows not to resolve all its characters’ problems.

Ali’s Wedding (2016)

15 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Arranged marriage, Australia, Comedy, Don Hany, Drama, Helana Sawires, Jeffrey Walker, Muslims, Osamah Sami, Review, Romance, True story, Wedding

D: Jeffrey Walker / 110m

Cast: Osamah Sami, Don Hany, Helana Sawires, Robert Rabiah, Khaled Khalafalla, Asal Shenaveh, Rodney Afif, Ghazi Alkinani, Majid Shokor, Shayan Salehian, Ryan Corr

Ali (Sami) and his family live in Australia, but are originally from Iraq. His father (Hany) is the cleric of the local mosque, and wants Ali to become a doctor. Ali isn’t so sure that’s going to happen as he doesn’t have a natural aptitude for medicine and struggles with his studies; when he only gets 68.5 on his university entrance exam, it confirms what he already knows. However, because he doesn’t want to disappoint his father, Ali keeps the result to himself, but when another student boasts of getting a high score, Ali tells everyone he scored even higher. And when he learns that the girl he’s attracted to, Dianne (Sawires), has also passed, Ali determines to attend the university anyway. Meanwhile, Ali’s parents reveal that they are arranging a bride for him (now that he’s on his way to being a successful doctor), and are making plans for their upcoming wedding. As Ali fights to keep his secret from being revealed, he has to find a way of getting out of the arranged marriage, and ensuring that he and Dianne can be together – even though she’s Lebanese…

Based on Sami’s own experiences, Ali’s Wedding is something of a first: a Muslim romantic comedy that manages to be respectful of Muslim traditions and his family’s transplanted way of life, while also acknowledging that his generation may not be as “wedded” to those traditions as elder generations would expect them to be. It’s a movie that avoids the usual condemnation that you’d expect when young love rears its socially unacceptable head and challenges the status quo, or entrenched religious sensibilities, and part of the movie’s charm is that Sami, along with co-writer Andrew Knight, recognises the validity of both points of view. So there’s no demonising of the Muslim religion, no stereotypical characterisations, and no deciding if one side is “better” than the other. Arguments are made for both sides of the cultural divide, and it’s left to the viewer to decide which one they agree with most. That said, Sami’s unwavering fairness to both sides should be enough, as he makes sure that the movie’s nominal bad guy, a would-be usurper of his father’s role of cleric, is undone by an outburst of arrogant pride.

Having set the tone for the movie’s cultural and religious backdrop, Sami is free to build a lightweight yet likeable romance out of Ali’s relationship with Dianne, and to pepper proceedings with the kind of knowing humour that wouldn’t necessarily work outside of the movie’s framework. Hence we have Saddam The Musical (all true), and an abortive trip to the US to stage the show (the principal cast are all returned home in handcuffs). And that’s without a tractor ride that ends in disaster, and a joke about community service that is both beautifully timed and arrives out of the blue. Walker lets the narrative breathe, and doesn’t rush things, allowing the material and the performances to progress naturally and to good effect. As himself, Sami has a mischievous twinkle in his eye that at times is infectiously winning, and he’s supported by a great cast who all contribute greatly to the movie’s likeability (though Hany’s Aussie accent slips through from time to time, which can be off-putting). There are themes surrounding trust and respect, community and togetherness that are played out with a directness and simplicity that enhance the material, and though the ending is never in doubt, there’s still an awful lot of fun to be had in getting there.

Rating: 8/10 – an agreeable and amusing romantic comedy, Ali’s Wedding does what all the best rom-coms do, and puts its hero through the ringer before giving him a chance at coming up trumps; the romance between Ali and Dianne is entirely credible, as are the various inter-relationships within families and the wider Muslim community, making this an unexpected, but modestly vital, success.

Lost in London (2017)

14 Thursday Jun 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Arrest, Comedy, Drama, Eleanor Matsuura, London, Martin McCann, Owen Wilson, Review, True story, Woody Harrelson

D: Woody Harrelson / 103m

Cast: Woody Harrelson, Owen Wilson, Eleanor Matsuura, Martin McCann, Peter Ferdinando, Zrinka Cvitešić, Al Nedjari, David Mumeni, David Avery, Amir El-Masry, Willie Nelson, Daniel Radcliffe

In 2002, Woody Harrelson was in London appearing in John Kolvenbach’s play, On an Average Day. One night, following a visit to Chinawhite, a club in Soho, Harrelson was in a taxi where he broke an ashtray. The police were called, and Harrelson, having transferred to another taxi, was subsequently chased by them before being arrested. He spent the night in jail before being bailed the following morning. This incident forms the basis for Lost in London, a reworking of the events of that night, events that begin with Harrelson getting into trouble with his wife, Laura (Matsuura), after she reads about him in the papers having partied with three strippers. Given until midnight to be by himself and think about his actions, while Laura decides what to do herself, Woody finds himself hooking up with an Arab prince (Nedjari) and his three sons and going to a nightclub. There he bumps into Owen Wilson, and an ensuing altercation between the two men leads to Woody having to leave the club suddenly, and get into the first available taxi, a decision that will prove to have far-reaching consequences…

Lost in London is notable for two reasons: it’s Harrelson’s first movie as a director (he also wrote the script as well), and it was the first – and so far only – movie to be screened in cinemas live. Necessarily playing out in real time, apart from a temporal sleight of hand towards the end, Harrelson’s debut is much more than a gimmick of a movie. Shot through with an absurdist sense of humour that feels more British than American, the movie sees Harrelson riffing on his career (often to self-deprecating effect), and his public persona at the time (drugs and booze his staple diet). He also expands on the original problem with the ashtray to include such priceless moments as “hiding” from the police at the top of a children’s slide, and Martin McCann’s sympathetic policeman’s phone call to a reggae-obsessed Bono (actually Bono). The humour in the movie ranges from the broad to the scalpel sharp to inspired to silly, and all the way back again. At the beginning, having come off stage after a less than well received performance of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Harrelson bemoans being stuck doing serious drama. Watching Lost in London, that’s definitely not a problem.

Harrelson has assembled a great cast in support of his endeavours, with McCann and Cvitešić (as a woman he meets outside the nightclub) particularly good, while Wilson trades increasingly vicious barbs with him as they trash each other’s movies (Wilson: “You were just oozing sex appeal in Kingpin.” Harrelson: “You got out-acted by a dog in Marley & Me“). There are some serious moments as well though, caustic observations about the nature of celebrity, and the drawbacks of public perception (at one point Harrelson sings the theme song to Cheers to an unimpressed and unaware bouncer). But most of all, this is meant to make its audience laugh, and this Harrelson achieves with a great deal of skill and wit. As a technical challenge, it has to be regarded as an unalloyed success, with Nigel Willoughby’s single camera cinematography providing a sense of immediacy that, if it had been missing, would have undermined the movie completely. That it all works so well is a testament to the planning and the practice that must have gone into putting the movie together in such a way, and so confidently. It may be some time before anyone attempts such a movie again, but until then, this is a more than worthy effort all by itself.

Rating: 8/10 – having given himself a major challenge with his first feature as a director, Woody Harrelson delivers a movie that’s funny, warm-hearted, and full of indelible moments; Lost in London may stretch the format out of shape on occasion, but Harrelson has such overall control of the material that the odd mis-step now and again can easily be forgiven.

Monthly Roundup – May 2018

02 Saturday Jun 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Action, Adam Robitel, Air Hawks, Alanna Forte, Albert S. Rogell, Alden Ehrenreich, Alex Richanbach, Alex Skarlatos, Andy Milligan, Animation, Aviation, Bath house, Beatrix Potter, Bedelia, Bernard Charnacé, Betsy-Blue English, CGI, Clint Eastwood, Comedy, David Leitch, Deadpool 2, DJ, Domhnall Gleeson, Don Michael Paul, Drama, Emilia Clarke, Enemies Closer, From Hell to the Wild West, Gabrielle Haugh, Gerard Jacuzzo, Gillian Jacobs, Graboids, Han Solo, Homosexuality, Horror, Ian Hunter, Ibiza, Insidious: The Last Key, Jack the Ripper, James Corden, James Stewart, Jamie Kennedy, Jean Rollin, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jeepers Creepers 3, Jesse V. Johnson, Josh Brolin, Lance Comfort, Lin Shaye, Louis Mandylor, Maggie Grace, Margaret Lockwood, Marvel, Michael Gross, Murder, Mutants, Mystery, Navy Blue and Gold, Newhaven Fort, Peter Hyams, Peter Rabbit, Prankz., Prequel, Ralph Bellamy, Rene Perez, Reviews, Robert Dahdah, Robert Kovacs, Robert Young, Romance, Ron Howard, Rose Byrne, Russell Peters, Ryan Reynolds, Sam Wood, Sci-fi, Scott Adkins, Sequel, Simone Rollin, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Spencer Stone, Stan Shaw, Supercon, Superhero, Tala Birell, The 15:17 to Paris, The Creeper, The Debt Collector, The Mask of Medusa, Thriller, Tom Everett Scott, Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell, True story, Vapors, Victor Salva, Warren Dudley, Will Gluck, Zak Knutson

Enemies Closer (2013) / D: Peter Hyams / 85m

Cast: Tom Everett Scott, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Orlando Jones, Linzey Cocker, Christopher Robbie, Zachary Baharov, Dimo Alexiev, Kris Van Damme

Rating: 5/10 – when a plane carrying drugs crash lands in the waters off King’s Island it’s up to ranger (and ex-Navy Seal) Henry Taylor (Scott) to stop mercenary Xander (Van Damme) and his men from retrieving the cargo; a bone-headed action movie with a flamboyant performance from Van Damme, Enemies Closer is saved from complete disaster by Hyams’ confident direction and cinematography, a script that often seems aware of how silly it all is, and an earnest turn from Scott that eschews the usual macho heroics expected from something that, in essence, is Die Hard on a Small Island.

From Hell to the Wild West (2017) / D: Rene Perez / 77m

Cast: Robert Kovacs, Alanna Forte, Charlie Glackin, Karin Brauns, Robert Bronzi, Sammy Durrani

Rating: 3/10 – a masked serial killer sets up home in a ghost town in California, until a Marshall (Kovacs) and a bounty hunter (Bronzi) team up to end his reign of terror; a low budget horror with an interesting premise, From Hell to the Wild West is let down by poor production values, terrible acting, the kind of Easter eggs that stick out like a sore thumb (Bronzi was a stunt double for Charles Bronson, and his character name is Buchinski), a threadbare plot, and occasional stabs at direction by Perez – all of which make it yet another horror movie that’s a chore to sit through.

Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell (2018) / D: Don Michael Paul / 98m

Cast: Michael Gross, Jamie Kennedy, Tanya van Graan, Jamie-Lee Money, Kiroshan Naidoo, Keeno Lee Hector, Rob van Vuuren, Adrienne Pearce, Francesco Nassimbeni, Paul de Toit

Rating: 4/10 – Burt Gummer (Gross) and his son, Travis (Kennedy), are called in when Graboid activity is discovered in the Canadian tundra, and threatens a research facility; number six in the series, Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell marks a serious downturn in quality thanks to dreary plotting, cardboard characters, and absentee suspense, and supports the notion that the franchise should be put to bed (even though there’s a TV series on the horizon), something that not even the continued presence of Gross can mitigate against, or the producers.

The Debt Collector (2018) / D: Jesse V. Johnson / 96m

Cast: Scott Adkins, Louis Mandylor, Vladimir Kulich, Michael Paré, Tony Todd, Rachel Brann, Esteban Cueto, Jack Lowe

Rating: 5/10 – a financially strapped martial arts instructor, French (Adkins), takes on a job as a debt collector for a local gangster, and finds himself elbow deep in unexpected violence and the search for someone who may or may not have swindled one of the debtors on his list; though breezy and easy-going, and replete with fight scenes designed to show off Adkins prowess as an action hero, The Debt Collector gets bogged down by its neo-noir-style script, and a plethora of supporting characters that come and go without making an impact, or contributing much to the story.

Air Hawks (1935) / D: Albert S. Rogell / 68m

Cast: Ralph Bellamy, Tala Birell, Wiley Post, Douglass Dumbrille, Robert Allen, Billie Seward, Victor Kilian, Robert Middlemass, Geneva Mitchell, Wyrley Birch, Edward Van Sloan

Rating: 6/10 – a small-time independent airline finds itself being sabotaged by a rival airline in its attempts to win a transcontinental contract from the government; a mash-up of aviation drama and sci-fi elements (Van Sloan’s character operates a “death ray” from the back of a truck), Air Hawks is the kind of sincerely acted and directed nonsense that Hollywood churned out by the dozens during the Thirties, but it’s enjoyable nonetheless, with eager performances from Bellamy and Kilian, nightclub scenes that don’t feel out of place at all(!), and a knowing sense of how silly it all is.

Supercon (2018) / D: Zak Knutson / 100m

Cast: Russell Peters, Maggie Grace, Ryan Kwanten, Brooks Braselman, Clancy Brown, John Malkovich, Mike Epps, Caroline Fourmy

Rating: 3/10 – at a TV/artists/superhero convention, a group of friends decide to rob the promoter and at the same time, stick it to an overbearing TV icon (Brown) as payback for the way they’ve been treated; somewhere – though buried deep – inside the mess that is Supercon is a great idea for a movie set at a fantasy convention centre, but this dire, uninspired comedy isn’t it, lacking as it does real laughs, any conviction, and consistent direction, all things that seemed to have been “refused entry” at the earliest stages of production.

The 15:17 to Paris (2018) / D: Clint Eastwood / 94m

Cast: Spencer Stone, Alex Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler, Judy Greer, Jenna Fischer, Ray Corasani, P.J. Byrne, Thomas Lennon, William Jennings, Bryce Gheisar, Paul-Mikél Williams

Rating: 6/10 – the true story of how three friends, two of whom (Stone, Skarlatos) were American servicemen, tackled and overcame a gun-toting terrorist on a train bound for Paris from Amsterdam in August 2015; with the terrorist incident being dealt with in a matter of minutes, The 15:17 to Paris has to pad out its running time, and does so by showing how the three friends met and grew up, and their progress through Europe until that fateful train ride, a decision that works well in introducing the trio, but which makes this in some ways more of a rites of passage-cum-travelogue movie than the incisive thriller it wants to be.

The Mask of Medusa (2009) / D: Jean Rollin / 73m

Original title: Le masque de la Méduse

Cast: Simone Rollin, Bernard Charnacé, Sabine Lenoël, Thomas Smith, Marlène Delcambre

Rating: 5/10 – a retelling of the classical story of the Gorgon presented in two parts; Rollin’s final project, The Mask of Medusa is much more of an experimental movie than you’ll find amongst his usual work, but it has a starkly defined approach that allows the largely idiosyncratic dialogue room to work, and the austere nature of the visuals has an unnerving effect that works well at times with the narrative, but it’s also an experience that offers little in the way of intellectual or emotional reward for the viewer, which makes this something of a disappointment as Rollin’s last movie.

Jeepers Creepers 3 (2017) / D: Victor Salva / 101m

Cast: Stan Shaw, Gabrielle Haugh, Brandon Smith, Meg Foster, Jordan Salloum, Chester Rushing, Jason Bayle, Ryan Moore, Jonathan Breck

Rating: 3/10 – the Creeper targets anyone who comes near the truck he collects his victims in, as well as the members of a family he terrorised originally twenty-three years before; set between the first and second movies, Jeepers Creepers 3 suffers from tortuous sequelitis, with Salva stretching the franchise’s time frame out of whack, and failing to provide viewers with the scares and thrills seen in the original movie, something that, though predictable, doesn’t bode well for the already in gestation Part Four.

Navy Blue and Gold (1937) / D: Sam Wood / 94m

Cast: Robert Young, James Stewart, Florence Rice, Billie Burke, Lionel Barrymore, Tom Brown, Samuel S. Hinds, Paul Kelly, Barnett Parker, Frank Albertson

Rating: 7/10 – three new recruits to the United States Naval Academy (Young, Stewart, Brown) battle their own individual problems, as well as trying to make the grade; a patriotic flag waver of a movie, and cinematic recruitment drive for the US Navy, Navy Blue and Gold features likeable performances from all three “cadets”, the usual soap opera elements to help keep the plot ticking over, and Barrymore doing yet another variation on his crusty old man persona, all of which, along with Wood’s erstwhile direction, ensure the movie is pleasant if undemanding.

Bedelia (1946) / D: Lance Comfort / 90m

Cast: Margaret Lockwood, Ian Hunter, Barry K. Barnes, Anne Crawford, Beatrice Varley, Louise Hampton, Jill Esmond

Rating: 7/10 – a woman (Lockwood), married for the second time, comes under the suspicion of an artist (Barnes) who believes her husband (Hunter) is likely to end up dead – just as her first husband did; a clever piece of melodrama from the novel by Vera Caspary, Bedelia doesn’t quite ratchet up the suspense as it goes along, but it does offer a fine performance from Lockwood as a femme with the emphasis on fatale, and occasional psychological details that help keep Bedelia herself from appearing evil for evil’s sake.

Peter Rabbit (2018) / D: Will Gluck / 95m

Cast: James Corden, Rose Byrne, Domhnall Gleeson, Margot Robbie, Sam Neill, Elizabeth Debicki, Daisy Ridley, Sia, Colin Moody

Rating: 7/10 – when the farmer (Neill) who continually tries to stop Peter Rabbit (Corden) and his friends stealing from his vegetable garden drops dead, so begins a war of attrition with his grandnephew (Gleeson); as a modern updating of Beatrix Potter’s beloved characters, purists might want to stay away from Peter Rabbit, but this is a colourful, immensely charming (if occasionally cynical) tale that is both funny and sweet, and which falls just the right side of being overwhelmingly saccharine.

Insidious: The Last Key (2018) / D: Adam Robitel / 103m

Cast: Lin Shaye, Leigh Whannell, Angus Sampson, Kirk Acevedo, Caitlin Gerard, Spencer Locke, Josh Stewart, Tessa Ferrer, Bruce Davison, Javier Botet

Rating: 6/10 – Elise Rainier (Shaye) is forced to come face to face with a demon from her childhood, as it targets members of her brother’s family; another trip into the Further reveals signs of the franchise beginning to cannibalise itself in the search for newer, scarier installments, though at least Insidious: The Last Key has the ever reliable Shaye to add a layer of sincerity to the usual hokey paranormal goings on, and one or two scares that do actually hit the mark, but this should be more way more effective than it actually is.

Deadpool 2 (2018) / D: David Leitch / 119m

Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Morena Baccarin, Julian Dennison, Zazie Beetz, T.J. Miller, Leslie Uggams, Karan Soni, Brianna Hildebrand, Stefan Kapicic, Eddie Marsan, Rob Delaney, Lewis Tan, Bill Skarsgård, Terry Crews

Rating: 8/10 – everyone’s favourite Merc with a Mouth is called upon to protect a teenage mutant (Dennison) with pyro abilities from a time-travelling half-man, half-cyborg called Cable (Brolin); any worries about Deadpool 2 not living up to the hype and being a letdown are dispensed with by more meta jokes than you can shake a pair of baby legs at, the same extreme levels of bloody violence as the first movie, and the opening title sequence, which gleefully advertises the fact that it’s directed by “one of the directors who killed the dog in John Wick”.

Vapors (1965) / D: Andy Milligan / 32m

Cast: Robert Dahdah, Gerard Jacuzzo, Hal Sherwood, Hal Borske, Richard Goldberger, Larry Ree

Rating: 7/10 – set in a bath house for homosexuals, first-timer Thomas (Jacuzzo) ends up sharing a room with married man, Mr Jaffee (Dahdah), who in between interruptions by some of the other patrons, tells him a disturbing personal story; an absorbing insight into both the freedom of expression afforded gay men by the confines of a bath house, as well as the personal stories that often have a tragic nature to them, Vapors is a redolent and pungent exploration of a milieu that few of us will have any experience of, and which contains content that is still relevant today.

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) / D: Ron Howard / 135m

Cast: Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke, Woody Harrelson, Paul Bettany, Joonas Suotamo, Donald Glover, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Thandie Newton, Jon Favreau, Linda Hunt

Rating: 6/10 – Han Solo (Ehrenreich), a pilot for the Imperial Empire, breaks away from the Empire to work with smuggler Tobias Beckett (Harrelson) in an attempt to rescue his lover Qi’ra (Clarke) from their home planet – but it’s not as easy as it first seems; a movie that spends too much time reminding audiences that its main character has a chequered history, Solo: A Star Wars Story is a series of admittedly entertaining action sequences in search of a coherent story to wrap around them, but hamstrung by a bland lead performance, and another round of secondary characters you can’t connect with.

Prankz. (2017) / D: Warren Dudley / 71m

Cast: Betsy-Blue English, Elliot Windsor, Ray d James, Isabelle Rayner, Sharon Drain

Rating: 3/10 – six vlogs, two of which were never uploaded, show a footballer (Windsor), his girlfriend (English), and his best friend (James), playing pranks on each other, until a planned prank backfires with horrific consequences; an object lesson in how not to make a found footage horror movie, Prankz. is low budget awfulness personified, and as far from entertaining, or scary, or credible, or worth your time as it’s possible to be, which is the only achievement this dire movie is able to claim.

Ibiza (2018) / D: Alex Richanbach / 94m

Cast: Gillian Jacobs, Vanessa Bayer, Phoebe Robinson, Michaela Watkins, Richard Madden, Nelson Dante, Anjela Nedyalkova, Jordi Mollá

Rating: 3/10 – tasked with clinching a business deal in Barcelona, Harper (Jacobs) not only takes along her two best friends (Bayer, Robinson), but falls for a DJ (Madden) whose next gig is in Ibiza – where she determines to find him, even if it puts the deal in jeopardy; a romantic comedy that is neither romantic or funny – desperate is a more appropriate description – Ibiza is so bad that it’s yet another Netflix movie that you can’t believe was ever given a green light, or that Will Ferrell and Adam McKay stayed on board as producers once they saw the script (or what passes for one).

Broken Gardenias (2014)

17 Thursday May 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Alma S. Grey, Comedy, Drama, Father/daughter relationship, Jack Morocco, Kai Alexander, LGBTQ+, Los Angeles, Review, Road movie, Romance, Suicide

D: Kai Alexander / 89m

Cast: Alma S. Grey, Jack Morocco, Caroline Heinle, Louis Dezseran, Nathan Douglas, Khelsy Raymond, Marlyse Londe, Geoffrey Kennedy, Amanda S. Hall

For Jenni (Grey), life isn’t something that she feels entirely comfortable with. She’s shy, has a somewhat childish attitude to her work in a plant nursery (she tells awful jokes to the plants), lives with a housemate (Heinle) who thinks she’s weird, and has a crush on a fellow nursery worker (Hall) that she’s too insecure to act on. When circumstances result in her losing both her home and her job, Jenni decides that suicide is her only remaining option. She goes to the park to hang herself but is stopped from doing so by Sam (Morocco), a free spirit who gets Jenni to open up about herself. Jenni tells Sam about her father, who she hasn’t seen since she was six years old. All she has is an old photo of him outside the house they used to live in in Los Angeles. Sam persuades Jenni to try and find him, and they travel to L.A. There, a number of distractions hold up their search, and their new-found friendship is put to the test…

A comical quasi-road movie that features a brace of enjoyable performances from its leads, Broken Gardenias is a good-natured comedy drama that doesn’t provide viewers with anything out of the ordinary, and which isn’t trying to be too profound either. It’s an indie movie with a surplus of charm that is in service to a script (by Grey) that sets out its stall very early on. It’s about acceptance, and on various levels. Jenni is afraid of taking chances, so travelling to L.A. is a big deal for her, especially as she has no idea if tracking down her father will be successful, or provide her with some, or all – or nothing – of the answers she’s looking for. Sam has a more positive outlook, but that’s because she’s compensating for Jenni’s lack of confidence, and her own nature allows her to accept Jenni’s uncertainty without necssarily supporting it. For once, the script isn’t concerned with whether or not both women learn from each other and grow as individuals accordingly, but with the singular journey that Jenni takes in gaining the confidence that has eluded her for so long. There’ll be tears, there’ll be laughs, and there’ll be unexpected sexual encounters, but above all, there’ll be emotional, cathartic outbursts.

Grey and Morocco play off and against each other with considerable skill, which is beneficial on those occasions when Grey’s script wanders off course (an encounter with a stoner lady who gives Jenni and Sam a lift), or scenes that drag on without adding anything to the narrative. There’s also a risible sub-plot involving Jenni’s housemate – and her boyfriend – who are visiting L.A. at the same time, a set up that has a less than satisfying, and very contrived resolution. With this in mind, though, Broken Gardenias has much more to offer, from the aforementioned performances, Alexander’s relaxed yet en point direction, some colourful L.A. locations, Meena Singh’s bright and airy cinematography, and a winsome, whimsical score by Tiffanie Lanmon. It’s very much a movie that wears its lesbian laurels on its sleeve, but it’s also a story that could be just as enjoyable and just as relevant if both Jenni and Sam were straight (though the romantic aspects might need adjusting). In the end, Grey has fashioned a knowing script that doesn’t take either Jenni or Sam for granted, and makes their growing relationship – with all its stumbles and strides – something to cherish, and relish, for its easy simplicity.

Rating: 7/10 – a small triumph of LGBTQ+ movie making, Broken Gardenias overcomes a handful of narrative hiccups to provide an engaging and entertaining look at one woman’s journey to gaining self-confidence and self-reliance; Grey and Morocco are an attractive pairing, there’s a good mix of drama and comedy, and it’s all set against a familiar indie backdrop that helps anchor some of the more wayward aspects of the script.

Toc Toc (2017)

13 Sunday May 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Alexandra Jiménez, Comedy, Drama, OCD, Paco León, Patients, Review, Rossy de Palma, Spain, Theatrical adaptation, Therapy, Vicente Villanueva, Waiting room

D: Vicente Villanueva / 96m

Cast: Paco León, Rossy de Palma, Alexandra Jiménez, Nuria Herrero, Adrián Lastra, Oscar Martínez, Inma Cuevos

Six patients of the same therapist find themselves in his waiting room and all with the same appointment. With his receptionist (Cuevos) blaming the mix up on a new computer software programme, and the doctor himself delayed on his way back from London, the sextet decide to wait for him to arrive. Bianca (Jiménez) has a fear of bacteria and continually cleans both herself and her surroundings. Emilio (León) is a hoarder and someone who counts everything. Otto (Lastra) can’t step on lines and is obsessed by symmetry and balance. Lili (Herrero) has to repeat everything she or whomever she’s talking to says – twice. Ana Maria (De Palma) is susceptible to the power of suggestion and mis-repeats what other people say without realising it. And there’s Federico (Martínez) who suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome. As the wait for their therapist carries on, they begin to find out about each other, and the various issues that blight their every day lives. And then one of them suggests they take the opportunity to do a bit of group therapy, something that brings forth some very unexpected results…

A seriously funny movie that avoids making fun of its characters by painting their various plights with sympathy and understanding, Toc Toc is an adaptation of the stage play by Laurent Baffie. It’s sensitively handled, and takes its time in establishing each character’s problem and how they attempt to deal with it. It’s these defensive mechanisms that the script (by Villanueva) exploits in the beginning, and a great deal of the early humour is in seeing how much more difficult these defence mechanisms make their individual lives. Bianca cleans the lab where she works which raises the ire of the cleaning staff. Ana Maria crosses herself every time she hears a profanity, which is tiringly often. Otto can’t maintain a relationship if his partner is deliberately and unthinkingly messy. As each character explains just how their obsessions can have a negative effect on their lives, each illustration is conveyed in a humorous and yet melancholy way that allows the movie to be both necessarily exploitative but also sincere and mindful. It’s a delicate balancing act, but thanks to Villanueva’s assured direction and the unwavering commitment of the cast, these characters are never less than treated kindly, and with a great deal of compassion.

This allows the interaction between them – though still imbued with a staginess that can’t be avoided – to flourish in rich and rewarding ways. There’s a budding romance between Otto and Lili that is as sweet and unassuming as you could hope for, and Ana Maria’s initial reluctance to admit she’s a patient reveals a resourcefulness that proves to be a benefit to the whole group. These and other aspects are carefully drawn out by Villanueva and the cast, and even though there are farcical elements that are enacted with undisguised glee, the underlying seriousness of the situation isn’t ignored, making this often beautifully observed and trenchant at the same time. All the cast are on good form, with León’s garrulous, jokey cab driver and de Palma’s uptight religious hausfrau particularly enjoyable to watch, and Villanueva maintains a light, frothy tone that’s supported by a whimsical score by Antonio Escobar, and David Omedes’ fluid cinematography. Even the most casual of viewers will be able to work out where all this is heading, but it’s how it gets there that’s very much part of the fun.

Rating: 8/10 – some staginess and predictability aside, Toc Toc is a delightfully engaging meringue of a movie that knows exactly what it’s doing, and does it very well indeed; good-natured and agreeable, it’s the kind of movie that, like many other foreign language movies, deserves a wider audience than it will most likely attract.

NOTE: Sadly, there’s no subtitled trailer for Toc Toc currently available.

Monthly Roundup – April 2018

12 Saturday May 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Action, Adventure, Alain Guiraudie, Alberto Cavalcanti, Amen Island, Animation, Anthony Russo, Assassin, Avengers: Infinity War, B-movie, Babak Nafari, Bank robbery, Barbara Britton, Billy Brown, Blaxploitation, Blue Sky, Brad Peyton, Bullfighting, Burglars, Carlos Saldanha, Children of the Corn: Runaway, Children's Film Foundation, Chris Evans, Christina De Vallee, Comedy, Crime, Danny Glover, David Paisley, Drama, Eugeniusz Chylek, Ferdinand, France, Genetic experiment, Hafsia Herzi, Horror, Jake Ryan Scott, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Joe Russo, John Cena, John Gulager, Johnny on the Run, Kate McKinnon, Le roi de l'évasion, Lewis Gilbert, Literary adaptation, Ludovic Berthillot, Maggie Grace, Marci Miller, Mark Harriott, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mike Matthews, Naomie Harris, Pine-Thomas, Proud Mary, Rampage, Reviews, Rival gangs, Rob Cohen, Robert Downey Jr, Robert Lowery, Romance, Ryan Kwanten, Sequel, Sydney Tafler, Taraji P. Henson, Thanos, The Hurricane Heist, The Monster of Highgate Ponds, They Made Me a Killer, Thriller, Toby Kebbell, Unhappy Birthday, Video game, William C. Thomas

They Made Me a Killer (1946) / D: William C. Thomas / 64m

Cast: Robert Lowery, Barbara Britton, Lola Lane, Frank Albertson, Elisabeth Risdon, Byron Barr, Edmund MacDonald, Ralph Sanford, James Bush

Rating: 5/10 – a man (Lowery) drives across country after the death of his brother and gives a lift to a woman (Lane) who tricks him into being the getaway driver in a bank robbery, a situation that sees him on the run from the police but determined to prove his innocence; a gritty, hard-boiled film noir, They Made Me a Killer adds enough incident to its basic plot to keep viewers entertained from start to finish without really adding anything new or overly impressive to the mix, but it does have a brash performance from Lowery, and Thomas’s direction ensures it’s another solid effort from Paramount’s B-movie unit, Pine-Thomas.

