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thedullwoodexperiment

~ Viewing movies in a different light

thedullwoodexperiment

Tag Archives: History

Amadeus (1984)

05 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Antonio Salieri, Classical music, Court composer, Drama, F. Murray Abraham, History, Jealousy, Milos Forman, Review, Tom Hulce, Vienna

D: Miloš Forman / 160m

Cast: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Roy Dotrice, Simon Callow, Christine Ebersole, Jeffrey Jones, Charles Kay

At the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II (Jones), the lead composer is Antonio Salieri (Abraham). He is well regarded by his peers, and has the favour of the Emperor, but when Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Hulce) arrives to perform at the request of his employer, Salieri is forced to acknowledge Mozart’s superior ability. Mozart’s gift for music prompts the Emperor to commission an opera from him, and this in turn prompts the onset of a violent jealousy in Salieri that leads him to try and undermine Mozart’s position within the court. With his own compositions falling out of favour with the Emperor, Salieri finds himself even more determined to ruin Mozart’s reputation. He hires a young woman to work as Mozart’s maid and spy on him. When she alerts Salieri to a new work that Mozart is working on, he finds that it’s an opera based on The Marriage of Figaro, which the Emperor has forbidden. Salieri reveals this to the Emperor, but Mozart manages to avoid censure, an outcome that pushes Salieri into using the recent death of Mozart’s father (Dotrice) as a means of finally regaining his original position at the Emperor’s court…

A movie about obsession, jealousy, and the uncomfortable realisation of one’s own mediocrity in the face of undeniable genius, Amadeus is a breathtaking spectacle, a transformative piece that takes an unsubstantiated rumour from the lives of Mozart and Salieri, and spins a web of intrigue and deception around Mozart’s untimely death. Adapted by Peter Shaffer from his original stage play, and brought to mesmerising life by Miloš Forman, it’s a movie that brims with unbridled passions, from Mozart’s immersive approach to his music, to the stylistic excesses of the Emperor’s court. Mozart himself is presented as an enfant terrible in adult form, giggling uncontrollably as much from nervousness as exhilaration, and challenging the conservative musical conventions that have provided Salieri and his ilk with their success. As if his grandiose behaviour wasn’t enough, he’s also – actually – incredibly gifted, something that Salieri cannot fathom: how can God have done this, how could He have given such a gift to Mozart and left Salieri with the same passion but without the means to express it as effectively. Salieri’s battle with God over this becomes its own obsession, and informs his actions throughout.

Shaffer builds the one-sided rivalry between Salieri and Mozart and uses it to explore the nature of thwarted ambition. Salieri’s need to be seen to be superior to Mozart consumes him, and while Mozart’s own lifestyle consumes him at the same time, Shaffer highlights the desperation that drives Salieri on to a darker place than even he could have predicted. Abraham is quite simply superb as the tortured composer, a man aware of his limitations but compelled by those same limitations to contemplate murder for personal gain. Hulce is just as good as the potty-mouthed genius who transcribed whole pieces of music without the need for any corrections; as his physical health deteriorates, Hulce shows us a Mozart whose commitment to his music over-rides his own sense of self-preservation. Both performances are powerful, emotive, and finely judged, and form the backbone of a movie that never falters in its appreciation of the one thing both characters agree on: the sublime nature of Mozart’s music. Inevitably, the soundtrack is filled with astutely chosen examples of Mozart’s work (even his playing of Salieri’s march is really an excerpt from Mozart’s own work The Marriage of Figaro), and it’s all played out against a backdrop of naturally lit interiors and ravishing production design, all of it enhanced by Miroslav Ondrícek’s detailed cinematography.

Rating: 9/10 – from Salieri’s first anguished cry of “Mozart!” to his absolving mediocrities everywhere, Amadeus is an ambitiously mounted movie that succeeds in breathing potent life into a minor footnote in classical music history; devastating in places, but with a streak of scandalous humour to offset the darker nature of the movie’s second half, this is hugely impressive on so many levels, and possibly Forman’s finest work.

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The Golem (2018)

12 Tuesday Feb 2019

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Community, Doron Paz, Drama, Hani Furstenberg, History, Horror, Ishai Golan, Israel, Lithuania, Plague, Review, Yoav Paz

D: Yoav Paz, Doron Paz / 95m

Cast: Hani Furstenberg, Ishai Golan, Kirill Cernyakov, Brynie Furstenberg, Lenny Ravich, Alexey Tritenko, Adi Kvetner, Mariya Khomutova, Veronika Shostak, Konstantin Anikienko

Lithuania, 1763. In a small isolated village made up of an entirely Jewish community, Hanna (Hani Furstenberg) and Benjamin (Golan), are a couple who are struggling to have a second child following the death of their first born, Joseph, seven years before. Their marriage seems mired in the expectations of the village elders, one of whom suggests Benjamin should renounce Hanna and take another wife. However, these considerations take a backseat with the arrival of Vladimir (Tritenko). Vladimir has come from a nearby, plague-ravaged village and his eldest daughter is dying, while no one in Hanna’s community is affected. Threatening to kill everyone and burn their village to the ground unless his daughter is saved, the task is taken up by the village’s healer, Perla (Brynie Furstenberg). But Hanna bristles under Vladimir’s threats, and challenges the elders to create a Golem, an ancient creature out of Jewish myth that could defend them. When they refuse, Hanna takes matters into her own hands, and brings the creature to life herself. What she doesn’t expect is the form the Golem takes: that of a young boy who reminds her too much of her lost son…

Taking some of its inspiration from The Witch (2015), the latest outing from the Paz brothers – fans of Jeruzalem (2015) will be pleased to know there’s a sequel in the works – is a sterling effort that does its best to explore the myth of the Golem, while placing the creature within a convincing setting. Though it doesn’t explain why Jewish lore would have such an acknowledged demon at its (potential) disposal, Ariel Cohen’s screenplay does highlight the circumstances under which it might be called upon, and then mixes those circumstances with the grief and sadness felt by Hanna over the death of her son. Though Hanna does come across as something of a modern day heroine, and her challenges to the orthodoxy of her community go unpunished, her motives are predominantly maternal; she’s being protective, albeit in a way that may prove more dangerous to the community than Vladimir’s murderous intentions. Her motives devolve with the Golem’s arrival, and the bond they share reawakens the feelings she had when Joseph was alive. And through all of this, there’s a palpable sense of threat from the Golem, its blank stare hiding much darker intentions than those it has been brought to life for.

Hanna’s maternal instincts inevitably lead to tragedy, and thanks to a first-rate performance from Hani Furstenberg, there’s an emotive undercurrent to events that lifts the material and makes it more than just a period horror movie with a generous sampling of gore effects. The Paz brothers also know when to focus on character over action, and the opening scenes establish both the sense of a tight-knit community, and a number of the stories that exist within that community, from the neighbouring widow who may be the second wife Benjamin needs, to Hanna’s sister who is on the verge of getting married. Vladimir’s arrival allows the movie to add a layer of historical persecution to the mix (his threats amount to a promise of a pogrom), and to highlight the elders’ belief in the power of prayer, but without forgetting that sometimes violence has to be met with violence. That these elements are present is a tribute to the density and complexity of Cohen’s screenplay, and the Paz brothers’ approach to the material, making the movie as a whole more involving and more effective as a result. With bleak, shadowy cinematography by Rotem Yaron, and  a pervading sense of menace throughout, this is necessarily grim stuff, and all the better for it.

Rating: 8/10 – it’s not often that a horror movie takes the time to explore the nature of evil, but it’s one of many surprises that The Golem has to offer, along with a lead female character who drives the story forward, and an ending that is both poignant and bittersweet; though there are moments where the dialogue sounds altogether too modern, and Hanna’s actions appear to be in defiance of historical accuracy, this is still an impressive outing from the Paz brothers, and one that augurs well for their future projects.

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All Is True (2018)

10 Sunday Feb 2019

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Biography, Drama, Grief, Hamnet, History, Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, Kathryn Wilder, Kenneth Branagh, Review, William Shakespeare

D: Kenneth Branagh / 101m

Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Kathryn Wilder, Lydia Wilson, Hadley Fraser, Ian McKellen, Jack Colgrave Hirst, Sam Ellis, Gerard Horan

In 1613, following the destruction of the Globe theatre by fire, William Shakespeare (Branagh), having been away from his family for most of the last thirty years, decides to return to his home in Stratford-upon-Avon, and there live out the rest of his life. His arrival isn’t as well received as he would like: his wife, Anne (Dench), treats him as a guest, while his daughter, Judith (Wilder), is angry at his presumption that he can just come home and nothing should be said about it. Shakespeare finds himself finally mourning the death of his son Hamnet seventeen years before, but this brings out an unexpected animosity from Judith (who was Hamnet’s twin). Meanwhile, his eldest daughter, Susanna (Wilson), is trapped in a loveless marriage to Puritan doctor John Hall (Fraser). She has an affair that nearly leads to public ruin, while after several disagreements with her father over what a woman is for, Judith pursues a relationship with local wine merchant, Tom Quiney (Hirst). There is scandal in their relationship as well, but before it can threaten to ruin Judith’s standing in the local community, a revelation about Hamnet causes Shakespeare’s memory of his son to be changed forever…

In using the alternative title for The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth, All Is True opens itself up for close inspection of its claim, and inevitably, is found wanting. As much as any historical biography can be “true”, Branagh’s take on Shakespeare’s final years (from a script by Ben Elton), labours under the necessity of finding enough material to fill in the blanks of what we know already – which isn’t that much. And so, we have a movie that makes a handful of educated guesses as to the events surrounding Shakespeare’s self-imposed retirement, but can’t quite come up with a reason for it. For the most part, the script is more concerned with the problems affecting his daughters, while the great man himself is reduced to being a secondary character, one seen creating a garden to honour his son’s memory, or indulging in melancholy conversations with the likes of visiting guests the Earl of Southampton (McKellen), and Ben Jonson (Horan). They’re odd scenes to have, as both see Shakespeare downplaying his genius while his visitors do their best to boost him up. And the scene with Southampton is there simply to support the theory that his sonnets were the product of a homosexual infatuation; all very possible but at odds with the tone of the rest of the movie.

Indeed, the overall tone is one of overwhelming grief and sadness as Shakespeare attempts to deal with the loss of Hamnet. Whether seen in moments of contemplation, or through the verses he wrote before his death, Hamnet is the ghost that haunts everyone, and Shakespeare’s grief is tainted by the false recollections he has of him. This allows Branagh the director plenty of opportunities to let Branagh the actor look sad and distant, though mostly it makes him look as if he’s spotted something far off in the distance but can’t quite work out what it is. Still, it’s a good performance from Branagh, and he’s given able support from Dench and the rest of the cast, but in the end, Elton’s script rambles too often from subplot to subplot without ever connecting them in a cohesive, organic fashion. And Shakespeare himself, as a character, is only saved from being a complete dullard by virtue of Branagh’s efforts in front of the camera; there’s more fire and intensity from Wilder’s defiant Judith. A curious mix then of the effective and the banal, and tinged with soap opera moments that are out of place, it’s bolstered by Zac Nicholson’s naturalistic cinematography (all the night-time interiors used candlelight only), and James Merifield’s expressive production design.

Rating: 6/10 – not as definitive as it might have wanted to be, nor as engrossing as the subject matter should have merited, All Is True stumbles too often in its efforts to be intriguing, and features a seemingly endless array of establishing shots that seem designed to pad out the running time for no other reason than that they look pretty; anyone looking for an introduction to Shakespeare the man should look elsewhere, while those who are curious about his later years would do well to treat the movie as an interpretation of events rather than a retelling of them.

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Mary Queen of Scots (2018)

29 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Drama, Elizabeth I, Guy Pearce, History, Jack Lowden, Joe Alwyn, Josie Rourke, Margot Robbie, Review, Saoirse Ronan, Scotland, True story

D: Josie Rourke / 124m

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie, Jack Lowden, Joe Alwyn, Guy Pearce, Adrian Lester, Martin Compston, Ian Hart, James McArdle, David Tennant, Gemma Chan, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Brendan Coyle

Scotland, 1561. Following the death of her French husband, Mary Stuart (Ronan) returns to take up her rightful place as Queen. Her return is viewed with dismay and suspicion by the English court, as Mary has a claim to the English throne should Elizabeth I (Robbie) die without issue. Elizabeth suggests that Mary wed an Englishman, Robert Dudley (Alwyn), and despite Dudley being her lover. Aware that this is a ploy designed to weaken her claim, Mary agrees on one condition: that she be named heir to the throne. With Elizabeth unwilling to consent to this, she sends Henry Darnley (Lowden) to infiltrate Mary’s court, but Mary and Henry fall in love and marry. In time, Mary gives birth to a son, James, but political intrigue sees her own half-brother, the earl of Moray (McArdle) mount an insurgency against her. She quashes this, but further unrest is whipped up by militant preacher John Knox (Tennant), and Mary finds herself being forced to abdicate when James is taken from her by her former protector, Lord Bothwell (Compston). She flees to England, where she seeks help from Elizabeth…

If you have a keen interest in Scottish history, and in Mary Stuart in particular, you might be perplexed by some of the “revelations” that Mary Queen of Scots includes as part of its adaptation of the book Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart by John Guy. For instance, who knew that Henry Darnley and David Rizzio (Cordova), Mary’s “gay friend” (in reality her private secretary) slept together shortly after Mary and Henry were married? (That’s a rhetorical question.) It’s one of many historical inaccuracies and inventions that the movie comes up with to heighten the drama, as if the real story wasn’t exciting or dramatic enough. Also, the action takes place over twenty-six years, from Mary’s return to Scotland, to her execution in 1887. Not that you’d necessarily realise this as the movie appears to take place in a timeless period where no one ages, and plot developments come so thick and fast, that by the time you’ve absorbed one, two more have already gone by. With so much to cram in in two hours, Beau Willimon’s screenplay can only act as a yardstick for excessive historical exposition. But conversely, the movie is strangely reticent when it really matters, such as when Mary pardons Moray and others for their part in the insurgency, leaving the viewer to wonder if they really have missed something.

As the movie progresses, it becomes less and less involving, and less and less impactful, as all efforts to make Mary’s plight appear tragic slowly evaporate, and the narrative trundles on from one historical action point to the next with all the energy of someone trudging through treacle. First time director Josie Rourke, whose background is in theatre, does elicit two compelling performances from Ronan and Robbie, but hasn’t adapted her talents to meet the needs of her movie, and the result is a patchwork of disparate scenes that don’t always allow for a consistent narrative, or characterisations (Bothwell’s change of conscience is particularly troubling). But this is first and foremost a movie that affords Ronan and Robbie the opportunity to reveal just why they are two of the best actresses working today. Ronan is appropriately fiery as Mary, passionate and determined, but unable to combat the forces that lead her to tragedy. Good as Ronan is, though, Robbie is superb as Elizabeth, making her a tragic figure who knows what must be done to protect her kingdom, but whose conscience leaves her feeling sad and isolated. There’s good support too from Pearce and McArdle, and the sets and costumes are a highlight, but ultimately, this is a movie for those who don’t mind if their history lessons are compromised from start to finish.

Rating: 5/10 – coming away from Mary Queen of Scots, the realisation soon sinks in that as a retelling of tumultous events and times in Scotland’s history, it’s not as robust as it needs to be, or as insightful; inevitably, it’s the modernism that lets it down, with Willimon’s script making a bad hash of trying to make the movie feel relevant to today’s feminist outlook, but worse than that, it just doesn’t hold the interest in a way that would make it more compelling.

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Vice (2018)

16 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Adam McKay, Amy Adams, Biography, Christian Bale, Dick Cheney, Drama, History, Iraq War, Politics, Review, Sam Rockwell, Steve Carell, True story

D: Adam McKay / 132m

Cast: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Jesse Plemons, Tyler Perry, Alison Pill, Lily Rabe, Eddie Marsan, Justin Kirk, LisaGay Hamilton, Bill Camp, Don McManus, Shea Whigham, Stephen Adly Guirgis

In 1963, future vice president Dick Cheney (Bale) is working as a lineman because his alcoholism got him kicked out of Yale. Given an ultimatum by his wife, Lynne (Adams), to shape up and make something of his life, Cheney goes into politics, securing an internship at the White House during the Nixon administration. There he works for Nixon’s economic advisor Donald Rumsfeld (Carell). The two become friends (of a sort) and as the years pass, they both fall in and out of favour with the ruling elite, until during the Clinton era, Cheney becomes CEO of Halliburton, and Rumsfeld holds a variety of positions in the private sector. When he’s asked to be the running mate of George W. Bush (Rockwell) when Bush runs for president, Cheney sees an opportunity to occupy a unique position of power. But it’s in the wake of the terrorist attacks that occurred on 9/11 that Cheney sees his ambition begin to come to fruition. Without recourse to just cause, and ignoring his own intelligence agencies, Cheney orchestrates an unnecessary war in Iraq…

Although it’s perfectly well made, and intelligently constructed, Adam McKay’s foray into US politics lacks the urgency of his previous outing, The Big Short (2015), and the impact, with much of what we know about Cheney and his unrepentant manipulation of the facts post-9/11, still fresh in our memories. And it’s hard to be outraged by what Cheney did when the current incumbent of the White House abuses his position so appallingly (and deliberately), and on an almost daily basis. This leaves Vice at a bit of a disadvantage, with McKay’s screenplay laying it all out for us, but in a way that doesn’t feel fresh or surprising, but rather more like reportage. The facts are there, but the emotion isn’t, and this leaves the viewer in an awkward position: working out how to engage with a movie that should be hitting home quite forcefully, but which settles instead for telling its story too matter-of-factly for its own good (it doesn’t help that McKay lumbers his movie with having to stop and explain things such as the unitary executive theory… not the most exciting of topics). There’s also the hint of a longer movie as well, with incidents such as the Valerie Plame affair, and the accidental shooting of Harry Whittington, added to the narrative but ultimately carrying little or no dramatic weight.

And we never get to know Cheney the man, or his motives. Played with a marked reticence that makes Cheney look like a less amiable Chevy Chase, Bale is physically intimidating but often reduced to uttering grunts instead of sentences, and looking disinterested or dismissive. Cheney may have been a ruthless, calculating politician post-9/11, but a lot of the time he just looks like your average grumpy grandpa. Even the one good thing that Cheney did – retiring from public life in order to shield his daughter, Mary (Pill), from media scrutiny over being a lesbian – is tarnished by his later actions in supporting the political ambitions of his other daughter, Liz (Rabe). Rare moments such as these make Cheney appear more recognisably human, and not the unknowable cypher he is the rest of the time. All in all, it’s still a good performance from Bale, but it’s the likes of Adams and Plemons (as a fictional Iraq War veteran with an unlikely tie to Cheney) who make the material resonate more. Again, it’s intelligently constructed, and McKay sprinkles the narrative with some caustic humour to leaven the gloom, while DoP Greig Fraser ensures the sense of dirty deeds carried out behind closed doors is portrayed through tight close ups and the use of shadowy lighting. It’s a movie that speaks plainly about the issues it’s addressing, but sadly, a little too plainly to be effective.

Rating: 6/10 – dry and only fitfully engaging, Vice has the feel of a movie that’s telling its story as if everyone’s already been briefed and the movie itself is something of a formality; when a movie that seeks to recount seismic events in recent US history lacks immediacy and verve then something is very wrong indeed.

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The Favourite (2018)

04 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Comedy, Drama, Emma Stone, Hatfield House, History, Olivia Colman, Queen Anne, Rachel Weisz, Review, Yorgos Lanthimos

D: Yorgos Lanthimos / 119m

Cast: Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, Nicholas Hoult, Joe Alwyn, Mark Gatiss, James Smith, Jenny Rainsford

England, 1708. Queen Anne (Colman) is on the throne, but the real power lies with Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough (Weisz), the Queen’s best friend, confidante, and lover. Sarah counsels the Queen on almost every matter that comes before her, and uses Anne’s malleability to promote her own political agenda. The arrival of a destitute cousin of Sarah’s, Abigail Hill (Stone), prompts the beginning of a power struggle between the two women, as they vie for the Queen’s attention, both in and out of the bed chamber. Sarah’s experience proves no match for Abigail’s determination to see her social status restored to her, and the on-going war with France that Sarah is supporting is undermined by Abigail’s mutually beneficial allegiance with politician Robert Harley (Hoult). With Anne’s health worsening due to gout, Abigail aims to supplant Sarah once and for all, and arranges for her to be missing from court. As Anne becomes more and more dependant on Abigail’s presence, and gives her blessing to an advantageous marriage to a courtier, Samuel Masham (Alwyn), Sarah returns to make one last effort to overturn Abigail’s influence, and restore her own position with the Queen…

For most people, The Favourite will be seen in 2019. There will be other historical movies that will carry over from 2018 and reach their intended audience, but it’s a sure bet that Yorgos Lanthimos’ ebullient follow up to The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) will be unlike any other. A riotous mix of scabrous comedy, intelligently handled drama, bawdy romance, political intrigue, and ferocious oneupmanship (oneupwomanship?), this plays fast and loose with historical accuracy (though the three-way affair depicted actually happened), and instead opts for being a rambunctious send up of both the times and the people who lived through them. Working from a glorious screenplay by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, Lanthimos has fashioned his most accessible movie to date, and one that offers a plethora of riches. First and foremost are the fierce, redoubtable performances of its trio of female leads, all of whom attack the material with undisguised relish, and all of whom give superb portrayals of women for whom men are either to be used, or ignored, or both. Harley is the principal male protagonist, and in any other movie he would emerge triumphant with all of his ambitions achieved, and stronger than ever. Here he achieves his ambitions, but the audience knows that it’s just a matter of time before his position will collapse into political and personal ruin.

With gender reversals of this type firmly on display (and encouraged), Lanthimos gives his cast full rein to inhabit their roles with gusto. Weisz is condescending and vampish as Sarah, a career manipulator who finds herself surprisingly ill-equipped to deal with Abigail’s more straightforward manoeuvrings. Stone is a revelation, portraying an historical character so far removed from her previous acting roles that her confidence is often astonishing; she embues Abigail with such a sweet-natured viciousness that you have no idea just what she’ll do next. And then there’s Colman, towering over both of them, her performance a thing of magnificent yet focused excess, railing against imagined injustices one moment, dew-eyed and poignant the next as Anne remembers her seventeen dead children. It all takes place against the sumptuous backdrop of Hatfield House, its rooms and corridors given tremendous presence in the movie thanks to the use of fisheye lenses and wide shots, making it another character altogether, one whose size helps to put the machinations of its human counterparts into stark relief for their transitory nature. But even with all this – and a terrific soundtrack as well – it’s the interlocking relationships between Anne, Sarah and Abigail, all counter turns and devious switches, that hold the attention and prove the most rewarding part of a movie that has so much to offer that it’s almost embarrassing.

Rating: 9/10 – Lanthimos’ auteur leanings are still on display, but here he’s at his most relaxed and amenable, and the result is that The Favourite is easily his best movie so far; a movie to wallow in over and over again, it is richly detailed, formidably acted, wickedly perverse, beautifully shot (by Robbie Ryan), and a pure delight from beginning to end.

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Black ’47 (2018)

29 Saturday Dec 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Drama, History, Hugo Weaving, Ireland, James Frecheville, Lance Daly, Review, Stephen Rea, The Great Famine, Thriller

D: Lance Daly / 100m

Cast: Hugo Weaving, James Frecheville, Stephen Rea, Freddie Fox, Barry Keoghan, Moe Dunford, Sarah Greene, Jim Broadbent, Dermot Crowley, Aidan McArdle

In 1847, Martin Feeney (Frecheville), an Irish ranger who has served in the English army, returns home to Connemara only to discover that his mother has died of starvation and his brother has been hanged for stabbing a bailiff while being evicted. Staying with his brother’s family, their own eviction from the property they’re squatting in, leads to the death of Martin’s nephew, and his arrest by the constabulary. Escaping from the barracks where he was being held, and burning it down in the process, Martin is targeted by the British authorities, and an up-and-coming lieutenant called Pope (Fox) is assigned to find and kill him. He’s aided by a veteran of the British Army called Hannah (Weaving), and a young English private called Hobson (Keoghan). While they attempt to track him down, Feeney goes on a revenge spree, beginning with the man who took advantage of his mother’s plight by purchasing her home after her eviction, to the judge (Crowley) who sentenced his brother to hang, and all the way to the biggest landlord in the area, Lord Kilmichael (Broadbent). And it’s not long before the paths of everyone involved come together…

Expanded from the short, An Ranger (2008), which was written and directed by P.J. Dillon (here one of four co-writers), Black ’47 explores a period in Irish history that hasn’t really been seen on the big screen before. The title refers to the worst year of a famine that lasted from 1845 to 1849, when as many as a million people died from starvation and disease brought about by a potato blight. Here the use of the Great Famine as the backdrop to a tale of violent, unmerciful revenge helps the narrative greatly, giving it an immediacy and power – and depth – that allows the movie to become more than just another exercise in morally doubtful vigilantism. The nature and the widespread effects of the famine can be seen in scene after scene, with communities decimated and starving families congregating in fields or at the side of the road because they no longer have homes, and work is unavailable. Feeney is an avenging angel, targeting the corrupt Irish officials who have opted to collude with the British, and the British authorities, whose arrogance and greed has led them to view the famine as an opportunity to make themselves richer by removing the labourers and farmers they never wanted on their lands in the first place.

