This Beautiful Fantastic (2016)

14 Sunday May 2017

Tags

Andrew Scott, Drama, Gardening, Horticulture, Jeremy Irvine, Jessica Brown Findlay, Review, Romance, Simon Aboud, Tom Wilkinson

D: Simon Aboud / 91m

Cast: Jessica Brown Findlay, Tom Wilkinson, Andrew Scott, Jeremy Irvine, Anna Chancellor, Eileen Davies, Paul Hunter

Bella Brown (Findlay) was a foundling child, abandoned in a park and kept alive by ducks. She has grown up to be a young woman with obsessive compulsive disorder, and an ambition to be an author. She works at her local library where her love of books has made her a valiuable, if persistently late, member of staff. Her home is a modest property with an expansive garden, one that she doesn’t maintain due to an extreme aversion to flora. She is shy, modest, inquisitive, and in the words of her neighbour, Alfie Stevenson (Wilkinson), has been “sent here to test us”.

One day at the library, Bella meets Billy (Irvine), a young man interested in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci. He leaves behind a piece of paper that Bella can see has the imprint of a drawing on it. She takes it home and uses a pencil to raise the image, which is of a bird. As she gazes on it, the window to the garden flies open due to a storm outside, and the drawing is whisked away into the branches of a tree. Plucking up courage, Bella goes into the garden and retrieves it. In the process she falls and loses consciousness. When she comes to, Bella finds herself in the home of her neighbour, Alfie, and being tended to by his doctor, Milly (Davies), while in turn, Alfie is being tended to by his housekeeper, Vernon (Scott). Alfie is an old curmudgeon, and berates Bella for the condition of her garden, calling her a “horticultural terrorist”.

Alfie’s displeasure at the state of Bella’s garden leads to Vernon working for her instead, which in turn leads to a battle of wills as Alfie tries to browbeat Bella into letting Vernon go back to him. Soon after, Bella receives a visit from her landlord, Mr O’Brien (Hunter), who tells her that unless her garden is kept to a reasonable standard, then she’ll be evicted. Bella has a month to make good on this condition, and with the help of Vernon and Alfie she begins to tackle the momentous job of clearing and redesigning the garden before O’Brien returns. Meanwhile, she begins a relationship with Billy, who proves to be an inventor. But when she sees him with another woman, she suffers such a sense of betrayal and loss that her commitment to the garden is put in jeopardy, and with O’Brien’s return getting closer and closer, it’s going to take a small miracle to keep Bella in her home.

Although This Beautiful Fantastic is only the second movie written and directed by Simon Aboud – after Comes a Bright Day (2012) (itself well worth checking out) – it’s not a feature that falls foul of “difficult second movie syndrome”. Instead it’s an appealing, sweet-natured, even goofy at times, romantic-comedy-drama that does its best to put a smile on its audience’s faces, and all with a lightness of touch that makes it an undeniable pleasure to watch. Aboud’s “movie in microcosm” is such a delight from start to finish that it’s like having cheesecake ahead of a main course at a restaurant: it’s definitely a movie to savour.

And it’s all so simply constructed and put together, with Aboud’s confidence behind the camera matching the quality of his screenplay, and the performances fitting perfectly into the whimsical nature of the material. This isn’t a movie that springs any surprises on its audience, and it’s definitely not a movie that tries to be different, but it does have a tremendous amount of quiet, understated charm, and a delightfully winning way about it. From its opening scenes, which offer a brief appraisal of Bella’s childhood coupled with Alfie’s sniping comments about her, This Beautiful Fantastic is a movie that sets out its stall from the start, and which doesn’t disappoint as it expands on its contemporary fairy tale theme and keeps its narrative wrapped tightly around its quartet of main characters.

In keeping with its lightness of touch and playful nature, the romance between Bella and Billy is engaging and kept just this side of annoyingly saccharine, with Irvine’s eager puppy of a young man a perfect foil for Findlay’s more restrained, and yet attentive Bella. Their relationship fits the bill in terms of boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl-through-unfortunate-mix-up, and then regains-girl-through-apologetic-explanation-of-mix-up, but again it’s all done with the full acknowledgment by all concerned that this is a fairy tale, and in fairy tales there are certain rules that have to be followed, and one of them is that the princess always gets her prince.

With the romantic elements having been taken care of, Aboud is free to create dozens of comedic moments that act as an undercurrent to the central drama of Bella making sure her garden doesn’t remain an eyesore. Alfie’s cantankerous, acidic nature is portrayed by Wilkinson with a deftness of touch that makes a virtue out of waspish pomposity, and the character’s arrogant outward appearance belies a romantic soul whose passion for horticulture is more personal than expected. As Vernon, Scott delivers a mannered, sympathetic portrayal of a widower with two twin girls whose sense of self-worth has taken a bit of battering thanks to Alfie’s bullying ways. But there’s a way back for him, and Scott makes sure that Vernon’s recurring way of dealing with Alfie is one of the movie’s more pleasing highlights. For her part, Findlay is something of a “straight woman”, and though she gives a fine, rounded performance, she’s not required to “dazzle” as much as her male co-stars, and has to leave the comedy to Chancellor, who plays her boss, Mrs Bramble (her insistence on complete silence within the library leads to a great sight gag three quarters in).