Proud Mary (2018) / D: Babak Najafi / 89m

Cast: Taraji P. Henson, Billy Brown, Jahi Di’Allo Winston, Danny Glover, Neal McDonough, Margaret Avery, Xander Berkeley, Rade Serbedzija, Erik LaRay Harvey

Rating: 3/10 – a female assassin (Henson) finds herself protecting the teenage boy (Winston) whose father she killed years before, and at a time when her actions cause a murderous dispute between the gang she works for and their main rival; as the titular Proud Mary, Henson makes for a less than convincing assassin in this modern day blaxploitation thriller that lets itself down constantly thanks to a turgid script and lacklustre direction, and which has far too many moments where suspension of disbelief isn’t just required but an absolute necessity.

Children of the Corn: Runaway (2018) / D: John Gulager / 82m

Cast: Marci Miller, Jake Ryan Scott, Mary Kathryn Bryant, Lynn Andrews III, Sara Moore, Diane Ayala Goldner, Clu Gulager

Rating: 3/10 – arriving in a small Oklahoman town with her teenage son, Ruth (Miller) attempts to put down roots after over ten years of running from the child cult that nearly cost her her life, but she soon finds that safety still isn’t something she can count on; number ten in the overall series, Children of the Corn: Runaway is yet another entry that keeps well away from any attempts at providing anything new, and succeeds only in being as dull to watch as you’d expect, leaving unlucky viewers to ponder on why these movies still keep getting made when it’s clear the basic premise has been done to death – again and again and again…

Johnny on the Run (1953) / D: Lewis Gilbert / 68m

Cast: Eugeniusz Chylek, Sydney Tafler, Michael Balfour, Edna Wynn, David Coote, Cleo Sylvestre, Jean Anderson, Moultrie Kelsall, Mona Washbourne

Rating: 7/10 – after running away from his foster home in Edinburgh, a young Polish boy, Janek (Chylek), unwittingly falls in with two burglars (Tafler, Balfour), and then finds himself in a Highland village where the possibility of a new and better life is within his grasp; an enjoyable mix of drama and comedy from the UK’s Children’s Film Foundation, Johnny on the Run benefits from sterling performances, Gilbert’s astute direction, excellent location work, and a good understanding of what will interest both children and adults alike, making this one of the Foundation’s better entries, and still as entertaining now as when it was first released.

Ferdinand (2017) / D: Carlos Saldanha / 108m

Cast: John Cena, Kate McKinnon, Anthony Anderson, Bobby Cannavale, Peyton Manning, David Tennant, Jeremy Sisto, Lily Day, Gina Rodriguez, Daveed Diggs, Gabriel Iglesias

Rating: 8/10 – a young bull called Ferdinand (Cena) whose disposition includes a fondness for flowers and protecting other animals, finds himself temporarily living with a supportive family, until events bring him back to the world of bullfighting that he thought he’d left behind; the classic children’s tale gets the Blue Sky treatment, and in the process, retains much of the story’s whimsical yet pertinent takes on pacifism, anti-bullying, and gender diversity, while providing audiences with a rollicking and very humorous adventure that makes Ferdinand a very enjoyable experience indeed.

The Hurricane Heist (2018) / D: Rob Cohen / 98m

Cast: Toby Kebbell, Maggie Grace, Ryan Kwanten, Ralph Ineson, Melissa Bolona, Ben Cross, Jamie Andrew Cutler, Christian Contreras

Rating: 4/10 – thieves target a US Treasury facility during a Category 5 hurricane, but don’t reckon on their plans going awry thanks to a Treasury agent (Grace), a meteorologist (Kebbell), and his ex-Marine brother (Kwanten); as daft as you’d expect, The Hurricane Heist continues the downward career spiral of Cohen, and betrays its relatively small budget every time it sets up a major action sequence, leaving its talented cast to thrash against the wind machines in search of credibility and sincerity, a notion that the script abandons very early on as it maximises all its efforts to appear as ridiculous as possible (which is the only area in which it succeeds).

The Monster of Highgate Ponds (1961) / D: Alberto Cavalcanti / 59m

Cast: Sophie Clay, Michael Wade, Terry Raven, Ronald Howard, Frederick Piper, Michael Balfour, Roy Vincente, Beryl Cooke

Rating: 6/10 – when his uncle (Howard) returns home from a trip to Malaya, David (Wade) gets to keep a large egg that’s been brought back, but little does he realise that a creature will hatch from the egg – a creature David, his sister Sophie (Clay), and their friend, Chris (Raven) need to protect from the authorities until his uncle returns home from his latest trip; though the special effects that bring the “monster” to life are less than impressive, there’s a pleasing low budget, wish fulfillment vibe to The Monster of Highgate Ponds that allows for the absurdity of it all to be taken in stride, and thanks to Cavalcanti’s relaxed direction, that absurdity makes the movie all the more enjoyable.

Rampage (2018) / D: Brad Peyton / 107m

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Akerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jake Lacy

Rating: 5/10 – a gorilla, a wolf, and an alligator are all exposed to an illegal genetic engineering experiment and become massively bigger and more aggressive thanks to the corporation behind the experiment, leaving the gorilla’s handler (Johnson) to try and help put things right; based on a video game, and as brightly ridiculous as any movie version of a video game could be, Rampage uses its (very) simple plotting to bludgeon the audience into submission with a variety of exemplary digital effects, while also trying to dredge up a suitable amount of emotion along the way, but in the end – and surprisingly – it’s Johnson’s knowing performance and Morgan’s affected government spook that trade this up from simple disaster to almost disaster.

Unhappy Birthday (2011) / D: Mark Harriott, Mike Matthews / 91m

aka Amen Island

Cast: David Paisley, Christina De Vallee, Jill Riddiford, Jonathan Deane

Rating: 4/10 – Rick (Paisley) and his girlfriend, Sadie (De Vallee), along with their friend Jonny (Keane), travel to the tidal island of Amen to reunite Sadie with her long lost sister, only to find that the islanders have a secret that threatens the lives of all three of them; a low budget British thriller with distinct echoes of The Wicker Man (1973) – though it’s not nearly as effective – Unhappy Birthday highlights the isolated nature of the island and the strangeness of its inhabitants, but reduces its characters to squabbling malcontents pretty much from the word go, which makes spending time with them far from appealing, and stops the viewer from having any sympathy for them once things start to go wrong.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) / D: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo / 149m

Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, Tom Hiddleston, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Idris Elba, Danai Gurira, Peter Dinklage, Benedict Wong, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Benicio Del Toro, William Hurt, Letitia Wright

Rating: 8/10 – Thanos (Brolin) finally gets around to collecting the Infinity stones and only the Avengers (and almost every other Marvel superhero) can stop him – or can they?; there’s much that could be said about Avengers: Infinity War, but suffice it to say, after eighteen previous movies, Marvel have finally made the MCU’s version of The Empire Strikes Back (1980).

The King of Escape (2009) / D: Alain Guiraudie / 90m

Original title: Le roi de l’évasion

Cast: Ludovic Berthillot, Hafsia Herzi, Pierre Laur, Luc Palun, Pascal Aubert, François Clavier, Bruno Valayer, Jean Toscan

Rating: 6/10 – when a middle-aged homosexual tractor salesman (Berthillot) falls in love with the daughter (Herzi) of a rival salesman, this unexpected turn of events has further unexpected repercussions, all of which lead the pair to go on the run from her father and the police; as much a comedy of manners as an unlikely romance, The King of Escape is humorous (though far from profound), and features too many scenes of its central couple running across fields and through woods, something that becomes as tiring for the viewer as it must have been for the actors, though the performances are finely judged, and Guiraudie’s direction displays the increasing confidence that would allow him to make a bigger step with Stranger by the Lake (2013).

The Escape of Prisoner 614 (2018)

11 Friday May 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Comedy, Deputy Sheriffs, Drama, Escaped convict, George Semple III, Jake McDorman, Martin Starr, Review, Ron Perlman, Shandaken, Zach Golden

D: Zach Golden / 97m

Cast: Martin Starr, Jake McDorman, George Semple III, Ron Perlman, Sondra James, Michael Sirow

In the quiet southern town of Shandaken, crime is at an all-time low. Going back seven years, the town’s two deputies, Jim Doyle (Starr) and Thurman Hayford (McDorman), have what might be considered an envious record: in all that time they haven’t made one single arrest. However, this doesn’t sit well with the sheriff (Perlman). With their record giving him the opportunity to get rid of them, Jim and Thurman find themselves suddenly unemployed. But fate throws them a lifeline in the form of a convict, Prisoner 614 (Semple III), who has escaped from a nearby prison. Determined to capture the escapee, and use his capture to get their jobs back, the two ex-deputies set off into the nearby mountains to track him down. This proves easier than expected but getting back proves less so. Soon the trio are lost, and while the sheriff waits on their return, Jim and Thurman discover that Prisoner 614 was wrongly imprisoned. Aware that if they bring him back, the sheriff is likely to find a way of ensuring that Prisoner 614 doesn’t make it back to the prison – at all – they come up with a plan to keep him safe…

When we first meet Jim and Thurman they’re playing cops and robbers, chasing each other throught the woods and using prop guns to shoot at each other. These are grown men, but with one foot in a lingering childhood that keeps them from engaging fully with the world around them. They’re inept, foolish, naïve, and irredeemably good-natured. They’re also immensely likeable, and thanks to Zach Golden’s sincere and affectionate screenplay, the kind of gentle, unassuming heroes we can all get behind and root for. They have modest ambitions, and modest hopes. All of this goes to make The Escape of Prisoner 614 the kind of guilty pleasure that comes along every so often, and which allows the viewer to just enjoy a movie for its own sake. Golden’s debut is pleasantly free of subtext or hidden meanings, and it skirts around wider issues such as institutional racism because they’re not part of the story Golden wants to tell. This is a carefree, slightly unbelievable tale that succeeds thanks to a surfeit of unforced charm, and terrific performances. It may feel slight, and even under-developed at times, but it has an often wicked sense of humour, and it doesn’t set out to be more than it is. In and of itself, it’s a movie that’s as good-natured as its two main characters.

As the hapless pair, Starr and McDorman are on fine form, exploiting their characters’ naïveté with disarmingly skillful precision. Starr is terrific as the cautious Doyle, his deadpan delivery and pessimistic demeanour offering several understated yet hilarious moments, while McDorman portrays Hayford as the more generally upbeat and positive half of the duo, complementing Starr’s performance with aplomb. As the bully-boy sheriff, Perlman takes a role that could have been reduced to caricature and adds comic layers to the part that are both unexpected and enjoyable. It’s all played out in the kind of non-specific yet generic small town milieu that allows for quirky goings-on and equally quirky characters to come and go – James’ diner waitress, Marla, is a particular treat – while treating the main storyline with equal affection. It’s not for everyone, and some viewers may find the slightness of Golden’s tale to be unsatisfactory, but sometimes a movie that doesn’t concern itself with frills or unnecessary layers is all the better for being so purposely restrictive. And this is one such movie.

Rating: 8/10 – a knowingly arch comedy of errors, The Escape of Prisoner 614 is a gentle, low-key movie that has modest ambitions, and a confidence that augurs well for Golden’s next feature; bolstered by Adam Lee’s textured cinematography, and a naturalistic feel that underpins the deliberately whimsical nature of the material, this is a small-scale winner that’s both delightful and entertaining.

Million Dollar Legs (1932)

21 Saturday Apr 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Andy Clyde, Bankruptcy, Ben Turpin, Comedy, Edward F. Cline, Jack Oakie, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Klopstokia, Olympics, Paramount, Review, W.C. Fields

D: Edward F. Cline / 59m

Cast: Jack Oakie, W.C. Fields, Andy Clyde, Lyda Roberti, Susan Fleming, Hugh Herbert, Ben Turpin, George Barbier, Dickie Moore

In the country of Klopstokia, where the women are all called Angela and the men are all called George, brush salesman Migg Tweeny (Oakie) runs into a young woman (named Angela, naturally) and immediately the pair fall in love. Angela (Fleming) takes Migg to meet her father, who just happens to be the country’s president (Fields). The president is at odds with his cabinet. Led by the Secretary of the Treasury (Herbert), the cabinet is plotting to overthrow him as his policies – or lack of them – have resulted in Klopstokia teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. When Migg realises that many Klopstokians are natural athletes, he suggests the country takes part in the upcoming Olympic Games; if they win, they’ll also collect a large cash reward being offered by Migg’s boss (Barbier). The cabinet take steps to sabotage the president’s efforts and hire femme fatale Mata Machree (Roberti) to seduce the athletes (why isn’t she called Angela?). Only a last-minute intervention by Angela keeps the country’s Olympic dream alive, and it comes down to the last event, the weightlifting competition, to decide if Klopstokia will avoid financial ruin…

If you’re in any doubt as to what kind of comedy is being served up by Million Dollar Legs, then an opening caption should explain everything (as it does about Klopstokia): Chief Exports … Goats and Nuts. Chief Imports … Goats and Nuts. Chief Inhabitants … Goats and Nuts. Yes, we’re in a weird approximation of a European country where anything goes. There’s parody, slapstick, farce, and every other form of comedic license you can think of. There are visual gags galore, razor sharp one-liners, and all courtesy of a group of comedians whose own individual (and often contrasting) styles somehow come together to make the movie one of the most consistently funny releases Paramount ever produced. With a script by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Henry Myers that was originally written for the Marx Brothers (who turned it down), Million Dollar Legs is so carefree and unconcerned with being disciplined that the viewer has no choice but to go along with it all. Scenes often exist just to be funny, and they bear no relation to anything that’s gone before, or will do in the future. It’s like watching a movie that has only a tenuous sense of story and plot, is more than aware of it, but just doesn’t feel it’s important.

There’s so much to take in and enjoy. Fields ditches his standard curmudgeonly persona and appears looser and more relaxed than usual; the result is a performance that sparkles with comic invention. He’s in good company, too. Oakie shines as the loveable lunkhead he always played so well, Clyde is restraint personified as the president’s major-domo (and fastest man on two legs), Herbert makes his character’s shifty and obsequious behaviour a constant source of amusement, and Turpin pops up unexpectedly here and there as a black cloaked spy with a notebook. Roberti is equally effective in a pastiche Marlene Dietrich role that sees her throw her hips around with the kind of wild abandon that could injure someone. Ostensibly in charge of everything, Cline has no option but to stand back and let his cast loose on the material. Anarchy and preposterousness ensue in equal measure, with side orders of silliness and absurdity. Paramount never made another movie even remotely as harebrained as this one, and though at first glance the Marx Brothers’ rejection of the script might imply that this won’t be as good as one of their own movies, nothing could be further from the truth.

Rating: 9/10 – hugely enjoyable, and with its experienced cast working in effortless fashion, Million Dollar Legs is the kind of movie that modern audiences would be tempted to overlook – and that would be a travesty; alive with comic possibilities and fizzing with imagination, this is hilarious, inspired stuff indeed, and packs more into its relatively short running time than some features manage over twice the length.

NOTE: The trailer below is for a special screening of the movie held in 2010.

Every Reason to Forget (2018)

19 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Bianca Comparato, Brazil, Comedy, Drama, Johnny Massaro, Maria Laura Nogueiro, Pedro Coutinho, Regina Braga, Review, Romance, Therapy, Tinder

Original title: Todas As Razões Para Esquecer

aka All the Reasons to Forget

D: Pedro Coutinho / 90m

Cast: Johnny Massaro, Bianca Comparato, Regina Braga, Maria Laura Nogueiro, Victor Mendes, Thiago Amaral, Rafael Primot

Antonio (Massaro) is an ad designer whose relationship with Sofia (Comparato) comes to an abrupt end after two years. Convincing himself that she made him end it, Antonio stays temporarily with his cousin, Carla (Nogueira), and her husband, Felipe (Primot). Carla and Felipe are having marriage problems and are seeing a couples therapist, Dr Elisa (Braga). When it’s suggested that Antonio should see her so he can make sense of his break-up from Sofia, he goes along with the idea without considering if therapy will really help him. While Dr Elisa challenges Antonio to open up and express his feelings, he takes advice from Carla and his friends, neighbour Deco (Amaral), and would-be writer Gabriel (Mendes), and tries to win Sofia back. His efforts don’t work as planned, and it’s not until Dr Elisa prescribes a certain mix of medication that Antonio finds his life improving, and things getting arguably better. But will Antonio’s newly found peace of mind help in winning back Sofia…?

A romantic comedy about one man’s tragic inability to understand the nuances and particularities of romantic relationships, Every Reason to Forget is an amiable, pleasant enough movie that somehow makes a virtue of its main character’s vapid intelligence and startling short-sightedness. Antonio isn’t just clueless, he’s actively clueless. He’s like a child who keeps burning his fingers on the stove but can’t work out why it keeps happening. He knows there’s a reason why he and Sofia are no longer together but he can’t work out what it is. This makes it nigh impossible for him to move on with his life, and why he makes so many mistakes in trying to do so. Faced with such an uphill struggle, Antonio resorts to measures such as finding a match on Tinder, and using relationship questions from a teen magazine to highlight how much more in tune he is. Amusing as much of this is though, writer-director Coutinho – making his feature debut – never really clarifies if Antonio is doing all this to win Sofia back (initially most likely), or for himself (increasingly most likely). And why he’s the way he is isn’t explored at all, leaving the viewer to wonder just how his relationship with Sofia lasted for two whole years in the first place.

As the emotionally switched off Antonio, Massaro has a certain vulnerable charm that works well for the character, and when the movie gets a little darker – which isn’t too often – he’s not afraid to make Antonio appear selfish and inconsiderate. Massaro also has a knack for keeping Antonio sympathetic in these moments, and though he’s someone for whom the art of poorly focused navel-gazing seems to be a built-in personality trait, Massaro’s portrayal of Antonio is effective without feeling contrived. There’s good support too from Braga as Antonio’s sex obsessed therapist, and Nogueira as the cousin who, in a US remake, would likely be the character he ends up with. Coutinho keeps things moving at an even pace, but in doing so, makes this occasionally feel like it’s dragging, and it’s not as willingly dramatic as it could have been. Despite this, and despite Antonio’s perpetual misunderstanding of his own imperfections, Coutinho does his best to make this an amusing and somewhat pleasant diversion, even though you might be wondering if there’s ever going to be any depth to the proceedings. The answer is yes, but with reservations as to when they do.

Rating: 5/10 – too monotone in its dramatic and visual approach – Joao Padua’s cinematography sometimes feels as if there wasn’t enough time for a proper set up – Every Reason to Forget is genial enough but lets its main character off the hook for his behaviour once too often; still, Coutinho shows promise, and with a tighter script in the future, should do much better, but until then this outing will have to serve as a fair attempt at putting a Brazilian twist on a well established genre.

NOTE: Currently there isn’t a trailer with English subtitles available.

Monthly Roundup – March 2018

31 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

5 Headed Shark Attack, Action, Adventure, Airport, Al Capone, Alex Hannant, All the Money in the World, And Then Came Lola, Animation, Anthony Bushell, Archery, Ashleigh Sumner, Barack Obama, Biography, Bob Logan, Braven, Brian Keith, Cenobites, Charlie Bean, Chokeslam, Chris Bruno, Chris Marquette, Christopher Plummer, Comedy, Crime, Damon Carney, Dave Franco, David Bruckner, Deepika Kumari, Documentary, Drama, Dwayne Johnson, Ellen Seidler, Elsa Lanchester, Fantasy, Father/son relationships, Film noir, Foreign policy, Gangster Land, Garret Dillahunt, Gary J. Tunnicliffe, Ghosts, Greg Barker, Hellraiser: Judgment, Heritage Falls, High school reunion, Hiking trip, Horror, Hugh Grant, India, Jackie Chan, Jake Kasdan, Japan, Jason Momoa, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Kevin Hart, Kidnapping, Ladies First, LGBTQ+, Lilli Palmer, Lin Oeding, Logan Huffman, Luke Rivett, Matt Jones, Megan Siler, Michael Barrett, Michelle Williams, Monster, Murder, Nico De Leon, Oasis, Paddington 2, Passport to Destiny, Paul Fisher, Paul King, Puerto Rico, Rafe Spall, Ray McCarey, Ready Player One, Reginald Beck, Relationships, Reviews, Rex Harrison, Ridley Scott, Robert Cuffley, Sci-fi, Sean Faris, Sequel, Shea Sizemore, Something Real and Good, Steven Spielberg, Sweden, SyFy, The Forest, The LEGO Ninjago Movie, The Long Dark Hall, The Ritual, Thriller, Timothy Woodward Jr, Tye Sheridan, Uraaz Bahi, Video game, Virtual reality, World War II, Wrestling

The LEGO Ninjago Movie (2017) / D: Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher, Bob Logan / 101m

Cast: Jackie Chan, Dave Franco, Justin Theroux, Fred Armisen, Kumail Nanjiani, Michael Peña, Abbi Jacobson, Zach Woods, Olivia Munn

Rating: 6/10 – when you’re the despised son (Franco) of an evil warlord (Theroux), there’s only one thing you can do: vow to defeat him with the aid of your ninja friends; after a superhero mash-up and a solo Batman outing, The LEGO Ninjago Movie brings us ninjas, but in the process forgets to provide viewers with much in the way of story, though the visual innovation is still there, as is (mostly) the humour, making this something that is only just more of a hit than a miss.

Braven (2018) / D: Lin Oeding / 94m

Cast: Jason Momoa, Garret Dillahunt, Stephen Lang, Jill Wagner, Zahn McClarnon, Brendan Fletcher, Sala Baker, Teach Grant, Sasha Rossof

Rating: 4/10 – a trip for Joe Braven (Momoa) and his father (Lang) to their family cabin located in the Canadian wilderness sees them fighting for their lives when drug runners come to claim a shipment that has been hidden in the cabin; an unsophisticated action thriller, Braven has an earnestness to it that sees it through some of its more absurdist moments, but its Nineties vibe works against it too often for comfort, and despite the occasional effort, Dillahunt remains an unconvincing villain.

Passport to Destiny (1944) / D: Ray McCarey / 61m

Cast: Elsa Lanchester, Gordon Oliver, Lenore Aubert, Lionel Royce, Fritz Feld, Joseph Vitale, Gavin Muir, Lloyd Corrigan

Rating: 6/10 – in World War II, a cleaning woman, Ella Muggins (Lanchester), who believes herself to be protected from harm thanks to a magical glass eye, determines to travel to Berlin and kill Hitler; a whimsical comic fantasy that somehow manages to have its heroine save a German officer (Oliver) and his girlfriend, Passport to Destiny is an uneven yet enjoyable product of its time, with a terrific central performance by Lanchester, and a winning sense of its own absurdity.

Hellraiser: Judgment (2018) / D: Gary J. Tunnicliffe / 81m

Cast: Damon Carney, Randy Wayne, Alexandra Harris, Paul T. Taylor, Gary J. Tunnicliffe, Helena Grace Donald, Heather Langenkamp

Rating: 3/10 – the hunt for a serial killer finds its lead detective (Carney) coming face to face with the Cenobites – still led by Pinhead (Taylor) – but the solution to the case isn’t as obvious as it seems; the tenth movie in the series, Hellraiser: Judgment at least tries to offer something new in terms of the Cenobites’ involvement, but in the end it can’t escape the fact that Pinhead et al are no longer frightening, the franchise’s penchant for sado-masochistic violence has lost any impact it may once have had, and as with every entry since Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), it fails to introduce one single character for the viewer to care about.

The Final Year (2017) / D: Greg Barker / 89m

With: Ben Rhodes, Samantha Power, John Kerry, Barack Obama

Rating: 7/10 – a look at the final year of Barack Obama’s second term as President of the United States focuses on his foreign policy team and their diplomatic efforts on the global stage; featuring contributions from some of the key players, The Final Year is an interesting if not fully realised documentary that never asks (or finds an answer for) the fundamental question of why Obama’s administration chose to concentrate so much on foreign policy in its last days, something that keeps all the good work that was achieved somewhat in isolation from the viewer.

And Then Came Lola (2009) / D: Ellen Seidler, Megan Siler / 71m

Cast: Ashleigh Sumner, Jill Bennett, Cathy DeBuono, Jessica Graham, Angelyna Martinez, Candy Tolentino, Linda Ignazi

Rating: 4/10 – in a series of Groundhog Day-style episodes, the undisciplined Lola (Sumner) is required to rush a set of photographs to her interior designer girlfriend, Casey (Bennett), so she can seal the deal at a job interview – but she has varying degrees of success; an LGBTQ+ comedy that stops the action every so often to allow its female cast to make out with each other, And Then Came Lola doesn’t put enough spins on its central conceit, and doesn’t make you care enough if Lola comes through or not.

The Ritual (2017) / D: David Bruckner / 94m

Cast: Rafe Spall, Arsher Ali, Robert James-Collier, Sam Troughton, Paul Reid, Maria Erwolter

Rating: 7/10 – following the tragic death of one of their friends, four men embark on a memorial hiking trip in Sweden, but when one of them is injured, taking a short cut through a forest puts all their lives in jeopardy; a creature feature with a nasty edge to it and above average performances for a horror movie, The Ritual employs mystery as well as terror as it creates a growing sense of dread before it runs out of narrative steam and tries to give its monster a back story that brings the tension up short and leads to a not entirely credible denouement.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) / D: Jake Kasdan / 119m

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, Rhys Darby, Bobby Cannavale, Nick Jonas, Alex Wolff, Ser’Darius Blain, Madison Iseman, Morgan Turner

Rating: 7/10 – four teenagers find themselves transported into a video game called Jumanji, where, transformed into avatars, they are charged with thwarting the dastardly plans of the game’s chief villain (Cannavale); a reboot more than a sequel, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle has the benefit of well-drawn, likeable characters, winning performances from Johnson, Hart, Black and Gillan, and confident direction from Kasdan, all things that serve to distract from the uninspired game levels and the predictable nature of its main storyline.

Paddington 2 (2017) / D: Paul King / 103m

Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Ben Whishaw, Hugh Grant, Brendan Gleeson, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi, Imelda Staunton, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Ben Miller, Jessica Hynes, Noah Taylor, Joanna Lumley

Rating: 9/10 – the theft of a unique pop-up book sees Paddington (Whishaw) end up in jail while the Brown family do their best to track down the real thief, Phoenix Buchanan (Grant); an absolute joy, Paddington 2 is just so unexpectedly good that even just thinking about it is likely to put a smile on your face, something that’s all too rare these days, and which is thanks to an inspired script by director King and Simon Farnaby, terrific performances from all concerned, and buckets of perfectly judged humour.

Gangster Land (2017) / D: Timothy Woodward Jr / 113m

Original title: In the Absence of Good Men

Cast: Sean Faris, Milo Gibson, Jason Patric, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Peter Facinelli, Mark Rolston, Michael Paré

Rating: 4/10 – the rise of boxer Jack McGurn (Faris) from potential champion to right-hand man to Al Capone (Gibson), and his involvement in Capone’s feud with ‘Bugs’ Moran (Facinelli); a biopic that’s hampered by lacklustre performances and a leaden script, Gangster Land wants to be thought of as classy but budgetary constraints mean otherwise, and Woodward Jr’s direction doesn’t inject many scenes with the necessary energy to maintain the viewer’s interest, something that leaves the movie feeling moribund for long stretches.

Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) / D: Trish Sie / 93m

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, Hailee Steinfeld, John Lithgow, Ruby Rose, Matt Lanter, Elizabeth Banks, John Michael Higgins, DJ Khaled

Rating: 4/10 – the Borden Bellas are back for one last reunion before they all go their separate ways, taking part in a European tour and competing for the chance to open for DJ Khaled; a threequel that adds nothing new to the mix (even if you include Lithgow as Wilson’s scoundrel father), and which is as empty-headed as you’d expect, Pitch Perfect 3 isn’t even well thought out enough to justify its existence and trades on old glories in the hope that the audience won’t notice that’s what they are.

Something Real and Good (2013) / D: Luke Rivett / 81m

Cast: Matt Jones, Alex Hannant, Colton Castaneda, Marla Stone

Rating: 4/10 – he (Jones) meets her (Hannant) in an airport lounge, and over the next twenty-four hours, get to know each other, flirt, have fun, and stay in a hotel together due to their flight being cancelled; the slightness of the story – boy meets girl, they talk and talk and talk and talk – is further undermined by the cod-philosophising and trite observations on life and relationships that they come out with, leaving Something Real and Good as a title that’s a little over-optimistic, though if it achieves anything, it’ll be to stop people from striking up random conversations with strangers in airports – and that’s now a good thing.

Ladies First (2017) / D: Uraaz Bahi / 39m

With: Deepika Kumari, Geeta Devi, Shiv Narayan Mahto, Dharmendra Tiwari

Rating: 8/10 – the story of Deepika Kumari, at one time the number one archer in the world, and her efforts to obtain Olympic gold in 2012 and 2016; a sobering documentary that for a while feels like it’s going to be a standard tale of triumph over adversity (here, relating to Indian culture and gender equality), Ladies First offers a much deeper examination of success and failure than might be expected, and shows that in India, as in many other countries, there are precious few opportunities for women to be anything more than wives and mothers.

Heritage Falls (2016) / D: Shea Sizemore / 88m

Cast: David Keith, Coby Ryan McLaughlin, Keean Johnson, Sydney Penny, Nancy Stafford, Devon Ogden

Rating: 4/10 – three generations of males head off for a bonding weekend designed to overcome the divisions that are keeping them distant or apart from each other; a mixed bag of drama and lightweight comedy, Heritage Falls wants to say something sincere and relevant about father-son relationships, but falls way short in its ambitions thanks to a script that can’t provide even one of its protagonists with a convincing argument for their position, a bland visual style, and even blander direction from Sizemore, making this a turgid exercise in emotional dysfunction.

The Long Dark Hall (1951) / D: Anthony Bushell, Reginald Beck / 86m

Cast: Rex Harrison, Lilli Palmer, Denis O’Dea, Reginald Huntley, Anthony Dawson, Brenda de Banzie, Eric Pohlmann

Rating: 7/10 – when an actress is murdered in the room she rents, suspicion falls on her lover, married man Arthur Groome (Harrison), but even though he goes on trial at the Old Bailey, his wife, Mary (Palmer), stands by him; an early UK attempt at film noir, The Long Dark Hall has its fair share of tension, particularly in a scene at the Groome home where Mary is alone with the real killer (Dawson), but Harrison doesn’t seem fully committed (it wasn’t one of his favourite projects), and the screenplay lurches too often into uncomfortable melodrama, though overall this has an air of fatalism that keeps it intriguing for viewers who are used to their crime thrillers being a little more straightforward.

Ready Player One (2018) / D: Steven Spielberg / 140m

Cast: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance, Philip Zhao, Win Morisaki, Hannah John-Kamen

Rating: 7/10 – in 2045, people have become obsessed with a virtual reality game called Oasis where anything can happen, but when its creator (Rylance) reveals there’s a hidden prize within the game, one that will give overall control of the game and its licence to the winner, it’s up to a small group of gamers led by Parzifal (Sheridan) to stop a rival corporation from winning; an elaborate sci-fi fantasy that provides a nostalgia overload for fans of Eighties pop culture in particular, Ready Player One has plenty of visual pizzazz, but soon runs out of steam in the story department, and offers way too much exposition in lieu of a proper script, a situation it tries to overcome by being dazzling if empty-headed, but which in the hands of Steven Spielberg still manages to be very entertaining indeed – if you don’t give it too much thought.

The Temple (2017) / D: Michael Barrett / 78m

Cast: Logan Huffman, Natalia Warner, Brandon Sklenar, Naoto Takenaka, Asahi Uchida

Rating: 4/10 – three American tourists – best friends Chris (Huffman) and Kate (Warner), and Kate’s boyfriend, James (Sklenar) – are travelling in Japan when they hear about an abandoned temple and decide to go there, little knowing what will happen to them once they get there; even with its post-visit framing device designed to add further mystery to events, The Temple is a chore to sit through thanks to its being yet another horror movie where people behave stupidly so that a number of uninspired “shocks” can be trotted out, along with dreary dialogue and the (actually) terrible realisation that movie makers still think that by plundering legends and myths from other countries then their movies will be much more original and scary… and that’s simply not true.