By allowing the backdrop to become a big part of the movie’s foreground, director Lance Daly ensures that what’s at stake on a national level isn’t entirely forgotten, even if it’s not the movie’s primary focus. Feeney may be an Irishman with “a very particular set of skills” for the time, and he may be taciturn out of expediency, but he’s also someone who accepts that he can’t change anything; he’s just doing what he can. Frecheville is an imposing figure, his eyes glowering with suppressed rage, and he makes Feeney as much a victim as an avenger. Weaving adds a sense of melancholy to his role, making Hannah the most conflicted character of all thanks to a connection with Feeney that complicates things when they matter most. However, these characters, and Rea’s world-weary translator, are the only ones that have any meat on them (excuse the pun), and as a result, the script struggles to make their actions and motives entirely credible (Hobson has a mad moment of naïve idealism that is jarring thanks to its unlikely occurrence). Sometimes the politics is a little pedantic as well, but when it comes to Feeney exacting his revenge, the movie is on much firmer ground, and Daly provides viewers with a number of exciting, well staged – and brutal – action sequences. It’s not an entirely successful movie, but it is gripping, and for anyone who has seen An Ranger, yes, the pig is back.

Rating: 7/10 – though a markedly genre exercise (a Western) set against a grim historical backdrop, Black ’47 uses said backdrop as a way of adding depth and intensity to its otherwise generic main storyline; with starkly beautiful imagery thanks to DoP Declan Quinn (and this despite some very dodgy matte work), and equally impressive production design courtesy of Waldemar Kalinowski, this is a movie that tells its simple story in ways that help elevate the material, and make it a far more emotional experience than expected.

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Chuck Norris Vs Communism (2015)

16 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Ana Maria Moldovan, Dan Chiorean, Documentary, History, Ilinca Calugareanu, Irina Nistor, Mr Zamfir, Review, Romania, True story, Video tapes

D: Ilinca Calugareanu / 80m

Cast: Ana Maria Moldovan, Dan Chiorean, Valentin Oncu, Cristian Stanca

Romania, the Eighties. The Ceausescu regime is in full swing. Television has been severely restricted (one two-hour programme per day), and its content heavily censored. Capitalism in any form is prohibited. But there is an underground movement that’s beginning to find a foothold amongst the Romanian people. It’s centred on “video evenings”, where citizens gather to watch pirate VHS tapes of Western movies. From very humble beginnings, these video evenings became more and more popular, and more and more people defied the authorities, including Irina Nistor (Moldovan), a translator for Romanian Television who was asked to dub the Western movies that were being distributed. Working for an enigmatic figure called Mr Zamfir (Chiorean), Irina eventually dubbed around three thousand movies, and his clandestine business went on to include high-ranking party officials as customers, a fact that kept his enterprise going until 1992. Becoming less of an underground “secret” and more of an accepted part of society, the effect of these video evenings was to give Romanians a greater idea of the Western world, as well as a keener sense of what was missing from their own lives…

The movie that prompted Tom Hanks to post on his Facebook account, “See this documentary! The power of film! To change the world”, Chuck Norris Vs Communism is a captivating examination of a period of (fairly) recent history that sounds exactly like something out of the movies. Ilinca Calugareanu’s illuminating docu-drama – key scenes and events are recreated alongside the reminiscences of people who were a part of it all – has a wistful, fantasy-lite approach that makes the reality of what happened seem all the more incredible. From Zamfir bribing border guards in order to get the original VHS tapes into the country, to Nistor’s clandestine work away from the scrutiny of her bosses, and the number of household raids that mysteriously saw no one arrested for what would have certainly been regarded as treasonous activity, the movie relates all of these instances with a fascinated disbelief that it could all have happened so quickly and so easily. The question arises repeatedly: how could the authorities not have known what was going on? After all, Nistor’s voice was incredibly well known; the only voice that was more familiar to the Romanians was that of Ceausescu himself. The answer is revealed (after a fashion) late on, but when it is, it’s an appropriately ironic and simple one.

More engaging than the recreation of stealth viewings and unhindered piracy activities, though, are the recollections of the Romanians who took part in those video evenings. The affection and the sense of nostalgia for those times, which were otherwise bleak and uncompromising, shines through and gives the movie an incredible sense of poignancy. Through the movies of Chuck Norris (of course), and Sylvester Stallone, as well as a range that included the likes of Doctor Zhivago (1965) and Once Upon a Time in America (1984), the quality of the movies was as nothing to the overall enjoyment that seeing them brought to the Romanian people. The movie reveals a tremendous sense of people coming together out of a common interest, and excited both by what they’re doing and by the fact that it’s in defiance of a Communist dictator who wasn’t exactly known for his forgiving nature. Recollections around certain movies are in abundance, and Calugareanu makes sure there are plenty of illustrative clips to go round. But it’s Nistor who receives the most attention, her distinctive vocal talents a source of endless speculation and fascination (though to be fair she didn’t actually dub the movies she worked on: instead she added a Romanian translation after each line was spoken). Loved and feted while remaining an anonymous mystery figure, her fans were horrified by the later appearance of a male voice on their bootleg tapes. And well they might have been: it was perhaps one subversive step too far.

Rating: 9/10 – an absorbing and continually fascinating look at a period and a country where screenings of Western movies were forbidden, Chuck Norris Vs Communism is an absolute gem of a documentary; Tom Hanks was right in his enthusiasm, as this is witty, funny, engaging, charming stuff that has a mischievous streak a mile wide and that doesn’t once try to be ponderous or focus too much on notions of cultural imperialism.

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Peterloo (2018)

13 Tuesday Nov 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Drama, History, Manchester, Massacre, Maxine Peake, Mike Leigh, Politics, Radicals, Review, Rory Kinnear, St Peter's Fields, True story

D: Mike Leigh / 154m

Cast: Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake, Pearce Quigley, Karl Johnson, Neil Bell, Philip Jackson, John-Paul Hurley, Tom Gill, Vincent Franklin, Jeff Rawle, Philip Whitchurch, Martin Savage, Roger Sloman, Sam Troughton, Alastair Mackenzie, Tim McInnerny, Dorothy Duffy, Victoria Moseley

In the wake of Napoléon Bonaparte’s defeat on the Continent in 1815, the working classes in the north of England turn their attention to protesting against the lack of fair political representation, and asking for extended voting rights (one vote per household). Getting wind of this, and viewing it as impending sedition, the British Government – as represented by the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth (Johnson) – decides to do all it can to ensure that this new movement is unsuccessful, and preferably crushed before it can begin. While local radicals from the Manchester Observer, including its founder, Joseph Johnson (Gill), organise a great assembly to take place at St Peter’s Fields in Manchester on 9 August 1819, with a speech to be delivered by the great reformist orator Henry Hunt (Kinnear), government spies and local magistrates plot to have Hunt arrested and the crowd dispersed by force if necessary. With a crowd of around 60,000 people attending, the local militia’s attempts to break up the gathering lead to a terrible tragedy…

Beginning on the battlefield in 1815, Mike Leigh’s latest movie features several firsts for the director in terms of action and bloodshed, but Peterloo is also his most fiercely political movie to date. In telling the story of one of Britain’s worst tragedies, Leigh takes us on a vital history lesson, ranging from the semi-rural mill towns of Lancashire and their inhabitants’ clamour for fair political representation, to the richly decorated rooms of the Establishment and their unwillingness to ease the yoke of political oppression, to the austere courtrooms of the local magistrates and their callous disregard for the lives of the working class. In meeting rooms and at outdoor venues, Leigh explores and illuminates the political and social climate of the period, and through the use of lengthy speeches and extended conversations, brings to life a time when liberty was a luxury afforded only to the ruling elite, and the working classes were so beaten down they were constantly in danger of dying from starvation and disease. Leigh brings all this to life, and gives powerful voice to both the ideals of the radicals and their supporters, and the arrogance of the Establishment. By the time the massacre gets under way, the audience knows exactly what is being fought for (albeit peacefully), and why it matters. And why the elite are so determined to impede any progress.

If all this sounds irredeemably dry and didactic, then nothing could be further from the truth. Like Eric Rohmer, whose movies often consist of just two people talking at length but which are still fascinating to watch, Leigh has the same ability to draw in the viewer and make the expression of ideas as compelling as the action that inevitably follows in their wake (though if anything, the massacre itself isn’t as well realised as the rest of the movie, and carries a strangely muted impact, as if Leigh didn’t want to go too far in depicting the violence). There are real emotions on display, however, from the peacock-ish pride of Henry Hunt, to the cautious reticence of Peake’s unconvinced wife and mother, to the fervour and enthusiasm of the leaders of the nascent Manchester Female Reform Society, to the priggish belligerence of the Prince Consort (McInnerny). In this, the cast are uniformly excellent, with special mention going to Bell as radical reformer Samuel Bamford, and Franklin as the vituperative, apoplectic Magistrate Rev Etlhelson. With expressive, beautifully composed cinematography by Dick Pope that further brings the period to life, along with Suzie Davies’ highly impressive production design, this is a gripping account of a despicable act of state-organised domestic terrorism.

Rating: 9/10 – not for all tastes, but a compelling and revealing look at a key moment in 19th century British history nevertheless, Peterloo sees Mike Leigh working at the height of his considerable story-telling powers; absorbing, intelligently handled, and brimming with vitality, this does border on being unashamedly polemical at times, but when the quality of the material is this good, it’s something that can be easily forgiven.

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Hurricane (2018)

11 Sunday Nov 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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David Blair, Drama, History, Iwan Rheon, Milo Gibson, Poland, RAF, Review, Stefanie Martini, True story, World War II

aka Hurricane: Squadron 303

D: David Blair / 108m

Cast: Iwan Rheon, Milo Gibson, Stefanie Martini, Marcin Dorociński, Krystof Hádek, Christopher Jaciow, Slawomir Doliniec, Radoslaw Kaim, Adrian Zaremba, Hugh Alexander, Nicholas Farrell, Rosie Gray

Having seen their country overrun by the Nazis, a number of Polish fighter pilots, including Jan Zumbach (Rheon) and Witold Urbanowicz (Dorociński), find their way to England where they join the Royal Air Force. It’s 1940, and Britain is suffering heavy casualties in the air, and is fast running out of both planes and pilots. With the RAF top brass unwilling to let them fly their best planes because of doubts about their skills and experience, it takes a while for the Poles to find a role in the War. Eventually, they form 303 Squadron, based at RAF Northolt aerodrome, and take to the skies during the Battle of Britain. Their courage and determination brings them aerial glory, and despite some resentment among some of the British pilots, the Poles soon find themselves highly regarded. Jan begins a relationship with a WAAF called Phyllis (Martini), but as the war continues and inevitably, his comrades are killed, Jan begins to experience an ambivalence about the war that sees him become angrier and more reckless…

Of the many stories to come out of World War II, the story of the Polish fighter pilots who served in the RAF is one of the more remarkable. In the first six weeks of combat, they claimed an unprecedented hundred and twenty six kills, and by the end of the war, 303 Squadron had the highest ratio of enemy aircraft destroyed to their own lost. With such a notable history, it’s a shame then that Hurricane resorts to lazy soap opera dramatics in telling the Poles’ story. The tone is set when we see Jan steal a plane in France in order to reach England: instead of being a perilous endeavour that could go wrong at any moment, it’s treated as something of a practical joke on Jan’s part. Good-natured banter ensues between the Poles while they wait to be put to good use, and only when the RAF top brass assign lucky Canadian John Kent (Gibson) to oversee their training. Rule-breaking and insubordination are the order of the day from then on, alongside skirmishes with British pilots who are brought in to be unpleasantly racist, something that’s heightened by Phyllis dumping her usual man (Alexander) in favour of Jan. It’s history perhaps, but played out in a distant, modern fashion that doesn’t suit the period.

While the movie does get darker as the war continues – and the Polish body count rises – we see flashbacks to the fates of Jan and Witold’s spouses at the hands of the Nazis. This sobering of the narrative is necessary but feels underwhelming; there’s always another soap opera moment waiting just around the corner, such as when Jan seeks to repay the hospitality of a working class family, only to find their home has been destroyed in a bombing raid (the inference is clear but Jan never actually checks to see if they’re dead or alive). Elsewhere, there’s a member of the squadron suffering from cowardice, plenty of stiff upper lip moments, and the strange sight of a book on Rudimentary Polish that’s the size of War and Peace. Thankfully the aerial dogfights rescue the movie from its self-inflicted doldrums, though the anonymity of the pilots in these sequences (despite as many cockpit close ups as possible), lessens the impact when one of them is killed. The cast are proficient without being asked to do too much, and TV veteran Blair does his best to cope with the few demands of Robert Ryan and Alistair Galbraith’s patchy screenplay. All in all, it’s a great story, but here it’s also one that never seems like it’s being encouraged to truly “take off”.

Rating: 5/10 – lacklustre, though enjoyable in a basic, just-go-with-the-flow kind of way, Hurricane is the kind of movie that doesn’t even tell you its title is the make of plane its main characters are flying; without the requisite energy needed to make it as compelling as it should have been, the movie founders under a weight of good intentions and unrealised ambitions, something that can’t be said of its Polish pilots in real life – dzięki Bogu.

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The Happy Prince (2018)

30 Tuesday Oct 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Biography, Colin Firth, Colin Morgan, Drama, Edwin Thomas, Emily Watson, France, History, Oscar Wilde, Passion project, Review, Rupert Everett

D: Rupert Everett / 106m

Cast: Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Emily Watson, Colin Morgan, Edwin Thomas, Tom Wilkinson, Béatrice Dalle, Anna Chancellor, Julian Wadham, John Standing, Ronald Pickup

Oscar Wilde (Everett) has served his time in Reading Gaol and is living in France, supported by the kind attentions of one of his few remaining friends, Robbie Ross (Thomas). Suffering from ill health as a result of his stay in prison, Wilde is a shadow of his former self, wracked by torment and disillusionment, and his passion for writing exhausted. Against the better judgment and advice of his friends, including Reggie Turner (Firth), and his estranged wife, Constance (Watson), Wilde is reunited with the source of his downfall, Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas (Morgan). They live together, though the relationship is strained, and Douglas’s selfish behaviour begins to drive an irreversible wedge between them. When their families each threaten to remove their financial support for the pair, the relationship founders completely, and Wilde becomes a lonely figure wandering from café to café spending what little money he has on alcohol. With his health deteriorating even further, Wilde becomes incapacitated, and is forced to see out the remainder of his days in a dingy Paris hotel room…

When actors or directors announce that their next movie will be a long cherished passion project, it’s often time to nod sagely and mutter, “that’ll be nice”. Rupert Everett had been trying to get a movie made about the final three years in the life of Oscar Wilde for over five years, and he’s finally succeeded. You can imagine the pitch to potential investors, though: a movie about an alcoholic writer in the decrepitude of his final years, and without any chance of a happy ending. Full marks then to Everett for his perseverance, because despite the downbeat nature of the material, and the sadness of seeing a once great man reduced to abject penury, The Happy Prince is a fascinating and poignant examination of the last three years of Wilde’s life, and how those years took a further, irrevocable toll on him after two years in prison. It’s a largely melancholy, subdued account, but there are moments of joy and laughter and hope in amongst the heartbreak and despair, as Wilde reflects on his success and his subsequent downfall. Unafraid to show Wilde at his worst, and with the worst happening to him, Everett presents an unflinching portrait of the artist as an old man robbed of all his powers.

The movie has all the hallmarks of a grim tragedy, from Wilde, Turner and Ross being pursued in Italy by English thugs looking to intimidate and bully a great man brought low, to the inevitability of Douglas’ rejection of Wilde when money becomes an issue. Everett is magnificent in a role that he’s often unrecognisable in, the quality of the make up obliterating the actor/director’s angular features; he’s like a poster child for rampant, self-inflicted dissolution. What Everett captures perfectly is the sense of a man who knows his life is effectively over, but who clings to it, desperately, and however he can, even if it’s inappropriate (his drinking etc.). Everett, who also wrote the script, is a confident, detailed director, and he has a good eye for composition that some more practiced directors would be envious of. He’s an unselfish actor too, allowing the likes of Morgan and Thomas to shine in roles that might otherwise have appeared to be in subservience to the orbit of Everett’s own. That the movie isn’t as heavy going as it looks is another testament to the skill with which Everett assembles the various elements of Wilde’s post-prison experiences, and the way he weaves the story of the Happy Prince through the narrative, and has it reflect the state of Wilde’s own life depending on where the story has gotten to. For a first-time writer/director, Everett has revealed himself to be someone who should be encouraged to get behind the camera again as quickly as possible.

Rating: 8/10 – though the movie examines the tragedy of Wilde’s final years, The Happy Prince isn’t the depressing, maudlin experience that some viewers might be expecting, and instead is a quietly powerful expression of the will to survive in the bleakest of circumstances and surroundings; with effective supporting turns from the likes of Firth, Watson and Wilkinson, and appropriately gloomy cinematography by John Conroy, this is yet another potent reminder of Wilde the man, and his legacy.

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CinemAbility (2012)

04 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Disability, Documentary, History, Jamie Foxx, Jane Seymour, Jenni Gold, Marlee Matlin, Movies, Representation, Richard Donner, William H. Macy

D: Jenni Gold / 98m

With: Jane Seymour, Ben Affleck, Beau Bridges, Geena Davis, Richard Donner, Peter Farrelly, Rick Finkelstein, Jamie Foxx, Taylor Hackford, Robert David Hall, Gale Anne Hurd, William H. Macy, Camryn Manheim, Garry Marshall, Marlee Matlin, RJ Mitte, Martin F. Norden, Graeme Sinclair, Gary Sinise, James Troesh, Danny Woodburn

Hands up anyone who can remember what Hiccup’s disability is in the How to Train Your Dragon movies. No? Well, he lost his left leg, and needed a prosthesis. Now, don’t be sorry or feel you have to apologise for not remembering that, because for once, Hiccup’s disability didn’t define his character, or stop him continuing to take to the skies with Toothless. It’s an almost perfect representation of a disability as portrayed in a movie. It gets a scene, and an acknowledgment, and then the character carries on as before. But as Jenni Gold’s perceptive and illuminating documentary shows us, it’s not always been this way. Beginning with a look back at the very early days of cinema, and the first portrayal of a disability in the movies, in The Fake Beggar (1898), Gold shows how Hollywood (in particular) and disabled characters have had an uneasy relationship. The standard approach was accepted but patronising: if you’re disabled and good, you’ll be rewarded; if you’re disabled and bad, you’ll be punished.

Stereotypical approaches such as these lasted for a long time, and though ex-Army veteran Harold Russell came along in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and impressed both critics and audiences alike (and bagged two Oscars for his role in the process, a feat never repeated since), disabled people were still cruelly under-represented in movies and television until the Sixties, when attitudes began to change and disabilities began to be portrayed in a much more responsible, and more inclusive, fashion. From TV’s Ironside (1967-1975), to the Oscar-winning Coming Home (1978), disabilities started to become more and more accepted in the mainstream, but as CinemAbility points out, it was a slow process. Momentum continued to be gained through the Eighties and Nineties, but it’s only really in the last fifteen years or so that portrayals of disability have become more prevalent and/or accepted. There’s still the old argument about whether a non-disabled actor should play a disabled character, and some movies, such as Million Dollar Baby (2004) still come under fire for being ostensibly negative, but by and large the industry is getting to grips with the idea that disabled characters are a part of society and shouldn’t be excluded.

For many of us, disability is something that we’re aware of, but don’t always see. Perhaps the most telling moment in the movie is when William H. Macy, who has been a spokesperson for United Cerebral Palsy since 2002, admits that the script he’s currently writing doesn’t include a disabled character – because he never thought of it. And if anything – and aside from all the expected quotes about how disabled people shouldn’t be treated differently, and how they can do anything that “normal” people can do – Macy’s admission is the key to the whole issue: if even those with a good understanding of disabilities aren’t on the “right wavelength”, how can progress be consistent? Or be counted as progress? It’s a weighty message in a movie that strikes a fine balance between the seriousness of its subject matter and the humour that’s never too far away from the whole issue (witness the clips from Jim Troesh’s The Hollywood Quad (2008) and make your mind up if laughter and disability can’t go hand in prosthetic). Gold has assembled a good selection of disabled and non-disabled interviewees, all of whom offer views and opinions that are relevant, and the historical perspective allows for glimpses of political and social advances through the years, and the impact they’ve had on the disabled community. It’s a thought-provoking documentary, honest and sincere, and very, very entertaining.

Rating: 8/10 – with a plethora of anecdotes and reminiscences that illustrate the continuing struggle that disabled actors and movie makers have in being accepted on the same level as everyone else, CinemAbility is a timely reminder that there’s still a lot of work to be done in achieving full inclusivity; touching on key milestones such as The Miracle Worker (1962) and My Left Foot (1989), there’s a wealth of overlooked detail here that also serves as a potent reminder of what has been achieved so far.

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Mary Shelley (2017)

03 Sunday Jun 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Biography, Douglas Booth, Drama, Elle Fanning, Frankenstein, Haifaa Al Mansour, History, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, Review, Romance, True story

D: Haifaa al-Mansour / 120m

Cast: Elle Fanning, Douglas Booth, Stephen Dillane, Bel Powley, Tom Sturridge, Joanne Froggatt, Ben Hardy, Maisie Williams

London, 1813. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Fanning) is the sixteen year old daughter of bookseller and political philosopher, William Godwin (Dillane). Mary is wilful, and more interested in reading and writing than contributing to the household chores, and this in turn causes bad feelings with her stepmother (Froggatt). Things come to a head and Mary is sent to stay with one of her father’s friends in Scotland. There she meets the young poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (Booth), and an attraction develops between them. When Mary returns to London, Shelley follows her and their relationship deepens, even though Mary learns Shelley is married and has a child. Leaving her family home along with her stepsister Claire Clairmont (Powley), the pair and Shelley at first live in less than impressive surroundings until Shelley comes into some money. An invitation through Claire to stay with notorious poet and philanderer Lord Byron (Sturridge) near Geneva in the summer of 1816 comes just at the right time: Shelley’s creditors are literally knocking at the door. Once there, a challenge from Byron to write a ghost story led Mary to begin writing the novel that would seal her fame and her reputation…

A heritage picture with all the attendant tropes that go with it, Mary Shelley focuses on the early romantic life of the creator of Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus, and does its best to show the trials and tribulations that made up Mary’s life, but without connecting them convincingly with the writing of her classic novel. With any historical biography, the problem lies in recreating an acceptable and authentic sounding series of events to illustrate how a novel, a painting, or a similar work of art came into being. Emma Jensen’s original screenplay does its best – there’s the loss of Mary’s mother shortly after she was born, a theatrical display of galvanism, querulous thoughts on an afterlife – but it can’t quite make us believe that Mary was destined to write her “ghost story” in the way that the script would have us accept. There’s both encouragement and discouragement from Shelley, Mary’s own determination to prove a patriarchal society that it’s dismissal of the efforts of women is wrong, and inevitably, the support of her father at a crucial point in the novel’s publication. That these things happened is not necessarily in dispute, but the way in which they’re laid out is unfortunately quite mundane.

This proves a detriment to the movie overall, with al-Mansour’s efforts held in check by the demands of the feel and shape of the narrative, which is respectful without being passionate, and fluid though without feeling driven. There are the requisite setbacks and tragedies on display, and they come at their expected moments, and so much so that you can tick them off as you watch. This leaves Fanning somewhat adrift in a movie that her peformance dominates, and which allows her to show a greater range and skill in her portrayal of Mary than is usually the case. In support, Booth is a gifted yet emotionally petulant Shelley, Powley is terrific as the envious stepsister trying to make her own mark through an unfortunate dalliance with Byron, and Dillane does seemingly little, but to such good effect that he’s the focus of every scene he’s in. al-Mansour, following up her debut feature Wadjda (2012), is a great choice as director but again is defeated by the apparent requirements for making a period picture. It’s ironic then, that a movie about the creator of a literary figure brought to life by lightning, lacks the spark needed to bring it’s own tale fully to life.