The drama is concerned with Bella’s voyage of self-discovery through gardening, as evidenced by her checking obsessively that her front door is closed every time she leaves home, and which falls by the wayside as she begins to experience love for the first time (though whether being in love really constitutes a cure for OCD is a bit of a stretch). Bella gains in confidence, and her ambitions as a writer, stalled until the arrival of Billy, allow her to blossom even further beyond the confines of her garden. Aboud ensures that Bella’s journey is punctuated with the necessary number of setbacks, all of which allow for and encourage her personal (allegorical) growth at the same time that the garden begins to flourish also. Alfie develops too, although his development is less about personal growth and more about acknowledging the past and its lasting effect on him. Again, Aboud handles all these elements with a great deal of skill and compassion for his characters, and the end result is a movie that will make you laugh a lot, cry on occasion, and feel glad that you took a chance on a movie that could have missed its target by a country mile.

Rating: 8/10 – with a couple of last-minute revelations that unfortunately undermine the good work Aboud has put in in assembling his movie, This Beautiful Fantastic is still a movie that provides a very pleasant viewing experience indeed; one of those movies that make you feel great if you’ve found it without help from critics or word of mouth, it’s a lovely piece that knows its limitations and works within them to provide a beautifully designed and established visual delight – just like Bella’s garden.

Monthly Roundup – June 2015

30 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Animation, Beyond the Reach, Black Samurai, Blood, Brian Cox, Bulldog Drummond Comes Back, Bulldog Drummond in Africa, Children of the Corn: Genesis, Chris Evans, Chyler Leigh, Crazy Sexy Cancer, Crime, Curse of the Witching Tree, Daphne, Documentary, Dolph Lundgren, Drama, Drunk Wedding, E.E. Clive, Echelon Conspiracy, Ed Burns, Espionage, Every Secret Thing, Faults, Forrest Tucker, Fred, Gambling, Green Dragon, Gunsmoke in Tucson, Horror, Human trafficking, Imogen Poots, Indie movie, Jennifer Aniston, Jeremy Irvine, John Barrymore, John Howard, Kris Carr, Leland Orser, Leticia Dolera, Louis King, Mark Stevens, Martin Sheen, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Michael Douglas, Miguel Ferrer, Mojave Desert, Movies, Murder, Noboru Iguchi, Not Another Teen Movie, Owen Wilson, Pamela Springsteen, Paul Bethany, Peter Bogdanovich, Prague, Predator: Dark Ages, Reviews, Rhys Ifans, Riley Stearns, Scooby-Doo! and the Samurai Sword, Serial killer, Shaggy, Shane West, She's Funny That Way, Skin Trade, Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers, Thailand, The Four-Faced Liar, The Night Flier, The Posthuman Project, The Reconstruction of William Zero, Thriller, Tony Jaa, uwantme2killhim?, Vampire, Velma, Ving Rhames, Witch's curse, Zombie Ass: The Toilet of the Dead, Zombies, [Rec]³ Génesis

This month, the roundup is bigger than usual thanks to spending three weeks in sunny France, in an area where the Internet was an occasional luxury rather than a constant presence. But in between drinking copious amounts of beer and wine, and sampling far too much cheese and local bread, there was quite a bit of movie watching going on. These are the movies I watched in a gite in the middle of the gorgeous Brittany countryside, almost all of them a reminder that when life is this good you can forgive quite a bit…

The Posthuman Project (2014) / D: Kyle Roberts / 93m

Cast: Kyle Whalen, Collin Place, Josh Bonzie, Lindsay Sawyer, Alexandra Harris, Jason Leyva, Rett Terrell, Will Schwab

Rating: 5/10 – a group of teens develop super powers thanks to a device created by the dastardly uncle of one of them, and must thwart his plan to use it for immoral profit; pretty much a low-budget, amateur version of The Fantastic Four, The Posthuman Project relies on its not inconsiderable charm to help the viewer get past its rough edges, but the acting and the dialogue leave an awful lot to be desired, sometimes too much so.

Predator: Dark Ages (2015) / D: James Bushe / 27m

Cast: Adrian Bouchet, Amed Hashimi, Sabine Crossen, Ben Loyd-Holmes, Jon Campling, Joe Egan, Philip Lane, Bryan Hands

Rating: 7/10 – a group of mercenaries led by Thomas (Bouchard) set off to hunt the mysterious creature killing people and animals in a nearby forest – and find something even more deadly than they expected; a fan-made short that adds a novel twist to the Predator saga, Predator: Dark Ages is a welcome distraction that confirms that, sometimes, the big studios don’t always have the right idea when it comes to their franchise characters.

Drunk Wedding (2015) / D: Nick Weiss / 81m

Cast: Christian Cooke, Victoria Gold, Dan Gill, Anne Gregory, J.R. Ramirez, Nick P. Ross, Genevieve Jones, Diana Newton

Rating: 4/10 – when a couple decide to get married in Nicaragua, they and some of their friends are given hand-held cameras to film it all… with predictably awful, drunken, outrageous, and potentially life-altering effects; if your idea of comedy is seeing someone urinating on another person’s back, then Drunk Wedding is the movie for you, and despite its lowbrow modern day National Lampoon-style approach it still manages to hold the attention and is surprisingly enjoyable – if you don’t expect too much.

