Trumbo (2015)

19 Tuesday Jan 2016

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

D: Jay Roach / 124m

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brooklyn (2015)

18 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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

D: John Crowley / 111m

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Danish Girl (2015)

17 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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

D: Tom Hooper / 119m

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Creed (2015)

15 Friday Jan 2016

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

D: Ryan Coogler / 133m

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

45 Years (2015)

12 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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

D: Andrew Haigh / 95m

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Solace (2015)

11 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Abbie Cornish, Afonso Poyart, Anthony Hopkins, Colin Farrell, Drama, FBI, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Murder, Psychics, Review, Serial killer, Terminal illnesses, Thriller, Visions

D: Afonso Poyart / 101m

Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Abbie Cornish, Colin Farrell, Xander Berkeley, Marley Shelton, Janine Turner, Kenny Johnson, Sharon Lawrence

Solace is one of those movies. You know, a movie that dares you not to laugh at the absurdity of it all. It’s a movie that acknowledges the idea of credibility and then tramples all over it with big hob-nailed boots on. It’s so consistently bad that there’s no getting over just how awful it is. And it just goes to show that, sometimes, actors definitely go for the pay cheque rather than the artistic challenge (not that there is one here, unless you count keeping a straight face when the movie gets really silly).

But in amongst all the terrible dialogue and horrible acting, there are lessons to be learnt from Sean Bailey and Ted Griffin’s script, lessons that could prove invaluable if you’ve a mind to write your own serial killer thriller. Here are ten pointers toward making that movie a success.

1 – Always give your central protagonist – here Hopkins’ psychic John Clancy – a heartrending backstory that will have no relevance at all until the final scene, when you can reveal a dark secret that sheds new light on the character and his/her motivations (but which will be redundant in terms of the drama).

2 – If your central character is a psychic it’s important to keep moving the goalposts in terms of what triggers his/her visions. Start off with being touched by others, then move on to have them be practically all-seeing all by themselves.

3 – If your villain is another psychic with advanced “powers”, don’t forget to make sure that, in the end, he/she is no match for your central character, and can be easily defeated, despite having a talent for seeing every outcome of every situation ahead of time.

4 – If you have to involve the police or Federal authorities, then make sure that those characters are at odds with each other in terms of their beliefs; one should be totally behind your psychic hero, while the other should doubt their abilities, and say so more than once.

5 – If you have an agent or policeman who doubts the psychic’s abilities then you should definitely include a scene where their history is laid bare with as much detail as possible, and which should be upsetting for them to hear. (This will ensure that the audience is completely impressed with the psychic’s powers.)

6 – It’s very important that your villain should be able to kill on more than one occasion and never leave any DNA or other forensic evidence at any of the crime scenes. This will make him/her seem invincible/uncatchable until it’s time for them to be defeated with ease by the psychic hero.

7 – Always ensure your psychic hero gets to upstage their police partners by making educated guesses that they can pass off as benefits of their psychic abilities. This will be important when the narrative takes a wrong turn or gets bogged down by its own implausibilities.

8 – When deciding on the killer’s motivations, it’s always best to make them sound like they’re acting with the best of (misguided) intentions. But always be sure to translate those motivations into the kind of dialogue that even the most talented actor couldn’t make convincing.

9 – Never ever insult your audience by including a scene where the psychic refuses to help the authorities because of past traumas. Everyone knows they’ll take the case, and everyone knows their reason for doing so is completely irrelevant (if it’s mentioned at all).

10 – Be sure to include several “psychic montages” that comprise shots and short clips from the rest of the movie interspersed with other, abstract images that have no relevance to the story at all (but which look pretty or ominous). Feel free also to include shots that feature the characters but which don’t actually occur anywhere else in the movie; get away with this by saying these shots are “interpretive”.

Oh, and if you can, get Anthony Hopkins to play your psychic hero. He doesn’t seem to mind what roles he takes on these days.

Rating: 3/10 – originally shot in 2013 and shelved by Warner Bros until it was picked up for distribution by troubled Relativity Media, Solace is a dreadful thriller that deserves to be locked up and never seen again; the cast are wasted, the direction is ham-fisted, and the script refuses to make any sense whatsoever, leaving the viewer with only one option – and you don’t have to be psychic to work out what that is.

Kidnapping Mr. Heineken (2015)

10 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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1982/3, Alfred Heineken, Amsterdam, Anthony Hopkins, Daniel Alfredson, Drama, Jim Sturgess, Kidnapping, Ransom, Review, Ryan Kwanten, Sam Worthington, Thriller, True story

aka Kidnapping Freddy Heineken

D: Daniel Alfredson / 95m

Cast: Jim Sturgess, Sam Worthington, Ryan Kwanten, Anthony Hopkins, Mark van Eeuwen, Thomas Cocquerel, Jemima West, David Dencik

In 1982, five friends working and living in Amsterdam – Cor Van Hout (Sturgess), Willem Holleeder (Worthington), Jan ‘Cat’ Boellard (Kwanten), Frans ‘Spikes’ Meijer (van Eeuwen), and Martin ‘Brakes’ Erkamps (Cocquerel) – are struggling to keep their construction business from going under. They don’t have any appreciable capital so the banks won’t lend them any money. But Cor has an idea (a New Year’s resolution in fact): to do something big, something that will see them all become immensely rich. That idea leads to a plan, and the plan is to kidnap the owner and founder of the Heineken brewery empire, Alfred ‘Freddy’ Heineken (Hopkins).

Needing to pull off this coup quite quickly, the five men begin to plan their abduction and how they will keep the ransom – $35m – and avoid being caught. They begin to watch Heineken to learn his routine, and to figure out the best time to grab him. They also realise that in order to look like professional kidnappers they’ll need to have some money behind them. So they rob a bank, and get away with enough cash to bankroll the abduction. At a shed owned by Jan, they construct soundproof cells where they can keep Heineken (and Ab Doderer (Dencik), his driver), and which are hidden behind false panelling.

The kidnapping is successful and the five men wait for the ransom note to be found by the police. They hole up at Jan’s shed, taking it in turns to check on Heineken and Doderer, and to wait for the ransom to be paid. But time passes, and after three weeks they’ve heard nothing. Willem is all for sending the police evidence that they will harm Heineken if the ransom isn’t paid, but when it comes to it he can’t do it. Another demand leads to the police and Heineken’s company agreeing to pay the ransom money, and the group successfully attain it. They stash most of it in buried tubes out in the forest, but in the days ahead they become more fearful and paranoid that the police will soon be snapping at their heels, and their long-term friendships begin to fray at the seams.

True stories – in the movies at least – usually come with the disclaimer that certain scenes, characters and/or dialogue have been fictionalised or conflated or created for dramatic purposes. This we know, and it’s always the problem with telling a true story: just how much of what you’re seeing is really true. The answer, of course, is absolutely none of it. It doesn’t matter if its’s based on a true story, or has the backing and involvement of the people it concerns or portrays, every single movie that’s based on a true story, or real events – what you’re watching is never going to be exactly what happened. And while we all know this deep down, still we take for granted that what we’re seeing actually happened, as if the writer(s), director(s) and cast have a special way of recreating past events exactly as they happened.

Sadly for Kidnapping Mr. Heineken, if that were the case, then it might help obscure or erase the movie’s most fundamental problem: it’s not in the least bit convincing or dramatic enough to work. A belated English language remake of The Heineken Kidnapping (2011), the movie is a tired, tangled piece that features five men who don’t seem to have anything in common except they take to kidnapping with apparent ease, especially when it comes to abandoning their consciences (not one of them offers any objections to the idea). And there’s an incredible naïvete about their decision that’s never properly addressed; none of them have a criminal background but they take to being criminals as if it were the most natural, and easiest, thing in the world.

With the movie establishing an awkward tone from the start, the middle section does little to rescue things, as Heineken gets the chance to be belligerent and caustic to his kidnappers on a regular basis, and they all sit around wondering why the ransom hasn’t been paid. Five more glum-looking faces you’re unlikely to see for quite some time, as the movie – scripted by William Brookfield from the book by Peter R. de Vries – fails to add any tension to proceedings, even when Willem wants to get violent. It gives rise to an odd feeling, that neither Brookfield nor Alfredson have made any connection to the story, and are telling it out of some sense of obligation.

The same can be said of the cast. Sturgess, usually a sharp-minded presence on screen, here seems held back by the vagaries of the script, in particular with regard to Cor’s relationship with his girlfriend Sonia (West), which appears to be of minor importance during the abduction but assumes a disproportionate relevance in the movie’s final third. Worthington continues to make audiences wonder why he gets so much work, giving a performance that’s so stiff you expect him to seize up at any moment. And Kwanten, thanks to one of the scruffiest wigs seen in ages, will have viewers trying to work out who he is (in real life) rather than how good his performance is. But spare a thought for Hopkins, playing yet another supporting performance and having to go from assured patriarch to rambling mental patient in the space of a competently edited chase sequence.

The story of Alfred Heineken’s kidnapping was a major news story at the time – in Holland at least – and is notable still today for the ransom being the largest ever paid for an individual, and for the fact that some of the money has never been recovered. The movie cites this at the end, along with the fates of the main characters (two of which may come as a very big surprise). But by then you’ll be less than interested, and just as relieved as Heineken probably was at being rescued from it all.

Rating: 4/10 – plodding, uninspired and plain dull for long stretches, Kidnapping Mr. Heineken is a movie that lacks commitment from its cast and crew, and ambles along with all the urgency of a downhill racer missing his skis; broadly factual (ironically, de Vries, who was an advisor on the movie, subsequently refused to watch the movie, citing numerous discrepancies between the movie and what really happened), this is a movie that gives new meaning to the words defiantly turgid.

A Most Violent Year (2014)

09 Saturday Jan 2016

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Albert Brooks, Ambition, Crime, David Oyelowo, Drama, Gangsters, J.C. Chandor, Jessica Chastain, Oscar Isaac, Review, Theft, Thriller

D: J.C. Chandor / 125m

Cast: Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain, David Oyelowo, Albert Brooks, Elyes Gabel, Christopher Abbott, Matthew Maher, Alessandro Nivola, Peter Gerety, Catalina Sandino Moreno

New York, 1981. In the midst of one of the most violent years in the city’s history, local businessman Abel Morales (Isaac) is looking to expand his fuel distribution company with the acquisition of a bay-front storage facility, and to do it all legally and above board. He’s supported by his wife, Anna (Chastain), but the deal he’s making for the facility is dependent on his being able to make the final payment. With his trucks being hijacked on a regular basis, and with his drivers afraid to make deliveries, Abel struggles to make sense of who’s behind it all.

Matters aren’t made any better by his having to contend with an investigation into his company by District Attorney Lawrence (Oyelowo). Lawrence is convinced that Abel’s business must be crooked in some way, despite his protestations. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, one of his drivers, Julian (Gabel), is involved in a shootout with robbers during an attempted hijacking. Julian goes on the run, and Abel has to track him down and convince him to give himself up. But Julian refuses and remains at large.

Meanwhile, the due date for the final payment is fast approaching and Abel has to negotiate loans from as many people and places as he can, but he’s still short. When he learns that one of his trucks is in the process of being hijacked he pursues the robbers, eventually catching one of them. To his surprise he finds that the hijackings aren’t all that they seemed, though it does lead to a discovery about one of his competitors that he uses to his financial advantage. But with time running out he’s forced to approach Mafia-affiliated Peter Forente (Nivola); Forente agrees to loan Abel the money he needs but the terms are not very favourable. But when Abel tells Anna about the deal he’s made, she reveals something she’s done which has an impact on everything.

It’s been said on many previous occasions by many other people that the title A Most Violent Year is misleading. The movie contains little actual violence, despite including a bridge shootout and Abel chasing down one of the robbers, and there’s none of the tense showdowns we’ve come to associate with gangster movies. Instead, writer/director Chandor has chosen to focus on how difficult it is to operate in a criminal environment and remain honest. To look at Abel, and to see how close he’s getting to securing his company’s future, you do expect temptation to be placed in his way, and you expect him to struggle with each temptation, but what Chandor does instead is replace temptations with a series of setbacks. Abel’s a good man, solid and trustworthy through and through, and it’s how he maintains his innate honesty when faced with these setbacks – when he could be excused for taking a short cut or looking the other way for a moment – that defines him.

As played by Isaac, Abel is a strong, determined individual who always seems a little out of his depth, despite his commitment. It’s his wife, Anna, played with spirited guile by Chastain, who is really the driving force and overseer of the business’s fortunes, and so we have a Lady Macbeth for the Eighties, as she cajoles and prompts and on occasion, bullies her husband into doing what’s needed. It’s a subtly constructed conceit – behind every successful man is an even more ambitious woman – but in the hands of Chandor and Chastain, the movie is all the more intelligent and engrossing when Anna is forced to take centre stage.

The period setting is entirely apt, with the cold, wintry conditions of the time reflecting purposefully on the narrative, as Abel’s fuel distribution business, mostly gas, is seen as a saviour not only for him, but for the city and its battle with the elements (Isaac is seen throughout in a big mustard-coloured coat that looks as warming as it does heavy). The movie wants Abel to succeed and so do we, and as he navigates the treacherous waters of “low” finance, each time he doesn’t quite achieve what he sets out to get, it has the effect of impressing on the viewer that he too will be fighting the elements if he fails completely. Bradford Young’s cinematography is a highlight, the wet, shiny, chilly streets of New York given a light sheen of glamour that makes for some impressive shots throughout the movie.

By focusing on the trials and tribulations of someone seeking to firmly establish themselves in their chosen area of commerce, and by keeping the stakes firmly in the foreground, Chandor achieves a directness of style and narrative that keeps the viewer intrigued as to the outcome, and committed to following Abel’s story to its conclusion. It may not be a movie that features a swift pace and dazzlingly executed photography, but its measured approach to the material allows the viewer to become embroiled in the machinations and leverages that Abel becomes involved in. And if there aren’t any standout action beats or revenge style melodramatics then it’s entirely to the benefit of the movie, and stands as a testament to the quality of Chandor’s writing and directing.

Rating: 8/10 – a modest yet effective crime drama, A Most Violent Year is yet another example of just how good writer/director J.C. Chandor is, and why he’s one of the best movie makers working today; perceptive, extremely well acted, and lacking only in its inclusion of the DA subplot (which doesn’t add anything), this is the kind of movie that shouldput audiences in mind of the kind of thrillers that were being made in the early Seventies: assured, classy, and with a lot to say.

Mini-Review: He Never Died (2015)

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

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Action, Bingo, Blood, Diner, Drama, Father/daughter relationship, Henry Rollins, Horror, Jane Greenhouse, Jason Krawczyk, Jordan Todosey, Kidnapping, Review, Steven Ogg, Thriller

D: Jason Krawczyk / 97m

Cast: Henry Rollins, Steven Ogg, Jane Greenhouse, Jordan Todosey, Booboo Stewart, James Cade, Dan Petronijevic, Don Francks

Jack (Rollins) is a loner. He lives in a run-down apartment building and spends most of his days sleeping. When he’s awake he’s uncommunicative and miserable. He goes to the same diner every day for the same thing (oatmeal), and is oblivious to the attempts by one of the waitresses, Cara (Greenhouse), to find out more about him. The only appointments he has are with a hospital intern, Jeremy (Stewart), who sells him unidentified items out of his car. Jack isn’t just world weary, he’s time weary.

When two thugs (Cade, Petronijevic) come to his apartment looking for Jeremy and threaten him, Jack dispenses with them even though he’s shot in the hand. And later that same night, he receives a call from his most recent wife asking him to pick up their daughter, Andrea (Todosey), before she gets too drunk to drive home. He finds her and takes her back to his apartment. Before long, Jack is taking Andrea to the diner, and to the place where he plays bingo two or three times a week. As they get to know each other – reluctantly on Jack’s part – his true nature begins to assert itself once the two thugs from the day before try to have him killed. From there, matters escalate. Andrea is kidnapped, Jack is revealed to have certain “skills” and one heck of a back story, and the shadowy presence of an old man continually leaves Jack spooked.

He Never Died is many things: a black comedy, a thriller, a horror movie, a relationship drama, and a movie with a core mystery whose reveal is at odds with one of the first things we learn about Jack. But this is okay, because even though these various story elements don’t always gel together into an effective whole, this is a movie that has Henry Rollins giving one of the most enjoyably deadpan, sardonic performances ever. While there are times when writer/director Krawczyk’s script drops the ball (and never finds out where it’s ended up), Rollins is the rock the movie is built on, and he doesn’t disappoint, playing Jack completely straight and with a no-nonsense attitude that reaps dividends from the start. This is a man who is seriously underwhelmed by everything; to say he doesn’t suffer anything gladly would be a massive understatement.

But while Rollins is impressive as Jack, and he plays him with a hard-edged nonchalance that’s strangely endearing (for the viewer), elsewhere there are performances and characters that don’t quite fit the bill. Ogg’s slimy club owner, Alex, is played at too manic a pitch to be anything but annoying, while Greenhouse’s smitten waitress is asked to suspend disbelief too often for comfort, and too easily. It’s left to Todosey to inject some fun into proceedings, as Andrea manoeuvres her way through the minefield of Jack’s reluctance to bond.

He Never Died is also a movie that, for a comedy-horror-thriller, is drenched in blood, whether it’s from one of the many goons who cross his path, or from Jack himself (there’s a scene with a pair of pliers that you won’t forget easily). The red stuff is all over the place here, but it’s relevant too, and thanks to Eric Billman’s often colour saturated cinematography, is memorable for its distribution and its lurid quality. But while Krawczyk pays his genre dues, it’s in terms of the movie’s humour that He Never Died works so well, with some whip-smart dialogue and a handful of killer one-liners (Andrea’s assertion that “vaginas are like coupon books for alcohol” is an instant classic).

Rating: 7/10 – while it struggles at times to be coherent and true to its main character’s origins, there’s much to enjoy in He Never Died; violent, profane and gloriously acerbic, it’s a movie that revels in its own cleverness, and wants its audience to have the anarchic ride of their lives, something it achieves with undisguised relish.

The Visit (2015)

03 Sunday Jan 2016

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Deanna Dunagan, Drama, Ed Oxenbould, Found footage, Grandchildren, Grandparents, Horror, Kathryn Hahn, M. Night Shyamalan, Olivia DeJonge, Peter McRobbie, Review, Thriller

D: M. Night Shyamalan / 94m

Cast: Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, Kathryn Hahn, Celia Keenan-Bolger

If you’re M. Night Shyamalan, and your career has become known more for the disappointing movies you’ve made rather than the global box office success of your third feature, then what do you do? Do you plug away at the kind of movies you like to make, where there’s a twist in the tail every time, or do you try something different? And what do you do if “different” still doesn’t work?

Well, if you are M. Night Shyamalan, then you keep coming back to the kind of movie that brought you international fame and fortune in the first place. You keep tweeking the idea to be sure, but in the end it’s the same mystery set up with a twist at the end designed to make viewers gasp, “Wow! I didn’t see that coming!” The only problem with that approach though, is that viewers will be expecting the twist and trying to work it out from the word go. The beauty of The Sixth Sense (1999) was that it was a movie with so little fanfare that when the truth about Bruce Willis’s character was revealed, audiences were properly surprised. But now, audiences are that much more savvy, and getting something past them like that is even more difficult.

But Shyamalan is a trier, and he certainly doesn’t give up easily. And so we have The Visit, his latest venture as writer/director, and a movie that is two parts Tales from the Crypt and one part The Twilight Zone. The set up is pretty simple: single mom (Hahn) decides to send her two young children – Becca (DeJonge) and Tyler (Oxenbould) – to visit their grandparents for the first time. Mom is estranged from her parents, but feels it will be good for her kids to meet them and build a relationship with them. Becca decides to film the trip and their stay, both as a record of the occasion and as part of a larger school project.

When they arrive at their grandparents’ place, they find Nana (Dunagan) and Pop-Pop (McRobbie) to be a pleasant, welcoming couple. However, it’s not long before they begin to realise that Nana and Pop-Pop might have a few issues related to their age. Nana exhibits strange behaviour during the night, from wandering (apparently) aimlessly through the house to scratching at the wall outside their room – and without any clothes on either. But Pop-Pop explains that Nana isn’t too well, and Becca and Tyler sympathise and continue their stay – even after they play hide and seek under the house and find Nana under there with them and chasing them on all fours.

But Pop-Pop also exhibits some strange behaviour. He keeps going out to the shed each day and depositing a package there. Tyler investigates and finds that Pop-Pop has his own problems. And still the children continue their stay, even as they begin to suspect that good old Nana and Pop-Pop might not be in the best of mental and/or physical health. FaceTime calls with their mom don’t help, as she’s focused on the holiday she’s enjoying with her new man. But as the week of their stay progresses, events become more unnerving and both Becca and Tyler begin to look forward to going home, just as Nana and Pop-Pop begin to think it might be a good idea if they stayed longer.

Let’s get the twist out of the way. It comes along with roughly fifteen minutes to go, and for seasoned veterans of this kind of movie, will have been guessed a long time before then. It’s not a particularly difficult twist to work out – Shyamalan provides enough clues – and when it comes it’s done in a suitably effective way. But while some viewers may feel it’s an unnecessary turn of events, advance knowledge actually doesn’t make the movie any less effective (as far as that goes). What it does do though is give Shyamalan the chance to ramp up the tension of the last ten minutes and inject some much needed energy.

The Visit lives or dies by how convincing the children’s reaction to their grandparents’ behaviour is. Today, with children being a lot more aware of the wider world around them, and of what is and isn’t right, being holed up with a couple of elderly people who exhibit bizarre behaviour that might lead to their being violent, doesn’t seem like something that two kids of Tyler and Becca’s intelligence would endure (even for their mom’s sake). But they do, and in reality we wouldn’t have a movie if they didn’t, but equally, in reality they would have been out of there the moment they saw Nana scratching at the walls in the all-together. Shyamalan is clever enough to invoke the sympathy card but when Becca surprises Pop-Pop “cleaning” his rifle, they still opt to wait out the week.

Suspension of disbelief is pretty much a standard requirement for horror thrillers, and The Visit requires it just as much as any other, similar movie. But here the basic set up is so banal, so bland, that when events become disturbing and threatening, Shyamalan can’t come up with a convincing reason for the kids to stay. And he’s not helped by the decision to use the found footage approach, which leads to several moments where suspension of disbelief is not only required but stretched to its limits (just how many times can a camera be dropped/left in exactly the right place to record things?).

But while the movie’s more sinister elements aren’t entirely successful, with several references to Grimm’s Fairy Tales added to the mix, where Shyamalan does succeed is with his cast. DeJonge and Oxenbould are terrific as the children, siblings who fight and argue with each other all the time but who are clearly devoted to each other at the same time. Becca is a budding cineaste and talks about movie making as if she were an auteur; DeJonge captures the child’s need to feel and be treated like an adult with surprising precision. Tyler’s wannabe rapper feels like a way for him to deal with not having a father, and Oxenbould gives Tyler a wonderful braggadocio in these moments (even if his rapping is awful). As Nana and Pop-Pop, Dunagan and McRobbie don’t overplay their “issues” and prove remarkably effective at providing the chills beneath the sweetness of the couple’s exterior affability.

Made on a small budget but with a degree of creativity that makes the movie a lot more entertaining than some of Shyamalan’s other movies – The Happening (2008), The Last Airbender (2010) to name but two – The Visit still doesn’t quite mean a return to the early form Shyamalan showed with The Sixth Sense. But it’s a better found footage movie than most, tells its story with a refreshing lack of gimmicks, and might just be a sign that Shyamalan is turning the corner and starting to make good movies again.

Rating: 6/10 – not as eerie or as frightening as its writer/director may have wanted, The Visit is nevertheless a worthwhile entry in the found footage genre (even if it’s not technically “found” footage); good performances bolster a script that doesn’t fulfill its own potential, but most viewers will find the movie an okay watch that doesn’t insult them too much of the time, or deliberately.

Goodbye to All That (2014)

02 Saturday Jan 2016

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Angus MacLachlan, Anna Camp, Ashley Hinshaw, Audrey Scott, Comedy, Drama, Heather Graham, Heather Lawless, High school reunion, Marital break-up, Marriage, Melanie Lynskey, Paul Schneider, Relationships, Review, Romance

D: Angus MacLachlan / 87m

Cast: Paul Schneider, Melanie Lynskey, Audrey Scott, Anna Camp, Ashley Hinshaw, Heather Lawless, Heather Graham, Michael Chernus, Amy Sedaris, Celia Weston

For Otto Wall (Schneider), life appears to be ticking along quite nicely. He has a wife, Annie (Lynskey) and a pre-teen daughter, Edie (Scott), a good job, and he wins local running competitions. He’s also quite accident prone, and one day he breaks his foot. One day during his recovery, Annie asks him to meet her at her therapist’s. Unaware of what’s about to happen, he learns that Annie wants a divorce (though the reason why is less than forthcoming). Shocked and confused, Otto struggles with the need to find a new place, and telling the people around him. The only positive is that he can still see Edie, and have her stay over at his new place.

Otto soon learns that Annie has been having an affair. This prompts him to consider dating again. He hooks up with an old girlfriend, Stephanie (Graham), when she contacts him via Facebook, and they have a one night stand that leaves Otto even more confused than before. Using a dating sight he meets Mildred (Hinshaw), who will willingly have sex with Otto, but doesn’t want a relationship. When Edie expresses an interest in going to church, he meets Debbie Spangler (Camp), a young single woman he takes to a cabin for the weekend. They too have sex, but the next morning she freaks out and tells Otto they shouldn’t have done what they did (which makes the journey home a little fraught).

Otto still sees Annie occasionally, but their meetings are brittle moments of cordiality. When Edie begins to show signs that she doesn’t want to stay over any more, following a break-in, Otto begins to feel as if his life is now in complete freefall. It’s only his high school’s 20th anniversary reunion party that offers any relief: there he sees the girl who got away, Lara (Lawless). They spend time together briefly before she announces she has to leave. Otto gets her number though, and later calls her. He’s delighted to learn that she’s divorced, but surprised to learn that she’s heading to Costa Rica to teach scuba diving. It all leaves Otto with a big decision to make: whether to go with Lara, or stay and be near to Edie.

A gentle comedy of sexual manners married to a relationship drama that lacks depth, Goodbye to All That is a movie that most viewers will watch with the idea that at some point it’ll reveal what it wants to say. But unfortunately, MacLachlan, who wrote and directed the movie, never does reveal what the movie wants to say, or what it’s all about. On the surface – a very cloudy surface, admittedly – it’s about a man coming to terms with being single again after a lengthy time being married, and having no clue as to what to do next. Otto is possibly one of the most aimless, laidback characters seen in recent years, his oblivious manner and clueless expressions the marks of a man with little or no understanding of the people and places around him; it’s like he’s sleepwalked through his entire life so far.

His sexual liaisons with Stephanie, Mildred and Debbie should allow Otto the room and the experience to grow as both a father and an individual, but he’s much the same at the end as he was at the beginning, just less of a man with a puppy dog’s approach to life. Faced with women who are more emotionally and sexually complex than he is, Otto can only marvel at the ways in which relationships have evolved since he started dating Annie. As an observation on life in general, it’s pretty shallow, and as an observation of the female characters in the movie, it’s shallower still. Stephanie is all about self-gratification, Mildred is all about boundaries, and Debbie is all about unrestrained excess (with a side order of post-sexual guilt). Put them all together and they’re still not a complete woman. Instead they’re stereotypes, created to allow Otto to express his confusion about women’s needs.

It’s this confused state that Otto wanders around in the whole time that makes the movie less than engaging. He doesn’t learn from any of his experiences, and doesn’t realise at any point that his laidback, “everything’s okay, I don’t have to try anymore” attitude is what has prompted Annie to push for a divorce. He can’t connect properly with her, or with the women he sleeps with, and even though he has an epiphany of sorts near the end, by then it’s too late, and the viewer is no longer interested.

What writer/director MacLachlan forgets to include is a scene where Otto behaves sympathetically to any of the women he knows. If he did we might have a degree of sympathy for Otto himself, but his relationship with Edie aside, it’s all about Otto. Schneider plays him as a well-meaning doofus, but it’s a portrayal that wears thin as the movie progresses, and by the end you’re hoping that Lara will bring him down to earth with some well-chosen observations about his behaviour, but instead the script has her supporting him unreservedly. It makes you wonder – still – what on earth the movie’s all about.

Despite some serious pitfalls and and a less than cohesive story, Goodbye to All That does feature some good performances, with Lynskey and Camp making the biggest impressions. Lynskey is an underrated actress and should be given bigger and better roles, and here she takes what could be the shrew’s role and makes it much more rounded and emotional. Camp has a ball as the sexually expressive Debbie, playing demure one moment and bawdily kittenish the next. Both actresses hold the attention when they’re on screen, and both do more with their characters than the script would necessarily allow. And Scott is a winning screen presence, a moppet with a firm grasp on the mixed emotions Edie feels in the wake of her parents’ splitting up.