Rating: 6/10 – it looks good (thanks to David Ungaro’s sterling cinematography), and it’s replete with good performances, but Mary Shelley is ultimately too pedestrian in nature and presentation to linger in the memory; the romance between Mary and Percy fizzles out in a perfunctory “that’s done” fashion, her stance as a proto-feminist (and the nominal ease with which she overcomes the gender prejudice of the times) is clunky, and is undermined by the movie’s end, where her fame and fortune is guaranteed by the intervention of her lover and her father – and there’s further irony for you.

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Cleopatra (1934)

28 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Cecil B. DeMille, Claudette Colbert, Drama, Egypt, Henry Wilcoxon, History, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Remake, Review, Rome, Warren William

D: Cecil B. DeMille / 100m

Cast: Claudette Colbert, Warren William, Henry Wilcoxon, Joseph Schildkraut, Ian Keith, Gertrude Michael, C. Aubrey Smith, Irving Pichel

After his previous movie, Four Frightened People (1934), died at the box office, legendary director Cecil B. DeMille was charged with making an historical epic with “lots of sex in it”. DeMille, who knew exactly how to infuse his movies with sin when required, decided on a remake of the original 1917 version starring Clara Bow (that version is now lost, sadly). And with the Hays Code only just coming into force, DeMille had to move quickly. His intentions are clear from the start: the movie opens with a shot of a strategically lit woman who looks naked. And he doesn’t stop there. Star Claudette Colbert (not necessarily the first choice for a role bordering on that of a femme fatale) wears a succession of skimpy, revealing outfits, and DeMille ensures that there are plenty of equally skimpily clothed handmaidens and dancers lurking in the background. For a movie made in 1934, it’s remarkably en point when it comes to selling sex to the masses. And that’s without all the writhing and the coquettish looks and the inference that life in Rome and Egypt was one long round of hedonism punctuated by the occasional war.

But while DeMille keeps the focus mainly on a number of entertainments and festivities that litter the movie, the story suffers as a result. While the basics are there, this isn’t the movie to quote as an historical record. That aside, Cleopatra’s seduction of Caesar (William) plays out against a backdrop of Egyptian political intrigue before shifting to include Roman political intrigue (“Caesar! Beware of the ides of March!”), and her subsequent romantic entanglement with Mark Antony (Wilcoxon) plays out against a backdrop of Egyptian and Roman political intrigue. It’s a two-act movie with both acts appearing interchangeable with one another, and with only the contrast between William’s starchy Caesar and Wilcoxon’s rambunctious Antony to let the viewer know which one they’re seeing. It doesn’t help that the movie is also littered with some of the worst dialogue in an historical epic heard before or since (Caesar: “I picked a flower in Britain once, the color of your eyes”). The performances are reasonable in comparison, but Colbert has a hard time convincing the viewer she’s someone that one powerful man could fall in love with, let alone two – and in quick succession.

This being a Cecil B. DeMille movie though, the acting, the script and the dialogue are the least of the director’s worries. What’s important here is the spectacle, the sense of immense proportions and its impact. This is a movie that screams “production designed to within an inch of its gaudy life”. There are sets the size of football fields, with ceilings that remain out of sight no matter how hard you look, and rear walls that are so far back from the camera they might as well have their own time zone. It’s excess on a super-grand scale, and DeMille keeps the camera lingering over the sheer enormity of it all, from Cleopatra’s barge to her triumphant arrival in Rome (which was overshadowed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1963 version). Victor Milner’s lush, exuberant cinematography captures it all (he also won an Academy Award for his efforts), but it’s the efforts of uncredited art directors Hans Dreier and Roland Anderson, along with costume designer Vicky Williams (also uncredited) that truly stand out. Without them, DeMille would have had a movie with no sets and naked stars. (And he would probably have been fine with that.)

Rating: 6/10 – a turgid script by Waldemar Young and Vincent Lawrence is rescued in entertainment terms by DeMille’s insistence on everything being more sumptuous than is humanly possible, and with as many scantily clad starlets hovering around as possible; the story is weak, the chemistry between Colbert and William is something that never convinces, and Wilcoxon at times looks and sounds like Guinn “Big Boy” Williams – and that’s definitely not a compliment.

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Kuleana (2017)

16 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Brian Kohne, Drama, Hawaii, History, Kristina Anapau, Land development, Moronai Kanekoa, Mystery, Review, Sonya Balmores, Stefan C. Schaefer

D: Brian Kohne / 95m

Cast: Moronai Kanekoa, Sonya Balmores, Kristina Anapau, Stefan C. Schaefer, Augie Tulba, Marlene Sai, Branscombe Richmond, Mel Cabang, Vene Chun, Kainoa Horcajo, Steven Dascoulias

Hawaii, 1971. Nohea (Kanekoa) has returned home from Vietnam minus his left leg from the knee down, and with an uncertain future. He’s under pressure to sell the land his family has lived on for generations, and his grandmother (Sai), the current family elder, isn’t well enough to stop him. Things become even more complicated when his Aunt Rose (Anapau) appears to have committed suicide. Rose was married to a property developer who came from the mainland, Victor Coyle (Schaefer). In 1959, their adopted daughter, Kimberly, and Nohea’s father (Horcajo), disappeared. Victor accused Nohea’s father of kidnapping Kimberly, but as no trace of them was ever found, both are now presumed dead. Rose’s death brings the past and the present into sharp focus as Nohea tries to make sense of what happened twelve years ago, while also trying to fit back into a life and a culture that he’s lost his connection to. With Coyle intent on buying up as much land as possible for his own financial gain, and Nohea being drawn into Rose’s death, Kimberly’s sudden reappearance brings even further problems.

Kuleana is the Hawaiian word for responsibility. It’s a word that hangs heavy over writer-director Brian Kohne’s second feature, a sincere, culturally sensitive drama that unfolds patiently and with quiet skill. It’s a movie that focuses on the characters first and the drama second, but which also ties them together so that as the twin stories unfold in both 1959 and 1971, the characters drive the events that happen much more than they react to them. Pitched against a backdrop of the continued homogenisation of Hawaiian culture by US influences – Coyle’s development plans inevitably make no room for maintaining any traditions or beliefs about the land – the movie shows how the erosion of cultural values was taking its toll. Nohea’s conflicted struggle to make sense of his own future is reflected in the attitudes of his uncle, Bossy (Chun), who supports Coyle’s plans, and The Moke (Richmond), an enforcer for a local mobster (Cabang) who finds it increasingly difficult to put aside his tribal roots. By showing the political and social divisions that were prevalent at the time, Kohne ensures the movie is more than about the mystery surrounding Rose’s death, or if Kimberly’s return will complicate matters.

Kohne gets his message across clearly and concisely, and makes the most of a limited budget. Dan Hersey’s cinematography highlights the natural beauty of the Maui locations without making them look like picture postcard versions of themselves, while Adi Ell-Ad’s fluid yet measured editing ensures the narrative plays out in confident style and at a good pace. The performances are good, with Kanekoa giving an understated yet compelling portrayal of a man trying not to be at odds with his heritage, while Balmores carries the weight of the wrongs done to Kimberly with a steely determination. As Coyle, Schaefer is stuck with the one character who doesn’t have an arc but who does have a bad wig, and Anapau, as Rose, doesn’t get the opportunity to do more with her pivotal role than is absolutely necessary. This is due to the demands of the main storyline, and is therefore unavoidable, but Rose is one character we could have spent more time with. Kohne adds some magical realism into the mix to good effect, but scores even higher with his choice of Willie K and Johnny Wilson for the score. Their efforts, combined with a soundtrack that includes a poignant use of Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale, add an emotional layer that complements and enhances the material from beginning to end.

Rating: 8/10 – despite some story elements that are either prosaic and/or predictable, Kuleana is an involving, credible drama that ensures its Hawaiian cultural backdrop is just as important as its central storyline; if this is an example of what can be achieved by Hawaiian movie makers working “at home”, then let’s hope that there will be many more opportunities for them to do so in the future.

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All the Way (2016)

14 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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1964, American politics, Anthony Mackie, Bryan Cranston, Civil rights, Drama, Frank Langella, History, Jay Roach, LBJ, Melissa Leo, Review, US President

D: Jay Roach / 132m

Cast: Bryan Cranston, Anthony Mackie, Melissa Leo, Frank Langella, Bradley Whitford, Stephen Root, Todd Weeks, Ray Wise, Ken Jenkins, Dohn Norwood, Mo McRae, Marque Richardson, Aisha Hinds, Joe Morton

In the wake of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, newly sworn in (and ex-Vice) President Lyndon B. Johnson (Cranston) referred to himself as the “accidental President”. Kennedy’s death and Johnson’s sudden ascent to the highest position in US politics may have come as a shock, but Johnson was a firm believer in the ideals and policies of his predecessor in the White House. The Civil Rights Bill was one such ideal, and one of Johnson’s earliest statements to the Press confirmed his intention to have the Bill passed into law within the coming year. Inevitably, Johnson encountered opposition to his plan, but from within his own party, the Democrats. Political factions in the South tried to stop the Bill from being passed. Even Johnson’s mentor, Richard Russell Jr (Langella), worked against him, while Johnson sought support from Martin Luther King Jr (Mackie). Through a series of political manoeuvrings and confrontations, Johnson succeeded in getting the bill passed, even after removing a critical section that would have enabled blacks to have voting rights. But then there was the small matter of campaigning to be elected President…

Adapted by Robert Schenkkan from his original play of the same name, All the Way covers that fateful first year in the wake of Kennedy’s death. It’s an absorbing, deftly handled movie that packs in a lot of exposition while also finding time to explore the character and the personality of a President who, outside of the US at least, isn’t as well known as some of his predecessors and successors. Johnson was President at a pivotal time in American history, and by focusing on his first year in office, the movie shows just how dedicated he was to making huge social and political changes happen. And thanks to the combination of Schenkkan’s skill as a writer, and Cranston’s skill as an actor, the complexity of the man is brought vividly to life. Johnson the President is shown as tough, determined, and something of a bully. Johnson the man is shown as being wracked by doubt, and insecurity. Cranston gives possibly his finest performance as LBJ, inhabiting the role to such an extent that it’s easy to forget that it’s Cranston at all (though he is helped by a superb makeup job).

As well as depicting the various sides to Johnson, Schenkkan and director Jay Roach take care to flesh out the supporting characters, and ensure they’re not there just to give LBJ someone to square off with. As MLK, Mackie is patient and implacable, pushing LBJ to do what’s right, while Leo offers dignified and persuasive support as Johnson’s wife, Lady Bird. Langella is equally good as the experienced politician who finds himself outwitted by his protegé (and feels betrayed by him), and there’s further sterling support from Whitford (as future Vice President Hubert Humphrey), Root (as J. Edgar Hoover), and Weeks (as Walter Jenkins, LBJ’s top aide). Roach keeps things fairly simple, though there are moments where the political ramifications of certain decisions may confound viewers not up to speed on the issues of the time (and despite Schenkkan’s best efforts). However, this is compelling stuff that begins slowly and gradually builds up speed as it heads toward Election Night in November 1964. If there is one issue, though, that the movie itself never overcomes, it’s the flatness of Jim Denault’s cinematography. This may be a TV movie, but there are times when the image feels lifeless and looks unappealing. A little more sheen would have made this as impressive to watch as its content.

Rating: 8/10 – a history lesson that’s often as moving as it is educational, All the Way benefits from Roach’s assured direction, Schenkkan’s fascinating exploration of LBJ’s first year as President, and a standout turn by Cranston as the man himself; in shining a spotlight on a tumultuous period in 60’s American politics, it serves as a potent reminder of what can happen when a good man has his hand firmly on the wheel of change.

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HHhH (2017)

12 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Assassination, Cédric Jimenez, Drama, History, Jack O'Connell, Jack Reynor, Jason Clarke, Literary adaptation, Mia Wasikowska, Reinhard Heydrich, Review, Rosamund Pike, Thriller, World War II

aka Killing Heydrich; The Man With the Iron Heart

D: Cédric Jimenez / 120m

Cast: Jason Clarke, Rosamund Pike, Jack O’Connell, Jack Reynor, Mia Wasikowska, Stephen Graham, Thomas M. Wright, Noah Jupe, Geoff Bell, Enzo Cilenti, Volker Bruch, David Rintoul, David Horovitch, Abigail Lawrie, Adam Nagaitis

Let’s get this out of the way right from the start: HHhH is an odd movie. In fact, it’s very odd. Not because of the title, which is an acronym for Himmlers Hirn heißt Heydrich (Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich, a quip you wouldn’t dare repeat back then), and not because you have to wade through a long list of actors before you find someone whose first language is actually German or Czechoslovakian. No, what makes the movie so odd is that, for a drama based around the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (Clarke), keen violinist and one of the main architects of the Final Solution, it lacks ambition and drive, and often moves from scene to scene as if seeking the right direction in which to move forward. It also lacks focus, telling us much about Heydrich’s early life in its first twenty minutes (including his love of fencing, and his dishonourable discharge from the German Navy), but then failing to link it all to anything that happens once he’s fully committed to being a Nazi.

Like a lot of members of the Nazi Party, Heydrich went from being something of a nobody to somebody wielding quite a lot of power in a very short space of time, and the movie recognises this. However, thanks to the vagaries of the script, and Clarke’s gloomy demeanour throughout, Heydrich remains a sadistic bully boy in adult’s clothing – and just that. No one is looking for the movie to redeem Heydrich in some way (though that would make it more interesting), but for all its attempts at trying to shine a spotlight on his pre-Nazi activities, they’re all left abandoned as the movie progresses. Instead we see Heydrich’s rise to prominence through the patronage of, first, his wife, Lina von Osten (Pike playing Lady Macbeth as if her career depends upon it), and then, second, Heinrich Himmler (Graham playing Hitler’s right hand man as the uncle you do visit). He does some expectedly nasty things, behaves unconscionably whenever possible, and then his story, with over an hour of the movie to go, takes a back seat to Operation Anthropoid.

By changing its focus nearly halfway through, Jimenez’s movie only narrowly avoids feeling schizophrenic. As we’re introduced to Jan Kubiš (O’Connell) and Jozef Gabčík (Reynor), the two men chosen to head up the assassination attempt, we also get to meet a whole roster of new characters that we don’t have time to get to know or care about. And once Heydrich is out of the way, the terrible reprisals carried out by the Nazis are represented by the razing of Lidice (which actually happened), but in such a brusque way that it makes it obvious that HHhH wants to move on quickly to address the fate of Kubiš and Gabčík and their compatriots – which goes on for far too long and features the kind of gung-ho heroics that only a movie would feel was appropriate. Add the fact that the script – by Jiminez, Audrey Diwan and David Farr from Laurent Binet’s novel – is represented by some of the blandest, most depressing cinematography seen in recent years, and you have a movie that is tonally awkward, flatly directed, and which flirts in earnest with having nothing meaningful to say.

Rating: 5/10 – clunky and dour, and only sporadically engaging, HHhH tells its story as if it was being forced to – and the whole process is painful; a missed opportunity would be putting it mildly, but the movie’s very oddness allows for a certain fascination to develop as the movie unfolds, making it watchable if you don’t expect too much from it.

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Monthly Roundup – January 2018

31 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Original title: Familien fieber

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Victoria & Abdul (2017)

11 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Ali Fazal, Drama, Eddie Izzard, History, Judi Dench, Mohur, Munshi, Queen Victoria, Review, Stephen Frears, Tim Pigott-Smith, True story

D: Stephen Frears / 111m

Cast: Judi Dench, Ali Fazal, Eddie Izzard, Tim Pigott-Smith, Adeel Akhtar, Michael Gambon, Paul Higgins, Olivia Williams, Fenella Woolgar, Julian Wadham, Robin Soans, Simon Callow

There’s a saying that “history repeats itself”, and it’s an apt concept when discussing the latest slice of heritage cinema concerning Queen Victoria and the post-Albert years that saw her decline in health if not in will. In Victoria & Abdul, the Queen (Dench) has been a widow for twenty-six years. It’s also 1887 and the British Empire is celebrating fifty years of Victoria’s reign. As part of the celebrations, two Muslims are sent from India to present a mohur, a special gold coin, to the Queen. One is a prison clerk, Abdul Karim (Fazal). Bored with the fawning antics of her inner circle and courtiers, Victoria develops an interest in Abdul and makes him her “munshi”, a native language teacher. Soon, Abdul is teaching her Urdu and instructing her in the Quran. Of course, this horrifies the Queen’s household, as well as her son, Bertie (Izzard), and efforts are made to discredit Abdul or reduce the increasing influence he has on Victoria through their friendship. But the Queen refuses to listen, and Abdul remains at her side for the remainder of her reign…

Much of that previous sentence could be rewritten to reflect the turbulent friendship that Victoria experienced with John Brown, her Scottish manservant. That relationship occurred post-Albert and pre-Abdul, but there are remarkable similarities between the two men that would make watching this and Mrs. Brown (1997) something of an exercise in deliberately instilled déjà vu. Suffice it to say, the similarities don’t end there. The active racism of the period is front and centre, as is the general xenophobia of the Queen’s household, but the distaste with which Abdul’s presence is regarded is pushed to the fore on too many occasions for it to remain effective. It’s a given that there’s going to be a resistance from the Establishment over Abdul’s perceived influence, but in the end this is the main focus of the movie and the source of much of the drama, whether it’s Eddie Izzard’s churlish Bertie looking miffed behind his beard, or Tim Pigott-Smith’s equerry, Sir Henry Ponsonby, being rebuffed at every turn in his efforts to undermine Abdul’s position. Efforts are made or attempted to have Abdul removed, Victoria stands firm against these impositions, and then – repeat. This does allow the movie to maintain a certain rhythm, but the repetitive nature of the screenplay (plus the story’s inevitable ending) leaves the movie feeling more and more dramatically redundant as it progresses.

But while the material may feel a little fusty, there’s no denying the energy of Stephen Frears’ direction, or the merits of the performances. Frears is too experienced to let the predictable nature of the material get in the way of stopping him from making an entertaining and enjoyable movie, and this is the case with Victoria & Abdul. Frears has the confidence to alter the mood of a scene on the turn of a sentence or the change of a look, and he does so on several occasions, and often through observing the characters in repose or in thought. Judi Dench gives another exemplary portrayal of Victoria, and it’s one that reveals several hidden layers to the character, all of which highlight the often lonely and fragile nature of the Queen at that time, while also reinforcing her reputation for being obstinate and direct. As Abdul, Fazal has much less to do, but still makes a good impression in a portrayal that, despite being that of a title character, is effectively a supporting role. The rest of the cast, all seasoned professionals who could carry off this sort of thing in their collective sleep, encourage the familiarity of the period and the material, and it’s all beautifully rendered by DoP Danny Cohen, who is something of an unsung hero in the world of cinematography.

Rating: 7/10 – though put together with enough due care and attention to ensure that watching it is a gratifying experience for the most part, Victoria & Abdul remains a standard piece of history-telling that won’t surprise viewers in any way at all; the cinematic equivalent then of a pair of comfy slippers, this avoids being bland and unremarkable thanks to the talent involved, and because everyone still enjoys seeing the Establishment being thwarted at every turn in its machinations.

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RKO 281 (1999)

19 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Benjamin Ross, Catch Up movie, Drama, History, James Cromwell, John Malkovich, Liev Schreiber, Melanie Griffith, Orson Welles, Review, RKO Pictures, True story, William Randolph Hearst

D: Benjamin Ross / 87m

Cast: Liev Schreiber, James Cromwell, Melanie Griffith, John Malkovich, Brenda Blethyn, Roy Scheider, Liam Cunningham, David Suchet, Fiona Shaw, Anastasia Hille

In 1939, Orson Welles (Schreiber), the “boy wonder”, signed a movie contract with RKO Pictures. He was given unprecedented freedom to make whatever movie he wanted (though RKO hoped he would make a movie version of his infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast). After two attempts at making his first picture, Welles, along with old friend and writer Herman J. Mankiewicz (Malkovich) came up with the idea of making a loosely fictionalised version of the life of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst (Cromwell). Welles regarded Hearst as a hypocrite and a monster, a man richly deserving of being exposed in much the same way that Hearst’s newspapers had done to others. Welles considered he had nothing to lose by making such a movie, but before long it became something much more personal, and with a great deal of meaning for him. RKO 281 – Citizen Kane‘s production number – shows how the movie came to be made, some of the pitfalls along the way, and the pressure Hearst tried to exert in order to make the movie disappear without the public ever seeing it.

Like many an acknowledged classic, Citizen Kane didn’t just appear out of nowhere. In RKO 281, we see the genesis of both the myth and the legend, and the movie itself. After a year in Hollywood, and with nothing to show for his efforts, Welles was already being looked upon as a failure, a circumstance that didn’t bother him in the slightest, but which would spur him on to make a movie that is generally regarded as the best American movie ever made. Based in part on the documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane (1996), RKO 281 begins with Welles’ arrival in Hollywood, his fame preceeding him. Persuaded to come out there by RKO head George J. Schaefer (Scheider), Welles attends a dinner held by Hearst and is appalled by the man’s attitude and takes immediate offence. Soon he’s telling Mankiewicz that Hearst is the perfect subject for his first movie. But Mankiewicz isn’t so sure and tries to warn Welles of the trouble he’ll face if he goes ahead with his plan.

Soon, however, they have a screenplay, and though the two men have a falling out over Mankiewicz’s name being removed from the final script, the movie goes ahead and production begins in earnest. But Welles is soon behind, his quest for perfection causing delays and production overspends. The industry, still unaware of the content of Welles’ movie, predicts it will be a disaster. It’s only when news of its focus reaches the ears of Hearst that the possibility of its truly being a disaster becomes more likely. Determined to ensure that the movie, originally titled American, is never shown in cinemas, Hearst brings pressure to bear on the heads of the other studios, partly by playing the race card – that the heads were all Jewish wasn’t widely known or acknowledged – and partly by threatening to expose the immoral activities of their stars. While everyone else around him views Hearst as being entirely capable of destroying Welles’ career, and their own if he so wishes, it’s left to Welles to fight for his movie. Help, though, comes in an unexpected form…

The story behind the making of Citizen Kane is often as fascinating as the actual movie itself, and though RKO 281 uses The Battle Over Citizen Kane as its template for John Logan’s vigorous screenplay, there’s still a sense that this is a movie going over old ground, and without achieving the same effect. Logan certainly hits his mark as it were, and there are some priceless lines of dialogue – Mankiewicz on San Simeon, the massive estate where Hearst lived: “it’s the place God would have built if he had the money” – but once Hearst becomes aware of just how much of his life Welles has appropriated for Citizen Kane, the movie makes an unjustified attempt at becoming a thriller, with Welles’ career on the line versus Hearst’s reputation. And despite a passionate performance by Schreiber, and with the outcome already known in advance, the movie struggles to make Hearst’s threats as worrying as they must have been at the time, and he comes across as a petulant control freak. The same can be said for Welles also, and the movie makes the point several times over that the two men were very similar, but in doing this so often, it lessens the impact of what the movie is trying to say.

Before then, the movie focuses on the making of Citizen Kane, and here the movie is on firmer ground, replicating the ups and downs of the production with a great deal of enthusiasm, and recreating events such as the time that Welles had a massive hole dug in the studio floor to facilitate a particular low-level shot he wanted (apparently he never thought of raising the set instead). His relationship with the cinematographer, Gregg Toland (Cunningham) is also explored, but ultimately it’s his friendship with Mankiewicz that gets the most screen time, and the ways in which Welles exploited his friend’s talent. Both Schreiber and Malkovich relish the dialogue they’re given in their scenes together, and these scenes are some of the best in the movie, with both men sparking and feeding off each other to very good effect. Cromwell injects a little bit of pathos into his portrayal of Hearst, but it’s not enough to offset the idea that here is a man whose monomania – himself – has become a lifestyle choice. As the former silent actress Marion Davies, Griffith gives a sympathetic and sincere performance, while Scheider is equally good as the put-upon studio head who puts his career on the line to ensure Welles succeeds in getting his own off the ground.

The movie is attractively shot and lit by DoP Mike Southon, and there are some well chosen contemporary numbers on the soundtrack, but though the script is good enough to tell the story in a slightly lumbering fashion (there are very few highs and lows to help capture the intensity of the production itself), Ross’s direction is too pedestrian to elevate the material above that of solid and dependable. Too many scenes lack the energy to push the narrative forward with any real conviction, while others are repetitive in nature, as if the audience wouldn’t understand things the first time. And that’s without the scene near the end where the story contrives to have Welles and Hearst alone in an elevator – let the verbal sparring commence! It’s an unnecessary cinematic cliché that’s included in a movie about another movie that was anything but clichéd.