Chokeslam (2016) / D: Robert Cuffley / 102m

Cast: Chris Marquette, Amanda Crew, Michael Eklund, Niall Matter, Gwynyth Walsh, Mick Foley

Rating: 5/10 – a 10-year high school reunion gives deli owner Corey (Marquette) the chance to reconnect with the girl he loved, Sheena (Crew), who is now a famous female wrestler; a lightweight romantic comedy that pokes moderate fun at the world of wrestling, Chokeslam is innocuous where it should be daring, and bland when it should be heartwarming, making it a movie that’s populated almost entirely by stock characters dealing with stock situations and problems, and which, unsurprisingly, provides them with entirely stock solutions.

All the Money in the World (2017) / D: Ridley Scott / 132m

Cast: Michelle Williams, Christopher Plummer, Mark Wahlberg, Romain Duris, Timothy Hutton, Charlie Plummer, Marco Leonardi, Giuseppe Bonifati

Rating: 8/10 – a recreation of the kidnapping in 1973 of John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer), and the subsequent attempts by his mother, Gail (Williams), to persuade his grandfather (Christopher Plummer) to pay the ransom, something the then world’s richest man refuses to do; Scott’s best movie in years, All the Money in the World is a taut, compelling thriller that tells its story with ruthless expediency and features yet another commanding performance from Williams, something that takes the spotlight away from the presence of Christopher Plummer (who’s good but not great), and which serves as a reminder that money isn’t the central concern here, but a mother’s unwavering love for her child.

5 Headed Shark Attack (2017) / D: Nico De Leon / 98m

Cast: Chris Bruno, Nikki Howard, Lindsay Sawyer, Jeffrey Holsman, Chris Costanzo, Amaanda Méndez, Ian Daryk, Jorge Navarro, Lorna Hernandez, Michelle Cortès, Nicholas Nene

Rating: 3/10 – a four-headed shark terrorises the waters off Palomino Island in Puerto Rico before mutating into a five-headed shark, and being hunted by both the island’s police force, and a team of marine biologists from a local aquarium; operating at the bargain bucket end of the movie business, 5 Headed Shark Attack, SyFy’s latest cheaply made farrago, references Sharknado (2013) early on (as if it’s being clever), and then does it’s absolute best to make its audience cringe and wince and wish they’d never started watching in the first place, something the awful screenplay, dialogue, acting, special effects and direction all manage without even trying.

FiveFilms4Freedom 2018

29 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

BFI Flare, Canada, Comedy, Cultural traditions, Documentary, Drama, Gay farmers, Greece, Helpline, India, Jeff Lee Petry, Karishma Dev Dube, LGBTQ+, Matt Houghton, Milan Halikowski, Nathan Drillot, Seung Yeob Lee, Sexuality, Short movies, South Korea, Yorgos Angelopoulos

FiveFilms4Freedom is part of the BFI Flare: London LGBTQ+ Film Festival currently running until 1 April 2018. These five shorts have been shown as part of the festival, and thanks to an intitiative developed by the British Council and the British Film Institute, have also been made available online during the course of the festival.

Devi (2017) / D: Karishma Dev Dube / 13m

aka Devi: Goddess

Cast: Aditi Vasudev, Priyanka Bose, Tanvi Azmi

Rating: 8/10 – Tara (Vasudev) is a troubled teen who challenges her mother’s sense of tradition and moral certitude at every turn, but takes a step too far when she turns her romantic attentions to Devi (Bose), the housemaid who has helped raise her from a child. Dube’s critique of unyielding Hindi cultural traditions and strict morality plays well until you realise that Tara’s actions are entirely selfish and devoid of any consideration of potential consequences – which then leads the viewer to consider if Tara is quite the sympathetic character she’s made out to be at the start. Dube shows that there will always be victims in these circumstances, and the class divide is sharply illustrated by the inevitable outcome of Tara’s decision to act on her impulses. By exploring not just the cultural divide, but the generational divide as well, Dube shows that Tara’s behaviour is too frivolous to be tolerated by the traditions she’s rebelling against, and that acceptance is still a very long way off indeed.

Handsome and Majestic (2016) / D: Jeff Lee Petry, Nathan Drillot / 12m

With: Milan Halikowski, Lynnell Halikowski, Mike Halikowski

Rating: 7/10 – Milan is a twelve year old transboy living in Canada who has suffered more than his fair share of abuse and violence in his young life, and who has been routinely let down by the teachers at his school. Having endured all this, and gone through a period of depression that saw him try to take his own life, Milan has found the strength to come out as transgender, and in doing so, he’s found a friend in another transboy living just a few streets away. There are few of us who can fully understand what it must be like to feel trapped in our own body, and not to look the way we believe we should. Handsome and Majestic goes some way to explaining what that must be like, but spends too much time illustrating it by having Milan looking at himself in mirrors, and with a sad, pensive expression. Contributions from his family offer (perhaps unintentionally) stark comparisons with Milan’s own struggle, but just seeing him playing with his new friends allows the movie to end on a positive note that didn’t seem to be on the cards at all. It’s a moving, humane documentary, and though it doesn’t delve too deeply into transgender issues, it’s still an informative and engaging examination of one young boy’s wish to be accepted for who he is.

Uninvited (2017) / D: Seung Yeob Lee / 20m

Cast: Sum Lee, Keonyeung Kim, Jinseung Moon

Rating: 7/10 – An impending, and largely unexpected visit from his mother (Kim), prompts still-in-the-closet Jungho (Lee) to get his partner, Jae-ik (Moon), to pack most of his belongings and hide out in a nearby coffee shop while she’s at the flat they live in. Despite his best efforts, though, Jungho’s mother discovers evidence that points to his having a flatmate at best, and a gay lover at worst. Ostensibly a comedy, Uninvited lacks the bite needed to make this as funny as it could be, and Jungho is such a moody complainer it’s amazing anyone, gay or straight, would take him on. Still, this is anchored by a surprisingly compassionate and thoughtful performance from Kim, who never lets on if her character is disappointed or ashamed or appalled by her son being gay, but instead translates passive acceptance into determined support. Like Devi and Goldfish, this is another movie where the main protagonist isn’t the person who’s gay or a lesbian, but the parent whose own cultural identity makes it difficult to accept unreservedly their child’s sexuality.

Goldfish (2017) / D: Yorgos Angelopoulos / 14m

Cast: Michael Ikonomou, Lissandros Kouroumbalis, Eva Angelopoulou

Rating: 7/10 – It’s Stratis’ (Kouroumbalis) seventh birthday, and all he wants is a pet fish. His father, Yorgos (Iknonomou), wants him to get a warrior fish, but Stratis settles for a goldfish. On their way home, Stratis reveals the goldfish is called Tom, after Tom Daley the British diver. Incensed at what he perceives as yet another example of his son’s effeminacy, Stratis’ father throws the goldfish in the river, causing Stratis to run away from home… While it’s a little too broad in its approach – Yorgos is the kind of unreconstructed Greek male that borders on cliché – and the message is rammed home a little too bluntly, nevertheless, Goldfish is an enjoyable examination of how some men feel threatened by the merest hint of homosexuality, and the often absurd reactions they display as a result. Not a movie about being gay, then, but about the unnecessary fear and paranoia that comes from prejudice about homosexuality, and the terrible emotions that take over when the source of that fear and paranoia – your own child – might never be seen again.

Landline (2017) / D: Matt Houghton / 12m

Cast: Jem Dobbs, Niamh Blackshaw, Oliver Devoti, Bradley Johnson

Rating: 9/10 – In 2010, Keith Ineson, a chaplain from Cheshire in the UK, set up a helpline for gay farmers, one that allowed them to voice their experiences, their worries, and their concerns. With the helpline still being the only one of its kind anywhere in the world, Landline uses original telephone recordings and visual reconstructions of the events being talked about to paint a powerful, and sometimes disturbing portrait of rural prejudice and intolerance. Director Matt Houghton doesn’t just focus on the negative though: one perfectly judged vignette has the camera tracking through the debris and chaos of what appears to have been a terrible bar fight, only for the recording to reveal that it was one man’s coming out party, and probably the best night of his life. From this it’s worth mentioning the excellent cinematography courtesy of James Blann, which makes this docu-drama visually striking and compelling in equal measure.

Once Upon a Time in Venice (2017)

26 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Action, Bruce Willis, Comedy, Drugs, Jason Momoa, John Goodman, Mark Cullen, Review, Thriller

D: Mark Cullen / 94m

Cast: Bruce Willis, John Goodman, Jason Momoa, Famke Janssen, Thomas Middleditch, Adam Goldberg, Emily Robinson, Maurice Compte, Stephanie Sigman, Jessica Gomes, Adrian Martinez, Ken Davitian, Tyga, Wood Harris, Christopher McDonald, Kal Penn, Elisabeth Röhm

Steve Ford (Willis) is a private detective. He doesn’t appear to take anything seriously, except for his dog, Buddy. Buddy is the most important part of Steve’s life, and even though the dog spends more time with Steve’s niece, Taylor (Robinson), the bond between the two is unbreakable. While being chased – naked and on a skateboard – by the brothers of a young woman (Gomes) he shouldn’t be “seeing”, Steve is helped by an old friend, Tino (Martinez), who does so on one condition: that Steve retrieves Tino’s car, which has been stolen by a local gang. The gang’s leader is Spyder (Momoa), and when Steve manages to steal the car back, Spyder retaliates by stealing stuff from Taylor’s home – including Buddy. Steve tries to get Buddy back from Spyder, and they agree on a deal, but when Steve comes through he learns that Spyder’s girlfriend, Lupe (Sigman), has disappeared, taking Buddy and a briefcase full of drugs with her. Spyder makes Steve another deal: find Lupe and retrieve the briefcase, and Buddy can come back to him.

From time to time, a movie comes along that looks like the very definition of unprepossessing, and which you’re pretty certain is going to be either a disappointment, or a big letdown, or both. It’s a movie that requires little conscious thought in order to watch it, and which is likely to be about as memorable as that time you can’t remember from a week ago. Once Upon a Time in Venice is one such movie. There’s a phrase: so bad it’s good, and sometimes it’s an apt phrase, but not here. This is, and let’s not forget it or make allowances for it, a bad movie. On so many levels, from the performances, to the script, to the direction, and the casual stereotyping (or racism, if you want to use a stronger term). This is a movie that gets so much wrong it’s almost as if the makers were challenging themselves to under achieve. And yet… and yet… while it may appear unprepossessing, it’s also an unlikely candidate for Guilty Pleasure of 2017. It’s definitely not so bad that it’s good, it’s so bad that it’s actually enjoyable… though not always for the right reasons.

Now, we’ve become used to Bruce Willis phoning in his performances over the last ten years – notable exceptions: Moonrise Kingdom and Looper (both 2012) – and here it’s no different, but for some reason the silliness and the absurdity of it all, and the very broad acting ranges on display, actually help to make this movie more enjoyable than it has any right to be. Willis as Steve is like an eclectic combination of John McClane and the Three Stooges (though without the eye poking and the face slapping). Goodman plays Steve’s best friend, Dave, as if he’s having a stroke the whole time, while Momoa’s drug lord(!) is a muscular mumbler, short on smarts and far too easily manipulated. The plot seems to have been made up on the spot during filming, and Cullen’s direction is so loose that it’s in danger of being blown away. Whether it’s Willis in drag (not a pretty sight), or homophobic grafitti directed at minor character Lou the Jew (Goldberg) (the script actually says the soubriquet isn’t offensive because he calls himself that), this is a movie you can only follow along blindly, accepting it for what it is – very bad indeed – but enjoying it nevertheless.

Rating: 4/10 – somehow grabbing an extra point just by virtue of how barmy it all is, Once Upon a Time in Venice is a low-brow crime caper that contains way too much bad acting, way too much bad dialogue, and way too much bad everything else; but somehow it’s a movie you can laugh with instead of at, and it’s a movie that has to be seen to be believed… on so many levels.

Festival (2005)

08 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Actors, Annie Griffin, Chris O'Dowd, Comedians, Comedy, Daniela Nardini, Drama, Edinburgh, Lucy Punch, Raquel Cassidy, Review, Sex, Stephen Mangan

D: Annie Griffin / 101m

Cast: Richard Ayoade, Amelia Bullmore, Billy Carter, Raquel Cassidy, Jonah Lotan, Stephen Mangan, Lyndsey Marshal, Stuart Milligan, Daniela Nardini, Chris O’Dowd, Deirdre O’Kane, Lucy Punch, Clive Russell

Set against the backdrop of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (and shot there in 2004), Festival is a compendium of interlocking stories centred around various actors and comedians who are all trying to be noticed or win awards. Amongst the comedians there’s Tommy O’Dwyer (O’Dowd), returning for his ninth year of unqualified non-success; Conor Kelly (Carter), who works with puppets; and Nicky Romanowski (Punch), who tells comic stories based on her Jewish upbringing. Amongst the actors there’s Faith Myers (Marshal), a first-timer with a one-woman play about Dorothy Wordsworth; a Canadian trio that includes Rick (Lotan), who finds himself attracted to the owner of the house they’re renting, Micheline (Bullmore); and Father Mike (Russell), whose play about paedophile priests may not be entirely fictional. Orbiting these characters are the likes of über-famous comedian and Comedy Award judge Sean Sullivan (Mangan), and his put-upon PA Petra Loewenberg (Cassidy); radio presenter Joan Gerard (Nardini), who’s also a Comedy Award judge; and Arnold Weiss (Milligan), an American agent looking to represent Sean in the US.

Ensemble movies can be a tricky proposition. Give too much screen time to one character and their story and you risk making another character’s story slight and uninteresting. Reverse that idea and you don’t do justice to the other character and their story. With fifteen main characters to juggle with, Festival does a good job of getting the balance right, but of necessity it does focus on some characters more than others, though not to the extent that any one tale suffers accordingly. However, whether or not you care about any of the characters is another matter, because while Annie Griffin’s feature debut doesn’t short change any of them in terms of development, even the most sympathetic of characters – Petra, for example – fail to connect with the audience. You can perhaps understand the dilemma: whether to show the hypocrisy and rampant self-absorption of the performers at the Fringe, or to make them less objectionable – and the movie less credible as a result. But the consequence of opting to show the hypocrisy etc. means that the result is a movie where being immersed in the various storylines isn’t as rewarding as it could be.

Part of the problem is in the movie’s fluctuating tone. In trying to accommodate both comedy and drama, while also including flashes of bathos and heavy-handed irony, Griffin provides too many awkward transitions from one to the other (and sometimes in the same scene). It’s also a less than subtle movie, with one sex scene in particular guaranteed to have some viewers squirming with discomfort (though not as much as one of the characters involved in it), and Griffin making the point over and over that comedians are an unhappy bunch whose ability to be funny masks a myriad of personal and emotional problems. Thankfully, trite observations such as these are offset by the quality of the comedy elements, which are very funny indeed. The drama though, still retains an overcooked feel to it that stops it from being entirely credible, and it’s in these moments that you can see Griffin trying too hard. As for the performances, there isn’t one portrayal that stands out from all the rest – though Mangan’s obnoxious Sean Sullivan comes close – which makes this a truly ensemble experience. The hustle and bustle of the Edinburgh Festival is expressed through often guerrilla-style cinematography courtesy of DoP Danny Cohen, and allows for an authentic backdrop. It’s just a shame that not everything happening in the foreground matches the industry of the festival itself.

Rating: 6/10 – promoted as a “black comedy”, Festival is more of an unfulfilled dramedy, one that succeeds more in one area than it does in the other; it’s entertaining enough while you’re watching it, but the relevance and resonance it’s aiming for doesn’t come across, making this frustrating and satisfying in almost equal measure.

NOTE: Alas, there’s no available trailer for Festival.

Barakah Meets Barakah (2016)

06 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Barakah yoqabil Barakah, Comedy, Drama, Fatima AlBanawi, Hisham Fageeh, Instagram, Mahmoud Sabbagh, Review, Riyadh, Romance, Saudi Arabia

Original title: Barakah yoqabil Barakah

D: Mahmoud Sabbagh / 88m

Cast: Hisham Fageeh, Fatima AlBanawi, Sami Hifny, Khairia Nazmi, reem Habib, Abdulmajeed Al-Ruhaidi

Barakah (Fageeh) works for Riyadh’s Municipal Police, issuing fines for minor offences such as selling goods outside a store’s permitted area. He’s single, amiable, and despite the overbearing intentions of the local midwife (and his surrogate mother) Daya Sa’adiya (Nazmi), not in any hurry to find a wife. A report of a civil disturbance brings him into contact with Bibi (AlBanawi), a fashion model who uses carefully cropped images of herself on Instagram as a way of promoting her own political and social agendas (while staying within the law). Barakah is instantly smitten, and thanks to some unwitting help from his friend Maqbool (Al-Ruhaidi), he’s able to meet Bibi at an art exhibition. As their relationship develops, obstacles arise such as the controlling nature of Bibi’s mother – and head of the fashion chain Bibi is the face of – Madame Mayyada (Habib), Barakah’s own naïve approach to romance, and Saudi Arabia’s strict laws regarding public interaction. But it’s a misunderstanding over a push-up bra that may just prove to be the biggest obstacle of all…

When you think about the rom-coms churned out by Hollywood, there’s always something that keeps true love from conquering all (until the last five minutes, that is), but one of the most refreshing things about Barakah Meets Barakah is that the “something” in question is Saudi Arabian law. The very real threat of imprisonment that hangs over the heads of Barakah and Bibi gives the movie a depth and a resonance that you rarely see in an average rom-com. First-time writer-director Sabbagh rarely alludes to it head on, happy to let it hover in the background while his script concentrates on providing viewers with one of the sweetest, and most endearing romantic comedies of recent years. Barakah is simply one of the nicest protagonists you’re ever likely to encounter: good-natured, a pleasure to spend time with, and like a puppy that’s eager to please in his pursuit of Bibi. She’s more fiery, able and willing to challenge the accepted order of things, but in such a way that she builds support for her efforts through her careful manipulation of social media. As a way of expressing female empowerment, it’s a clever conceit, and Sabbagh is equally clever enough not to wield the idea like a big stick.

In many areas of the movie the key word is restraint, as Sabbagh tells his story with admirable economy of style, and a minimum of fuss. His talented cast ensure that each character appears fully formed from the moment we meet them, with Fageeh proving that gauche and awkward can be charming as well, and AlBanawi investing Bibi with a seductive vulnerability (like Barakah, you can’t help but be captivated by her). Sabbagh peppers his script with wry observations on contemporary Saudi culture, has Barakah co-opted into a local amateur production of Hamlet to play Ophelia, provides unnecessarily pixellated images as a barb to state censors, and gets overtly political by contrasting the more liberal Saudi Arabia of the 60’s and 70’s with the restrictions that have been in place since 1979. But none of this is to distract from the central romance that anchors the movie and makes it so appealing. The movie brings its chaste lovebirds together at the end, but not in the traditional “love has conquered all” way that Hollywood approves of. Instead, Sabbagh offers us a reunion that speaks of hope for the future, a message that is both simple and powerful, and as much about Barakah and Bibi, as it is about Saudi Arabia itself.

Rating: 8/10 – an example of what can be achieved when you don’t have to follow a clichéd narrative pattern or formula, Barakah Meets Barakah is beautifully shot by Victor Credi, and hugely entertaining; by keeping things natural and straightforward, Sabbagh has created a movie where you never feel like you’re being led by the hand, and where you’re more than happy to share in the journeys undertaken by the characters.

Monthly Roundup – February 2018

28 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

'C'-Man, Action, Adam Devine, Alan James, Alec Baldwin, Allene Ray, Animation, Ari Sandel, Atomic Blonde, Beauty and the Beast (2017), Berlin, Bill Condon, Black Panther, Chadwick Boseman, Charlize Theron, Comedy, Crime, Daisy Ridley, Dan Stevens, David Leitch, Dean Jagger, Emma Watson, Fantasy, Game Night, Guinn Williams, James McAvoy, Jason Bateman, John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein, Joseph Lerner, Kenneth Branagh, Maris Wrixon, Marvel, Michelle Pfeiffer, Murder, Murder on the Orient Express (2017), Mystery, Noel M. Smith, Rachel McAdams, Reviews, Romance, Romantic comedy, Ryan Coogler, Steve Buscemi, Superhero, The Boss Baby, The Case of the Black Parrot, The Phantom (1931), Thriller, Tom McGrath, Wakanda, When We First Met, William Lundigan

‘C’-Man (1949) / D: Joseph Lerner / 77m

Cast: Dean Jagger, John Carradine, Lottie Elwen, Rene Paul, Harry Landers, Walter Vaughn, Adelaide Klein, Edith Atwater

Rating: 5/10 – a US Customs agent (Jagger) finds himself looking for the killer of his best friend (and fellow Customs agent), and the person responsible for the theft of a rare jewel – could they be the same man?; an odd noir crime thriller that betrays its low budget production values, ‘C’-Man is short on character but long on action, and is fitfully entertaining, though the performances vary wildly and the script contains some very po-faced dialogue, making it a movie you can’t really take your eyes from – and not in a good way.

When We First Met (2018) / D: Ari Sandel / 97m

Cast: Adam Devine, Alexandra Daddario, Shelley Hennig, Andrew Bachelor, Robbie Amell

Rating: 3/10 – Noah (Devine) falls for Avery (Daddario) and winds up in the friend zone, but thanks to a magic photo booth, he gets the chance to go back and change their relationship into a romantic one; a dire romantic comedy that struggles to be both romantic and funny, When We First Met can’t even make anything meaningful out of its time travel scenario, and is let down by a banal script and below-par performances.

The Phantom (1931) / D: Alan James / 62m

Cast: Guinn Williams. Allene Ray, Niles Welch, Tom O’Brien, Sheldon Lewis, Wilfred Lucas, Violet Knights, William Gould, Bobby Dunn, William Jackie

Rating: 3/10 – a reporter (Williams) tries to track down the titular criminal mastermind when he targets the father of his girlfriend (Ray), but finds it’s not as simple a prospect as he’d thought; an early talkie that shows a lack of imagination and purpose, The Phantom struggles from the outset to be anything but a disappointment, what with its unconvincing mix of comedy and drama, its old dark house scenario, and a clutch of amateur performances that drain the very life out of it at every turn.

Black Panther (2018) / D: Ryan Coogler / 134m

Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Sterling K. Brown, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Andy Serkis, Florence Kasumba, John Kani

Rating: 7/10 – the king of outwardly poor but inwardly technologically advanced Wakanda, T’Challa (Boseman), faces a coup from an unexpected source (Jordan), while trying to work out whether or not his country’s scientific advances should be shared with the wider world; though Black Panther does feature a predominantly black cast, and speaks to black issues, this is still a Marvel movie at the end of the day and one that adheres to the template Marvel have created for their releases, making this an admittedly funny and exciting thrill ride, but one that’s also another formulaic entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Atomic Blonde (2017) / D: David Leitch / 115m

Cast: Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, John Goodman, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, James Faulkner, Roland Møller, Sofia Boutella, Bill Skarsgård, Sam Hargrave, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Til Schweiger

Rating: 6/10 – in the days before the fall of the Berlin Wall, a spy (Theron) must find a list of double agents that are being smuggled into the West, a task complicated by the involvement of the Americans, the Russians and a number of other interested parties; an attempt to provide audiences with a female John Wick, Atomic Blonde does have tremendous fight scenes, and a great central performance by Theron, but it’s let down by a muddled script, an even more muddled sense of the period it’s set in, and by trying to be fun when a straighter approach would have worked better.

Beauty and the Beast (2017) / D: Bill Condon / 129m

Cast: Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Josh Gad, Kevin Kline, Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson, Nathan Mack, Audra McDonald, Stanley Tucci, Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Rating: 5/10 – the classic fairy tale, and previously a classic animated movie, is given the live action treatment by Disney; if the latest installment of a certain space opera hadn’t been released in 2017, Beauty and the Beast would have been the number one movie at the international box office, but though the House of Mouse might point to this as a measure of quality, the reality is that Watson was miscast, the songs lack the emotional heft they had in the animated version, and the whole thing has a perfunctory air that no amount of superficial gloss and shine can overcome.

The Case of the Black Parrot (1941) / D: Noel M. Smith / 61m

Cast: William Lundigan, Maris Wrixon, Eddie Foy Jr, Paul Cavanagh, Luli Deste, Charles Waldron, Joseph Crehan, Emory Parnell, Phyllis Barry, Cyril Thornton

Rating: 6/10 – a newspaper reporter (Lundigan) gets involved in a case involving a master forger (the Black Parrot), an antique cabinet, and a couple of mysterious deaths; an enjoyable piece of hokum, The Case of the Black Parrot gets by on a great deal of understated charm, a whodunnit plot that doesn’t overplay its hand, and by having its cast treat the whole absurd undertaking with a sincerity that is an achievement all by itself.

Murder on the Orient Express (2017) / D: Kenneth Branagh / 114m

Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Tom Bateman, Lucy Boynton, Olivia Colman, Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Josh Gad, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Derek Jacobi, Marwan Kenzari, Leslie Odom Jr, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sergei Polunin, Daisy Ridley

Rating: 5/10 – the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Branagh) is faced with a complex mystery: which one of a dozen passengers killed an infamous kidnapper, and more importantly, why?; yet another version of the Agatha Christie novel, Murder on the Orient Express strands its capable cast thanks to both an avalanche and a tepid script, leaving its director/star to orchestrate matters less effectively than expected, particularly when unravelling the mystery means having the suspects seated together in a way that clumsily replicates the Last Supper.

The Boss Baby (2017) / D: Tom McGrath / 97m

Cast: Alec Baldwin, Steve Buscemi, Jimmy Kimmel, Lisa Kudrow, Tobey Maguire, Miles Bakshi, James McGrath, Conrad Vernon, ViviAnn Yee, Eric Bell Jr, David Soren

Rating: 6/10 – when seven year old Tim (Bakshi) finds he has a new baby brother, Theodore (Baldwin) – and one dressed in a business suit at that – he also finds that Theodore is there to stop babies from being usurped in people’s affections by puppies; a brightly animated kids’ movie that takes several predictable swipes at corporate America, The Boss Baby wants to be heartwarming and caustic at the same time, but can’t quite manage both (it settles for heartwarming), and though Baldwin may seem like the perfect choice for the title character, he’s the weakest link in a voice cast that otherwise sells the performances with a great deal of enthusiasm.

Game Night (2018) / D: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein / 100m

Cast: Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Kyle Chandler, Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, Jesse Plemons, Danny Huston, Michael C. Hall

Rating: 5/10 – when a group of friends led by Max (Bateman) and Annie (McAdams) are invited to a game night at the home of Max’s brother, Brooks (Chandler), the evening descends into murder and mayhem, and sees the group trying to get to the bottom of a real-life mystery; like an Eighties high concept comedy released thirty years too late, Game Night has a great cast but little direction and waaaay too much exposition clogging up its run time, all of which makes a couple of very funny, very inspired visual gags the only reward for the viewer who sticks with this to the end.

Brakes (2016)

26 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Break ups, Comedy, Drama, Julia Davis, Julian Barratt, Kerry Fox, Mercedes Grower, Noel Fielding, Paul McGann, Peter Wight, Relationships, Review, Romance

D: Mercedes Grower / 85m

Cast: Julian Barratt, Kelly Campbell, Seb Cardinal, Juliet Cowan, Julia Davis, Noel Fielding, Jess-Luisa Flynn, Kerry Fox, Roland Gift, Salena Godden, Mercedes Grower, Martin Hancock, Kate Hardie, Siobhan Hewlett, Oliver Maltman, Paul McGann, John Milroy, Steve Oram, Daniel Roch, Morgan Thomas, Peter Wight

In Mercedes Grower’s debut feature, we’re introduced to a number of couples whose relationships are on the verge of breaking up, or which have actually reached the point of no return (or further investment by one or both parties). There’s Elliot (Barratt) and Raymond (Maltman), whose unexpected fling in Spain has been misinterpreted as something more permanent by Elliot. There’s Rhys (Gift) and Brinie (Fox), a couple who can’t spend time together without trading veiled insults or outright criticism, and there’s Livy (Davis) and Alan (Wight), a would-be actress and her theatrical producer partner who are finding themselves at odds over the types of roles that Livy can play. And then there’s Daniel (Fielding) and Layla (Grower), a couple expecting a child but being forced apart by his apathy and intransigence. These and several other stories show the various ways in which relationships can come to an end, and how differently people allow themselves to be affected.

All of this makes up Part II of Brakes, and is shown first. We see the characters often at their worst, and Grower shows just how selfish and uncaring we can be when we want to extricate ourselves from a relationship we no longer want to be a part of. On the flip side, we see the pain and the hurt that this approach can cause, and Grower wades through a variety of emotions and responses, from anger to disbelief, to sadness and resignation, and denial and regret. Inevitably, some stories fare better than others, with Daniel and Layla’s break up in a public toilet coming across as too absurd to be credible, and hampered by the decision to have Daniel behave like a six year old. Conversely, the austere yet stinging conversation between Rhys and Brinie is so tense and uncomfortable that it’s a relief when he goes out for beers (it also helps that Fox’s performance is particularly impressive). Most of the other scenarios fall somewhere in between, but the necessity of keeping things short (for the most part), means that if one story disappoints there’ll be another one along quite soon.

Once Part II is out of the way, then Grower presents us with Part I, in which we see how these relationships began originally. It’s a neat idea, and having seen the outcomes of each one already, the viewer can judge for themselves if any might or should have turned out differently, and it does allow the movie to end on a positive note, but the knowledge that none of these promising, hopeful unions is going to end well also leaves a bitter after-taste. With the script proving to be a hit or miss affair in terms of the stories, the performances fall into the same category. Alongside Fox, there are fine portrayals from Davis, Wight, and Barratt, while some of the cast – e.g. McGann, Milroy, Hewlett, and Oram – are hamstrung by clichéd dialogue and unconvincing set ups. Grower does show promise, and she’s able to inject some much needed humour when it’s required, but she needs an idea that she can focus on exclusively instead of a number of different ones all at the same time. That said, the movie does feature some appropriately gloomy cinematography by Denzil Armour-Brown and Gabi Norland in Part II, and a brighter, more upbeat tone in Part I, something that gives rise to the notion that if more time had been available, then this could have been so much better.

Rating: 6/10 – with a sixty per cent success rate in regard to the stories themselves, Brakes is often a frustrating movie to watch, but it does have singular moments where the breadth of Grower’s ambition is met and exceeded upon; in the end, though, it’s a movie that makes a number of telling points about our inability to communicate with each other when it matters, but which doesn’t always find the right context to express itself fully.