Zombie Ass: The Toilet of the Dead (2011) / D: Noboru Iguchi / 85m

Original title: Zonbi asu

Cast: Arisa Nakamura, Mayu Sugano, Asana Mamoru, Yûki, Danny, Kentaro Kishi, Demo Tanaka

Rating: 5/10 – while on a trip to the woods, Megumi (Nakamura) and four older friends find themselves under attack from zombies who have emerged from the bowels of an outhouse – and only her martial arts skills can save them; a wild, wild ride from one of the masters of Japanese Shock Cinema, Zombie Ass: The Toilet of the Dead is equal parts raw, uncompromising, witless, and gross, but it’s also a movie that just can’t be taken at all seriously, and on that level it succeeds tremendously, providing enough WtF? moments to make it all worthwhile.

Faults (2014) / D: Riley Stearns / 89m

Cast: Leland Orser, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Chris Ellis, Beth Grant, Jon Gries, Lance Reddick

Rating: 8/10 – down on his luck cult expert Ansel (Orser) sees a way out of debt and a chance to regain some self-respect when a couple (Ellis, Grant) ask him to abduct and de-programme their daughter (Winstead), but he soon finds himself out of his depth and facing up to some hard truths; a tour-de-force from the always excellent Orser – and with a solid supporting performance from Winstead – Faults is an unnerving look at a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and the ways in which his broken life have led him to a motel room where his own personal beliefs come under as much scrutiny as his captive’s.

She’s Funny That Way (2014) / D: Peter Bogdanovich / 93m

Cast: Imogen Poots, Owen Wilson, Rhys Ifans, Jennifer Aniston, Will Forte, Kathryn Hahn, Illeana Douglas, Debi Mazar, Cybill Shepherd, Richard Lewis, Ahna O’Reilly, Joanna Lumley

Rating: 6/10 – theatre director Arnold Albertson has a secret: he gives prostitutes money in order that they can set up their own businesses, but when his latest “project”, aspiring actress Isabella Patterson (Poots) lands the starring role in his latest production, it all leads to the kind of deception and duplicity that will test the notion that the show must go on; a modern attempt at a screwball comedy, She’s Funny That Way doesn’t have the sheer energy that made movies such as His Girl Friday (1940) or Bringing Up Baby (1938) so enjoyable, but Bogdanovich knows his stuff and keeps the movie entertaining for the most part, even if it doesn’t stay in the memory for too long afterwards.

Curse of the Witching Tree (2015) / D: James Crow / 102m

Cast: Sarah Rose Denton, Lucy Clarvis, Lawrence Weller, Jon Campling, Caroline Boulton, Danielle Bux

Rating: 2/10 – divorcée Amber Thorson (Denton) moves into an old house with her two children (Clarvis, Weller) only for strange phenomena to start happening that’s connected to a witch’s curse, and which leaves them all at risk of supernatural forces; woeful in the extreme, Curse of the Witching Tree is amateurish nonsense that is badly directed, poorly acted, contains defiantly stilted dialogue, suffers from below-par photography, is tension-free throughout, and stands as an object lesson in how not to make a low-budget British horror movie.

Bulldog Drummond Comes Back (1937) / D: Louis King / 64m

Cast: John Barrymore, John Howard, Louise Campbell, Reginald Denny, E.E. Clive, J. Carrol Naish, Helen Freeman

Rating: 5/10 – when dastardly villains Mikhail Valdin (Naish) and Irena Saldanis (Freeman) kidnap Phyllis Clavering (Campbell), the girlfriend of Captain Hugh Drummond (Howard), they send him on a merry chase where each clue he finds leads to another clue as to her whereabouts – but no nearer to finding her; the first of seven movies with Howard as the dashing sleuth created by H.C. “Sapper” McNeile, Bulldog Drummond Comes Back is as cheap and cheerful and antiquatedly entertaining as you might expect, and benefits enormously from a cast and crew who know exactly what they’re doing.

Every Secret Thing (2014) / D: Amy Berg / 93m

Cast: Diane Lane, Elizabeth Banks, Dakota Fanning, Danielle Macdonald, Nate Parker, Common

Rating: 7/10 – several years after two young girls are incarcerated for the murder of a younger child, their return to their hometown is marred by the disappearance of a little girl, and the belief that one or both of them is responsible; a stilted attempt at an indie film noir, Every Secret Thing features good performances – particularly from Macdonald – and focuses on the emotional effects a child abduction can have on everyone involved, but it never develops a sense of urgency, though its key revelation at the end carries a wallop that helps dismiss what will seem like a narrative impasse up until then.