In contrast, MacLachlan’s direction is solid but unremarkable, though he does show an enthusiasm for shooting the sex scenes that makes all the other scenes appear like afterthoughts, and he can’t quite stop Otto from looking baffled in each and every scene once Annie (or rather, her therapist) tells him it’s over. Corey Walter’s cinematography is a definite plus, with the autumnal North Carolina locations given an extra lustre, and praise too to editor Jennifer Lilly for making a number of scenes feel more potent than the script did (the scene in the therapist’s, Otto and Mildred’s first time together to name but two).

Rating: 5/10 – uneven, sporadically amusing (for a comedy), lacking in focus, but somehow better than a lot of other, similar movies, Goodbye to All That is perfect for a wet Sunday afternoon after a big lunch; if you can ignore Otto’s unfortunate misogyny then you might be able to reap some enjoyment from the movie, but otherwise it’s a romantic comedy-drama that doesn’t know which one it is at any given moment.

Burnt (2015)

01 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Bradley Cooper, Chef, Clean and sober, Cuisine, Daniel Brühl, Drama, Emma Thompson, Food, John Wells, Kitchen, London, Michelin Guide, Restaurant, Review, Romance, Sienna Miller, Steven Knight, Three stars

D: John Wells / 101m

Cast: Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Daniel Brühl, Riccardo Scamarcio, Omar Sy, Sam Keeley, Henry Goodman, Matthew Rhys, Stephen Campbell Moore, Emma Thompson, Uma Thurman, Lexie Benbow-Hart, Alicia Vikander, Sarah Greene

Adam Jones (Cooper) is a bit of a cause célèbre in the culinary world, having crashed and burned at the Paris restaurant where he worked thanks to his diva-like behaviour and propensity for drugs and booze. Now clean for two years, he turns up in London at the restaurant run by his friend and colleague from his time in Paris, Tony (Brühl). Adam tells an unimpressed and disbelieving Tony that he’s there to make up for Paris, run the kitchen in a top restaurant, and gain three Michelin stars. Naturally, Tony refuses to help him, but Adam isn’t about to give up. He bullies his way into Tony’s restaurant, shows Tony (and his clientele) what he can do, and eyes up the sous chef, Helene (Miller), with a view to poaching her for his own place.

Which, of course, he does, but not before Helene puts up a (semi-)spirited defence, and Tony has to be dragged away from his own job as a maître d’. Having assembled his kitchen staff, Adam’s opening night doesn’t go as smoothly or successfully as he’d hoped, and the abrasive side of his personality comes out, leading to a tirade of abuse directed at his staff and Helene walking out. But Tony persuades her to come back, and soon she and Adam are starting out on the rocky road to a relationship – of sorts. Back in the kitchen, the apparent arrival of two Michelin Guide inspectors sees Adam go all out to get his three stars, but an unforeseen setback destroys his dream.

Adam goes off the deep end (albeit for one night) and winds up at the restaurant of a rival chef, Reece (Rhys). There he learns a couple of valuable lessons, reconnects with Tony and Helene, is given a second chance at gaining the three Michelin stars, and begins – again – to put his life back together.

Burnt features a screenplay by Steven Knight, a British screenwriter who’s also responsible for Eastern Promises (2007) and Locke (2013). But he’s also written the likes of Hummingbird (2013) and Seventh Son (2014), so his track record is a little uneven… and Burnt falls firmly into the latter category. There’s very little here that makes sense, and a lot of it happens for no particular reason at all, leaving the drama feeling undercooked and the romance warmed over. For example, we don’t know why Adam chooses London to make his return. It’s never explained how he manages to stay clean without attending any meetings (“I’m not good in groups,” he keeps saying). And his backers have insisted he have weekly blood tests to ensure he’s not using again; if he does they’ll withdraw their backing. (This is where Emma Thompson comes in, as the therapist who takes his blood. Why not the hospital or a doctors’ surgery? It’s a strange arrangement, and one that just sits there like a fait accompli.)

Elsewhere there are subplots and other subplots that have their own subplots, like the money Adam owes to some unsavoury types in Paris, and who have traced him to London (having failed to learn he was in the US for two years while getting and staying sober). On the back of that we’re introduced – very briefly – to an old flame (played by Vikander) who drifts in and out of the movie and provides no threat whatsoever to the relationship Adam has with Helene (it might have been predictable but it would also have raised the movie out of the dramatic doldrums it rolls around in for an hour and a half).

And when the script decides to throw in the notion that Tony is in love with Adam, it comes literally out of nowhere and then is left hanging there to dwindle away to nothing. Maybe these moments are meant to add depth or meaning to the various relationships in the movie, but all they do is confirm the notion that Knight hasn’t really got to grips with what the movie is meant to be saying. Adam rants unconvincingly at his staff, and thanks to the movie’s PG-13 approach, sounds less like Gordon Ramsay and more like someone having a good whinge. There’s the awkward use of his rival, Reece, as well. One minute Reece is disparaging of Adam’s talent and attempt at redemption, the next he’s stuck with lines like “You’re better than me. But the rest of us need you to lead us to places we wouldn’t otherwise go.” (Really?)

There’s more, too much more, and things aren’t helped by Wells’ direction, which remains staunchly flavourless throughout, and a cast who struggle continually to do their best but remain hamstrung by Knight’s script. Cooper, normally a very capable actor, doesn’t seem to know what to do with his character, and goes with the flow of each individual scene, so that he’s angry one moment, happy the next, confused after that, and then determined, but it’s like he’s acted in each scene with no intention of linking them with any other scenes, or the picture as a whole.

Miller is poorly used – again – and the other female roles don’t even amount to a whole one. Thompson does just enough, Vikander isn’t allowed to do even that, and Thurman pops up as a food critic who can’t even do bitchy properly (honestly, Anton Ego from Ratatouille (2007) was more caustic). On the male side, Sy is kept firmly in the background until the script needs him (only twice), Brühl struggles with a character who gives new meaning to the word “bland”, and Scamarcio is virtually a passer-by as one of the two French thugs. The Doors once sang, “No one here gets out alive”, but in terms of Burnt, the line should be “No one here gets to act alive”.

Rating: 4/10 – with the food on display looking bright and vibrant and good enough to eat, a plate is the only place you’ll find anything that’s vibrant in Burnt; tedious, muddled and poorly constructed, this is a movie that should be sent back for being completely inedible.

Spotlight (2015)

29 Tuesday Dec 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Boston Globe, Cardinal Law, Catholic Church, Drama, Investigation, Liev Schreiber, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Priests, Rachel McAdams, Review, Sexual abuse, Stanley Tucci, Tom McCarthy, True story

D: Tom McCarthy / 128m

Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, Brian d’Arcy James, Stanley Tucci, Billy Crudup, Jamey Sheridan, Paul Guilfoyle, Len Cariou, Neal Huff, Michael Cyril Creighton, Richard Jenkins

In 2001, the Boston Globe newspaper hired a new editor, Marty Baron (Schreiber). Baron noticed a column in the paper about a Catholic priest, John Geoghan, who was known to be a paedophile, and a lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian (Tucci) who claimed he had evidence that the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Law (Cariou), knew all about it and did nothing to stop Geoghan’s activities. Urging the paper’s Spotlight section – an investigative team made up of four people – to look more closely at the matter, Baron set in motion an investigation that would expand rapidly to reveal a far greater problem than one errant priest.

This is the story that Spotlight tells: the investigation into one priest’s predatory behaviour that revealed the systemic abuse of children over decades, and which had been covered up by the Catholic Church. It’s a tale of widespread abuse, and the political and legal corruption, and immorality, that goes with it. As the team – editor Walter “Robby” Robinson (Keaton), and reporters Mike Resendez (Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (McAdams), and Matt Carroll (James) – begin looking into the story they learn that the Globe was aware of some of the allegations being made as far back as 1996 following a similar case, but these were never followed up. They speak to the founder of a support group for people who have been abused by priests, Phil Saviano (Huff), who reveals that, based on what he’s been told, Goeghan is one of thirteen priests in the Boston area that have molested children over the years.

Shocked by this, the team divide their attention in different areas: Resendez contacts the lawyer, Garabedian, in order to find out what evidence he has; Pfeiffer meets with a victim, Joe Crawley (Creighton); and Carroll starts looking into the backgrounds of the priests Saviano has named. What emerges is a picture of abuse that appears to have been ignored or covered up by the Church, and which is still continuing. They also get in touch with an ex-priest, Richard Sipe (Jenkins), who worked at a “treatment centre” back in the Sixties. Since leaving the Church he’s made a thorough study of the “phenomena” of sexual abuse wihtin the priesthood, and in one particularly chilling telephone conversation with the Spotlight team he tells them his findings indicate that 6% of priests abuse children. Now the team has to rethink their strategy: based on Sipe’s findings, they’re no longer looking at thirteen priests in the Boston area, but ninety.

With the enormity of the problem now fully revealed, the team have to tread even more carefully, and refocus their investigation; it’s no longer enough to target Cardinal Law and his tacit allowance of the abuse. It’s now obvious that the abuse isn’t confined to Boston, it happens everywhere. The story becomes about how the Church itself allows this to happen and never disciplines its priests, preferring instead to move them around and still allowing them to have unsupervised access to children.

In the end, Spotlight broke the story in early 2002. It was the major news story of its day, and the movie recounts those days with a measured simplicity that avoids any potential hyperbole or grandstanding. Thanks to an intelligently constructed script by McCarthy and Josh Singer, the way in which the story unfolded is handled with a sensitivity and compassion for the victims that is offset by the Spotlight team’s increasing sense of disgust at the Church’s mistreatment of them. Each of the team is affected in their own way, showing just how pervasive the issue was, and without anyone realising. It’s a sobering realisation, that the abuse of children by a powerful organisation such as the Catholic Church – such a huge presence in so many people’s lives – can have such far-reaching consequences.

Thanks again to the script, the legal and moral issues surrounding the cases are clearly laid out on both sides, and Mitchell Garabedian aside, the lawyers involved in out of court settlements fare badly, as they put ethical issues aside and justify their actions by virtue of “just doing their job”. As one of these lawyers, Billy Crudup has a small but crucial role that highlights just how much one section of the Boston legal system was prepared to look the other way. And the Cardinal’s spokesman, a wily operator called Joe Connelly (Guilfoyle), is on hand to show how the political machine tried to keep the Church from being exposed by attempting to make it seem that the revelations would be bad for the city.

It’s safe to say that the movie exposes a lot more than the hypocrisy of the city’s movers and shakers, and it does so in a low key dramatic manner that allows the horror of the situation to seep through as the movie progresses. McCarthy and his talented cast never let us forget just how awful the amount of abuse was, and through their pursuit of the truth we get to see levels of betrayal that most of us would be hard pressed to even consider let alone believe in. And when a necessary delay in printing the story leads to an angry outburst by Resendez, we can sympathise with him, because by then the audience wants the story to be told equally as much as he does.

In many ways, Spotlight‘s steady pace and determined approach is unexpectedly gripping. As each new development unfolds, the movie steps up a gear, until the viewer is completely enthralled and can’t look away. It doesn’t matter that you know the outcome in advance, this is one of those movies that is so well constructed that you can’t help but be drawn along with it. Helping McCarthy make such an impact is his cast. Keaton is the wise old newspaperman, determined not to let the story get away and the Church off the hook, and patient enough to wait for the right evidence to come along. Ruffalo is the cocksure reporter who feels too much too often, and who uses his anger and disgust at the abuse to fuel his work. By contrast, McAdams’ lone female is affected in small ways, as in the way in which the news will be hurtful to her devout grandmother. And James’ dogged researcher learns that the issue is much closer to home than he’d realised (and which leads to one of the movie’s rare moments of humour).

It’s a powerful movie about a powerful subject and although the naysayers will point to diffusions and imperfections in the story – this didn’t happen like that, that didn’t happen like they say it did – the truth is still clear: abuse happened and the Church covered it up. In 2002 alone, Spotlight ran a further 600 articles based on what they learned from victims. What the movie reminds us is that looking the other way can be even more uncomfortable than looking straight at something that’s too horrible to contemplate.

Rating: 9/10 – one of 2015’s best movies, Spotlight is tense, absorbing, horrifying, and a must-see, with superb performances and and one of the year’s best scripts; it’s already won a shedload of well-deserved awards, and as a movie that tackles a disturbing subject with tact and sensitivity, should gain even more further down the road – it’s that good.

Zatoichi on the Road (1963)

28 Monday Dec 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Blind swordsman, Daiei Studios, Drama, Feudal Japan, Kimiyoshi Yasuda, Masseur, Review, Samurai, Shiho Fujimura, Shintarô Katsu, Yakuza

Original title: Zatôichi kenka-tabi

aka Zatoichi’s Fighting Journey

D: Kimiyoshi Yasuda / 87m

Cast: Shintarô Katsu, Shiho Fujimura, Ryûzô Shimada, Reiko Fujiwara, Matasaburo Niwa, Yoshio Yoshida, Sônosuke Sawamura, Shôsaku Sugiyama, Yutaka Nakamura

The fifth entry in the series sees our hero being escorted to meet a prospective employer. Zatoichi (Katsu) is spotted by members of a yakuza clan who are aware that the propsective employer the blind swordsman is to meet is their sworn enemy, the head of a rival yakuza clan. With a showdown happening soon between the two clans, Zatoichi’s presence can mean only one thing: the rival boss is looking to hire him, and thereby swing matters in his favour. In an attempt to stop Zatoichi being hired, the gang members ambush him and his guide. Zatoichi despatches them with ease but not before his guide is killed.

The wife of one his would-be killers, Hisa (Fujiwara), witnesses the aftermath of the attack and learns Zatoichi’s identity. She takes this information back to the clan boss who, quite rightly, is disturbed by this development. But he has another plan in motion, one that involves the kidnapping of a young girl, Mitsu (Fujimura), for ransom. By luck, Zatoichi almost literally stumbles across a dying man who implores him to “save Mitsu”. Gaining her trust, Zatoichi determines to help her get back home. But it turns out that both yakuza clans have the same idea, and the blind masseur finds himself having to avoid both gangs, as well as the criminal intentions of a crooked innkeeper.

Five movies in and you could be forgiven for thinking that the series should already be running out of steam, but Zatoichi on the Road sees the franchise taking the basic “wandering swordsman” premise and putting a clever spin on things. Here, Zatoichi’s pledge to a dying man exposes the character’s nobility and selflessness to an even greater extent than in previous entries, as he shepherds Mitsu to her home in Edo, protecting her and keeping her safe. There is the usual romantic angle thrown in, but where before, Zatoichi has fallen in love with the lead female character, here his romantic feelings are held in check by his own awareness that there’s no chance of a relationship developing between them (though he does remain initially hopeful, as always).

Romanticism aside, the movie focuses on traditional notions of honour and fealty to the samurai code, with Zatoichi upholding these in isolation while – again – those who profess to follow the same code pay lip service to it. Both clan bosses are venal, greedy men who use the code for their own ends, and Zatoichi’s innate sense of propriety remains in stark contrast to the corruption that surrounds him. While each boss schemes and plots the end of the other, Zatoichi turns the tables on them, even when one of them finally manages to kidnap Mitsu and hold her hostage. By using their own avarice against them, Zatoichi highlights the ways in which their covetous natures will always undermine their criminal intentions. It’s a moral approach that everyone can relate to, and is played out with confidence and straightforward charm.

One of the series’ strengths is Zatoichi’s avoidance of violence wherever possible. Of course he’s going to find himself in situations where he has no choice but to fight, but here Minoru Inuzuka’s screenplay features a scene of such simple brilliance that it’s worth watching over and over again for Katsu’s superb performance and Yasuda’s assured direction. In it, Zatoichi rescues Mitsu from the clutches of a crooked innkeeper and does so without resorting to using his sword. It’s a tense, riveting scene, and sees Zatoichi attack the innkeeper and his men verbally over and over, denigrating their position and their competence. It’s further enhanced by their awareness of who Zatoichi is, and what he’s capable of; no one wants to risk their lives and prove him right.

But when there is a fight that Zatoichi can’t avoid, the sadness and melancholy that afflicts him is touchingly rendered by Katsu, whose immersion in the role is by now complete. He’s a wonderfully expressive actor, vulnerable and strong at the same time, and with no airs or graces about him. Whether he’s expressing his disappointment at the situations he finds himself in, or marvelling at some of the simpler pleasures in life (tea, for example), Katsu’s Zatoichi is a fully rounded character that any viewer can relate to. And he portrays the character’s loneliness so vividly that there’s very little further information we need to know about him in order to understand why he gets involved in righting wrongs and defeating injustice.

As the object of everyone’s crooked intentions, Mitsu is essentially a McGuffin decked out in a kimono, a hook to hang the plot on. But Fujiwara imbues her with a childlike artlessness that makes her more than just an object of lust and financial gain for the two clans. Her quiet, subservient nature is so calming that it’s no wonder Zatoichi finds himself falling for her, offering as she does a peaceful alternative to the wandering, often violent life he leads. Zatoichi’s search for peace is a constant theme in the series, but it’s here, where the chance of his attaining it is so close (and yet so far) that gives his yearning such resonance.

Filmed largely on location, with some poorly lit interiors doubling as the outdoors from time to time, Zatoichi on the Road retains the visual strengths of the previous colour entries, and the sword fights are still as well choreographed as before. Yasuda’s first outing as director on a Zatoichi movie proves both absorbing and resplendent, his positioning of the camera yet another example of how determined Daiei Studios had become in ensuring that each movie had its own identity while adhering to the overall tone and and accessibility of the series.

Rating: 7/10 – another successful entry in the series, Zatoichi on the Road is as engaging and captivating as its previous outings, and manages to provide further evidence that the character can – and will – avoid the pitfalls of series’ ennui; with Katsu providing yet another polished, emotionally astute performance, the movie never once takes the easy route in telling its deceptively simple story.

NOTE: Alas, the following trailer is free from subtitles.

Sunset Song (2015)

27 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Agyness Deyn, Blawearie, Drama, Farming, Kevin Guthrie, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Literary adaptation, Peter Mullan, Review, Scotland, Terence Davies, World War I

D: Terence Davies / 135m

Cast: Agyness Deyn, Peter Mullan, Kevin Guthrie, Jack Greenlees, Daniela Nardini, Ian Pirie, Douglas Rankine

Terence Davies is not one of the UK’s most prolific movie makers, but he is one who is highly regarded and he’s been justly lauded over the years for movies such as Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) and The House of Mirth (2000). He’s a director who chooses his projects with great care, and he invests a lot of time and effort in getting things right. Sunset Song, an adaptation of the classic novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, has taken fifteen years to reach our screens, and shows Davies focusing on the lives of a small farming family on the eve of World War I.

The main character is Chris Guthrie (Deyn), the eldest daughter of John (Mullan) and Jean (Nardini). She has her work on the farm to occupy her, but she has few plans for her own future, despite being well educated and with an innate sense of the world around her (even if she hasn’t travelled far enough to see it). Her father is a hard, pitiless man who controls the farm and his family with a harshness that tips over into brutality when he feels it necessary. As well as Chris, he has a son, Will, and two younger children, Dod and Alec. John and Will clash continually, and Chris tries to act as peacekeeper but her father’s attitude makes it difficult.

When Jean discovers she is pregnant again, it proves too much for her, and the action she takes to avoid childbirth leads to Dod and Alec being sent to live with their aunt and uncle. Tensions and tempers flare up as John and Will clash ever more violently, and so much acrimony arises that Will makes the decision to emigrate to South America. Left on her own with her father, Chris has no choice but to fill both her brother’s and her mother’s shoes, and run the household as well as look after parts of the farm. She and her father have an uneasy relationship, and it’s made harder when he suffers a stroke that leaves him bedridden. Subsequently she finds herself in charge of the farm, and with a difficult decision to make: sell up or manage the farm herself.

She chooses the latter, and with help from some of her neighbours and old friends of her father’s, Chris finds she has a natural flair for farm management, and she comes to realise just how much she loves the life she leads. Wooed by a young farmer called Ewan Tavendale (Guthrie), Chris eventually marries him and they have a son. But World War I arrives and Ewan goes off to fight in France. Chris waits anxiously for his return but when he does he’s a changed man: violent, angry and aggressive. Fearing the consequences for their marriage if he’s the same when the war ends, Chris is left with yet another difficult decision to make.

If you’re adapting a classic novel then it makes sense to stick closely to the novel’s structure and themes, and with Sunset Song, Davies has done exactly that. The farm, Blawearie, is surrounded by rolling hills and (in summer at least) some very beautiful meadowland, but it’s an old farm, with few modern appliances or signs of mechanical progress to show that John is moving forward with the times. Chris and Will can see the value of these modernisations but their father is something of a grim traditionalist, holding out against the inevitability of change. It’s his way of staying in control, even if ultimately, it’s to his, and the farm’s, detriment.

With themes of change firmly embedded in the script and foregrounding the relationships between Chris, Will, and their father, Davies is free to explore the role of women in such small communities – Chris is independent and speaks her own mind, not a commonplace for the period – as well as the way in which these small communities unite in times of need, and often in a way that is now anathema to modern ways of thinking; despite his often appalling behaviour, John is still highly regarded by his peers, and where he might be shunned today, back then he’s still a man to be respected, and helped when required.

But while the tone and the subject matter and the characters are all handled with skill and seemingly effortless dexterity, somehow Davies has managed to make Sunset Song somehow lacking, as if the story, by itself, should be enough to carry the viewer along quite comfortably. Instead, the narrative meanders at times as it tries to paint a broader picture of the small world it’s focused on. The events that occur on Blawearie Farm, while undeniably dramatic, also suffer from over-familiarity. The blinkered, brutal father figure is one we’ve seen time and again (and with Mullan in the role as well), and the character of Chris is the intelligent, brave, compassionate daughter who acts as a counterpoint to her father’s belligerence. A classic tale complete with classic characters is here transposed into a classic tale with all-too predictable character arcs.

To be fair it’s not entirely Davies’ fault. The problems are inherent in the story and the narrative, as each step of Chris’s journey to maturity and independence are threatened at every turn, and her resilience and resourcefulness is challenged each time. Davies never really finds a way to overcome these over-familiarities, and we’re left with a movie that is sumptuous to look at, and beautifully framed and realised as only Davies can devise, but also a movie that doesn’t allow itself to connect with the audience, preferring instead to tell its story at a distance. There’s never any real emotional investment made in the characters, or their trials and tribulations, and without that investment, many scenes lack the intensity needed to draw the audience in.

Nevertheless, Sunset Song is still a good movie, but one that could have made more of an impact on viewers. Davies is at times a visually astonishing director, and there are several shots in the movie that are simply superb in terms of light and colour and shade and composition. His cast are uniformly excellent, with Deyn grabbing all the plaudits as Chris, giving a complex, striking performance as a young woman on the verge of achieving whatever she wants, but still retaining the insecurity that comes with being in such a momentous position. Mullan could probably play his type of role in his sleep by now, but there are few actors who can take such an objectionable character and make him recognisably, understandably human. The scenes between the two of them, though lacking the emotional charge that’s sorely needed, are still fascinating to watch for the ways in which both actors spar with each other.

There’s certainly room for this type of “heritage” movie in amongst all the over-hyped productions out there, and Davies is a movie maker we should all cherish for his ability to bring recent periods in history to life with such precision and attention to detail, but with Sunset Song he’s made a movie that only goes part way to achieving the classic status of its source novel.

Rating: 8/10 – a bracing depiction of early 20th Century Scottish farming life with terrific performances and Davies creating a fully recognisable world, Sunset Song – while missing a fair degree of passion in its telling – is still a movie with considerable merit; achingly beautiful in places, and a joy to watch if you appreciate measured, thoughtful movie making, Davies’ latest may be a tad disappointing but it’s still head and shoulders above the majority of movies out there at the moment.

Mini-Review: The Good Dinosaur (2015)

26 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Animation, Anna Paquin, Apatosaurus, Arlo, Dinosaurs, Disney, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Frances McDormand, Jack Bright, Jeffrey Wright, Peter Sohn, Pixar, Pterodactyls, Raymond Ochoa, Review, Sam Elliott, Spot, Steve Zahn, T-Rex

D: Peter Sohn / 93m

Cast: Raymond Ochoa, Jack Bright, Jeffrey Wright, Frances McDormand, Steve Zahn, Sam Elliott, Anna Paquin, A.J. Buckley, Jack McGraw

Anyone going to see The Good Dinosaur should know a couple of things before they do. One: if you’re expecting a movie as enjoyable and as creative as Inside Out was earlier this year, then you’re going to be disappointed. And two: you’ll be surprised at how bland and pedestrian it all is.

Getting that out of the way at the beginning of this review makes it easier to write the following: Pixar should have let this one die in development. The movie has had a troubled history. Original director Bob Peterson was removed from the movie in 2013 because he couldn’t come up with a final, third act. All of the cast, with the exception of McDormand, were replaced, large chunks of the script were re-written, and the movie was re-scheduled for release two years after its original, planned release date (27 November 2013). All in all, it feels very much as if, having sunk an awful lot of money into the production, Pixar had a choice: write off the project entirely and take a large financial hit, or carry on in the hope that the finished product will be good enough to earn back its costs.

Obviously they chose the latter, but it was the wrong decision. The Good Dinosaur is a movie that any other animation company could have made, and that’s not what we should be saying about a Pixar movie. It may be unfair, but Pixar is synonymous with animation excellence, both in terms of the visuals and the stories. And while The Good Dinosaur contains some of the most photo-realistic animation ever, when it comes to the story, it becomes clear that it wasn’t only the third act that had problems. Once the basic premise is done with – meteor that wipes out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago misses the earth, leaving dinosaurs to evolve further – the movie doesn’t know if it wants to be the new The Land Before Time (1988), an out-and-out Western, or a distant narrative cousin to The Lion King (1994). And it doesn’t help that against all the beautifully rendered backdrops, we have an apatosaurus whose animation looks like it was sub-contracted out to Aardman (it’s Arlo’s eyes – take a look at Chicken Run (2000) and you’ll see what I mean).

But whichever story it’s trying to tell, it’s not strong enough to hold the audience’s attention, and scenes pass by that provoke ennui instead of engagement. Even the relationship between Arlo and Spot, normally something you could rely on Pixar to make affecting and charming, proves merely sufficient to the story’s needs, and the “inventiveness” of having Spot being the “pet” wears off pretty quickly. With the movie’s two lead characters lacking a way to connect with the audience, it further hinders the movie’s attempts to make itself a satisfying experience for the viewer.

The movie also has problems with its tone, as it mixes humorous elements with moments of terrible heartbreak, and there’s an unexpected sequence where Arlo and Spot get stoned. The introduction of friendly T-Rexes is a bit of a stretch, and leads to a campfire scene where you wonder if an homage to Blazing Saddles (1974) is on the cards (The Good Dinosaur has lots of these moments, ones that remind you of other, better movies). It all goes to reinforce the idea that Pixar have released their latest movie in the hopes that it’ll recoup its costs before anyone notices how disappointing it is.

Rating: 5/10 – saved from a lower score by the incredible visuals, which elevate the material just by being there, The Good Dinosaur is yet another unfortunate example of Pixar having (mostly) lost their way in recent years; even the talented voice cast can’t do much to improve things, and potential viewers will be better off waiting until Finding Dory (2016) is released for their next Pixar fix.

10 Alternative Xmas Movies

24 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, Alternative, Bad Santa, Black Christmas (1974), Christmas, Christmas (2003), Christmas With the Kranks, Comedy, Die Hard, Drama, Horror, Less Than Zero, Movies, The Apartment, The Ice Harvest, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Thriller, Xmas, Yuletide

When it comes to Xmas movies, the chances of there being a happy ending, an appearance by Santa Claus, plentiul shots of snow-covered streets, Xmas trees bedecked with tinsel and baubles and surrounded by brightly wrapped presents, and people being selfless and loving to the point of nausea, are pretty high. But for those of us who like a little (or a lot) of humbug mixed in with our Xmas cheer, here are ten movies that take the idea of Xmas and turn it on its head with unabashed enthusiasm and delight.

1 – The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) / D: Henry Selick / 76m

Perhaps the most obvious title on the list, this animated classic is a sure-fire winner for mixing ghoulish elements with a traditional(-ish) Xmas narrative. Even the songs are wonderfully appropriate – Oogie Boogie’s Cab Calloway-inspired number is a highlight – and the stop-motion adds an extra layer of charm to the proceedings, making this one of the best movies about the Yuletide season ever made.

2 – Black Christmas (1974) / D: Bob Clark / 98m

If The Nightmare Before Christmas has its dark side, then this Xmas horror is way beyond even that, with a chilling storyline that is still impressive over forty years (and dozens of imitators) later. Superbly crafted and with great performances from the likes of Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder, the movie comes complete with an ending that is even more unsettling than what’s gone before.

3 – Christmas (2003) / D: Gregory King / 89m

This New Zealand movie set at Xmas – which occurs during their summer – shows the flip side of family get-togethers and just how demoralising and depressing they can be when the family that meets up is the definition of dysfunctional. Dignity and self-preservation are the order of the day in a movie that is at once desperately funny, often unbearably sad, but remains a strangely poignant tribute to dealing with emotional fragility.

4 – Bad Santa (2003) / D: Terry Zwigoff / 91m

A tour-de-force performance from Billy Bob Thornton anchors this scathing look at a department store Santa whose foul-mouthed attitude and disregard for the feelings of others is slowly eroded over the Xmas period by the attention of a fat kid who just won’t leave him alone. Scurrilous isn’t the word, and your tolerance for crude language may well be stretched very early on, but it’s laugh-out-loud funny and with a surprisingly tender heart at its core.