Freak Show (2017)

19 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Abigail Breslin, Alex Lawther, AnnaSophia Robb, Bette Midler, Comedy, Cross-dressing, Drama, High School, Homecoming Queen, Literary adaptation, Review, Trudie Styler

D: Trudie Styler / 91m

Cast: Alex Lawther, Abigail Breslin, AnnaSophia Robb, Ian Nelson, Larry Pine, Bette Midler, Celia Weston, Willa Fitzgerald, Charlotte Ubben, Laverne Cox, Christopher Dylan White, Michael Park, Mickey Sumner, John McEnroe, Eddie Schweighardt

What if you didn’t fit in anywhere, and most days went out of your way not to fit in? And what if you were bullied by your fellow high schoolers, ignored by your father, missed your absentee mother terribly, and expressed your inner feelings by dressing up in outrageous yet clearly female outfits… and the source of all this was because you’re a boy? How would all that make you feel? And what would you do to combat the unwanted attention you’re getting from the other students? Well, in the feature debut of director Trudie Styler, the answer new kid Billy Bloom (Lawther) opts for is to be bolder and more outrageous, and to treat the majority of the other kids with disdain. But for all his outward self-confidence, Billy is still the outsider who wants to be accepted for who he is. The trouble is he’s flamboyant, shamelessly narcissistic, and completely uninterested in fitting in unless it’s on his own terms. But when he’s viciously beaten up by members of the school football team, things begin to edge his way, and a wider acceptance makes itself felt, an acceptance that is put to the test when Billy decides to run for Homecoming Queen…

Anyone coming to Freak Show might find themselves wondering if its origins lay between the pages of a Young Adult novel, and those assumptions would be right. Adapted from the novel of the same name by self-styled celebutante James St. James, Freak Show is a movie predicated to the idea of individuality above all else, and being true to yourself, even if you’re not sure just who you are yet. It’s an ode to persevering against the odds, but told in an uneven and often uncertain way thanks to a screenplay by Patrick J.Clifton and Beth Rigazio that can’t decide if Billy should fully integrate into high school life or remain a consenting outsider. Outside of school, Billy lives with his father (Pine) who doesn’t understand him, and he dreams of the day his mother (Midler) will come to rescue him from the terrible life he really doesn’t lead. Within school, Billy makes friends with Blah Blah Blah (Robb), who thinks he’s amazing, and football star Flip (Nelson) who has an artistic side he doesn’t feel he can express except when he’s around Billy.

The relationship that develops between Billy and Flip occupies a lot of the movie’s running time, and it spends a lot of that time not going where you might expect it to (but then it does). It’s not always handled well, and there’s a frankly embarrassing moment between Flip and Billy’s mother that has all the dramatic subtlety of a police baton strike to the lower right thigh (sorry, wrong movie). Billy’s decision to run for Homecoming Queen includes the movie’s heartfelt plea for tolerance, and though it’s beautifully expressed by Lawther, the movie tries to be ironic immediately after – and doesn’t even come close. With the screenplay also unable to pin down its approach to gender politics, it’s left to Lawther and the make up, costume and wardrobe departments to provide a series of outfits that best express Billy’s glamour obsessed personality, and in doing so to gloss over the movie’s various shortcomings, not the least of which is Breslin’s God-bothering rival for the Homecoming Queen tiara, Lynette. It is Lawther’s movie though, the young actor giving a relaxed, confident, and sincere performance that keeps Billy sympathetic throughout, even when it’s hard to feel entirely sorry for him.

Rating: 6/10 – bolstered by a terrific performance from Lawther, but hampered at the same time by so many high school movie clichés it’s like shooting fish in a barrel, Freak Show is at least funny when it’s trying to be, but tiresome when it’s trying to be serious; with its mixed messages centering around individuality and integration, the movie is only half as effective as it should be, and too often opts for warm and fuzzy when it should be direct and uncomfortable.

Entanglement (2017)

16 Friday Feb 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Comedy, Diana Bang, Drama, Jason James, Jess Weixler, Review, Romance, Suicide, Thomas Middleditch

D: Jason James / 85m

Cast: Thomas Middleditch, Jess Weixler, Diana Bang, Randal Edwards, Marilyn Norry, Eric Keenleyside, Johannah Newmarch, Jena Skodje, Shauna Johannesen

When we first meet Ben Layten (Middleditch), he’s trying to kill himself. He’s recently divorced, increasingly depressed, and all alone. But death isn’t going to let him off so easily, and despite cutting his wrists, Ben survives. As he begins to get his life back on track, he learns he almost had a sister: his parents (Norry, Keenleyside), believing they wouldn’t have children of their own, had adopted a baby girl. But on the very day the baby was given to them, Ben’s mother discovered she was pregnant. The baby was returned for adoption, Ben was born nine months later, and now Ben has a mission: to find his near-sister and see how she’s turned out, and if he’s lucky, to establish a brother-sister relationship with her. His search leads him to Hanna Weathers (Weixler), a free-spirited young woman who slowly brings Ben out of his shell. In the process, Ben begins to find more and more reasons to continue living, and ways of putting the past behind him. But then he learns a truth about Hanna that challenges his perception of his new-found happiness…

Entanglement is the kind of indie movie that comes along several times a year, plays at various festivals, gets a good buzz behind it, and then goes out into the big wide world of cinema releases or VOD, and then promptly vanishes from people’s radar. It’s not the movie’s fault – after all, there are just sooooo many movies out there, all jostling for our attention – but it does make finding such a movie all the more rewarding. This is the case here, with the combination of Jason Filiatrault’s adroit, cleverly constructed screenplay, and Jason James’ easy-going yet focused direction. Between them they ensure that Ben’s attempts to make sense of his life and where it’s going aren’t just the actions of a pretentious, navel-gazing nebbish (which could have easily been the case), but a sincere and heartfelt look at how easy and difficult it can be to find the courage to move on after a traumatic experience. Deep down, Ben knows he can move on, but he doesn’t know how to; being with Hanna helps him find out – just not in a way he ever expected. (Some viewers may find themselves ahead of Ben for most of the movie, but rest assured, this doesn’t detract from the enjoyment to be had in waiting for him to catch up.)

The movie isn’t afraid to throw in some whimsical fantasy elements, such as the planets on a bowling alley wall that begin to rotate while Hanna speaks to Ben, or the puppet in the office of Ben’s therapist that takes him to task over his relationship with Hanna. These elements serve as psychological cues for Ben’s state of mind, and are introduced at various points in the narrative, but with a great deal of circumspection attached. Are these signs of progress, or backward steps? Filiatrault wisely leaves it up to the viewer to decide. By the time the truth about Hanna is revealed, the movie has become intriguing and absorbing, and thanks in no small part to the performances of Middleditch and Weixler. Middleditch is self-contained and vulnerable as Ben, giving a shy, diffident portrayal that is affecting and quietly impressive. Weixler, an actress who deserves to be better known, is more extrovert but in a way that is considered and entirely apt for her character. There’s good support too from Bang as Tabby, Ben’s neighbour and one true friend. The whole thing plays out at a good pace, there’s sterling work from DoP James Liston, and it’s all topped off by a terrific soundtrack.

Rating: 8/10 – a movie about connections, including the ones we can’t see but which have the most impact in our lives, Entanglement is a light-hearted, comic, yet earnest movie that achieves its modest ambitions with ease; quirky and intelligent, plausible and deftly handled, it’s another indie movie wih buckets of charm and a winning sensibility.

Handsome Devil (2016)

10 Saturday Feb 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Andrew Scott, Boarding school, Comedy, Coming of age, Drama, Fionn O'Shea, Ireland, John Butler, Nicholas Galitzine, Review, Rugby, Talent show

D: John Butler / 95m

Cast: Fionn O’Shea, Nicholas Galitzine, Andrew Scott, Michael McElhatton, Moe Dunford, Ruairi O’Connor, Jay Duffy, Ardal O’Hanlon, Amy Huberman, Stephen Hogan

Ned (O”Shea) is returning to boarding school for another year of being the outsider, the one pupil in the entire school for whom rugby – which the school is obsessed by – doesn’t mean anything. Ned prefers reading and music, but this has earned him the enmity of some of the other pupils, including Weasel (O”Connor), who is on the current team. However, there is good news: this year he has a room to himself. But this good fortune doesn’t last long. A new pupil called Connor (Galitzine), is assigned to Ned’s room. First impressions don’t help and the pair initially don’t get along. An incident in their English class allows for the barriers they’ve erected (literally and figuratively) to be broken down, and soon they share a genuine friendship. A joint love of music sees them cajoled by their English teacher, Mr Sherry (Scott), into taking part in a local talent show. But Connor has also made the school rugby team and is proving to be their star player. But Connor has a secret, one that Ned discovers by accident, and one that leads to their friendship becoming strained, as well as forcing Connor to make a difficult choice if he wants to remain at the school.

Told in the form of an extended flashback as Ned recounts the events of the previous months, Handsome Devil is another very likeable, very enjoyable movie that serves as a reminder that when it comes to coming-of-age tales, Ireland has assembled a pretty good track record in recent years. Irish movie makers seem to know instinctively how to balance comedy and drama in their movies, and John Butler’s follow up to The Stag (2013) is no exception. And more importantly, one isn’t allowed to overshadow the other. It’s sometimes a precarious balancing act, but here the dramatics surrounding Connor’s secret (an obvious one but treated with sympathy and understanding by Butler’s screenplay) are played out with a credibility lacking in many other movies, and thanks to a deftly handled performance by Galitzine. Connor’s friendship with Ned is another aspect that’s handled well, growing organically out of their shared appreciation for music. Butler gives both characters the chance to grow as the movie progresses, and they both emerge from their self-imposed shells more confident and more determined not to return to them.

There’s plenty of humour to be had as well, and the movie makes several salient points about the highs and lows to be experienced in a boarding school environment. There’s also a devil and angel scenario whereby Connor’s “soul” is the concern of both Mr Sherry and his rugby coach, Mr O’Keeffe (Dunmore). This leads to a few awkward scenes that don’t feel as well developed as in other areas, and despite good performances from both actors, these scenes always feel a little leaden in comparison. In truth, the main storyline isn’t anything new, but it’s the way in which Butler handles it that makes it so enjoyable. There’s an impish yet sincere quality to the material that is engaging, and within the world he’s created, much is recognisable in terms of the characters and their troubles. Butler is utilising universal elements to tell his story, and it’s this universality that makes it look and sound so good, even if sometimes, his message is a little too simplistic (the movie ends on a moment of fantasy wish fulfillment that will either make you groan or cheer).Your world won’t be changed – probably – by seeing this movie, but you will enjoy spending time with it.

Rating: 8/10 – bright and entertaining, and with a welcome degree of poignancy, Handsome Devil is a delightful movie full of terrific performances topped off by Butler’s assured direction, and a number of first-rate song choices on the soundtrack; definitely a feelgood movie, then, and one that doesn’t strain to be something it’s not or strive to make more of its story than is completely necessary.

Dan Dream (2017)

07 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Casper Christensen, Comedy, Denmark, Drama, Electric car, Frank Hvam, Hope Whisper, Jesper Rofelt, Marcus Millang, Niclas Vessel Kølpin, Review, True story

D: Jesper Rofelt / 98m

Cast: Casper Christensen, Frank Hvam, Marcus Millang, Niclas Vessel Kølpin, Louisa Yaa Aisin, Stine Schrøder Jensen, Lars Hjortshøj, Jelina Moumou Meyer, Peter Gantzler, Mia Lyhne, Jacob Lohmann

Outside of Denmark it’s unlikely that anyone has heard of Whisper Electronic Car A/S, but back in the early Eighties, this company attempted to design and manufacture a Danish electric car intended for mass consumption. They even got so far as to introduce the first version, called the Hope Whisper, at a premiere event in front of then Danish Prime Minister, Poul Schlüter. The fact that the Hope Whisper isn’t a household name the world over (or even in Denmark) should give you an idea of just how successful it was, but in Dan Dream, whether or not it succeeds or fails is beside the point. Tired of being patronised or ignored by his bosses, sales executive Thorkil Bonnesen (Christensen) quits his job and following a chance encounter with engineer Jens Knagstrup (Hvam) and his electric bicycle, decides to give Denmark their first electric car. Using Jens’ battery design, Thorkil enlists the aid of a one-armed mechanic, Vonsil (Millang), and ex-colleague Henrik (Kølpin), and together they move to the quiet country town of Bjerringsund to set up shop and build their (Dan) dream car.

There’s some local opposition at first, even though the town’s mayor, Kai Ove (Hjortshøj), is behind them a hundred per cent. But Thorkil charms them enough to win them over to his side, and the car’s production proceeds smoothly until the fateful day of the premiere. Along the way, director Rofelt and co-writers (and co-stars) Christensen and Hvam provide us with a hugely entertaining movie that wears its heart on its sleeve from the beginning, and which proves to be one of the unsung “heroes” of 2017. There’s drama to be had from the setbacks that have to be overcome, but this is less about the creation and launch of a revolutionary mode of transport, but a look at how it affects the lives of those involved (well, some of them; Vonsil and Henrik remain much the same throughout). It’s interesting to note that of the three male characters most affected – Thorkil, Jens and Kai – each has issues relating to their wives. One is a bully in need of a comeuppance, one learns his wife has had an affair since arriving in Bjerringsund, while the last treats his wife badly in a moment of weakness. Some of this allows for trenchant comments about the racist and sexist atttudes of the time, and the script isn’t afraid to have Thorkil et al look stupid or unwittingly insensitive.

But first and foremost, Dan Dream is a comedy whose easy-going material revolves around the notion that “everything is impossible until it’s been done”, a bright, positive statement that reflects well on the team’s efforts, even in the face of subsequent disaster. The humour is light and unforced, and reliant on its cast’s abilities to play bemused, baffled, and flustered in equal measure while also retaining a naīvete that allows for sympathy and the viewer’s support in their efforts. Making his feature debut, Rofelt directs with a flair for capturing the minor details in a scene, details that add credibility to the often whimsical nature of the script, and he deftly handles the underlying seriousness of much of the material. He’s supported by a cast who all play their roles with a terrific awareness of when too much is enough, and who are clearly having a great deal of fun in the process. This transfers itself to the viewer, and the movie remains amusing and involving throughout. It’s amiable and far from overly dramatic, but it is a gently unfolding piece that is confidently handled, wonderfully consistent, and a very pleasant way to spend ninety-eight minutes.

Rating: 8/10 – smart, amusing, and providing a wry commentary on the times (in Denmark at least), Dan Dream is a movie that offers a number of simple pleasures throughout its run time, all of which make it immensely enjoyable; one of those movies that absolutely should be given a chance when you come across it, it proves that some movies don’t have to be profound to make an impact, or have a message to justify their existence.

NOTE: There’s no trailer with English subtitles available at present.

The Clapper (2017)

02 Friday Feb 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Amanda Seyfried, Comedy, Dito Montiel, Drama, Ed Helms, Infomercials, Literary adaptation, Review, Romance, Tracy Morgan

D: Dito Montiel / 90m

Cast: Ed Helms, Amanda Seyfried, Tracy Morgan, Adam Levine, Russell Peters, P.J. Byrne, Brenda Vaccaro, Leah Remini

Eddie Krumble (Helms) is a professional clapper, a paid audience member of informercials who sometimes gets paid extra for asking a question, or standing out from the crowd in some other way. It’s not the best paid job in the world, but Eddie is kept busy, and along with his best (and only) friend, Chris (Morgan), he makes a good enough living to suit his needs. He’s also struck up an unlikely friendship with a young woman, Judy (Seyfried), who works at a gas station. But just as they begin dating, a late night TV show shines a spotlight on Eddie’s clapper activities, and asks the question, Who is the Clapper? This unwanted attention causes problems for Eddie as he doesn’t want the exposure, and it leads to Judy being fired from her job at the gas station. Not knowing how to contact her, and with the TV show still trying to track him down, Eddie hits on an idea that he thinks will keep everyone happy: he’ll appear on the show and ask people to help him find Judy. But Eddie’s efforts backfire, and soon it looks as if he and Judy are destined never to be reunited.

snap1.44861.4

In adapting his own novel, writer/director Dito Montiel has crafted an uneven yet enjoyable movie that tries to take a number of heavy-handed potshots at lowest common denominator television, while also featuring a sweetly nuanced romance, and a deft exploration of the lasting effects of overwhelming grief. In targeting the exploitative nature of some US TV shows, Montiel’s approach feels a little old and past its time, and it lacks the satirical bite that’s needed for his barbs to hit home with the required effect. The burgeoning romance between Eddie and Judy is handled with a lightness of touch that is magnified by the just-this-side of overbearingly cute performances by Helms and Seyfried. In their capable hands, what could have been sickly and off-putting is instead winning and delightful, a meeting of unsure hearts and minds with each needing to protect themselves as much as possible while also trying to find the courage to make a commitment. Their romance is touching and sincere, and the awkwardness each feels is tenderly expressed on both sides, with Eddie’s nervous ramblings a perfect foil for Judy’s equally nervous uncertainty.

But where the movie really works is in its depiction of the emotional troubles affecting Eddie, and his consternation at being singled out. Helms is terrific as Eddie, a man just trying to get along without being noticed, and trying to put a devastating trauma behind him. There’s a frailty and an anger and a desperation in Eddie, and they all threaten to leak out and overwhelm him, and Helms is at his best when showing us how his character is trying to keep all these feelings in check. There are moments when it seems as though Montiel has let Helms run with a scene, and if this is true, then it was a wise decision; this is one of Helms’s finest performances. However, it’s a performance that can’t make up for some of the other decisions Montiel has made, such as the late inclusion of Vaccaro as Eddie’s mother (there just to push Eddie into a necessary narrative corner), and the length of time that Eddie remains anonymous (when she wants to, Judy finds his agent/manager with ease; yet the TV show struggles for weeks to do the same thing). The tone of the piece changes too often as well, with the disparate storylines not always fitting well together. Nevertheless, this is diverting enough to warrant maybe a repeat watch, just for the pleasure of seeing Helms at his best.

Rating: 7/10 – that man Helms rescues The Clapper from a lower score purely by the strength and subtlety of his performance, and Montiel’s inspired decision to cast him; Morgan too is on good form, and so is Seyfried (even if she’s given less and less to do as the movie progresses), but narrative inconsistencies, and a sense that Montiel hasn’t fully locked in the script, undermine the good work on show elsewhere, leaving the movie feeling likeable yet also incomplete.

Monthly Roundup – January 2018

31 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Adrian Molina, Alexander Payne, Animation, Anthony Gonzalez, Awakening the Zodiac, Chadwick Boseman, Christoph Waltz, Coco, Comedy, Darkest Hour, Downsizing, Drama, Dylan Minnette, Fabrice du Welz, Family Fever, Gael García Bernal, Gary Oldman, Germany, Hallie Meyers-Shyer, History, Home Again, Horror, Jaume Collet-Serra, Joe Wright, Jonathan Wright, Kathrin Waligura, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lee Unkrich, Leslie Bibb, Liam Neeson, Matt Angel, Matt Damon, Meryl Streep, Message from the King, Mexico, Michael Sheen, Nico Sommer, Peter Trabner, Pixar, Reese Witherspoon, Reviews, Romance, Serial killer, Shane West, Steven Spielberg, Suzanne Coote, The Commuter, The Open House, The Pentagon Papers, The Post, The Washington Post, Thriller, Tom Hanks, True story, Vera Farmiga

Awakening the Zodiac (2017) / D: Jonathan Wright / 100m

Cast: Shane West, Leslie Bibb, Matt Craven, Nicholas Campbell, Kenneth Welsh, Stephen McHattie

Rating: 4/10 – no one knew it at the time but the notorious (and uncaptured) Zodiac killer filmed the murders he committed, something cash-strapped couple Mick and Zoe Branson (West, Bibb) discover when they come into possession of one of the reels, and then find themselves and those around them targeted by the Zodiac killer himself; there’s the germ of a good idea lurking somewhere in Awakening the Zodiac, but thanks to a sloppy script, wayward direction, and an indifferent approach to the Zodiac killer himself (by the end he’s just a generic movie-made serial killer), this never gets out of first gear, and settles for trundling along and signposting each narrative development with all the skill and style of a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest.

Home Again (2017) / D: Hallie Meyers-Shyer / 97m

Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Michael Sheen, Candice Bergen, Pico Alexander, Jon Rudnitzky, Nat Wolff, Lake Bell

Rating: 7/10 – when middle-aged fledgling interior designer Alice (Witherspoon) splits from her unreliable husband (Sheen), the last thing she expects to do is allow three young men trying to break into the movie business to move into her guest house – and then become romantically involved with one of them (Alexander); it’s hard to criticise Home Again because despite it being almost drama-free and the very definition of innocuous, it also just wants to give audiences a good time, and on that very basic level it succeeds, but it’s still possibly the most lightweight romantic comedy of 2017.

Downsizing (2017) / D: Alexander Payne / 135m

Cast: Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, Kristen Wiig, Rolf Lassgård, Udo Kier, Søren Pilmark, Jason Sudeikis

Rating: 5/10 – the answer to the world’s population crisis is revealed to be shrinking people to the point where they’re five inches tall, something that sad-sack occupational therapist Paul Safranek (Damon) agrees to with alacrity, but being small proves to be no different from being normal-sized, and soon Paul is having to re-think everything he’s ever thought or believed; a closer examination of Downsizing (under a microscope perhaps) reveals a movie that contains too many scenes that pass by without contributing anything to the overall storyline, and a satirical approach to the idea itself that lacks purpose, and sadly for Payne fans, his trademark wit, making it all a dreary, leaden experience that goes on for waaaaaay too long.

Family Fever (2014) / D: Nico Sommer / 71m

Original title: Familien fieber

Cast: Kathrin Waligura, Peter Trabner, Deborah Kaufmann, Jörg Witte, Jan Amazigh Sid, Anais Urban

Rating: 7/10 – when two sets of parents get together for the weekend at the request of their respective children (who are a couple), none of them are able to deal with the fallout that comes with the revelation of a secret that threatens the security of both marriages; a German comedy/drama that doesn’t always go where the viewer might expect it to, Family Fever revels in the awkwardness and frustration felt by its quartet of main characters, and though it sadly runs out of steam in the last fifteen minutes, by then it’s done more than enough to provide plenty of wicked laughs and affecting drama.

Coco (2017) / D: Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina / 105m

Cast: Anthony Gonzalez, Gael García Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Alanna Ubach, Renee Victor, Jaime Camil, Alfonso Arau

Rating: 8/10 – Miguel (Gonzalez) is a young boy whose family has rejected any kind of music in order to focus on selling shoes, which leads him into all sorts of trouble in the Underworld on Mexico’s Day of the Dead, trouble that could also mean his never returning to the land of the living; right now you’re never quite sure how a Pixar movie is going to work out, but Coco is a treat, its mix of clever character design, beautifully rendered animation (naturally), heartfelt storylines, and memorable songs making it one to savour time and again… though, be warned, you will be in tears towards the end.

Darkest Hour (2017) / D: Joe Wright / 125m

Cast: Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lily James, Stephen Dillane, Ben Mendelsohn, Ronald Pickup, Nicholas Jones, Samuel West

Rating: 8/10 – it’s 1940 and Great Britain is faced with a challenge: who is to lead them against the fast-approaching menace of the Nazis, and if it has to be Winston Churchill (Oldman), then what can be done to undermine him and his authority?; the answer is quite a bit – for the most part – but history is firm on Churchill’s success, and so Darkest Hour, while featuring a superb performance from Oldman, has no choice but to succumb to retelling events that have already been retold numerous times before, and in doing so doesn’t offer the viewer anything new except for a number of very good performances and assured, and surprisingly sinewy direction from Wright.

Message from the King (2016) / D: Fabrice du Welz / 102m

Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Luke Evans, Alfred Molina, Teresa Palmer, Natalie Martinez, Arthur Darbinyan, Lucan Melkonian, Diego Josef, Tom Felton, Chris Mulkey, Jake Weary

Rating: 5/10 – when his younger sister dies in suspicious circumstances in Los Angeles, South African cab driver Jacob King (Boseman) travels there to find out who caused her death and why – and exact revenge; a throwback to the kind of blaxploitation movies made in the Seventies, Message from the King at least refers to King as an angry brother in the traditional sense, but the movie’s plot is hollow, and the likes of Evans and Molina are wasted in roles that might have seemed fresh (again) in the Seventies, but here feel like caricatures for the movie to focus on in between bouts of King exacting his violent revenge.

The Commuter (2018) / D: Jaume Collet-Serra / 105m

Cast: Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Jonathan Banks, Sam Neill, Elizabeth McGovern, Killian Scott, Shazad Latif, Andy Nyman, Clara Lago, Roland Møller, Florence Pugh

Rating: 4/10 – ex-cop turned insurance salesman Michael MacCauley (Neeson) is approached by a mysterious woman (Farmiga) on his train home and tasked with finding a complete stranger who’s also on the train – what could possibly go wrong?; everything as it turns out, with The Commuter going off the rails soon after, and never getting back on track, something confirmed (if there was any doubt before then) when the script throws in an “I’m Spartacus/I’m Brian” moment (take your pick), as well as reminding everyone that Neeson really is too old for this kind of thing.

The Post (2017) / D: Steven Spielberg / 116m

Cast: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, Jesse Plemons, David Cross, Zach Woods, Pat Healy

Rating: 9/10 – the publication of the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the level of deceit the US government had perpetrated on its citizens about its involvement in Vietnam, is explored through the days leading up to the Washington Times‘ courageous decision to publish despite the threat of imprisonment for treason that the White House was prepared to enforce; Streep is publisher Kay Graham, Hanks is legendary editor Ben Bradlee, and Spielberg is on excellent form, giving The Post a sense of immediacy and potency that other historical dramas can only dream of (and the relevance to today’s US political scene doesn’t even need to be made obvious).

The Open House (2018) / D: Matt Angel, Suzanne Coote / 94m

Cast: Dylan Minnette, Piercey Dalton, Patricia Bethune, Sharif Atkins, Aaron Abrams, Edward Olson, Katie Walder

Rating: 3/10 – a recent widow (Dalton) and her mopey son (Minnette) get away from their grief and their problems at a house that’s up for sale – and find strange things going on there right from the start; an awful thriller that just refuses to make any sense or make either of its two main characters sympathetic, The Open House does everything it can to make you look away… and not in a good way.

Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow (1978)

30 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Action, Comedy, Drama, Hong Kong, Hwang Jang Lee, Jackie Chan, Martial arts, Review, Se ying diu sau, Thriller, Yuen Siu Tin, Yuen Woo-Ping

Original title: Se ying diu sau

D: Yuen Woo-Ping / 98m

Cast: Jackie Chan, Yuen Siu Tin, Hwang Jang Lee, Dean Shek, Roy Horan, Fung Hark-On, Chen Yao Lin, Chen Tien Lung, Chiu Chi Ling, Gam Yam, Hsu Hsia

The movie that really kickstarted Jackie Chan’s career, Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow is a compendium of established martial arts stylings with added humour that remains as fresh today as it was forty years ago. Which, on the face of it, seems unlikely, as the story is so conventional that the average viewer could work out what’s going to happen even if they’ve never seen a Hong Kong martial arts movie before. There are two rival clans, one that uses the Eagle Claw style of fighting, and one that uses the Snake style. The leader of the Eagle Claw clan, Lord Sheng Kuan (Hwang), has sworn to kill each and every member of the Snake clan, and is on the trail of one of the last surviving masters of said clan, Pai Cheng-Tien (Yuen). Fleeing Kuan, Pai ends up in a small town where he befriends Chien Fu (Chan), a janitor at a kung fu school who is mistreated by his masters. Pai teaches Chien how to defend himself using the Snake style of fighting, and Chien proves a fast learner… which proves to be a huge benefit when Kuan makes his presence known in the town.

The master and the pupil is a popular storyline in martial arts movies, and here it’s the source of much of the humour, as Pai uses a variety of (often) humiliating techniques to help Chien learn faster. The rival clans, necessarily good and bad, are another staple, and proud fighters squaring off against each other with determined faces is yet another, but though the movie provides enough familiarity to keep audiences reassured that they’ll have a good time, what it does so much more effectively is in depicting each individual fight scene in a way that makes each one seem fresh and unforced. With so many fight scenes crammed in to what is a relatively short running time, there’s the likelihood that they’ll all merge into one by the end, but the choreography is so expertly done, and so focused on showing the technique involved as well as the speed and the precision, that much of what is shown is breathtaking in both its simplicity and its impact (and it’s the only movie where you’ll see Jackie Chan kill someone with a groin strike). The only disappointment comes with the final showdown between Chien and Kuan, a sequence that suffers from some very choppy editing, and which lacks the flow of earlier encounters.

Away from the action there’s mileage to be had from Shek’s turn as the abusive Teacher Li, a character so rotten you wish for a better comeuppance than he receives (though he is part of a marvellous piece of physical slapstick with Chan that is one of the movie’s several highlights), and an equally enjoyable turn by Yuen (the director’s father) as the impish and badly be-wigged Grandmaster Pai. Hwang proves to be a smooth and likeable villain (for a change), even though his obsession with killing the Snake clan is a little genocidal, and the presence of Horan as a sword-wielding Russian masquerading as a priest adds an extra dimension to the fighting styles on show. But this is Chan’s breakthrough role, and the movie trains its focus on him at every turn, capturing every knowing smile and perplexed expression. You can argue that in his early movies Chan wasn’t really required to “act” because his physical presence and abilities were more important, but it’s clear that he’s aware of his limitations. This helps him give an enjoyable, spirited performance, and one that remains as entertaining now as it was then.

Rating: 8/10 – the debut feature of Yuen Woo-Ping, Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow is a martial arts movie that overcomes its prosaic storyline and simple plotting to provide a hugely satisfying experience; with intricate, complex fight choreography and very basic (and amusing) sound effects to accompany every blow, this is Cat’s Claws above the majority of Hong Kong martial arts movies made at the time, and a bona fide classic of the genre.

Unexpected (2015)

28 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Anders Holm, Catch Up movie, Cobie Smulders, Comedy, Drama, Friendship, Gail Bean, High School, Kris Swanberg, Pregnancy, Review

D: Kris Swanberg / 85m

Cast: Cobie Smulders, Anders Holm, Gail Bean, Elizabeth McGovern, Aaron J. Nelson, Tyla Abercrumbie, Audrey Morgan

A teacher at a Chicago inner city high school, Samantha Abbott (Smulders) has a dilemma: what to do when the high school closes in a few months’ time. She thinks she’s found the ideal job to apply for, but then another dilemma presents itself: she finds out she’s pregnant. Terrified by the implications that come with being pregnant, as well as the future responsibilities of being a parent, Samantha doesn’t know what to do. Luckily, her partner, John (Holm), knows exactly what she should do: marry him, and when the baby is born, spend a couple of years as a stay-at-home mother before working again. So, they get married, and Samantha continues to teach. This leads to the discovery that one of her brightest pupils, Jasmine (Bean), is also pregnant. So what is a scared, confused thirty year old teacher to do in such circumstances? The answer is to support Jasmine as much as possible with her college applications, and her pregnancy, while at the same time coping poorly with her own upcoming “blessed event”. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

At first glance, Unexpected appears to be about – yes, you’ve guessed it – being pregnant. However, a closer look reveals that it’s as much about the friendship that develops between Samantha and Jasmine as it is about anything else. Sure, they have pregnancy in common, but it’s how they share their thoughts and feelings about it, and their experiences of being pregnant, that carries the most weight. We see Samantha poring over books on pregnancy, trying desperately to work out if she’s doing it right, seeking approbation, and finding it through her support for Jasmine. Of the two, Jasmine is the more confident mother-to-be, her background and personal situation making her more able to cope with any issues or problems that arise. In many respects, Samantha behaves in a less mature manner than Jasmine does, so much so that when John rebuffs her complaints about not getting the job she wants by telling her to “get over it”, you have to agree with him (though that may not be the response director Kris Swanberg and co-screenwriter Megan Mercier are looking for).