Children of the Corn: Genesis (2011) / D: Joel Soisson / 80m

Cast: Kelen Coleman, Tim Rock, Billy Drago, Barbara Nedeljakova

Rating: 3/10 – a couple (Coleman, Rock) break down on a desert highway but manage to find shelter overnight with a old preacher (Drago) and his much younger, foreign bride (Nedeljakova), but soon find that what’s in the preacher’s barn is much more menacing than the old man himself; placing the action largely away from Gatlin, Nebraska may have seemed like a smart move but this tired, dreary, and just downright dull entry in the franchise shows just how bad things have gotten since the 1984 original, and just why Children of the Corn: Genesis should remain the last in the series to be made.

Skin Trade (2014) / D: Ekachai Uekrongtham / 96m

aka Battle Heat

Cast: Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Michael Jai White, Ron Perlman, Celina Jade, Peter Weller

Rating: 6/10 – when cop Nick Cassidy (Lundgren) is powerless to stop his wife and daughter being killed, he determines to go after the crime boss responsible, Viktor (Perlman), and destroy his human trafficking network, which means travelling to Thailand and teaming up with detective Tony Vitayakul (Jaa), who’s also out to put a stop to Viktor’s illegal behaviour; with its human trafficking backdrop giving it an unexpected depth, Skin Trade is not just a brainless, slam-bang action movie, but instead a very well-made (for its budget) revenge flick that features some great fight scenes – particularly one between Lundgren and Jaa – and uses its Thai locations to very good effect.

The Reconstruction of William Zero (2014) / D: Dan Bush / 98m

Cast: Conal Byrne, Amy Seimetz, Scott Poythress, Lake Roberts, Melissa McBride, Tim Habeger

Rating: 6/10 – when the brother (Byrne) of a scientist (also Byrne) wakes from a coma, it’s not long before he begins to suspect that this identity may not be that of the scientist’s brother, and that he’s a pawn in a much bigger conspiracy, but the truth proves even stranger and more disturbing than he realised; a spare, almost antiseptic movie about notions of identity and individual consciousness, The Reconstruction of William Zero features terrific performances from Byrne, but lacks consistency of pace and sometimes feels as if Bush has taken his eye off the ball and taken a while to find it again, which leaves the movie often feeling flat and lifeless.

Not Another Teen Movie (2001) / D: Joel Gallen / 89m

aka Sex Academy

Cast: Chyler Leigh, Chris Evans, Jaime Pressly, Eric Christian Olsen, Randy Quaid, Mia Kirshner, Deon Richmond, Ed Lauter, Paul Gleason, Mr T, Molly Ringwald

Rating: 5/10 – at John Hughes High School, popular jock Jake Wyler (Evans) accepts a bet that he can’t take an ugly girl and transform her into the prom queen, but when he picks out Janey Briggs (Leigh), and begins to spend time with her, it makes him begin to question whether he should have made the bet in the first place; a predictably irreverent teen movie that parodies all those dreadful teen comedies from the Eighties, Not Another Teen Movie has more heart than most, and thanks to Mike Bender’s script contributions, is also quite funny in its knowing way, and gives viewers a chance to see the future Captain America back in the day when his skill as an actor wasn’t quite as honed as it is now.

Bloomington (2010) / D: Fernanda Cardoso / 83m

Cast: Allison McAtee, Sarah Stouffer, Katherine Ann McGregor, Ray Zupp, J. Blakemore, Erika Heidewald

Rating: 7/10 – former child actress Jackie (Stouffer) attends Bloomington college, and finds herself having an affair with one of the professors, Catherine (McAtee), until the offer of a comeback threatens to end their relationship before it’s fully begun; an intelligent, finely crafted romantic drama, Bloomington has two great central performances, and an emotional honesty that is only undermined by the clichéd nature of Jackie’s need to return to acting, and Cardoso’s over-reliance on silent longing as a sign of emotional upheaval.

Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers (1988) / D: Michael A. Simpson / 80m

Cast: Pamela Springsteen, Renée Estevez, Tony Higgins, Valerie Hartman, Brian Patrick Clarke, Walter Gotell

Rating: 5/10 – Angela Baker (Springsteen), having decimated most of the staff and children at Camp Arawak, and now judged to be safe around others, begins sending unruly teenagers “home” from Camp Rolling Hills – which in reality means killing them for any and all perceived infractions that Angela takes a dislike to; a much better sequel than expected, Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers gets by on Springsteen’s preppy performance, some not-too-gory deaths, and Simpson’s confident touch behind the camera, as well as that dreadful musical interlude: The Happy Camper Song.

Gunsmoke in Tucson (1958) / D: Thomas Carr / 80m

Cast: Mark Stevens, Forrest Tucker, Gale Robbins, Vaughn Taylor, John Ward, Kevin Hagen, William Henry, Richard Reeves, John Cliff, Gail Kobe

Rating: 6/10 – brothers Jedediah (Stevens) and John (Tucker) are on opposite sides of the law, but when Jedediah becomes involved in a land dispute between cattle ranchers and farmers, his sense of right and wrong is put to the test, and he has to choose sides in the upcoming fight for the choicest plot of land; a robust, earnest Western, Gunsmoke in Tucson is a staid, respectable movie that doesn’t stray too far from its basic plot, and skimps on any psychological undertones in favour of a straight ahead anti-hero vs. the bad guys scenario that makes for a pleasant diversion.