Rating: 7/10 – a mixed bag of a movie, with good performances overcoming several narrative slip-ups, RKO 281 is mostly intriguing if you don’t know the story, and fairly run of the mill if you do; still, it’s a movie that’s largely entertaining despite itself, and as a passive recreation of the making of one of the most influential features of all time, it’s effective without being too demanding. (18/31)

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I Am Not Your Negro (2016)

26 Monday Jun 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Civil rights, Documentary, History, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Racism, Raoul Peck, Remember This House, Review, Samuel L. Jackson

D: Raoul Peck / 93m

With: Samuel L. Jackson, James Baldwin (archive footage)

In 1957, the writer, visionary, poet and humanist James Baldwin returned to the US having spent the last nine years living in Paris, France. He was thirty-three. Soon he was at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement, and was touring the South giving lectures on his views on racial inequality. In six short years he had become such a well known supporter of the movement that his writings and speeches on the matter were listened to with respect on both sides of the debate. His views on the Civil Rights movement, and his ability to see the issue from both sides, arose out of his seeing first hand the effects of integration, along with his relationships with the leading players of the time. In 1979, Baldwin committed to write a book about America based on the lives of his three friends, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr, and Malcolm X. He wrote just thirty pages of notes before abandoning the project, which he’d entitled Remember This House. It’s these notes, and a collection of interviews and speeches given by Baldwin over the years, as well as contemporary footage and clips from the movies, that have been brought together to form I Am Not Your Negro.

Baldwin was a natural thinker and orator, precise in his arguments and astute in his observations, and there are many moments in the movie where those attributes are given their due. An appearance on The Dick Cavett Show in 1968 sees Baldwin express his concerns for the future of the US (while an entirely uncomfortable Cavett looks as if he can’t wait for the interview to be over). It’s a short excerpt, but it shows just how much consideration Baldwin had given to the idea that things were improving for the black man in America, something that clearly worried him. His answer is far from comforting, and in many ways, is a foreshadowing of events to come, such as the Rodney King incident, or the Black Panthers. The movie expressly and explicitly reveals Baldwin’s thoughts on these matters, and particularly the way in which he felt that politics and the media were attempting to reassure the American public that progress was being made, when in truth it was stalled, held up at a point when progress could and should have been made. He was an optimist, but a realist too, and as a result his views could appear pessimistic, but Baldwin would have denied this. He’s telling his truth as he sees it, and he wants everyone to make up their own minds about the necessity for racial violence and intolerance.

Baldwin’s observations are supported by archival footage that goes back to the pre-War era, where his disdain for actors such as Mantan Moreland and Stepin Fetchit – who essayed stereotypical black characters in movies in the Thirties and Forties – helped to enforce his beliefs about America’s racist, institutional characteristics, and the difficulty of getting an entire culture to change its way of thinking. The movie sees Baldwin chipping away at that sort of intransigence, asking uncomfortable questions, making uncomfortable statements (he refers to Gary Cooper and Doris Day as “two of the most grotesque appeals to innocence the world has ever seen”), and challenging the average white man to ask himself why he feels so threatened by the presence of the black man.

But the main focus is on the lives of his friends, three martyrs to the cause who died for their beliefs, and who in their different ways, were committed to overthrowing the institutional racism that permeated the US during the first half of the 20th century (and long before), and which they sought to eradicate through their efforts. Their methods were different, their personalities were different, but their goal was the same, and Baldwin is their chronicler, a self-confessed witness to a time when change seemed inevitable, and where Evers’ activism, King Jr’s passive ministrations, and Malcolm X’s angry dissention caused such waves amongst the white establishment that their deaths seemed almost inevitable. Baldwin’s anguish at each man’s death is relayed through his thoughts at the time, and they are poignant, studied and powerful, brief meditations on the nature of loss and the repercussions that followed. But through it all, Baldwin’s composure and his awareness of the continuing struggle ensures he has no time to be maudlin.

In assembling the various strands needed to paint such a vivid portrait of a man and his times, director Raoul Peck has succeeded in drawing together these various strands in such a judicious way that they both highlight and underline the points Baldwin makes, and reaffirm just how acute his intellect was. He was a thoughtful and thought-provoking commentator on a period of civil upheaval that is still being dissected even today, and Peck has chosen fittingly in terms of Baldwin’s presence in front of the cameras. There must have been occasions when Baldwin was more loquacious than subdued, but if he was, Peck hasn’t included those moments, and the man’s measured, heedful expressions of dismay and apprehension are given their due, and backed by archival footage that is both relevant and, on occasion, deliberately shocking. The movie paints a portrait of a time when the hopes of millions of black Americans were routinely sabotaged by the efforts of a white majority savagely defending itself from censure, and its condemnation of those tactics is absolute. And still it celebrates the resilience of the men and women who fought to improve their place and their standing in America.

Baldwin’s off-camera musings and thoughts are more than adequately expressed by Samuel L. Jackson, and it’s a measure of Jackson’s skill as a voice actor that he’s not always recognisable as Samuel L. Jackson. He doesn’t attempt to sound like Baldwin, but he does offer a knowing detachment when reciting Baldwin’s comments about himself. These comments are often full of self-doubt and muted reflection, something that gives the audience the sense that no matter how eloquent he might have been in print or on camera, Baldwin was as readily unsure of himself as anyone else might be. One thing the movie isn’t though, is unsure of itself, and it moves confidently between Baldwin’s observations on America’s tolerance for racial lassitude, and a broader history of the struggle for civil rights. It makes a number of salient points, acts as a primer for the issues involved, and serves as a reminder that the fight for equality still goes on today, and is just as important as ever.

Rating: 9/10 – a powerful and emotive subject as seen through the eyes of one of its most shrewd and capable observers, I Am Not Your Negro is an expertly assembled chronicle of a period in recent American history whose ramifications are still being felt today; succinct and incisive, Baldwin’s prose and oratory act as an entry point for a topic that can be explored in so many different ways, but what can’t be ignored is how much of what he says and reveals seems so obvious now to those of us looking back.

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017)

31 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Cells, Drama, George C. Wolfe, HeLa immortal cell line, History, Johns Hopkins, Medical research, Oprah Winfrey, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Review, Rose Byrne, True story

D: George C. Wolfe / 93m

Cast: Oprah Winfrey, Rose Byrne, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Reg E. Cathey, Courtney B. Vance, Rocky Carroll, Leslie Uggams, Reed Birney, John Douglas Thompson, Adriane Lenox, Roger Robinson, John Beasley, Peter Gerety, Gabriel Ebert, John Benjamin Hickey, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Byron Jennings

Without the HeLa immortal cell line, it’s unlikely that many solutions to many medical conditions would have been arrived at as quickly as they have. A breakthrough in medical research, the cancer cells taken from then thirty-year-old Henrietta Lacks during the summer of 1951, have meant literally the difference between life and death for people all over the world. In the years since their discovery, it’s estimated that scientists have grown around twenty tons of Henrietta’s cells, and there have been approximately eleven thousand patents registered that involve HeLa cells. But even though Henrietta’s cells have contributed greatly to the advancement of medical research, the method of their attainment has been the cause of much debate about US medical ethics in the 1950’s, and the treatment of patients during that time. Put simply, Henrietta Lacks’s cells were taken from her by the staff at Johns Hopkins without her permission, or her being aware that it was happening.

Revelations surrounding the source of the HeLa immortal cell line arose during the 1970’s when Henrietta’s family were asked to provide blood samples in order to help researchers replace a batch of contaminated cells. A dinner table conversation in 1975 made the family aware that her cells were still being used. However, Henrietta’s family didn’t pursue the matter, and although Henrietta’s contribution to medical science began to be recognised more and more during the 1990’s, it wasn’t until Rebecca Skloot, a freelance science writer who’d already written two articles about HeLa in 2000 and 2001, approached the family through daughter Deborah Lacks with a view to writing a book about it all.

And so we have the movie version of Skloot’s multi-award-winning non-fiction book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. In gestation since the book’s publication in 2010, the movie arrives courtesy of HBO and Oprah Winfrey (who plays Deborah), and seeks to examine the medical, ethical, moral and human dilemmas surrounding the harvesting of a person’s cells without their consent. And though these issues are raised at various times during the movie, it soon becomes obvious that these aren’t going to be the issues the movie focuses on. Instead, the focus is on Rebecca Skloot (Byrne) herself, and Deborah Lacks, a woman whose personal demons dictate a high level of erratic, and sometimes paranoid, behaviour.

What also becomes obvious is that in adapting Skloot’s book, screenwriters Peter Landesman, Alexander Woo, and director George C. Wolfe, have bitten off quite a bit more than they can chew. As the central character, Skloot deservedly takes centre stage, but we never really get to know too much about her other than that she’s using her own money to fund all her research into learning about Henrietta and what happened both to her, and to her family. Skloot’s motivation for pursuing the story remains unanswered (though the question is asked), and she’s often reduced to being a bystander, an observer on the periphery of everything. But then the script will bring her to the forefront, leaving the viewer to wonder just how important she is to what is happening on screen.

Byrne plays Skloot, at first, as an awkward, nervously grinning, seemingly out-of-her-depth journalist hooked on a great idea for a book but unsure if she can make it work when Henrietta’s family don’t exactly welcome her with open arms. She perseveres though (as does Byrne), but it’s all to too little effect; Skloot remains a cypher throughout, a stable character that everyone else can use as either a sounding board or an emotional punchbag. There are times when Byrne seems to be a little bit behind everyone else, as if she’s always running to catch up, and while her performance is adequate, there’s a feeling that the script has subordinated her character in order to give the movie’s first-billed star more room to impress.

As Deborah Lacks, Winfrey gives an impressive, emotive portrayal that serves as a reminder that when she’s engaged fully with a role, she’s a very fine actress indeed. Ironically though, her performance is so strong, and so compelling, that it dominates the rest of the movie entirely, and upsets the movie’s otherwise sedentary nature whenever Winfrey appears. It’s hard to tell if this has been a deliberate move on the part of Wolfe and his co-screenwriters, or the actress herself. Either way, the movie becomes more intense and more dramatic whenever she’s on screen, and then becomes quieter whenever she isn’t. Only Cathey as Deborah’s older brother Zakariyya matches her for intensity, and that’s largely because Zakariyya has acute anger issues that threaten to flare up at any moment.

There are further problems that centre around the movie’s focus, with too many subplots and minor storylines brought into play only to be left unexplored, and too many supporting characters given only a scene or two to make an impact. Wolfe and co. have attempted to cram in as much information, incident and development as they can but it all proves detrimental in telling a coherent and cohesive story. There’s outrage too, but instead of being directed at the way in which Henrietta was, and has been exploited all these years, it’s all to do with Deborah’s younger sister, Elsie, who was committed to the appallingly named Hospital for the Negro Insane when she was just eleven years old. And while this subplot works better than many others, it’s more about Deborah than it is Henrietta.

All in all, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is less about the unwitting donor of the HeLa immortal cell line than it is about her immediate family, and the journalist who felt compelled to reveal her story to a wider audience. Somewhere during the movie’s production the focus was allowed to shift away from Henrietta, and in letting that happen, the movie manages to do her a massive disservice. Perhaps it’s ironic, but in reducing Henrietta’s involvement in a movie about the most significant thing that ever happened to her, to that of a supporting role, the makers have continued to keep a woman of tremendous influence back in the shadows where she’s already spent too long.

Rating: 5/10 – a movie that never manages to work out which story it wants to tell at any given time, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks flits from subplot to minor storyline in an effort to cram in as much as possible, but all to no avail; more of a tribute to the tenacity of Deborah Lacks in wanting to learn more about her mother than a tribute to Henrietta herself, it’s a patchwork piece where the sum of its parts doesn’t add up to a purposeful whole.

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Their Finest (2016)

04 Thursday May 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Bill Nighy, Drama, Gemma Arterton, History, Literary adaptation, Lone Scherfig, Ministry of Information, Moviemaking, Review, Sam Claflin, Screenwriting, World War II

D: Lone Scherfig / 117m

Cast: Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin, Bill Nighy, Jack Huston, Paul Ritter, Rachael Stirling, Richard E. Grant, Henry Goodman, Jake Lacy, Jeremy Irons, Eddie Marsan, Helen McCrory

Britain, the summer of 1940. Since the outbreak of World War II, the British Ministry of Information has been making short information movies to be shown at cinemas. Its film department – headed up by Roger Swain (Grant) – takes on a young Welsh woman called Catrin Cole (Arterton) to act as a screenwriter, and in particular, to write better dialogue for any female characters (the other screenwriters are, unsurprisingly, all male). Catrin settles in, and finds herself working alongside Tom Buckley (Claflin) and Raymond Parfitt (Ritter), and under the stewardship of Phyl Moore (Stirling). Catrin soon earns a degree of respect from Buckley, who is nominally more experienced, and her work begins to gain recognition. But at home, it’s not quite the same. Catrin’s husband, Ellis (Huston), is a struggling artist whose bleak reflections on the War aren’t attracting any attention. He’s pleased that she’s doing well in her own job, but is inwardly jealous at the same time.

The film department is charged with making a full-length feature. Catrin is given the task of talking to twin sisters who took out their father’s boat and sailed across to Dunkirk to help in the evacuation. But she soon discovers that the boat developed engine trouble five miles out and they never even got to Dunkirk, let alone rescued anyone. Undeterred, Catrin returns to the Ministry and tells a fictional version of the twins’ story – and one that is believed by everyone except Tom. He keeps quiet, and the project is given the go-ahead. Catrin, Tom and Raymond all work on the script, while the casting goes ahead. Pompous actor Ambrose Hilliard (Nighy) is approached through his agent, Sammy Smith (Marsan), but turns down the supporting role of drunken Uncle Frank out of misplaced pride. Tragedy strikes, however, and Hilliard takes on the role thanks to pressure from Sammy’s sister, Sophie (McCrory).

The truth about the twins’ rescue mission is discovered, and though the Ministry has been determined to make a movie out of an act of real life heroism, Catrin convinces everyone to make a fictional version. Production begins on location in Devon, but the unexpected intervention of the Secretary of War (Irons) means that the script will now have to accommodate the presence of an American soldier in its plot, and specifically, Eagle Squadron pilot (and non-actor) Carl Lundberg (Lacy). Catrin persuades Hilliard to tutor Lundberg, while she and Tom grow closer. As the shoot progresses, their relationship develops to the point where surprising information volunteered by Catrin herself promises a sea change in her relationships with both Ellis and Tom.

Adapted from the novel, Their Finest Hour and a Half by Lissa Evans, this awkwardly titled movie is the kind of heritage picture that the British do so well. From the moment Catrin steps out onto a Blitz-torn street we’re in oh-so familiar territory, with just enough artfully stylised devastation to provide the viewer with a visual shorthand as to the time and place they’re witnessing. In a way it’s comforting, seeing all these bomb blasted buildings with their scattered debris, and as Arterton’s plucky Welsh screenwriter-to-be makes her way to the Ministry of Information, there’s a sense that whatever happens in Their Finest, it will retain the opening’s carefully constructed sense of artificiality, and avoid any “difficult” or “realistic” moments.

And so it proves. The movie ticks all the boxes for a nicely balanced period feature, with Catrin filling the role of innocent abroad, Tom as the adversary-cum-mentor figure that she’ll inevitably fall in love with, Hilliard as the curmudgeonly actor who’s on grudging terms with humility, and a variety of supporting characters who pop up every now and again, contribute a further variety of notable moments or dialogue (“He is an actor. Unless you have reviewed him, had intercourse with him, or done both simultaneously, he won’t remember you.”), and then fade back into the background until needed again. There’s the requisite number of apparently insurmountable problems that are resolved in under a minute flat, bickering and misunderstandings between the romantic leads, obvious references to the sexism of the times, Richard E. Grant pulling faces whenever he can, and all of it coated with the rosy sheen of familiarity and nostalgia.

But again, this is the kind of heritage picture that the British (or the British as led by a director from Denmark) do so well, and again, so it proves. While the plot and its surrounding storylines all have the look and feel of scenarios we’ve seen before – and too many times at that – the best thing that can be said about Their Finest is that the director, the writer, the cast, the crew, hell everyone involved, knew this was true, and proceeded without a moment’s hesitation in using that knowledge as the basis for providing audiences with a very enjoyable movie indeed. Is Their Finest a true original, groundbreaking and constantly surprising? No, it’s not. Is it a movie that will change anyone’s life? Again, no, it’s not. But it is a movie that does do something unexpected: it makes the movie within the movie, The Nancy Starling, the emotional core of everything, and it does so with a carefree, nonchalant sense of entitlement that you couldn’t have predicted at the start. It’s here that Hilliard proves what a fine actor he really is, it’s here where a lunkhead American soldier can appear soulful and poetic, and where traditional values around serving the greater good and unavoidable personal sacrifice are made self-evident.

While the movie within a movie offers more dramatic meat than its parent, what the rest of the movie does offer is a recognisable template to hang a romantic comedy with dramatic elements on. It does this effectively and with a minimum of fuss, and gives the audience a succession of self-reflexive feelgood moments where anticipation is satisfied and rewarded thanks to the script’s commitment to playing it (pleasantly) safe. Only two moments stand out as being darker than all the rest. One is a bitter reflection on the realities of death by bombing, while the other is a “twist” that is as bold as it is dispiriting. Otherwise and elsewhere, the movie maintains its wry, comedic edge and its avoidance of being too serious.

Scherfig injects her usual bonhomie into things, keeping it all light enough to fly away forever, and doing so with a studied sense of what’s acceptable in terms of such lightweight material. A quality cast helps tremendously with Arterton displaying a charm and likeability that has been missing from more recent roles, while Claflin is all pent-up superiority and diffidence as the movie’s real leading man. Nighy invites the viewer to laugh at Hilliard with affection, while further down the cast list, McCrory scores highly as another woman attempting to do well in a traditionally man’s world. It’s all neatly held together by Gaby Chiappe’s heartfelt and engaging script, and the scenes behind the making of the movie within a movie are terrific in the way that they expose some of the tricks of the trade back in the Forties. It’s dourly glamorous too, with fine cinematography by Sebastian Blenkov, and there’s a suitably nostalgic yet rousing score by Rachel Portman that perfectly accentuates the movie’s sprightly tone.

Rating: 7/10 – an enjoyable piece of wartime flag-waving, Their Finest is funny, romantic, occasionally dramatic, and as winsome as it can be given its backdrop; entertaining in a generic yet fulfilling way, the movie coasts along for much of its running time, but it does so in such an amiable fashion that most viewers won’t mind at all.

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The Founder (2016)

18 Saturday Feb 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Biography, Drama, Franchise, Franchise Realty Corporation, History, John Carroll Lynch, John Lee Hancock, McDonalds, Michael Keaton, Nick Offerman, Prince Castle, Ray Kroc, Review

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D: John Lee Hancock / 115m

Cast: Michael Keaton, Nick Offerman, John Carroll Lynch, Laura Dern, Linda Cardellini, B.J. Novak, Patrick Wilson, Kate Kneeland, Justin Randell Brooke, Griff Furst

For those of us who live outside the good ole US of A, the idea of the American Dream seems like a typically grandiose American proposition, as if the US is the only place where dreams can come true, where people can become anyone they want to be, or where success can be won if you work really hard to achieve it. At the risk of upsetting any American readers of thedullwoodexperiment, it’s a strange kind of conceit; in reality, what makes the States any different from anywhere else in the world when it comes to people achieving their dreams? The obvious answer is: nothing. But it’s an idea that many Americans believe wholeheartedly, and one that fuels the story of Ray Kroc (Keaton), the man who gave us McDonald’s, the corporate behemoth that grew out of one independent restaurant in San Bernardino, California, and now spans the globe.

When we first meet Kroc it’s 1954. He’s a milkshake mixer salesman who’s about as successful as a butcher at a vegan commune. But he’s his own boss so he keeps plugging away at it, facing rejection at every turn, when one day his secretary, June (Kneeland), tells him they’ve received an order for six mixers from a restaurant in San Bernardino, a place called McDonald’s. Surprised, he decides to visit the owners, Mac and Dick McDonald (Lynch, Offerman), and they elect to tell him their story, one that involves many false starts and setbacks in setting up a burger restaurant, until they realised that by stripping down the menu and speeding up the delivery time, they could maximise their sales. Kroc is astonished by how effective their business is, and finds he can’t stop thinking about it.

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The next day he proposes the brothers expand their business into a franchise. But they’ve tried this also, and it hasn’t worked, mostly because they were unable to guarantee the same quality of operation as at their own site. Kroc persuades them to let him take on the challenge, but fearful of what he might do in the process, they get him to sign a contract that states all changes must be agreed by them first. Kroc sets about building the McDonald’s brand but encounters problems when wealthy investors are involved. Instead he tries to attract middle-class couples who will work hard to make their franchise a success. Soon there are franchises opening all across the Midwest, but Kroc is getting little financial reward from it all. His contract gives him a very small percentage of any profits, despite the amount of effort he’s putting in, and the McDonald brothers won’t change the terms.

A chance encounter with a financial consultant, Harry Sonneborn (Novak), sees Kroc changing his approach to both his finances and his relationship with Mac and Dick. By focusing on the real estate needed by the franchisees, Kroc not only increases his own revenue, but is able to leverage his deal with the brothers to make changes to the overall operation, including replacing the ice cream in the milkshakes with powdered milk. The brothers resist, but by this stage, Kroc is effectively the face of McDonald’s to anyone who’s interested. And soon, he’s in a position to force out the brothers from their own business, and continue his expansion of the McDonald’s brand…

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Your reaction to The Founder is going to be based on one of two things: whether you feel Ray Kroc was right in the way that he treated the McDonald brothers, or whether you feel that he mistreated them. But Robert D. Siegel’s engaging script isn’t solely about fair or foul play, or whether Kroc is a hero or a villain (like a lot of people he’s both, depending on the circumstances). Rather, it’s also about the very thing Kroc mentions in his opening sales pitch to an off-screen customer, and later to various groups of potential franchisees: opportunity. Ray Kroc was in the right place at the right time, and he instinctively knew that creating a franchise was the way to go. He was blinkered in his attitude, dismissive of his critics, and willing to roll over anyone and anything to make the McDonald’s brand a nationwide success. As he tells the unfortunate Mac and Dick: “If I saw a competitor drowning, I’d shove a hose down his throat.”

Throughout the movie Kroc seizes on opportunity after opportunity, triumphing over every setback and potential obstacle until he gets what he wants. And although you may indeed feel that his treatment of the McDonald brothers was akin to bullying, there’s a kind of grim inevitability to the story that makes Kroc seem like an instrument of Fate. The question then becomes, if Ray Kroc hadn’t met the McDonald brothers, would their one restaurant have grown into a franchise operation with approximately thirty-six and a half thousand outlets worldwide? The movie makes it clear: no. And so the movie becomes about the how (the why is obvious). And if sharp practice is the order of the day, then that’s going to come with a side order of fries and a drink (preferably Coca-Cola).

the-founder-film-still

Inevitably, audiences will decide that Ray Kroc treated the McDonald brothers abominably, because that’s exactly how he treated them. The movie doesn’t shy away from this, or from his shoddy treatment of pretty much everyone around him, and particularly his long-suffering wife Ethel (Dern). As Kroc, Keaton is a mesmerising presence, tightly-wound, arrogant and determined. Even when he’s still, he looks as if fires are raging beneath his skin. In 1954, Kroc was fifty-two and suddenly possessed by an idea that would consume him until his death in 1984, and Keaton displays this “possession” as if it was a calling. But Keaton also shows the venal side of Kroc’s nature, the need to be seen to succeed after so many years toiling in fields of failure, and so the movie also becomes, however uncomfortably, about one man’s redemption through the mistreatment of others.

As the McDonald brothers, both Offerman (in a rare serious role) and Lynch provide equally good performances, showcasing the naïvete and increasing stubbornness that would prove their undoing, and see them forced – eventually – out of the restaurant business. Dern gives a quiet, controlled portrayal as Kroc’s wife, while there’s a cameo role for Wilson as an interested franchisee whose wife (Cardellini) attracts Kroc’s attention. It’s all set against a vibrant period backdrop that highlights the sense of immeasurable promise that the US held for itself in the Fifties, and Hancock marshals the various plot strands and storylines with skill, maintaining the movie’s forward momentum despite several occasions when exposition threatens to overwhelm everything. As a cautionary tale – be careful who you do business with – The Founder is a good example of inexperience (and some degree of pride) going before a fall. It may not be the most positive of messages, but then, not everyone or everything in this world is going to treat you as you yourself would like to be treated, something Ray Kroc, despite his faults, knew all along.

Rating: 8/10 – anchored by a strong, forceful performance by Keaton, The Founder is a judicious mix of history and biography that looks behind the scenes at the beginnings of a global corporation with insight and sincerity; whatever your feelings about the fast-food industry, or McDonald’s specifically, this won’t necessarily change your mind, but as an object lesson in getting what you want – at all costs – then this should be required viewing.