Though the movie does address a number of pregnancy-related issues – finding a college place with a baby in tow, what to do if the father isn’t involved – it does so in a lightweight, easy-going manner that doesn’t allow for much in the way of real drama. Even when Samantha and Jasmine have an inevitable falling out, it’s all done in such a restrained, matter-of-fact way that the entire moment lacks conviction and power. What Swanberg and Mercier have done is to construct a story that plays out in what feels like a very normal fashion, and with mistakes being made by both expectant mothers. It’s a simple approach, one that’s enhanced by two terrific performances from Smulders and Bean, who both display a notable sincerity in their roles, and a thorough understanding of their characters’ emotional make-up (Smulders was actually pregnant during shooting, definitely a happy coincidence). As a slice of life drama it weaves its story with ease, and the comic elements add spice to the mix, making the movie enjoyable if not particularly invigorating. With little or no relevance to the wider world it takes place in, this exercise in female bonding solves its characters’ problems too easily to be wholly effective, but as if to make up for it, is unremittingly charming throughout.

Rating: 7/10 – low-key and thoughtful are two words that spring to mind when thinking about Unexpected, but these are strengths in a movie that avoids any real calamity in case it breaks the mood; inviting popularity with every scene, it’s a movie equivalent of a work-out that doesn’t make you sweat, but which still leaves you feeling good when you’ve finished.

Final Portrait (2017)

25 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Alberto Giacometti, Armie Hammer, Art, Comedy, Drama, Geoffrey Rush, James Lord, Literary adaptation, Painting, Paris, Review, Stanley Tucci

D: Stanley Tucci / 90m

Cast: Geoffrey Rush, Armie Hammer, Clémence Poésy, Tony Shalhoub, Sylvie Testud

In 1964, the writer James Lord (Hammer) is in Paris on a short trip when his friend, the artist Alberto Giacometti (Rush), asks him to sit for a portrait. Giacometti initially says it will take a few hours – one afternoon – but his own eccentricities and his own self-doubts mean that one afternoon becomes several weeks, and Lord is faced with postponing his return to the US until the portrait is finished. Giacometti works in fits and starts, and his personal life often interferes with his progress with the painting. There are long-standing animosities between Giacometti and his wife, Annette (Testud), that are exacerbated by his relationship with Caroline (Poésy), whose portrait he’s also painting. As the time passes, Lord becomes an observer of Giacometti’s life and work, and his insecurities and obsessions.

Based on the biography written by Lord a year later, A Giacometti Portrait, Stanley Tucci’s fourth feature as a writer/director is a meditative exploration of the creative process, and the notion that no work of art can ever truly be regarded as finished. It’s an interesting idea for a movie to examine, as by its very nature, Final Portrait is exactly that: a finished product (unless Tucci decides to release revised versions of the movie in future years). But it’s an idea that Giacometti adheres to, and Tucci has him continually looking at the sculptures in his studio, examining them, assessing them, and sometimes changing them slightly, albeit in very minor ways, as if by doing so, he can improve the work in such a way that it becomes more relevant, and worth the effort he’s put into it. The same applies to Lord’s portrait, an endeavour that Giacometti says will never be truly completed, even if Lord were to be available to sit for the rest of his life; even then, more can always be done to improve the work, and then more again.

Tucci isn’t one for histrionics or exaggerated performances, and his cast comply with the needs of a script that requires a delicacy of touch and a sympathetic approach to both Giacometti and his erratic genius. Rush is a terrific choice as the artist who thinks nothing of throwing an envelope with two million francs in it under a bed and forgetting about it. Chain-smoking his way through the movie, Rush portrays Giacometti as a restless man who is always searching for that one moment of clarity in his work but never quite finding it. As the trapped, slightly bewildered, and increasingly frustrated Lord, Hammer is effectively the straight man to Rush’s manic devilry, but he carries the role well, and is a charming foil for Giacometti’s maddening behaviour. In support, Poésy and Testud offer polar opposites as the women in Giacometti’s life (neither of whom are as well treated as they would like), and there’s the quiet, reflective presence of Shalhoub as Giacometti’s brother, Diego. The movie is beautifully constructed, with the artist’s studio a wonderfully designed and assembled cave of wonders courtesy of production designer James Merifield, art director David Hindle, and set decorator Sarah Wan. The camera takes in all the elements that are on display and a wonderfully evocative world is entered into as a result. It’s all overlaid with a tremendous sense of fun, along with a dash of rueful humour here and there, and remains a captivating and entertaining experience throughout.

Rating: 8/10 – an affectionate tribute to the difficulties inherent in the artistic process, Final Portrait is a thoughtful, sincere, modest, and clever movie that offers a beguiling yet intuitive examination of the artist Alberto Giacometti and his work; Rush and Hammer give wonderful performances, Tucci directs with verve and confidence in his own script, and it all proves as invigorating as the pursuit of artistic “truth” should be.

Early Man (2018)

21 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Aardman, Bronze Age, Comedy, Drama, Eddie Redmayne, Football, Maisie Williams, Nick Park, Review, Stone Age, Timothy Spall, Tom Hiddleston

D: Nick Park / 89m

Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Timothy Spall, Miriam Margolyes, Rob Brydon, Richard Ayoade, Mark Williams, Kayvan Novak, Johnny Vegas, Gina Yashere, Nick Park

In Nick Park’s debut feature as a solo director (and somehow that doesn’t feel right), we’re asked to take a lot on faith: that football was created by an isolated tribe in the Stone Age, that said tribe have remained isolated until the arrival of the Bronze Age, that they’ve lost the ability to play football during that period, and that they’ve somehow survived all this time purely through hunting rabbits (and though they all wear the skins of much larger animals – whom we never see). All perfectly plausible, right? Right. And especially so in the uniquely weird and wonderful world of Aardman animation. After all, what could be so unlikely about a challenge match between a Stone Age team of under-achievers and a Bronze Age team overseen by a villainous nobleman called Lord Nooth (Hiddleston)? There’s nothing unlikely in that at all. The only thing about it that’s unlikely is that audiences might not be charmed and amused by the exploits of Dug (Redmayne), his pet wild boar Hognob (Park), his tribe, and their bronze coin loving adversary. It’s Aardman; what’s not to like?

Now if that all sounds like a set up designed to reveal that the movie isn’t very good, then rest assured it is good, and very much so. But Early Man is an Aardman movie that requires audiences to approach it with a certain amount of caution. First of all, it’s very funny, and in the whimsical, very British way that only Aardman can manufacture. Park (who came up with the original story idea) and co-writers Mark Burton and James Higginson have created a world full of inspired sight gags, inspired dialogue, inspired character-based comedy, and a ton of in-jokes. The animation, as expected, is on a par with previous Aardman movies and shorts – meaning it’s excellent – and there is a limited use of CG that, for once, is in support of the Claymation process and doesn’t overwhelm it. Park’s direction is fluid, with an economy of style that matches the material, and there’s terrific voice work from the entire cast, though if you had to highlight anyone’s performance, it would be Brydon as the messenger bird (think Zazu from The Lion King (1994) but with increased attitude). Like all Aardman productions there is a surfeit of riches, and it’s immensely enjoyable.

The caution, though, is to do with the storyline. It’s slight, very slight. So slight in fact that there are periods where the movie stalls in its own version of a half-time break. This is where Park and his co-contributors provide more exposition than is actually needed, where the rhythm of the movie slows noticeably and the pace struggles to be regained, and the need to make the movie play out to around the ninety minute mark becomes all too obvious. All these things stop Early Man from being on a par with Chicken Run (2000) or Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005). Here – and despite all the plusses to be found elsewhere – by the time the match starts it’s with some semblance of relief. At this point, the script and the movie both knuckle down and provide a satisfying climax and they earn enough overall merit points to make it all feel as if it’s been time well spent… which it has. It’s an unusual feeling, to be watching something that’s so enjoyable, while at the same time, feeling that there’s something lacking, but that’s the vibe that Early Man gives off. But it’s still a must-see movie, if only to witness once again the absolute pleasure that can be achieved with, and by, lumps of clay.

Rating: 7/10 – like Pixar, Aardman work to very high standards, so when a movie doesn’t quite hit the heights that they or their fans are expecting, it’s always a bit of a disappointment, but though Early Man isn’t as impressive story-wise as it could have been, it’s still a great movie with much to offer; Hognob is like a Stone Age Gromit (no bad thing), there are more football puns than you can shake a woolly mammoth at, and look out for dinosaurs Ray and Harry – a lovely tribute to stop-motion legend Ray Harryhausen.

Postscript: Early Man was given a preview screening at London’s BFI Southbank on 20 January 2018. Following the screening there was a Q&A with Nick Park. Questions were taken from the audience, and one little girl asked, “What was the name of the rabbit?” (a rabbit, a likely ancestor of Hutch from Curse of the Were-Rabbit, is the main target of Dug’s tribe). Park admitted that the rabbit was never given a name, and then he asked the little girl what she thought the rabbit should be called. There was a pause, and then the little girl replied (and with perfect timing), “Rabbit.”

Short Movies Volume 5

16 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Andy (2017), Anna Casas, Brendan Meyer, Christopher Cox, Comedy, Don't Look Away (2017), Drama, Hedonist (2012), High School, Horror, Katie Vincent, Michael J. Murphy, Miquel Vilar, Pregnancy, Prego (2015), Revenge, Reviews, Sexual pleasure, Short movies, Spain, Taso Mikroulis, Usher Morgan

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

Don’t Look Away (2017) / D: Christopher Cox / 8m

Cast: Sabrina Twyla, Danny Roy, Jim Marshall, Charlie McCarthy

Rating: 6/10 – Siblings Savannah (Twyla) and Jim (Roy) are squabbling as usual while they wait for their parents to arrive home. When Savannah looks out of her bedroom window she sees a strange man standing in the garden looking at her. The man is wearing a tattered black suit, and has a bag over his head that is wrapped in chains. When her father (Marshall) calls to say he’ll be late home, Savannah mentions the man. He immediately tells her not to look away, and to get her brother to lock all the doors. But not knowing all the rules puts Savannah in danger… A brisk, relatively effective horror short, Don’t Look Away starts well, but soon tapers off once Savannah inevitably looks away, and writer/director Cox finds himself attempting to explain the animus behind the strange man in the garden (referred to as The Creature in the credits). There’s the germ of a good idea here, and though it’s not anywhere near as scary as it should be, if Cox ever manages to expand on his basic premise, he has the potential to get another horror franchise icon off the ground.

Andy (2017) / D: Michael J. Murphy / 16m

Cast: Brendan Meyer, McKaley Miller, Madison Iseman, Tannaz Shastiri, Beejan Land, Seth Clarke, Tom Draper, Landon Merrell

Rating: 7/10 – After being harrassed and bullied throughout his high school years, Andy (Meyer) discovers that social media is the ideal way to get even. Not so much a cautionary tale – Andy uses his tormentors’ own forms of harrassment against them – but a revenge tale pure and simple, this is a well mounted and well constructed short that doesn’t play out as simply as expected. The basic set up has been seen a thousand times before, but Murphy’s third short plays a trump card in its depiction of high school queen Lia (Iseman). She and Andy used to be childhood friends but they’ve grown apart and now she’s popular and he’s not. There’s a point in the movie where she has a choice to make – and she doesn’t make the right choice. However, Murphy and co-screenwriter Emily Mattoon make it clear that it’s not a choice she wants to make. This makes Andy’s subsequent revenge just as terrible as the harrassment he’s suffered. Subtly done, this raises the material, and makes the ending far more ironic than expected.

Prego (2015) / D: Usher Morgan / 13m

Cast: Katie Vincent, Taso Mikroulis

Rating: 8/10 – A woman (Vincent) meets a man (Mikroulis) in a cafe and tells him that she’s pregnant with his child. His response isn’t what she wants to hear. A well written and very funny comedy short, Prego works as well as it does by taking an established (and somewhat stereotypical) situation and making the woman’s exasperation as amusing as the man’s witless comments and questions. The dialogue is sharp and to the point, and the performances are terrific, with Vincent convincing as the straight (wo)man to Mikroulis’ credulous man-child. Morgan shoots much of their exchange in close-up, placing strong emphasis on Vincent’s impressively blue eyes and Mikroulis’ ability to stare blankly but still to good purpose. The ending may be just a tad predictable, but otherwise this is winning stuff, unfussy, well put together, and backed by an apt and appealing soundtrack.

Hedonist (2012) / D: Miquel Vilar / 9m

Original title: Hedonista

Cast: Anna Casas, Frank Capdet, Jordi Pérez

Rating: 7/10 – A couple (Casas, Pérez) visit a man (Capdet) in his apartment in order for the wife to experience the kind of pleasure that she hasn’t had since she was a child, pleasure that the man cultivates in an unusual and, for the husband, disgusting way. A beguiling and intriguing exploration of an obscure form of sexual gratification, Hedonist is as much about the pursuit of that gratification as it is the power shifts in the relationship between the married couple. The husband is unhappy about being there and accuses his wife of not wanting to sleep with him. She dismisses his concerns as if they were trifles. The man offers advice and warnings, but the wife isn’t interested. Both men have only limited influence; the woman has taken charge. Vilar keeps the audience guessing until the end as to what exactly are the “specimens” the woman has come to “collect”, and in doing so he gives the impression this will develop into a horror short. And when the nature of the “specimens” is revealed, there are likely to be some viewers who will be in complete agreement that it has.

Mustang Island (2017)

14 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Comedy, Craig Elrod, Drama, John Merriman, Lee Eddy, Macon Blair, Relationships, Review, Romance, Texas

D: Craig Elrod / 86m

Cast: Macon Blair, Lee Eddy, John Merriman, Molly Karrasch, Jason Newman, Byron Brown, Haley Alea Erickson

In Mustang Island, the second feature from writer/director Craig Elrod, Bill (Blair) and his girlfriend Molly (Karrasch) break up on New Year’s Eve. Reduced to uncontrollable tears by this event, Bill crashes his car into a boat, breaks his arm and flees the scene before he’s arrested by the police. Later, he learns that Molly may have gone to her family’s place on Mustang Island. Rounding up his brother, John (Merriman), and John’s friend and co-worker Travis (Newman), the trio set off for the island with Bill intending to make things right with Molly. When they get there, the house is empty and there’s no sign that Molly has even been there. Bill decides to stay a while in the hope that Molly shows up, and John and Travis stay with him. At a local diner, John spies a waitress, Lee (Eddy), that he’s attracted to. But John is painfully shy and despite Bill’s attempts to bring them together, it soon becomes clear that Lee likes Bill instead of John. Bill finds that he has feelings for Lee as well, but as ever with Bill, there are problems to overcome…

Set on the real Mustang Island (which is located on the Gulf Coast of Texas), Elrod’s follow up to The Man from Orlando (2012) is a quirky, understated tale that relies heavily on nuance and tone in order to tell its simple yet engrossing story. Elrod’s script calls for dozens of moments where the camera lingers on a character’s face and the viewer is given the time to realise and understand what that character is feeling or thinking. It’s these quiet moments that are of the greatest importance, as the characters are not as articulate as they would like to be, and expressing their emotions is uncomfortable and scary for them. By focusing on their features and the range of expressions that play across them, Elrod and his talented cast ensure that the viewer is in no doubt as to what anyone is thinking or feeling. This allows for moments of sadness, heartbreak, vulnerability, and poignancy as the characters strive to make sense of their own feelings while trying not to hurt anyone else’s. It’s a subdued, reflective movie that offers hope amidst the setbacks experienced by its characters, and is shot through with a winning sense of humour, particularly in a diner scene where Bill thinks everyone is looking at him.

Headed by Blair, the main cast members offer impressive, detailed performances that are sincere and refreshingly unspoiled by notions of “acting”. Blair and Eddy are married in real life, and this adds a sensitivity to their portrayals that makes them all the more convincing. Merriman is one of the movie’s best assets, though, his solid, restrained performance a sheer pleasure to watch whenever he’s on screen, and his expressions of happiness and delight are to be treasured thanks to the childlike innocence they convey. The movie’s real trump card, however, is the decision to shoot in black and white. This adds another level of detail to Elrod’s already meticulously assembled screenplay, and the use of light and shade to complement the characters’ moods, emotions and desires, adds depth to all those aspects. And the movie is simply beautiful to look at, with as many striking compositions encompassing the island surroundings as there are devastating close-ups (especially the final one). It’s all rounded off by a well chosen soundtrack, and a warm and thoughtful score by first-timer Benjamin Prosser.

Rating: 8/10 – assembled with care and intelligence and a surfeit of confidence, Mustang Island is a beautifully observed romantic comedy drama that does justice to all those elements, and which has so much to offer viewers, it’s a stone’s throw from being embarrassing; Elrod and everyone else involved are to be congratulated for making a movie that is genuinely, unashamedly heartfelt in places, and unswervingly affectionate toward its delightful cast of characters.

NOTE: Surprisingly, there is no trailer available for Mustang Island.

Floating! (2015)

12 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Anna König, Comedy, Drama, Jakob Renger, Julia Becker, Julia C. Kaiser, Relationships, Review, Romance, Sperm donor

Original title: Das Floß!

D: Julia C. Kaiser / 86m

Cast: Julia Becker, Jakob Renger, Anna König, Till Butterbach, Rhon Diels, Christian Natter, Nina Bernards, Sina Bianca Hentschel

German movies haven’t really been too conspicuous in recent years. In the new millennium, and though the German movie industry has climbed out of the doldrums brought about by the rise in home viewing in the 1990’s, on the international stage, German movies have rarely made an impact. The arrival of Toni Erdmann (2016) was a much needed fillip for the industry, but for the movie buff who is prepared to do a little digging, there are other movies out there that are worth a look and a mention. One such movie is Floating!, the first feature of writer/director Julia C. Kaiser. The set up is a simple one: Katha (Becker) and Jana (König) have decided to get married and to have a child via artificial insemination. They’ve even chosen a sperm donor, called Momo (Renger). One weekend, both have their bachelor/bachelorette parties. Katha heads off to the countryside to meet her brother Tobi (Natter), her oldest friend Charly (Butterbach), and friend and work colleague, Ken (Diels), for a trip on a motorised raft. Jana meanwhile, stays at their flat and has several of her friends over. But unexpected guests at both parties – Momo at the raft, Jana’s ex-partner Susan (Bernards) at the flat – threaten to cause both women to question their relationship.

Floating! is exactly the kind of feature that’s needed to remind people that German movie makers can produce the same astute, enjoyable, and carefully crafted movies that their European counterparts can make. Focusing on the pre-marital doubts that could affect any couple, straight or gay, Kaiser’s gently probing script gives the us time to get to know the characters and understand enough of their back stories so that we can sympathise with the emotional issues that they find themselves facing. Katha, surrounded by males who all view her differently, finds herself wondering if there’s any merit in being straight (or at least finding out what it might be like). She’s comfortable with their bloke-ish camaraderie and easy-going behaviour. She even comes to appreciate Momo’s presence, even though she makes it clear he won’t have a role in the baby’s life. With copious amounts of alcohol to help confuse matters further, Katha becomes unsure of herself and her commitment to Jana. Meanwhile, Jana is shocked by the presence of Susan at her party, and though she does all the right things in trying to avoid her/get rid of her, when Susan explains why she’s there, Jana – who walked out of their relationship – begins to doubt the wisdom of her past actions. And she too finds herself torn between what she has and what she could have.

This being a romantic drama with suitable helpings of comedy to make it more agreeable, Floating! remains a consistently plausible and thoughtful examination of the natural doubts any couple might have before making that final commitment to each other. There’s a lightness of touch and emphasis in Kaiser’s direction that allows us to feel like we’ve known the characters all their lives, and the cast respond accordingly, giving natural, appealing performances that further enhance the sense that these are all people you could meet at any time, and anywhere. The dialogue is entirely natural sounding too, and very little feels forced or contrived. It’s all shot by DoP Dominik Berg using an autumnal colour palette that emphasises the possibility of change within the characters as well as the season, and Nicole Weber’s editing ensures that the pace of the movie is reflected in the bustle of Jana’s party and the laconic ease of the raft party.

Rating: 8/10 – a wry, sympathetic, and engaging look at love found and nearly lost, Floating! is a delightful movie anchored by finely balanced, intuitive performances, and Kaiser’s confident direction; one not only for fans of German cinema, but for anyone who wants to see a movie that tells its tale with an understated grace and in a very simple, yet very effective fashion.

NOTE: The trailer below doesn’t have English subtitles.

A Bad Idea Gone Wrong (2017)

07 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Comedy, Debut feature, Drama, Eleanore Pienta, Gated community, Jason Headley, Matt Jones, Review, Robbery, Will Rogers

D: Jason Headley / 81m

Cast: Matt Jones, Eleanore Pienta, Will Rogers, Jonny Mars, Jennymarie Jemison, Sam Eidson

In Jason Headley’s very amusing feature debut, he introduces us to Marlon (Jones) and Leo (Rogers) as they sit in a diner and discuss the various places they can rob. Right away we know that they aren’t the brightest of potential thieves as they’re sitting in a diner discussing their plans where anyone can hear them. They bat ideas back and forth before Leo announces that he’s found somewhere, a house where the owners will be away for a while, and that he knows how to get into. Marlon is surprised but willing to go along with Leo’s suggestion. That night, they put Leo’s plan into action. But the first of several obstacles they’ll face presents itself when Leo reveals that the house is part of a gated community. Still proving that their I.Q.’s are probably lower than their shoe sizes, the pair persuade a pizza delivery driver to let them hide in the trunk of his car and get onto the estate that way. That obstacle overcome, Leo uses the key he knows will be hidden outside to gain entry. But Marlon decides to play with the house alarm, and ends up arming it, leaving them trapped inside. Deciding to go ahead with the robbery and work out a solution to the alarm later, two things soon become very apparent indeed: one, Leo knows way too much about the house and its owners than he should, and two, they’re not alone…

A Bad Idea Gone Wrong is a comedy of errors that finds inventive yet credible ways in which to make things more and more difficult for its two protagonists, and the unexpected housesitter, Darcy (Pienta), they find upstairs in one of the bedrooms. Some of these problems are worse than others and some are more casually signposted by Headley, but they all conspire to make the movie an enjoyable romp and spin on the humble home invasion movie. By making Marlon and Leo less than brilliant in the planning and executing stakes, many of the obstacles they face are the result of their own incompetence, or more particularly, Leo holding back some hugely relevant information about the house they’re attempting to rob. Add in the complication of Darcy’s presence and the uneasy truce that they arrive at in attempting to solve all their issues – Darcy isn’t completely honest with Marlon and Leo; not at first, anyway – and you have a quirky, sometimes surreal comedy that is brisk, clever, and which features three very good performances from Jones, Pienta and Rogers.

Headley makes sure that all three characters are gifted with some very witty dialogue, and though we only get to know a few things about them – Marlon is obsessed with landing a big payday, Leo has ex-girlfriend issues, Darcy is shadier than she appears – within the confines of the house and the scenario, Headley is right not to give the audience too much in the way of back stories. The plot plays out smoothly, with each twist and turn feeling like a logical extension of the one that’s gone before, and by the time a community security guard (Mars) arrives on the scene, the movie has successfully and somewhat easily become such an enjoyable experience that a late injection of sentimentality – unnecessary but not surprising given the connections made between the trio – is unable to derail things. Headley mixes daft humour with broad farce to good effect and there’s a warmth towards the characters that allows for a great deal of sympathy for them and their predicament. It’s a lightweight concoction at times, but in a good way, and one that will have you smiling throughout and laughing out loud on more occasions than you’d expect.

Rating: 8/10 – a low budget indie comedy with smarts, A Bad Idea Gone Wrong has its own offbeat sensibility, and offers a reminder that more mainstream comedies can only dream that they could be this well put together; touching in places, absurdist in others, yet consistently amusing and appealing, it’s another of the many “unsung heroes” of 2017.

Lady Bird (2017)

31 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Comedy, Drama, Greta Gerwig, High School, Laurie Metcalf, Lucas Hedges, Mother/daughter relationship, Review, Sacramento, Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet, Tracy Letts

D: Greta Gerwig / 93m

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein, Lois Smith, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Odeya Rush, Jordan Rodrigues, Marielle Scott

Warm and inviting, actress Greta Gerwig’s debut as a writer/director is a coming of age tale that involves Christine McPherson (Ronan), a seventeen year old high schooler who lives in Sacramento with her parents, Marion (Metcalf) and Larry (Letts), her adopted older brother Miguel (Rodrigues) and his girlfriend, Shelly (Scott), and who prefers to be known by her given name (as in given to her by herself) of Lady Bird. Lady Bird is a senior student who is looking to swap what she views as the culturally barren West Coast for the more eclectic and intellectual East Coast when she graduates and heads off to college. Currently attending a Catholic high school, she feels and acts like an outsider, and aside from having one friend, Julie (Feldstein), doesn’t do much to combat this. When she and Julie decide to audition for the upcoming school musical though, she meets Danny (Hedges), and they begin dating.

But while she navigates the uncharted waters of her first romantic relationship, Lady Bird has other problems to deal with. Her father is in danger of losing his job, and increasing financial difficulties have left the family living – literally – on the wrong side of the tracks. Also, Lady Bird’s relationship with her mother is an adversarial one, with the two of them constantly arguing and battling against each other. Marion is painfully honest about her belief in Lady Bird’s ability to get into a good college, and rarely ever compliments her. Her father is more supportive, and between them, he and Lady Bird endeavour to get her on to a college Wait List. While she waits for a response, Lady Bird’s relationship with Danny stalls due to an unexpected development, and she drops Julie in favour of Jenna (Rush), a more popular girl in school. At the same time she meets Kyle (Chalamet), who’s a musician in a band. But Lady Bird soon finds that dropping one small set of friends for another doesn’t solve any of her self-perceived problems, and her fractious home life doesn’t improve either. In fact, events lead to it being quite the opposite…

The idea of actors or actresses deciding to step behind the camera is far from unusual, but writing and directing as a first choice, and on the first occasion, is a little rarer. It’s a tribute to Greta Gerwig’s efforts that Lady Bird is not only an accomplished first feature, but a movie that will bear up under repeated viewings. Coming of age movies are ten a penny these days, and the highs and lows of being a teenager have been the subject of so many movies that you could be forgiven for wondering if there is anything new to be said. And while this does remain the case, what Gerwig does that makes her movie so effective, and so good, is write convincing dialogue. There’s not one line that feels false or contrived or sounds clichéd, and with this so ably taken care of, the cast have no problem in sounding like real people, and the various interactions their characters have all have an air of authenticity, as if Gerwig has eavesdropped on actual conversations and recorded them verbatim. This also gives the movie a rhythm and a flow that allows the viewer to be drawn along in the characters’ wake, something that adds immeasurably to the enjoyment the movie provides. And with that enjoyment comes a hopefulness that everything will eventually work out well for everyone concerned.

Lady Bird herself is a terrific character, challenging and challenged at almost every turn, and behaving in contradictory fashion throughout, just as a regular teenager would be who was trying to work out their place in the world. She wants to be her own individual, independent and assured despite having only limited experience of relationships and the wider world – everything happening with her father comes as a surprise to her – and trying to do her best as long as she benefits most. Gerwig focuses on Lady Bird’s selfish behaviour with a precision that if it isn’t autobiographical then it means that she’s very, very observant. There are moments where sympathy for the character is deliberately withdrawn by Gerwig, but there are also moments that follow on where Lady Bird shows more self-awareness than before, and sympathy is restored accordingly. It’s all played out with great skill and directorial acumen, and Gerwig accurately captures the confusion and longing that goes with being seventeen and wanting to be loved by family, friends, and/or the opposite sex.

She’s aided by a tremendously assured performance from Ronan, an actress who seems to be getting better and better with every role. Ronan brings a versatility and an understanding of the character that is impressive for the consistency that she achieves in maintaining Lady Bird’s obdurate character. It’s an appealing, generous performance and has a sincerity about it that allows the viewer to overlook much of Lady Bird’s poor behaviour. As Lady Bird’s mother, Metcalf is also on tremendous form, channelling the pain and frustration Marion feels at where Life has brought her, and the additional pain that comes of finding herself unable to do anything about the emotional discord between herself and her daughter (though the reason why is perfectly encapsulated in a single line of dialogue). In support, Letts is tender and more approachable, Hedges is a flawed Prince Charming, Chalamet is the pretentious rebound boyfriend, and Feldstein shines as the best friend who’s kicked to the kerb out of social expediency.

For the most part, Lady Bird is a keenly observed drama, but Gerwig is able to infuse her tale with an abundance of humour that acts as a necessary counterpoint to the emotional trials and tribulations that her heroine faces. The humour is varied from scene to scene, but like the majority of Gerwig’s script is only included when it suits or supports the material; there are no easy laughs here. Gerwig also shows that she has a keen sense of the spaces that her characters inhabit. Lady Bird and Marion are often shot in close proximity to each other so as to highlight the closeness of their relationship, while her other relationships – the ones that aren’t so emotionally acute – are allowed greater room in which to play out. DoP Sam Levy does a terrific job in allowing Sacramento (with which Lady Bird has a love-hate relationship) to become a secondary character all its own, while Nick Huoy’s editing is perfectly in sync with the tempo of Gerwig’s screenplay and directing style. As first features go, Gerwig has made a formidable debut. If she has any other ideas for a movie, then let’s hope we get to see them real soon, because on this evidence, her career as an actress doesn’t have to be her only one.

Rating: 9/10 – modest in scope and presentation, but perfectly realised for all that, Lady Bird is a movie with a big heart, grander ambitions than expected, and the courage to attain them all; in making this movie so completely irresistible, Gerwig has put her indie colleagues on notice: there’s a new movie maker in town and worst of all, she knows exactly what she’s doing.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

28 Thursday Dec 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Comedy, Crime, Drama, Frances McDormand, Martin McDonagh, Murder, Review, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson

D: Martin McDonagh / 115m

Cast: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Caleb Landry Jones, Lucas Hedges, Abbie Cornish, Zeljko Ivanek, Sandy Martin, Clarke Peters, John Hawkes, Samara Weaving, Peter Dinklage, Kerry Condon

Every now and then – too rarely, perhaps – a movie comes along and just sucker punches the viewer, leaving them out of breath and wondering what the hell just happened, and was that a movie that did all that? Movies such as these often come out of nowhere, with minimal fanfare, but have the greatest impact. This year, there are two movies that fit that description. One is Sean Baker’s The Florida Project, and the other is Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Both movies have the ability to draw in the viewer within minutes of starting, and both movies have the ability to keep the viewer engaged and involved and wanting to know what happens next. Baker achieves this through his characters, while McDonagh achieves this through a complex narrative that never goes where you expect it to. Both movies are among the finest examples of modern day movie making that you’re ever likely to see. In short, they’re magnificent.

But before you begin to wonder if this is going to be a review of both movies, let’s step away from The Florida Project and focus fully on Three Billboards… It concerns a mother, Mildred Hayes (McDormand), whose teenage daughter, Angela, was killed in a particularly horrific way seven months before. The police investigation has stalled, and to Mildred’s mind they’ve stopped looking for her daughter’s killer. Unhappy with this, Mildred decides to make use of three unused billboards on the outskirts of town. She rents all three and uses them to bring the public’s attention to the fact that her daughter’s murder remains unsolved. The billboards prove divisive, and the local police, headed up by Chief William Willoughby (Harrelson), try to persuade Mildred to have the billboards taken down (well, they are pretty critical of the police, and the chief in particular). But Mildred remains resolute. The reaction(s) she seeks, however, aren’t exactly what she’d hoped, and as the billboards further fan the flames of division and animosity within the town, what transpires over the next few days is both surprising, and in some cases, life-changing.