Beyond the Reach (2014) / D: Jean-Baptiste Léonetti / 91m

Cast: Michael Douglas, Jeremy Irvine, Ronny Cox, Hanna Mangan Lawrence

Rating: 6/10 – arrogant businessman Madec (Douglas) hires tracker Ben (Irvine) in order to bag some game out of season, but when he shoots and kills an old man by mistake, Madec refuses to accept responsibility for his actions and when Ben stands his ground over the issue, finds himself being hunted instead through the harsh Mojave Desert; an occasionally tense two hander that will do little for either actor’s career, Beyond the Reach ramps up the contrivance levels with each successive narrow escape that Ben makes, and with each missed shot that Madec makes, leading to the inevitable conclusion that this is one movie where credulity needs to be left at the door – an idea that is further enhanced by the movie’s risible conclusion.

Blood (2012) / Nick Murphy / 92m

Cast: Paul Bettany, Mark Strong, Stephen Graham, Brian Cox, Ben Crompton, Naomi Battrick, Zoë Tapper, Adrian Edmondson

Rating: 5/10 – when a young girl is found murdered, the police, led by Joe Fairburn (Bethany) immediately set their sights on local child molester Jason Buleigh (Crompton), but when their prime suspect has to be let go for lack of evidence, Joe and his brother Chrissie (Graham) decide to take the law into their own hands, with terrible results; grim, visually depressing, and with a script that has more holes in it than a string vest, Blood has only its performances to recommend it, particularly those of Bethany, Graham and Cox, as well as the sense to know that its tale of a proud man’s downfall is always more interesting when you don’t know just how far they’ll fall.

Echelon Conspiracy (2009) / D: Greg Marcks / 102m

aka The Conspiracy; The Gift

Cast: Shane West, Ed Burns, Ving Rhames, Martin Sheen, Tamara Feldman, Jonathan Pryce, Sergey Gubanov, Todd Jensen

Rating: 3/10 – computer security tech Max Peterson is given a mysterious phone that helps him gain a small fortune, but in doing so he finds himself embroiled in a plot to ensure that the NSA’s super computer, Echelon, gains the upgrade it needs in order to spy on everyone globally; so bad on so many levels, Echelon Conspiracy wastes its (mostly) talented cast, flirts with credibility before running away from it at high speed, offers laughs in places where they shouldn’t be, and is the cinematic equivalent of a car crash.

Crazy Sexy Cancer (2007) / D: Kris Carr / 90m

With: Kris Carr, Jackie Farry, Melissa Gonzalez, Brian Fassett, Aura Carr, Kenneth Carr, Leslie Carr, Oni Faida Lampley, Bhavagan Das

Rating: 7/10 – when aspiring actress Kris Carr was diagnosed with cancer, she decided to make a visual record of the process of dealing with it, and the various ways in which other cancer sufferers have done so, and supported by the cameraman/editor who became her husband, as well as family and friends; an uplifting, positive message for anyone dealing with cancer, or who knows someone who is, Crazy Sexy Cancer is the kind of documentary that doesn’t attempt to overdo the physical and emotional strain of being in such a situation, but which does nevertheless offer plenty of poignant moments in amongst the hospital visits, and shows Carr to be a determined, aggressive would-be survivor.

The Night Flier (1997) / D: Mark Pavia / 94m

Cast: Miguel Ferrer, Julie Entwisle, Dan Monahan, Michael H. Moss, John Bennes, Beverly Skinner, Rob Wilds, Richard K. Olsen, Elizabeth McCormick

Rating: 7/10 – hard-nosed, disreputable reporter Richard Dees investigates a series of murders carried out at small airstrips that appear to be the work of a vampire, but his initial scepticism gives way to reluctant belief as he talks to witnesses, and sees the injuries the victims have sustained; a well-crafted movie that betrays its low budget and scrappy production design, The Night Flier is still one of the better Stephen King adaptations thanks to Pavia’s confident handling of the material, Ferrer’s see-if-I-care performance, and some impressively nasty effects work courtesy of the KNB Group.

Killer by Nature (2010) / D: Douglas S. Younglove / 90m

Cast: Ron Perlman, Armand Assante, Zachary Ray Sherman, Lin Shaye, Haley Hudson, Richard Riehle, Richard Portnow, Svetlana Efremova, Jason Hildebrandt

Rating: 3/10 – troubled by nightmares of murder and sleepwalking, teen Owen (Sherman) undergoes therapy with Dr Julian (Perlman), a therapist who believes that a person’s essential nature is handed down through bloodlines – a theory originated by convicted murderer Eugene Branch (Assante), and who is connected to Owen in a way that causes Owen to believe he might be the perpetrator of a series of murders that mimic Branch’s modus operandi; a thriller that can’t decide if it’s tepid or overwrought, and then settles for both (sometimes in the same scene), Killer by Nature is a humdinger of a bad movie, and proof positive that sometimes the old saying that “if you can, it doesn’t mean you should” relates to far too many movies for comfort – especially this farrago of awful performances, pseudo-intellectual posturing, and deathless direction.