5 – A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011) / D: Todd Strauss-Schulson / 90m

It’s Xmas Eve and you’ve just burned down your father-in-law’s beloved Xmas tree – what do you do? Well if you’re Harold Lee (John Cho), you enlist the help of your best friend Kumar Patel (Kal Penn) in finding a replacement. Whether or not that proves to be a good idea depends on how high Kumar is, and how long Harold can put off joining him as their plan backfires at every turn. For a second sequel, this is much better than expected, and its unapologetic stoner humour makes it all the more enjoyable.

6 – Christmas With the Kranks (2004) / D: Joe Roth / 99m

Adapted from the novel by John Grisham, Skipping Christmas, this is a Xmas movie that for its first half at least, is a tribute to the joys of saying “bah humbug” to the festive season. Tim Allen is the dad who jumps for joy at the chance of spending Xmas without having to splurge on decorations or lights or being festive. But when his Xmas-loving daughter announces she’s coming home, it’s panic time and this once curmudgeonly dad becomes – sadly – a Xmas convert.

7 – The Ice Harvest (2005) / D: Harold Ramis / 92m

A darkly comic thriller set on Xmas Eve, this sees John Cusack’s shady lawyer and Billy Bob Thornton’s strip club owner embezzle $2m from the local mob, and then thanks to a series of mishaps, they begin to see their plans unravel with humorous consequences. A bit of an overlooked treat, this uses the backdrop of the Xmas period to show that goodwill to all men is a great phrase in theory but little else in practice.

8 – Less Than Zero (1987) / D: Marek Kanievska / 98m

The Eighties were a time of selfishness and greed, and this adaptation of the novel by Bret Easton Ellis perfectly encapsulates the extremes to which some people would go to to realise their “dreams”. With plenty of snow on display (just not the stuff that lies on the ground), and a selection of gaudy Xmas parties to highlight the hollowness at the heart of the lead character’s return home for the holidays, this is a movie that takes no prisoners in depicting the decadence of the holiday season.

9 – Die Hard (1988) / D: John McTiernan / 131m

Set in L.A. at Xmas, this franchise opener uses the Yuletide season as a cover for all sorts of mayhem and destruction, and pits Bruce Willis’ lone cop against Alan Rickman’s group of mercenaries. Sly nods to the season abound throughout, but it’s John McClane’s ability to survive everything that’s thrown at him that acts as a surprising metaphor for negotiating the ups and downs of a family Xmas and coming out the other side (relatively) intact.

10 – The Apartment (1960) / D: Billy Wilder / 125m

While it starts at Xmas and then moves into the New Year, Wilder’s acerbic take on the holiday season is littered with allusions to the darker side of Xmas, including suicide, alcoholism, and extra-marital affairs. That it retains a positive side as well is a tribute to the screenplay by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, whose storytelling abilities make the whole tawdry period more bearable thanks to the sympathy they imbue the main characters with.

The Intern (2015)

23 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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About the Fit, Anders Holm, Anne Hathaway, Business problems, Comedy, Drama, Fashion retailer, Internet, Nancy Meyers, Relationships, Rene Russo, Review, Robert De Niro, Senior intern programme

D: Nancy Meyers / 121m

Cast: Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway, Rene Russo, Anders Holm, JoJo Kushner, Andrew Rannells, Adam DeVine, Zack Pearlman, Jason Orley, Christina Scherer, Nat Wolff, Celia Weston, Linda Lavin

Taken at face value, The Intern looks like a movie that you could easily pass by. For one thing it’s a comedy starring Robert De Niro, not exactly the best recommendation a movie could have these days, and secondly, there’s the possibility of a May-December romance between De Niro and Hathaway (and with all due respect to both actors, nobody wants to see that). Look a little closer and it still doesn’t look like a great prospect: it’s about a small internet fashion retailer, built up out of nothing by Hathaway’s determined entrepreneur, and facing an uphill battle to maintain and expand on its initial successes. Then there’s the whole senior intern programme idea that’s bolted onto the basic storyline – and where De Niro’s Ben Whittaker comes in. Sold yet? Maybe not? Then consider this: Hathaway’s character, Jules Ostin, is neglecting her husband and young daughter while she builds her business empire. Sound familiar, maybe overly so? Any guesses as to who helps Jules get her business and private lives back in sync and on track?

If you’re still not sold on The Intern, and this type of comedy (with a smattering of light drama added) still doesn’t appeal, then fair enough, move on to something else. But you’d be making a mistake, because against all the odds, Nancy Meyers’ latest writing/directing gig is deceptively charming and warm-hearted, the movie equivalent of a hug from a loved one. In these days of mega-budget, special effects-laden tributes to the joys of target demographics, The Intern is a refreshing change of pace, a movie that plays out simply and effectively, and not without a degree of style all its own.

What makes it work so well is Meyers’ well-balanced, and surprisingly intuitive script. Even though the majority of what unfolds has been done before, and will be again (and again), here familiarity breeds contentment, and fosters a relationship between the characters and the audience that allows some of the more sentimental moments to slide by without too much approbation. In short, it’s a joy to watch from its slightly slow beginning to its let’s-wrap-all-this-up-with-a-bow-on-top finish.

By marrying the two ideas – senior citizen with oodles of personal and business experience looking to keep busy, young internet-based company trying to move up to the next level but uncertain how to do it – Meyers has created a movie that looks at how little difference there is in generational thinking when it comes to relationships, and how it’s often true that experience can offer a much simpler solution than seems immediately apparent. At one point, one of Jules’ staff, Jason (DeVine) asks Ben for advice. He’s cheated on his girlfriend, co-worker Becky (Scherer), and hasn’t had much luck getting her to forgive him. Ben’s advice is simple: say sorry to her and do it face-to-face, not via texts. But where some movies might take that advice and have it work straight away, here Meyers is canny enough to make it just the first move in an eventual reconciliation.

So, with Ben’s experience of life and work clearly to his advantage, it’s all down to Jules to realise that it’s to her advantage as well. It doesn’t happen overnight, and along the way Jules makes the kind of mistakes that a lack of experience will bring out. But through it all Ben maintains a patience and a determination not to let things overwhelm or get the better of him that eventually has its effect on the other staff around him. And, of course, along the way, he helps Jules come to realise just how her behaviour and narrow focus on work is contributing to the problems she has both in the office and at home.

Meyers keeps things light and airy throughout, and her insistence that old age is not a passport to obsolescence is well handled; it’s patently obvious but not rammed down our throats. And the relationship between Ben and Jules is handled so deftly that as it develops and they come to have a mutual respect for each other, there’s not one awkward moment for the viewer where they might suspect Ben and Jules will find themselves in a romantic situation.

De Niro is self-effacing and modest as Ben, always dressed in a suit, always shaving every day (even if he’s not seeing anyone he knows, even on a Sunday), and always ready with the right thing to say. It’s a quiet, mostly internal performance from De Niro, and if he still has a rampant tendency to grimace uncontrollably every time he’s called upon to be embarrassed or uncertain or surprised, it’s strangely effective here even if it is overdone. It’s not a role that was ever likely to tax him as an actor, but he gives a commitment to the part that he hasn’t done in some of his more recent movies (Heist (2015) anyone?).

Matching him for effort and commitment, Hathaway combines vulnerability, fortitude, uncertainty and a blinkered siege mentality with casual ease, and makes Jules an easily recognisable and sympathetic character from the start. It’s the more emotional role (naturally) but she handles it with skill and sensitivity, maintaining a through line that makes her journey from overwhelmed businesswoman to poised, decisive company head all the more credible. It’s worth pointing out again that this is a relatively lightweight movie that provides just enough depth for its characters to avoid being stereotypes, but it’s the themes around age and experience that are more important, and thanks to De Niro and Hathaway’s involvement, Ben and Jules are the kind of unlikely friends that really do crop up in real life.

And it’s a genuinely funny movie, with the humour arising from the characters and their individual foibles. There’s a sequence where Ben and three other staffers volunteer to break into Jules’ parents’ home to delete a nasty e-mail she’s sent to her mother by mistake, and while it may seem out of place, it allows some of the secondary cast members a chance to impress, and they grab the opportunity with gusto; as a result it’s the funniest part of the movie. Meyers is also good at providing her willing cast with great dialogue, dialogue that doesn’t sound like lines to be acted but which is natural-sounding and far from contrived.

Modestly budgeted at $35m, The Intern has gone on to make nearly $200m at the box office (worldwide), and is a good sign that there’s room for intelligent, adult comedies that don’t rely on gross-out gags and puerile humour to attract audiences. It’s not a movie that will win tons of awards (or gain many nominations), but the fact that it’s been as successful as it has should be counted as a very good sign indeed that audiences know a good movie when they see them.

Rating: 8/10 – above average comedy with something to say about the compatibility between the young and the old, The Intern is charming and, as it progresses, irresistible; De Niro and Hathaway have a great chemistry, but it’s Meyers’ combination of great script and assured direction that makes this movie so enjoyable.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

21 Monday Dec 2015

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Adam Driver, Anthony Daniels, BB8, C-3PO, Carrie Fisher, Chewbacca, Daisy Ridley, Darth Vader, Drama, Episode VII, Finn, Harrison Ford, J.J. Abrams, Jakku, John Boyega, Kylo Ren, Lightsabre, Luke Skywalker, Mark Hamill, Oscar Isaac, Peter Mayhew, Poe Dameron, R2-D2, Review, Rey, Sci-fi, Star Wars, The First Order, The Force

D: J.J. Abrams / 135m

Cast: Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Harrison Ford, Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, Carrie Fisher, Lupita Nyong’o, Andy Serkis, Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill, Max von Sydow, Gwendoline Christie, Greg Grunberg, Warwick Davis, Simon Pegg, Harriet Walter, Iko Uwais

The Lucasfilm logo appears. The screen fades to black. Then the opening crescendo of the Star Wars theme in perfect sync with the Star Wars logo sends a welcome shiver down the spine. And then the subtitle: Episode VII The Force Awakens appears, followed by a summary of recent events that tells us Luke Skywalker is missing and Princess (now General) Leia has sent her best man to find him. With everyone up to speed we see a familiar sprinkling of stars against the inky blackess of space. The camera begins its equally familiar pan down until a planet comes into view. Then an ominous sound can be heard, and a dark shadow falls across the planet, only this is no shadow, it’s a huge starship; this can’t be good.

And it isn’t. But we all know it isn’t. This is Star Wars, and huge starships are always bad news, because it’s a sure sign the bad guys are up to no good. But wait – haven’t the bad guys been defeated? Wasn’t the evil Emperor, Palatine, killed by Darth Vader at the end of Episode VI? And didn’t the Rebel Alliance take charge of the galaxy, and restore order where previously there had been tyranny and unfair trade embargoes? Isn’t this a brave new future we’re looking at?

Well, actually, no, it isn’t. Thirty years have passed since the Emperor’s death, thirty years in which a lot has obviously happened, but for some reason the Rebels are still fighting, this time against a pernicious new regime, the First Order, and they don’t seem to have been in charge of anything, or made any difference to the galaxy they fought so hard to free from oppression. Just what have they been doing all this time? (We learn what Luke has been doing, and Han Solo, but Leia? That’s a little less clear.) So with no one having ensured peace and prosperity are the “first order” of the day, we’re back to a frighteningly familiar situation: the bad guys are running things and a small group of rebels are the only thing standing between them and – wait, that’s a little less clear as well. Just what are the First Order planning to do, other than show off their fancy new weapon (or the Mark III as it might be known)?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I really liked Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It’s a fantastic thrill ride, for fans new and old, but instead of The Force Awakens it should be titled Another New Hope, because this is what writers J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt have given us, a retread of Episode IV with some fancy new trimmings. The similarities between the two movies are unavoidable, and are sometimes as unavoidable as the crashed star destroyers we see in the deserts of Jakku. Where we might have hoped that this new trilogy would strike out in a bold, new direction, instead it retreats back into the previous trilogy and gives us a kind of Star Wars Greatest Hits movie, with storylines lifted clean out of Episode IV, dusted down and given a shiny retooling, and references galore to the earlier episodes (“Is there a trash compactor?”).

As there may still be some people who haven’t seen the movie yet, I’m not going to spoil things by listing all the ways in which Abrams et al have cribbed from George Lucas’s original vision (not in this post anyway), but it’s relevant to say that he is very much present throughout, almost as if Abrams and his co-writers have continually asked themselves, what would George come up with next? So we have a movie that looks new but feels old at the same time, and it’s a tribute to Abrams – can the mantle of franchise viagra be stripped from Dwayne Johnson and given to Abrams now? – that despite this the movie feels as invigorarting as it does. It fizzes and pops in all the right places, and if it doesn’t quite have anything that really gets the audience saying “Wow!”, then you can put that down to the number of big-budget sci-fi spectaculars we’ve become overly familiar with since 1977 (and that includes the other five Star Wars movies).

What it does have that raises the bar for the franchise as a whole, are three new characters who audiences can relate to, and who have been developed with great care by… yes, Abrams et al. First there’s Rey, waiting for her parents to return to the planet of Jakku where she ekes out a living trading scrap for food. Then there’s Finn, a stormtrooper whose conscience won’t allow him to serve the First Order any more. And lastly, there’s this trilogy’s über-bad guy, Kylo Ren, a follower of the Dark Side who boasts Darth Vader as an inspiration. These three characters’ fates become intertwined, and it will be interesting to see how their storylines play out over the course of Episodes VIII and IX.

Thanks to some very astute casting – Ridley as Rey, Boyega as Finn, and Driver as Ren – these characters should prove to be as popular as Luke, Han and Leia, and its their diversity which is a major plus for the franchise as a whole. Rey is fearless and largely unimpressed by the testosterone she’s surrounded by (including Han Solo), and it’s great to see a female character so unencumbered by stereotypical programming at the forefront of such a huge movie. The same can be said for Finn, his character torn between doing the right thing and getting as far away as possible from the First Order. As for Ren, well, let’s just say he has issues and they’re not going anywhere anytime soon, and it’s good to see a level of emotional complexity that you don’t normally see in what’s effectively a space opera.

With the new cast members proving so effective – except for Isaac, alas, whose role as Leia’s “best man” Poe Dameron is sidelined for much of the movie – what of the old guard? Without giving too much away, it’s only Ford and Mayhew who grab much screen time, but it’s good to see them back, and there’s a moment in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon that should bring a tear to the eye of every diehard fan of the series. This feels very much like a transition movie, and though one “old” character should be at the forefront of Episode VIII, it’s the new ones who’ve already proved they can connect with fans and it’s their journey that (hopefully) will drive the trilogy to its conclusion (and even if it seems clear already where those journeys will converge and end).

A good job, then, and imbued with the sense of wonder that made Episode IV such a breath of fresh air back in 1977. It has a modern day sheen to it, and is effortlessly funny in places, with Abrams’ trademark sense of humour applied liberally throughout, but it’s unmistakably a Star Wars movie, from John Williams’ magical score to the inclusion of so many different alien races and species, to the exhilarating aerial battles between T.I.E.’s and X-Wing fighters. And of course there’s the Force, so integral to everything that happens, and still the guiding factor for everyone concerned. It’s so good to know that it’s woken up at last.

Rating: 8/10 – not entirely the joyous celebration everyone wanted it to be, but still standing head and shoulders over every other sci-fi series, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a welcome return to form after the po-faced seriousness of the prequel trilogy; with more than enough on display to make fans feel that the remaining two episodes are in good hands, this is easily the best feelgood movie of 2015, and if you don’t come out of the cinema with a big smile on your face, then you shouldn’t have gone in the first place.

A Walk in the Woods (2015)

18 Friday Dec 2015

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Appalachian Trail, Bill Bryson, Comedy, Drama, Emma Thompson, Hiking, Ken Kwapis, Literary adaptation, Mary Steenburgen, Nick Nolte, Review, Robert Redford, True story

D: Ken Kwapis / 104m

Cast: Robert Redford, Nick Nolte, Emma Thompson, Mary Steenburgen, Kristen Schaal, Nick Offerman, R. Keith Harris, Susan McPhail

It all starts with a verbal chastisement-cum-ambush on TV: celebrated author Bill Bryson (Redford) is being interviewed and distinctly not feeling the love. When asked if he has retired, Bryson responds by saying, “Writers don’t retire. We either drink ourselves to death or blow our brains out.” The interviewer is unimpressed: “What will it be for you?” Bryson is resigned: “After this interview, probably both.” But the interviewer has found the nub of Bryson’s dilemma as an author, namely what to write about next.

He’s no nearer finding an answer while attending a funeral. While taking a break from the rest of the mourners, he finds himself on part of the Appalachian Trail, a hiking trail that runs 2,200 miles from Springer Mountain in Georgia all the way to Mount Katahdin in Maine. Suddenly inspired, Bryson tells his wife, Catherine (Thompson), that he’s going to hike the entire trail, despite being unfit and too old. Catherine is horrified by the idea, and takes to leaving newspaper and internet clippings around for him to see, with headlines such as “Decomposed body found on trail” in an effort to dissuade him. Eventually she gets him to agree to hike with a companion. Bryson reaches out to several of his male friends but they all turn him down. It’s only when an old friend he hasn’t seen in years, Stephen Katz (Nolte) gets in touch and volunteers to go with him that the trip becomes a go.

There are reservations though (how could there not be?). Bryson and Katz always used to rub each other up the wrong way, and back when they were friends, Katz was an habitual womaniser and alcoholic. But he tells Bryson he’s in good shape and ready to go on the hike. When Bryson and Catherine meet him at the airport, Katz’s physical condition raises cause for concern but he assures them he’ll be fine. They set out on the trail from Springer Mountain and soon find it hard going, much more so than they expected. Along the way they meet a variety of people, including the ever-talkative, ever-opinionated Mary Ellen (Schaal), a woman named Beulah (McPhail) who Katz hits up for a date (unaware that she’s married), and motel owner Jeannie (Steenburgn), who develops a crush on Bryson. They have an encounter with bears, hike through heavy snow drifts, and manage to fall down onto a ledge that they can’t get back up from (until two other hikers come along and rescue them).

And… that’s about it. For most of its running time, A Walk in the Woods proves to be a light-hearted, lightweight walk on the wild side, as Bryson and Katz tramp their way along the trail like two men at the head of the hip transplant list. They reminisce, they argue, they bicker, they explore notions of personal regret, and they remain “nice” throughout. Even when they have the expected and entirely predictable falling out, the movie has made it to that point with so little drama attached to it that you could be forgiven for thinking it had all been written out of the story. And it serves to highlight the story’s one major problem: once they’re on the trail, all the excitement is given little or no attention, and any potential for drama is wasted.

Once on the trail, Bryson and Katz are amiable enough companions, amiable to suit their own needs, and amiable enough for the time to pass without undue hardship or hazards to slow them down (even when they do fall down onto that ledge). It’s a hike that has its fair share of incidents but none of them are dramatic enough to warrant more than a passing interest. There’s also a distinct lack of personal growth for both Bryson and Katz, even though the script by Michael Arndt and Bill Holderman tries hard to include this idea. What we’re left with is a series of mildly amusing anecdotes peppered with isolated, random musings on the fate of the surrounding wilderness (one of the few thematic aspects of the novel retained by the movie). It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t so anodyne and disturbingly bland in its execution.

If the movie has anything going for it, it’s the scenery, beautifully lensed by DoP John Bailey. Parts of the trail are absolutely stunning, and the cinematography picks them out and, occasionally, makes them seem hyperreal, as with the McAfee Knob overlook, a jutting piece of rock that allows for a panoramic view of Virginia’s Catawba Valley. Against this splendid backdrop, Bryson and Katz’s mythologising of their younger days pales into insignificance, and the longer the hike goes on, the less involving it becomes, until the viewer is left with the same level of interest as someone having to sit through an extended slideshow of the same journey.

As the OAP’s who can survive a serious fall without so much as a scratch between them, Redford and Nolte make for a comfortable double act, but there’s little that allows them to spark against each other. Thompson makes more of an impression in her limited supporting role than either actor does across the whole movie, while Steenburgen, Schaal and Offerman all make temporary forays into the limelight before being quickly forgotten. Overseeing all this is Kwapis, a director best known for his work on US TV shows such as The Office and Malcolm in the Middle. In actuality he doesn’t so much direct the movie as guide it by the arm from scene to scene so that no harm comes to it.

Rating: 5/10 – with Bryson’s trademark acerbic wit toned down, and his love of knowledge for knowledge’s sake given few occasions to shine, A Walk in the Woods is a passion-free project that ambles along like its two aging stars, and like them, doesn’t take too many risks; with as little ambition employed as possible, it’s still a pleasant enough movie to watch, but it’s not one that will encourage anyone to take up the same challenge that Bryson did.

Pan (2015) or: One More Unnecessary Origin Movie

16 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Amanda Seyfried, Blackbeard, Captain Hook, Drama, Fairies, Fantasy, Garrett Hedlund, Hugh Jackman, J.M. Barrie, Joe Wright, Lambert Home for Boys, Levi Miller, Neverland, Peter Pan, Pirates, Review, Rooney Mara, Tiger Lily, World War II

D: Joe Wright / 111m

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Levi Miller, Garrett Hedlund, Rooney Mara, Amanda Seyfried, Adeel Akhtar, Nonso Anozie, Kathy Burke, Lewis MacDougall, Cara Delevingne

Let’s cut to the chase: Pan, by itself, is a disappointment, an uneven children’s fantasy movie that is disjointed, awkwardly humorous, suffers from production overkill, and makes very little sense throughout. But unfortunately, Pan isn’t just a movie by itself, it’s an origin story for a beloved children’s tale that didn’t need it in the first place.

In recent years, Hollywood has given us origin story after origin story in an attempt to expand franchises and add “depth” to existing stories. Last year we had Maleficent, a movie that tried to rewrite the Sleeping Beauty story to make its Wicked Queen a more sympathetic character, as if somebody somewhere had decided that a Wicked Queen couldn’t just be a Wicked Queen; no, there had to be a good reason why she was a Wicked Queen. And now we get to see how a foundling called Peter became the high-flying leader of the Lost Boys, Peter Pan. But did we need to? Perhaps there’s a clue in the fact that J.M. Barrie, who created Peter Pan, never felt the need to go back and provide an origin story for him. And if he didn’t feel the need to, do we really need to know either?

But Hollywood knows better (or so they like to think), and now we have an origin story anyway, but one that’s been given so little thought it’s frightening given all the talent involved in making it. You only have to watch the first five minutes of Pan to know that the makers have got it completely, spectacularly wrong. The scene is London, between the two World Wars. An unidentified young woman, clearly scared and frightened that she’s being followed, carries an infant with her until she reaches the doorstep of the Lambert Home for Boys. There she leaves him but not before she’s told him that they’ll meet again, in this world or another. Already there’s a problem: why does the woman abandon her son so recklessly (it’s not the most pleasant-looking of orphanages) and if he’s in as much danger as she seems to think, why take the risk of leaving him in such an awful place?

We fast forward twelve years and find the infant has grown up to be Peter (Miller), and he’s still at the orphanage (surprise, surprise), and he’s a bright, confident child who has no problem challenging authority, in this case Kathy Burke’s snarling, growling, thoroughly unpleasant Sister Barnabas. At this point the movie introduces a superfluous subplot involving Sister Barnabas hoarding goods before Peter and some of the orphans are kidnapped by pirates who descend through the skylights on bungee cords (the dormitory is located conveniently in the roofspace). Now correct me if I’m wrong, but this now makes the woman’s decision to leave Peter there a tad careless, as she’s placed him in the very place that her adversary – who we learn is the pirate Blackbeard (Jackman) – is stealing children from. (What it is to be undone by unforeseen coincidence…)

Once in Neverland, the movie takes a left turn by introducing Blackbeard and his merry band of pirates, and what looks like thousands of Lost Boys, as they indulge in a bit of a sing-song. The song in question turns out to be Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, an anachronistic choice that serves only to remind viewers just how well this sort of thing was done in A Knight’s Tale (2001) (and begs the question, does Blackbeard time travel as well for his Lost Boys?). From then on, and despite the introduction of James Hook (Hedlund) (also trapped by Blackbeard), and Tiger Lily (Mara), the princess of the natives, and a plot involving Blackbeard’s determined efforts to wipe out all the fairies (don’t ask why – the movie doesn’t), Pan becomes the Hugh Jackman larger-than-life performance movie as he struts and rampages and roars his way through things with all the gusto of a pantomime villain. It’s not a bad performance per se, it’s just in the wrong movie.

As you’d expect, Neverland is beautifully, stunningly realised, and is a triumph of art direction, set construction, costume design, and special effects, but ultimately it all makes for a hollow confection, an empty shell that the narrative flits and jumps around without any clear idea of where it’s going or why. With the fairies hidden from Blackbeard’s grasp, and of course with Peter as his unwitting accomplice in getting to them, it comes as no surprise that the script shows the fairies completely able to defend themselves from Blackbeard and his men, thus ending any idea that the pirate’s intentions were in any way a threat. It’s not the first time in the movie that the viewer is likely to be wondering why something is happening, or if it’s likely to be explained (usually not).

Pan is a movie that should be included in the ever-growing number of movies that come under the heading, Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean You Should. Joe Wright’s direction is focused largely on the cast, and while he’s obviously let Jackman do his own thing, he does allow Mara to give a decent performance, and Miller is suitably stout-hearted as Peter, even if he does take everything in his stride a little too easily. And Hedlund acts more by smiling roguishly than actually emoting, but it’s still a likeable portrayal. The only trouble is, Hook is a character who lacks for development, and remains the same from beginning to end.

Pan‘s terrible performance at the box office – so far it’s only grossed $125m against a budget of $150m – will hopefully discourage other studios/production companies from messing with other established, classic stories. These stories are so well-regarded for a reason: they work independently of any others and in many cases are archetypal and don’t need further embellishment or expansion. Such is the case with Barrie’s tale of the boy who never grew up, and Pan serves only to reinforce what a foolhardy idea it is to try.

Rating: 4/10 – lacking a true sense of childlike wonder, or focus in the story it’s telling, Pan is the movie equivalent of pudding: rich, stolid, and if you’ve had too much, weighing too heavily for comfort; another unsatisfactory, unnecessary origin story that shows just how difficult it is to get these things right, and especially when there’s no real need to.

Life of a King (2013)

14 Monday Dec 2015

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Big Chair Chess Club, Chess, Crime, Cuba Gooding Jr, Dennis Haysbert, Drama, Eugene Brown, High School, Jake Goldberger, Kevin Hendricks, Malcolm M. Mays, Review, True story, Washington D.C.

D: Jake Goldenberger / 98m

Cast: Cuba Gooding Jr, Malcolm M. Mays, Kevin Hendricks, Carlton Byrd, Rachae Thomas, LisaGay Hamilton, Richard T. Jones, Dennis Haysbert, Paula Jai Parker, Jordan Calloway, Blake Cooper Griffin

A true story involving troubled teens, inner city trials and tribulations, an ex-con with family issues, and the redemptive power of chess, Life of a King has good intentions, a lot of heart, and the slow, steady pace of an illness-of-the-week TV movie. It also has a relaxed, committed performance from Gooding Jr, and enough hokey moments to choke an elephant. But what it also has is that curious approach to a true story that often leads audiences to believe that a real person’s life is stuffed full of clichés and dramatic coincidence.

The movie tells the story of Eugene Brown (Gooding Jr), who served seventeen years in prison for armed robbery, and who, once he was released, took the opportunity with a group of inner city youths to set up a community chess club. Along the way he finds it difficult to find honest work by admitting he’s an ex-con; subsequently lies on an application form for janitor at his local high school; tries to reunite with his disaffected children, Katrina (Thomas) and Marcus (Calloway); avoids being dragged back into a life of crime by his old partner Perry (Jones); faces down the school hard nut, Clifton (Byrd); sees potential in another student, Tahime (Mays); is fired once his principal (Hamilton) finds out he’s lied on his application; rents a derelict house so the chess club can carry on; stands helplessly by as one of the other students, Peanut (Hendricks), is dragged into a dangerous situation with unfortunate results; begins to connect with his children through his efforts with the chess club; overcomes a setback involving the house; and looks ahead to his chess protegés entering and triumphing in a local tournament. And then…?

If any of this sounds incredibly or entirely predictable, then by and large it is. From Brown’s surrogate father relationship with The Chessman (Haysbert) while in gaol, to Tahime’s showdown against a chess prodigy (Griffin), Life of a King ticks every possible true story box in its retelling of Brown’s story. It’s an homogenised approach to an uplifting tale that deserves better, but thanks to Goldberger’s mostly leaden direction, there are precious few moments of real power and emotion. What moments there are, are also mostly down to Gooding Jr’s earnest, well-modulated performance. He’s suitably determined as Brown, and shows the man’s resourcefulness and drive with a good sense of the difficulties he must have faced and overcome.

But again, he’s fighting against the poor performance of Goldberger in the director’s chair (making only his second feature). Goldberger – working from the script he wrote with David Scott and Dan Wetzel – seems unable to rise above the clichéd nature of his own narrative, and on several occasions seems to be embracing each cliché wholeheartedly. Some scenes feel like they’ve been constructed from the DNA of several true story TV movies, and viewers familiar with those kind of movies will notice that some of the scenes have been shot in that very style (and some individual shots as well).