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Monthly Roundup – May 2016

31 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Arkansas, Basil Dearden, Bedouin tribes, Biopic, Boaz Yakin, Carla Balenda, Cheerleaders, Chris White, Christine Nguyen, Crazy About Tiffany's, Crime, Damian Lewis, Documentary, Dog handler, Dominique Swain, Drama, Elliott Reid, Fantasy, Gertrude Bell, Googie Withers, History, Holly Golightly, Horror, Illegal arms, J.B. Priestley, James Franco, Jamie Brown, Jewellery, Jim Wynorski, John Clements, Jon Fabris, Josh Wiggins, Lauren Graham, Lawrence of Arabia, Matthew Miele, Max, Middle East, Mystery, Nicole Kidman, Prisoners, Queen of the Desert, Reviews, Robert Pattinson, Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre, Stage play, Summer camp, The City, The Whip Hand, They Came to a City, Thomas Haden Church, Thriller, Tiffany's, Toxic waste, Traci Lords, True story, US Marines, Werner Herzog, William Cameron Menzies, Winnoga, Zombie Cheerleader Camp

Max (2015) / D: Boaz Yakin / 111m

Cast: Josh Wiggins, Thomas Haden Church, Lauren Graham, Luke Kleintank, Robbie Amell, Mia Xitlali, Dejon LaQuake, Jay Hernandez, Owen Harn

Max

Rating: 6/10 – after his handler is killed in Afghanistan, Max goes to stay with his handler’s family, and helps expose a plot to supply arms to a Mexican cartel; a feature that ticks every box in the “family movie” canon, Max is enjoyable enough but is also too lightweight to make much of a sustained impact, even though the cast enter wholly into the spirit of things.

They Came to a City (1944) / D: Basil Dearden / 78m

Cast: John Clements, Googie Withers, Raymond Huntley, Renee Gadd, A.E. Matthews, Mabel Terry-Lewis, Ada Reeve, Norman Shelley, Fanny Rowe, Ralph Michael, Brenda Bruce, J.B. Priestley

They Came to a City

Rating: 6/10 – nine individuals find themselves in unfamiliar terrain and on the outskirts of a vast city – and have to decide if they’re going to stay there; J.B. Priestley’s play is as close to a socialist tract as you could have got during World War II, and while They Came to a City betrays its stage origins and is relentlessly polemical, it has a stark, overbearing visual style that is actually quite effective.

Crazy About Tiffany’s (2016) / D: Matthew Miele / 86m

With: Jessica Alba, Katie Couric, Amy Fine-Collins, Fran Lebowitz, Baz Luhrmann, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Jennifer Tilly, Andrew & Andrew

Crazy About Tiffany's

Rating: 6/10 – a documentary charting the rise and rise of Tiffany’s, the jewellery store made even more famous by Truman Capote and Audrey Hepburn (who he despised in the role of Holly Golightly); a tremendously indulgent puff-piece for the company, Crazy About Tiffany’s is redeemed by some fascinating anecdotes, and the faint whiff of pretentiousness given off by most of its customers.

Queen of the Desert (2015) / D: Werner Herzog / 128m

Cast: Nicole Kidman, James Franco, Damian Lewis, Robert Pattinson, Jay Abdo, David Calder, Jenny Agutter, Holly Earl, Mark Lewis Jones, Christopher Fulford

Queen of the Desert

Rating: 5/10 – a biopic of the explorer and writer, Gertrude Bell (Kidman), and how she  won the trust of numerous Middle Eastern tribes at a time when British colonialism was  looked upon with distrust and contempt by those very same tribes; not one of Herzog’s best (or Kidman’s), Queen of the Desert suffers from being treated as history-lite by the script, and never quite being as courageous in its efforts as Miss Bell was in hers (and not to mention a disastrous turn by Pattinson as Lawrence of Arabia).

Zombie Cheerleader Camp (2007) / D: Jon Fabris / 85m

Cast: Jamie Brown, Chris White, Nicole Lewis, Jason Greene, Brandy Blackmon, Daniel Check, Terry Chandeline Nicole Westfall, Micah Shane Ballinger

Zombie Cheerleader Camp

Rating: 2/10 – when cheerleaders attend a summer training camp, they’re unaware that a squirrel exposed to toxic waste will be the catalyst that turns them and a group of horny males into flesh-eating zombies; all you need to know is that Zombie Cheerleader Camp was made at the extreme low budget end of movie making and features camera work that’s so bad it’s almost a challenge to find a well-framed shot anywhere in the movie (and then there’s the “acting”…)

Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre (2015) / D: Jim Wynorski / 84m

Cast: Dominique Swain, Traci Lords, Christine Nguyen, Cindy Lucas, Amy Holt, John Callahan, Corey Landis, Skye McDonald, Chris De Christopher

Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre

Rating: 3/10 – fracking causes the release of an unspecified number of prehistoric sharks into the Arkansas waterways, and this jeopardises the escape of several women prisoners from a work detail; yes, Sharkansas (actually filmed in Florida) Women’s Prison Massacre is as bad as it sounds, and yes it is as cheesy as you’d expect, but it’s also one of the tamest and most annoying of all the recent shark-related movies we’ve had foisted upon us, and not even the talents of low budget movie maestro Wynorski can rescue this from the bottom of the barrel.

The Whip Hand (1951) / D: William Cameron Menzies / 82m

Cast: Carla Balenda, Elliott Reid, Edgar Barrier, Raymond Burr, Otto Waldis, Michael Steele, Lurene Tuttle, Peter Brocco, Lewis Martin, Frank Darien

The Whip Hand

Rating: 6/10 – a journalist (Reid) on vacation stumbles across a mystery involving a lake where the fish have all died, and a nearby ghost town where the remaining locals aren’t too friendly, and he finds himself prevented from leaving; a well-paced but forgettable effort from master production designer Menzies, The Whip Hand starts off well but soon ties itself inside out in trying to be a confident thriller, an ambition it fails to achieve thanks to untidy plotting and thin characterisations.

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Steve Jobs (2015)

21 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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

Steve Jobs

D: Danny Boyle / 122m

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

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

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

Steve Jobs - scene2

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

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

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

Film Title: Steve Jobs

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

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

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

Steve Jobs - scene1

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

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

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Short Movies Volume 1

27 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Aliens, Andrea Jensen, Animation, Blue Sky, Brian Dietzen, Camera, Casino, Christmas Scrat-tastrophe, Dave Calub, David Mead, Devon Avery, Documentary, Erinn Hayes, Galen Chu, Gambling, History, Horror, Invasion, Is This Free?, Jack Hawkins, Lauris Beinerts, Matthew Kalish, Megan Prescott, Mike Thurmeier, One-Minute Time Machine, Ransom Riggs, Reviews, Romance, Ryder Bach, Salton Sea, Scrat, Short movies, Spaceship, The Accidental Sea, The Plan (2008), Time travel, Turn Around When Possible

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

One-Minute Time Machine (2014) / D: Devon Avery / 6m

Cast: Brian Dietzen, Erinn Hayes

One-Minute Time Machine

Rating: 9/10 – A comedy about a young man who invents a time machine in order to impress the girl of his dreams, this brief but inventive short is like a sci-fi version of Groundhog Day, but with a humorous sting in the tale. The two leads are well chosen, with Dietzen (NCIS‘s Jimmy Palmer) playing the lovelorn geek to perfection, and Hayes proving to be an equally effective sparring partner. It does make up its own rules about time travel but that’s no bad thing, and Avery makes a virtue of the way in which he cuts between his two characters. A rewarding little movie that is well worth watching.

Turn Around When Possible (2014) / D: Dave Calub, David Mead / 7m

Cast: Megan Prescott, Holly Hoyland

Turn Around When Possible

Rating: 7/10 – Two young women trust their sat-nav too much in this British short that sees them lost in the forest and at the mercy of something strange lurking in the undergrowth. Just what is lurking in the undergrowth is very reminiscent of a creature you shouldn’t get wet or feed after midnight, and the acting is a little amateurish, but this is still an atmospheric, well-shot movie that also manages to provide viewers with a surprisingly ambiguous ending.

Is This Free? (2011) / D: Lauris Beinerts / 8m

Is This Free?

Cast: Jack Hawkins, Tarryn Meaker, Abdiel LeRoy, Cornelia Baumann, Julian Lamoral-Roberts, David Cullinane, Chloe Massey, Katie Goldfinch, Véronique Sevegrand

Rating: 8/10 – Observational comedy is the focus here as Hawkins’ Luka illustrates the various responses he gives to people who ask if the seat next to him is free. Ranging from the risible – woman agrees to pay £2 to avoid someone else getting the seat – to the awkwardly humorous – Luka allows someone to sit next to him on a bench but tells them they’re being watched – Beinerts makes the most of his central idea, and it’s put together with a great deal of heart. And of course Luka doesn’t get it all his own way, which helps the movie avoid being too clever for its own good.

The Plan (2008) / D: Matthew Kalish / 4m

Cast: Ryder Bach, Andrea Jensen

Plan, The

Rating: 8/10 – Mitch (Bach) is unhappy with his life and decides to ditch his job, his girlfriend, and travel to Las Vegas to bet everything’s he’s got on red. Along the way he meets a young woman (Jensen) who steals his camera, but proves to be an augur of a better future. Shot in black and white, and with a Fifties feel to it that adds to the movie’s overall charm, this is both romantic and transformative at the same time, and despite Kalish’s predilection for unnecessary camera angles.

The Accidental Sea (2011) / D: Ransom Riggs / 6m

Accidental Sea, The

Rating: 8/10 – The writer of the Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children‘s trilogy provides a potted history of California’s Salton Sea, from its origins as a major engineering mistake to its heyday as a holiday destination before the sea became too salty to sustain the surrounding infrastructure. Of particular interest thanks to Riggs’ modern day footage, where the area looks like the aftermath of the end of the world, the only fault is the sudden appearance of an old man who’s been making art out of the area’s refuse, and who isn’t on screen for nearly long enough. Haunting and wistful, this is a documentary short that is visually arresting and endlessly fascinating.

Christmas Scrat-tastrophe (2015) / D: Mike Thurmeier, Galen Chu / 5m

Cast: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Chris Wedge

Christmas Scrat-tastrophe

Rating: 9/10 – Scrat’s back, and this time his obsession with keeping his nut all to himself leads to his being aboard the spaceship we glimpsed in the first Ice Age movie. From there, Scrat heads off into space to play havoc with the planets and go for a space walk, with predictably disastrous effects. Unabashedly entertaining (and with a complete disregard for physics and astrodynamics), this is top-notch stuff that, unfortunately, serves as a reminder that Scrat’s solo adventures are still far more entertaining than the full-length movies he has a supporting turn in.

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For One Week Only: Women Directors – 1. Dorothy Arzner

06 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Alice Guy, Boom mike, Career, Clara Bow, Craig's Wife, Dorothy Arzner, Editor, Famous Players-Lasky, For One Week Only, History, Lois Weber, Manhattan Cocktail, Movies, Old Ironsides, Screen Directors Guild, Screen writer, Silent Era, The Wild Party, Women directors

Later than advertised (and now running from 5-11 November 2015), this edition of For One Week Only is going to focus on women directors.

Introduction

Women have been directing movies since the very beginnings of cinema. In 1896, Frenchwoman Alice Guy made what is regarded as the first movie directed by a woman, La fée aux choux (The Cabbage Fairy). It’s not the most sophisticated of early silents, and only lasts a minute, but it does go some way to proving that it wasn’t entirely a man’s world at the end of the 19th century. Guy went on to have a prolific career as a director: between 1896 and 1920 she made a staggering 430 movies.

During the silent era there were many other “firsts” involving women directors, from Lois Weber’s being the highest-paid female director of the silent era – $5000 a week – to actresses such as Cleo Madison and Grace Cunard finding as much or more success behind the camera than they did in front of it. And the world’s first full-length animated feature, Die Geschichte des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed), made in 1926, was directed by Germany’s Lotte Reiniger. But with the advent of the Talkies, women’s involvement in directing – in the US at least – began to lessen, although by coincidence, there was one woman who managed to buck the trend and carved out a career that included a significant number of achievements.

Dorothy Arzner (1897-1979)

Dorothy Arzner

It’s ironic looking back over Dorothy Arzner’s life and career that she had a connection to Hollywood from quite a young age. Her parents ran a café in Los Angeles that was frequented by such movie luminaries as Charles Chaplin, William S. Hart and Erich von Stroheim, and Dorothy worked there as a waitress. But her ambition lay in the medical profession and she enrolled in a pre-med programme after graduating from high school; during World War I she served as an ambulance driver.

Once hostilities had ceased, Arzner changed tack and got a job working for a newspaper. There she was introduced to William C. DeMille – Cecil’s brother – and landed a job as a stenographer at Famous Players-Lasky (the forerunner of Paramount Pictures). Having become very interested in working in the movies, Arzner began to amass as much knowledge as she could and she soon became a script writer, as well as an editor. Between 1919 and 1926 she worked on eight features as a screen writer, and eight features as an editor, including uncredited duties in both capacities on James Cruze’s Old Ironsides (1926). So good was her work that she was the first person of either gender to receive an on-screen credit as an editor.

Old Ironsides

Her ambition though was to become a director, and in 1927 she made her first feature, Fashions for Women, a drama about a cigarette girl played by Esther Ralston who falls in love with a count while finding success as a model. It was a rather innocuous start to her career as a director but did well enough for her to tackle two more movies that year, Ten Modern Commandments, a romantic comedy-drama that also featured Ralston, and Get Your Man, a romantic comedy set in Paris that starred Clara Bow. But it was Manhattan Cocktail (1928) that was to be the second of many “firsts” that Arzner would achieve in her career, as she became the first female to direct a sound feature (albeit a part-talkie).

Reuniting with Bow for The Wild Party (1929), Arzner found her star struggling with the demands of making her first talkie, and specifically the microphones that were being used. In order to accommodate and reassure her star, Arzner came up with what was, for then, a unique solution: she devised the industry’s first boom mike so that Bow could move around unhampered by having to be near a microphone.

Wild Party, The

As her career continued into the Thirties, Arzner made a number of moderately successful pre-Code movies, and worked with a variety of Paramount stars, such as Claudette Colbert, Pat O’Brien, Ginger Rogers, Fredric March, Ruth Chatterton, Paul Lukas, Sylvia Sidney, and a young Cary Grant. But as Paramount’s fortunes suffered due to the Depression, and the company insisted on pay cuts across the board, Arzner became a freelance director and was quickly snapped up by RKO to direct Christopher Strong (1933). The movie starred Katharine Hepburn and the two didn’t get along, so much so that Hepburn complained about Arzner to the studio; wisely, RKO backed their director.

Despite the animosity between the two women the movie was a critical, if not financial, success, and Arzner moved on to Nana (1934), a vanity project for Anna Sten, a Russian actress being promoted by Samuel Goldwyn. Alas the movie was a flop, and it wasn’t until 1936 that Arzner made another picture, the well-received and critically lauded Craig’s Wife, starring Rosalind Russell. Also that year, Arzner was the first woman to be enrolled into the recently formed Screen Directors Guild; for many years afterward she would remain the only woman in the Guild until Ida Lupino joined in 1950.

Craig's Wife

1937 saw Arzner work with and establish a close friendship with Joan Crawford, firstly providing uncredited direction on The Last of Mrs Cheyney, and then directing the star in that same year’s rags-to-riches tale The Bride Wore Red. Both movies were successful with audiences, but Arzner was unable to secure another picture until 1940 and the romantic drama Dance, Girl, Dance. Though it was a critical and commercial failure at the time, the movie underwent a re-evaluation in the 1970’s and is now regarded as one of Arzner’s more intriguing and important movies and as an early example of female empowerment. Three years later, Arzner made her last feature, the wartime drama First Comes Courage, an exercise in propaganda that featured the clearly Scandinavian Merle Oberon as a resistance fighter torn between Nazi Carl Esmond and Brit Brian Aherne.

Arzner turned her attention to the war effort after that, and made several training movies for the Women’s Army Corps. After the war she decided to work in television, making documentaries and commercials until the 1950’s when she became a filmmaking teacher. She first taught at the Pasadena Playhouse before moving to UCLA in the Sixties (one of her pupils was Francis Ford Coppola). She stayed there until her death in 1979.

Even though Dorothy Arzner was the most well-known female director working in Hollywood during its so-called Golden Age, the late Twenties through to the early Forties, she was also the only female director working in Hollywood during that time. She made movies that featured strong female heroines, and she found ways of including some of her feminist beliefs in the movies she made, slyly and with style. She also had a unique visual approach to the material she directed, and if you watch her movies today there’s a freshness about them that separates them from the otherwise formulaic movies being made at the time.

Arzner fought her way up from the bottom, and refused to be intimidated by the phallocentric system she worked in. She occupied a unenviable position in Hollywood, both as a woman and as a lesbian, but did so without compromising those values she felt strongly about. That she chose to give up directing movies after World War II is a cause for disappointment; it would have been interesting to see what she made of the role of women in the post-War era. But perhaps she’d had enough of being the only woman in such a male-dominated industry. After all, she did have this to say: “When I went to work in a studio, I took my pride and made a nice little ball of it and threw it right out the window.”

Dorothy Arzner 2

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Mini-Review: A Little Chaos (2014)

27 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Alan Rickman, Drama, France, Helen McCrory, History, Horticulture, Kate Winslet, Landscape gardening, Louis XIV, Matthias Schoenaerts, Period movie, Review, Romance, Stanley Tucci, Versailles

Little Chaos, A

D: Alan Rickman / 116m

Cast: Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Alan Rickman, Helen McCrory, Stanley Tucci,  Steven Waddington, Jennifer Ehle, Paula Paul, Danny Webb

France, 1682. At the behest of King Louis XIV (Rickman), landscape garden designers are invited to submit their designs for the planned new gardens at the Palace of Versailles. Sabine De Barra (Winslet), a widow who has a keen eye for the disruptive yet beguiling influence that disorder can have on a garden, meets with the King’s renowned landscape architect, André Le Notre (Schoenaerts). He is concerned by her attitude and lack of formal training, but he nevertheless hires her to build one of the main gardens at Versailles, the Rockwork Grove.

Sabine begins her work in earnest but is initially hampered in her efforts by the other, male, designers. Le Notre intervenes for her, and as her design begins to take shape, he finds himself increasingly attracted to Sabine, despite his being married. He takes to spending more time with her, something which his wife (McCrory) notices. While Le Notre wrestles with his sense of honour and marital duty, Sabine unwittingly earns the respect of the King, and also his brother, Philippe (Tucci). As the project nears completion, Sabine is invited to attend the King’s court, where her honesty and subtle persuasiveness earns her many friends among the ladies in waiting – all except one, who decides to sabotage Sabine’s design…

Little Chaos, A - scene

An old-fashioned heritage picture, A Little Chaos – Rickman’s second directorial feature after The Winter Guest (1997) – is a movie that will sit well with anyone who’s seen similar movies from the Thirties, replete as it is with a woman battling against the preconceptions of her gender and the sexism of the times, a romance where convention says the couple should remain apart, and a minimal amount of political intrigue at the King’s court. It’s a pleasant movie to watch, not least because of Winslet’s emotive yet (mostly) carefully detailed performance, and shows Rickman is adept at staging scenes for their maximum emotional effect as well as their visual splendour.

And yet, while the movie has plenty of positives about it, it’s let down by the romantic storyline, with Le Notre and Sabine’s ardour for each other feeling watered down and sounding less than enthusiastically entered into. Schoenaerts never looks entirely comfortable in these scenes, and Winslet too seems unsure of how to play the drama of their situation. In contrast, the scene where Sabine and the King exchange views on gardening and various flowers, is laden with subtext and deliberate innuendo, leaving the viewer with no doubt that, in a different life, the romance would be between them and not Sabine and Le Notre.

Rickman is a generous director when it comes to his cast, and he finds a willing aide in Ellen Kuras’ often stunning cinematography, for the movie is beautiful to look at. And as historical romantic dramas go there’s a degree of humour that helps leaven the seriousness of the story, while Tucci’s flamboyant Philippe gives the movie a much needed boost just as it was starting to sag. And there’s a wonderful, non-intrusive score courtesy of Peter Gregson.

Rating: 7/10 – enjoyable if lacking in any appreciable depth, A Little Chaos is gentle, harmless, and a pleasant diversion from this year’s slew of mega-blockbusters; with Winslet, Rickman and McCrory winning the acting plaudits, this trip back to 17th Century France is an undemanding one but worth seeing nevertheless.

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Woman in Gold (2015)

15 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Art theft, Austria, Drama, E. Randol Schoenberg, Gustav Klimt, Helen Mirren, History, Maria Altmann, Nazis, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer 1, Review, Ryan Reynolds, Simon Curtis, True story, World War II

Woman in Gold

D: Simon Curtis / 109m

Cast: Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds, Daniel Brühl, Katie Holmes, Tatiana Maslany, Max Irons, Charles Dance, Antje Traue, Elizabeth McGovern, Jonathan Pryce, Frances Fisher, Moritz Bleibtreu, Tom Schilling, Allan Corduner, Henry Goodman, Nina Kunzendorf, Justus von Dohnányi

Following the death of her sister, Maria Altmann (Mirren), who fled from Austria before the war and now resides in Los Angeles, finds letters that relate to an attempt to recover artwork that her family owned before it was stolen by the Nazis, and in particular, the famous Klimt painting, Woman in Gold (who in reality was Maria’s aunt Adele). This painting and several other items are on display in a gallery in Vienna, Maria’s birthplace. Wanting to get them back, she enlists the help of a friend’s son, lawyer E. Randol Schoenberg (Reynolds).

They travel to Vienna – against Maria’s initial wishes – but find that the country’s minister and art director are unwilling to hear her case. The Klimt painting is regarded as a national treasure, and Maria is told that it was given to the gallery in Adele’s will. Schoenberg, aided by Austrian journalist Hubertus Czernin (Brühl), discovers that it wasn’t Adele’s property in the first place, but even though this evidence is presented to the Austrian officials, and a hearing takes place, Maria’s claim is denied. Unable to challenge the ruling because the cost is too prohibitive, Maria and Schoenberg return to the US.

Some time later, Schoenberg is browsing in a bookstore when he sees an art book with the Woman in Gold on the cover. It gives him an idea but Maria is against pursuing the claim any further. He manages to persuade her to move forward, and using precedents relating to retroactive art restitution claims, begins the process of suing the Austrian government for the return of the artwork. The case goes all the way to the Supreme Court, where the case is ruled in Maria’s favour. But it still means she and Schoenberg need to return to Vienna to resolve the claim completely. Maria refuses to go, and Schoenberg goes by himself. There he pleads their case to the art restitution board, a panel of three who are the last hurdle in the attempt to get the artwork returned.

Woman in Gold - scene

If you’re already aware of the case of the Woman in Gold, then you’ll know how the movie ends, but in many ways the outcome – which most people could accurately predict – isn’t the focus here, but the way in which notions of family and heritage are portrayed via the flashbacks to Maria’s youth, and the resonance they have in the present day.

The modern day scenes, while adequately presented and lensed in a way that adds a sheen to events, are moderately effective and benefit greatly from the performances of Mirren and Reynolds. But they’re also largely perfunctory, a predictable set of events and occasions that tick all the appropriate boxes: investigation, doubts, bureaucratic indolence, setback, regrouping, pushing forward to a final resolution. It’s all handled with intelligence and precision but this actually robs the modern day scenes of any emotion. Despite Mirren’s semi-anguished, semi-determined portrayal, and Reynolds’ naïve yet stubborn lawyer, the movie seems too generic in these moments, as if it were following some kind of true story template.

Where the movie improves is in its recreation of the younger Maria’s family life, the relationship she has with her parents, and the myriad relatives and friends that populate their apartment. Here there’s life aplenty, and a sense of an age when life wasn’t about looking back. In contrast to the older Maria’s attempts to reclaim what’s rightfully hers, the scenes from her youth are redolent of ownership of both the times and the place they live in. It’s a microcosm to be sure, but one that you feel would have been replicated in many other homes as well. When that ownership turns to loss, and Maria and her husband Fritz make plans to leave Austria for the US, and in doing so leave their families to an uncertain fate, the emotional strain is clearly and effectively shown, giving those scenes the resonance the modern day story lacks.

That said, in the hands of Mirren and Reynolds, the quest to win back the Woman in Gold is more compelling than it seems from the basic qualities of Alexi Kaye Campbell’s script. Aside from some legal technicalities, it’s a straightforward, plainly told endeavour that would have seemed even blander without their participation. The rest of the cast are used to a much lesser extent, often to the point of appearing in what are mostly cameo roles (McGovern, Pryce, Dance) or in supporting roles that add little to the overall story (Holmes, Irons). But again its the cast who appear in the pre-war scenes (Corduner, Goodman, Traue, Kunzendorf) who come off best, and in particular Maslany as the younger Maria, who exudes a fortitude and an honesty that Mirren reflects with ease.