Scooby-Doo! and the Samurai Sword (2009) / D: Christopher Berkeley / 75m

Cast: Frank Welker, Casey Kasem, Mindy Cohn, Grey DeLisle, Kelly Hu, Kevin Michael Richardson, Sab Shimono, Keone Young, Gedde Watanabe, George Takei, Brian Cox

Rating: 6/10 – on a trip to Japan, Scooby-Doo and the gang become involved in the search for a mystical sword, while trying to thwart the efforts of the ghost of the Black Samurai to beat them to it; a middling entry in the series that at least provides a different backdrop than the standard old dark house (or mine, or hotel, or funfair…), and which allows Shaggy and Scooby to be the heroes we all know they really are deep down, while displaying a pleasing awareness of Japanese culture.

[Rec]³ Génesis (2012) / D: Paco Plaza / 80m

Cast: Leticia Dolera, Diego Martín, Ismael Martínez, Àlex Monner, Sr. B, Emilio Mencheta, David Ramírez, Miguel Ángel González

Rating: 7/10 – a young couple’s wedding day is disrupted for good when one of the guests takes a bite out of another one, leading to a frenzied free-for-all among the guests and a fight for survival for those not affected by whatever’s causing people to become zombies – including the bride and groom, who have become separated in the mêlée; half found footage, half professionally filmed, [Rec]³ Génesis acts as a prequel to the events of the first two movies but is let down by both the change in location, and the absence of Claudia Silva, as well as a sense that by going backwards in terms of the outbreak and its possible cause, the makers are treading water until an idea as to how to carry the story forward from [Rec]2 (2009) comes along.

uwantme2killhim? (2013) / D: Andrew Douglas / 92m

Cast: Jamie Blackley, Toby Regbo, Joanne Froggatt, Jaime Winstone, Liz White, Mark Womack, Louise Delamere, Stephanie Leonidas, Mingus Johnston

Rating: 7/10 – popular schoolboy Mark (Blackley) leads a secret life on the Internet, where he invests his time and emotions in relationships with people he’s never met, but when of those people ask him to stop their younger brother, John (Regbo), from being bullied, what follows sets Mark on a dangerous path to murder; based on a true story, and told with a glum sense of foreboding throughout, uwantme2killhim? is an engrossing (though slightly frustrating) recounting of one of the strangest cases of the last fifteen years, and features two very good performances from Blackley and Regbo, though they have to fight against a script that favours repetition over clarity, but which still manages to flesh out what must have been a very strange relationship between the two boys.

Bulldog Drummond in Africa (1938) / D: Louis King / 58m

Cast: John Howard, Heather Angel, H.B. Warner, J. Carrol Naish, Reginald Denny, E.E. Clive, Anthony Quinn

Rating: 7/10 – on the very day that Drummond (Howard) is finally due to marry his long-suffering girlfriend Phyllis (Angel) he becomes embroiled in the kidnapping of his old friend Colonel Nielsen (Warner), and finds himself travelling to Morocco – with Phyllis, butler Tenny (Clive) and old pal Algy (Denny) in tow – in order to rescue him; the fourth in the series is perhaps the funniest, with Howard allowed to spread his comedic wings, and even the villain (played again by Naish) given some splendidly dry remarks to make in amongst the threats of death by hungry lion, and a bomb on Drummond’s plane.

The Four-Faced Liar (2010) / D: Jacob Chase / 87m

Cast: Daniel Carlisle, Todd Kubrak, Emily Peck, Marja-Lewis Ryan, Liz Osborn

Rating: 8/10 – five friends – couples Greg (Carlisle) and Molly (Peck), Trip (Kubrak) and Chloe (Osborn), and single lesbian Bridget (Ryan) – experience various ups and downs in their relationships, especially when Trip has a one night stand, and Molly finds herself attracted to Bridget; a refreshingly honest look at what relationships mean to different individuals, and how they affect the people around them, The Four-Faced Liar is an effective, well-written drama that benefits from good performances all round, a soundtrack that supports the mood throughout, and Chase’s confident approach to Ryan’s script.

The World Made Straight (2015)

06 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Adelaide Clemens, American Civil War, David Burris, Drama, Drugs, Jeremy Irvine, Minka Kelly, Noah Wyle, North Carolina, Review, Shelton Laurel Massacre, Steve Earle, Thriller

D: David Burris / 119m

Cast: Noah Wyle, Jeremy Irvine, Minka Kelly, Adelaide Clemens, Steve Earle, Marcus Hester, Haley Joel Osment, Alex Van, Robin Mullins

North Carolina, the early Seventies. Travis Shelton (Irvine) is seventeen and without much of a future ahead of him. He’s a high school dropout, can’t hold down a job, and spends most of his time hanging out with his friends. When he discovers some marijuana plants growing in back of a property in the woods, he takes a few and sells them to local small-time drug dealer, Leonard Shuler (Wyle). When he goes back to get some more he steps into a bear trap and passes out. When he comes to he finds himself confronted by Carlton Toomey (Earle) and his son Hubert (Hester), the owners of the marijuana plants and the area’s most prominent – and feared – drug dealers. Toomey strikes a bargain with Travis: in return for his silence about the plants, they’ll take him to the nearest hospital. Travis agrees.

While he recovers at the hospital Travis meets Lori (Clemens), a nurse he was in school with. They begin a tentative relationship that continues once he’s allowed home… which proves to be out of bounds, due to an argument Travis had with his father (Van) before his accident. With nowhere else to go, Travis persuades Leonard to let him stay with him for a while. His stay isn’t appreciated by Leonard’s girlfriend, Dena (Kelly), but he and Leonard form an unlikely friendship, with Leonard’s interest in local Civil War history, in particular the Shelton Laurel massacre, piquing Travis’s enthusiasm. As he delves deeper into what happened during the massacre he learns that several of his ancestors were killed there, including a thirteen year old called David Shelton.

He and Leonard visit the site and discover a pair of glasses that might have belonged to David. Dena becomes increasingly annoyed at Travis’s presence; one night while they’re all at a carnival, she disappears. Later on at Leonard’s she returns, accompanied by Toomey, to collect her things. Much later, Travis and two of his friends go to Toomey’s to score some drugs; there he discovers that Dena has been forced into letting men have sex with her to settle a debt Toomey says he owes her. Travis returns to free her, and he takes her to Leonard. Knowing that Toomey will come looking for her, he tells them to make a run for it. And sure enough, shortly after they leave, Toomey arrives looking for restitution.

The second screen adaptation of a novel by author Ron Rash in four months – the other being Serena (2014) – The World Made Straight is a meditation on the prolonged effects of the past on the present. It highlights the ways in which past events can influence the behaviour of people even a hundred years after they’ve happened, and emphasises the toll such an influence can have.

In Travis we have a main character who – surprisingly, given the nature of his Appalachian heritage – is unaware of the massacre and his family’s unfortunate involvement. But this is a journey of discovery, one that takes Travis away from his cloistered home life and into a world where he struggles even further to make any headway. His unexpected friendship with Leonard (who helps him pass his GED test) and his romance with Lori both point to a brighter future, but his increasing obsession with the massacre and his family’s history keeps holding him back, his need to know what happened there and why stopping him from moving forward. Irvine plays him with a swagger he hasn’t earned yet, and keeps Travis from becoming too irritating because of the mistakes he makes. It’s a rough and ready performance, in keeping with the character, and allows for a depth of feeling that pays off when Travis and Leonard visit the massacres site.

He’s not the only one haunted by the past, though. Leonard is a small-time drug dealer who was once a schoolteacher. He lost his job when a student he’d caught cheating on a test and failed, hid some drugs in his car. There’s an irony in his current “career path” and it’s not lost on him. His fascination with the past is seen as a by-product of this turn of events, as if by seeking answers to the events of the past he can find answers to his own predicament. Through Travis, Leonard is hoping to make some small amends for the way in which his life has taken a wrong turn, and for the way in which he let it happen. Wyle gives a quietly compelling performance, making Leonard’s sadness with his life all the more effective due to the losses he’s suffered. He has some difficult choices to make at the end, and while one of them seems designed more to provoke the eventual denouement, he still makes it work – just.

Sadly, while Travis and Leonard are characters given the room to live and breathe within the movie’s narrative, the same can’t be said for Dena and Lori. Dena’s drug addiction makes her manipulative and self-absorbed, almost a caricature, particularly when she attempts to seduce Travis. Lori is the wholesome alternative to Dena, her fresh-faced appearance and blonde locks the opposite of Dena’s sallow complexion and lifeless hair. Kelly struggles to make more of Dena than the script will allow, and Clemens is hamstrung by Lori’s less than consistent presence in the narrative (she’s a glimpse of what Travis could have, but little more). However, the movie does have one performance that is authoritative and commanding, and that’s provided by the singer Steve Earle, whose portrayal of Toomey is soft spoken, low-key and infinitely more menacing as a result.

Shane Danielsen’s script leaves some plot lines dangling – at one point, Dena tells Travis that Leonard is his kin even though he has a different name and family background – and just why Travis becomes so enthralled by the massacre and its connection to his family is never really explained (or explored). Also, the relationship between Leonard and Dena creates its own problem as it’s difficult to work out why he’d be with her. And the ending, while not entirely unexpected, is arrived at by a series of convoluted changes of character but remains surprisingly satisfying.

Making his feature debut, Burris directs things with one eye on the performances and one eye on the beautiful North Carolina countryside. Thanks to some stunning compositions, Burris and DoP Tim Orr make the movie a pleasure to watch, even if there’s an often wintry feel to the locations used, and there are several shots of a river that acts as a metaphor for the passage of time. It all makes the movie look more impressive than it is, but it’s not for want of trying. Burris has a good feel for the subject matter but can’t overcome the deficiencies in Danielsen’s script, and while the sense of history weighing down on the present is occasionally overdone, it doesn’t detract from the fact that, as debuts go, this is a pretty good start.

Rating: 7/10 – slow paced and not fully realised, The World Made Straight is still an auspicious debut from Burris, and lingers in the memory; worth seeing for Earle’s cobra-like performance and an atmosphere that builds to a conclusion that is both febrile and understated.

The Woman in Black: Angel of Death (2014)

07 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Crythin Gifford, Drama, Eel Marsh House, Evacuees, Haunting, Helen McCrory, Horror, Jennet Humpfrye, Jeremy Irvine, Review, Sequel, Susan Hill, Thriller, Tom Harper, World War II

D: Tom Harper / 98m

Cast: Phoebe Fox, Jeremy Irvine, Helen McCrory, Oaklee Prendergast, Adrian Rawlins, Ned Dennehy, Amelia Crouch, Amelia Pidgeon, Casper Allpress, Pip Pearce, Leilah de Meza, Jude Wright, Alfie Simmons, Leanne Best

London, 1941. The Blitz has caused the evacuation of several schoolchildren along with their headmistress, Jean Hogg (McCrory) and their teacher, Eve Parkins (Fox). As they take the train to their destination of Crythin Gifford, Eve shares a compartment with RAF pilot Harry Burnstow who is on his way to a new posting at a nearby airfield. Met by local air raid warden Dr Rhodes (Rawlins), he takes them through the now deserted village where the bus has a puncture. While it’s repaired, Eve encounters a blind man, Jacob (Dennehy) who warns her that she and the children will never escape “her”.

At Eel Marsh House, the two women and their charges settle in. Eve has a bad dream that leads to her seeing a woman dressed all in black (Best). The figure vanishes, but the next day, one of the children, Edward (Prendergast), who has been mute since the death of his parents in an air raid, is locked in the nursery by two other children, and sees the woman in black. Afterwards, Edward carries a tattered doll around with him. That night, one of the boys who locked him in the nursery is led from the house by the woman in black; the next morning he’s found dead.

Another sighting of the woman in black in a graveyard leads Eve to discover her identity and the sad history of her child, Nathaniel. With Eve becoming even more convinced that they are all in danger, she battles to convince Jean that they should all leave as soon as possible. An air raid sees the woman in black claim another victim, and with the aid of Harry, they head for the airfield where he’s based. While they wait for the morning to come, Edward is spirited away back to Eel Marsh House. Eve refuses to leave him behind and makes her way back to rescue him.

Set forty years after the events of The Woman in Black (2012), this unnecessary sequel fails to match the quality and all-round scariness of its predecessor, and thanks to a badly constructed screenplay by Jon Croker, almost reduces its titular character to making little more than a cameo appearance.

The success of the original always meant there would be a sequel, and with the decision to set the new story during World War II it seemed as if the makers had come up with an idea that would avoid the usual horror sequel inanity that most follow ups suffer from. Alas, the wartime setting is the only good idea the makers have come up with, and the rest of the movie is as turgid and predictable and run-of-the-mill as any other horror sequel.

With the woman in black’s story told in the first movie, its resurrection here feels like padding in a movie that repeats various shots and sequences in an attempt to promote a sense of menace that never really pays off. Eve has the same nightmare over and over, and while it replays with different outcomes (including a bone-wearying appearance from you-know-who on one occasion), and serves to provide Eve with a back story of her own, the script’s intention for it to be as scary as what’s happening in Eel Marsh House never pans out. Likewise, the oft-repeated shot looking upward at the hole in the ceiling above Edward’s bed – will we glimpse the woman in black there? – is played over and over and becomes tiresome in the extreme.

That a potential franchise has run out of steam so soon may not be surprising to some, but the strength of the original in comparison to this outing is too evident for any other analysis. As a main character, Eve is too blandly presented to have much of an impact, and the viewer has a tough time sympathising with her or her predicament, even when mad, blind Jacob has her temporarily imprisoned. The same goes for the character of Jean, the rationalist who denies the supernatural until it’s literally staring her in the face (and then is all nice and apologetic). Both Fox and McCrory are more than capable actresses, but even with their talents they’re unable to raise their performances above the level of perfunctory. Worse still is Harry, a character so unimaginatively drawn that Irvine is unable to add any colour or flesh him out to an extent that would make him more interesting.

As for Jennet Humpfrye herself, the movie places her firmly in the background, giving her less exposure and as a result, making her less menacing. As a supposedly single-minded, revenge-oriented character she’s remarkably relaxed in her efforts to kill the children placed so conveniently in her home (especially after forty years). And with the change in actress – Best taking over from Liz White – the look and design of the woman in black has been altered somewhat, with Jennet looking younger and less intimidating behind her veil. It’s a sign that not all’s well, that the movie’s primary source of scares and shocks is not as effectively rendered as before (and perhaps this is why we see so little of her, the makers realising how tame her appearance looks in comparison).

To make matters worse the interiors of Eel Marsh House are gloomily lit and make it difficult to see what’s going on when the action takes place at night, while the exteriors are equally bleak and forlorn. It’s all done for the sake of atmosphere but makes the movie an unappealing viewing experience nevertheless. Orchestrating it all, Harper forgets to imbue the movie with a sense of credible peril, and one jump scare aside, defaults on the terror as well. It all leads to an ending that is rushed and dramatically unsatisfactory, and reinforces the feeling that the makers could have done a whole lot better.

Rating: 4/10 – a movie that plays at being scary but doesn’t deliver, The Woman in Black: Angel of Death aims high but succeeds only in being mediocre; a poor effort by all concerned, and one that (hopefully) will discourage a further movie from being made.