First of all, this really isn’t going to go the way you expect. Be warned, McDonagh the writer is in cahoots with McDonagh the director, and both men want to keep you on the edge of your seat trying to work out what’s going to happen next. And this isn’t your bog standard, predictable murder mystery where suspects and red herrings and hidden clues are bandied about like house keys at a swingers party. This follows its own darkly comic path while also packing a strong dramatic punch or three when it needs to. It’s brave, it takes chances, it certainly doesn’t lack for confidence, and it features a trio of excellent performances. This is only McDonagh’s third feature after In Bruges (2008) and Seven Psychopaths (2012). Those movies are good, very good in fact, but this sees McDonagh stepping up several notches at once and showing a command of the medium that is hugely impressive. In 2012 he was quoted as saying, “…the amount of control for a playwright is almost infinite, so you have that control over the finished product. But in film, you’re the lowest form of life. So that was half of the job of directing, was not letting someone else come in and fuck it up.” He needn’t be worried anymore: Three Billboards… is almost perfectly realised, and is far and away one of the finest movies of 2017.

To reveal more of the plot and how it all plays out would be to spoil the movie completely for anyone coming to it fresh and without any advanced knowledge other than what can be guessed from the brief outline recorded above. But what can be expressed is the strength of the material over all, the precise way in which McDonagh introduces his characters and then takes them on journeys we and they could never expect, how easily McDonagh can change the tempo and the tone of a scene in seconds and still make it all feel organic, and all the while juggle themes of regret, anger, guilt, loss, and pride. This is also about revenge and the need for someone to be accountable (and if not the killer, then the police), and the way in which that anger can hollow out a person. And with all that, McDonagh still manages to include elements relating to racism, casual violence, anti-authoritarianism, self-pity, fate, spousal abuse, peer pressure, and blind chance. That it all fits together so well is yet another tribute to McDonagh’s expertise as a writer and a director.

He’s helped tremendously by the performances of McDormand, Harrelson, and Rockwell. McDormand is as fierce as we’ve ever seen her, commanding our attention in every scene, Mildred’s determination to follow her own path given sympathetic expression through her steely gaze and forthright opinions and sense of justice. She does things that challenge our sympathies, but McDormand never allows us to lose sight of the pain and anguish that Mildred is still experiencing after so long, and in doing so Mildred remains a singular character with a singular goal. As the chief of police, Harrelson gives one of his best performances, infusing the character with a mixture of remorse, hopefulness and resignation. It’s a thoughtful portrayal, one that allows Harrelson to show a more restrained, internal approach to the part, and one that provides one of the movie’s more emotionally compelling moments. And then there’s Rockwell, a wilful force of nature who acts like a whirlwind leaving a trail of devastation in his wake. It’s an unforgettable performance, brash, loud and unashamedly complex in its creation, and Rockwell walks a fine line between arrogance and childish insubordination as Dixon, a man with his own issues to deal with.

The rest of the characters, most of whom orbit around Mildred, Willoughby and Dixon, are all perfectly cast, and McDonagh doesn’t neglect them, instead making them all integral to the story, from Jones’s advertising manager who sticks to his guns when the police try to intimidate him into withdrawing Mildred’s “ads”, to Martin as Dixon’s mother, a wry, darkly humorous turn that explains much of why her son is the way he is. The humour is important here, as McDonagh uses it to diffuse the terrible tensions and horrific nature of much of the material, and to shade the various levels of grief and anger experienced by the characters. Again, it’s a terrific balancing act that McDonagh pulls off, and there are many moments where the viewer has no choice but to laugh out loud or face up to the tragedy that is continuing to unfold even after seven months. All this is beautifully photographed by DoP Ben Davis, carefully edited and assembled by John Gregory for maximum effect, and set to another quietly ambitious score by Carter Burwell. Quite simply, it’s a must-see movie.

Rating: 9/10 – heartbreaking, powerful, exquisite, emotionally perceptive, profane, unpredictable, and unapologetic in tone and ambition, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a masterpiece of modern movie making; a movie to be absorbed into and then released at the end with your heart pounding, it takes big risks and pulls off every single one of them, making this not just a triumph for its writer/director, but a wonderful, magnificent surprise for anyone who decides to engage with it.

Last Flag Flying (2017)

27 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Bryan Cranston, Comedy, Darryl Ponicsan, Drama, Ex-Marines, Funeral, Laurence Fishburne, Review, Richard Linklater, Road trip, Sequel, Steve Carell

D: Richard Linklater / 123m

Cast: Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne, Steve Carell, J. Quinton Johnson, Yul Vazquez, Deanna Reed-Foster, Cicely Tyson

A man walks into a bar… From this inauspicious beginning, writer/director Richard Linklater provides us with another unmissable movie that bristles with humour and thoughtfully constructed drama, and which introduces us to three of the most fully rounded characters you’ll meet all year (and in one movie to boot). Adapted from the novel of the same name by Darryl Ponicsan, this is a loose sequel to Ponicsan’s The Last Detail (1973) (which he also wrote the screenplay for), and features three ex-Marines, all former friends who have lost touch since coming home from Vietnam. There’s Sal (Cranston), a bar owner, Larry aka “Doc” (Carell), who still works in a civilian capacity for the Navy, and Mueller (Fishburne), who has since become a pastor. Larry is the man who walks into a bar, in order to ask for Sal’s help with something. They travel to the Mueller’s home, where Larry reveals that he would like the three of them to go to Washington. The reason? Larry’s son has recently been killed while on duty in Iraq. His body is on its way home to be buried in Arlington cemetery, and Larry would like his two old friends to help him.

And so begins a road trip that sees Larry defer much of what happens to Sal and the Mueller, animosities long forgotten dusted off and trotted out, the trio encountering insensitive bureaucracy, the Mueller being mistaken for a terrorist, some detours along the way, and their friendships withstanding the test of both time and their being together again after so long. The script also reflects on matters of grief, regret, guilt, doing the right thing, and persevering through emotional and physical anguish. It’s a movie with many layers, all dovetailing neatly together, and providing one of the most affecting experiences of 2017. Linklater and Ponicsan have made a movie that is about the basic humanity in all of us, and how it brings out the best in us, even when we’re not sure if what we’re doing is the right thing. All along, Larry believes that what he is doing is what is appropriate and correct. At first he’s happy for his son, Larry Jr, to be buried at Arlington; after all, he’s been told his son died a hero in a skirmish with insurgents. But when the truth is revealed, his feelings change. And when he’s confronted with a different point of view, his feelings are challenged and his point of view shifts again. The clever thing is, at no point is Larry wrong about how he feels or what decisions he makes.

If it’s a simple statement to make – that Life isn’t always simple or easy – it’s still an important one. Linklater and Ponicsan are on point here, and the way in which Larry’s deliberations affect both him and his friends infuses much of the interplay between the three characters. For much of the movie, Larry is reticent and appearing to be in a world all his own, as he might well be. Sal is the motor mouth, always ready to challenge authority, politics, religion, anything that he disagrees with (and there isn’t much that he doesn’t disagree with), while the Mueller, actually called Richard, is a mix of the two, thoughtful and contemplative thanks to his religious beliefs but also forthright and aggressive when he feels he needs to be. You can see how they would have been friends in Vietnam, and how they emerged from that period to become the people they are now. Their experiences back then are used to inform the characters they’ve become, and thanks to three very gifted performances, spending time with them is an absolute pleasure.

Cranston has the more showy role, talking non-stop, Sal getting the three friends into trouble deliberately or without even trying, but always making him sympathetic, someone you can see is just trying to do their best in any given situation. The actor is on rare form here, judging the mercurial aspects of the role perfectly, and also showing a more reflective side to Sal that helps make the broader tones of his portrayal that much more believable. Fishburne is, in some ways, our way in to the characters, his quiet, brooding presence more reactive than passive, and despite the Mueller’s continued reluctance to be making this extended trip (nothing quite goes according to plan – as you might expect). It’s a role that also serves to remind us of what a terrific actor Fishburne is when given the right script, the right character, and he’s encouraged by the right director. And then there’s Carell as the distant, heartbroken Larry, his emotions pushed and pulled in opposing directions, and never quite sure if he’s in the moment or merely watching it all from a distance. Like his co-stars’ it’s a perfectly pitched performance, sincere, honest and entirely credible, and when his feelings do break through, all those tempered emotions mentioned before – grief, guilt etc – come flooding through and it’s almost overwhelming, for him and for the viewer.

Of course, this being a Richard Linklater movie, it’s not all doom and gloom or a completely depressing drama. The movie is infused with a dark, satirical kind of humour that offsets the heavy lifting the script does elsewhere. Sal provides much of the verbal comedy, his quick-fire retorts and pithy observations leavening the serious nature of the material, while there are a handful of visual gags, usually juxtapositions, that pop up here and there to good effect. And then there is a scene in the baggage car of a train where reminiscences and regrets come together to form one of the movie’s most engaging and humorous moments. Line by line, and minute by minute, this is the part of the movie that highlights the true spirit of friendship that exists between the three friends, and which is perhaps one of the funniest scenes you’ll see all year (even if you don’t see this until 2018). It’s also a point in the movie that is very much needed in terms of lightening the load, and it’s perfectly executed by all concerned.

That said, there a few caveats to be made, mostly in the form of certain scenes that prove superfluous, such as one involving Yul Vazquez’s oily, dislikeable Colonel where he vents his anger at the lack of respect shown to him by Sal in particular, and a side trip to visit the mother of a fellow Marine whose death wasn’t as heroic as she believes. This is one of the movie’s main thrusts, whether the truth should be told on every occasion or are there times when a lie is justified. Quite rightly, the movie errs on the side of “depending on the situation”, but it’s a valid question and one that is ripe for debate within the movie’s own context. And the movie ends on a sentimental note that, while providing Larry with a sense of closure, is at odds with the ambiguous nature of much of the material in relation to his son’s burial. It doesn’t quite ruin the movie – it would take something much more momentous than that – but as a way to finish things off feels more contrived than anything else seen or heard up to that point.

Rating: 8/10 – some judicious trimming would have made this a 9/10 easily, but this is still a terrific movie that deserves to be seen by as many people as possible; with humour, poignancy, wonderful performances, and often beautiful cinematography from Shane F. Kelly, Last Flag Flying tackles its themes with intelligence and wit and style and huge amounts of unashamed humanity, making this another Richard Linklater movie that steals both our hearts and our minds.

Mayhem (2017)

21 Thursday Dec 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Comedy, Drama, Horror, ID7 Strain, Joe Lynch, Kerry Fox, Quarantine, Review, Samara Weaving, Steven Brand, Steven Yeun, Thriller, Towers & Smythe Consulting

D: Joe Lynch / 87m

Cast: Steven Yeun, Samara Weaving, Steven Brand, Caroline Chikezie, Kerry Fox, Dallas Roberts, Mark Frost, Claire Dellamar, André Eriksen, Nikola Kent, Lucy Chappell, Olja Hrustic

Multi-hyphenate Joe Lynch has come a long way since Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007), his debut as a director. Knights of Badassdom (2013) was a mess that at least confirmed Lynch had promise (if he had the right material to work with), while Everly (2014) was an over-the-top action fest that showed Lynch was indeed learning his craft, and becoming increasingly more confident. And now, with his latest movie, Lynch displays an even greater confidence, and makes his most polished feature so far. It’s a darkly humorous, splatter-infused second cousin to The Belko Experiment (2016), but where that was a terrible attempt at creating an old-fashioned exploitation flick, Mayhem is an old-fashioned exploitation flick, and one that is far more successful in both its aims and its achievements.

The McGuffin of the movie is a virus, the ID7 Strain, a nasty little bugger that causes people to throw caution, responsibility and morality out of the window, and indulge in whatever hidden desires they’ve held back from carrying out in the past. ID7 means self-control is anathema to the infected, and be it lust, greed, violence, or a mix of all three, those afflicted will ignore any calls for restraint. Thankfully, an antidote has been found, but the company that created the virus, Towers & Smythe Consulting, is about to fall victim to a very bad case of schadenfreude: their corporate headquarters is about to be put into quarantine because of an outbreak in the building. It will take eight hours for the antidote to reverse the effects of the virus; until then it’s every man and woman for themselves. Two of the infected – executive Derek Cho (Yeun), who has been set up as a patsy for one of his colleagues’ malpractice and then fired, and Melanie Cross (Weaving), a victim of one of T&SC’s sharp practices – find themselves teaming up and using a legal loophole (no one affected by the virus can be arrested or tried for any crimes they commit while suffering from ID7) to fight their way to the top floor and “persuade” the company’s board of directors to give Derek his job back, and allow Melanie to keep her home.

Of course, the path to the top floor is paved with numerous obstacles and murderous intentions, as the company’s head honcho, coke-snorting, golf club-wielding John Towers (Brand), takes offence to Derek wanting his job back, and takes even further offence when Derek starts leaking company secrets. With both Derek and Towers determined to use the eight hour quarantine period to advance their own agendas, the stage is set for a bloody boardroom showdown and a number of violent “dismissals” along the way. As Derek and Melanie fight their way up the building using an assortment of tools including a nail gun and a wrench, they find themselves facing the likes of the Reaper (Roberts), an HR executive who does the firing, the Siren (Chikezie), Derek’s rival and the colleague who got him fired, and the Bull (Eriksen), Towers’ head of security.

It’s all good, propulsive stuff, violent and preposterous, clever and absurd, and bearing absolutely no resemblance to anything that’s even remotely credible – at any stage. By creating the legal loophole whereby anything goes and no one is responsible for their actions (a la The Purge series), Mayhem ensures that any criticism of what takes place is fruitless, and that only the more extreme moments, such as when Derek is stabbed through the hand with a pair of scissors and shrugs it off for the rest of the movie, can be called into question. With Lynch and co given free rein thanks to Matias Caruso’s knowing screenplay, the movie embraces its exploitation roots and allows itself to throw narrative caution to the wind in its efforts to provide thrills, gore, action, comedy, and blunt force drama. There’s enough blood spilt here to keep the cleaners mopping up for days. And Lynch orchestrates it all with the glee of someone getting to play at being sadistic while also keeping their tongue firmly in their cheek. The violence may be bloody and raw on occasion, but it’s leavened by a cruel sense of humour at the same time, and there are moments when the viewer won’t know whether to wince or laugh or both.

There’s also a fair and pleasing dose of corporate satire at play here, as the script pokes fun at the culture of ladder climbing at all costs that exists in modern US buinesses (and elsewhere in the world, no doubt). Derek is seen when he first comes to work for T&SC and he’s a naïve, hopeful individual whose experiences soon make him more callous and dismissive of others. He retains an innate sense of justice but outwardly and for the most part he’s just as much a jerk as the rest of his colleagues. Yuen plays him to perfection, channelling Derek’s anger at being fired and using it as a way to control the virus in his system. Likewise, Weaving does the same with Melanie, only allowing her to cut loose when needing to take someone down (and/or out). Both actors are clearly having fun with their roles and this transfers itself well to the viewer, who will be on their side and willing them on at every turn. Against this, Brand is a terrific villain: vain, arrogant, and getting through mounds of cocaine like a pig in a trough.

Elsewhere, Fox provides another exemplary portrayal as the Smythe in T&SC, there’s a lovely moment where Derek and Melanie pause to debate the merits of the Dave Matthews Band, and viewers should keep one eye focused on what’s going on in the background in certain scenes. The movie has a good pace, takes an adequate amount of time to introduce its central characters, maintains a good narrative structure, mounts several good action scenes, includes several unexpected pop culture references, and makes the very most of its limited budget. It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s far better than most exploitation flicks out there these days and it’s immensely likeable, with strong characters and Lynch’s (by now) trademark rock ‘n’ roll sensibility urging it along. For fans of this sort of thing it will feel like a welcome breath of fresh air, and for others it should prove to be far more enjoyable than expected. Either way, this is a movie whose spiky energy should be welcomed and applauded.

Rating: 8/10 – with several plusses – Yuen in a starring role and corporate culture being skewered left, right and centre (to name just a couple) – Mayhem sets out its stall early on in a bravura pre-credits scene, and doesn’t let up once the ID7 Strain makes its presence felt; a popcorn movie it may be, but this has much more than that to recommend it, and by confidently mixing its genres, makes itself all the more praiseworthy, and well worth seeking out.

Daddy’s Home Two (2017)

19 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Comedy, Fathers, John Lithgow, Mark Wahlberg, Mel Gibson, Review, Sean Anders, Sequel, Will Ferrell, Xmas

D: Sean Anders / 100m

Cast: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Mel Gibson, John Lithgow, Linda Cardellini, Alessandra Ambrosio, Owen Vaccaro, Scarlett Estevez, Didi Costine, John Cena

Is it only two years since we were “treated” to Daddy’s Home (2015), the lacklustre real dad versus step-dad movie that was banal and uninspired except on a handful of occasions (bet you can’t name any of them now, though)? Well, the sad answer is yes, it is, and if this entirely expected (but unnecessary) sequel achieves anything, then it’s being blander and less funny than its predecessor. It’s actually quite impressive: the lengths to which the makers of Daddy’s Home Two have gone to ensure this sequel is a snoozefest on an epic level. This is a movie that makes the original look and sound like a multi-award winning cult classic. It’s also one of the dreariest movies to come along in a very long while. If you manage to get through this from start to finish, give yourself a pat on the back and a gold star.

Deciding that making a sequel means bringing in bigger names to bolster the cast, this has somehow managed to attract the likes of Mel Gibson, John Lithgow, and most bizarrely of all, Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger, the pilot responsible for the 2009 Miracle on the Hudson plane landing. There are always projects where you wonder if anyone read a finished script before shooting began, and what appears to be obvious here is that if they did they didn’t worry about the lack of laughs, the terrible dialogue, the predictable arc of the story, or the OTT feelgood ending that sees most of the main cast “singing” Do They Know It’s Christmas by Band Aid (why? Don’t ask). Comedy sequels usually aim higher, bigger, broader, or sometimes opt to be more extreme. However, this is a comedy sequel that eschews all that and goes all out to be the cinematic equivalent of beige; as a result, it’s unrelentingly tedious. The movie lasts for one hundred minutes but watching it feels like it takes twice as long.

The main problem is that the script – by director Sean Anders and John Morris – doesn’t have a purpose other than to make the audience wait until Gibson’s horny old goat, Kurt, finally succumbs to the idea of peace and goodwill to all men and kisses his son, Dusty (Wahlberg), on the mouth (and yes, you are reading that right). Before then, the movie takes an age to undermine the friendship and mutual understanding that was established between Dusty and Brad (Ferrell) in the first movie, and only around the hour mark does it finally pit them against each other. Cue lots of moody looks between the two characters, and both of them engaging in the kind of low-key antagonism that is best expressed by Brad’s fake-pumping a snowball throw: there’s a minimum of intent and no follow through. Throughout, Dusty tells Brad that Kurt is looking to undermine their co-dad status, and while Kurt is certainly dismissive of their friendship – and questions their masculinity at every opportunity – again there’s more intent than action. This is a sequel that talks a lot about what’s going to happen, and what did happen, but has a hard time focusing on the present.

As a comedy, it relies on a series of pratfalls that happen to Don (Lithgow), Brad’s father, and Brad himself; a number of uninspired one-liners; the blossoming attraction of pre-teen Dylan (Vaccaro) for his pre-teen step-sister, Adrianna (Costine); and… that’s about it. There are an awful lot of scenes that occur purely in order to set up the next scene, and then that scene sets up the next scene, and so on, until finally a scene comes along that has a specific purpose. By then, however, any sense that the script knows what it’s doing, or that Anders has any intention of loading the movie with any appreciable energy, is long gone, and as the movie drags itself along like a sick animal looking for a place to curl up and die, any sympathy that arises is entirely for the viewer, and not for the cast and crew who took part in it. They should have known better. (And it all takes place at Xmas, for no better reason than to provide an excuse for Kurt and Don to be involved, as if family get-togethers don’t happen at any other time of year.)

In the end, it’s a lazy movie with lazy performances and a hazy sense of its own quality. Ferrell has made too many similar “comedies” for anyone to be surprised at his involvement, while Wahlberg keeps everything on the same level throughout. Their performances are as perfunctory as possible, and they’re encouraged by Anders’ desultory approach to directing; going through the motions is all that’s required of them. Gibson is hamstrung by his character’s one-note attitude to parenting, while Lithgow’s dad-with-a-secret tries for pathos in one scene but is let down by the comic shifts that occur right alongside his tragic reveal. Cardellini and Ambrosio are the token women putting up with Brad and Dusty’s shenanigans, and with barely a word of protest (hey, whatever happened to strong female characters in comedies?), while the child actors are used for maximum cuteness, something that soon wears thin.

Forbearance is a wonderful thing, and so is patience, but if you absolutely have to see Daddy’s Home Two, then be prepared to wait around for long stretches for anything to have an impact, or provide a genuine laugh, or provide you with anything that will make the experience worthwhile. If this is the best that everyone can do, then it’s a further damning example of the parlous state of mainstream movie making in America today. With a budget of $69 million, it’s hard to work out where the money was spent, but easy enough to see why it was greenlit in the first place. That doesn’t excuse the poor quality of the script, though, or the lack of commitment from all concerned, all of which makes the movie not just a disappointment but a dire retread of themes and ideas that have been done to death already. You could argue that a movie like this one isn’t expected to be great, or a must-see, but with the talent involved it is reasonable to expect a greater effort made in making the movie as good as can be. That it doesn’t look like anyone could be bothered is both appalling and, worse, unsurprising.

Rating: 3/10 – sequels are an easy source of revenue (this has already made its money back and more), but they needn’t be an excuse for a shoddy finished product; Daddy’s Home Two is both of those things, and is also laboured, boring, unimaginative, and a slap in the face to viewers hoping to be entertained, something this movie gives up on with alacrity.

Pottersville (2017)

16 Saturday Dec 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bigfoot, Comedy, Drama, Furries, Ian McShane, Judy Greer, Michael Shannon, Monster Finder, Review, Ron Perlman, Seth Henrikson, Thomas Lennon

D: Seth Henrikson / 85m

Cast: Michael Shannon, Judy Greer, Ron Perlman, Thomas Lennon, Ian McShane, Christina Hendricks, Michael Torpey, Debargo Sandal, Greta Lee

In the same way that most music artists are seemingly contractually bound to release a Xmas album (or at the least, a single), the same appears to apply to actors as well. This is the only way to explain the existence of Pottersville, a movie that features a well-known and very capable cast literally going through the motions right before our eyes. It’s a movie that will encourage viewers to have one too many glasses of Xmas punch, or perhaps wish they could choke on a mince pie while they’re watching it. It’s not even so bad it’s good; in fact, it’s just plain awful. So what on earth could have attracted said cast to the project in the first place? And why did two of them jump on board as producers? (Perlman is a co-producer, while Shannon is one of several executive producers – along with Patricia Hearst, which is still a weird notion even after all this time.) Surely they had some degree of confidence in the script, some idea that this could be a traditional heart-warming tale for children and adults alike? Didn’t they?

Well, if they didn’t, then the final product – directed by relative newbie Henrikson from a script by feature debut screenwriter, Daniel Meyer – must have come as quite a surprise. For while this looks very much like a Xmas movie at first glance, and while there’s plenty of snow around, and the wintry feel lends itself to being a Xmas movie, Pottersville isn’t set at Xmas, there aren’t any Xmas trees or decorations in sight, no one dresses up as Santa, and nobody has a tragic Xmas tale to tell a la Gremlins (1984). It’s all so misleading, especially when the poster supports the idea that this is a Xmas movie, and features various Xmas trees and twinkly lights (and as for Lennon sporting Santa’s headgear, let’s not even go there). But while this isn’t a Xmas movie per se, it’s certainly feeding off the hope that viewers will begin watching it as such and wll be sucked in by the movie’s snowy mise en scene, but by the time they work out that they’ve been duped, the audience will have been exposed for too long to the movie’s daft sensibilities and ham-fisted attempts at providing the kind of generous helpings of down-home folksy wisdom that would make a reindeer choke and Santa blush with embarrassment.

When it’s not being a Xmas movie – which is still all the way through – Pottersville is content to disturb the spirit of Xmas Past and rehash key elements from a proper Xmas movie: It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). Alas, it’s a telling distinction, as Shannon’s main character, general store owner Maynard Greiger, is no George Bailey, and despite Shannon’s obvious skill as an actor, here he’s no James Stewart either. Financial matters, though, are to the fore as the struggling town of Pottersville faces an uncertain future thanks to an economic downturn. There are more stores that are closed than open, and Maynard is the kind of philanthropic individual who’ll happily let someone off their bill if they’re having difficulty finding the money. With only one employee, Parker (Greer), it’s hard to work out how he’s managed to stay open, but he seems happy enough (if a little resigned to following in the foreclosed footsteps of his main street neighbours). A chance discovery that his wife is a Furry, and that his long-time friend and town sheriff, Jack (Perlman) is too, leads Maynard to get drunk and put on a Sasquatch outfit in a moment of alcoholic “insight”. He roams the town at night, is seen by too many short-sighted townsfolk, and soon discovers that his drunken behaviour has led to everyone believing that Bigfoot is alive and well and living in the woods outside of town.

With “Bigfoot” attracting media attention, Pottersville is soon inundated with people hoping to catch sight of the hairy fella, and the residents are only too happy to help relieve said people of their money, offering Bigfoot related merchandise and the like. Maynard sees the turnaround in the town’s fortunes and decides to keep quiet about what he did, and even provide the odd extra sighting from time to time. But there’s a fly in the ointment, in the shape of reality TV presenter, Brock Masterson (Lennon). Masterson arrives in town with his Australian accent and bored entourage, and promises to catch Bigfoot live on his show, Monster Finder. His initial attempts though, are unsuccessful – surprise, surprise – but when he accepts the help of local tracker and hunter, Bart (McShane), Maynard’s secret is placed in jeopardy, and so is the town’s renaissance.

From the obvious references to It’s a Wonderful Life, to a scene that rips off Quint’s “you know me” speech in Jaws (1975), Pottersville lurches from one lapse in artistic judgment to another, and leaves its cast reeling in its wake. Rarely have so many talented actors looked so bemused or bewildered by what they’re being asked to do, and Meyer’s script proves of no assistance to them whatsoever. Probably best described as a broad comedy, this is cringeworthy stuff that many of the cast may well leave off their resumés in the future. Most of the movie’s “humour” is meant to come from the vain, cowardly antics of Lennon’s TV host, but he’s just tiresome from very early on, and irritating in a way that makes you want to reach through the screen and slap him. That he’s allowed so much screen time is one of the worst decisions the movie makes, and it’s right up there with its crude use of Furries – people who like to dress up in furry, anthropomorphic animal costumes – who at one point conveniently meet up in the woods for no apparent reason that anyone can think of. (If anyone in the Furry community is reading this, please be quick and get a documentary made about yourselves; don’t let this be the main representation of your lifestyle on screen.)

While there are some occasional moments when it seems as if the movie is going to break free of the heavy chains created out of Meyer’s poorly constructed (and hopelessly contrived) script, and Henrikson’s laboured direction, the movie shuts those moments down with a crash and its business as usual. There is a kind of perverse enjoyment to be had from watching such a bad movie, but the feeling rarely lasts for more than a minute, and the cast don’t seem able (or willing) to fight their way out from under. Shannon is under-used and left to look thoughtful for much of the movie, while Lennon portrays Masterson like a twelve-year-old going through atomoxetine withdrawal. Perlman and Greer fulfill their contractual obligations, Hendricks gets to spend a fair bit of time in a bunny costume, and McShane is perhaps the most “game” of all, but even he’s struggling, and when someone with McShane’s talent can be seen to be struggling, then it’s all you need to know.

Rating: 3/10 – like an evil Xmas present left out for the one kid on Santa’s Naughty List, Pottersville is appalling yet brief, far-fetched to the point of infinity, and not really worth anyone’s time – even fans of the cast; such a conspicuous waste of time and effort isn’t seen very often, and this is one of those occasions when it seems only WTF? will do as a response, but beware: you’ll be saying WTF? so many times it’ll be exhausting.

Death Race 2050 (2017)

07 Thursday Dec 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Comedy, Drama, Frankenstein, G.J. Echternkamp, Malcolm McDowell, Manu Bennett, Marci Miller, Political commentary, Review, Roger Corman, Sequel, Thriller, United Corporations of America

D: G.J. Echternkamp / 93m

Cast: Manu Bennett, Malcolm McDowell, Marci Miller, Burt Grinstead, Folake Olowofoyeku, Anessa Ramsey, Yancy Butler, Charlie Farrell, Shanna Olson, Leslie Shaw

Ah, Roger Corman. Yes, he’s a legend in the movie business, and yes, he’s made some lowest-common-denominator movies over the years, but he’s still highly regarded and his movies still continue to make money (which isn’t difficult as he still doesn’t spend very much on them). But Corman, for all his skill at getting movies made cheaply – and whether he’s directing and/or producing – doesn’t always get it right. For every House of Usher (1960), there’s a Supergator (2007), and for every Piranha (1978), there’s an Escape from Afghanistan (2001). And now you can add, for every Death Race 2000 (1975), there’s a Death Race 2050. A direct sequel to the original movie, Death Race 2050 ignores the three movies made by Universal between 2008 and 2013. Although those movies suffered a serious decline in quality by the third outing (or arguably the second), the move to revisit the milieu created for the David Carradine-starring original came from Corman himself, who felt that what was missing from the Universal movies was the political commentary.

Fair enough, you may think. Political commentary usually worked for George A. Romero, then why shouldn’t it work for Corman? The answer to that question is sharply illustrated when the viewer gets their first glimpse of Malcolm McDowell as the movie’s über-villain, the Chairman. With his floating, white-haired pompadour and “I’m in charge” attitude – and not to mention being surrounded by sycophants – it isn’t hard to think who Corman might be using as the inspiration for the Chairman. But aside from having America renamed as the United Corporations of America, that’s the full extent of any attempts at providing any political commentary or subtext. So with that out of the way, what else do we have? Surely there are some terrific action sequences involving uniquely designed muscle cars, and a wealth of pedestrian kills that are both gory and funny at the same time? And what about a group of weird and wild drivers all out to win the race and dispose of returning champion Frankenstein (Bennett)? Well, no; kind of; nearly; and sometimes. (It’s that kind of movie.)

Sadly, but perhaps predictably, whatever sense of originality or invention was intended to be part of the movie’s make up, has been ruthlessly excised in favour of a succession of appallingly directed, acted, shot, edited and scored scenes that aim for the darkly humorous tone of the original but which miss the mark by such a wide margin that you begin to wonder if it’s all deliberate (it’s the only answer that makes any sense). This is an extremely dispiriting sequel: crass, idiotic, banal, stupid, half-baked, laughable, nonsensical, hackneyed, trite, ludicrous – the list goes on and on. It’s almost as if the makers have taken a cursory glance at the original, made a few notes as to its content, and then decided that the best way to honour it is to make a sequel that trashes the original’s legacy, and in the most derogatory way possible.

From McDowell’s turn as the Chairman – replete with nods to his role in Caligula (1979) – to the decision to have Frankenstein remove his mask once the race gets under way, and to the inclusion of a group of rebels hellbent on disrupting the race for their own inane agenda, the movie flits from one ridiculous idea or set-piece to another with faint regard for its own skewed internal logic, or any interest in maintaining continuity. Almost all the interior scenes of the racers are shot in picture cars, while any scenes where the cars are seen in long shot are either speeded up or so poorly framed that any intended sense of urgency or excitement is over before it’s begun. Death Race 2050 may have been made on a shoestring budget, but watching it is like being privy to a rough cut of a movie and then finding out that the post-production funds have run out already.