This all makes the movie watchable enough thanks to the familiarity with which it’s being presented, but a bit of a chore as well thanks to the very same familiarity. Some fun can be had from anticipating each cliché before it appears, and if you felt so inclined, you could devise a predictability curve that could be drawn as the movie progresses (though it might end up being just a straight line). It’s all a shame as Brown’s story is engaging in its own right, and his efforts are well worth celebrating, but a different format is definitely needed. There’s also the problem of the script’s occasional moralising, as it uses the metaphor of chess to represent Life as often as it can, as if the audience wouldn’t get it the first time.

Aside from Gooding Jr’s portrayal of Brown, the rest of the cast do their best to make some headway against the material, with Mays’ reticent Tahime and Hendricks’ eager beaver Peanut making more of an impression than expected. Byrd’s sneering Clifton is straight out of Stock Characters 101, and he’s matched by Jones’ preening drug lord and Calloway’s petulant son. It’s the female characters that come off best (though that’s not saying much), and Hamilton is strongest as the high school principal who’s sympathetic to Brown’s cause (and even helps out with the dishes at the chess house).

As mentioned above, the movie ends with Tahime taking on a chess genius in an open tournament, and in the final naturally. But what should be a gripping sequence is let down by Goldberger’s inability to shoot it all with any sense of urgency or tension. And he’s further let down by editor Julie Garces, whose decision to represent the game through a flurry of indistinguishable moves and clock-punching makes it all impossible to follow (though that was probably the idea). It’s a clunky end to a movie that’s been the definition of clunky from the very beginning.

Rating: 4/10 – slackly and lazily constructed, Life of a King doesn’t do its subject matter justice, and lets the audience down in the process; tired and ineffective, it’s a true life tale that’s been soaked in complacency and shows off its shortcomings as if they were unavoidable.

Mini-Review: Krampus (2015)

13 Sunday Dec 2015

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Adam Scott, Allison Tolman, Comedy, David Koechner, Drama, Elves, Horror, Michael Dougherty, Review, Santa Claus, Toni Collette, Toys, Xmas, Yuletide

D: Michael Dougherty / 98m

Cast: Adam Scott, Toni Collette, David Koechner, Allison Tolman, Conchata Ferrell, Emjay Anthony, Stefania LaVie Owen, Krista Stadler, Lolo Owen, Queenie Samuel, Maverick Flack

If Krampus is someone (or something) you’ve never heard of before now, then you’re probably not alone. He (or it) is a figure from Austro-Bavarian Alpine folklore, an anti-Santa who punishes those who’ve been wicked. Michael Dougherty’s movie isn’t the first to feature the creature – if you’re a completist you can check out Krampus (2012), Krampus: The Christmas Devil (2013), Krampus: The Reckoning (2015), and A Christmas Horror Story (2015) as well – but this latest incarnation is very different from all the rest in one particular respect: it’s less concerned with being a horror movie.

Of all the horror movies you’re likely to see in 2015, Krampus will always retain the distinction of being scare-free, relatively bloodless, and more interested in creating a mood it can’t fully sustain. It’s also keen to impress with its focus on the extended dysfunctional family that finds itself trapped in one home in the run-up to Xmas and besieged by the title character, his trusty elves, and a bag full of demonic toys. (These last elements sound great but hold that thought for a moment…)

The set up is simple enough: pre-teen Max (Anthony) still believes in Santa Claus, but the dismal, selfish attitudes of his mother’s sister’s family leads him to tear up his usual letter to Saint Nick and cast it to the wind. For this, a terrible snowstorm sets in, the other residents in the street disappear, and Krampus turns up to carry everyone off to whatever underground realm he’s come from. In the process, the two families who have little liking for each other learn to come together and defend themselves against the supernatural force that’s determined to make them suffer for being “naughty, not nice”.

What follows is designed to wring more laughs than scares or shocks from the material, and while the movie throws in a couple of sequences that are designed to leave the viewer perched on the edge of their seat, the threat is undermined by the makers’ determination not to upset their audience with too much blood and gore, or strangely, by making Krampus himself about as threatening as having your nails buffed. What is effective is a sequence set in the loft space where several of Krampus’s demonic toys attack Scott, Collette and Tolman, and it’s this that remains the movie’s stand out scene. But even then, the toys are too reminiscent of the puppets created by Full Moon Features, so much so that it wouldn’t have been a surprise to see Jester or Pinhead pop up at some point.

Elsewhere, Dougherty uses his cast to fairly good effect but makes several characters one-note or underwritten – Ferrell’s bitchy mother, Tolman’s perplexed-looking sister – while the budget keeps Krampus sidelined until the final fifteen minutes. His elves launch an attack on the house that seems more arbitrary than properly planned, and the inclusion of growing numbers of ugly snowmen in the house’s front yard is meant to be menacing but is more of a distraction. It all ends with the kind of narrative trickery that is more confusing than conclusive, and leaves the viewer scratching their head in bewilderment.

Rating: 5/10 – a valiant attempt to make a Xmas horror movie with a difference, Krampus lacks bite and a truly scary monster; needing a greater sense of peril to work properly, and less bickering between the characters, it’s a movie that runs out of steam far too quickly and never recovers from doing so.

Victor Frankenstein (2015)

09 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Andrew Scott, Body parts, Daniel Radcliffe, Drama, Frankenstein, Horror, Igor, James McAvoy, Jessica Findlay Brown, Life and death, Literary adaptation, Mary Shelley, Monster, Paul McGuigan, Review, Science, Thriller, Victorian London

D: Paul McGuigan / 110m

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, James McAvoy, Jessica Findlay Brown, Andrew Scott, Freddie Fox, Callum Turner, Daniel Mays, Charles Dance, Mark Gatiss

And so we have the latest variation on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, or as it perhaps should be known, Victor Frankenstein: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Release Date…

When the first trailer was released back in August 2015, prospective viewers could have been forgiven for thinking that Victor Frankenstein was going to be a bit of a romp, a version where comedy was at the forefront, the bromance between Victor and Igor was going to carry the movie, and there was going to be lots of flashy special effects (and a monster). When the second trailer was released, the humour had been dialled back and the movie appeared to be a more serious take on the legend (albeit with a bromance between Victor and Igor and lots of flashy special effects – and a monster). Some prospective viewers may have sighed with relief; after all, if you’re going to make a Frankenstein movie that’s got humour in it, how on earth are you going to top Young Frankenstein (1974)?

Thankfully, the makers seemed to have realised that the one-liners and the overt bromance weren’t as good an idea as they might have been, and the movie is a more serious proposition, but there are still echoes of both humour and bromance, mostly from McAvoy’s hyperactive performance and screenwriter Max Landis’s uncertainty as to what tone to take with the material. What we’re left with is a movie that tries to make two tortured individuals into an unofficial couple – they meet, they admire each other to bits, they fall out, they reunite and reconfirm their commitment to each other – while using Andrew Scott’s equally tortured, increasingly crazed police inspector as the religious foil for their scientific endeavours, and never quite reconciling the whole “benefit to mankind” approach that goads them on.

Victor is portrayed as a manic obsessive with a “history” that drives him on, and McAvoy, usually a sensitive actor, here can’t resist the urge to go for broke and just let rip. You half suspect that Victor’s taking drugs but it’s not that simple: it’s just his personality, and McAvoy parades around like he’s on display throughout, declaiming wildly and to little purpose. Radcliffe takes the quieter route, but his Igor is a dead weight in a movie that wants to celebrate Victor’s mania rather than his assistant’s good sense. As one half of a team that’s in danger of destroying itself and being forgotten by history, you can understand his willingness to spend more and more time with ex-circus aerialist Lorelei (Brown) (who only appears to like him when he’s not a hunchback or looking like Robert Smith from The Cure).

On the visual side, Victor Frankenstein owes a lot to Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movies, its late Victorian era setting full of background shots of building work going on and the streets teeming with the great and the downtrodden (and is further reinforced by the sudden appearance at the end of Gatiss as Victor’s new assistant). The climax is a suitably overwrought affair with plenty of explosions and destruction, and a monster that bears an unfortunate resemblance to both Dave Prowse’s incarnation in The Horror of Frankenstein (1970) and the Newborn from Alien: Resurrection (1997) (and why is it that mad scientists just can’t master putting a proper nose on their creation’s face?).

McGuigan doesn’t appear to have a firm grip on any of the movie, and there are moments of pure farce that undermine the intensity the makers are going for, such as Dance’s brief appearance as Victor’s father: there just to give Victor a slap and tell him he’s been a naughty boy. Still some humour then, but this time, unfortunate and unintentional, a bit like the movie as a whole.

Rating: 5/10 – another disappointing “adaptation” of Shelley’s tale, Victor Frankenstein is held back by weak plotting and a sense that there’s a different, perhaps better movie in there somewhere; McAvoy seems to be acting on his own recognisance, and the movie skips on providing any real horror from what Victor is bent on achieving, leaving it more anodyne than effective.

Bridge of Spies (2015)

09 Wednesday Dec 2015

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America, Amy Ryan, Cold War, Drama, East Germany, Espionage, Exchange, Francis Gary Powers, Glienicke Bridge, Historical drama, James B. Donovan, Mark Rylance, Review, Rudolf Abel, Russia, Scott Shepherd, Spies, Steven Spielberg, Thriller, Tom Hanks, U2 spy plane

D: Steven Spielberg / 141m

Cast: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Scott Shepherd, Amy Ryan, Austin Stowell, Sebastian Koch, Alan Alda, Jesse Plemons, Will Rogers, Michael Gaston, Dakin Matthews, Billy Magnussen, Peter McRobbie, Mikhail Gorevoy, Burghart Klaußner, Max Mauff

In 1957, Rudolf Abel (Rylance) was arrested by FBI agents and charged with three counts of conspiracy as a Soviet spy. He was defended by an insurance attorney called James B. Donovan (Hanks), but despite Donovan’s best efforts (and to no one’s surprise) Abel was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to a total of forty-five years in prison (which was a surprise). An appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected and Abel remained in jail.

In 1960, US pilot Francis Gary Powers (Stowell) was shot down while on a spy plane mission over Soviet territory. He was charged with espionage against the Soviet Union and sentenced to ten years in prison. In 1961, American economics student Frederic Pryor (Rogers) found himself arrested and held without charge by the East German police. In 1962, Donovan, at the request of CIA chief Allen Dulles (McRobbie), travelled to Berlin to negotiate the exchange of Abel for Powers; when he learned of Pryor’s incarceration he made the young student’s release a part of the deal as well. On 10 February 1962, Pryor was released at Checkpoint Charlie, and Abel and Powers’ exchange took place at the Glienicke Bridge.

These are the basic facts that Bridge of Spies elects to tell, and while it makes it clear from the beginning that the movie is “inspired” by real events, writers Matt Charman and Joel and Ethan Coen have expanded on those facts in order to fill in the gaps and make the movie more audience friendly. They’ve done a terrific job, with the politics of the time, both American and Soviet, explored and explained with a conciseness and brevity that allows the story to breathe and not be bogged down by endless exposition (there’s even room for a brief exposé of East German politics as well). What this means is that Bridge of Spies becomes a movie where all the twists and turns don’t leave the viewer baffled as to what’s going on, and they have a firm grounding as to why it’s all happening.

With the political and espionage themes so effectively set up and presented, Spielberg is left to get on with doing what he does best: telling a complex, complicated story easily and with surprising verve. The director seems at home when making historical dramas, and he has an enviable track record in the genre, from Empire of the Sun (1987) to Schindler’s List (1993) to Munich (2005) to Lincoln (2012). Spielberg is rightly regarded as a populist movie maker, but it’s his forays into history that often prove more satisfying, and Bridge of Spies is no different. Most of the “action” takes place behind closed doors, and consists generally of conversations between Donovan and one or two others. But it’s during these scenes that Spielberg teases out the subtleties and unspoken nuances of the various negotiations and political manoeuvrings, and makes them resonate in a way that few other directors are able to.

As Donovan juggles the demands of his own government with the needs of the Soviet Union, and the aims of the newly created East German authorities, Spielberg shows how close everyone is in terms of not wanting to be seen to be directly involved in any of the negotiations – Donovan himself is officially a private citizen representing his client, Abel – and how appearances are more important than the truth. Donovan is seen as an honorable man doing the best he can, and as he sees fit, in difficult circumstances, and his early brushes with his own legal system (which seems happy to ignore due process and the Fourth Amendment when it comes to prosecuting Soviet spies) show just how determined and independent-minded he is; or, as Abel puts it, a “standing man”. Donovan provides the moral compass to help audiences steer their way through the various schemes and ruses that each side comes up with.

In the more than capable hands of Hanks, Donovan is an ordinary man thrust into the extraordinary world of legal and political expediency and asked to put aside his personal and moral beliefs. That he doesn’t, and that he doesn’t in such a way that he also doesn’t appear to be pedantic or judgmental (at least not publicly) is a measure of Hanks’ controlled portrayal and what’s needed to make Donovan both sympathetic and credible. Hanks is matched by an equally impressive performance from Rylance, his stoic features and polite bearing providing a neat counterpoint to the American public’s view of him as reprehensible and an enemy of the American way of life. At different points in the movie, Donovan asks Abel the same question but in different ways: “Aren’t you worried by what might happen to you?” And always he answers: “Would it help?” Rylance plays Abel quietly and with dignity, his awareness of his situation and the political games going on around him expressed with a resigned authority.

Spielberg recreates the period with his trademark exactitude, and aided by longtime collaborator Janusz Kaminski highlights the differences between US and East German life by emphasising Powers’ homeland via warm tones and an ingrained sense of comfort, while recreating Berlin’s post-War identity as the still-blasted, partially rebuilt city it was. The contrast is illuminating, adding to Donovan’s initial feelings of unease as he navigates the treacherous waters of international diplomacy.

It’s here though that the movie loses some of the traction it’s built up along the way. Abel’s arrest and subsequent trial, along with Donovan’s hampered attempts to defend him properly, are expertly handled by Spielberg, and if the movie had only been concerned with Abel’s case then it would be an unqualified success. But once Donovan arrives in Berlin, and despite the various obstacles that threaten to derail his negotiations with the Soviets and the East Germans, there’s no tension in these scenes. Donovan overcomes each obstacle by either refusing to accept the problem is worth worrying about, or by making demands in the hope that the other side will blink first. By making this stretch of the movie so “easy” for Donovan, by the time we get to the exchange at the Glienicke Bridge, there’s so little reason or chance for things to go wrong at the last minute that any apprehension on the audience’s part has evaporated long before.

It’s a shame as the scenes in Berlin should have provided most if not all of the movie’s dramatic highlights, but alas it’s not to be. There is humour however, with Donovan’s fish-out-of-water situation used to good effect, and it’s drily executed by Hanks and perfectly in keeping with Donovan’s increasingly weary view of the world (at one point he remarks that the full names of the Soviet Union and East Germany are just too long). Away from Donovan’s efforts to negotiate the exchange and Pryor’s release, there’s a powerful sequence that shows Powers’ U2 plane being shot down and just how lucky he was to survive (though the movie makes it clear he shouldn’t have), and we see the initial creation of the Berlin Wall, a sight that remains unnerving even now that it’s gone.

Rating: 8/10 – measured, patient and deceptively simple in its approach, Bridge of Spies lacks resonance in terms of what’s happening in the world today, but as an examination of a particular event in recent world history it’s still fascinating and informative; capped by another of Hanks’ effortless performances, and Spielberg’s mastery of the medium, it’s a movie that holds the attention throughout even if it isn’t particularly thrilling.

Goosebumps (2015)

06 Sunday Dec 2015

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Abominable Snowman, Amy Ryan, Comedy, Delaware, Drama, Dylan Minnette, Fantasy, Giant praying mantis, Jack Black, Madison, Monsters, Odeya Rush, R.L. Stine, Review, Rob Letterman, Ryan Lee, Slappy, Wolfman

D: Rob Letterman / 103m

Cast: Jack Black, Dylan Minnette, Odeya Rush, Amy Ryan, Ryan Lee, Jillian Bell, Halston Sage, Ken Marino, Timothy Simons, Amanda Lund

There’s a moment in Goosebumps when Mr Shivers (Black), having already been rumbled as the writer R.L. Stine, tries to maintain his cover. Not believing him for a second, new neighbour Zach (Minnette) goads him by saying that he’s not as good a writer as Stephen King. Shivers/Stine rounds on Zach and in the process mentions that he’s sold way more books than “Steve”. It’s an odd moment in an otherwise straightforward, enjoyable imagining of Stine’s fictional world of monsters, and while it may be true, you can’t help but wonder if it’s there to give Stine some extra credibility now that he’s been adapted for the movies (not that he needs it). (And maybe it’s an issue for him.)

On the strength of this outing, Stine has little to be worried about. Although Goosebumps is a steadfastly homogenised horror fantasy for children – the zombies aren’t at all frightening, and the abominable snowman is played mostly for laughs – it has enough in the way of heavily stylised fantasy elements to keep its target audience happy for an hour and a half or so, and has been lucky enough to secure the services of Black as the “cursed” author. Black strikes just the right tone as an anxious, over-protective father-cum-author whose creations will spring fully formed and alive from the pages of his books if they’re opened (this doesn’t explain how his books have been published up til now, but it’s a great idea for a fantasy movie).

With Zach believing that his reclusive neighbour is mistreating his daughter, Hannah (Rush), he convinces a school friend, Champ (Lee) to help him break in to the house next door and ensure that Hannah is okay. Along the way, they discover bear traps in the basement and a bookcase full of Goosebumps novels that have locks on them. And in true children’s fantasy style, one of the books is opened, while the others all fall to the floor, leaving at least one of the books unlocked. The trouble is, this particular book features Slappy the ventriloquist’s dummy, and he’s the one monster that Stine doesn’t want to let out at all… and Slappy knows it.

Soon the town of Madison, Delaware is home to all sorts of rampaging monsters and creatures, and it’s down to Stine, Hannah, Zach and Champ to save the day by getting all of the author’s creations back in their books. But Slappy is one step ahead of them, and is making sure each book is burnt once the creature in it is released. This leaves the quartet with only one option: to make sure Stine has the time he needs to write a new story that involves all the monsters so that they can be returned to the new pages en masse.

There are the usual obstacles to their doing this, and the usual action sequences when they encounter any of the monsters – the lawn gnomes are particularly good – but it’s all done with an energy and a sense of fun that carries the movie along and doesn’t allow it to get bogged down by too many distractions. As mentioned before, Black is great as the author whose sense of responsibility has kept him moving from place to place and isolated his daughter in the process (though a plot twist two thirds in unfortunately cancels this out), while Rush, Minnette and Lee all play their standard teen characters with verve if not too much depth. Ryan is continually sidelined as Zach’s mother and high school vice principal, and Simons and Lund are given brief exposure as the town’s (apparently) lone law enforcement officers, with Lund’s gung ho approach bagging quite a few laughs.

In the hands of screenwriter Darren Lemke, Goosebumps sets out its stall quite early on and sticks to what is a safe formula: kids accidentally release monsters, team up with concerned adult, and find a way to save the day. But the movie avoids outstaying its welcome, though it does takes each new monstrous development in its stride, which is at a cost to the drama and the tension that should be inherent in the storyline. By ensuring that its target audience isn’t too frightened or worried, there’s no real sense of danger or peril, and each “threat” is neatly or quickly dealt with.

As you’d expect the special effects are woven seamlessly into the physical action, and there’s a pleasing sense of spectacle when the high school is besieged by all the creatures. Keeping things moving with an eye for the quirkier moments, Letterman allows his cast, both human and CGI, their individual moments to shine – Champ rescues the girl he likes from the wolfman, Slappy acknowledges his driving Stine’s car is compromised by not being able to reach the brakes – and includes enough adult humour to keep older viewers happy. And most of all, he manages to keep Zach and Hannah’s blossoming romance from becoming too mawkish or saccharine.

Rating: 7/10 – straying too close to formula to make it stand out from similar fare, Goosebumps is nevertheless a fun ride that can be enjoyed by children and adults alike; if there are to be any more adaptations of Stine’s work then that won’t be such a bad thing at all.

The Little Death (2014)

04 Friday Dec 2015

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A Funny Kind of Love, Alan Dukes, Bojana Novakovic, Comedy, Dacryphilia, Damon Herriman, Drama, Erin James, Fetishes, Josh Lawson, Kate Box, Kate Mulvany, Lisa McCune, Patrick Brammall, Relationships, Review, Roleplay fetishism, Sex, Sexual masochism, Sign language, Somnophilia, Telephone scatalogia, TJ Power

aka A Funny Kind of Love

D: Josh Lawson / 96m

Cast: Bojana Novakovic, Josh Lawson, Damon Herriman, Kate Mulvany, Kate Box, Patrick Brammall, Alan Dukes, Lisa McCune, Erin James, TJ Power, Kim Gyngell, Lachy Hulme, Genevieve Hegney

What do sexual masochism, roleplay fetishism, dacryphilia, somnophilia, and telephone scatalogia all have in common? Well, the answer is, they’re all sexual impulses, and they’re all used by Josh Lawson in his feature debut as writer/director to look at five different relationships – some of which interconnect – and how these sexual obsessions can affect how people behave.

First up we have Paul (Lawson) and Maeve (Novakovic). Maeve wants to be raped, which sounds awful, but it’s a fantasy she’s always had, and she wants Paul to help her play out her fantasy. Paul is initially aghast, but he loves Maeve so much he decides he’ll do it. There’s only one proviso: Maeve doesn’t want to know when or where it’s going to happen. Paul’s first attempt is less than successful, but he tries again, but with completely unexpected results.

Then there’s Dan (Herriman) and Evie (Mulvany). We first meet them in couples’ therapy, where it’s clear they’re not communicating properly with each other. The therapist suggests they try some roleplay; when they do, Evie can’t quite take it seriously enough for Dan but the sex is incredible and afterwards, Evie compliments Dan on his roleplaying. This leads to Dan taking the whole thing way too seriously, and his commitment to “acting” begins to threaten their marriage.

The third couple is Richard (Brammall) and Rowena (Box). They’re trying to have a baby but nothing’s working, and sex has become perfunctory. Rowena is advised by her doctor that she and Richard should try and time their orgasms to happen at the same time, thus increasing their chances of conception. But she and Richard never get a chance to try this out; Richard learns that his father has died, and when he breaks down in tears, Rowena discovers she’s turned on by the sight of his crying (this is dacryphilia). They have sex right then and Rowena becomes addicted to the intensity it provides, and she starts to engineer circumstances where Richard is made upset enough to cry… and Rowena can experience more orgasms.

All these couples live in the same street, as do Phil (Dukes) and Maureen (McCune). Phil’s compulsion is watching his wife while she sleeps (somnophilia). But Maureen is cold and abusive toward him, while at work his long nights spent watching her means he finds it hard to stay awake during the day. His boss (Hulme) gives him some strong sedatives to help with his sleeping problem, but Maureen unwittingly takes them. Now Phil can indulge his obsession to hisnheart’s content as he makes sure Maureen takes the sedatives each night. But it doesn’t help his case at work, and it doesn’t help either when Maureen accuses him of having an affair.

Lastly, there’s Monica (James) and Sam (Power), who aren’t a couple, but who do meet – and connect – in the unlikeliest of cirumstances. Monica works at a video relay company that helps deaf individuals make telephone calls to other people via their computers. Sam uses sign language to tell Monica what to say to the other person, and Monica signs back their replies. When Sam connects one evening, Monica is surprised to learn that he wants to connect to a telephone sex line. Her discomfort at having to repeat what Sam and the sex worker (Hegney) are saying makes it all the more awkward, but through it all there’s a hint of mutual attraction there.

All five stories, and a sixth involving Steve (Gyngell) – about whom little should be said other than that he has his own sexual predisposition – are funny, romantic, poignant, sometimes sad, sometimes dramatic, ocasionally outrageous, but always pertinent and credible. Lawson shows he has a keen ear (and eye) for the more absurd aspects of sexual behaviour, and he doesn’t hesitate to confound audience expectations by having three of the five stories end badly. This isn’t a standard rom-com where everyone is united or reunited in the last five minutes and they all live happily ever after. Instead, Lawson’s script makes it clear that compromise is a large part of everyday relationships, and that sins of omission can be just as devastating as outright lies (two characters never confess their compulsions, or the way in which they’ve manipulated their partners).

So there’s a strong dramatic element to each story, but Lawson layers each story with a fantastic amount of comedy (though Phil and Maureen’s tale, of necessity, is more sad and depressing than the rest), and there are moments where the viewer will be laughing out loud at the antics, and dialogue, played out on screen (this is likely to be the only time in a movie where you’ll hear the line, “How’s your cervical mucus – okay?”). Lawson is also astute at teasing out the subtleties and self-imposed dilemmas that come with modern day relationships, and there are plenty of times where his confidence in his own observations and his own script leave the viewer not knowing whether to laugh or grimace. When Rowena tells Richard a massive, horrible lie to get him to cry, it’s funny and deplorable at the same time, and Lawson’s fearlessness with the narrative means that both reactions are entirely acceptable; you can laugh and you can feel repelled.

Lawson is backed up by a great cast who all enter into the spirit of things with gusto, though special mention has to go to Herriman as the acting-obsessed Dan, whose idea of roleplay morphs from straightforward policeman interrogating helpless female suspect, and with no costumes used other than their own clothing, to kitting out his and Evie’s garage to house a prison set so he can play a jailbird about to have sex with a prison guard (Evie) – but not before he tells her he’s inside for sexually assaulting a man (it’s called having a backstory). Herriman as Dan is wonderfully unaware of anything else going on in his life, and his narrow, self-absorbed thinking is a constant source of humour. A joy to watch as well are James’s reactions to the comments made by Sam and the sex worker, her wide-eyed dismay and prudish distaste testing her professionalism at every turn. And there’s Gyngell as Steve, popping up here and there, often at the wrong time, but guaranteed to make the viewer laugh once his own “backstory” is revealed.

There’s a feeling that this is a movie that could only have come out of Australia. It’s brash, it’s sweet-natured, it’s romantic yet not idealistic, and it has bags of charm. You can imagine an American remake trying hard to be more gross or unnecessarily explicit (for a movie that’s ostensibly about sex there’s no nudity at all), and it would probably fumble the more serious strands that run through it all, but thankfully that’s unlikely to happen. Lawson advances the various stories by switching back and forth between them, though Monica and Sam’s story does occupy most of the last twenty minutes, its single location and textured narrative requiring a lengthier time on screen than the other stories. This does make the movie feel a little lopsided, and there’s a final scene that connects four of the stories in an unexpected and not wholly satisfying way, but by then the viewer will be more than happy to forgive Lawson his attempt at what might be regarded as closure. With a great soundtrack and score by Michael Yezerski that isn’t just there to provide musical cues or augment each of the character’s feelings or emotions, Lawson has made an entertaining and unexpectedly clever movie that packs an equally unexpected emotional punch as well.

Rating: 8/10 – movies from Down Under are still proving to be a little underwhelming, but The Little Death is definitely not one of them, combining as it does passion, wit and style to tremendous effect; mixing drama and comedy with heart makes for a small but terrific movie, and one that rewards the viewer over and over again.

Heist (2015)

03 Thursday Dec 2015

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Action, Bus 657, Casino, Crime, Dave Bautista, Drama, Gina Carano, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Review, Robbery, Robert De Niro, Scott Mann, Thriller

D: Scott Mann / 93m

Cast: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Robert De Niro, Dave Bautista, Gina Carano, Morris Chestnut, Kate Bosworth, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Summer Altice, D.B. Sweeney, Lydia Hull

There are few things in the world of cinema more dispiriting, more dismal, than the sight of good actors struggling to make something out of nothing. We’ve all seen them: those star-drenched movies that feature a great cast; the kind of movie where you can’t help but think, “Well, if they all signed up for it then it must be good”. But here’s the thing, the thing that a lot of people forget: actors, just like everyone else on the planet, have bills to pay, and so, sometimes, they forget about the “art” of cinema and focus on getting paid. And you can tell within minutes of the movie starting that the Oscar-winner in the supporting role is bored, or that the up-and-coming actor with a few good roles under his belt is trying too hard by way of compensating for the paper-thin nature of his character, and the star looks weary throughout, as if once committed to making the movie he can’t wait for filming to be over. (And let’s not mention any promotion work, where they might have to talk about the movie and how “good” it is…)

And so it is with Heist, a movie that has no real reason for existing, and wouldn’t be missed if by some chance it suddenly didn’t. This is knock-off movie making of the finest ordure, a terrible waste of the cast’s time, the crew’s time, your time, everybody’s time. It sucks, and royally. Despite what you see on screen, the overwhelming impression is of a movie made just for the sake of it, because somebody – and here we have to lay the blame very firmly at the feet of writer Stephen Cyrus Sepher – had an idea for a movie and they managed to persuade five separate production companies to cough up the money to make it. And as so often happens in these situations, nobody looked at Sepher’s script and said, “Er, hang on a second…”

Ironically given the movie’s subject matter, this should be filed under “take the money and run”, as everyone involved does not quite enough to make Heist a watchable affair, from Mann’s uninspired, by-the-numbers direction to Sepher’s cliché-ridden, nonsensical script to half a dozen bored performances that help to sap the life out of a movie that’s already on life support. The main offender is De Niro, giving possibly the worst performance of his career, a lazy, credibility-free caricature of a gangster. De Niro is so bad that if you were to show someone who had no idea about his career or his legacy this particular movie, and then showed them, say, Raging Bull (1980), that someone would be completely baffled as to how it could be the same actor. This is a role where he mugs his way through in lieu of providing a recognisable character, and where he makes absolutely no attempt to convince the audience that his character’s sudden change of heart in the last ten minutes is in any way believable.