In the end, as a drama, Woman in Gold isn’t quite as effective as it wants to be, and in places is far too turgid to work properly. As an exploration of one woman’s desire to be repatriated with her family’s possessions it’s moderately engaging, and while the viewer will no doubt sympathise with her plight, this is a David vs Goliath tale that lacks an emotional core to keep the viewer on the edge of the seat, or railing against the impropriety of the Austrian officials. Much of this is due to Curtis’s matter-of-fact directing style, which is unfussy and lacks a level of sophistication that would have improved things immeasurably.

Rating: 6/10 – with two stories intertwined, Woman in Gold suffers from only one of them – and not the main one – being interesting; with a cast that appear to have been encouraged to play down their roles to augment the two leads, this is a movie that stutters to the finish line, and unconvincingly at that.

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The Age of Adaline (2015)

24 Sunday May 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

29 years old, Adaline Bowman, Aging, Blake Lively, Drama, Fantasy, Harrison Ford, History, Lee Toland Krieger, Lightning, Michiel Huisman, Review, Romance, Romantic drama, Snowstorm

Age of Adaline, The

D: Lee Toland Krieger / 107m

Cast: Blake Lively, Michiel Huisman, Harrison Ford, Ellen Burstyn, Kathy Baker, Amanda Crew, Linda Boyd, Hugh Ross, Anthony Ingruber

On New Year’s Eve 2014, Jennifer Larson (Lively) purchases a set of fake I.D.’s before heading off to work at a library’s archive office. There she’s given a collection of old newsreels that need to be digitised. She begins viewing them, and as the footage unfolds, Jennifer remembers her life, one that began on New Year’s Day 1908 when she was born Adaline Bowman. She remembers getting married and having a child, and then her husband dying. And she remembers the fateful trip that saw her spin off the road during a freak snowstorm and plunge into a freezing river – where she died – and the lightning strike that struck her and revived her, causing her to remain twenty-nine from that day onward.

That night she attends a New Year’s Eve party, where she attracts the attention of a handsome man called Ellis (Huisman), who shares an elevator ride with her; she rebuffs his advances. But she is surprised to find him turn off at her office the next day in the guise of a generous benefactor. He asks her out on a date, which she refuses. In retaliation Ellis tells her he’ll withdraw his donation if she doesn’t. This time she agrees and he manages to convince her to see him again; when she does she stays over at his apartment. Afterwards, and despite Ellis’s best intentions, she avoids his calls and is cold to him when they meet in the street.

Eventually, Jennifer relents and agrees to see him again. When they do he asks her to come with him for the weekend to help celebrate his parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary. When they arrive, Ellis’s father, William (Ford) is shocked by her resemblance to a woman he met in England in the Sixties, a woman he knew as Adaline Bowman. Jennifer pretends that Adaline was her mother. William is unable to get over how much she looks like the woman he knew, but everyone else accepts the coincidence. The next day, Jennifer and William are talking when he notices a scar on her left hand that matches one Adaline had, and which was caused while they were hiking together. He confronts her, but even though he does his best to reassure her, she leaves as quickly as she can. A lifetime of hiding her real identity has left Adaline constantly fearful of exposure, and so she aims to disappear yet again, using the fake I.D.’s she’s recently purchased. But as she heads back to her home, and with Ellis chasing after her, another freak bout of snow starts to fall…

Age of Adaline, The - scene

At the New Year’s Eve party, a young man tries out an old pick-up line on Adaline. When he realises she’s heard it before, she confirms it by saying “Just once, from a Bing Crosby … type.” It’s one of those offhand, slightly clever moments you’d expect from a movie that features a character who’s been around for over a century, but thankfully it’s the only example the movie trots out, settling instead for Adaline being incredibly knowledgeable about world events (and picking up the odd extra language). It’s a restrained approach to material that could have focused more on past events than the modern day romance that rightly takes centre stage.

With Adaline’s past consigned to occasional, yet relevant, flashbacks, and with a narrator (Ross) to act as our guide at equally relevant moments, The Age of Adaline is a romantic drama that grounds its fantasy elements in the everyday and the banal: Adaline keeps a succession of King Charles Spaniels; she works in a library; she worries about her daughter, Flemming (Burstyn), now an old woman considering moving into a retirement community. It’s the attempts Adaline makes to live a normal, ordinary life that makes the movie so easy to believe in, and with Lively’s wonderful performance to back it all up, her predicament so credible.

Which makes the central romance all the more disappointing, as Huisman’s so-good-he-can’t-be-real Ellis is such a perfect partner that aside from Adaline’s initial reservations about seeing him, there’s no drama involved at all. It takes Adaline’s past coming back to haunt her to provide any real drama and that doesn’t arrive until over an hour has passed. Until then it’s all build up, and a fairly pedestrian, nearly superficial build up at that. Thank goodness for Lively, who elevates the material by emphasising the tragedy of Adaline’s life, often just by looking pensive and lonely. There’s a depth of feeling in Lively’s eyes during these moments that helps immensely, and leaves Huisman’s easy smile and carefree physicality looking as if the actor is barely trying. It’s Lively’s movie from start to finish, and the actress takes every opportunity to stamp her authority on the role.

She’s matched by Ford who turns in his best performance in years, the moments when William is remembering Adaline and the time they spent together, showing the character’s vulnerability and emotional honesty in a way that is entirely realistic. The scene where William confronts Adaline is a small master class in screen acting. In support, Burstyn does well as Adaline’s daughter but is required to be too wise on too many occasions for comfort, and Baker is left with the unenviable task of making William’s wife (also Kathy) more than an add-on.

But while the supporting characters pale against the attention given to Adaline, the script by J. Mills Goodloe and Salvador Paskowitz, is never less than absorbing, and keeps the viewer interested, even during those repetitive early scenes where Adaline keeps rejecting Ellis over and over. It scores highly when examining themes of love and loss and sacrifice, and maintains an impassioned tone throughout. Krieger directs with a confidence and a firm control of the material that benefits the more fantastical elements, and evokes a strong sense of time and place in the flashback scenes. He’s aided by often evocative cinematography by David Lanzenberg, laudable costume designs for Adaline through the decades by Angus Strathie, and fluid, assured editing by Melissa Kent. All go together to make the movie a rich, rewarding experience, and one of the finest romantic dramas of recent years.

Rating: 8/10 – an intriguing premise given a stronger outing than expected, The Age of Adaline is a worthy throwback to the “women’s pictures” of the Thirties and Forties but with an appropriately modern sheen; with a superb performance from Lively, this is a movie that, thankfully, has more to it than meets the eye.

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The Homesman (2014)

25 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

1850's, Action, Drama, Hilary Swank, History, John Lithgow, Literary adaptation, Madness, Mary Bee Cuddy, Meryl Streep, Nebraska Territory, Review, Tommy Lee Jones, Western

Homesman, The

D: Tommy Lee Jones / 122m

Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Hilary Swank, Grace Gummer, Miranda Otto, Sonja Richter, Jo Harvey Allen, Barry Corbin, David Dencik, William Fichtner, Evan Jones, Caroline Lagerfelt, John Lithgow, Tim Blake Nelson, Jesse Plemons, James Spader, Hailee Steinfeld, Meryl Streep

In the Nebraska Territory in the 1850’s, three women – Arabella Sours (Gummer), Theoline Belknap (Otto), and Gro Svendsen (Richter) – fall victim to madness after enduring various hardships. Their pastor, Reverend Dowd (Lithgow), calls upon one of their husbands to take them to Hebron, Iowa where there is a church that will take care of them. With one refusing to do it at all, and the other two proving less than ideal, spinster and homesteader Mary Bee Cuddy (Swank) accepts the task, hoping that the “adventure” will help with her own feelings of isolation and depression.

Buddy encounters George Briggs (Jones), and saves him from being hanged for using another man’s home. She persuades him to accompany her and promises him $300 if they make it to Hebron. Briggs agrees but makes for surly company, and challenges Cuddy at every opportunity. However, they come to a mutual understanding, and Briggs’ experience proves invaluable when problems arise, such as one of the women wandering off and being found by a man (Nelson) who wants her for his own, and when they find themselves being watched by Indians.

However, when they find the desecrated grave of an eleven year old girl, Cuddy elects to restore it while Briggs continues on with the women. But Cuddy loses her way and finds herself back at the child’s grave. When she finally catches up with Briggs, she suggests to him that they should marry, but he rejects her offer, telling her – like som many other men before him – that she is too plain and too bossy. Later, she comes to him naked and they have sex. The next morning, Briggs makes a terrible discovery, one that changes the whole nature of the trek to Hebron.

Homesman, The - scene

Achingly stark yet beautiful at the same time, Jones’ adaptation of the novel by Glendon Swarthout, The Homesman, is a melancholic, richly detailed portrait of the hardships of frontier life in the 1850’s, and the different ways in which loneliness can affect even the strongest and most determined of people. Through the journey that Cuddy, Briggs and the three women make, the movie delves into notions of longing, despair, loss and, more curiously, faith (though to a lesser degree than the others). It’s a confident, expertly constructed and devised movie, and it features a handful of strong, finely detailed performances – from Jones, Swank, Streep and Lithgow – and also features some stunning photography courtesy of Rodrigo Prieto, but ultimately it’s a movie that plays too much to convention.

Part of the problem lies in the relationship between Briggs and Cuddy, two people for whom loneliness has become their lives. But where Briggs is comfortable in being alone, Cuddy isn’t, and strives to match herself with someone (at the beginning of the movie it’s another homesteader (Evan Jones), but her desperation is alienating). When she and Briggs meet it’s inevitable that she will offer him the same proposal of marriage it seems she’s made to everyone else. That Briggs will refuse her is another inevitability, and one that robs the moment of any dramatic tension; it also makes Cuddy’s willingness to strip naked and sleep with him too desperate (that Briggs would agree to this approach is unsurprising). What follows is robbed of any potency by Jones’ not allowing any build up to it – it’s presented so matter-of-factly that it makes Cuddy’s importance to the narrative seem irrelevant.

And so the focus remains on Briggs, a curmudgeonly old fox who lacks several degrees of decency, and who develops an unlikely sense of responsibility to the three madwomen (and purely, it seems, because they’ll follow him wherever he goes, a development that’s never really explained). He’s otherwise a selfish, mean-spirited man with no measure of social conscience, but who seems to gain said social conscience without a second thought, and who tries to echo Cuddy’s desperate need to fit in and be accepted by making a similar (uncomfortable) proposal to Steinfeld’s waitress. In Jones’s hands, he’s meant to be a sympathetic character overall, but his personality and way with others is too wayward to afford consistency, and Briggs’ initial roguishness gives way to behaving in whichever way the script needs him to.

With Jones the actor hamstrung by Jones the co-writer – along with Kieran Fitzgerald and Wesley A. Oliver – it’s left to Jones the director to save the day. If there’s one aspect that he’s very, very good at, it’s in the look of his movies. As in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005), Jones’ mastery of the frame is simply superb, each shot crafted with a care and attention to light and shade and detail that is consistently impressive. His use of perspective is also finely attuned, the various landscape shots peppered throughout the movie displaying a level of natural beauty married to the width and depth of the image that is often breathtaking. And it’s no different in medium or close up shots: Jones displays such a sure knowledge of what’s he doing and how he’s presenting it that each scene has a rare quality to it, one that few other directors would be able to reproduce.

The movie moves along at a measured pace that gives the cast adequate time to make an impression, and which shows Jones to be generous when sharing the screen with someone else. He gives supporting actors such as Spader, Fichtner and Steinfeld plenty of room to impress, and stands well back to let them do their thing. Though the script gives them little to do except stare off into the distance, Gummer, Otto and Richter, are effective as the three women driven mad by circumstance and hardship (particularly Richter, who has a chilling and very disturbing scene with a sowing needle). They don’t quite achieve the prominence the story allows them at the beginning, but all three characters are convincingly portrayed throughout.

There are casual nods to the sexism of the times, and the grim nature of trying to survive in what was an often harsh, unforgiving environment is well depicted. The final twenty minutes serve more as a coda than a final act, and some viewers may feel this section is a little off-centre as a result, as the three madwomen arrive at their destination and Streep’s affable pastor’s wife takes centre stage (her performance is a reminder, if any were needed, of just how good an actress she is). And the final scene itself ends the movie on an awkward, offhand note that smacks of contrivance rather than a satisfying end to the story.

Rating: 7/10 – absorbing if uneven, The Homesman scores highly because of Jones’ ability as a director and his often glorious use of the camera; with its story often straying off into some unwanted dead ends, this journey is only occasionally involving, and only occasionally matches the commitment made by its cast.

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The Better Angels (2014)

16 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

A.J. Edwards, Abraham Lincoln, Biography, Braydon Denney, Brit Marling, Diane Kruger, Drama, History, Indiana, Jason Clarke, Review, True story, Wes Bentley

Better Angels, The

D: A.J. Edwards / 95m

Cast: Jason Clarke, Diane Kruger, Braydon Denney, Brit Marling, Wes Bentley, Cameron  Mitchell Williams, McKenzie Blankenship

Indiana, 1817. Eight year old Abe Lincoln (Denney) lives with his father Tom (Clarke), mother Nancy (Marling), and younger sister Sarah (Blankenship) in an area of “unbroken forest”. They are joined by Nancy’s orphaned cousin, Dennis Hanks (Williams) who becomes an older brother to Abe. Abe’s father works as a farmer and a carpenter; he’s a taciturn man who doesn’t drink alcohol, gamble or curse, but he is a harsh disciplinarian, and Abe often finds himself being punished for some misbehaviour or minor infraction.

Abe has a better relationship with his mother, who is kind-hearted and supportive of his attempts to educate himself. She is a nurturing influence, one he thrives under, and the time he spends with her helps offset the onerous chores he has to do on the farm. But Abe is left adrift when Nancy contracts milk sickness and dies. His father tries to carry on but it doesn’t last long. He leaves Abe, Sarah and Dennis to manage the farm while he goes off to find another wife. When his father returns, it is with a new bride, Sarah “Sally” Bush Johnston (Kruger), a widow from Kentucky who has three children of her own. In her own way she proves as supportive and nurturing of Abe as Nancy was, and despite some initial reservations, Abe warms to her.

As their relationship deepens and strengthens, Abe’s relationship with his father remains the same, with an added emphasis on Abe’s “toughening up”. It’s around this time that Abe’s honesty becomes more noticeable (even if it leads to his being caned by his father), and his education receives a boost from the attention of local schoolteacher Mr Crawford (Bentley). Crawford seeks Tom’s permission to provide Abe with extra tutoring; as he tells Sally, Abe won’t be a backwoodsman for very much longer. Tom agrees, and Abe is set on the path to securing his future.

Better Angels, The - scene

An idyllic looking reminiscence on the early life of Abraham Lincoln, The Better Angels is a deliberately slow-paced meditation on the influences that helped the young Lincoln grow up to be the man he became. Taking as its focus the period of his life when he lost and gained a mother, the movie is a studied, thoughtful examination of the trials and joys of growing up in a wooded wilderness.

Shot in glorious, lustrous black and white, the movie paints a compelling portrait of a time and a place where life was certainly difficult, and sometimes harsh: the family’s cows get sick and die from eating poisonous weeds, and Nancy dies as a result of drinking their infected milk. When Tom Lincoln goes off to find a wife, it seems uncaring and thoughtless to leave his children and Dennis to cope until he returns, but this was part and parcel of life in America during that period, where a normal childhood had to be grabbed whenever possible. It’s to Edwards’ credit that he’s able to show that the young Lincoln was able to be a child as well as a farm labourer, and that he was able to find beauty in his surroundings, both in his two mothers and via the ever-changing natural habitat he was a part of.

Abe’s relationships with Nancy and Sarah are the heart and soul of the movie, delicate and affectionate and heartfelt, with both Marling and Kruger providing very different, yet very intuitive performances. Marling behaves almost like a wood nymph, her love of nature and the way in which she embraces it allowing Abe’s mind to embrace it too. Kruger is equally effective, imbuing Sarah with a quiet determination that Abe will realise his full potential, and unsupportive of her new husband’s strict approach to parenting. (It could be argued that without these two women in his life at such a formative time, then Abraham Lincoln’s future would have been entirely different.) As his stern, reticent father, Clarke is a stoic figure seemingly bereft of feeling and only able to connect with his son when correcting him. Indeed, the nearest he gets to showing any tenderness is when he’s teaching Abe how to wrestle, but it’s an awkward tenderness and borders on uncomfortable – for both of them.

The young Abe is played with quiet composure and assurance by Denney (making his movie debut), and he’s a great find, matching his adult co-stars for sincerity and skill. He has a natural ability that allows the viewer to engage and understand Abe instantly. Nancy mentions at one point that Abe is asking her questions she can’t answer; looking at Denney you can believe it. He’s also effective in scenes where he and his mothers bond through learning and their mutual appreciation of nature, his expressions of curiosity and understanding perfectly shaped and naturalistic. It’s a tremendous performance, and anchors the movie superbly.

With a quartet of understated yet superb performances at its centre, The Better Angels‘ glowing black and white cinematography emphasises the poetry and the beauty of the seasons, and is exhilarating to experience. Edwards’ use of shade and light, executed with tremendous precision by DoP Matthew J. Lloyd, is hugely impressive, immersing the viewer in shots of extraordinary seductiveness. Rarely has unspoilt countryside looked so alluring or captivating, and rarely has it looked so beautiful as it does here, in black and white. With every scene captured with breathtaking attention to period detail and highlighted by some of the most exquisite framing and composition seen in recent years, the movie is a visual treat par excellence.

Rating: 9/10 – some viewers may bemoan the slow pace and emphasis on recurring shots of natural beauty, but The Better Angels presents a fully realised world that is immersive and often deeply profound; with Edwards in full control of both the script and the world he’s recreating, this is a movie that resonates long after it’s been seen.

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Mr. Turner (2014)

21 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Biography, Dorothy Atkinson, Drama, History, JMW Turner, Marion Bailey, Mike Leigh, Painting, Paul Jesson, Relationships, Review, Royal Academy of Arts, Timothy Spall

Mr. Turner

D: Mike Leigh / 150m

Cast: Timothy Spall, Dorothy Atkinson, Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson, Karl Johnson, Ruth Sheen, Lesley Manville, Martin Savage, David Horovitch, Joshua McGuire, Kate O’Flynn, Leo Bill

Eminent painter Joseph Mallord William Turner is famous for his land- and seascapes. He lives in a big house in London with his father, William (Jesson) (who acts as his assistant), and his devoted housekeeper, Hannah (Atkinson). He has children he’s estranged from: two daughters from a relationship with Hannah’s aunt Sarah (Sheen). He rejects their attempts to procure financial support from him, even when they visit with his first grandchild. When he’s not at home, Turner travels the country (and sometimes abroad) making sketches that he can expand into paintings when he’s home.

He also visits members of the aristocracy and valued patrons. On one such visit he’s accosted by the struggling artist Benjamin Haydon (Savage), who asks him for the sum of £100 to help him avoid ruin. Haydon’s entreaties lead to Turner promising to lend him £50 instead, which Haydon accepts. When his father dies, Turner becomes depressed but the need to draw and paint is stronger than his despair. Shortly after, Turner visits Margate where he finds lodging with Mrs Booth (Bailey) and her husband (Johnson). He stays there awhile and finds himself enjoying the couple’s company. When he returns a second time he learns that Mrs Booth’s husband has passed away.

In the meantime his anarchic behaviour at the Royal Academy of Arts beguiles and amuses some of his fellow artists, and angers and upsets others, such as Constable. He appears to deface one of his own seascapes with a splotch of red, then removes himself. His associates are appalled and discomfited at this, until he returns and shapes the splotch until it resembles a buoy. At this their respect is renewed, and Turner’s notoriety is upheld, along with the acceptance of his genius. Around this time, Haydon, who has had his run-in with the Academy, visits Turner and tries to repay part of his debt. Turner, whose reputation is that of a curmudgeon, relents and waives the debt.

Returning to Margate he begins a relationship with Mrs Booth; they find a place together in Chelsea where Turner spends most of his time. But when the young Queen Victoria voices her disapproval over one of his paintings, his fame and public support begins to diminish. And following an attempt to experience what it feels like to be in the midst of a snowstorm by having himself strapped to the mast of a sailing ship, his health deteriorates as well.

Mr. Turner - scene

Biopics of famous artists usually depend on their having lived eventful, passionate lives away from the canvas, but what is a director to do when their subject lives a fairly hermetic life, and who feels compelled to sketch at every opportunity (even when they’re with a prostitute and still mourning the loss of their father)? Unfortunately, Mike Leigh never really finds an answer to the question, which leaves Mr. Turner somewhat dry and determinedly episodic.

Turner’s life did have a few memorable moments but they largely occurred when he was much younger (the movie covers the last twenty-five years of his life). His younger sister died aged four and his mother was committed to an asylum where she later died. At the age of fourteen he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Arts school, and into the Academy itself a year later (Sir Joshua Reynolds was on the panel that admitted him). Perhaps the movie should have focused on these events, showing us how the “painter of light” earned that sobriquet.

Instead we have a movie that begins with Turner at the height of his powers and fame, and which seeks to concentrate on his private life, but without convincing the viewer that there’s any connection between the two. Despite his reputation for being a social malcontent, the Turner we encounter here is more open and friendly than expected and appears to be acidulous only with people he actively dislikes – there’s a great scene where the art critic John Ruskin (McGuire) reflects disapprovingly on a style of painting he clearly has no understanding of and Turner soundly rebuffs him. But while Leigh may be attempting to separate the man from his reputation, that he proves to be a more rounded individual shouldn’t come as a surprise.

In his relationships with women things vary between interesting and banal, and with his visit to a prostitute having a much different outcome than might be typical, that his emotional life was unconventional is to miss the point. There’s an element of desperation in his exploitation of Hannah that would border on abuse if she wasn’t such a willing accomplice, while his “wooing” of Mrs Booth speaks more of two lost souls finding each other than anything more dramatic. In both relationships however, Turner remains on the outside, receiving comfort when he needs it, and giving little back in return. It’s indicative of the female role in society at the time, 1826-1851, that Turner does all this without a moment’s consideration (or remorse) for his actions, and Hannah and Mrs Booth remain grateful for being part of his life.

Outside of these relationships there’s little else that serves as a way of learning more about Turner’s life, and as a result, the movie adds scene after scene that either reinforces what we already know about him, or adds nothing more to the narrative than the opportunity to show off some more of Leigh’s fastidious period recreation. This is hugely impressive, though, and is one area in which Mr. Turner can’t be faulted. Suzie Davies’ production design coupled with Charlotte Watts’ set decoration and Jacqueline Durran’s costume design, and all lovingly shot by DoP Dick Pope (and all four of them Oscar nominated for their efforts) make the movie a visual treat that is as richly rewarding as the reproductions of Turner’s paintings. It’s heritage moviemaking of the highest order.

Mr. Turner - scene2

Despite problems with the movie’s narrative and structure, Leigh is still able to show why he’s one of the most distinctive and idiosyncratic directors working today, and why any of his future projects will still command attention and respect. Leigh’s work ethic and methods are well-known, as well as his organic approach to the material he and his cast are working on, and with Mr. Turner those methods are all in place, leading to a clutch of excellent performances and some splendid supporting turns. Spall is simply magnificent, grumbling and grunting his way through scenes with a sour face and occasional flashes of charm. It’s a deceptively simple and sympathetic portrayal, and Spall inhabits the character completely, so much so that you forget he’s acting. He’s matched by Atkinson, whose screen time is much less, but who brings an unforgettable sadness and pathos to her role as Turner’s subjugated housekeeper (and for those who might be wondering why Hannah looks so dreadful by the movie’s end, it’s because she suffered from psoriasis). As Hannah’s “competitor” Mrs Booth, Bailey expresses more in one rueful smile than some actresses manage in an entire movie, and her pleasant, amiable approach to the character serves as a telling counterpoint to the gruff demeanour of Turner himself.

A movie then that requires a great deal of perseverance but which is helped immeasurably by its cast and its presentation, Mr. Turner is likely to divide audiences into two camps: those looking for a story to follow, and those who can forgive its absence. With too many longueurs for its own good, the movie struggles to be as effective as it needs to be, but retains just enough energy to help audiences reach the end. It’s a close run thing, though, and with so little explained throughout, will definitely try some viewers’ patience.

Rating: 7/10 – fans of Leigh’s might be tempted to forgive the lack of a recognisable storyline, but without it Mr. Turner suffers accordingly; strong performances and often beautiful compositions and framing can’t prevent the movie from feeling hollow, nor the material from seeming as if it wasn’t quite as fully developed as it should have been.

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Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014)

14 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Akhmenrah, Ben Stiller, British Museum, Drama, Fantasy, Father/son relationship, Golden tablet, History, Lancelot, Owen Wilson, Review, Robin Williams, Sequel, Shawn Levy, Steve Coogan

Night at the Museum Secret of the Tomb

D: Shawn Levy / 98m

Cast: Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Ricky Gervais, Dan Stevens, Rebel Wilson, Skyler Gisondo, Rami Malek, Patrick Gallagher, Mizuo Peck, Ben Kingsley, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Bill Cobbs

Egypt, 1938. A team of archaeologists discover the tomb of Akhmenrah (Malek). They also find a golden tablet, but are warned that “the end will come” if the tablet is removed.

New York, present day. The Museum of Natural History is having an evening gala. Night security guard Larry Daley (Stiller) has arranged for some of the exhibits, including Teddy Roosevelt (Williams), Attila the Hun (Gallagher), and Sacagawea (Peck), to take part. Aware that the golden tablet that brings them all to life is showing signs of corrosion, Larry is unprepared for how it affects the exhibits during the gala; they run amok and the event is a disaster. Larry learns that the prophecy, that “the end will come”, means an end to the magic that brings the exhibits to life, and that the only way to stop it is to take the tablet to the British Museum in London. The museum holds the bodies of Akhmenrah’s parents, and it’s his father, Merenkahre (Kingsley), who can stop the tablet from losing its magic.

Larry arranges for the tablet and Akhmenrah to be shipped to the British Museum and takes his son, Nick (Gisondo), along with him. When they reach the museum they find that Teddy, Attila and Sacagawea have stowed away on the journey, along with Dexter the monkey, Jedediah (Wilson), Octavius (Coogan), and Laa (Stiller), a neanderthal who looks like Larry. As the museum’s exhibits start to come to life, they head for the Egyptian exhibition, but find themselves attacked by the skeleton of a triceratops. Luckily, they’re saved by Sir Lancelot (Stevens) who agrees to help them. An encounter with a nine-headed Xiangliu statue provides some unwanted danger, but eventually they reach Akhmenrah’s parents, where Merenkahre reveals that the tablet needs to be exposed to moonlight to restore its powers. However, believing it to be the Holy Grail, Lancelot steals the tablet and flees the museum in search of Camelot. Larry et al chase after him, but the tablet is close to losing its power altogether.

Night at the Museum Secret of the Tomb - scene

And so, the law of diminishing returns rears its predictable head and helps bury yet another fantasy franchise. While no one would say that the Night at the Museum movies are anything other than pleasantly diverting, what this second sequel lacks is the manic energy of the first two, and a script that makes the barest attempt at providing a credible storyline. Hardly any of it makes sense, from the idea that “the end will come” if the tablet is removed from the Akhmenrah family tomb in the first place, to the idea that Larry would take his son along with him to London (they’re having “issues”), to the conceit that the British Museum has only the one guard (who is stationed in a gatehouse and not inside the actual building), to the notion that Lancelot would mistake the tablet for the Holy Grail, to the judgment that everyone can get back to New York before the sun rises – from London… in the middle of the night… It’s like someone chucked a whole sticky mess of ideas at a wall and these were the ones that didn’t slip to the floor.

With the script having gone AWOL from the beginning, it’s left to director Shawn Levy to make the most of a bad set up, but for the most part he’s AWOL as well. The opening sequence in Egypt has a sub-Raiders of the Lost Ark feel that makes it the most interesting part of the movie, but it’s probably because it doesn’t take place inside a museum. Still, it has an intensity that’s missing from the rest of the movie, and Levy at least ensures a minimal sense of wonder at the tomb’s discovery. From then on it’s business as usual, with Gervais’ museum head acting all prissy, Coogan highlighting Octavius’s homosexual leanings, Dexter getting to urinate on someone (this time Jedediah and Octavius), Williams dispensing kind words and wisdom as if Roosevelt was the sagest exhibit of them all, the Easter Island head saying “dum-dum” as if that was still funny by itself, and a set of dinosaur bones that just want to play if given the right encouragement. It’s lazy with a capital L-A-Z-Y.

The same is true of the performances. It would be foolish to expect the cast of a second sequel to bring their ‘A’ game to things, but watching some of them going through the motions is not only dispiriting, but embarrassing as well. Stiller all but sleepwalks through his role as Larry, bringing not one new quirk or character trait to the table, and mugging for all he’s worth as Laa, the comedy neanderthal. In support it’s business as usual for all concerned, with Williams smiling from beneath his moustache at every opportunity, Gallagher playing Attila as a great big softie, Peck kept on the sidelines as Sacagawea, Wilson and Coogan reprising their “good buddy” relationship (and which sorely needs some antagonism added back into it), and Malek remaining as bland as ever. Even Crystal the Monkey is subdued this time around, as if even she can’t be bothered. Only Stevens rises above the paucity of the material, his preening, carefree Lancelot proving an unexpected treat. (As for Rebel Wilson’s in-all-ways frustrated security guard, well, the less said the better.)

A bittersweet farewell to Teddy Roosevelt aside – and would that even be true if it weren’t for the sad death of Robin Williams last year? – Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb scampers along like a young child wanting to be noticed but not really knowing how to go about it. Lacking in anything resembling a “wow” factor, even the special effects don’t have the same impact as before. But thanks to some splendid cinematography by Guillermo Navarro, the movie does look good, which is something at least.

Rating: 3/10 – poorly executed, and as devoid of life as the exhibits it animates, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb is yet another unnecessary sequel that tries too hard to make up for its deficiencies; when the level of humour is to have an Egyptian pharaoh ask someone to “kiss my staff” then it’s time to let the golden tablet corrode for good.

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The Imitation Game (2014)

11 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

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Alan Turing, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bletchley Park, Christopher, Code breaking, Drama, Enigma, History, Homosexuality, Joan Clarke, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Morten Tyldum, Review, True story, World War II

Imitation Game, The

D: Morten Tyldum / 114m

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Rory Kinnear, Allen Leech, Matthew Beard, Charles Dance, Mark Strong, James Northcote, Tom Goodman-Hill, Steven Waddington, Alex Lawther, Jack Bannon, Tuppence Middleton

Manchester, 1951. A robbery at the home of maths professor Alan Turing (Cumberbatch) leads to the police, particularly Detective Robert Nock (Kinnear), having suspicions that he is hiding something.

1939. Turing arrives for a job interview at Bletchley Park. He is aloof, humourless, arrogant, and quickly stirs the ire of his interviewer, Naval Commander Denniston (Dance). On the verge of being thrown out because of his behaviour, Turing mentions Enigma, the “unbreakable” encryption device being used by the Germans; if it can be cracked, it will turn the tide of the war in Britain’s favour. Impressed, but still against his better judgment, Denniston hires Turing. He becomes part of a team that is headed by chess prodigy Hugh Alexander (Goode), and includes cryptographers John Cairncross (Leech) and Peter Hilton (Beard), though there is friction from the start as Turing prefers to work alone; instead of trying to decipher the hundreds of messages they intercept each day in the hope of breaking the code, Turing works at constructing a machine that will be able to analyse and decode the 159 million million million possible settings the Enigma machine uses.

Denied the funds to build his machine by Alexander, Turing approaches Denniston but is rebuffed. He gets a letter to Winston Churchill via MI6 overseer Stewart Menzies (Strong) and ends up in charge of the programme at Bletchley Park. He fires part of the team but then realises they need more staff. He has a difficult crossword puzzle published in the newspapers; anyone who solves it is asked to attend a further test/interview at Bletchley. Through this he meets Joan Clarke (Knightley), who proves to be a match for him intellectually, and despite some resistance from her parents, he arranges for her to work on the project.

1951. Nock gains a copy of Turing’s military file, only to find there’s nothing in it. He tells his superior, Superintendent Smith (Waddington) that he believes Turing could be a Communist spy. Smith allows Nock to investigate further.

1940. Turing arrives at the hut the team uses to find Denniston and some MPs going through his desk. Apparently there is a spy at Bletchley, but the search reveals nothing out of the ordinary, though Denniston makes it clear his suspicions lie firmly with Turing. Tensions between the group are heightened as Turing spends more and more time building his machine and isolating himself. Joan tells him he needs to be more friendly otherwise he won’t get the help he needs. He does so, and a little while later receives a suggestion from Alexander that is beneficial. A confrontation between Turing and Denniston leads to the rest of the team backing him and his machine (against the threat of being fired); Denniston tells them they have a month to prove it works.

With the month nearly up and no progress made with the machine (named Christopher after Turing’s schoolboy friend), Turing finds himself talking to Helen (Middleton), one of Joan’s friends, and someone who intercepts the German messages. She reveals that her German counterpart always uses the same phrase in their messages. It proves to be the breakthrough Turing and the team have needed. Now, instead of searching through all the possible settings, Christopher only has to search for ones that contain words that they know will be in the messages. They test their theory… and it works. But that isn’t the end of it, and a terrible decision has to be made. And in 1951, Nock discovers that what Turing is trying to hide isn’t that he’s a Communist spy, but that he’s a homosexual.

Imitation Game, The - scene1

There are two things that can be said about Alan Turing: that without him the Germans could well have won the war, and the circumstances of his post-war life led to a terrible tragedy. It’s to The Imitation Game‘s credit that it explores these aspects of his life with both candour and a lack of sentimentality. Exploring for the most part his work at Bletchley Park, the movie doesn’t ignore his formative years, nor the events that led to his untimely death in 1954, but its the way in which each part of his life is integrated that makes the movie so effective. The different periods dovetail with precision, Graham Moore’s intelligent, well-constructed screenplay – albeit one that contains a great deal of invention (the character of Nock and his investigation for example) – picking out the highs and lows of Turing’s life with exemplary attention to detail.

The importance of Turing’s work during the war can’t be stressed enough; historians have gauged that breaking the Enigma code shortened the war by at least two years. The size of the problem, the sheer enormity of it all, is given due importance, and the various setbacks add to the tension, but it’s the movie’s focus on Turing and his team that adds immeasurably to the drama. Turing is portrayed as an arrogant boor, dismissive of anyone less intelligent than himself (and that’s most people), and so single-minded in his pursuit of a solution to the Enigma code that his arrogance increases tenfold. His interaction with Alexander is initially antagonistic, but the growing respect they gain for each other is handled with care and sincerity, and brings Turing out of his shell. As well there’s his relationship with Joan, as unlikely a collaboration as could be imagined during the war, but as richly rewarding for each other as it is for the viewer (and beautifully played by Cumberbatch and Knightley).

Turing is brought to life by an amazing performance from Cumberbatch, immersing himself completely in the role and proving mesmerising to watch. Moore’s script allows for a lot of humour in the movie’s early scenes, mostly at the expense of Turing’s humourlessness (and Denniston’s apprehension at his behaviour). Both actors relish their sharp, witty dialogue, and while it all helps to make Turing more sympathetic than he would be otherwise, it also serves to introduce the Enigma project in such a way that the seriousness of the situation, when it becomes more pronounced, doesn’t leave the audience missing the humour. And the drama reaches a peak in a scene where the terrible consequences of cracking the code means a heart-rending decision has to be made that affects Hilton’s brother. It’s a chilling moment, with victory swiftly replaced by despair, and perfectly highlights some of the difficult decisions that have to be made during wartime.

In terms of biographical continuity, the movie flits between 1926, the war and 1951. Turing’s time at Sherborne School, where his friendship with Christopher Morcom leads to the first intimation of his homosexuality, is given weight by the later use of “Christopher” as the name of the code-breaking machine. It also paints a rather amiable picture of boarding school life and shows the younger Turing struggling to come to terms with his own emotions and the love he feels for his friend. These scenes are the equivalent of the kind of rosy childhood memories we all think we experienced but which in actuality were probably worse than we remember, but they serve as a way of showing how disappointment and regret have allowed the older Turing to become so haughty and withdrawn. The post-war sequences, almost entirely invented for the movie, give a passing hint at how Turing may have died but then states at the end that he committed suicide, which was the official cause of death at the time, but which has since been revealed to be not entirely conclusive.

It’s these distortions and fabrications of the historical period that, inevitably, do the most harm to the movie, and while a degree of dramatic licence is to be expected in a drama “based” on true events, the range and number of historical inaccuracies is worrying.  In truth, Turing was not as disliked as the movie shows, and he did have a recognised sense of humour. He didn’t lead the team at Bletchley Park, nor did he write a letter to Churchill asking for funds to build his machine (which in reality had already been designed in 1938 by Marian Rejewski, a Polish cryptographer). Clarke’s involvement was not as pronounced as shown in the movie, and Hilton had no brother, while the character of Helen is entirely fictional too. It’s understandable that these aspects of Moore’s script are there to enhance the drama, but when you have a true story of wartime heroics to tell, the need for such embellishments – or falsehoods if you will – seems unnecessary. And Turing’s homosexuality, while not overplayed, is treated somewhat like an unfortunate character trait, with everyone at Bletchley aware of it but ever so respectful at the same time – one wonders if that would really have been the case.

Imitation Game, The - scene3

Despite issues with the script, the cast are uniformly excellent. As mentioned above, Cumberbatch is mesmerising, portraying Turing’s strength of will and sense of purpose with such skill and confidence that the character’s quirks and odd physicality seem entirely natural. He dominates every scene he’s in, causing his co-stars to up their game considerably; as a result The Imitation Game contains a raft of performances that are so good it may well be the best acted movie of 2014. Knightley is appealing as Joan (even if she bears no resemblance to the real Joan Clarke), and plays her with a determination and inner strength that matches Turing’s irascibility and overcomes it. Goode, Leech and Beard, as Turing’s main collaborators, all get their chance to shine but it’s their group scenes and their interaction with each other that work best. Kinnear has an awkward role that he copes well with, as a detective representing our modern approach to the adversity that Turing suffered after the war; it’s the one role that doesn’t entirely convince and seems shoehorned into the movie to make the point about how badly Turing – a war hero – was treated after hostilities ceased. And Dance and Strong, as the twin faces of the Establishment, provide effortless support throughout (as you’d expect).

Fresh from his adaptation of Jo Nesbø’s Headhunters (2011), Tyldum displays an appreciation for recent British history, and handles the complexities of the story in such a way that nothing seems too intellectual to understand. He keeps the action very contained, focusing instead on the characters and their personalities, showing how people from often very different backgrounds could, and did, make such a vital difference in how the war was eventually won. The various periods of Turing’s are recreated with admirable authenticity (some wartime scenes were actually shot at Bletchley Park), and are lensed to very good effect by Oscar Faura. There’s also a subtly evocative score by Alexandre Desplat that enriches each scene it plays over or supports.

Rating: 9/10 – despite taking a huge number of historical liberties, The Imitation Game is gripping, thought-provoking, ambitious movie making, and one of the finest dramas of recent years; with stellar performances from all concerned – including Cumberbatch’s career-defining turn – this (mostly) true story scales new heights in the genre of historical drama, and can’t be recommended highly enough.

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Dracula Untold (2014)

16 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Charles Dance, Dominic Cooper, Gary Shore, History, Horror, Luke Evans, Reboot, Review, Sarah Gadon, Thriller, Transylvania, Vampire, Vlad Tepes

Dracula Untold

D: Gary Shore / 92m

Cast: Luke Evans, Dominic Cooper, Sarah Gadon, Art Parkinson, Charles Dance, Diarmaid Murtagh, Paul Kaye

Set in the Middle Ages in Eastern Europe, fealty to the Sultan of Turkey is observed by the giving of a thousand boys to be trained in his army.  Such is the early fate of Vlad Tepes (Evans), who grows up to be a fierce warrior and friend of the subsequent Turkish ruler, Mehmet (Cooper).  Turning his back on war, Vlad returns home to rule his people.  He marries Mirena (Gadon) and has a son, Ingeras (Parkinson).  After years of peace, Vlad is alerted to the presence of Turkish scouts in his homeland.  He tracks them to Broken Tooth Mountain, where in a cave that reveals itself as a slaughterhouse, Vlad comes face to face with a monster (Dance).  He escapes, but not before two of his men have been claimed by the creature.  Returning home, Father Lucien (Kaye) advises Vlad of the creature’s origins, and its vampiric nature.  They decide to keep their knowledge a secret between them.

A Turkish envoy, come to collect his master’s tribute, tells Vlad the Sultan wants a thousand boys for his army.  Vlad wavers over doing his duty to the Sultan and doing what’s best for his people.  When the Sultan’s envoy adds that Mehmet wants a thousand and one boys, and the extra boy should be Ingeras, Vlad is even further torn.  But at the point of giving his son to the envoy, Vlad makes a fateful decision: no boys will go to the Sultan.  War is inevitable, but Vlad seeks a way to avoid his people being decimated by the Turkish hordes.  He returns to Broken Tooth Mountain where he confronts the vampire and asks to share in his power.  The creature agrees but stipulates that if Vlad is to drink any human blood in the next three days then he will be cursed as a vampire forever, and unable to be fully human again.

When the Turks march on Castle Dracula, Vlad goes out to meet them alone… and he decimates their forces.  With a greater army on the way, headed by Mehmet himself, Vlad orders his people to move to a monastery high up in the mountains, somewhere it will be difficult for the Turks to attack directly.  A surprise attack leaves Mirena and Ingeras in peril, but Vlad saves them using his newfound powers.  The next day, at the monastery, suspicions over Vlad’s new powers leads to him being attacked by his own people.  He survives to rebuke them, telling them that what he has done is because of them, and that they should be concentrating on Mehmet’s approaching army.

Arriving just before dawn, the Turkish forces are met by Vlad but they prove to be a decoy for a smaller force that gains entry to the monastery and targets Mirena and Ingeras.  With their fates intertwined with his, Vlad is forced to make a decision that will affect all their lives, and bring him face to face with his boyhood friend.

Dracula Untold - scene

Dracula Untold is yet another reboot of an established and well-defined character that seeks to make them look less like a monster and more like someone who has to be bad in order to do good (this year’s Maleficent is another example).  It’s a strange phenomenon in the movies these days, almost as if moviemakers feel they have to apologise for these characters’ behaviour.  It also ends up rendering them relatively anaemic (excuse the pun) in comparison to their original incarnation.  And so it proves with this reimagining of the Dracula story.

While the initial idea is sound – show how Vlad Tepes, Transylvanian prince and hero to his people became Dracula, bloodthirsty monster feared by all – the movie fumbles its way through its attempts to create an origin story partly based on historical fact and partly on romantic fiction.  Vlad is shown as a peaceful man reigning in a vicious, cruel capacity for violence but even though we see the the results of his warlike nature – the infamous impalings on the battlefield – it’s hard to associate the two differing temperaments.  As played by a suitably brooding Evans, Vlad is a bit of a wimp in the opening scenes, browbeaten by the Turkish envoy and then dismissed by Mehmet in a scene where Vlad pleads for clemency in relation to the thousand boys.  Vlad doesn’t appear the proud leader of men he’s meant to be, but more an easily cowed man with no stomach for a fight.  It’s only when he saves his son and kills some of Mehmet’s men that he shows some mettle.

It’s here that Dracula Untold finally becomes a vampire movie, reintroducing Dance’s withered creature, and setting up a future storyline if the movie is as successful at the box office as Universal hope it will be (they have a modern Monsters Cinematic Universe in mind).  The bargain is made, allowing the inevitable tragedy of such a bargain to begin playing out.  Vlad tries to deny his thirst for blood while Mirena marvels at the disappearance of his battle scars.  And in a scene of limited ferocity and actual bloodshed, Vlad takes on a thousand Turks and kills them all.  But it’s all done at a remove, with the intensity of the situation dialled down a notch or two, and Vlad’s predicament reduced to the level of suffering occasional stomach cramps.  From here, the movie picks up the pace but it’s at the expense of time-related logic and dramatic credibility.

With Vlad needing to defeat Mehmet and his army within three days, the Turks’ ability to travel huge distances in such a short space of time goes unquestioned, while Vlad creates a vampire horde of his own to take them on (would a ruler who truly cares for his people do such a thing even if they were on the verge of dying?).  And the script tries for an ironic twist – Vlad’s fate is sealed by the one person he loves most – that feels hackneyed and short on originality.

Muddled though the movie is for the most part, it’s stronger in its performances.  Evans brings a brutish physicality to the role that suits the warrior Vlad, and he dominates scenes just by being present.  He’s a more thoughtful actor than you might expect from his resumé, and he does his best to offset some of the more florid dialogue in the script, as well as making Vlad a more rounded character.  Gadon also gives a good performance, matching Evans for intensity in their scenes together and making Mirena slightly more than the wife who waits anxiously at home while her man goes off to battle.  Dance radiates a cold disdain as the trapped “master vampire” though his voice retains too much of its recognisable charm to make that disdain truly chilling.  Parkinson proves an adequate match for the demands of a role that could so easily have been more stereotypically presented, while Kaye as Father Lucien has a small but pivotal role that he acquits himself well in (even if some audience members will be saying to themselves, “but that’s Dennis Pennis”).  The only disappointment is Cooper, once again confirming his limited range as an actor, and making Mehmet look and sound like an arrogant jerk.

Dracula Untold - scene2

In the director’s chair, Shore (making his feature debut) uses his experience working in   high-end commercials to provide some impressive visuals – one shot shows Vlad taking on the Turks as reflected in the blade of a sword – and shows a confidence that bodes well for the future if it’s combined with a better script.  He’s clearly comfortable directing actors as well, and the performances are as much to his credit as to theirs.  The photography by John Schwartzman is predictably gloomy, though it avoids the steely gray-blue aesthetic of the Underworld series, and there’s a dramatic if occasionally intrusive score courtesy of Ramin Djawadi that is used to good effect throughout.

Ultimately, Dracula Untold is a bit of a mixed bag, its historical pretensions never fully reconciled with its need to reinvent its title character.  The script – by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless – remains jumbled throughout and it’s this lack of focus that hampers things the most.  As an entreé into the revamped (excuse the pun) world of Universal’s collection of classic monsters it’s maybe not quite the start the company were looking for, but it’s also not as bad as it could have been.

Rating: 5/10 – despite some occasionally severe deficiencies in the script, Dracula Untold is a solid, unpretentious reintroduction to the world’s most (in)famous vampire; a good mix of the epic and the intimate also helps but the characters remain at too much of a remove to make us truly care what happens to them.

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Jimmy’s Hall (2014)

22 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Barry Ward, Catholic Church, Community hall, County Leitrim, Deportation, History, Ireland, Jimmy Gralton, Ken Loach, Paul Laverty, Simone Kirby, True story

Jimmy's Hall

D: Ken Loach / 109m

Cast: Barry Ward, Simone Kirby, Jim Norton, Francis Magee, Brían F. O’Byrne, Aisling Franciosi, Martin Lucey, Aileen Henry, Andrew Scott

Returning home to Ireland in 1932 after ten years living in New York, communist sympathiser Jimmy Gralton (Ward) finds himself welcomed by his mother and the rest of the local community.  He’s looked upon as a hero by both his own generation and the younger generation who’ve grown up on tales of his standing up to the church when he ran the local hall.  Jimmy fled then to avoid being arrested, and the hall has fallen into disrepair in the years since.  The church, represented by Father Sheridan (Norton), viewed the hall as promoting wickedness, with its dance classes and social events.  When the news of Jimmy’s return reaches him, Sheridan does his best to coerce the locals, and Jimmy himself, to leave the hall as it is, and makes it clear that if the hall does reopen, it will mean trouble for everyone.

Encouraged by the support of the local community, and undaunted by Father Sheridan’s threats, Jimmy decides to reopen the hall.  In doing so, he rekindles a romance he had with Oonagh (Kirby), even though she married while he was gone, and has had two children.  On the opening night, the hall is packed, much to Father Sheridan’s displeasure, and despite his taking the names of the people who attend.  Things begin to get out of hand when Marie (Franciosi) is beaten by her father (O’Byrne) for being there, and threats are made against Jimmy and the hall.  Soon, Father Sheridan is using Jimmy’s radicalism as a reason for having the hall closed, and with the local landowners – who stood with the church ten years before – accuses Jimmy of trying to introduce communist ideology into the community via the open door policy at the hall.  The state becomes involved, and it’s not long before there’s a warrant issued for his arrest.

Jimmy's Hall - scene

Purportedly Loach’s farewell to moviemaking, Jimmy’s Hall, at times, plays like a movie that someone attempting to imitate Ken Loach might make.  It’s got his political and religious points of view, it celebrates the underdog, it has a real sense of the community it’s presenting, and it takes melodrama and makes it appear matter-of-fact.  There’s the expected camaraderie amongst Jimmy and his friends and neighbours, the hissable villain representing repressive authority, outbursts of unjustifiable violence, a clearly defined historical perspective, and naturalistic acting from its cast.  (In one sense, it’s like a “greatest hits” package.)