The script – such as it is – is the work of director G.J. Echternkamp and Matt Yamashita. If any congratulations can be afforded them, it’s that between them they’ve managed to concoct a story that makes no sense, and which seems to have been stitched together from a variety of unremarkable sources. To mention all the areas where they’ve undermined their own narrative, or provided grist for the mill of their own incompetence would see this review double in length. But it’s with the dialogue that they’ve truly excelled themselves, coming up with such gems as, “Why did those pilgrims land on Plymouth Rock? Because they needed a place to stage the greatest pissing contest known to Man”, and “I’ll drink your tears, Frankenstein. I’ll lick them off your handsome face.” There are more, and almost all of them are likely to induce groans or slapped foreheads. The cast struggle (it’s the only thing they can do) against all of this, and even stalwarts of this kind of thing such as McDowell and Butler can’t do anything to make much of a difference. The characters all strive for relevance even within the fractured nature of the narrative, but ultimately they’re all hollow constructs whose fate is to be inter-changeable with each other – and even then not that successfully.

With the odds stacked so highly against it, the movie pivots from one ill-considered plot development to another, and relies on exposition-heavy scenes to fill in the gaps created by the script’s willingness to change tack at the slightest provocation. It looks tacky, and the visual design of the movie serves only to reinforce the idea that there was very little money available to get it made. As mentioned above, this is an appallingly assembled movie that becomes more and more depressing to watch the longer it goes on. If this really is the best sequel to Death Race 2000 that Roger Corman could come up with, then perhaps it would have been better to have left well alone and made something more distinctive or singular. As it is, we have this instead, a terrible farrago of a movie that is hard to defend both artistically and commercially.

Rating: 2/10 – a leaden, dreadful, uninspired movie that aims so low that it’s hard to work out what its aims actually are (aside from ripping off The Hunger Games as often as it can), Death Race 2050 is an insult to its predecessor, and easily qualifies as one of the very worst movies of 2017; low budget doesn’t have to mean poor quality, but this is one movie where any care or attention due to the project seems to have been jettisoned on day one as being completely unnecessary.

Hickey (2016)

06 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Alex Grossman, Comedy, Cy's Auto Sound and Stereo, Drama, Flavia Watson, Indie movie, Review, Romance, Troy Doherty, Zedrick Restauro

D: Alex Grossman / 80m

Cast: Troy Doherty, Flavia Watson, Zedrick Restauro, Raychel Diane Weiner, Alex Ashbaugh, Ross Mackenzie, Tommy “Tiny” Lister, Janie Haddad Tompkins, Nicholas Azarian, Danny Chambers, Herb Isaacs

Low-budget independent movies have been with us since the beginning of cinema itself, and have ranged from cheap and nasty horrors to poorly imagined sci-fi movies, and that glorious institution, the teen comedy. Some of these movies have managed to transcend their restrictive budgets and become successful – The Blair Witch Project (1999) is perhaps the best example – but most receive a fleeting moment in the spotlight before fading into obscurity, or appearing at odd hours of the night on cable or satellite channels that most people don’t even know are transmitting. The casts and crews that make these movies are often doing it for experience, the outside chance of being in a bona fide hit (or festival darling), or for the love of it (and sometimes all three). Whatever the reasons, there are thousands of these low-budget features made every year. And for any of them to stand out from the crowd, they’ve got to have something that most, if not all, the others don’t have.

In the case of Alex Grossman’s first feature, which was made for under $200,000, that something isn’t too easy to define. His tale is a fairly simple one: boy loves girl, girl doesn’t know, boy faces losing girl, boy comes up with risky scheme to keep her around until he plucks up the courage to tell her he loves her. Here, the boy is Ryan (Doherty), a bit of a maths whizz who works at Cy’s Auto Sound and Stereo alongside the girl he’s fallen in love with, Carly (Watson). Ryan is a few months away from going to MIT, but a far more pressing and urgent matter prompts Ryan into speeding up his efforts to make his feelings known. The store is marked for closure for failing to meet its sales targets, but undeterred by this, Ryan arranges for the store to have a massive one-day sale to help a) show that the store is still viable, and b) give him the opportunity to confess his attraction to Carly. Aided by his colleague and friend, Jeremy (Restauro), Ryan sets about saving the store, and his potential future relationship with Carly. But, of course, there are more than a few obstacles along the way, including regional manager Brady (Ashbaugh), and the news that he and Carly once dated…

Written and directed by Grossman, Hickey is a confident, freewheeling mix of comedy, drama and romance that is appealing and likeable, while not exactly reinventing the wheel. The movie is a collection of stock characters and situations that sometimes border on being clichés, but thanks to a combination of Grossman’s direction and his cast’s enthusiasm, the movie doesn’t suffer too much even though there are glaring moments where originality clearly wasn’t the order of the day. Thankfully, these moments don’t detract from the overall enjoyment to be had from watching Ryan and his often humorous efforts to save the store, and the romantic longueurs that pepper the script on various occasions. But be warned: there are points in the story where the momentum that Grossman has built up grinds to a halt, and the movie teeters on the brink of losing the viewer’s interest. This seems to be as much about Grossman’s inexperience in directing features – he was a commercials director before this – as it is about the way he’s structured the material over its eighty minute runtime. But again, there’s more here that works than doesn’t.

The milieu will be familiar to most viewers – a band of quirky underachievers take on a seemingly hopeless situation – but this is one of those movies where the visual and character shorthand that comes with it, makes the viewing experience all the more enjoyable. There aren’t too many moments where you’ll find yourself laughing out loud (wry smiles would seem to be more appropriate), and the drama of the looming store closure never really feels like it’s locked in as solidly as it should be, but Grossman scores highly with his characters. Ryan is the romantically awkward, gawky teenager whose heart is in the right place but whose confidence with the opposite sex is hiding right behind it, and terrified to come out. Carly is the seemingly carefree love interest who can see past Ryan’s gauche behaviour and nerdish looks and who will, inevitably, realise she loves him too. The supporting characters are (largely) well integrated into the narrative, with Jeremy’s prickly, occasionally inappropriate behaviour allowed to stand out because of his connection to Ryan. The only character who doesn’t ring true is Brady, the erstwhile villain of the piece whose demeanour feels cartoonish and forced.

In telling his somewhat lightweight story, Grossman at least ensures that the viewer remains invested in what’s going to happen next, even if some of the plot developments come across as laboured. There are times throughout when it’s clear that Grossman is striving for more than his budgetary constraints will allow him, but it’s all in service to the material, and in trying to make the movie as good as possible. Where some movie makers settle for what they can achieve without making that extra effort to improve things, Hickey‘s creator is at least aiming for more. That he’s not always successful is a shame, as the movie has a lot of heart and a clutch of winning characters. A more polished script would have helped too, but it’s still hard to knock a movie that’s clearly trying, and which doesn’t want to disappoint its audience too much or too often.

In the end, Hickey is a likeable movie that won’t make much of an impact, and which is likely to fall into that category of unfortunate features that people discover by accident while channel hopping, or trawling through the movies available on Netflix or Amazon Prime. It’s not obscurity as such, but it is a sad fate for many movies, though Hickey doesn’t deserve it. With its amiable approach, and wistful romantic idealism at the forefront of the narrative, the movie is another example of what can be achieved on a very low budget indeed. Seamus Tierney’s cinematography is a bonus, his framing and use of medium shots often adding to the emotion of a scene, and there’s a wonderful score by Gregory Reeves that complements the material without being unnecessarily intrusive. In assembling his first feature, Grossman is to be congratulated for doing so well, even if he’s not been able to overcome some of the more obvious drawbacks.

Rating: 6/10 – a movie that shows promise in terms of where its writer/director’s career is heading, Hickey is a teen comedy/romance/drama that makes great efforts to stand out from the crowd, and avoid being labelled “so-so”; with good performances from its (mostly) young cast, it’s a sweet-natured, agreeable movie that may not garner a huge following, but which should still attract viewers that will appreciate its modest charms.

And Punching the Clown (2016)

01 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Comedy, Ellen Ratner, Gregori Viens, Henry Phillips, J.K. Simmons, Musician, Review, Sequel, Singer/songwriter, Tig Notaro

aka Punching Henry

D: Gregori Viens / 94m

Cast: Henry Phillips, Ellen Ratner, Tig Notaro, J.K. Simmons, Mark Cohen, Sarah Silverman, Mike Judge, Jim Jefferies, Stephanie Allynne, Michaela Watkins, Wayne Federman, Doug Stanhope, Adam Nee, Clifton Collins Jr

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage… singer, songwriter, and rambling troubadour extraordinaire… Henry Phillips! Five years after leaving L.A. under a cloud of misperceived anti-Semitism, the comic with the deadpan yet whimsical delivery is tempted back to the City of Angels by his agent, the ever-optimistic Ellen Pinsky (Ratner). Last time round it was the promise of a recording contract, this time it’s to meet a TV producer, Jay Warren (Simmons), who’s interested in using Henry’s act and dogged determination to avoid stardom as the basis for a new TV show. But L.A. still isn’t Henry’s town. Less than thirty minutes after he arrives at the home of his friend, Jillian (Notaro), his car is stolen, and at the first gig he plays – with Warren watching – he’s heckled off the stage. But Warren isn’t dissuaded by Henry’s misfortune, and if anything his interest is piqued even further. A meeting is set up with the Noww Channel, and everything looks set to make Henry a star…

Of course, this is Henry Phillips we’re talking about, and so the idea that everything will go smoothly and all work out for the best is about as likely as Liam Hemsworth winning a Best Actor Oscar. Henry is one of Life’s eternal losers, always running to catch up but never quite getting there. Whether he’s losing a battle of wills with a cab despatcher (Stanhope), or accepting a joint at the wrong time, Henry only seems able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It would be painful if it wasn’t so funny. And as with Punching the Clown (2009), this is what makes the movie so enjoyable, and so appealing at the same time. Henry is a lovable schlemiel, someone who keeps plugging away despite every drawback, insult, and injury. Henry doesn’t know what else to do; it’s his life after all. Yes he fails more often than he succeeds, but as he himself says at one point, he has no problem “failing, doing what I love”.

But whether or not Henry is a failure is to miss the point of Phillips’ and director Viens’ script, which artfully makes Henry a man of principle in a world where the people around him seem to have abandoned theirs in order that their lives are simpler. He’s content with his lot, has modest ambitions, and actually enjoys playing the crummy dives and comedy clubs that pay badly or sometimes, not at all. Henry knows his milieu, and it’s a fine distinction to make when judged against the craving for stardom and recognition that seem to be the norm these days. Fame, the movie is trying to say, isn’t all that it’s made out to be. It’s an obvious message, perhaps, but how many other movies make it an integral part of the narrative, or have their central character battle to retain their own idea of their own integrity? (And the clock is ticking…)

Henry is also strangely liberated by his behaviour, even when he gets it badly wrong. A request from Jillian to impregnate her partner, Zoe (Allynne), so they can have a child together proves as difficult a task for Henry to overcome as getting through a set without suffering some disaster. And when he walks off stage because his audience is behaving disrespectfully, what seems like the reaction of a man who hates confrontation, is rather the act of a man who won’t indulge that unpleasant behaviour. Henry may suffer Shakespeare’s “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” (he’s regularly belittled by people, and often to his face), but he does so with good grace and the understanding that if he was to behave as obtusely as some of the people he encounters, then it will always backfire on him (as with the cab despatcher, a game of one-upmanship that Henry loses at every turn, even when he thinks he’s winning).

Phillips’ awareness of his alter ego’s foibles and habits, adds greatly to the movie’s sense of verisimilitude, whether he’s discussing why he’s in L.A. with radio show host Sharon Levine (Silverman) – a similar framing device to the one employed in Punching the Clown – or pointing out the obvious flaws in the format of the TV show Noww want to produce. And along the way he uses Henry’s experiences to highlight the way in which talent is increasingly manufactured, how broad, focus-based public opinion dictates what consitutes quality, and how even the smallest amount of individual power can be used carelessly or inappropriately and to the detriment of others. Heavy stuff, perhaps, but layered with a winning streak of humour that affords plenty of laughs along the way, whether it’s from lines such as, “It’s Sisyphus meets Charlie Brown!” (the TV show), visual gags such as Henry falling off stage (and going viral), or songs such as Dog-Type Girl (a highlight).

In the end, it’s Henry’s ability to shrug off adversity and make the best of things that makes him so endearing and so easy to spend time with. Phillips the actor is more accomplished than he was in his first outing as Phillips the troubadour extraordinaire, and he’s surrounded by a great cast, from Ratner to Jefferies and Notaro (so dry she’s virtually a desert), and the welcome presence of Simmons whose turn as Warren is shot through with a sense of melancholy that underpins the character and his lifetime in producing perfectly. Viens too is more confident this time around, and the movie’s faux-documentary shooting style is used to much better effect. And for once, the many ways in which this movie apes its predecessor proves to be a boon rather than a burden. Henry has remained consistent in his outlook and his needs, and in doing so has retained the sympathy that audiences can relate to, and he doesn’t let them down when it comes time for him to take to the stage.

Rating: 8/10 – similar in tone and approach to its predecessor, And Punching the Clown (the title is cleverer than it sounds) is a solid, rewarding and very funny second entry in the life and times of Henry Phillips, failing singer and comedian; smarter than your average low budget indie comedy, this will keep fans of the original very happy indeed, and if caught by newcomers, work as a terrific introduction to Phillips’ and the way in which he is able to “satisfy his satisfaction”.

Monthly Roundup – November 2017

30 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Action, Adventure, Arrest Bulldog Drummond, Bank robbery, Blue White and Perfect, Comedy, Crime, Franco Nero, Frank Grillo, Heather Angel, Herbert I. Leeds, James P. Hogan, Jeremy Rush, Joan Collins, John Howard, Lloyd Nolan, Mary Beth Hughes, Michael Shayne, Murder, Pauline Collins, Reviews, Roger Goldby, Tales of Halloween, The Time of Their Lives (2017), Thriller, Wheelman (2017)

Arrest Bulldog Drummond (1938) / D: James P. Hogan / 57m

Cast: John Howard, Heather Angel, H.B. Warner, Reginald Denny, E.E. Clive, Jean Fenwick, Zeffie Tilbury, George Zucco, Leonard Mudie, Evan Thomas

Rating: 6/10 – on the eve of his wedding, Drummond (Howard) gets involved in the murder of an inventor of an electrical device that can cause explosions from a distance; another robust entry in the series, Arrest Bulldog Drummond has all the usual elements in place and keeps things moving in sprightly fashion thanks to a spirited sense of adventure, and a well-versed cast who all know exactly what they’re doing.

Blue, White and Perfect (1942) / D: Herbert I. Leeds / 75m

Cast: Lloyd Nolan, Mary Beth Hughes, Helene Reynolds, George Reeves, Steven Geray, Henry Victor, Curt Bois

Rating: 7/10 – ace detective Michael Shayne (Nolan) finds himself on the trail of industrial diamond smugglers, just as his long-suffering girlfriend, Merle (Hughes), thinks she’s finally got him to marry her; the Michael Shayne series hits its midway point and proves just as entertaining, if not more so, than its predecessors, with Nolan fully invested in the role, a number of narrative twists to keep the viewer guessing, Leeds’ easy-going direction, and an appealing sense of humour throughout that makes Blue, White and Perfect an engaging and fun-packed franchise entry.

Tales of Halloween (2015) / D: David Parker, Darren Lynn Bousman, Adam Gierasch, Paul Solet, Axelle Carolyn, Lucky McKee, John Skipp, Andrew Kasch, Mike Mendez, Ryan Schifrin, Neil Marshall / 97m

Cast: Adrienne Barbeau, Daniel DiMaggio, Barry Bostwick, John F. Beach, Tiffany Shepis, Lin Shaye, Barbara Crampton, Lisa Marie, Mick Garris, Stuart Gordon, Marc Senter, Pollyanna McIntosh, Ben Woolf, Keir Gilchrist, Gracie Gillam, Dana Gould, James Duval, Amanda Moyer, Nick Principe, John Landis, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Sam Witwer, Kristina Klebe, Pat Healy, John Savage, Joe Dante

Rating: 4/10 – ten tales set around Halloween in a small, suburban town, and encompassing everything from the Devil, aliens, axe murderers, trick ‘n’ treat, warring neighbours, and psycho imps; ten tales are arguably six too many, with several of the entries in Tales of Halloween proving lukewarm at best (and dull at worst), with Mendez’s Friday the 31st segment standing out from the rest of the pack thanks to its gonzo mix of gore and humour.

The Time of Their Lives (2017) / D: Roger Goldby / 104m

Cast: Joan Collins, Pauline Collins, Franco Nero, Ronald Pickup, Sian Reeves, Joely Richardson, Michael Brandon

Rating: 4/10 – a faded Hollywood star (Joan Collins) hijacks the goodwill of a put-upon housewife (Pauline Collins) in her efforts to attend the funeral of a former leading man and ex-lover; a tepid comedy-drama that meanders from one dispiriting scene to another in its efforts to be entertaining, The Time of Their Lives wastes the talents of both its leading ladies while it insists on cranking out endless platitudes about what it is to be old and unappreciated, something that, at some point, this movie will succeed in being.

Wheelman (2017) / D: Jeremy Rush / 82m

Cast: Frank Grillo, Caitlin Carmichael, Garret Dillahunt, Shea Whigham, Wendy Moniz, John Cenatiempo, Slaine

Rating: 6/10 – a getaway driver (Grillo) finds himself trying to stay one step ahead of the various “interested parties” who want the money he has from a bank robbery gone wrong – and who’ll stop at nothing to get it; an action movie variation on Locke (2013) with much of the action filmed from within the confines of the getaway car, Wheelman strives for a stripped-back, gritty aesthetic, but suffers from having Grillo’s unnamed character repeating the same lines over and over, the action taking place in a strange night-time netherworld where the police are perpetually absent, the unlikely involvement of the driver’s teenage daughter (Carmichael) towards the end, and the car’s speedometer never getting above zero.

The Book of Henry (2017)

29 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Brain tumour, Child abuse, Colin Trevorrow, Comedy, Drama, Jacob Tremblay, Jaeden Lieberher, Naomi Watts, Review, Sarah Silverman

D: Colin Trevorrow / 103m

Cast: Naomi Watts, Jaeden Lieberher, Jacob Tremblay, Sarah Silverman, Dean Norris, Lee Pace, Maddie Ziegler, Bobby Moynihan, Tonya Pinkins, Geraldine Hughes

A movie that inspires audiences to stare at it with the phrase, “say what?” firmly embedded at the forefront of their minds, The Book of Henry is both shockingly bad and hugely enjoyable at the same time (though it’s not quite the kind of movie that’s “so bad it’s good”). This may seem like a contradiction, but this could easily be many people’s idea of a guilty pleasure, a movie that you know from the start is pretty awful but which you can still derive an awful lot of pleasure from. The first draft was written in 1998 by author and screenwriter Gregg Hurwitz, and you can believe that the final screenplay as used in the movie, is exactly the same draft. And on this evidence, you can perhaps understand also why director Colin Trevorrow isn’t going to be at the helm of Star Wars Episode IX.

Shying away – perhaps deliberately – from creating a tonally consistent narrative, The Book of Henry sets itself up initially as a bucolic drama dealing with the ups and downs of the Carpenter family: single mother Susan (Watts), eleven year old whizzkid Henry (Lieberher), and younger son Peter (Tremblay). Susan works at a diner and dreams of writing and illustrating children’s books. Henry acts as the de facto man of the house, and is something of a financial genius, having invested very successfully in the stock market (Susan literally has no idea how wealthy they are as a family which is why she continues to work at the diner). And Peter is bullied at school, though Henry always comes to his rescue. Add their neighbour’s stepdaughter, Christina (Ziegler), into the mix as a kind of surrogate daughter/sister, and you have a family bordering on dysfunctional but in a winning, adorable way that makes you want to ruffle their hair and remark on how winning and adorable they are.

So far, so cute. But into every sunny life some shadows must appear, and it’s not long before Henry realises that Christina is being abused by her stepdad, Glenn (Norris). However, he’s the local police commissioner, and he has connections within social services, so Henry’s attempts to involve them and save Christina fail at the first hurdle. And before he can do anything more, he’s struck down by a brain tumour and promptly dies. But Henry being such a whizzkid (and apparently having had far more time on his hands than most eleven year olds), he’s not about to let Glenn off the hook. Before he dies, he compiles a book in which he leaves instructions for his mother to… contact and convince social services to investigate Glenn? Gather further evidence to prove her case? Put Glenn on notice that if he continues he’ll be exposed for the paedophile he is? Well, actually, no. As Peter so aptly puts it when he first looks at the book, “Henry wants us to kill Glenn!”

And so the movie lurches from bucolic family drama to child in danger drama to disease of the week melodrama, and all the way to vigilante thriller in little over an hour. Except none of these tonal shifts work as an organic whole. It’s as if the movie feels compelled to hit the restart button every fifteen minutes or so. And while it does so, it drops a handful of sub-plots and characters in and out of the mix at random, from Susan’s co-worker, Sheila (Silverman) and her problems with alcohol, to the bullying Peter experiences at school (which happens once… and that’s it). Hurwitz’s script is like a melting pot of ideas and themes and narrative devices all shoehorned into the smallest space available and then left to fight it out amongst themselves for the best amount of breathing space. One classic example: the school principal (Pinkins) dismisses Henry’s concerns about Christina when he raises them, but later is convinced by the interpretative power of dance (no, really). And then there’s the sight of Susan in a treehouse with a sniper rifle…

So absurd and so silly is The Book of Henry, the only way to approach it is as a drama that forgot it was meant to be a comedy. If you do, and it really is the best way to approach it, then the movie can be enjoyed despite its being a terrible mess that’s only on nodding terms with credibility. There are laughs to be had – deliberate and otherwise – and a whole raft of scenes that feel like filler (see how many times Susan covers over Peter, or the leaves in her yard are mentioned), but still the movie exerts a strange fascination, like a road traffic accident that you just can’t look away from. Hurwitz’s script, combined with Trevorrow’s meandering sense of direction, leaves the movie high and dry and static in its efforts to be effective, and the only area in which it does succeed is in its use of its Hudson Valley locations, all beautifully rendered by John Schwartzman’s richly autumnal cinematography.

The performances are a mixed bunch also. Watts has a good grasp of her character’s interior life, but it’s a shame that Susan’s exterior life is so bland and uninteresting. Aspects of Lieberher’s performance might prompt viewers to believe that Henry is on the spectrum, while Tremblay, the go-to child actor right now, is otherwise kept firmly in the background, good for a couple of scenes of emotional poignancy but little else. Spare a thought too for Silverman playing blowsy with a heart of gold, and Pace as the doctor who keeps popping up and may, at some distant point when the movie is over and done, prove to be Susan’s next love interest. The cast as a whole are admirably committed to the material, and it is fun watching them trying to legitimise some of the more absurdist moments in the script, but when there’s more enjoyment to be had from watching them fail than succeed then it’s time to ‘fess up and admit that things just haven’t worked out in the way that the producers would have hoped for.

Rating: 4/10 – silly, funny, and endlessly entertaining in all the wrong ways, The Book of Henry has at least one unfulfilled potential: that of being a cult midnight movie where the audience interacts with it a la The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975); such a misfire that it has to be seen to be believed, it’s a movie that doesn’t know when to rein in its ridiculous nature, but in failing to do so (and entirely against the odds), makes itself into perhaps the most unlikeliest must-see movie of 2017.

The Disaster Artist (2017)

27 Monday Nov 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Comedy, Dave Franco, Drama, Greg Sestero, James Franco, Literary adaptation, Review, Seth Rogen, The Room (2003), Tommy Wiseau, True story

D: James Franco / 103m

Cast: Dave Franco, James Franco, Alison Brie, Seth Rogen, Ari Graynor, Paul Scheer, Josh Hutcherson, Jacki Weaver, Zac Efron, Jason Mantzoukas, Hannibal Buress, Nathan Fielder, Megan Mullally, Sharon Stone, Melanie Griffith, Bryan Cranston

Every now and then a movie comes along that defies both its own creation and its own inherent drawbacks to achieve cult status amongst movie fans. Instead of disappearing into obscurity, perhaps never to be seen again (or only in the early hours of the morning on channels such as Movies 4 Men when they haven’t got a poorly dubbed spaghetti western to show) some movies take on a life and a reputation all their own, and succeed against – or in spite of – all the odds. One such movie is The Room (2003), written, produced, directed by and starring Tommy Wiseau. Generally regarded as one of the worst movies ever made, and critically lambasted on its initial release, The Room plays regularly at midnight showings throughout the US, and has the kind of dedicated fans who dress up like their favourite characters and throw items at the screen at relevant moments. Think The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), but without the wit or the ingenuity (or indeed, the songs).

Wiseau made the movie with and for his friend, Greg Sestero, who eventually wrote about his experiences being Wiseau’s best friend, and making The Room, in a book called, The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Film Ever Made. And now we have an adaptation of that book, and a recreation of the making of the movie, that is both entertaining and irresistible. In the hands of James Franco, The Disaster Artist is a fresh, appealing movie that looks at the dangers of following your dreams, and how those dreams can become the source of bitterness and disappointment. It’s a movie that works on a number of levels, and thanks to a perceptive screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, it’s a fully rounded piece that embraces drama, comedy, and darker facets of both in its tale of deluded ambition.

The movie begins in 1998, with Tommy (James Franco) and Greg (Dave Franco) meeting at acting classes and forming a strange, unorthodox friendship. Tommy is secretive and elusive, making out that he’s from New Orleans when he clearly has an Eastern European accent, and insisting that he’s the same age as Greg when clearly he’s much older. There’s also the matter of his being independently wealthy. Where does his money come from? Nobody knows. They move to Los Angeles, where they both try to break into Hollywood. Greg quickly gains an agent (Stone) but finds his career stalling just as quickly. Tommy remains unemployable as an actor, but can’t understand why. All he sees is his talent going unrecognised. Eventually they decide to make a movie on their own, a movie that will star Tommy and Greg and make their fortune. Tommy writes the script, and in 2002, production begins. And what a production it proves to be…

This being a good movie about the making of a bad movie, it’s tempting to wonder just how accurate this movie is in recreating the details of the production itself. There are moments of pure comedy, such as shooting Tommy’s first scene (“What is line?”), or the awkward mechanics of a sex scene (“Why is he having sex with her belly button? He knows where her vagina is, right?”), but there are also much darker moments when Tommy behaves like a dictator and riles the crew with his indifference and misplaced anger. It’s at these moments that Tommy is shown as a selfish, manipulative child, and none more so than when he refuses to let Greg have a day off to appear in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle (and at the request of Bryan Cranston himself). Tommy’s jealous intransigence casts a sallow light on his behaviour and his character, but it’s a measure of both the script and Franco’s performance that Tommy remains a figure to pity rather than be angry with.

What comes across is the importance of his friendship with Greg and the determination to make the movie he wants to make. When challenged about his on-set behaviour, Tommy cites Hitchcock and Kubrick as directors who didn’t care about their actors, but without realising that they had talent to make up for their callow attitudes. At every turn, Tommy doesn’t understand anything about what he’s doing, and he can’t see that the decisions he’s making are undermining almost everything that he’s trying to do. Everyone around him sees this, but Tommy’s insecurity won’t let him acknowledge it. He’s a lonely man looking for approbation, and though his friendship with Greg goes some way to meeting his emotional needs, it’s a much wider appreciation that he’s searching for. And the movie makes it clear that this is the dream he really has; the movie is just a means to that end. Franco nails the accent, and Wiseau’s own off-centre thought processes, and gives one of his best performances: at times sad, defensive, jealous – of Greg’s relationship with girlfriend, Amber (Brie) – antic, effusive, melodramatic, and emotionally shallow.

He’s matched by an intuitive and likeable portrayal of Greg by his younger brother, and there are plenty of enjoyable supporting performances, including Rogen as the script supervisor who becomes the de facto director when Tommy is “acting”, and Graynor as the female lead who possesses the aforementioned “belly button”. Elsewhere there are plenty of cameos and talking heads (at the beginning) to keep viewers on their toes, but it’s the recreation of those hectic days when The Room was being shot that proves the most compelling, and Franco the director assembles it all with an eye for the absurdity of it all and the misguided passion that pushed Wiseau to make the movie in the first place. An auteur’s folly, then, but one that has survived and prospered over the years, and which has afforded Wiseau exactly what he wanted: recognition. But as The Disaster Artist proves, passion without talent is just passion, and dreams often require luck as well as a determination to succeed.

Rating: 8/10 – a wonderfully bizarre tale given the kind of respectful treatment that only highlights how unlikely it all was at the time, The Disaster Artist doesn’t need anyone to see The Room before watching it, as the off-camera turmoil is captured with aplomb by Franco and his cast and crew; a testament to the power of friendship (and pinky swears), as well as not giving up on your dreams, this is also a cautionary tale about what can happen when ambition becomes obsession, and the pursuit of fame turns everything (temporarily) sour.

Trailers – A Quiet Place (2018), A Bad Idea Gone Wrong (2017) and Game Night (2018)

21 Tuesday Nov 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Comedy, Emily Blunt, Horror, Jason Bateman, Jason Headley, John Krasinski, Matt Jones, Previews, Rachel McAdams, Thriller, Trailers, Will Rogers

The premise of A Quiet Place is a simple one: a family must remain ever vigilant and ever quiet, or some things will find them and kill them. At this stage, the whys and the hows of this particular scenario remain unknown, which makes the trailer that much more effective. Star John Krasinski also directs – making this his third feature after Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (2009) and The Hollars (2016) – and he’s rewritten the original script by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, so this is close to a one-man show, but with an additional dose of nepotism, as Blunt is Krasinski’s real-life wife. This has the potential to be as scary as a mofo, and it will be interesting to see just how long the movie goes on for before a word is spoken, and if at all. Though it will inevitably include sound effects and music, what might be a modern day silent movie is an intriguing idea, and if Krasinski has got a confident grip on the tension and what looks to be a slowburn build up of terror, then the movie could be a breakout hit that attracts audiences wanting to be terrified.

When two life-long friends (and loveable schlubs) plan a burglary at a house that they absolutely know will be unoccupied, you just know that it’s not going to go according to plan. And so it proves in Jason Headley’s feature debut, the kind of indie comedy that looks down its nose at more mainstream comedy fare, and then sneezes heavily and appropriately (or inappropriately), as the case may be. As the two friends, Matt Jones and Will Rogers make for a good pair of lunkheads, and Headley’s script seems well set up to provide a mix of belly laughs, moments of wry amusement, and a knowing sense of the story’s complete and utter absurdity. Adding a measure of romance to the mix may be a smart move on Headley’s part, but whether or not the movie needs it is another matter. Unlikely as it may be that the movie will find a wider audience than expected, this still looks as if it could overcome the expectations everyone has for it and gain a lot more kudos for itself along the way.

Comedy thrillers are notoriously difficult to pull off, and though Game Night is billed as such, the trailer seems determined to skirt around the movie’s thriller elements and concentrate on the comedy. Whether or not this is a good thing remains to be seen, but what is promising is a cast that includes Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, and Jesse “give this man more starring roles” Plemons. The idea, that a kidnapping of one of a group of good friends may or may not be real, and they have to decide which is the case, could and should provide plenty of laughs, and the trailer does its best to confirm this, but there’s the nagging sense that the best bits have been included in it, and the movie will prove less sharp than it looks (though the squeaky toy is inspired). Still, Bateman et al are all good value for money, and this could be just the silly alternative that’s needed when every other movie in 2018 looks like it’s going to involve superheroes being, well, super and heroic.