Elsewhere, the movie’s star looks tired and/or bored, with Morgan summing up just enough energy to get him through each scene, while Bautista undoes the kudos he’s gained from Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) by giving such a one-note performance it’s embarrassing (though to be fair his character doesn’t exactly benefit from being written that well). He’s matched by Chestnut as De Niro’s psychotic right hand man, but both actors are outdone by Gosselaar’s crooked cop, a wise-cracking annoyance who’s introduced in the most unlikely of fashions and continues to be annoying until the script finally has done with him. And Carano continues to undo the good work she did in Haywire (2011) by steadfastly refusing to alter her expression no matter what.

With so many things going against it, Heist struggles along from scene to scene, clearly happening in its own little alternate universe where the laws of plausibility are flouted with impunity, and where bad directing, writing and acting are actively encouraged and supported. The plot, such as it is, involves Morgan teaming up with Bautista to rob De Niro’s casino, but when the robbery goes wrong, they hijack a bus and head for Texas (as you do). Bautista is bad through and through – hey, he doesn’t care if the pregnant lady on board goes into labour, that’s how badass he is – but Morgan is doing it to pay for his sick daughter’s transplant operation (so he’s much more noble). The threat of passengers being killed keeps the police at bay, while De Niro and Chestnut beaver away in the background looking for a way to isolate Morgan from the bus and for De Niro to get his money back. Along the way Carano becomes an ally, Bosworth cameos as De Niro’s daughter, and bus driver D.B. Sweeney continually looks like he’s wondering what happened to his career.

So, it’s a bad movie, but it’s professionally made and manages to look a little more glossy than your average TV movie, but with so many “did they really just do that?” moments littering the narrative, no amount of goodwill generated by the production crew can mitigate for the farrago of bad ideas and decisions made in front of the camera. This could – and should – have been better in every way but sadly, no one took the time or made the effort to improve things, and the result is a movie that should be a dictionary definition of the word lame. Or awful. Or lousy. Or rubbish (you get the picture).

Rating: 3/10 – one to avoid, Heist only scores so highly because the crew, at least, weren’t asleep at the wheel; with no one attempting to correct the mistakes inherent in the script, or even recognise them, all the viewer can do is to try and stop their jaw from continually hitting the floor from seeing all the ridiculous antics the script is packed with.

Monthly Roundup – November 2015

01 Tuesday Dec 2015

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A Close Call for Boston Blackie, Alien abduction, Blackmail, Boston Blackie, Brittany Allen, Chester Morris, Christmas Icetastrophe, Cory Monteith, Crime, Criminal, David Morse, Detective, Disaster, DJ, Drama, Emily Ratajkowski, Extraterrestrial, Flash freeze, Freddie Stroma, Friendships, Horror, Jennifer Spence, Jonathan Winfrey, Josh C. Waller, Lew Landers, Lynn Merrick, Max Joseph, McCanick, Meteor, Mike Vogel, Murder, Review, Sheriff, SyFy, The Vicious Brothers, Victor Webster, We Are Your Friends, Wes Bentley, Zac Efron

Extraterrestrial (2014) / D: The Vicious Brothers / 101m

Cast: Brittany Allen, Freddie Stroma, Melanie Papalia, Jesse Moss, Anja Savcic, Gil Bellows, Michael Ironside, Sean Rogerson, Emily Perkins

Rating: 4/10 – Teens in a remote cabin discover a crash-landed UFO, and soon learn that this isn’t an isolated incident, and that aliens have been abducting people for some time; yet another tired, gloomy-looking sci-fi/horror that starts promisingly and soon runs out of steam, Extraterrestrial aims to be edgy but is compromised by a convoluted narrative and some frustratingly poor performances.

A Close Call for Boston Blackie (1946) / D: Lew Landers / 60m

aka Lady of Mystery

Cast: Chester Morris, Lynn Merrick, Richard Lane, Frank Sully, George E. Stone, Claire Carleton, Erik Rolf, Mark Roberts, Russell Hicks

Rating: 6/10 – Private detective Boston Blackie (Morris) becomes embroiled in a scam involving a missing baby and an old flame, and finds himself accused of murder; one of the better entries in the series, A Close Call for Boston Blackie sees Morris having a ball as Blackie and the movie as a whole is a lot of fun, the simple, fast-paced approach to the material making the whole thing enjoyable even if you’re not a fan.

Christmas Icetastrophe (2014) / D: Jonathan Winfrey / 87m

Cast: Victor Webster, Jennifer Spence, Richard Harmon, Tiera Skovbye, Mike Dopud, Johannah Newmarch, Andrew Francis, Ben Cotton, Boti Bliss

Rating: 4/10 – A meteorite splits in two in the Earth’s atmosphere, and one half crashes to earth in the small mountain town of Lennox causing everything in the area to flash-freeze; another slice of sci-fi hokum from the SyFy channel, Christmas Icetastrophe narrowly avoids being complete rubbish thanks to some good location work and a sense of its own absurdity, but when all’s said and done, it’s still rubbish.

McCanick (2013) / D: Josh C. Waller / 96m

Cast: David Morse, Cory Monteith, Mike Vogel, Ciarán Hinds, Rachel Nichols, Trevor Morgan, Tracie Thoms, Aaron Yoo

Rating: 6/10 – Veteran detective Eugene McCanick (Morse) goes after a small-time crook (Monteith), but not for the reason everyone around him thinks; a feature role for the ever-reliable Morse is set in psychological thriller territory and gives the actor plenty of room and time to play “disturbed”, but Waller’s sterile direction lets him and the movie down, and McCanick becomes disturbing for all the wrong reasons.

We Are Your Friends (2015) / D: Max Joseph / 96m

Cast: Zac Efron, Wes Bentley, Emily Ratajkowski, Jonny Weston, Shiloh Fernandez, Alex Schaffer, Jon Bernthal

Rating: 6/10 – An aspiring DJ (Efron) finds the road to fame and fortune paved with obstacles: the friends who are unwittingly holding him back, the girl who can’t fully commit, and the mentor who may or may not help him fulfill his dream; a surprisingly aimless movie with little actual drama to sustain its running time, We Are Your Friends is too lightweight in its execution to make much of an impact, and as a result, never gets off the ground.

The Hallow (2015) and the Curse of “Good” Horror Movies

30 Monday Nov 2015

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Black goo, Bojana Novakovic, Changeling, Conservation, Corin Hardy, Drama, Faeries, Horror, Ireland, Irish folklore, Joseph Mawle, Review, Thriller, Tree felling

Original title: The Woods

D: Corin Hardy / 97m

Cast: Joseph Mawle, Bojana Novakovic, Michael McElhatton, Michael Smiley

Premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year, The Hallow has garnered a great deal of positive buzz about it, with even some mainstream critics won over by its combination of rural Ireland setting and demonic creatures from Irish folklore (they’re a difficult bunch to please, mainstream critics; horror isn’t a genre they particularly care for). But while it’s always good to hear any horror movie get a positive response, when it comes from the mainstream it’s always worrying, as it raises expectations a little too high. The Babadook (2014) is a recent case in point, being a horror movie that William Friedkin avowed would “scare the hell out of you as it did me” (the movie is good, just not that good).

So is The Hallow in the same (presumed) league? When the movie was in production it certainly looked like it would be, and the initial response coming out of Sundance was encouraging, but now that the movie is available to a wider, more fan-based audience, it seems that our hopes have been cruelly dashed once again. For what begins as a creepy, atmospheric twist on the home invasion genre soon descends into the kind of aimless let’s-run-around-the-woods-in-circles-over-and-over-again scenario that we’ve seen countless times before. It’s not fun to watch, and once again it involves a female character having to make stupid mistakes in an attempt to generate tension. It doesn’t matter how many times we see this kind of thing, it always means one thing: the writers – in this case director Hardy and Felipe Marino – have run out of story ideas.

The set up here is a simple one: an English conservationist, Adam Hitchens (Mawle), moves with his family to Ireland where his job is to earmark trees in a forest for future felling. This angers not only the locals but ensures he earns the wrath of the faery creatures who live in the forest. In retaliation for his marking the trees with white X’s, they mount a terror campaign that involves breaking windows and skittering about just out of sight of the house where Adam lives. So far it’s a fairly standard set up, with Adam refusing to take notions of angry faery folk seriously, and falling back on unlikely scientific or rational explanations as the cause of all the strange happenings (the bird that’s had a few is a good one).

And of course, while Adam is busy ignoring the evidence that’s right in front of his eyes, and on the camera that he doesn’t refer back to after he’s snapped one of the snarling faeries, his increasingly beleaguered wife, Clare (Novakovic), is doing her best to hold it all together. This involves going along with Adam’s weak reassurances that faeries don’t exist and that he can deal with whatever is “out there”. And then there’s their child, Finn, the obvious target of the creatures, and continually placed in danger by his in-denial parents. (There’s a point where it becomes clear that if you mess with the faeries then they’ll come and swap your child for a changeling – which begs the question, what if you don’t have any children?) With the two main characters behaving like they’ve left their brains behind in England, The Hallow stutters through a middle third that sees them make one hare-brained mistake after another (seriously – who looks through a keyhole to see if the creature that’s been outside banging on the door has gone away?).

One critic has stated that the movie is “visually energized” and “dynamically paced”, and while it’s been very well shot by DoP Martijn van Broekhuizen – his use of low light levels is particularly good – the idea that it’s “dynamically paced” is stretching things. If there is any energy to the movie it’s sucked right out in the movie’s final third, as Clare’s attempts to flee with baby Finn fail, succeed, fail, possibly succeed, fail – you get the idea. At the same time, Adam, who’s fallen foul of an unfortunate poke in the eye (wonder where he got that from?) is in danger of becoming one of the faery folk, transforming as he is thanks to the demands of the script rather than any accepted piece of folklore. He joins Clare in wandering through the forest but he does it in a much cooler way, brandishing a flaming scythe, and waving it in a non-menacing way at any creature that hisses at him.

To be fair, the creatures/faeries/offspring of the Newborn from Alien: Resurrection (1997) (take your pick) are very well designed and executed by British SFX artist John Nolan, and are surprisingly effective despite being actors in suits backed up by a sparse use of CGI augmentation. Alas, Hardy chooses to make them only occasionally threatening, and even then in a way that won’t have audiences reaching for a cushion to hide behind. With their provenance limited to “well, it’s their forest, so you don’t mess with it”, the faeries’ physical appearance is left unexplained, and their actions are less persuasive, as Hardy chooses to strip any magical qualities they might have out of the script at the earliest opportunity. This leaves the notion of the changeling as the only supernatural aspect of the entire movie, and even then the reason for this occurring is dulled by the knowledge that the daughter of one of the villager’s was kidnapped by them, but no replacement was sent back.

Hardy has stated that he wanted to give the narrative “a more rational, scientific base than the traditional magic-based fable”, and to this end he introduces early on a black goo-like substance that has aggressive parasitic qualities. Whether this is produced by the faeries or works independently of them is never properly explained, but in either case it doesn’t bode well if you’re an animal or an unlucky conservationist, or just a viewer trying to work out why it’s there in the first place (except to set up a potential sequel, or an X-Files crossover). It’s an idea that ultimately isn’t given enough room to breathe, and like so many of the ideas Hardy populates the script with, is subsumed by the need to put Adam and Clare in as much peril as possible.

The main problem – and the “curse” alluded to in this post’s title – is that The Hallow, like a lot of modern horror movies that gain a degree of critical approval, tries hard to be different from the hundreds of other horror movies out there but still manages to make the same mistakes that all the rest do: it never manages to provide the audience with characters it can care about, it puts them in evermore ridiculous situations, has them behave irrationally (and run around in those ever decreasing circles), focuses more on the special effects, and abandons its own internal logic in favour of a semi-bravura showdown between the hero (or heroine) and the villain(s). It’s a shame that so few directors of horror movies understand what actually works, but every week we’re confronted with the evidence that supports this, whether it’s the latest franchise cash-in that just repeats the mistakes of its predecessors (and usually on a smaller budget), yet another serial killer/haunted house/paranormal activity variation, or something that has ideas above its station. But if one thing can be relied on, it’s that horror movie fans must be the most forgiving fans out there, because they keep on coming back for more, and that in itself is more scary than a whole host of horror pretenders.

Rating: 5/10 – bolstered by its visual style and location shooting, The Hallow looks the business but fails to deliver in terms of scares, thrills or credibility; a worthy effort, though a bit like the horror movie version of The Emperor’s New Clothes, and the first movie to show how easy it is to kick through the back seat of a car from the confined space of the boot.

The 33 (2015)

29 Sunday Nov 2015

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2010 Copiapó mining accident, Antonio Banderas, Chile, Drama, Gabriel Byrne, Juliette Binoche, Lou Diamond Phillips, Patricia Riggen, Review, Rodrigo Santoro, San Jose mine, Thriller, True story

D: Patricia Riggen / 127m

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Rodrigo Santoro, Juliette Binoche, Lou Diamond Phillips, Gabriel Byrne, Mario Casas, Jacob Vargas, Juan Pablo Raba, Oscar Nuñez, Tenoch Huerta, Marco Treviño, Adriana Barraza, Kate del Castillo, Cote de Pablo, Naomi Scott, Bob Gunton, James Brolin

On 5 August 2010, thirty-three men working at the San José copper-gold mine in Chile’s Atacama Desert, found themselves trapped seven hundred metres underground when there was a major cave-in. What happened over the ensuing sixty-nine days captured the attention of the world, as the Chilean government overcame numerous obstacles in its attempts to rescue the men and restore them to their families. The men – thirty-two Chileans and one Bolivian – were a mix of mine workers and technical support workers, and they survived in an area called The Refuge, albeit with meagre rations that would only last them a few days unless strictly rationed. As an example of the human will to survive against incredible odds and adversity, there are fewer recent examples that can match the story of the 33.

With such an incredible story to tell, The 33 should have been a sure-fire winner, but somewhere along the way, the makers dropped the ball, leaving the movie lacking focus and tension throughout. We meet several of the miners on the day before their fateful shift, with Banderas’ Mario Sepúlveda and Phillips’ Luis ‘Don Lucho’ Urzúa strongly to the fore. With the quality of their home lives established, and how well they’re respected made clear, we move to the next day and meet some of the other men, such as alcoholic Darío Segovia (Raba), and husband caught between wife and mistress Yonni Barrios (Nuñez). And then there’s unlucky Bolivian Carlos Mamani (Huerta), starting his first day at the mine and completely unaware, like all the others, of what’s going to happen.

Once inside the mine, and its winding corridors that lead down and down into the bowels of a mountain, the men begin their work but soon realise that they’re in terrible danger. Here the movie becomes a disaster epic, as the mountain collapses around them in spectacular fashion and the lights go out. So far, so good. But once the disaster has happened, the movie loses its grip on the story, and the ensuing struggle for survival juggles for time and attention with the rescue mission going on above ground. This has the effect of lessening the drama of both strands and giving the movie a stately pace that undermines the movie’s effectiveness even further.

By trying to focus on both the survivors and the rescue attempt – spearheaded by Santoro’s Laurence Golborne, the Minister of Mining – the script by Mikko Alanne, Craig Borten and Michael Thomas becomes an uneasy mix of pedestrian thriller and soap operatics, as below ground, Sepúlveda becomes the unofficial leader, while on the surface, Binoche’s forceful María Segovia (Dario’s sister) cajoles and embarrasses the Chilean government into rescuing her brother and his colleagues. It becomes pretty formulaic stuff, even down to the moment when, with the rescue mission on the verge of being called off, María says something to Golborne that gives him the idea that saves the day. It’s an awkward, cheesy moment, and neither Binoche or Santoro can do much with it to make it sound convincing.

By and large the plight of the men is downplayed, particularly once their rations run out. A big chunk of time goes by without any reference to how the men maintained their morale, or the general physical well-being that allowed them to survive for so long. Sepúlveda is kept at the forefront, while the majority of the other men are painted in broad brush strokes; only Dario’s going cold turkey has any impact, and even then it’s quite muted. Banderas is reliable enough as the de facto leader, but it’s Phillips as the guilt-ridden ‘Don Lucho’ who stands out from the crowd, delivering the movie’s best performance by a By the movie’s end, even the sense of relief that every man was rescued is less enervating than it should be, with even the celebrations of the families feeling perfunctory and blandly choreographed.

Leading the rescue team, Santoro is too fresh-faced to be a Minister of Mining (especially as he doesn’t know the first thing about it), while Byrne’s grizzled drilling expert is seen throwing in the towel too often for his credentials to be that impressive. Brolin appears towards the end when the drilling effort becomes an internationa one, but he has so few lines and makes so little impression that the only thing that’s impressive is that he gets fourth billing in the credits. Representing the families, Binoche’s mix of agitator and social conscience is saddled with the unlikely prospect of an attraction to Santoro that feels like a clumsy attempt to shoehorn a degree of (unnecessary) romance into the story.

But above all, The 33 is a movie that plods along doing just enough to look like it knows what it’s doing, but thanks to Riggen’s by-the-numbers direction it never becomes as tense or dramatic as it should be given the situation and the lives at stake. At least Checco Varese’s cinematography isn’t as staid, with sun-drenched vistas on offer above ground, and claustrophobic shadows below ground. And there’s a fine, wistful score courtesy of the late James Horner that lifts the movie whenever it’s included. Good as these elements are, however, they still only work to prop up a movie that gets more things wrong than right.

Rating: 6/10 – disappointing and onerous, the story of one of the most amazing survival/rescue events in recent history is treated in such a lacklustre way that it feels as if the men are being let down a second time (they’ve never received any compensation for their ordeal); subsumed by too many disaster clichés, The 33 lacks a sense of real danger and makes a remarkable story feel merely ordinary in the telling.

Digging for Fire (2015)

28 Saturday Nov 2015

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Bones, Brie Larson, Comedy, Drama, Friendships, Jake Johnson, Joe Swanberg, Marriage, Orlando Bloom, Relationships, Review, Rosemarie DeWitt, Sam Rockwell

D: Joe Swanberg / 84m

Cast: Jake Johnson, Rosemarie DeWitt, Brie Larson, Orlando Bloom, Sam Rockwell, Anna Kendrick, Mike Birbiglia, Chris Messina, Tom Bower, Sam Elliott, Judith Light, Steve Berg, Ron Livingston, Melanie Lynskey, Jane Adams

Tim (Johnson) and Lee (DeWitt) are a young-ish couple with a three year old son who agree to housesit for one of Lee’s clients while they’re away. On their first day there, while doing some gardening, Tim unearths what looks like a human bone, and a handgun. Lee is all for putting them back and forgetting about them, reasoning that the two items don’t have to be linked. Tim is brimming over with curiosity and wants to do more digging, but nevertheless he calls the police; when they prove uninterested Tim lets himself be persuaded not to pursue it further.

The weekend begins the next day. Lee has made arrangements to take their son to visit her mother (Light) and stepfather (Elliott), while Tim is tasked with completing their tax returns. But both have other plans for their respective weekends: Tim has invited several of his friends for a barbecue and beers, while Lee is looking forward to a girls’ night out with her friend Squiggy (Lynskey). Neither knows of the other’s plans, and neither of them has any intention of letting the other know what they’ve been up to.

That nothing goes quite as either of them expect shouldn’t come as any surprise. Tim’s excitement about his discovery leads to his roping his friends into helping him dig for further remains, while Lee’s friend, too busy warring with her husband Bob (Livingston) to leave him alone with their children’s nanny for the evening, backs out of their arrangement. More of Tim’s friends turn up, with one of them, Billy Tango (Messina), bringing with him two women, Max and Alicia (Larson, Kendrick). While Tim finds himself digging alone, he’s joined by Max who shows an interest in what he’s doing, and digs with him. Meanwhile, Lee resigns herself to a quiet night at her mother’s.

The next day sees Tim making a half-hearted attempt to do the taxes before resuming his digging. Lee goes shopping and buys herself a leather jacket before returning to her mother’s and deciding that this evening she’s going to go out, even if it is by herself. Tim finds himself rejoined by Max and together they continue looking for more evidence of foul play. When he calls it a day he offers to take Max out for a bite to eat as a thank you for helping him. With her own clothes dirty from all the digging, Tim tells her to choose from Lee’s clothes. And while Tim’s evening heads in one direction, Lee’s heads in another as she meets Ben (Bloom) in a restaurant bar.

Right about now, anyone watching Digging for Fire will be sizing up each situation and deciding which one of Tim and Lee will make the classic mistake of sleeping with someone else. But co-writers Swanberg and Johnson don’t make it so easy, and deftly pull the rug out from under the viewer’s feet. This may seem like a movie whose focus is on what happens when both halves of a married couple experience some much longed-for freedom, but it’s a much cleverer movie than that, and despite all the drinking and drug-taking and sexual tensions that occur, this is a staunchly conservative movie that reinforces marriage, fidelity and parenthood as truly desirous states to be in.

With temptation placed firmly in the way of both Tim and Lee, it’s interesting to see how the script has them react. Tim wants to party like he used to before he got married but he’s only really comfortable when he’s focused on his digging; when he calls it a night he barely receives any acknowledgment from any of his friends, so keen are they to carry on partying. And when he’s joined by Max the next day he’s so pleased that someone wants to help him it doesn’t matter to him if that someone is male or female. For Tim, discovering further evidence of foul play – if indeed there is any – has added an extra layer of blinkers to the way he views other women anyway, and despite Max’s obvious good looks and equally obvious liking for him, he can only view her as a friend.

Lee, however, becomes seduced by Ben’s carefree nature, a world away from her life as a wife and mother, tied down by responsibilities (even though she tells their son they’re down to his father to deal with – or mommy will be angry), and a belief that her life as an individual is over with. Call it post-natal depression, or a post-marital fugue, but Lee sees herself as having lost touch with herself, while Tim tells anyone who’ll listen how much his life has changed for the good through being a parent. Neither is wrong, and their feelings are true for each of them, but it’s whether or not they really need to recapture their lives before marriage and parenthood “tied them down” that counts.

Swanberg has been making smart, subtly sophisticated comedy dramas like this one for some time now – Drinking Buddies (2013), also with Johnson, is a gem that should be tracked down immediately if you haven’t seen it already – and while you could level an accusation of naïvete at the way in which Tim and Lee behave around their “prospective partners”, it’s the way in which they recognise the strength and durability of their marriage, and how it enhances their individual lives as well as their commitment to each other that makes it all work so well. And Swanberg is aided by two generous central performances from Johnson and DeWitt, wonderful supporting turns from Birbiglia, Larson and Lynskey, and rounds it all off with a carefully chosen soundtrack that perfectly complements the events happening on screen.

Rating: 8/10 – full of indie charm and a raft of likeable characters we can all relate to, Digging for Fire is another winner from Swanberg; smart, funny, emotional and knowing, it’s a movie that many married couples will find themselves relating to, and never once gives in to the temptation of being self-conscious or patronising.

Cleopatra (1963)

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Drama, Egypt, Elizabeth Taylor, Historical drama, Historical epic, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Julius Caesar, Love affair, Mark Antony, Octavian, Review, Rex Harrison, Richard Burton, Rome

D: Joseph L. Mankiewicz / 248m

Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Pamela Brown, George Cole, Hume Cronyn, Cesare Danova, Kenneth Haigh, Andrew Keir, Martin Landau, Roddy McDowall, Robert Stephens, Francesca Annis, Isobel Cooley, Richard O’Sullivan

Cleopatra, the movie that nearly ruined Twentieth Century Fox, has been given the 4k restoration treatment, and was shown at London’s BFI IMAX cinema on 24 November 2015 as part of the BFI’s season of movies about Love. Watching the movie on such a huge screen – now the largest in Europe after the one in Spain burnt down – it’s even more incredible the amount of detail that can be seen in each frame, and how magnificently crazy the whole project must have been to make at the time. The grandeur, the size, the ambition – it all comes across in a movie where the massive budget is defiantly there on screen, and for all to see. In these days of overwhelming CGI, it’s sobering to realise that, some poorly processed inserts, some matte painting, and some modelwork aside, everything was built both to scale and to impress (and not to mention twice). And even after fifty-two years, whatever else you can say about Cleopatra, it’s still a movie that impresses.

It’s interesting to wonder what the movie would have been like under the stewardship of its original director, Rouben Mamoulian, and if the production had stuck to its proposed $2 million budget. Or if the original cast had stayed on board: Peter Finch as Caesar, Stephen Boyd as Mark Antony, and briefly, before Elizabeth Taylor was cast in the title role, Joan Collins. Alas, we’ll never know, but one thing we can be sure of is that we wouldn’t be talking about that version anywhere near as much as we talk about this one.

The production was almost doomed from the start. Shooting began in London in 1960, but soon ran way over-budget thanks to the elaborate sets and costumes. After sixteen weeks, Mamoulian was fired; seven million dollars had yielded around ten minutes of footage – none of it usable. At the same time, Taylor, who was being paid an unprecedented $1 million, fell ill and had to have a tracheotomy (the scar can be seen in many of her scenes). Production was suspended while the studio worked out what to do next. They approached Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who agreed to write and direct; he had hopes of making the movie in two distinct parts, Caesar and Cleopatra, and Antony and Cleopatra. Each part would run three hours.

With the British weather hampering continued production, and Taylor’s recovery taking longer than expected – so much so that Finch and Boyd had to leave to honour prior commitments – the studio decided to relocate to Rome. Production resumed in 1961 with all the London sets being rebuilt (some would be built a third time), and Mankiewicz finding himself being pressured into providing a script that was being written each day for the next. As the production continued, it also continued to experience delays and problems due to the sheer size of the project. Filming in Rome was eventually completed in 1962, with the final leg of production taking place in Egypt.

Mankiwicz was unceremoniously fired by new studio head Darryl F. Zanuck during post-production, but he had to be re-hired when Zanuck realised that only Mankiewicz knew how all the footage fit together. Re-shoots were filmed in early 1963 – by Mankiewicz – but his early cut lasted six hours (in line with his idea of releasing two separate movies). Zanuck baulked at this, and decided to re-cut the movie himself. The result was the four hour version that was released in June 1963. The movie received mixed reviews, but was surprisingly a commercial success, becoming that year’s highest grossing earner at the box office. However, due to the spiralling costs of making the movie, over $31 million, it failed to make a profit, only breaking even in 1973.

But what of the movie itself? Well, yes, it is bloated and arguably in need of some judicious editing, but it is a fascinating viewing experience, with so much to recommend it that it’s a shame it lacks an overall shape to hold all its various elements together. Mankiewicz was a writer who didn’t lack for a great turn of phrase – “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!” was one of his, for All About Eve (1950) – and he doesn’t disappoint here, but amid all the declamatory, theatrical-sounding dialogue, there’s too much that sounds rooted in modern day psychology. Antony has a great speech after the disaster of the Battle of Actium that is an actor’s dream, but you have to wonder if Antony himself would have been quite so self-analytical. And Taylor has some of the most florid speeches about love you’re ever likely to hear.

The casting is one reason why the movie works as well as it does. Taylor and Burton, who famously began an affair during filming, transfer that newly-found passion to the screen in such a way that there’s no doubt that Antony and Cleopatra are bound together forever (even if he does marry Octavian’s sister – for political reasons, of course). Taylor gives one of her best performances, and Burton matches her for intensity, even though Mankiewicz’s script has him marked out as a self-pitying drunk for much of the time. As Caesar, Harrison is autocratic and ambitious, though a tad reliant on adopting a pedantic uncle approach to the character in his early scenes with Cleopatra.

The supporting players are a mixed bunch but they’re spearheaded by a magnificent turn by McDowall as Caesar’s successor Octavian. His speech about Mark Antony’s death is worth the price of admission alone, and he makes the final hour all the more thrilling purely because he doesn’t look intimidating or savvy enough to be a match for Antony and Cleopatra put together. Danova is an intimidating presence as Cleopatra’s loyal servant Apollodorus, Keir is a growling, battle-hardened Agrippa, Cronyn is quietly authoritative as Cleopatra’s advisor Sisogenes, and Landau is Antony’s patient, loyal lieutenant, Rufio. All add lustre to the acting talent at the head of the cast, and add different textures through their performances that help lift the movie out of some occasional doldrums.

So, is it a good movie? Overall, yes it is. It’s clearly got its faults – the Battle of Actium, fought on water, suffers from having very little money spent on it – and some of the spectacle is there just because it can be, but it does have depth, and Mankiewicz is adept at navigating the political nuances of the era, making them accessible to the layman when necessary. In the director’s chair, Mankiewicz, along with DoP Leon Shamroy, creates a visual world for his cast to act in front of that feels both real and organic, and he keeps things moving with a great deal of style and purpose, which, considering the production’s problems, is a fantastic achievement. It’s never going to top any Top 10 Movies of All Time lists but it doesn’t have to. It’s a tribute to the folly of epic moviemaking, to studio perseverance in the face of an apparent disaster, and a monument to what can be achieved on a practical level when a production’s back is against the wall. Simply put, it’s a triumph over adversity.

Rating: 8/10 – much, much better than many people will tell you, and with a reputation for being bloated and unwieldy that just isn’t the case, Cleopatra is an event movie in more ways than one, and manages to achieve much of what it aspires to; with efforts being made to find the rest of Mankiewicz’s six-hour cut, let’s hope a fuller appreciation of this unfairly maligned movie will be available soon.

I Smile Back (2015)

23 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Adam Salky, Addiction, Alcoholism, Chris Sarandon, Depression, Drama, Drugs, Josh Charles, Literary adaptation, Mental illness, Rehab, Review, Sarah Silverman

D: Adam Salky / 85m

Cast: Sarah Silverman, Josh Charles, Thomas Sadoski, Skylar Gaertner, Shayne Coleman, Mia Barron, Terry Kinney, Chris Sarandon

When we first meet Laney Brooks (Silverman), she’s in her bathroom, looking out the window at her husband Bruce (Charles) and their two young children, Eli (Gaertner) and Janey (Coleman), as they all shoot hoops. But she’s not actually seeing them. Her gaze is too distant, too removed from what’s going on outside. Instead she’s remembering recent events in her life: taking her kids to school, getting Chinese at a local restaurant, a dinner party with their friends Donny (Sadowski) and Susan (Barron), the unexpected arrival of a dog called Bingo… and then she snorts cocaine before taking a bath.

Faced with this kind of introduction to a character, some viewers may feel that they don’t want to spend any more time with them and will decide to go watch something else, something more light-hearted perhaps. But they would be missing out on one of the most impressive performances by an actress in the whole of 2015.

As I Smile Back progresses we come to realise that Laney has a heck of a lot more problems than just taking cocaine. She drinks to excess, pops pills like they’re sweets, and is cheating on Bruce with Donny. As well as struggling with being a wife, she struggles with being a mother, being overly fearful for Eli in particular, while proving unable to manage something as simple as bringing her school I.D. badge with her when she drops the kids off. She’s always a second or two behind everyone else, always a little distracted, always a little “vacant”.

It’s at around this point in Adam Salky’s take on the novel by Amy Koppelman (who also co-scripted with Paige Dylan) that the viewer begins to realise that Laney is suffering from depression and has mental health problems; the irresponsible behaviour is merely a sign of her inability to cope with every day life and its responsibilities. The average viewer will also realise that the movie can now only go in one of two ways: either Laney will hit rock bottom, get help, and get better, or she’ll spiral out of control until tragedy strikes. But Koppelman’s story takes a third way, one in which Laney has every opportunity to avoid ruining the rest of her life, but the question is: will she?

Thanks to the aforementioned impressive performance by Silverman, the answer to that question is not as simple as expected. There are some formulaic twists and turns to the story that most viewers will see coming, but on the whole, Laney is a character to root for, even when her self-destructive behaviour would have most people walking the other way. Silverman is incredibly good as a woman weighed down by the trauma of being abandoned by her father when she was nine, and whose inability to deal with the subsequent issues that have grown up around that event has led to the addictive behaviour that dictates her daily life. She has a loving husband, two great kids (though the movie hints that Eli may end up emulating his mother when he’s older), and an outwardly envious lifestyle. But for Laney, everything comes to an end; why not her marriage and all that goes with it?

After she drinks and takes too many drugs one night, Laney has a spell in rehab, and the movie starts to give her a chance, though there’s a noticeable distance now between her and Bruce that doesn’t bode well for the future. She talks about her father, and the fact that even though she knows where he lives, she hasn’t contacted him in thirty years (and vice versa). It becomes a challenge, to visit her father, and when she does Laney discovers that seeing him wasn’t such a great idea. From then on, things begin to spiral out of control again.

Let’s say it again: Silverman is magnificent as the self-torturing Laney. It’s the kind of dark, messy role that comediennes seem to be able to pull off without any problem at all, and Silverman gives a breathtakingly honest portrayal of a woman whose feelings are so raw, and yet who can’t connect with her emotions. And if you thought that this wouldn’t be an uncomfortable movie to watch because of Silverman’s presence, then there’s a scene involving a stuffed toy that shows just how committed the actress was to the role.

But, sadly, Silverman’s performance isn’t matched by Salky’s direction. The movie suffers from an icy tone that matches the wintry New York state locations, and Salky never fleshes out the characters around Laney, leaving Bruce to look and sound like a self-important grump with no amount of sympathy for Laney’s problems, while Sarandon as Laney’s father can only do limp regret in his brief scenes. The camera spends quite a lot of time observing Laney, and only gets in close when she’s really hurting or in trouble. Otherwise there’s a detachment going on that hampers the viewer from connecting with Laney, and stops any sympathy for her from becoming full-blown. It’s as if Salky has decided that, despite the obvious emotional traumas that Laney experiences, his movie is going to be more of an intellectual exercise, an examination of a character as they descend through their own personal hell. It’s not an approach that works, and detracts from the limited “enjoyment” the movie has to offer.

The script too has its faults, not least in the way that it avoids providing a convincing explanation for Laney’s mental illness/depression, and instead shows her popping pills, snorting coke, and gulping wine over and over, as if we won’t be aware of how addictive her behaviour is unless we keep seeing it. Eli’s problems are introduced but no attempt is made to resolve them, and her affair with Donny (which has so much dramatic potential) is dropped without a backward glance. Also, the scenes at the rehab centre are too short and too lacking in depth for them to be anything other than a bridge between two sets of aberrant behaviours, and the advice and comfort given by Laney’s psychiatrist (Kinney) is banal to the point of, well, extreme banality. But the final scene in the movie is thematically perfect, and ties in neatly with Laney’s problems, albeit to heartbreaking effect.

Rating: 7/10 – if it wasn’t for Silverman’s superb, and often harrowing, performance then I Smile Back wouldn’t be an attractive prospect, thanks to Salky’s distant feel for the material, and the repetitive nature of Laney’s behaviour built in to the script; but Silverman is superb, and her performance holds the movie together in a way that should be rewarded come Oscar time, but which will probably be ignored in favour of more mainstream, multiplex-friendly portayals – and that really is depressing.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (2015)

20 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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District 13, Donald Sutherland, Drama, Francis Lawrence, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Julianne Moore, Katniss Everdeen, Liam Hemsworth, Literary adaptation, Panem, Philip Seymour Hoffman, President Snow, Review, Sci-fi, Sequel, Suzanne Collins, The Capitol, Thriller, Woody Harrelson

D: Francis Lawrence / 137m

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Donald Sutherland, Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Willow Shields, Sam Claflin, Elizabeth Banks, Mahershala Ali, Jena Malone, Jeffrey Wright, Natalie Dormer, Evan Ross, Elden Henson, Wes Chatham, Michelle Forbes, Patina Miller, Stanley Tucci

Picking up after Peeta’s failed attempt to kill Katniss, the final instalment in The Hunger Games series begins with a problem for both the makers and the audience to consider: should the movie launch straight into the rebels’ expected attack on the Capitol, or should it hold back and spend some time reiterating the relationships between Katniss and Peeta and Gale, and begin to explore the similar machinations of President Snow and his potential successor, Alma Coin? The answer is the latter, and while this decision allows for further layers to be added to Katniss’s ever-present self-doubt (and sets up the ending), it also has the effect of reminding the viewer that we’ve been here before – and in each of the three previous movies.

One of the series’ strengths has always been the way in which Katniss appears to be a stranger to herself while everyone around her finds her actions entirely predictable. It’s an idea that continues here, with the Mockingjay being used at every turn, even when she acts independently. But it’s in danger of becoming as unwieldy a plot device as the idea that President Snow has a camera in every home in Panem (as well as in every shop, and on every street corner… you get the idea). We get it. And if the decision to split Mockingjay the novel into two parts was so that the final movie could be all about the rebels’ final push on the Capitol, then why are we still going over old ground?

To be fair, it’s the price the movie makes for being faithful to Suzanne Collins’ source material. But what it also does is to make The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 longer than it needed to be, and curiously sapped of urgency once Katniss et al begin their progress toward the Capitol. There are too many scenes where characters stop to muse on their individual plights, and Peeta tries to sort out if his memories are real or lies constructed by his torturers in the Capitol. At first glance it’s all meaningful, and yet another indication of how careful the makers have been in grounding the action, but do you know what? It’s Part Four – we already care about these characters. All we want now is for Katniss to come face to face with President Snow, and for the promise of all those booby traps we’ve seen in the trailer to give us a thrilling, rousing, edge-of-the-seat kick-ass end to everything.

What we’re looking for is the kind of series’ ending we got with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011), but the action sequences, though expertly staged and choreographed – and which winnow out the surplus characters – just… don’t… bring it. It’s a strange awareness to have, to realise that the best action scenes have all appeared in the earlier movies, but there it is: even the underground fight against the Capitol Mutts suffers from over-familiarity as Katniss shows off the same bow skills we’ve seen before from Legolas and Hawkeye. And as mentioned before, there’s a distinct lack of urgency to it all, as the movie’s rhythm is maintained at such a steady pace that even when Katniss and her comrades are out-running a booby-trap at full pelt, you can sense the editing team of Alan Edward Bell and Mark Yoshikawa making sure it’s not shown at too full a pelt or their hard work elsewhere might be jeopardised.

And yet, somehow – somehow – the movie overcomes these drawbacks and proves to be a fitting end to the saga. It’s still an intelligent, and intelligently made, movie, and the effort in maintaining the good work achieved in the previous movies is clear to see, with returning director Lawrence once again steering things to tremendous effect. He’s aided by a returning cast who all clearly want to be there, and who are committed to ending the series as best they can. And for the most part, they succeed. Lawrence doesn’t put a foot wrong as Katniss, miring her in doubt and misplaced guilt, and keeping her insecurities to the fore in a performance that becomes all the more impressive for having been sustained across four movies. Hutcherson impresses the most (four words I didn’t think I’d ever write), his PTSD Peeta being a difficult role to pull off, but he makes short work of it, and in doing so, makes Peeta the most sympathetic character in the whole series.

Completing the “romantic threesome” is Hemsworth as Gale. Four movies in and he’s still the series’ one weak link, an actor so stiff he could throw himself at the enemy instead of shooting them, and still score a death. (Now if Sam Claflin had played Gale, then the often tepid romance with Katniss might have been more compelling.) Sutherland continues to play Snow with effortless malice; without his silky venom to play against, the rebellion would have appeared less than necessary. As his rival for power, Moore strikes a more strident note as Coin, and as Coin’s true nature becomes more and more clear, the actress withstands the temptation to become the series’ answer to Cruella de Ville (the clue’s in the hair).

Further down the cast list, Harrelson is sidelined early on; the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman has a few scenes that hint at a bigger, if obviously curtailed role; Claflin brings his trademark smirk to playing Finnick Odair, as well as a much needed sense of fun; Banks hangs around on the periphery of things as Effie; and Tucci is shoehorned in as Caesar Flickerman in a TV segment that goes against an earlier scene where Snow (very severely) chastises an underling. Everyone is present and correct, and director Lawrence coaxes good performances from everyone, making it incredibly easy for the audience to continue rooting for their favourite characters.

Whatever your feelings about The Hunger Games franchise – and there are plenty of nay-sayers out there – this has been one of the most surprisingly intelligent and well produced projects of the last ten years. Jennifer Lawrence has proved to be an inspired choice as Katniss Everdeen, and the world of the Districts has been so convincingly constructed that the plight of their inhabitants has been echoed by events taking place in the real world even now. And even though Suzanne Collins originally wrote her novels for the YA market, these are remarkably adult movies, with a strong sense of moral culpability and responsibility. A triumph then, and when all is said and done, one that few of us could have seen coming.

Rating: 8/10 – narrative hiccoughs aside, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 is still head and shoulders above any other dystopian YA sci-fi series out there, and is a great showcase for what can be achieved if the intention is not to soft pedal any serious themes inherent in the material; thrilling (just) and chock-full of great performances, this is a fitting swansong to a series that has surprised and entertained audiences for four years and this despite getting increasingly bleaker as it’s gone along.

Mini-Review: Tangerine (2015)

19 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Drama, Karren Karagulian, Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, Review, Sean Baker, Sin-Dee Rella, Transgender

D: Sean Baker / 88m

Cast: Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, Karren Karagulian, Mickey O’Hagan, James Ransone, Alla Tumanian, Luiza Nersisyan, Arsen Grigoryan, Ian Edwards, Scott Krinsky, Clu Gulager

Tangerine is the latest feature from Sean Baker, an independent movie maker whose previous outings have looked closely at the lives of people who appear disenfranchised or who are living in a sub-culture that most people have no idea about. Here, Baker focuses on two transgender friends, Sin-Dee (Rodriguez) and Alexandra (Taylor), and what happens when Sin-Dee, having spent some time in jail, learns that her boyfriend, Chester (Ransone), has been cheating on her with Dinah (O’Hagan) while she was inside.

From this simple premise, Baker has crafted an equally simple tale that is by turns funny, sad, poignant, richly textured and incredibly bittersweet. Tangerine has a raw immediacy about it that compensates for some of the narrative’s more soap opera-like moments, and Baker is helped immeasurably by the performances of Rodriguez and Taylor. As Sin-Dee, Rodriguez is consumed by anger and a desire for revenge that fuels her journey throught the movie, and the actress is such a strong screen presence you can rarely take your eyes off her. As the aspiring singer Alexandra, Taylor is more reserved, almost a spectator, but she carries herself with such a strong sense of her own place in the scheme of things that she, like Rodriguez, becomes an equally strong screen presence.

Baker regular Karagulian – his character in Take Out (2004) is listed as “Chicken or beef” – features in a subplot involving an Armenian taxi driver, Razmik, who has a penchant for transgender prostitutes. At first it seems incidental to the main story, but Baker and co-scripter Chris Bergoch (seen briefly covered in another character’s vomit) link his story quite cleverly with Sin-Dee’s, and it all leads to the kind of embarrassing confrontation that is both funny and awful at the same time. This extended scene, which takes place in a branch of Donut Time, is the movie’s stand out sequence, and features an equally stand out turn from Ransone as the pimp who seems to be nicer than most but who shows glimpses of the shark beneath the pleasant exterior.

With the characterisations firmly established and locked down by his talented cast, Baker is free to explore the somewhat murkier realm of transgender prostitution and the darker side of sexual obsession (Razmik is disgusted when a girl he picks up proves to have a vagina). Baker doesn’t go too deeply but shows just enough to remind viewers that this isn’t a healthy lifestyle, and that Sin-Dee and Alexandra are both doing their best to survive. It’s an obvious point to make, perhaps, but one that fits in well with the narrative.

Tangerine has attracted a lot of attention for its visuals, having been shot on a number of iPhone 5s’s. It’s a fascinating fact, and shows just how far technology has come, but in reality, if you didn’t know this before seeing the movie you wouldn’t even notice (which is the better point to make). The title is derived from the colour the sky turns at dusk in Hollywood (where the movie was shot), and some of the compositions are breathtaking to look at. Baker has a keen eye for where to place his camera(phone) during a scene, and some of his framing packs in a lot of unexpected detail. With a soundtrack that features several judiciously placed songs, the movie has a style that is effective and embracing, and there’s a beautifully judged ending to round things off.

Rating: 8/10 – not without its problems in terms of its main plot, which seems too thin at times to mount a whole movie on, Tangerine nevertheless succeeds by virtue of two wonderful central performances, and Baker’s firm control over the project as a whole; it’s also a movie that rewards on multiple viewings and has a tendency to wrong-foot the viewer to good effect, making it even more worthwhile to watch.

Ride (2014)

17 Tuesday Nov 2015

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Brenton Thwaites, Comedy, David Zayas, Drama, Helen Hunt, Luke Wilson, Mother/son relationship, Review, Surfing, Writing

D: Helen Hunt / 93m

Cast: Helen Hunt, Brenton Thwaites, Luke Wilson, David Zayas, Elizabeth Jayne, Callum Keith Rennie, Robert Knepper, Leonor Varela

Helen Hunt’s first directorial outing, Then She Found Me (2007), looked at the relationship between a mother and her daughter. Hunt also co-wrote the movie, co-produced it, and starred as the mother. The movie has its flaws, but all in all it’s enjoyable enough, even if some of the relationships don’t ring entirely true. This time round, Hunt addresses the relationship between a mother and her son, and as before she co-produces, stars and writes (solo this time). The result is a similar movie in terms of the relationships, but one that also has its flaws.

Hunt plays Jackie, a literary editor whose twenty year old son, Angelo (Thwaites), is writing a novel as he prepares to go off to university. He’s having trouble with the ending, and Jackie isn’t helping. She’s critical when she should be supportive, and keeps undermining Angelo’s confidence. In effect, she treats him like a child who needs to stand on his own two feet but every time he tries she tells him he’s doing it wrong. Faced with this continual barrage, it’s no wonder that Jackie’s marriage to Angelo’s father ended years ago, and he now lives with his new family in Los Angeles, a continent away from Jackie and Angelo who live in New York.

With his enrolment at university settled, Angelo takes a trip to see his father. Angelo loves surfing, and while he’s out in L.A. he spends most of his time at the beach. His love of surfing is so obvious that it’s unsurprising when Jackie learns he’s dropped out of university. Without a backward glance about her work commitments, or even if it’s the right thing to do, Jackie jumps on a plane and heads for L.A. And… here’s where the movie starts to become less about a mother and son relationship, and more about Jackie learning how to be less uptight and more relaxed.

This change in direction leads to the movie becoming disjointed and unfocused, with Jackie hijacking the driver who’s met her at the airport, Ramon (Zayas), to help her spy on Angelo and what he’s doing. It’s at odds with the direct, bulldozing approach that Hunt has established for Jackie, and while it’s meant to inject some humour into proceedings, it’s forced and not at all believable. Ramon becomes a bystander to Jackie’s odd behaviour and never once questions who Angelo is or why she’s following him. When she finally talks to him and he tells her he felt stifled by his life in New York and that surfing is what he wants to do, Jackie’s reaction is predictable: she accuses him of running away from being a writer and that he needs his education to succeed. And with no better argument, he criticises her in return for dismissing surfing when she’s never even tried it.

By now the even occasionally astute viewer will be able to guess what happens next. Jackie decides to learn to surf, but crucially, Hunt leaves out any clear-cut reason for her doing this, and we’re treated to several scenes where she stumbles about in the surf falling over, unable to get on her board, and generally acting as if surfing was the easiest thing in the world to master. It’s an obvious case of schadenfreude, and Hunt milks it for all its worth, from the difficulty in getting into a wetsuit to paddling out to the breakwater. Eventually she accepts help in the form of a surfer called Ian (Wilson). And… here’s where Hunt’s script further downplays the mother-son relationship even further, as Jackie embarks on an affair with Ian, and Angelo’s story is reduced to a couple of scenes where he reveals a family secret to a girl (Jayne) he meets on the beach.

With Hunt splintering her story into several different directions at once, the movie becomes less interesting and less involving. There’s a big, angry confrontation between Jackie and Angelo that comes out of the blue and feels shoehorned in to give the movie some much-needed drama, while Jackie’s journey of discovery weighs things down to the point that the viewer could be forgiven for hoping that Jackie’s board will fatally clump her on the head when she gets thrown off. And the resolution, when it comes, is entirely dependent on Jackie repeating something Ian tells her earleir on, and which she takes to heart without even a second thought. We’re meant to think that because she has to learn how to surf, and she’s not immediately proficient at it, that this has a way of humbling her. But Hunt doesn’t connect the dots in this regard, and much of how the movie is concluded seems awkward and clumsy, as if Hunt didn’t have a clear idea on how to round things up.

Hunt the director serves Hunt the star well, and there are glimpses in her performance that this could have been a different story entirely if Hunt the writer hadn’t felt the need to include so many surfing sequences (possibly in an effort to show how fit the actress is at fifty-two – though what appears to be one too many facelifts doesn’t help her case; her forehead is truly disturbing). With too many subplots thrown in at random as the movie unfolds, and with too many instances where Hunt’s script leaves a barrel big enough for two surfboards to plough through, Ride becomes an occasionally interesting viewing experience, and one that could have done with its script being tightened up considerably.

Rating: 5/10 – dead in the water for most of its running time, Ride‘s unfocused, repetitive script is its biggest downfall (how many times do we have see Jackie and Angelo text each other?); with a good cast given very little to do, and with Hunt unable to pep things up, it remains a movie that should be filed under Could Have Been So Much Better If…

A Royal Night Out (2015)

15 Sunday Nov 2015

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Airman, Bel Powley, British royalty, Comedy, Drama, Emily Watson, Jack Reynor, Julian Jarrold, King George VI, Military escort, Princess Elizabeth, Princess Margaret, Review, Rupert Everett, Sarah Gadon, True story, VE Day, World War II

D: Julian Jarrold / 97m

Cast: Sarah Gadon, Bel Powley, Jack Reynor, Rupert Everett, Emily Watson, Jack Laskey, Jack Gordon, Roger Allam, Ruth Sheen

A Royal Night Out is based on real events: on V.E. Day, May 8 1945, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret went out in a group that included their nanny, several friends, and a military detail as protection (one of whom was Group Captain Peter Townsend, who would later have a relationship with Margaret). They were charged by their father, King George VI, to be home by one a.m. – which they were. Nothing of any real significance happened, and the evening passed off without incident.

But in an attempt to overcome this disappointing outcome, A Royal Night Out chooses to paint an entirely different portrait of what happened that night, and in doing so, pushes the boundaries of credibility at every turn. It’s a movie that embraces the newspaper cry of “Print the Legend!”, and has no intention of worrying about just how far-fetched or unlikely it all is. And thanks to one of the most careless and poorly constructed screenplays of recent years – courtesy of Trevor De Silva and Kevin Hood – the movie limps from one unconvincing scene to another, and never once provides a moment’s plausibility.

From the moment that Gadon’s Elizabeth and Powley’s Margaret are introduced – responsible and carefree respectively – it’s clear that these characterisations aren’t going to change much as the movie progresses. Elizabeth is the thoughtful, considerate sister, always looking out for her younger, less mature sibling. Margaret is a pleasure-seeker, stifled by the conventions of royal life, and looking for a chance to express her more extrovert nature. Although there is some truth in both these approaches – Margaret definitely liked a good party – by reducing both young women to such paper-thin representations of their real counterparts, the movie avoids asking its audience to identify with them at all.

What the movie does to compensate is to infuse the action with liberal dollops of comedy. Surprisingly, a lot of it works, even though it’s often corny, and relies on the idea that Elizabeth and Margaret are so far removed from “ordinary” folk that they’re unable to deal with the simplest of social interactions. The humour is also derived in part from a lazy interpretation of the social divide between the princesses and the people they meet. Margaret is far too trusting, while Elizabeth becomes acutely aware of how little she really knows about everyday people. It’s predictable stuff, and if it wasn’t for the jokes, the movie would be dangerously difficult to sit through.

As well as De Silva and Hood’s just-enough-done-to-get-by script, there’s Jarrold’s lacklustre direction to contend with. There are moments when it really seems as if he settled for the first take and had no interest in finding out if the actors had anything else to offer. Whole stretches of the movie play out at a sedated pace that deadens each scene it touches, and it makes the performances seem stilted and free from nuance. Jarrold, whose last theatrical feature was the similarly underwhelming Brideshead Revisited (2008), misses almost every opportunity to make the movie relevant to its time frame, and concentrates instead on various levels of slapstick and farce to push the narrative forward. It leaves the movie feeling disjointed and as unconcerned about itself as Margaret is when she goes off with a man she doesn’t know.

There are issues with the various relationships as well. Elizabeth meets AWOL airman Jack (Reynor) who helps her find Margaret after they’re separated. You can tell straight away that the script wants them to get together, but at the same time it wants to stay true to historical events, so what we’re left with is an attraction that can’t (and doesn’t) lead anywhere, and which is entirely redundant as a plot device. The same can be said for Jack’s AWOL status, a dramatic angle that is resolved with the neatness of a parcel tied up with string. (There really isn’t anything in the movie that the viewer won’t be able to guess the outcome of – and long before it happens.)

Elsewhere, Laskey and Gordon play their military detail roles as if they were auditioning for an X Factor comedy special, with Laskey mugging for all he’s worth, and Gordon’s Lieutenant Burridge behaving in such an inappropriate manner it’s ridiculous. Allam is introduced late on as a mix of low-rent pimp and black marketeer who Margaret calls Lord Stan, but it’s the fanciful way in which her royal status is exploited that raises a chuckle, as Stan uses her to get some of his working girls inside the Chelsea Barracks, and circulating amongst the guests at a party there. Again it’s this kind of non-threatening, breezy plotting that hampers the movie and stops it from having any kind of edge.

The cast are left adrift to fend for themselves, with Watson coming off best by (ostensibly) directing herself, while the likes of Everett, Allam and Powley are stranded playing caricatures. Reynor can’t do anything with his establishment-baiting airman, and Gadon looks bewildered throughout, as if she can’t quite believe what she’s being asked to do (though, to be fair, her bewilderment could be down to the demands of the script).

Away from the uninspired direction and unimaginative script, A Royal Night Out struggles to rise above its TV movie look and feel, and some of the myriad night shots look like they were filmed during the day. And with the best will – or art direction – in the world, Hull is no substitute for London, leaving several scenes feeling incomplete in terms of the movie’s visual style. As a result, Christophe Beaucarne’s photography is choppy at best, though it suits the muddy compositions. And Luke Dunkley’s editing is so haphazard in its approach that a lot of scenes lack that all-important through line.

Rating: 4/10 – even though it’s an interpretation of what “might” have happened on the night of 8 May 1945, A Royal Night Out‘s script shows such a lack of imagination almost any other interpretation would be preferable; saved entirely by its sense of humour, and despite its being entirely nonsensical at times, the movie is one of those ideas that seemed like a good one at the time, but which should have been left well alone by all concerned.

No Escape (2015)

08 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Coup, Drama, John Erick Dowdle, Lake Bell, Owen Wilson, Pierce Brosnan, Rebels, Review, South-East Asia, Thriller, Uprising, Vietnam

D: John Erick Dowdle / 103m

Cast: Owen Wilson, Lake Bell, Pierce Brosnan, Sterling Jerins, Claire Geare, Thanawut Kasro, Chatchawan Kamonsakpitak, Sahajak Boonthanakit

Set in an unnamed country in South-East Asia, No Escape is one of those survivalist fantasies that puts a lot of effort into stacking the odds against the hero (and his family as well, in this case), but then makes it incredibly easy for him to overcome those odds. Once the viewer realises this, other flaws in the plot become clearer and the initial tension that screenwriters John Erick Dowdle and his brother Drew go to some lengths to arrange, soon decreases the longer the movie plays out. By the end, there have been too many contrivances and coincidences for the tension to be maintained effectively.

Part of the problem here is that it doesn’t take long for the viewer to realise that, the set up notwithstanding – nationalists stage a coup in anger against US investment in the water industry (don’t worry, it almost makes sense) – the script has no intention of being too hard on its hard luck family. Yes, it makes things difficult for them, and yes they’re pursued throughout by one hard-line rebel who’s intent on killing all of them, but as more and more ambushes and deadly encounters are survived, any idea that they’re not going to make it to Vietnam and safety is soon abandoned. Even when they find themselves captured by the rebels, there’s always a delay in executing them that allows the family to be rescued or save themselves.

With any real peril sidelined by the movie’s need to keep its nuclear family free from harm, No Escape becomes even more predictable in its approach. Brosnan’s lively hedonist is revealed to have a darker past than he originally lets on, and once the coup is in full swing, any chance the family has of reaching the American Embassy is always going to be doomed to failure, while random strangers will pop up to help them as and when necessary.

But though it’s entirely predictable, and Wilson’s Jack and Bell’s Annie lack any appreciable depth – Annie doesn’t want to be in South-East Asia, while Jack is making the best of a bad business setback… and that’s it – the movie gets by on its early scenes where the seriousness of the coup begins to sink in, and the targetting of Americans for execution becomes altogether clear (even if the reasoning is a little too pat). The pace is brisk and efficient, and Dowdle uses hand-held photography to good effect (though as a result, some of the framing is off, though this may be deliberate – it’s hard to tell).

On the performance side, Wilson is okay as the determined Jack, but his portrayal reveals a facet of his acting that seems to have gone unnoticed all these years: he doesn’t have a great repertoire of expressions. What this means is that unless he really scrunches up his features, alarm or fear look much the same as surprise or wonder, and panic looks like he’s trying to fathom a difficult math problem. Bell is required to look fearful and upset for most of the movie, and even before the coup takes place, so there’s no hope of a character arc there, and some viewers may be alarmed at the ease with which she exhorts her terrified daughters to stay hidden while she goes off and does something that usually heightens the risk they’re in.

With Wilson and Bell having no choice but to play their roles as earnestly as possible, it’s left to Brosnan’s chirpy Brit to inject a bit of spice into proceedings, but his character, Hammond, is so perilously close to cliché that although he’s a welcome sight when he appears, it’s equally good to see the back of him (to be fair, this is less Brosnan’s fault and more Dowdle’s). As Jack and Annie’s two young girls, Jerins and Geare are both adorable, while the majority of the rebels are just ruthless, nasty thugs hell bent on killing all and sundry. Only Boonthanakit’s taxi driver, who models himself on Kenny Rogers, stands out from the rest of the locals, but sadly it’s in a way that hints at casual racism.

Towards the end, the family’s escape route becomes clear, and they take their chances, but it’s here that the movie makes its biggest faux pas, as it tries to present the city they’ve arrived in as being half in the unnamed country that serves as the movie’s backdrop, and half in Vietnam. It’s a totally ridiculous moment, and completely ruins any verisimilitude that Dowdle has managed to create thus far, leaving the viewer to scratch his or her head and wonder WtF?

And one last issue: what kind of father tells his frightened daughter – when she’s being forced to point a gun at him – to shoot him and that it’s okay to do so? What kind of selfless, parental martyrdom is being expounded here? True, it’s intended to make an already tense situation all the more horrific (or potentially so), but it’s likely most viewers will be wondering, again, WtF?

For all its tense confrontations and attempts to make the rebels as thuggish and murderous as possible, No Escape is hampered too much by Dowdle’s uncomfortable mix of revolution and manhunt, and his mandate that no real harm shall come to the family. What this leaves the viewer with is a movie that looks like it’s going to be tough and uncompromising, but in reality only treats its secondary and minor characters as if they were expendable. Now if one of the children had died…

Rating: 5/10 – mostly efficient, but neutered by a squeamishness about hurting the family, No Escape at least stops short of making Wilson an action hero, but does ask him to play a character who seems to be wilfully putting his family in harms way; better in its opening half hour, and before Jack starts throwing his children off of a rooftop, the movie tries its best to be a hard-hitting thriller, but never hits the mark.

Ricki and the Flash (2015)

06 Friday Nov 2015

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Comedy, Diablo Cody, Drama, Dysfunctional family, Jonathan Demme, Kevin Kline, Mamie Gummer, Meryl Streep, Mother/daughter relationship, Music, Musician, Review, Rick Springfield, Suicide attempt, Wedding

D: Jonathan Demme / 101m

Cast: Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Mamie Gummer, Rick Springfield, Sebastian Stan, Nick Westrate, Audra McDonald, Hailey Gates, Ben Platt

Let’s agree to disagree (perhaps): Meryl Streep can sing… sort of. She can carry a tune, certainly, but does she have the voice to be a rock singer? Well, as it turns out, it depends very much on the song (and particularly if it’s Bruce Springsteen’s My Love Will Not Let You Down, where she doesn’t). But thanks to Diablo Cody’s poorly constructed and focus-lite screenplay, maybe that’s the point, because Ricki, Meryl’s aging rock chick character, has been playing at the same bar for years, and has only managed to release one album in all the time she’s been a musician. She’s following her muse, and has sacrificed her family to pursue said muse, but it really seems as if Ricki hasn’t realised that her muse “left the building” ages ago.

On paper, Ricki and the Flash looks appealing and fun. The idea of La Streep strapping on a guitar and rocking out alongside Rick Springfield was no doubt more than enough to get the movie greenlit, and there’s plenty of songs included for Streep to wrap her larynx around, but while these scenes are fun to watch in a straightforward, head-on kind of way, the rest of the movie hangs around them like a groupie who’s only just realising they’re at the wrong gig. (And said groupie is likely to run for the exit as soon as Streep launches into an awkward, grating version of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance.)

What’s confounding about the movie is that it never seems to go anywhere. We’re supposed to believe that Ricki is a long-absent mother who no longer talks to her family – ex-husband Pete (Kline), sons Josh (Stan) and Adam (Westrate), and daughter Julie (Gummer, Streep’s real-life daughter) – and whose selfish behaviour informs her every decision. But she drops everything when Pete calls to tell her that Julie’s husband has left her and it might be a good idea for Ricki to come and visit. Once she arrives, Julie is antagonistic toward her, as is Adam, though Josh, who is about to get married, is more sympathetic. With the family dynamics now firmly established, Cody’s script resolves each issue in turn with incredible non-credible ease, and does so to ensure that Streep gets to rock out again (and again… and again).

Things wouldn’t have been so bad if the various “issues” weren’t of such a poor standard that even the most desperate of soap operas would pass on them. The dialogue is just as bad, and begs the question is this really a script created by the writer of Juno (2007)? There’s a scene between Ricki and Pete’s second wife, Maureen (McDonald), that contains so many clichés – on both sides – that the viewer could be forgiven for thinking the lines were improvised and the scene was a rehearsal that somehow made it into the final cut, except you’d be convinced they could have come up with dialogue that was a lot, lot better. It’s a childish tit-for-tat exchange that neither actress can do much with, and it sits like an ugly child in the middle of a pretty girls’ photoshoot.

But it’s not just Cody’s banal script that makes it all so frustrating, it’s also Demme’s disinterest, which emanates from the director’s chair in waves. He never so much as comes close to engaging with the material, and scenes go by that are tonally flat and lacking in flair. The material is already less than exhilarating, but Demme’s approach harms the movie further, leaving it feeling like a bland TV movie. It’s left to the cast to try and inject some energy into the proceedings, and Streep is certainly game when called upon to belt out another rock staple, but the likes of Kline, Gummer and Stan aren’t given enough to do to make much of an impression.

In the end the script plumps for an eye-watering feelgood ending that wraps everything up nicely and without properly resolving any of the issues it’s tried to address earlier on, such as emotional abandonment, and robs itself of any dramatic resolution. It all ends with yet another excuse to put Streep behind the mike, and features a wedding party that seems to be made up entirely of professional dancers.

Rating: 4/10 – aimless, pointless, dreary, lifeless, meandering, ill-focused – all these are apt descriptions of Ricki and the Flash, a movie that never provides the viewer with a plausible reason for its existence; Streep somehow manages to hold it all together, but this is still a movie that wastes the talents of its cast, and suffers endlessly thanks to its wayward script and Demme’s absentee direction.

The Last Witch Hunter (2015)

02 Monday Nov 2015

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Breck Eisner, Curse, Drama, Elijah Wood, Fantasy, Horror, Immortal, Magic, Michael Caine, Review, Rose Leslie, Thriller, Vin Diesel, Witch Queen, Witches

D: Breck Eisner / 106m

Cast: Vin Diesel, Rose Leslie, Elijah Wood, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Michael Caine, Julie Engelbrecht, Joseph Gilgun, Isaach De Bankolé, Rena Owen

The fantasy-horror movie has been less than entertaining in recent years, what with Van Helsing (2004), the Underworld series (2003-2012), and I, Frankenstein (2014) showing just how it shouldn’t be done. And yet despite these weary efforts we now have The Last Witch Hunter, a movie that remains as jumbled and ineffectual as its genre predecessors. It’s a project that began life as a featured screenplay in the 2010 Blacklist, and was originally set to be directed by Timur Bekmambetov back in 2012. But those plans fell through, and with the project being championed by Vin Diesel (an avid fan of fantasy role playing games), it made it into production once its star was free after the interrupted filming of Furious 7 (2015).

If the movie proves anything, it’s that scripts on the Blacklist aren’t always filmed as written – the original script by Cory Goodman was rewritten by Dante Harper and Melissa Walack before Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless finally ended up with the on-screen credit. Well, gentlemen, don’t be so proud, because if Goodman’s original script was really that good, then let’s make it clear: you guys went and ruined it.

It’s a movie that remains frustratingly remote from its audience throughout, and which fails to make its witchcraft-plunging-the-world-into-darkness storyline and plot even halfway exciting or dramatic. It’s a lot more serious than most, and not as po-faced as some of its competitors, but aside from one terrific joke involving a selfie, this is dour stuff that takes the end of the world as we know it and manages to make it about as threatening as flipping a pancake. And no matter how much Diesel glowers and frets, and no matter how much Ólafsson speaks of the world swallowed up by doom, we all know that whatever happens, Leslie is probably going to be the best bet for helping Kaulder – Diesel’s character – as he fights to discover who tried to kill his mentor and friend Father Dolan (Caine). (Oh, and we can be fairly certain that one character will prove to be less than they appear.)

Fantasy movies have a tough time now, what with the likes of Game of Thrones showing just how it can, and should, be done, and Diesel’s pet project suffers in much the same way as others of its ilk have done: in trying to set their bizarre plots and outlandish characters against the recognisable backdrop of modern times, they then go and wilfully ignore that backdrop in favour of elaborate special effects sequences where anything goes, and where any carefully established grounding in the here and now is catapulted right out of the narrative. If you’re going to have a showdown between good and evil, don’t hide it away in dingy basements or abandoned churches, where the viewer can ogle the impressive art direction or set design, but have it right out in the open: make magic a shocking, but real part of our daily existence (part of the fun of Ghost Busters (1984) is that everyone in New York sees the Stay-Puft Man).

And then there’s the plot itself, which sees Diesel’s barbarian warrior and his pals take on the Witch Queen (Engelbrecht) in pre-medieval times, only for them to fall one by one until it’s left to Kaulder to save the day. But in doing so she curses him to immortality – and provides a handy way for her to be resurrected in the future. And therein lies the movie’s first problem: Kaulder isn’t the last witch hunter, he’s the only witch hunter. But put that aside and then we have another problem: why is it that it always takes so long for the villain of the piece to be able to make a comeback? Here it’s eight hundred years, during which time Kaulder has played policeman in the witch community, and everything is predictably hunky dory (it all has something to do with the Witch Queen’s heart, which apparently, can still beat long after she’s dead – obviously).

Tasked to “Remember your death” by Father Dolan in the form of a handy clue made while he was being killed, Kaulder can’t just cast his mind back and remember it for himself. Instead he has to enlist the aid of a witch, the conveniently to hand Chloe (Leslie) who has to concoct a potion that will allow him to re-experience that fateful moment. Only that just leads to the next problem: he didn’t die, so why all this rigmarole? Could it be that old screenwriter’s fallback, padding? Or is it just a poorly conceived idea that nobody could fix during shooting (or wanted to)? There’s lots more that doesn’t add up or make sense, and it all goes to reinforce the idea that when it comes to fantasy, as long as the movie looks good – and The Last Witch Hunter does look good – then the story and the dialogue can be as ridiculous as it wants.

With a sequel already in pre-production, and despite a lukewarm reception at the box office, it’s clear that this is an attempt by Diesel to kick-start another franchise he can head up. But while he may be committed to telling further tales as Kaulder, he might just find, based on this “opener”, that not everyone will be as willing to follow him on that particular journey as they are when he gets behind a muscle car and trades macho stares with Dwayne Johnson.

Rating: 5/10 – genre conventions abound in this absurdly watchable yet majorly disappointing piece of fantasy, that at least sees its star smile more in one movie than he’s done in five (and a bit) Fast & Furious outings; derivative and lacking in real purpose, The Last Witch Hunter has neither the style nor the wit to help itself stand out from an already dispiriting crowd.

Monthly Roundup – October 2015

01 Sunday Nov 2015

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AnnaLynne McCord, Blackmail, Charlie Chan, Crime, Detective, Donald Sutherland, Drama, Gambling, George Eads, Gold bullion, Gutshot Straight, Justin Steele, Las Vegas, Lesley-Anne Down, Literary adaptation, Mantan Moreland, Michael Crichton, Murder, Radio station, Reviews, Robbery, Sean Connery, Sidney Toler, Stephen Lang, Steven Seagal, The First Great Train Robbery, The Scarlet Clue, Thriller, Victorian England, Vinnie Jones

It’s been a pretty quiet month, so only a few movies make the roundup.

The First Great Train Robbery (1979) / D: Michael Crichton / 110m

Cast: Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland, Lesley-Anne Down, Alan Webb, Malcolm Terris, Robert Lang, Michael Elphick, Wayne Sleep, Pamela Salem, Gabrielle Lloyd

Rating: 7/10 – in Victorian England, master criminal Pierce (Connery) recruits a motley gang of criminals (including Sutherland’s dandy pickpocket) to pull off an audacious heist: the robbery of gold bullion from a moving train; Crichton adapts his own novel with wit and style, and even though he finds himself hampered by budgetary restrictions, still manages to make The First Great Train Robbery an enjoyable, if predictable, diversion.

The Scarlet Clue (1945) / D: Phil Rosen / 65m

Cast: Sidney Toler, Mantan Moreland, Ben Carter, Benson Fong, Virginia Brissac, Robert Homans, Jack Norton, I. Stanford Jolley, Janet Shaw

Rating: 5/10 – murder and espionage are the order of the day for Charlie Chan (Toler) as he investigates criminal goings-on in a building that houses both a radio station and a science laboratory (which are, of course, connected); not one of the Oriental detective’s better outings but still possessed of an admirable energy, The Scarlet Clue has a meandering script but it’s offset by good performances (though Toler does look tired) and better-than-average injections of humour.

Gutshot Straight (2014) / D: Justin Steele / 89m

aka: Gutshot

Cast: George Eads, AnnaLynne McCord, Stephen Lang, Ted Levine, Steven Seagal, Vinnie Jones, Tia Carrere, Fiona Dourif

Rating: 4/10 – when Las Vegas-based gambler Jack (Eads) meets fellow gambler Duffy (Lang) he finds himself entangled in a web of murder and deceit centred around Duffy’s wife, May (McCord); boasting a half-decent performance by Seagal, this vanity project for Eads signposts its clunky plot developments with all the finesse of a punch to the face, and never finds a way of overcoming its star’s shortcomings as an actor.

The Vatican Tapes (2015)

27 Tuesday Oct 2015

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Djimon Hounsou, Dougray Scott, Drama, Exorcism, Horror, Mark Neveldine, Michael Peña, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Peter Andersson, Possession, Review, Thriller, Vatican

D: Mark Neveldine / 91m

Olivia Taylor Dudley, Michael Peña, Dougray Scott, Peter Andersson, John Patrick Amedori, Kathleen Robinson, Djimon Hounsou, Michael Paré, Cas Anvar, Alex Sparrow

Watching contemporary horror movies is a pastime perfectly suited for the unabashed masochist, someone who will continuously, regularly put themselves through all kinds of cinematic detritus in the hope of finding that rare beast: the above average horror movie. It’s a calling, a passion if you like, and there are plenty of people who will settle down to watch ultra-low budget efforts such as Silverhide (2015) or franchise dregs like Hellraiser: Revelations (2011) in the certain knowledge that they’ll be wasting their time and afterwards, will be wondering why on earth they watched said travesty in the first place – what was I thinking?

While such perseverance might be commended (or just marvelled at), the fact is that ultra-low budget horror movies are generally rubbish, and franchise entries are a dreadful infringement on our time and patience. But there’s a third kind of horror movie that endures today despite its commitment to shocking dialogue and nonsensical plotting, to vague characterisations and unconvincing acting. It’s the kind of horror movie that paints itself in respectability by having well-known actors in key roles, and by splashing a little more cash than usual. These movies also manage to find their way to our cinema screens – they actually open – and they work as stand alone movies that may or may not develop into franchises. But – and this is the most important point to be made about these movies – they’re still rubbish, they’re just made by people who really should know better.

And after that cycnical preamble, we come to The Vatican Tapes, a movie so blind to its many irritating, mind-bending faults that it becomes a struggle to get through after the first few minutes, and where any efforts to improve on its tortured storyline and disastrous plotting have apparently been strangled at the preconception stage. It’s a movie that can’t decide whether it’s an exorcism tale, all about the rise of the Antichrist, or religious paranoia (though it tries to be all three at once). It’s the kind of movie experience that makes you want to do what one character does, and drive broken lightbulbs into your eyes so that you don’t have to watch any more.

Going into a movie like this, there’s often the idea that because of the cast (who must know a good project when they see one, they’re all experienced actors, after all), the finished product will have an edge over the more bog-standard, predictable horror movies out there. And surely the producers wouldn’t have been able to attract such a cast with a dodgy script and a director with no clear idea of what he’s doing? Surely they wouldn’t have been able to do that, right? Wrong! Most actors go where the money or the work is, and sometimes all they can do is take the money, make the movie, and then pray that no one ever sees it.

Here we have Messrs Peña, Scott, Andersson and Hounsou all looking uncomfortable, embarrassed, and itching to get through their scenes as quickly as possible. Not one of them manages to attain any degree of credibility in their roles, and not one of them feels like they were cast in the right role. Of the four, Peña looks the most awkward, playing a priest, Father Lozano, who’s always in the wrong place at the right time, and who is the first to suspect that normally sweet-natured Angela (Dudley) is possessed by a demon. As the tortuous story continues, Peña hovers at the edge of group scenes with the air of a man hoping he could just take one more step to the left or right and then he’d be out of shot altogether. And Scott’s performance as a hard-nosed Army veteran and father of the possessed is staggeringly bad, with the scene where he describes his relationship with Angela’s mother rendered laughable thanks to the absurdity of the dialogue created by Michael C. Martin and Christopher Borelli, and Scott’s hamfisted attempt at sincerity.

The story itself doesn’t make any sense, and varies in intention from scene to scene. Angela becomes possessed but is it through cutting her finger, or the subsequent attack by a crow on a bus, or while she stays in a coma for forty days (one of the more spurious connections with Jesus the movie makes on Angela’s behalf)? Ultimately it doesn’t matter because once the exorcism – conducted by Vatican honcho Cardinal Bruun (Andersson) and abetted by Lozano – gets under way, the focus switches from casting out a pesky demon to battling for Angela’s soul against an incarnation of the Antichrist who just so happens to have possessed Bruun when he was twelve.

By now, the absurdity of the story will have become so apparent, all the hapless viewer can do is continue watching just to see if the movie can become even more absurd – which it manages with ease (the Antichrist as media darling, anyone?). It doesn’t help that the movie’s director, Mark Neveldine, has less than a firm grasp on the “dramatics” of the story, and instead concentrates on the visuals. However he doesn’t bring anything new to proceedings, leaving the movie looking like an homage to all the other recent horror movies that have traded on bleached out vistas and a jagged editing style overlaid with an effects heavy soundtrack that deadens the atmosphere and soon becomes annoying. And it remains resolutely scare-free.

In a less conservative era, comedians would tell jokes that began “My wife’s so fat…” A modern day equivalent in this instance might begin with “This movie’s so bad…” and end with “it makes Nicolas Cage’s recent career choices look like worthy Oscar winners.” Or, “this movie’s so bad… it’s the only thing that can take my mind off of how fat my wife is.” It’s simply a terrible movie and unless you’re one of those unabashed masochists mentioned at the top of the review, should be avoided at all costs.

Rating: 2/10 – dire doesn’t even begin to describe just how ridiculously awful The Vatican Tapes is; it’s yet another horror movie made by people who have no clue what they’re doing and who just don’t seem to care if the audience likes it or not.

Ruben Guthrie (2015)

24 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Abbey Lee, Advertising, Alcoholism, Alex Dimitriades, Australia, Brendan Cowell, Comedy, Drama, Harriet Dyer, Jack Thompson, Patrick Brammall, Review, Robyn Nevin

D: Brendan Cowell / 93m

Cast: Patrick Brammall, Alex Dimitriades, Abbey Lee, Harriet Dyer, Jack Thompson, Robyn Nevin, Jeremy Sims, Brenton Thwaites, Aaron Bertram

Four-time advertising award winner Ruben Guthrie (Brammall) has it all: the high-paid job that he’s phenomenally good at, the luxurious home with a pool, a beautiful model girlfriend, Zoya (Lee), and a drink problem to match it all. At a party to celebrate his latest awards win, his boozy, extrovert behaviour proves to be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back for Zoya when Ruben finds himself up on his roof and jumping into his pool – and breaking his arm in the process. It’s time for Ruben to face up to his drinking problem and get some help.

So far, Brendan Cowell’s adaptation of his own stage play seems perfectly straightforward, and most viewers will believe they know exactly how the rest of the story will play out. But Cowell’s a shrewd writer who knows his story too well, and Ruben’s journey takes several unexpected turns along the way. He goes to his first AA meeting and instead of being ashamed or embarrassed, he reverts to his usual laddish behaviour and insults everyone. This leads to Zoya giving him an ultimatum: stay sober for a year while she’s gone, and if he can stay sober, to come find her. He somehow manages not to drink, revealing that he has a degree of self-control he either wasn’t aware of, or knew he had but has chosen not to use. At work though, his usual intuitive command of what makes for the best advertising is shown to have deserted him, so much so that his boss is thinking of replacing him with a talented/super chirpy youngster (Thwaites).

And in an effort to kick a character even more when he’s down, Cowell adds further fuel to the flame of Ruben’s reversal of fortune by having his parents (Thompson, Nevin) split up, and his gay best friend Damian (Dimitriades), who’s a bit of a sponger, move in on a temporary/permanent basis. But Ruben proves to be a forbearing soul, and with the aid of fellow alcoholic and mentor, Virginia (Dyer), he weathers the storm of these setbacks, and begins to find a way through them that makes him both stronger and more determined than ever to win Zoya back.

Well, determined might not be the right word, because he succumbs to the emotional fragility and neediness that Virginia exhibits around him and they become a couple. Now, in Australia, this could well be construed as acceptable behaviour on Ruben’s part, but when Zoya’s face adorns a whole wall in Ruben’s home as a permanent reminder of their five years together, you might expect him to be a little more circumspect. But nobody, not even Virginia (who might like to know where she stands in all this) mentions it, and Ruben himself seems to be oblivious to the double standard he’s following. It’s here that the movie finds itself in deeper, darker territory for a while, as Ruben’s sobriety leads him to make all sorts of decisions that he wouldn’t have made as a functioning alcoholic.

Of course, further complications ensue when his father becomes ill, his parents’ relationship becomes even more confusing, he has a major falling out with Damian, and just when you think that things can’t possibly get any worse for him, Zoya turns up out of the blue, and he finds his mother pushing him to resume drinking… because when he’s sober it makes him less of a(n Aussie) man. By now the movie is hell-bent on being a dark comedy, as Ruben’s world continues to implode with the force of a thousand beer bottles crashing to the floor. And then Cowell dispenses with the last shred of Ruben’s self-confidence, and with his main character curling up on the floor, he delivers one last kick to the head.

This is a sincere movie that isn’t just about alcohol addiction and its effects on the addict and the people who love him or her, but a (some times) powerful depiction of all sorts of forms of addiction, from booze to drugs to sex to relationships and back again. It’s also a very funny examination of the pitfalls of modern day living, and the culture of expectation and acceptance of social drinking. It’s often said that everyone drinks in Australia, and that they’re the greatest nation in the world for coming up with ways to justify getting rotten, but while this is a proud boast Down Under, Cowell is canny enough to hold up a mirror to modern Australian society and expose the “rotten” underpinning that stops it from collapsing in on itself. That Ruben bucks the trend for so long is both impressive and unusual.

With Cowell providing such a clever script, and creating a visual style for the movie that confronts and reflects the consequences of Ruben’s decision to quit drinking, it does seem a shame when he develops butterfingers and drops the ball, however momentarily. The aforementioned scene where Ruben’s mother tempts him to return to “the dark side” by having a drink is by turns clumsy, awkward, horrifying, and unnecessary, a way that the movie can explain the social pleasures and pressures of drinking, and advance the plot towards the final third. The role of Damian in proceedings is never clear: he’s not Ruben’s conscience, and nor is he the kind of arch manipulator that a more superficial script might have painted him, but he is surplus to requirements in terms of the dynamics of Ruben’s relationships, and how Ruben sees himself in terms of others around him.

The cast are uniformly good, with Brammall keeping a firm grip on some of the script’s more vague motivational moments, and his performance as Guthrie is both staid and delirious, as the script requires. Dimitriades keeps Damian from becoming a completely stereotypical role, while Lee is allowed to be more than just a pretty face. But it’s Dyer as the addict’s addict – she’s firmly addicted to Ruben, amongst other things – that draws the most attention, and hopefully the movie will lead to bigger and brighter things for the actress. As expected the movie’s patriarch and matriarch dance lightly but with maximum effect to the tune of Cowell’s musical trenchwork, and Thompson and Nevin appear to steal their scenes with others with so little effort it’s almost embarrassing.

All in all, Cowell’s ode to Australia’s national pastime of hitting the turps is a lively, enjoyable movie that makes several relevant points about addiction, and is clever enough to know when to be funny, when to be serious, and when to mix the two elements to their best advantage. It’s a movie that’s a little rough around the edges, and some scenes go on beyond their necessary lifespan, but these are small beer in comparison to the good work found elsewhere. And if Ruben’s next adventure, should it happen, sees him pitch up in Prague in search of Zoya, then Cowell’s acknowledgment that “those motherf*ckers can drink” may well be the challenge that our hero needs.

Rating: 7/10 – hiding a warm, gooey centre amongst the emotional drama and the often ludicrous humour, Ruben Guthrie is a movie about need and addiction that doesn’t downplay the seriousness of the subject matter, but which also manages to find the absurdity in a lifestyle that is ultimately as hollow as an empty beer bottle; Cowell has made a good first feature, and while it has its faults, his commitment – and that of his star’s – isn’t one of them.

The Wave (2015)

22 Thursday Oct 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Ane Dahl Torp, Åkerneset, Disaster movie, Drama, Fjord, Geiranger, Geologists, Jonas Hoff Oftebro, Kristoffer Joner, Mountain, Norway, Review, Roar Uthaug, Thriller, Tsunami

Original title: Bølgen

D: Roar Uthaug / 104m

Cast: Kristoffer Joner, Ane Dahl Torp, Jonas Hoff Oftebro, Edith Haagenrud-Sande, Fridtjov Såheim, Arthur Berning, Laila Goody, Eili Harboe, Thomas Bo Larsen

Geiranger in Norway is both the name of a fjord and the name of the small tourist village that nestles between the mountains at the fjord’s head. The area has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and features some of the most spectacular scenery in the world; as a result it’s the must-visit destination of hundreds of thousands of tourists each year. But there’s a problem, and that’s the nearby Åkerneset mountain, because at some point it will erode to the extent that a significant portion of it will collapse into the fjord and send a devastating eighty metre tsunami towards Geiranger. Simply put: the village will be flattened.

Against this background, the magnificently named Roar Uthaug and screenwriters Harald Rosenløw-Eeg and John Kåre Raake have fashioned that most unlikely of movies: a Norwegian disaster movie. But unlikely is as unlikely does, and The Wave is grounded by the fact that this type of event has happened elsewhere in Norway in the past (and the movie opens with a recap of these tragedies). Where movies like San Andreas (2015) try to impress with the size of the devastation on display, The Wave keeps it simple, and is so much better for it.

Focusing on geologist/mountain whisperer Kristian (Joner) and his family – wife/hotel receptionist Idun (Torp), teenage son/skateboarder Sondre (Oftebro), and cute young moppet Julia (Haagenrud-Sande) – the movie opens with Kristian on the verge of leaving Geiranger and the geologist’s facility where he works, and moving to the “big city”. But in classic movie fashion he senses that all is not well on Åkerneset, and instead of taking himself and his kids to the airport, he abandons them at the facility’s car park in order to go check out his hunch – which of course proves to be deadly accurate. But also in classic movie fashion, his colleagues, led by doubtful Arvid (Såheim), in a performance guaranteed to make viewers think of Charles Hallahan’s similarly unimpressed/stupid geologist in Dante’s Peak (1997), say they’ll keep an eye on things and that Kristian shouldn’t worry.

Stuck in Geiranger until the next day, Kristian drops Sondre off at the hotel where Idun works, while he and Julia spend one last night in their old home. Sondre heads off to skateboard in the basement levels with his earbuds in, and without telling anyone. With the mountain making the kind of noises that practically scream “Evacuate right now!”, Arvid and colleague Jacob (Berning) rapel down into a crevice in order to check their recording equipment, and find themselves right smack in the middle of the mountain’s decision to give up keeping it together. Before anyone can say “What was that noise?”, an eighty metre high tsunami is heading for Geiranger, and the clock is ticking: if everyone wants to get to safety, they’ve only got ten minutes to get there.

At this point the special effects kick in, and very good they are too (the tsunami’s merciless, unstoppable rush toward the hotel is one of 2015’s most indelible images). With ten minutes proving too little time for everyone to save themselves, Kristian himself barely survives, while Julia at least is kept safe with a neighbour. Idun and Sondre find themselves holed up in the hotel’s bomb shelter with guest Phillip (Larsen) as the water level rises. What follows is the kind of race-against-time search and rescue mission these kind of movies thrive on, with Idun and Sondre facing more threats to their survival than would seem logically possible, and Kristian conveniently being in the right place at the right time to discover their whereabouts.

Hackneyed scripting aside, there’s tension aplenty in this “second half”, and the cast gamely play it straight, which adds to the edge-of-the-seat atmosphere that Uthaug creates (even if the viewer is certain it’ll all turn out okay in the end). One of the strengths of this scenario is that the family is one you can actually root for; for once they’re a family who clearly like each other and aren’t dysfunctional (it’s certainly more credible than Dwayne Johnson’s macho need to save his daughter in that other disaster movie). It’s also here that Uthaug uses his budget wisely, mixing vast swathes of destruction with more intimate location work and achieving a convincing fit with both. And there’s a decision made involving Phillip that hints at the script maybe having a darker edge in an earlier draft.

The Wave has been a massive hit in Norway, with almost a fifth of the country’s population having seen it on the big screen. Despite the subject matter – hey, let’s show what could happen when one of our mountains collapses – and its real life consequences, and not forgetting that the movie was actually shot in Geiranger, by keeping the heroics to a minimum, and dialling back on any potential histrionics, Uthaug and his cast and crew have made an effective, exciting thriller that surpasses expectations.

Rating: 8/10 – comprised of three distinct acts – “I think we should run”, “I hate it when I’m right”, and “I’d say I told you so but I have to go save my family first” – The Wave has a great deal of heart amid all the death and destruction, and never lets its more predictable elements get in the way of telling a good story; surprisingly gritty, and with a great deal of charm, it’s no wonder the movie’s been chosen as Norway’s Best Foreign Language Film entry at next year’s Oscars.

Desierto (2015)

19 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Alondra Hidalgo, Border crossing, Drama, Gael García Bernal, Illegal immigrants, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jonás Cuarón, Murder, Racism, Review, Sniper, Survival, Thriller

Desierto

D: Jonás Cuarón / 94m

Cast: Gael García Bernal, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Alondra Hidalgo, Diego Cataño, Marco Pérez, Lew Temple

In Jonás Cuarón’s second feature Desierto, we’re quickly introduced to a group of Mexicans who are being smuggled across the border into the US. They’re in the back of a truck, and amongst them is Moises, played by Gael García Bernal. When the truck breaks down on the edge of a vast salt flat, Moises is the only one who can pronounce the truck beyond repair. Faced with the problem of how to get these “illegals” to their expected destination, two of the “guides” decide to go the rest of the way on foot. This involves trekking across some rugged countryside, but one of the guides is in more of a hurry than the other, and soon there are two groups making the journey, the ones who can keep up with the main guide’s fast pace, and the few laggers who are encouraged by the other.

The distance that develops between them comes in handy when the first group are targeted by loony self-styled border guard and all-round racist psycho Sam, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. One by one he picks them off with his sniper’s rifle, and leaves them dead in a clearing, men and women. It’s all the same to Sam, and is one area where he does believe in equal opportunity. Watching this massacre transpire, Moises and the rest of the second group, which includes Adela, played by Alondra Hidalgo, soon flee the scene, but not without tipping off Sam as to their presence. Helped by his close companion and canine buddy Tracker – who he’s apparently trained to sniff out and savage illegal immigrants – Sam hunts down the remaining illegals until only Moises remains to stand against him. Which of course he does.

Wearing its confused heart on its sleeve from the outset, Desierto wants to be a taut, hard-edged thriller: brutal, unapologetic and bad-ass. But therein lies Desierto‘s problem, because at its core it’s really a wannabe bad-ass movie that lacks conviction, and steals as much as it can from as many other variations on Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoesdack’s The Most Dangerous Game (1932) as it can. Now, a little plagiarism (or homage, as Hollywood likes to call it) can go a long way, but when that plagiarism is used to so little effect, then it makes for such a dispiriting experience that the viewer could be forgiven for taking out their own sniper rifle and blasting away at the screen just to get a buzz on. As a thriller it’s a non-starter, thanks to Cuarón’s flat, uninspired direction, and the lack of investment made by the script in any of the characters (the responsibility of Cuarón again and co-scribe Mateo Garcia).

Moises, Adela, even Sam – all are relieved of any kind of back story. We don’t know why any of the Mexicans are travelling across the border in the first place, and without this information, without knowing what their hopes or dreams or ambitions are once they reach the US, it’s nigh on impossible to care about them. Even as you watch the massacre, you’ll be more aware of how the camera has been placed than whether or not the the life of the person being shot and killed is worth your sympathy (yes, it’s a cleverly staged and “executed” massacre, and also rather well edited – so that’s okay then).

And equally we know nothing about Sam, a man of whom you could say he’s a cartridge short of a full magazine, or to border control what Bill Clinton was to same sex marriages. He’s a cipher, a boogeyman for the Mexicans to run from (and over the course of the movie that’s all they do), as he moans and complains to his acrobatic dog about the Hell he’s living in. It makes you want to yell at him, “Well if it’s that bad, sell all your guns and move to Florida!” Instead he continues to act like an avenging angel, but one with no clear conception of why he’s behaving the way he does, and so becomes a character who’s too far-fetched even to boo or hiss.

Cuarón began writing the script around 2006, and then took time off from it to help his father make a little movie called Gravity (2013). He’s on record as saying that the problem of illegal immigrants (and not just those crossing the US-Mexico border) was always intended to be a part of the story, but watching the movie it seems clear that somewhere along the way that particular subtext got lost in translation, and in such a way that it never really appears at all. And Cuarón has also stated that he didn’t invest in any back stories because he didn’t feel they were necessary, and that viewers could – and should – have the choice to make up their own minds about things like motivation and personal choice. It seems very much as though Cuarón had several ideas for the movie, and what it was about, but somehow forgot to follow through on any of them.

In the end, and despite some stunning cinematography by Damian Garcia, Desierto is muddled and insubstantial. The performances are average, with only Morgan trying to do anything to salvage the mess he’s found himself in, and there’s an air of “that’ll do” about scenes that doesn’t help either. Fans of this kind of movie will be dismayed, while casual viewers may well wonder how on earth Desierto managed to win the FIPRESCI Prize for Special Presentations at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

Rating: 4/10 – it looks good, and there’s a germ of a good idea here, but Desierto is a misfire that never recovers from its writer/director’s indecision as to what kind of a movie it should be; file under “I coulda been a contender”.

Crimson Peak (2015)

17 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Allerdale Hall, Charlie Hunnam, Drama, Ghosts, Gothic romance, Guillermo del Toro, Horror, Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska, Murder, Review, Thriller, Tom Hiddleston

D: Guillermo del Toro / 119m

Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam, Jim Beaver, Burn Gorman, Leslie Hope, Doug Jones, Jonathan Hyde, Bruce Gray

When Edith Cushing (Wasikowska) is a young child her mother dies unexpectedly. After the funeral, Edith is visited by the ghost of her mother who warns her to “beware of Crimson Peak”. Fourteen years later, Edith is trying to establish herself as a writer. She has written a novel about ghosts but her intended publisher wants her to include a romance (though she feels this is unnecessary). Her father (Beaver), a self-made industrialist, is supportive of her efforts, and lets her type up her manuscript at his offices. There she meets Sir Thomas Sharpe, a visiting aristocrat from England, who is looking for financial backing for an invention of his that will aid in the mining of red clay at his home in Northumberland. But while Edith finds herself attracted to Thomas, her father takes a dislike to him and refuses to back him.

When a secret about Thomas is discovered it leads to the death of Edith’s father. Heartbroken, she turns to Thomas and his sister, Lady Lucille (Chastain) for support, and soon agrees to marry him. Together, they travel to England and the Sharpe family home, a towering gothic edifice called Allerdale Hall. The house is falling apart, and stands atop a clay mine that it is slowly sinking into. As she settles into her new life, Edith comes to discover that the house harbours secrets that neither Thomas nor Lucille want her to know about. Meanwhile, back in New York, Edith’s childhood friend Dr Alan McMichael (Hunnam), already suspicious of the way in which her father died, begins his own investigation.

Plagued by ghostly visions, Edith begins to unravel the secrets of Allerdale Hall, secrets that lead her to believe that Thomas’s mother was murdered there, and that there is some connection with his recent trips to places such as Edinburgh and Milan. The discovery of luggage engraved with the initials E.S. provides a further clue that links to the visions she has. At the same time she begins to fall ill, while McMichael learns the same secret that led to her father’s death and believing Edith to be in danger, he decides to leave for England.

A project that del Toro has been looking to film since 2006, Crimson Peak arrives with a great deal of anticipation and hype preceeding it, and with the enviable status of being the only movie of its kind – a gothic romance with distinct horror overtones – to be released in 2015. It’s a movie that splits its narrative in two, and in the process ends up making the first part more effective than the second, which has the unfortunate effect of leaving viewers with the impression that del Toro and co-screenwriter Matthew Robbins had a firmer grasp of what they were trying to achieve with the scenes set in New York than they did with the ones at Allerdale Hall.

This leads to the movie lacking a sense of true development once we’re ensconced in the Sharpe ancestral family home. It should be the other way round but while del Toro and Robbins expand on the mystery behind Thomas and Lucille’s motives, it soon becomes apparent that the ghostly visions Edith experiences are less of a threat to her and more of a series of clues as to what has happened at the Hall in the past. With this in mind, it’s puzzling that del Toro has decided to make these apparitions as scary as possible, and in particular the spectral wraith that is Edith’s mother (played by the erstwhile Doug Jones), a depiction that seems at odds with her role as a guardian in death of her daughter’s safety – did she have to be so frightening?

But while the recreation of pre-1900 New York is achieved with considerable success, it’s not until we reach Allerdale Hall that del Toro reveals the true focus of the movie: making that towering creation feel like a living, breathing character in its own right. The Hall is a triumph of production and set design, and is endlessly fascinating in its construction, with darkness leeching from the walls and corridors that look like they’ve been carved out of the vertebrae and rib cages of dead whales. Everywhere you look there’s another interesting detail to take in, some new quirk of the architecture to observe, but so good is this attention to detail that it overwhelms the story, leaving Edith’s plight of secondary importance. And with a subterranean level thrown in for good measure, the house and its “personality” become far more interesting than the pallid-by-comparison storyline involving Edith and the conspiring Sharpes (though you might wonder where all the leaves that tumble continuously through the roof are coming from, as the house is shown to sit proudly alone at the top of a hill).

As a gothic romance, the movie is on better ground, with Thomas’s pursuit of Edith feeling more than expedient from the beginning, and as he becomes less and less sure of the path that he and Lucille have embarked upon, it becomes obvious that his true feelings will cause his doom. Hiddleston relays the torment and indecision that Thomas endures with a great deal of yearning for a chance to be free of his family burden, and makes the character more sympathetic than his initial actions would warrant. As the wounded and betrayed Edith, Wasikowska ensures her would-be author isn’t shown as too soft or easily dominated, but is still asked to rein in Edith’s assertiveness in moments where the script requires it. She and Hiddleston do well in making their characters’ relationship more credible than most, but despite their good work there’s just not enough passion on display to make their feelings for each other too convincing.

The same can’t be said for Chastain, an actress who it seems can turn her hand to any character in any genre. As the taciturn and tightly controlled Lucille she’s a riveting presence in any scene she’s in, even when she’s in the background. By the movie’s end she’s asked to abandon all the subtleties she’s imbued her performance with in favour of a more traditional approach required by the material. Before this, Chastain is quietly chilling, her manipulative, simmering-with-anger personality more compelling in its intensity than any of the house’s blood-slicked apparitions. (In comparison, Hunnam is the movie’s anodyne hero, and one who almost operates as an historical forerunner of Hallorann from Kubrick’s The Shining.)

By the time the mystery has been revealed and the machinations of the plot (loosely) explained and sewn up, the movie has descended into the kind of bloody, violent showdown that audiences will be expecting, but it isn’t the best showdown you’re ever likely to see, and it lacks vitality. Partly this is due to the pacing, and partly due to the editing, which never picks up the pace, and never seems likely to add any kind of punch to proceedings. It all leads to an oddly melancholy ending that befits a gothic romance, but not the thriller this movie has become. With so much effort having gone into the look and feel of the movie, viewers may well feel let down by this half-hearted denouement, and they’d be right to, but the movie retains a strange fascination even at the end, and one that lingers long after the closing credits.

Rating: 7/10 – not as chilling or impressive on the plot or storyline front as it is when it comes to how the movie looks, Crimson Peak falls short on delivering the chills and thrills it promises to provide; del Toro has made better movies, and will probably make better ones in the future, but for now this will have to serve as a reminder, however disappointing, that there’s no one else out there who can make this kind of movie and with this kind of ardour.

Mini-Review: Chronic (2015)

16 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Assisted suicide, Drama, Father/daughter relationship, Michael Cristofer, Michel Franco, Nurse, Palliative care, Review, Robin Bartlett, Sarah Sutherland, Tim Roth

D: Michel Franco / 92m

Cast: Tim Roth, Robin Bartlett, Michael Cristofer, Sarah Sutherland, Rachel Pickup, Angela Bullock, Nailea Norvind, David Dastmalchian, Maribeth Monroe

David (Roth) is a male nurse who provides palliative care for terminally ill or seriously disabled people living in their own homes. When his latest patient, Sarah (Pickup), dies, her family are surprised to see him at the funeral, and when Sarah’s neice (Monroe) tries to ask David some questions about Sarah’s final weeks, he is uncooperative and avoids talking to her. At home, he checks the social media page of a young woman named Nadia (Sutherland), focusing on the pictures she’s posted.

Later, David is given another patient to look after, an architect called John (Cristofer), who’s had a stroke. As John recovers, he and David become friends of sorts, even to the point where David turns a blind eye to John watching porn on his laptop. But when one of John’s family walks in on David giving him a bed bath, the situation is misread, and David finds himself being told by his boss that he can’t continue as John’s carer – or indeed anyone’s – because he’s about to be sued for sexual misconduct. While he waits for another job to come up, David tracks down the young woman from the social media page, who it turns out is his daughter.

They haven’t seen each other in a while due to a family tragedy that David blames himself for, and which caused him to have a breakdown. As he gets to know Nadia again, and begins to mend his relationship with her mother, Laura (Norvind), David is offered a job looking after a woman called Marta (Bartlett) who has cancer. All is going well until one day she asks David to help her commit suicide…

A measured, sometimes agonisingly slow drama about one man’s attempt to redeem himself by caring for others, Chronic is always going to be a tough sell for potential viewers, mostly because of the subject matter, and partly because it’s paced so deliberately and so precisely. It’s like a chamber piece made for the big screen, with a restrained, honest performance from Roth that is so internalised it makes David seem removed from everything – and everyone – around him. And while he does keep his distance (except when it comes to his patients), the legacy of that tragedy has left very deep and lasting scars that he can deal with only by focusing his energies on people he can help; he’s trying to make amends in the only way he knows how.

It’s a fairly straightforward tale made up of long static shots where the action is kept firmly within the boundaries of the frame, and where David’s attempts to reconnect with his daughter offer the only evidence that he’s not entirely subsumed by the lives of his patients (when he learns John is an architect he does his homework on the matter, even going so far as to visit one of the houses John built). This way of identifying with his patients could have been presented as creepy or unhealthy, but it’s yet another way that David is trying to find a place for himself in the world he’s been absent from.

Franco directs his own script with a clear idea of what he wants to achieve, but makes the mistake of distancing not only David from others, but the audience from David, leaving the viewer to decide for themselves if David’s plight is affecting enough for them to bother. And there’s a final scene that’s likely to alienate viewers who’ve made it that far. With the decision to skip having a musical score or songs to act as emotional cues for the audience, the movie relies on its talented cast to highlight the various ambiguities of each character’s relationship with David, while its ideas of what it’s like to care about others when it’s difficult to care about oneself, are handled with care and sensitivity.

Rating: 8/10 – not for all tastes, not least because of Franco’s slow-burn, reflective approach to the narrative, Chronic is a showcase for Roth’s acting abilities, and the ways in which personal pain creates barriers between people; too plainly rendered for many, it’s a movie that is uncompromising in terms of the narrative, but rewards upon closer inspection.

Carol (2015)

16 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

1950's, Cate Blanchett, Custody battle, Drama, Kyle Chandler, Lesbianism, Literary adaptation, Love, Patricia Highsmith, Review, Road trip, Rooney Mara, The Price of Salt, Todd Haynes

D: Todd Haynes / 118m

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Kyle Chandler, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy, Nik Pajic, John Magaro, Cory Michael Smith, Carrie Brownstein

Therese (pronounced Ter-rez) Belivet (Mara) is young, has a devoted boyfriend, Richard (Lacy), works in a department store, but is unsure of her future. One day a female customer in the store engages her in conversation, and even though the customer makes mention of being married with a young child, it’s clear to Therese that there’s a mutual attraction. When the woman leaves her gloves behind, Therese goes to the effort of finding the woman’s address and sending them to her. This act of kindness leads to the woman, whose name is Carol Aird (Blanchett), inviting Therese to lunch. They meet, and a friendship begins, one that starts to cause problems between Therese and Richard, as she begins to lose interest in a planned trip to Europe with him, and spends more time with Carol.

Unbeknownst to Therese, Carol and her husband, Harge (Chandler) have separated due to his awareness that his wife has had an affair with her best friend, Abby (Paulson). Willing to overlook this “indiscretion” if she stays with him, Harge warns her that if she doesn’t then he’ll seek sole custody of their little girl, Rindy. With Xmas approaching, he takes Rindy to his parents for the holiday period; Carol decides to invite Therese to come stay with her. Although nothing happens, Harge returns home unexpectedly and sees them together. Fearing that Carol is embarking on another lesbian relationship, he files for divorce and sole custody of Rindy. Unable to see her child until the custody hearing, which will take two or three months to happen, Carol invites Therese on a road trip, where they can spend some time together, and where Harge can’t find them.

They stay in a succession of motel rooms, at first staying in separate rooms. At one particular motel they stay in the Presidential suite; the next morning, Therese gets to talking with a travelling salesman called Tommy (Smith). Although he tries to sell them something from his sales kit, he has no joy, though Therese wishes him well in the future. At the next motel, she and Carol finally make love. But a telegram Carol receives the next morning reveals Harge’s awareness of where she is, and the fact that she and Therese are now lovers. Unable to risk the now serious possibility of losing the custody hearing, Carol decides she has to return home to face Harge, and sends Abby in her place to see Therese gets home safely. But for both women, returning to their old lives proves unsatisfactory…

There’s a moment in Todd Haynes’ beautifully crafted Carol, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Price of Salt, when it looks certain that the title character and Therese will make love for the first time. It’s a moment that the movie is clearly heading toward, and it’s a moment that audiences will be expecting, but Haynes, along with screenwriter Patricia Nagy, holds off from that first time and maintains the sense of anticipation that both characters (and viewers) must be feeling. For the audience, it’s also a moment – among many others – that shows just how much control Haynes has over both the material and its emotional centre, and how finely calibrated it all is, for Carol is without a doubt, one of 2015’s finest movies.

Of course, with previous projects such as Far from Heaven (2002) and the TV version of Mildred Pierce (2011), Haynes has already shown an affinity for what used to be termed “women’s pictures”, but here his immersion in a time – the 1950’s – when lesbianism was still something to be kept hidden, and where male attitudes towards the issue were still highly aggressive, feels also like a snapshot of an era where female empowerment was beginning to gain the upper hand, despite the so-called Lavender Scare that was prevalent at the time. Through Carol’s determination not to be defined by her sexuality, we get to see an example of what, in historical terms, was a turning of the tide, and also a love story that is simply that: a love story.

This simplicity is at the heart of Haynes’ confident handling of the story, and it shows in every scene, with every look and every gesture, and in the way that he brings Carol and Therese together within the frame – these moments where they’re “close but not touching” are so charged with pent-up emotion and increasing desire that the idea that they might be kept apart by Harge’s machinations becomes intolerable. These scenes are so expertly handled, with repressed longing so forcefully expressed, that the viewer is swept along with the characters’ desire to live freely and without sanction. Haynes makes great use of the era’s sense of propriety, using it as a touchstone against which Carol and Therese’s affair can be measured in both intensity and necessity. Therese quizzes Richard about same sex relationships but he has no point of reference, and has no understanding of why they occur; he loves her unequivocally but can’t see that two women – or two men for that matter – might feel the same way about each other as he does about Therese. It’s another of those moments where the audience can see just how difficult it was to live a life outside the (perceived) norm.

With the historical and social background of the story firmly in place, and with Nagy’s script making it clear that lesbians were expected to pretend to be happy in heterosexual relationships or face the social consequences, the movie paints an honest portrait of two women, both of whom gain increased confidence in themselves through their relationship, who come together at a point in both their lives where they’re looking for a way to find future happiness. That they find it in each other, if only briefly, and with such passion, gives value to the idea that any relationship is worth pursuing or fighting for. And even though Carol leaves Therese to fight for custody of her child, it’s not the end of their affair, but rather an interruption (albeit for Therese an unexpected one), and even though the younger woman is upset by it, her feelings remain, and though the movie tries for an air of ambiguity in its final scene, viewers won’t be fooled at where Carol and Therese’s relationship is likely to find itself.

The difference in ages might feel like it should be an issue but it’s left unexplored, and with good reason: it doesn’t matter. Love is love, and though an argument could be made that Therese is looking for a guide or a mentor first and foremost, it’s not the role Carol adopts in their relationship. As the “older woman”, Blanchett gives yet another astonishing, awards-worthy performance, striking the right balance between heartfelt longing for an honest life and acknowledging the difficulties that longing entails. Her brittle, striking features show the pain of Carol’s situation without too much need of more overt playing, but in those moments when overt emotion is required, Carol’s fears and hopes are etched indelibly on those striking features. It’s a magnificent performance, sincere, heartbreaking at times, and riveting.

She’s matched by Mara, whose portrayal of the unmoored, ingenuous Therese is so finely tuned that watching her blossom, however slowly, into a stronger, more confident young woman is like watching a flower grow out of the shadows to its full height. There are moments where the camera focuses on her smooth, unlined features and the only expression is there in the eyes, but Mara uses this approach to such good effect that the viewer is never in doubt as to what Therese is thinking or feeling. And as the movie progresses, Mara subtly shifts the weight of Therese’s longing for love so that it becomes a part of her, and not the whole, leaving her a character as strong in her own right as Carol is in hers.

With two such commanding performances, it would be a shame if the supporting cast were overshadowed, but Chandler, in what is superficially the “villain” role, brings out Harge’s pain and sense of loss over Carol with such force that his actions are less stereotypical than expected and driven more by his own deep love for her. In the same way that society says Carol can’t have Therese (in public at least), it also says that Harge can’t have Carol because of her “sexual impropriety”. Both characters are in danger of losing what they want most, and both are suffering as a result. Chandler is unexpectedly moving in the role, and his scenes with Blanchett are so emotionally charged it’s like an intense version of force majeure. Meanwhile, Paulson comes late to matters as Abby, but gives a brief but potent performance as Carol’s longtime friend, confidant and ex-lover, filling in the gaps of Therese’s knowledge about Carol, and providing further context for Carol’s emotional and sexual desires.

It’s all beautifully filmed by Edward Lachman, with lots of bright primary colours mixed in with rich earthy tones, making the period seem so alive as to be almost intoxicating, and acting as a dynamic background to the impassioned nature of Carol and Therese’s relationship. There’s some equally impressive attention to historical detail, and Haynes makes the era come alive as a result; this is a fully realised world, even if it does appear at first to be bathed in nostalgia (the scenes in the department store appear right out of a Fifities child’s fantasy of what such a store should look like), but in many ways it was a simpler time, and the script reflects this with aplomb. And the whole thing is embraced by a smoothly nonchalant yet spirited score by Carter Burwell that complements the on-screen proceedings with well orchestrated brio.

Rating: 9/10 – a firm contender for Movie of the Year, Carol is a masterpiece of mood and repressed emotional yearning, with two outstanding performances, and a director on the absolute top of his form; a model of period movie making, and rewarding in every department you can possibly think of, this is a movie that should go to the top of everyone’s must-see list.

The Witch (2015)

15 Thursday Oct 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Anya Taylor-Joy, Black Phillip, Drama, Folk tales, Harvey Scrimshaw, Horror, Kate Dickie, New England, Ralph Ineson, Review, Robert Eggers, The Devil, Witchcraft

D: Robert Eggers / 92m

Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger, Lucas Dawson, Bathsheba Garnett, Sarah Stephens

New England, 1630. Expelled from their newly settled community for religious differences, Puritans William (Ineson) and Katherine (Dickie) take themselves and their family – eldest daughter Thomasin (Taylor-Joy), eldest son Caleb (Scrimshaw), twins Mercy (Grainger) and Jonas (Dawson), and their newborn son Samuel – off into the wilderness where they make their new home. They build a dwelling, establish crops for food, and have goats for milk. All seems to be going well until one day when, in Thomasin’s care, Samuel disappears.

Katherine is devastated, and prays continuously. William and Caleb go into the surrounding forest to hunt for game, but have a strange encounter involving a rabbit that has an effect on Caleb. When they return, they find Katherine angry at their having gone, and Thomasin unable to control the unruly twins. Later, Mercy’s antagonistic nature annoys Thomasin so much that she threatens her younger sister by saying she – Thomasin – is a witch and will do terrible things to Mercy if she doesn’t do what she’s told; Mercy believes her completely.

Soon after, Caleb and Thomasin are in the forest when they become separated. Caleb meets a young woman (Stephens), while Thomasin searches in vain for him. She is found by William, but it isn’t until later that night that Caleb returns, naked and feverish. Katherine blames Thomasin for this, and Mercy reveals what Thomasin said to her about being a witch. Both Katherine and William believe Mercy at first, and confront Thomasin over it, but she manages to convince her father that she isn’t a witch, and that it is Mercy and Jonas who are in thrall to the Devil, and that they speak to him through one of their goats, Black Phillip.

Matters become worse when Katherine becomes afflicted by madness, and Thomasin and the twins are locked in the goat pen while William struggles to make sense of what’s happening. But the supernatural events that surround them begin to increase, and circumstances lead to Thomasin being the only person who can find of keeping herself at least from further harm.

The Witch is one of those movies that comes along every once in a while, gains some media attention and gets some critical mass behind it, so that by the time it reaches a wider audience it’s seen as something to be admired and sought out at the earliest opportunity. And so it is proving here, with Robert Eggers’ debut feature having picked up a lot of traction from film festivals around the globe throughout 2015 (including Romania’s Dracula Film Festival). Usually, the hype that attaches itself to such a movie proves to be undeserved – or is at least just that: hype – but for once, here is a movie that lives up to its promise.

Based on folk tales, fairy tales and legends from the New England area, all of which Eggers grew up with, The Witch is a fabulous collision between faith and evil, loneliness and paranoia, that is being marketed as a horror movie, but which is a whole lot more. While there are very definite supernatural elements, and we see the witch of the title very early on, this isn’t just a horror movie, this is a powerful drama that sees one family fall apart under conditions of deprivation – the crops fail, the goats give blood instead of milk – loss, paranoia, mistrust, lies, pride, and arrogance. The true horror is seeing this otherwise contented family undone by the loss of a child and the subsequent emotions that develop, and which each member is unable to deal with. By placing them in the middle of a forest, with no close neighbours to help, and leaving them to deal with the isolation that all that brings, Eggers exposes the fragility of faith and the inherent strains brought about by personal sacrifice.

The supernatural elements are well handled, and for once there’s no attempt at allegory or making it seem as if it’s all coincidence, or that there’s a more rational explanation for everything. Here, there is a witch, and we see her clearly, and there’s no room for doubt that she is responsible for setting in motion the events that lead to the family’s downfall. Without any possible ambiguity to muddy things, the straightforward horror of the situation is allowed to take hold, and as mutual suspicion leads to paranoia and then to madness and death, the movie is pitiless in its observational nature, leaving the viewer to watch a series of scenes in the movie’s last twenty minutes that signpost an outcome that is inevitable, even if the way in which it all happens isn’t.

Eggers’ confidence in the material, which is often very dark and uncomfortable – the scene where Caleb revels in a kind of sexual ecstacy is a good case in point – is aided by a trio of superb performances from Taylor-Joy, Ineson, and Dickie. The casting of Ineson and Dickie is particularly important: their accents and English speech would have been the norm at that time, and they both have a clear grasp of the religious and moral underpinning that their characters rely so heavily on. But as all that certainty begins to crumble, both actors retain an honesty in their performances that make their eventual fates all the more affecting. Taylor-Joy is similarly impressive in a role that, if the movie had been set somehow in modern times, would have reduced her to little more than the screaming virgin who gets chased through the woods. But Thomasin proves to be more than that, and there’s a scene where she confronts William over his behaviour that is compelling for the way in which the hypocrisy of William’s religious stance is exposed as a cruel sham (and which gives both actors the chance to highlight the true cause of the family’s problems).

The soundtrack is a big part of the movie’s effectiveness, with dissonant noises and choral sounds reaching their own kind of fever pitch, and serving to illustrate the weird nature of the events taking place, as well as being eerie in their own right. The score by Mark Korven is also highly evocative, and has an unsettling nature to it that is occasionally unnerving when allied to the visuals. Those visuals are expertly composed by Jarin Blaschke, and the dour, oppressive feel of the Canadian location where the movie was made, is evident in almost every exterior shot. And Louise Ford’s careful, measured editing style adds further lustre to a movie that, otherwise, could have lapsed into wilful obscurity in terms of the narrative and its intensions.

Rating: 8/10 – an unnerving examination of one family’s disintegration due to a lack of true faith in themselves, The Witch is a horror movie that works on several levels and has an embarrassment of riches, not least in its casting; Eggers’ confidence in the material and the way it holds together is compelling, and the whole thing is drenched in the kind of suffocating atmosphere that lingers long after the movie has ended.

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