And yet this is also very much Loach-lite, as it were.  It doesn’t have the impact needed to elevate the material beyond its basic structure and set up, and it lacks the passion that the people at the time must have felt about the issue.  Watching Jimmy’s Hall is like hearing someone describe something really terrible but in a completely even tone of voice.  And even though it’s based on a true story, there’s little here that merits a whole movie’s worth of attention.  Gralton, as played by Ward, is a sincere man, thoughtful, considerate, politically astute, romantic, but even with all that in his favour, he’s a bit colourless at the same time.  Long stretches of the movie go by without his being on screen at all, and when he is on screen, he’s often the secondary focus or part of the crowd, leaving the audience to wonder just what it is about the man that has warranted so much attention.  Aside from a scene where he shows off his dance moves, and a showdown with Father Sheridan (that changes nothing), Gralton is almost a bystander in his own story.  (There is his affair with Oonagh but that feels like it’s there to add further tragedy to events that are already fairly tragic on their own.)

The movie firmly supports Gralton and the villagers in their aims regarding the hall – poetry and dance classes, social events etc. – and the importance of the hall in their lives is portrayed effortlessly and with approval, Loach emphasising the need for it in broad but efficient brush strokes.  With the cause given such attention, the opponents are given less consideration, and appear needlessly narrow minded.  Sheridan is blinkered in his approach to Gralton and the hall, and with Paul Laverty’s script demonising the man at every turn, it quickly becomes draining watching him refute the good the hall engenders, and all because of some misguided notion that it will encourage lewd behaviour.  It’s a measure of Norton’s abilities as an actor that Sheridan isn’t completely free of introspection, and a scene with Father Seamus (Scott) and a phonograph gives more insight into the man but arrives too late in the movie to do any good.  And then there’s Marie’s father, the opponents’ blunt instrument, a character whose sole purpose in the movie is to show brute, unreasoning force was used against the villagers and by doing so, elicit more sympathy for them (as if we might not have enough already).

This simplistic approach stops Loach from captivating his audience, and while his usual polemical outlook is well established, the actual slightness of the material as well stops the movie from achieving anything more meaningful.  That said, the assembled cast are well chosen and there’s not a false note to be found in their performances (even if their character appears underwritten).  Magee and Franciosi, in particular, deserve a mention.  The movie is also beautiful to look at, Robbie Ryan’s cinematography bringing out the best of the County Leitrim locations (where the original events took place), and there’s a fine score courtesy of regular contributor George Fenton that mixes Irish music with jazz and blues to often moving effect.  Loach’s direction is as effortless as ever, and while the material may be modest in its ambition and scope, he’s still able to place often quietly moving moments and some subtle humour in amongst the political diatribes.

Rating: 7/10 – not as sharp or poignant as expected, Jimmy’s Hall has more to say about what makes a community than it does the political landscape of the times; however, a Ken Loach movie is always worth seeing, and despite reservations, this is no different.

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My Top 10 Movies – Part Eight

10 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Algeria, Algerian War of Independence, Criterion collection, Decolonialization, Drama, France, Gillo Pontecorvo, History, Jean Martin, Review, The Battle of Algiers, True story

The Battle of Algiers (1966)

Battle of Algiers, The

Original title: La battaglia di Algeri

D: Gillo Pontecorvo / 121m

Cast: Brahim Hadjadj, Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi, Samia Kerbash, Ugo Paletti, Fusia El Kader

In the late Nineties, I became aware of the Criterion Collection.  If, like me, you have a broad liking for cinema, then the movies in the Criterion Collection will capture your interest from the moment you first set eyes on them.  I can’t remember now which Criterion DVD was my first purchase, but there were several I had my eye on, including Seven Samurai (1954) and The Seventh Seal (1957).  I built up my collection, and then in 2004 I was browsing through their listings and I saw the title The Battle of Algiers.  Knowing nothing about it, I did some research and found it was about the Algerian War of Independence which took place between 1954 and 1957.  It was a period of recent history I knew nothing about, but as I discovered just how highly regarded it was, the movie jumped to the top of my “must-have” list.

However, despite my initial enthusiasm, it was a while before I actually bought the movie’s Criterion edition, and even longer before I finally sat down to watch it.  It didn’t take long before I was berating myself for being so tardy; the movie was astonishing.  It was like watching a documentary, its shooting style almost like the audience was eavesdropping on events as they happened; it was mesmerising.  And it was incredibly instructive and informative.  By the movie’s end I had a much clearer understanding of the Algerian struggle for independence, and France’s response to it.  It was shocking in many ways, and deliberately so.  The movie left no room for doubt: both sides had been capable of carrying out atrocities in their efforts to achieve their ends.  It was this fairness in presenting events that caught my attention as well, Pontecorvo’s decision to not take sides but to pass judgment when necessary on both the Algerians and the French.

Battle of Algiers, The - scene

Afterwards, like the really best movies (and all the rest in my Top 10), the movie stayed with me.  I also watched all the supplemental material on the Criterion DVD, something I rarely did back then, or do even now.  And the more I thought about it, the more I found myself wanting to watch the movie a second time.  And so, a couple of weeks later, I did, and even though I’d seen The Battle of Algiers so recently, it was like watching it for the first time.  The amateur cast (albeit largely dubbed) were amazing to watch, their personal experiences infusing their performances, and offering a trenchant contrast with Martin’s professional interpretation of the composite character Colonel Mathieu.  The soundtrack made more of an impression also, with Pontecorvo’s decision to include the sounds of warfare as punctuation in certain scenes proving a master-stroke.

Watching the movie again reinforced my belief that cinema can both educate and inspire as well as entertain.  Even though The Battle of Algiers is not an easy watch, and there are scenes that push the level of barbarity both sides employed, it works best as a document of those tumultuous times and the efforts each side made to win the conflict.  The documentary-style approach serves as a framework for the political and personal stories the movie focuses on, and provides a structured point of access for the casual viewer.  There’s so much information provided that some of it will most likely be missed but Pontecorvo’s mastery of the material ensures that every action, reaction or decision is clearly explained along with its consequences.

It’s a bold, complicated movie that, for its time, pulls no punches and offers, by turns, a committed yet dispassionate view of terrible events.  It’s no surprise the movie came under fire when it was released, but it’s a measure of its power that various bans have failed to dilute its effect over the years.

For me, it makes my Top 10 by virtue of its unflinching approach and the way it draws the viewer into a world that most of us can’t imagine.  After watching it for a second time, the movie stayed with me for an even longer time, and although I’ve only seen it a third time since then, the impression it made on me has lasted for twenty years, and that’s definitely an achievement worth noting.

Rating: 9/10 – superb recreation of a terrible period in Algerian and French history that doesn’t pull any punches or treat events shown with anything less than intelligence; a masterpiece of filmmaking that remains effective and relevant even today.

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Romulus and the Sabines (1961)

09 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Early Rome, Georgia Moll, History, Il ratto delle sabine, Italian film, Mylène Demongeot, Peplum movie, Review, Roger Moore, Romulus, Sabine women, Scilla Gabel

Romulus and the Sabines

Original title: Il ratto delle sabine

aka The Rape of the Sabines

D: Richard Pottier / 98m

Cast: Roger Moore, Mylène Demongeot, Folco Lulli, Georgia Moll, Scilla Gabel, Luisa Mattioli, Marino Masé, Claude Conty, Nietta Zocchi, Francis Blanche, Walter Barnes, Rosanna Schiaffino, Jean Marais

Following on from the same year’s Romolo e Remo, Romulus and the Sabines is a roughly faithful retelling of the rape of the Sabine women, when the men of Rome, under their king Romulus (Moore), kidnapped the women of neighbouring Sabine in order that they could have wives and so ensure Rome’s future growth and prosperity.  (The term “rape” should really read “abduction” as that is the literal translation of the original Latin.)

As the movie begins the men of Rome are bewailing their lack of women.  Looking at the motley band of extras the Italian filmmakers have come up with for the movie, you’d be forgiven for thinking, pity the poor women who have to deal with that lot.  After a few examples of King David-like problem solving, Romulus is informed that intruders to Rome have landed nearby.  During the skirmish that follows, a woman, Dusia (Gabel) is discovered.  She makes her escape, only to be found by Romulus later on.  Within moments they have fallen in love and Romulus is helping her hide in a cave.  Romulus sends ambassadors to the Sabine king Titus (Lulli) asking for the Sabine women to be given over to Rome.  Titus refuses, leading Romulus to plot their abduction at a festival held by the Sabines.  Distracted by wine provided by the Romans, the Sabines have little chance to stop the abduction of their women, including Titus’s daughter Rea (Demongeot).

Romulus, upon seeing Rea, promptly forgets all about Dusia, and falls head over heels in love (again).  The Sabine women are given their pick of the Roman men, and the future of Rome is secured.  While all this is going on however, Dusia, who has found a secret entrance into Rome and seen Romulus making googly-eyes at Rea, frees Rea and then helps the Sabines to enter Rome and mount an attack.

Romulus and the Sabines - scene

There are anomalies here, of course.  The character of Dusia never existed (she’s a stand-in for Tarpeia, the daughter of the governor of the citadel on the Capitoline hill). When the Sabines attacked Rome it was after two other tribes had already failed in the same endeavour.  And it was the new brides of Rome who stopped the battle by coming between the opposing sides and reconciling them (here the battle is stopped in a different way but the outcome is the same).  If you know your early Roman history, then I’m sure there are even more things that are anachronistic or just plain wrong, but as the movie is intended primarily as entertainment rather than as a faithful recreation of events, the filmmakers can probably be excused their remissions and embellishments.

What is harder to forgive is the sight of Moore with one of the silliest hairstyles seen in any peplum movie.  Amazingly, Moore was thirty-four when he made Romulus and the Sabines, but he looks ten years younger and has the curly hair of a teenager just learning to use a comb.  Whenever he’s on screen – and that’s approximately sixty per cent of the time – it’s all you can focus on.  Even Gabel’s heaving bosom doesn’t attract the eye as much… well, okay, maybe it does.  There are early examples of the raised eyebrow school of acting, as well as completely unconvincing attempts to act tough or angry.  It’s actually difficult to properly gauge Moore’s performance as he alternates between entering into the spirit of things, and looking as uncomfortable in a short skirt as only a grown man can.  (This was Moore’s first Italian movie, and he would make only one more, Un branco di vigliacchi (aka No Man’s Land), the following year.

As for the rest of the cast, Demongeot pouts a lot and provides a one-note performance, while Gabel smoulders as much as is humanly possible without spontaneously combusting.  Comic relief is provided by the near-sighted Blanche, and gravitas comes courtesy of Lulli.  Pottier’s direction is merely average (this was his only peplum movie), and the photography meets the standards required for this type of movie with this type of budget.  The art direction depicts a Rome that is both rich and pastoral – often in the same shot – and the outdoor sequences are filmed with an eye for the beauty of the surrounding countryside.  All in all, Romulus and the Sabines is no better and no worse than all the other historical epics being made at the time in Italy.  It has its humorous moments, mostly unintentional, but it does a fair job of telling its (mostly) true story.

Rating: 5/10 – despite Moore’s uneasiness in the title role, Romulus and the Sabines isn’t as daft as it might have been; perfect for passing the time on a rainy afternoon when there’s nothing else on.

Originally posted on thedullwoodexperiment website.

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The Butler (2013)

29 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Cecil Gaines, Civil rights movement, David Oyelowo, Drama, Eugene Allen, Forest Whitaker, History, Lee Daniels, Martin Luther King, Oprah Winfrey, Presidents, Racism, Review, True story, White House

Butler, The

D: Lee Daniels / 132m

Cast: Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, Cuba Gooding Jr, Lenny Kravitz, David Oyelowo, Terrence Howard, Olivia Washington, Yaya DaCosta, Clarence Williams III, Vanessa Redgrave, Alex Pettyfer, Robin Williams, John Cusack, James Marsden, Liev Schreiber, Alan Rickman, Jane Fonda

Based on the life of Eugene Allen (here re-named Cecil Gaines), The Butler covers over eighty years of American history, and focuses on the civil rights movement as seen through the eyes of Gaines, his family, and the various Presidents he served in the White House.  Beginning in 1926 where the young Gaines and his mother and father work on a cotton plantation, the film progresses through the decades touching on various important political events and attempts to establish the effect these events have on Gaines (Whitaker) and his family – wife Gloria (Winfrey), and two sons, Louis (Oyelowo) and Charlie (Isaac White, Elijah Kelley).

While Cecil’s climb from plantation worker’s son to White House servant takes up the first part of the movie, and reflects the prevailing attitudes surrounding race and social integration (or lack of it), there’s a hint throughout these scenes that this is merely the build up to the central story; there’s a lack of real incident once Cecil leaves the plantation and too much time passes as well.  Once he begins work at the White House it becomes clear that Louis isn’t as impressed by his father’s job, and sees his father’s easy acceptance of his place within a society struggling to achieve equality as a betrayal.

As Louis becomes more and more involved in the civil rights movement – he rides the Freedom Bus, works for Martin Luther King, joins the Black Panthers – we see the widening gulf between father and son at the same time as a nation begins to unify itself.  It’s this disparity that offers the most drama, while the political machinations and behind the scenes decision-making make for an interesting counterpoint to the home-spun drama being played out.

Butler, The - scene

It’s an interesting story, and one that shines a rare light on the personal side of political and social upheaval witnessed in the US during the 50s, 60s and 70s, and features strong performances from all concerned.  However – and it’s a big however – the movie has one major flaw: in attempting to cover so much ground it ends up being largely superficial and only fleetingly involving.  Thanks to Danny Strong’s wayward script, scenes pass with little purpose other than to reinforce Gaines’ apathy with regard to the fight for racial equality, and after the sixth or seventh or eighth time they become tedious and wearing (we get it already!).  Likewise for Louis’s involvement with the movement: yes, he’s committed, yes he sees his father as a sell-out, yes he feels with his head rather than his heart – all this is laboured and needlessly pedantic.  Gloria and Charlie are given small moments throughout as a result, and the larger family dynamic is reduced to odd scenes set around the dinner table; the only problem is there’s no meat being served. There are scenes that never amount to much: Gaines’ friend Howard (Howard) trying to seduce Gloria; a late-night encounter in the kitchens with Nixon (Cusack).

And then there are the Presidents, Eisenhower (Williams), Kennedy (Marsden), Johnson (Schreiber), Nixon and Reagan (Rickman).  Each actor has only two or three scenes to work with, and while each does well with what he’s given, they all suffer from the same approach: show the man in the highest office in the land struggling to decide what to do (though Kennedy comes off best in this regard).  At least the movie stops short of Gaines acting as some kind of authoritative guide, offering the best advice at the right time; but he does remain annoyingly non-partisan, except for the issue of equal pay between the white and the black employees at the White House (his own small battle for equality that is shown as the only part of the struggle he’s ever interested in).

The performances, though, are good, and while some of the cast are given little to work with – Kravitz, Washington, Howard, and surprisingly, Winfrey – they rise above the script’s limitations to convey a sense of what it was like to live during those troubled times.  Whitaker carries the movie with ease, and while it’s a little difficult to accept him as a man in his late twenties (when he takes over the part from Aml Ameen, himself a twenty-eight year old playing a fifteen year old), he displays a confidence and conviction that helps his character immensely.  Whitaker is an actor who can be unpredictable at times, but here he reins in any of his usual eccentricities and maintains the stolid, often resigned approach of a man who feels he has found his place in the world and doesn’t need to reach any further.

As with all historical dramas where real events are being portrayed there are inaccuracies and fabrications galore, but while this is sometimes glaring – Reagan’s indifference to civil rights, Eugene Allen’s son Charles wasn’t the political activist Louis is – they’re not so glaring that they detract from the story that’s being told.  This is based on the life of Eugene Allen, and if people are offended or upset by any deviation from “the truth” or historical fact, then they should avoid this movie completely.

On the technical side, Daniels directs with an increasingly confident flair but is hampered by the script’s lack of dramatic focus (it still feels odd to say that about a movie that appears to be all drama), and has no answer for its often stop/start structure.  That said, the movie is beautifully lensed by Andrew Dunn, and the production design by Tim Galvin, allied with Lori Agostino, Erik Polczwartek and Jason Baldwin Stewart’s art direction, means the movie is always handsome to look at.  Alas, Rodrigo Leão’s score is intrusive and overcooks the emotional beats.

Rating: 5/10 – not the incisive overview of the civil rights movement it should have been, nor the family drama it could have been, The Butler will probably do well in the Awards season, but there’s a lack of substance, and focus, here that holds it back from being a truly good movie; good performances aside, this has little to recommend it if you already know enough about its subject matter.

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My Top 10 Movies – Part Two

18 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Abel Gance, Albert Dieudonné, Drama, French movie, History, Kevin Brownlow, Napoleon, Review, Silent film, Triptych, True story

Napoléon (1927)

Napoleon

D: Abel Gance / 330m

Cast: Albert Dieudonné, Vladimir Roudenko, Edmond Van Daële, Gina Manès, Antonin Artaud, Alexandre Koubitzky, Marguerite Gance, Yvette Dieudonné, Philippe Hériat, Abel Gance

A five and a half hour silent movie?  One that’s unavailable in any home video format, and is unlikely to be for the very foreseeable future?  A rich visual spectacle that impresses from its opening snow fight sequence to its stunning triptych finale?  I have only one word as my answer: Absolutely!

Before I saw Napoléon, my exposure to silent movies had been restricted largely to comedies featuring the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Larry Semon etc.  The Keystone Kops were a favourite, and Harold Lloyd impressed me even more when I discovered he’d lost his right thumb and forefinger in an accident involving a bomb prop (I know, it’s a bit shallow, but in mitigation I was around nine or ten).  I remember seeing most of The Iron Horse (1924) on TV, and it had the effect of making me realise that silent movies could last longer than twenty minutes, but UK TV wasn’t in the habit of showing anything other than the short films already mentioned.  When Napoléon was shown as part of a nationwide tour in 1980 at my local arts theatre – with live piano accompaniment – I saw the advert for it and took out my trusty copy of Halliwell’s Film Guide to find out more about it.

It was the length of the movie that intrigued me.  At that time – and my memory is a bit hazy on this – the available print ran to just over five hours.  The idea of sitting in a theatre for that length of time, plus interval, was daunting, but equally an attractive one.  It’s a little shallow (again) but I wanted to see if I could “stay the course” and be able to say – if anyone I knew had even cared! – that I had seen, all the way through, the five hour plus silent movie set during the French Revolution and beyond.  It was like having a badge of honour.

Napoleon - scene

Imagine my surprise (and delight) when the movie began and I found myself swept up by the depth and breadth of Gance’s technical mastery of the silent medium.  By the intensity of the performances, the sweep of the narrative, the visual panache of the battle scenes – Gance put his camera in the middle of the action, unheard of up until then – and the effectiveness of the quieter moments against the stirring swirl of historical events.  Those five hours flew by.  At the interval, I can remember coming out of the auditorium (and into the light) and feeling overwhelmed.  Aside from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), I’d never been affected as much by a movie, and definitely not by a silent movie.  I was seeing techniques and a visual language that were truly amazing; this was breathtaking stuff and I couldn’t wait to go back in and see if the rest of the movie was as incredible.  And, of course, it was.

Since then I’ve seen Napoléon four more times.  (Sadly, I was out of the country for its most recent UK screening, on 30 November 2013.)  Each time I’ve revelled in its complexity and the sheer joy it provides, and each time I’ve come away wanting someone, anyone – but preferably Kevin Brownlow – to come along and say, “We’ve found all the missing footage, and will be presenting the original premiere version of Napoléon in just a few months’ time”.  I know this is unlikely, and Brownlow has said himself that the current version is probably the longest it will be for some time to come.  (But, what’s the world without a little hope, eh?)  Perhaps the best screening was the premiere of Carl Davis’s score for the movie shown at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s south bank.  The addition of an orchestra made the whole event even more wonderful and fulfilling.

Napoléon was the first movie that really engaged my heart and my mind and wouldn’t let go.  It holds a special place for me as the one movie that remains an event each time I see it.  In these days of instant streaming and fast downloads and blu ray discs, the notion of only being able to see a film at a cinema or a concert hall is somehow reassuring, that we haven’t lost that true element of spectacle that we take now for granted.  This was how audiences were first exposed to movies, not with ads for the latest trainers or holiday destinations, but with a sense of scale and excitement, a palpable tension at being swept away by what was unfolding on screen.  The language of cinema was being created by these movies, and it’s this aspect that shouldn’t be overlooked or forgotten.  Without trailblazers such as Gance, a lot of what we take for granted about movies today (or don’t even notice), would be missing.  That we’ve lost some of that grandeur is simply disappointing.

Sadly, it will be some time before Napoléon will be seen again on the big screen.  But when it is, you can rest assured that I’ll be there (if it’s in the UK), and ready to be enthralled and transported and amazed all over again.

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1812: Lancers Ballad (2012)

02 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Borodino, Dirigible, Drama, French history, History, Napoleon, Oleg Fesenko, Period movie, Review, Russian history, Sergey Bezrukov, The Three Musketeers

1812 Lancers Ballad

Original title: 1812 Ulanskaya ballada

aka 1812: Ballad of the Uhlans

D: Oleg Fesenko / 98m

Cast: Anton Sokolov, Anna Chipovskaya, Sergey Bezrukov, Valeriy Nikolaev, Pawel Delag, Gediminas Adomaitis, Anatoliy Belyy, Olga Kabo, Eric Fraticelli, Sergei Zhuravel

Napoleon Bonaparte (Fraticelli) is planning to do battle with the Russians at Borodino. An unscrupulous nobleman, De Vitte (Nikolaev) steals the details of the Russian positions and presents them to the French leader. The treachery is overheard by young Russian Aleksey (Sokolov), who has come to assassinate Bonaparte but finds himself chased back to the Russian lines. There he informs Field Marshal Kutuzov (Zhuravel) of the diminutive invader’s plans. Kutuzov rewards Aleksey with a commission in the Lancers, where he meets Gorzhevskiy (Bezrukov), de Kolenkur (Adomaitis) and Kiknadze (Belyy). Together, the quartet are sent behind enemy lines to retrieve the Empress’s crown which has been appropriated by Napoleon. They discover De Vitte has stolen the crown for himself, and determine to retrieve it. All the while they are being chased by Polish officer Ledokhovskiy (Delag).

1812 Lancers Ballad - scene

With a love interest for Aleksey provided by Beata (Chipovskaya), a maid of the Countess Walewska, and fight sequences/explosions galore, 1812: Lancers Ballad is a lunatic reworking of the Three Musketeers with De Vitte in the Milady de Winter role, and any pretense of originality or logic dispensed with within the first few minutes. The script by Gleb Shprigov is amateurish, with dreadful dialogue (even worse probably when subtitled), implausible motivations, lifeless characters, shoddy plotting, and the sense that whole pages were torn out just prior to filming. Scenes stumble and collide with each other, and Arunas Baraznauskas’ photography comes complete with arbitrary angles and desultory, washed-out lighting so bad the cast all look ill. The movie gives a home to a jumble of poorly choreographed and edited action scenes – Fesenkov loves his slo-mo – while the cast drown under a welter of unconvincing good intentions, and subsequently, no turn should be left unstoned. Sokolov, in particular, serves up a prime slice of ham pie, while everyone else does their best not to look too embarrassed (and fail).

Fesenkov directs proceedings with all the flair and accuracy of a blind man at a firing range, leaving the plot to hang out to dry in favour of one more underwhelming explosion. He leaves the cast to find their own way, shows no interest in constructing a coherent visual narrative, and fails to grasp the fact that even the most ridiculous of action movies has to have action sequences that are exciting. Here they’re a reminder that it’s all been done before and better, even in Paul W.S. Anderson’s laughable The Three Musketeers (2011). (Hang on, does that count as an achievement?) And let’s not even mention the glaring historical errors and inconsistencies.

As an historical drama, the movie makes for a decent comedy, and if you’re a connoisseur of bad movies then this will be right up your стреэт. Inept, nonsensical, incoherent, witless, 1812: Lancers Ballad is such a misfire that it really has to be seen to be believed.

Rating: 3/10 – car crash movie making from the country that gave us Battleship Potemkin (1925) and War and Peace (1967-8), 1812: Lancers Ballad, complete with stirring songs played – oddly – over the action scenes, deserves some kind of place in movie history as the one time an exploding dirigible is more a cause for yawning than excitement.

NOTE: The trailer below is in Russian without English subtitles but they’re not really needed as the focus is mainly on the movie’s action scenes.

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Rubbish Talk

Film 4 Fan

A Movie Blog

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for those who like their movie reviews short and sweet

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The official blog of everything in film

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Movie Reviews and Original Articles

movieblort

No-nonsense, unqualified, uneducated & spoiler free movie reviews.

Interpreting the Stars

Dave Examines Movies

Let's Go To The Movies

Film and Theatre Lover!

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That Moment In

Movie Moments & More

Dan the Man's Movie Reviews

All my aimless thoughts, ideas, and ramblings, all packed into one site!

Film History

Telling the story of film

Jordan and Eddie (The Movie Guys)

Australian movie blog - like Margaret and David, just a little younger

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