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)

19 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Adam Sandler, Art, Ben Stiller, Comedy, Drama, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Family, Netflix, Noah Baumbach, Relationships, Review

D: Noah Baumbach / 112m

Cast: Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Elizabeth Marvel, Grace Van Patten, Judd Hirsch, Rebecca Miller, Candice Bergen, Adam Driver, Matthew Shear, Sakina Jaffrey, Gayle Rankin, Michael Chernus

Harold Meyerowitz (Hoffman) is a semi-famous sculptor who hasn’t had a show in years, and who has become somewhat marginalised within the New York art world. His work is admired by those that know of it, but his contemporaries, such as L.J. Shapiro (Hirsch), are still exhibiting and still getting the recognition that Harold thinks they don’t deserve. Harold is on his fourth marriage – to Maureen (Thompson) – and has two children from his first, Danny (Sandler) and Jean (Marvel). Danny is in the midst of separating from his wife, and has a precocious teenage daughter, Eliza (Van Patten), who is about to leave for college. Jean is a spinster but leads an otherwise happy life. Harold has another child from his third marriage, Matthew (Stiller), but he lives in LA, and works as a financial consultant. He’s successful, and has a young son he would like to spend more time with. This is the family Meyerowitz, and despite outward appearances, many of which they foster themselves, they all need help (oh boy, do they need help).

What’s impressive about Noah Baumbach’s latest feature is that he takes a stereotypical dysfunctional family, and spins that stereotype ever so slightly off its axis, so that each nugget of information about any of the characters seems fresh and unexpected, even though a closer inspection reveals tropes and metaphors that we’ve seen countless times before. This is due to Baumbach’s very eloquent and very astute screenplay, a piece of writing that manages to include a number of complex and yet succinct observations on the nature of father-son relationships and the effect that an inwardly scared parent can have on their children. It’s no surprise that Baumbach has chosen to examine the issue of what children need from their parents as this has formed the basis of much of his work in the past, from The Squid and the Whale (2005) to While We’re Young (2014). But this is easily his most impressive and most fully realised project, and it has a smoothness and an ease about it that makes it all the more enjoyable to watch.

The main focus is, at first, on Danny. With his marriage coming to an end and Eliza going off to college, Danny has to reassess what he’s going to do with his life (he’s been a house husband up until now, having chosen that as his “career” instead of being a musician). He and Jean get involved in arranging a retrospective of Harold’s career, but Baumbach is quick to make the viewer realise that this isn’t being done out of love or affection, and not even necessarily out of respect for their father’s work. Like so many other things connected to Harold that they do, it’s done because they view it as the right thing to do; it’s a familial obligation. But Harold is obsessed with how his work is perceived, because his work is the only thing that, to him, makes him stand out from the crowd. He’s constantly seeking approbation from everyone around him, and insists he receives it from his kids. But if they don’t, then he’s oblivious to both them and their needs. Such is their lives as adults, such was their lives as children.

Harold’s narcissistic expressions about himself, and his short-fuse dismissal of anyone he deems unimportant, has had an unpleasant effect on all three of his children. Danny has spent an enormous amount of time and energy in raising Eliza so that they’re more like friends instead of father and daughter. As a result he’s a better father than Harold was to him, but the irony is that in its own way, it’s as unhealthy as the relationship Danny had with him as a child. Baumbach makes the point well: too little attention or love can be just as bad as too much. But while that may seem obvious (and it is), it’s the way in which Danny tries to strike a balance between the two, and without necessarily being aware that he’s doing it, that makes all the difference. Jean has her own reasons for keeping her life separate, and though it seems that she’s perhaps the most “adjusted” of the three, this later proves to be incorrect. And then there’s Matthew, who professes to be “over” his father’s ability to make him angry for having a successful life (Harold is almost as obsessed by money as he is by maintaining his reputation). Matthew, like Danny, is trying to be a better father than Harold was, but he can’t seem to connect with his son, despite his best efforts.

Watching these four people struggle to communicate with each other, and struggle to find the answers that are often in front of them, should be frustrating for the viewer, but Baumbach, and the sharpness of his script, helps avoid all that. The family dynamic is entirely credible and perfectly judged, with superb performances from all concerned. Sandler has only been better once before, in Punch-Drunk Love (2002), and here he proves that he can be a fine dramatic actor when he wants to be (which isn’t often enough). Sandler displays a warmth and a heartfelt sincerity as Danny that allows the viewer a way in to the Meyerowitz family and its myriad issues. He’s a sweet, caring guy trying to do his best, and he has enough self-awareness to know that he doesn’t always get it right. Stiller is equally as good, channelling Matthew’s anger at being unfairly singled out for Harold’s praise as a child when the praise, and what it related to, wasn’t important to Matthew at all. In support, Marvel, Thompson and Van Patten offer touching performances, while there are a clutch of more minor roles that allow for a few scene-stealing moments (Chernus as a snippy nurse is a treat). But this, perhaps expectedly, is Hoffman’s movie, his portrayal of Harold as a manipulative, emotionally remote artist one of the best things he’s done in years.

Baumbach approaches the material and the characters with a great deal of care and attention, and it’s this that makes the movie so effortlessly dramatic, and so effortlessly funny. Nobody behaves in a manner that might seem odd or inappropriate because that’s how they’ve always behaved. With some questions there’s an answer provided, but many’s the time when Baumbach keeps the viewer in the dark, as if to say, “these characters still need time to figure things out, and it’s not going to happen before the movie’s over”. It all adds up to a remarkably humane and sympathetic look at expectations between the generations, and how personal legacies can hamper the growth of those who are raised in the shadow of them. Thoughtful and considerate of its characters’ foibles and muted aspirations, Baumbach’s latest is a sprightly mix of drama and comedy that succeeds on both fronts, and is his best work yet.

Rating: 9/10 – that rarity: a comedy-drama with heart as well as intelligence, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) is a cautionary tale that never once feels forced or that it’s struggling to find its own voice; the characters linger in the memory, along with Baumbach’s clever script and fluid direction, and a number of quality performances, making this a movie that everyone should try and see, and especially as an alternative to more mainstream, big-budget moviemaking.

Love of My Life (2017)

10 Friday Nov 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Anna Chancellor, Brain tumour, Comedy, Drama, Ex-husband, Hermione Norris, James Fleet, Joan Carr-Wiggin, John Hannah, Review, Romance

D: Joan Carr-Wiggin / 106m

Cast: Anna Chancellor, John Hannah, James Fleet, Hermione Norris, Hannah Emily Anderson, Katie Boland, Greg Wise

Extended families, eh? What can you do with them? (Run as fast and as far away as you can is the best answer.) In the movies, there’s another answer: use them to ask questions about love and fate and dying and the meaning of a life, and much more besides. This is the main idea behind Love of My Life, an uneven look at what happens when a middle-aged woman, Grace (Chancellor), is told that she has a brain tumour that, hopefully, surgeons can remove in five days’ time – or maybe not. Grace is an architect, and she’s married to Tom (Fleet), her second husband after her marriage to prize winning author Richard Feekery (Hannah) broke down when he had an affair with Tamara (Norris). Grace and Richard had a daughter together, Zoe (Boland); she lived with her father who married Tamara. Grace married Tom and they had a daughter as well, Kaitlyn (Anderson). Now, Grace’s ill health brings them all together over the course of the few days before her operation.

Everyone has a different reaction to the news, of course. Grace tries to be optimistic and carry on as usual, going to work and making sure that the latest project she’s overseeing continues as planned. Tom goes to pieces, and hits the bottle in order to numb his feelings of despair (and also because he’s a bit of an alcoholic anyway). Kaitlyn is concerned, obviously, but allows herself to be reassured by her mother. Richard turns up unexpectedly, professing his love for Grace and intent on winning her back. Zoe comes with him, and though she too is upset by the news, she has her own problems that occupy her thoughts more. And then Tamara arrives as well, convinced – correctly – that Richard wants to seduce Grace, while also suspecting that Grace wants him to. As the day of the operation approaches, old animosities and betrayals are aired with ever increasing frequency, relationships shift and slide in the wake of secrets revealed and feelings expressed, life changing decisions are made, and one character does something so irretrievably stupid and selfish that you can’t believe you’re seeing it. There’s definitely a lot going on, but is it enough?

Curiously, the answer is sometimes yes, sometimes no, and it largely depends on which character is speaking at any given time. Grace is meant to be the voice of reason, the sensible one treading a median line through all the tantrums and the emotional wreckage that’s been cast up by the news of her tumour. She’s also the audience’s connection to the material, and how she behaves governs how the audience responds to it all. She’s attractive, intelligent, has terrific relationships with her daughters, can be self-deprecating when needed, clearly loves Tom despite his being a bit of a bumbling, blithering idiot (note to casting directors: is James Fleet the only actor who can play these roles?), and comes to realise that the work she’s doing as an architect hasn’t been challenging her – so she changes things for the better. In essence, she’s exactly the kind of person you’d want to be if you found out you have a brain tumour that might prove to be inoperable. In the capable hands of Anna Chancellor, she’s also witty, charming, and a delight to spend time with.

But this is the movies, and inevitably, there have to be challenges, obstacles for Grace to overcome on her way to the operation. And this is where the movie begins to wobble. If we had been presented with a portrait of a woman whose illness prompts her to reassess her life and change things for the better, this could and should have been a warm, endearing movie about the power of self-belief and second chances. That would have been a drama worth seeing. Instead, we have a “dramedy” where Grace (and the audience) has to contend with a collection of supporting characters who, Kaitlyn aside, are self-indulgent, self-important, and relentlessly self-flagellating in their efforts to make you feel sorry for them. Richard is the misunderstood genius – with words at least – using every trick he knows to remind Grace of the wonderful time they had when they were married, as if all that negates the affair he had with Tamara. Richard’s level of self-interest is at least consistent, and is actually more convincing than when he begins to reveal a more sincere, and more soulful side to his relentless self-aggrandising.

At least, though, some effort has gone into writer/director Joan Carr-Wiggin’s script into making Richard at least halfway interesting, and something of an acceptable foil for Grace’s more credible behaviour. If there hadn’t been that effort, we would have been left with a handful of supporting characters seemingly designed to test our patience and our sympathies. Tom is, as already mentioned, a bumbling, blithering idiot, and he behaves stupidly throughout, making you wonder why Grace is with him in the first place. Tamara, played by Norris as a combination of Wicked Witch and jealous harpy, is manipulative in a way that can only be regarded as comic, while Zoe might as well have “airhead” tattooed across her forehead, such is the vacuity that she expresses at pretty much every turn. Kaitlyn survives by virtue of being as level-headed as her mother, something that the viewer has to be thankful for, as the only other character of note is Grace’s boss, Ben (Wise), who she may or may not have hidden feelings for. Seeing these characters interact so ungraciously, and with scant regard for each other’s emotions or histories, isn’t very appealing, and Carr-Wiggin rarely stops them from trying to impose their own ideas and desires on each other, and without any moral imperative to stop them (that Grace has a brain tumour and might just die seems to carry no weight at all with any of them).

The script does try to make some informed (or what seems like informed) comments on life and love, and envy and lust and regret, but it does so in such a way that any effect is muted by the attitudes of the characters. There’s always a degree of sermonising in this kind of movie, and it’s often trite and unprepossessing; Love of My Life embraces this kind of posing and tries to be relevant and incisive all at the same time. That it’s not successful in its aims is purely down to the way in which Carr-Wiggin manipulates her happy bunch of malcontents into acting and sounding like children who’ve been naughty and had their favourite toy taken away as punishment. Against this, only Chancellor and Anderson emerge unscathed, with Chancellor proving that she’s a much better actress than the material she’s working with, and Anderson giving a measured performance that some of her more experienced co-stars could have done well to adopt for themselves (to be fair, though, Hannah tries his best, and gives an earnest portrayal as Richard, but he’s just not sympathetic or likeable enough for anyone to care). In the end, what happens to the people orbiting around Grace fails to engage the viewer, and this takes away from learning more about Grace herself, and what makes her (actually) so intriguing.

Rating: 5/10 – with some obvious humour, a spirited if slightly curtailed performance by Chancellor, and a jumping off point that could have led to something more, Love of My Life ends up being yet another movie where a number of self-absorbed characters bemoan their lots in life – and as if this was anywhere near interesting; a muddled time frame doesn’t help (there are moments when five days seem to be four), and a dull, uninspired visual design helps even less, leaving the movie feeling less than the sum of its parts, and straining too hard to be relevant or meaningful.

Brigsby Bear (2017)

06 Monday Nov 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Abduction, Brigsby Bear Adventures, Comedy, Dave McCary, Drama, Greg Kinnear, Kyle Mooney, Mark Hamill, Matt Walsh, Review, TV show

D: Dave McCary / 97m

Cast: Kyle Mooney, Greg Kinnear, Matt Walsh, Mark Hamill, Michaela Watkins, Ryan Simpkins, Jorge Lendeborg Jr, Alexa Demie, Claire Danes, Kate Lyn Sheil, Beck Bennett, Jane Adams

James Mitchum (Mooney) is in his mid-twenties and has never strayed beyond the immediate confines of the underground bunker that he and his parents, Ted (Hamill) and April (Adams), live in due to the outside air being poisonous (though the cause is left unexplained). James has grown up watching a TV show called Brigsby Bear Adventures, which concerns a bear called Brigsby and the adventures he has in space as he tries to stop the evil Sunsnatcher from destroying all the light in the universe. Brigsby is aided by two twins, the Smile Sisters, who are roughly eight or nine. James knows the show inside out, and for good reason: it’s the only TV show he’s ever seen. But James’ life is turned upside down when police arrive at the bunker, and it’s revealed that James was stolen as a baby from his real parents, Greg (Walsh) and Louise Pope (Watkins).

United with his birth parents, and his younger sister, Aubrey (Simpkins), James finds much that is puzzling about this new world he’s been thrust into, and his obvious lack of social skills don’t help, but the one thing he has that he can rely on, the one thing that continues to make sense to him, is Brigsby Bear. But when he’s informed that Ted created the character and made all the shows himself, instead of trying to put this information into the context of his “abducted” life and its structure (the video tapes of the show that Ted made were as much educational as they were entertainment), James decides to make a Brigsby Bear movie, and use it as a way of completing Brigsby’s story. James’s reasoning is plain: if Ted can no longer finish the story, who better than James? With the aid of some of Aubrey’s school friends, including budding movie maker Spencer (Lendeborg Jr), and admirer Meredith (Demie), and police detective Vogel (Kinnear) (who helps with “access” to some of the show’s original props), James sets about making his dream come true.

If you see a movie that’s more sincere and more touching than Brigsby Bear in 2017, then that movie definitely needs to be brought to everyone’s attention, because this movie is both those things and much, much more. A feelgood movie that takes a truly original notion and explores it with unexpected depth and compassion, Brigsby Bear is a terrific, wonderfully constructed movie that touches on universal themes of acceptance and individuality and belonging, and does so in such a well thought out and affecting way that it’s hard not to find yourself smiling to yourself without always realising it while the movie is playing. Conceived and written by its star, Kyle Mooney, and his friend, Kevin Costello, James’s own adventure is one that is both touching and heartfelt, and which pulls the viewer along by the sheer exuberance that emanates from the screenplay and its use of the characters involved. James isn’t a socially awkward teenager in an adult’s body, he’s a socially awkward adult with a teenager’s mindset. But his commitment to Brigsby Bear isn’t a sign of a child whose emotional growth has been stunted by prolonged exposure to the show. Instead it provides clear evidence that James has absorbed many of the life lessons that Ted has tried to teach him; all he has to do now is recognise the situations in which he should use them (it’s an interesting subtext – that Ted has actually done a good job of being a father to James despite the circumstances – that, sadly, isn’t followed up).

That he gets so many things wrong becomes understandable, but Mooney and Costello’s screenplay, ably realised by McCary, also shows how James develops as a person, and how he learns from his mistakes. Mooney is superb as James, always seeming as if he’s just on the verge of working out some diffuse mystery, and always in a way that keeps everyone around him slightly on tenterhooks, unsure of where his enthusiasm for Brigsby will take him. It leads to some wonderfully charming moments that emphasise and highlight the joys of extremely low budget movie making, and how the making of this particular movie serves as a final chapter for the first part of James’s life; it’s his way of putting the past behind him and beginning to move on. And as he reconciles his past with his future, more lessons are learned and James’s growth as an individual helps him to forge the new relationships that will allow him to rebuild his life.

Directed with confidence, and with a focus on the emotional core of the screenplay by McCary (making his feature debut), the movie is quirky, and infused with a sweet-natured humour that allows for easy laughs throughout, but not at the expense of the sentimental nature of the drama. Some viewers may find that the movie isn’t “dark” enough, as if the initial set up should lead on to darker material, but that idea is quickly undermined (and dismissed) when Vogel asks James if the Mitchums ever “touched” him. James confirms this, saying it happened often, and demonstrates by shaking Vogel’s hand. This isn’t a movie where any physical or psychological damage to its lead character is either mandatory or relevant – there are plenty of other movies where those aspects are addressed. Instead it’s a movie that in its own compassionate way, avoids those issues but only because it’s not the story it wants to tell. (And even when James is sent to a psychiatric hospital, there’s still the opportunity for laughs rather than misery.)

With great supporting turns from the likes of Kinnear (as a cop with thespian leanings), Danes (as a domineering therapist), and Hamill (as the not quite so evil abductor that you’d expect), the movie is also careful to portray the Pope family dynamic as one of protracted confusion mixed with dwindling hope that James will ever be fully integrated into that dynamic. The script provides answers to many of the questions it raises (including that one), but is shrewd enough to keep James’s future an enigma that even he may never solve. This ambiguity allows the movie to end on a high note that is actually more poignant and more apt when considering where James’s story began, and which is in keeping entirely with its off-kilter nature. Few movies this year are likely to be as engaging or as captivating as this one, and that’s because this movie is a true one of a kind.

Rating: 9/10 – with its fully rounded central character, offbeat yet creative scenario, and effortlessly endearing atmosphere, Brigsby Bear is like a surprise present you weren’t expecting – at all; smart, funny, and genuine, it’s a movie that eschews moralising for optimism, and does so in such a warm, convivial manner that it’s entirely too hard to resist.

Hampstead (2017)

03 Friday Nov 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Brendan Gleeson, Comedy, Diane Keaton, Drama, Hampstead Heath, Harry Hallowes, Joel Hopkins, Lesley Manville, Review, Romance, Squatter, True story

D: Joel Hopkins / 103m

Cast: Diane Keaton, Brendan Gleeson, Lesley Manville, Jason Watkins, James Norton, Simon Callow, Adeel Akhtar, Alistair Petrie, Hugh Skinner, Will Smith, Brian Protheroe, Rosalind Ayres, Deborah Findlay, Peter Singh, Phil Davis

Hampstead is a curious movie, one that’s inspired by a true story, but structured in such a way that it seems to be deliberately insulting the memory of the real-life person that Brendan Gleeson’s character is based on. That man was called Harry Hallowes, an Irishman who was evicted from his flat in Highgate, London in 1987 and who built a makeshift home for himself in a corner of Hampstead Heath. When property developers tried to evict him, the case went to court and he was able to claim squatter’s rights because he had been “resident there” for over twelve years. In 2007 he was awarded the deed to the half-acre of land on which he was living; it was worth over £2 million. Hampstead takes that story and makes it into a lightweight romantic comedy that flits along unobtrusively and in banal fashion while making it more about Diane Keaton’s American widow in London, Emily Walters, than it does the movie’s fictional Harry Hallowes, Donald Horner.

Emily lives in an apartment building overlooking Hampstead Heath. Her husband has died leaving her in financial difficulties that she’s doing her best to ignore. She works part-time in a charity shop, but otherwise is fairly aimless, and spends much of her spare time trying to avoid her friend, Fiona (Manville), who also lives in the building and who is doing her best to set up Emily with a new man. One day, while looking through her husband’s things in the attic room she finds a pair of binoculars and uses them to look out over the heath. She spots Horner’s makeshift home, and becomes intrigued enough to continue spying on it, and eventually him. When she sees him being attacked, she calls the police, but doesn’t come forward until a few days later when she sees him in Highgate Cemetery. They become uneasy friends at first, then a romance develops, but it’s when Emily learns about the efforts to evict Donald that she finds a new purpose in her life and determines to help Donald whether he likes it or not.

It’s a measure of Robert Festinger’s underwhelming screenplay that Donald’s plight can only be addressed through the intervention of a woman who’s looking for some meaning in her life. That she takes on his cause for herself is both selfish and self-serving, but the script ignores this in its efforts to make Emily appear selfless instead. As a result, she isn’t quite as sympathetic a character as perhaps was intended, and she comes across as a busybody with good intentions rather than the supportive friend (and eventual lover) that she’s meant to be. It makes watching long stretches of the movie difficult as Emily, under the guise of making a difference, does so in order to make herself feel better about her life. In other movies this might be acceptable – it’s a standard character arc, after all – but when this is in service to someone else’s story, someone who actually existed, then it comes across as insensitive and inconsiderate. Was Hallowes’ story so undramatic that it needed a fictional character, and a self-centred character at that, to give it relevance and/or meaning?

The answer is obviously No, but still, it’s the path the movie has chosen to take in its efforts to tell a version of Hallowes’ story. On that basis though, the movie is still unsuccessful in its aims as it tries to create a romance out of convenience, and a drama out of necessity (there’s broad humour in there too but it’s not the movie’s strongest suit). The movie ambles along during its first half, building the relationship between Emily and Donald, and making it all so innocuous and inoffensive that when they eventually sleep together, it’s hard to actually believe that they did anything more than just sleep together. In this particular rendition of “normal life”, sex is something to be referenced but not explored, or regarded as believable. This further undermines the credibility of the relationship between Emily and Donald, and makes it seem even more artificial than Festinger and director Joel Hopkins would like.

With the central relationship so hamstrung by the needs of the script, and with Hopkins unable to make more of it than there is on the page, it’s left to Keaton and Gleeson to do what they can with the material and hopefully flesh it out. But neither of them is able to do much more than provide the odd frisson to their roles, and despite their best efforts, both Emily and Donald remain as insubstantial at the end as they were at the beginning. Character traits are embedded from the word go, and they remain firmly in place throughout. Emily may appear emotionally tougher by the end, but it’s not because of her time with Donald, but because she has no choice in the matter; she either toughens up or goes under, and the script naturally chooses the former for her. Donald though, remains the same throughout, and in a chauvinistic approach that the movies love to continue peddling, gives Emily no choice in how their relationship will continue after the court case (it also makes Emily look as if she hasn’t been paying attention to anything Donald has told her about his lifestyle, and why he lives the way he does).

In the end, Hampstead doesn’t have enough substance and/or depth to make it all work, and the movie ambles along quite predictably and with a soupçon of charm to help guide it over the rough spots. The courtroom scenes are played for humour rather than the drama that’s required, the supporting cast all meld into one with the exception of Manville’s deliberately obtuse friend and Watkins’ would-be Romeo to Emily’s Juliet, and there are too many occasions where the movie is trying way too hard to appear whimsical or poignant. Felix Wiedemann’s cinematography is a welcome bonus, as is Stephen Warbeck’s score, both elements helping to give the movie a boost from the obvious nature of the material, but when all’s said and done, this is a movie that takes a remarkable story and uses it as a backdrop in order to tell an unremarkable story that, sadly, we’ve seen hundreds of times before.

Rating: 4/10 – amiable, and watchable enough if you approach it with few expectations, Hampstead rarely gets out of first gear, and when it does it’s only to slip into neutral, where it stays out of being comfortable; Keaton and Gleeson’s performances are undermined by the paucity of the material (and Hopkins’ static direction), and the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the real-life Harry the Hermit are given less than their due, something that should have been addressed before even the first draft was considered.

Monthly Roundup – October 2017

31 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Action, Biopic, Chanel Cresswell, Comedy, Dean Devlin, Dean Israelite, Drama, Dutchboy, Edward H. Griffith, Fantasy, Gavin Boyter, Geostorm, Gerard Butler, International Space Station, Jack Lee, James Dunn, Jillian Bell, Jim Sturgess, Joan Collins, Joan Crawford, Josh Helman, Leslie Arliss, Louis J. Gasnier, Lucia Aniello, Michael Baumgarten, Miss Tulip Stays the Night, Murder, My Name Is Lenny, Mystery, No More Ladies, Power Rangers, Reviews, Robert Montgomery, Romance, Ron Scalpello, Rough Night, Scarlett Johansson, Sci-fi, Sparks and Embers, Sunset Murder Case, The Guest House, The Living Ghost, Turn the Key Softly, Weather satellites, William Beaudine, Yvonne Mitchell

Miss Tulip Stays the Night (1955) / D: Leslie Arliss / 68m

aka Dead by Morning

Cast: Diana Dors, Patrick Holt, Jack Hulbert, Cicely Courtneidge, A.E. Matthews, Joss Ambler

Rating: 6/10 – a crime writer (Holt) and his wife (Dors) discover that a weekend break in the country is no guarantee that murder won’t come calling to disturb them, and so it proves when the garrulous Miss Tulip (Courtneidge) is found dead in the cottage; an amiable if too leisurely paced murder mystery, Miss Tulip Stays the Night relies on hoodwinking the viewer from the start and keeping a vital piece of information all to itself until the end, but as a vehicle for Dors it isn’t quite as successful as may have been hoped originally, as the actress is too often sidelined in favour of having Holt attempting to solve the mystery before the police do.

Power Rangers (2017) / D: Dean Israelite / 124m

Cast: Dacre Montgomery, Naomi Scott, RJ Cyler, Ludi Lin, Becky G, Elizabeth Banks, Bryan Cranston, Bill Hader, David Denman

Rating: 4/10 – five teens discover the remains of a space ship buried in a hillside, and also find that they have been chosen to defend the Earth from an evil alien called Rita Repulsa (Banks), something that means wearing colourful outfits and playing with super powers; as if the likes of the Transformers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchises hadn’t already shown that there is a dwindling audience for this kind of thing, Power Rangers goes ahead and makes the same narrative mistakes as its confederates, and only makes a decent fist of things when it’s focusing on the inter-relationships of the teens, and not the frankly ridiculous storyline that needed four writers to work on it.

Sunset Murder Case (1938) / D: Louis J. Gasnier / 60m

aka High Explosive

Cast: Sally Rand, Esther Muir, Vince Barnett, Paul Sutton, Lona Andre, Mary Brodel, George Douglas, Reed Hadley, Kathryn Kane, Dennis Moore, Henry King

Rating: 4/10 – when her policeman father is murdered, a showgirl, Kathy O’Connor (Rand), decides to pose as a fan dancer at a nightclub in an effort to find out who killed him; Rand’s presence is the only interesting thing about this deadly dull drama that stops too often for musical interludes, and which seems to run longer than it actually does, making Sunset Murder Case a disappointing exercise that lacks for thrills and any kind of appeal that might make it look or sound better.

The Guest House (2012) / D: Michael Baumgarten / 82m

Cast: Ruth Reynolds, Madeline Merritt, Tom McCafferty, Jake Parker, Jennifer Barlow

Rating: 3/10 – wild child Rachel (Reynolds), stuck at home for the weekend after splitting up with her boyfriend, gets to know her father’s new employee, Amy (Merritt), when she comes to stay in the guest house…and not just as a friend; a low budget insult to any lesbians who happen to watch this farrago, The Guest House is ludicrous in the way it depicts lesbian lovemaking, and ludicrous in the way that writer/director Baumgarten could have ever thought that his script was even halfway adequate enough to make this worth watching – and that’s without the two terrible performances at the movie’s centre.

Sparks and Embers (2015) / D: Gavin Boyter / 88m

Cast: Kris Marshall, Annelise Hesme, Waleed Akhtar, Valda Aviks, Sean Baker, Len Trusty

Rating: 4/10 – five years after they met while stuck in a lift, Tom (Marshall) and Eloise (Hesme), meet up again just as she’s on the verge of leaving London to go off and marry another man, making this Tom’s last chance to win her back after their relationship has ended; a movie that wants so much to say something profound about love (but doesn’t know how to), Sparks and Embers wastes its two co-stars’ time, and the audience’s, on a story that lacks any kind of spark, and which sees the couple wandering along London’s South Bank, aimlessly back and forth, and oddly, at different times of the year, which is no mean feat when Tom has just forty-five minutes to persuade Eloise not to leave.

My Name Is Lenny (2017) / D: Ron Scalpello / 91m

Cast: Josh Helman, Michael Bisping, Chanel Cresswell, Charley Palmer Rothwell, Nick Moran, John Hurt, Rita Tushingham, Frankie Oatway, George Russo, Martin Askew, Jennifer Brooke

Rating: 4/10 – the story of British bare knuckle boxer Lenny McLean (Helman) as he tries to deal with the demons that still haunt him from his childhood, while also trying to keep his marriage from falling apart, and defeat main rival Roy Shaw (Bisping) – and all at the same time; a raucous, cheaply made biopic that has a good sense of the period it’s set in, My Name Is Lenny is undermined by Helman’s decision (supported no doubt by director Scalpello) to portray McLean as a constantly gurning nutjob with all the self-awareness of, well, someone who’s taken too many punches to the head, and a number of violent scenes that are there to make the movie more interesting (though only briefly) than it actually is.

The Living Ghost (1942) / D: William Beaudine / 61m

aka Lend Me Your Ear; A Walking Nightmare

Cast: James Dunn, Joan Woodbury, Paul McVey, Vera Gordon, Norman Willis, J. Farrell MacDonald, Minerva Urecal, George Eldredge, Jan Wiley, Edna Johnson

Rating: 5/10 – when a wealthy businessman disappears only to return in a semi-comatose state that no one can explain, ex-detective Nick Trayne (Dunn) is persuaded to investigate; eerie goings-on coupled with a lot of broad comedy makes The Living Ghost more entertaining than it has any right to be, particularly as the script flits from one ill-thought out idea to another, and the more than competent Dunn is left to carry the picture on his own, a situation that isn’t any good for him or the audience.

Turn the Key Softly (1953) / D: Jack Lee / 78m

Cast: Yvonne Mitchell, Terence Morgan, Joan Collins, Kathleen Harrison, Thora Hird, Dorothy Alison, Glyn Houston

Rating: 7/10 – three women – lovelorn Monica (Mitchell), selfish Stella (Collins), and good-natured Granny Quilliam (Harrison) – are released from prison on the same day, but though all three have plans to stay on the right side of the law, temptations put them all in jeopardy of landing right back where they started; a nimbly executed drama that poses some unexpected questions about the likelihood of prison being a place of reform, Turn the Key Softly benefits from the performances of Mitchell, Collins and Harrison, and by an assured use of London as a backdrop to the action.

No More Ladies (1935) / D: Edward H. Griffith / 80m

Cast: Joan Crawford, Robert Montgomery, Charles Ruggles, Franchot Tone, Edna May Oliver, Gail Patrick, Reginald Denny, Vivienne Osborne, Joan Fontaine, Arthur Treacher

Rating: 5/10 – lovesick Marcia (Crawford) finally lands the man of her dreams, committed Lothario Sherry (Montgomery), only to find that being married hasn’t dampened his ardour for the company of other women; though the script is by Donald Ogden Stewart and Horace Jackson, neither man can make this turgid tale of jealousy and vengeful scheming as credible as it needs to be, and despite the best efforts of Crawford and Montgomery, it fails to impress, leaving only Ruggles and Oliver to elevate the material, and then merely by being present and on fine form.

Rough Night (2017) / D: Lucia Aniello / 101m

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Jillian Bell, Zoë Kravitz, Ilana Glazer, Kate McKinnon, Paul W. Downs, Ryan Cooper, Ty Burrell, Demi Moore

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: