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thedullwoodexperiment

~ Viewing movies in a different light

thedullwoodexperiment

Tag Archives: Music

Chico & Rita (2010)

26 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Animation, Drama, Eman Xor Oña, Fernando Trueba, Havana, Javier Mariscal, Limara Meneses, Love story, Music, Review, Romance

D: Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal / 90m

Cast: Limara Meneses, Eman Xor Oña, Mario Guerra, Lenny Mandel

In 1948, in Havana, budding pianist Chico (Oña) and his best friend, Ramon (Guerra), are enjoying a night on the town with a couple of American tourists when he encounters Rita (Meneses), a singer with the most beautiful voice Chico has ever heard. For Chico it’s love at first sight, and he pursues her, but it’s not until he proves his mettle as a pianist that Rita begins to consider him as boyfriend material. Once she does, their relationship blossoms until an unfortunate incident drives a wedge between them – and on the eve of a talent competition that they’ve a good chance of winning. Chico has written a special song for the competition that’s dedicated to Rita, and Ramon persuades her to still take part. They win, and part of the prize is a month’s residency at the Hotel Nacional. But Rita’s talent and beautiful looks attract the attention of an American businessman, Ron (Mandel), who wants to take her to New York and make her a star. However, Chico’s jealousy drives a further wedge between them, and Rita goes to New York with Ron. Realising his mistake too soon, Chico too heads for New York, but a reconciliation isn’t as easy as he hopes…

A vibrant and vividly portrayed romance set against a colourful backdrop of artistic and cultural change, Chico & Rita is a hugely enjoyable celebration of love and music that thrums with a passion and a vigour that could only have been achieved through its unique combination of animation and the jazz stylings of the period. It’s rare to see an animated movie that uses music to such good effect in electing to tell its simple story of love and heartbreak, and the pain that both characters are able to feel and express through their love of music. Their love affair is a thing of beauty and regret, of ill-advised decisions and wasted opportunities, of battered ambitions and tender expressions – in short, it’s a love story that resonates with every glance and gesture no matter what the emotion behind it. There’s not a false note (no pun intended) in the way that Chico and Rita’s relationship plays out, and the script – by Trueba and Ignacio Martínez de Pisón – keeps the viewer guessing all the way through as to whether or not they’ll have the happy ending they deserve. Beautifully observed, and rendered with a great deal of charm, this is a love story that would be hard to replicate with real people.

Chico & Rita is also a movie where the backdrop is just as lovingly and beautifully rendered as the main storyline, with co-director Mariscal using his skills as a designer and artist to create a visually arresting depiction of late Forties/early Fifties Havana, and the bright lights of Fifties New York and Las Vegas. This is another area where the movie has a vibrant, energetic feel to it, and the characters take their place amidst the noise and the commotion and the excitement of their surroundings so naturally that their whole environment feels completely realistic (even though the animation is highly stylised). It’s a tremendously life-affirming movie as well, bold and daring, and willing to take risks such as in a handful of scenes that are unapologetically sensuous and erotic, but still in keeping with the mood and tone of the movie and its approach to Chico and Rita’s tempestuous realtionship. Along the way there are astute explorations of the casual racism of the period – Rita achieves fame in Hollywood but loses out on respect because of her origins – and the flourishing jazz fusion that occurred when Cuban musicians met American musicians. It’s all of a piece, though, wonderfully thought out and assembled, and one of the most impressive animated movies of the current decade.

Rating: 9/10 – with a killer soundtrack that features the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Thelonius Monk alongside compositions and arrangements by Bebo Valdés, Chico & Rita is a vivid piece of movie making that tells its agonising tale of tragic love with gusto and huge, great heaps of charm; simply irresistible, whether you’re a fan of animation or not (or even Cuban music), and often breathtaking in the way that it dissects a simple love affair with precision and skill.

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Fisherman’s Friends (2019)

25 Monday Mar 2019

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Chris Foggin, Comedy, Daniel Mays, Drama, James Purefoy, Music, Port Isaac, Record deal, Review, Romance, Sea Shanties, True story, Tuppence Middleton

D: Chris Foggin / 112m

Cast: Daniel Mays, James Purefoy, Tuppence Middleton, David Hayman, Dave Johns, Sam Swainsbury, Maggie Steed, Vahid Gold, Christian Brassington, Meadow Nobrega, Noel Clarke

For city boy and music executive Danny Anderson (Mays), the thought of leaving London for the quieter environs of Cornwall, even for a friend’s stag do, goes against the grain. But when a planned sailing weekend fails to happen, Danny, his engaged friend, Henry (Brassington), colleague Driss (Gold), and boss Troy (Clarke), all find themselves having to be rescued when their paddle boarding excursion goes wrong. Afterwards, they find that their rescuers are part of a group of local fishermen well known for singing sea shanties. Danny is immediately impressed by them, and finds himself tasked by Troy to sign the fishermen to a record deal. Unaware that he’s being pranked – Troy has no intention of taking them on – Danny manages to persuade the men to make a demo recording that he can send to the record labels. Staying at the home of de facto group leader Jim (Purefoy), who is distrustful of “outsiders”, and finding himself growing more and more attracted to Jim’s daughter, Alwyn (Middleton), as well as the way of life there, Danny begins to understand why life in Port Isaac has more to offer than he could have ever expected…

Based on the true story of the Fisherman’s Friends, a group of Cornish fishermen whose distinctive renderings of traditional sea shanties has brought them fame (if not fortune), and even a spot on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury, Chris Foggin’s eponymous movie features the kind of heartfelt and sincerely handled narrative that is guaranteed to raise a smile and a tear, and sometimes even in the same scene. What makes it work so well isn’t the focus on the music – though there’s plenty of that, including a rousing rendition of What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor? – but the sense of community that the fishermen are a part of. Shot in Port Isaac, and with the town looking like an honest picture postcard version of itself, the movie doesn’t take long to woo the unsuspecting viewer with its various charms, not least the relaxed way of life on display, and the inhabitants’ positive atttudes about pretty much everything. A buoyant, ebullient sense of mischief also runs throughout the movie, with the men’s camaraderie allowing for a handful of comedic moments where pretensions are dismantled before they can take root… all of which is in stark contrast to the less amusing “humour” evinced by Troy and his sycophants. (Troy is the ostensible bad guy in the movie – but it doesn’t need one.)

With its knowing approach to the material, and a script that takes the time to add moments of poignancy to the mix, the movie is a celebration both of the sea shanties that the men sing and the tradition that keeps them from being forgotten. Again, the music is secondary to the feelings it evokes, and through the perfectly gauged performances, this appreciation is explored through a number of fine renditions that prove infectious and affecting. Mays is particularly good as the (entirely apt) fish out of water, succumbing to the love of a good woman, and the simple pleasures of Cornish life, while Purefoy makes more out of Jim’s sour demeanour than could have been expected; there are depths to his portrayal that aren’t necessarily in the script. With a number of minor sub-plots to round out the material, the movie isn’t afraid to explore more meaningful areas, such as absentee fathers, the perceived betrayal of a community, and the serious nature of what the men do away from singing. It’s ultimately light-hearted and often as whimsical as these things are usually, but Foggin ensures that it’s sprightly and entertaining in equal measure, and no one aspect of the narrative overwhelms all the others. A distinct and effective crowd pleaser, its message couldn’t be clearer: that heritage and tradition still have a vital role to play in modern day communities.

Rating: 8/10 – rousing, rambunctious, and hugely likeable, Fisherman’s Friends tells its story simply and with a great deal of subdued, yet appropriate style; beautiful Cornish locations and sterling cinematography by Simon Tindall add extra layers of charm to the material, and though it treads a very familiar path – Danny makes as many mistakes as he gets things right on the way to a hit record – this doesn’t detract from the sheer enjoyment to be found in such an unassuming movie.

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Vox Lux (2018)

05 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Brady Corbet, Drama, Fame and fortune, Jude Law, Music, Narration, Natalie Portman, Raffey Cassidy, Review, Stacy Martin

D: Brady Corbet / 114m

Cast: Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Jennifer Ehle, Christopher Abbott, Logan Riley Bruner, Maria Dizzia, Willem Dafoe

In 1999, teenager Celeste Montgomery (Cassidy) is seriously wounded in a school shooting that leaves the rest of her classmates dead. Along with her sister, Ellie (Martin), she writes a song about the experience that is first played at a memorial service for the victims, and which draws the attention of an influential manager (Law). He takes the sisters under his wing, and gets them signed to a record company. Using their song as the launchpad for an album, their manager takes them to Stockholm, where they record new songs, while experiencing the kind of lifestyle that is both attractive and dangerous. In 2017, Celeste (Portman) is on the verge of releasing her sixth album – and making something of a comeback – when terrorists kill a number of tourists at a beach resort in Croatia, and wear masks that are similar to ones used in a music video Celeste made when her career was just starting. Faced with probing questions from the press about any possible links to the terrorists, Celeste also has to cope with the needs of her teenage daughter, Albertine (Cassidy), and her now fractured relationship with Ellie…

With The Childhood of a Leader (2015), actor turned director Brady Corbet established himself in one fell swoop as a movie maker to watch out for. With Vox Lux, Corbet has chosen to explore a familiar narrative – the perils of achieving stardom at a young age and how that same stardom can be both empowering and corruptive – but in an unfamiliar, avant-garde way that frequently stretches the narrative out of shape (and sometimes out of context as well), and presents viewers with two versions of the same character: the naïve, impressionable Celeste, and the jaundiced, disillusioned Celeste. Corbet allows the former version to be likeable and appealing and someone you can sympathise with, an ingenue whisked away from her parents and her small town life and exposed to the “real world” at a bewildering speed, and despite the best intentions of her manager, to the harsh truths of that world. But the latter version is the opposite, jaded and bored and prone to flying off the handle because she’s the one with the talent – Ellie has been all but forgotten in 2017 – and she’s the one carrying everyone else. She wants to connect with her daughter, but has never developed the skills to do so. All she knows is her career.

By showing Celeste at the beginning of her career, and then where she is now, Corbet makes some damning comments about the nature of fame and celebrity, but though the movie is visually fresh and exciting, his narrative isn’t, and Portman’s Celeste is prone to saying things like, “The business model relies on the consumer’s unshakable stupidity” as if this is a) profound, or b) something we didn’t know already. It’s the flaw in Corbet’s screenplay: none of what he’s showing or telling us is new; there are no great revelations here, merely reiterations of ideas that we’ve heard many times before. This makes the movie visually arresting – Corbet isn’t one to shy away from experimenting with an excess of style – but less than intriguing, and though Portman and Cassidy are terrific as Celeste, the character doesn’t get under the viewer’s skin in a way that would allow an emotional response to what she’s going through. Corbet puts Celeste in the midst of tragedy time and again, but how all this actually affects her remains something of an unexplored mystery, and by the end, and an extended sequence that sees Portman strutting her stuff on stage to a buoyant electropop song medley, whatever message Corbet has been trying to get across is lost amongst all the bright lights and the glamour. Or maybe that is the message…

Rating: 6/10 – with narration from Willem Dafoe that feels like it should be attached to an adaptation of a classic novel, and inventive approaches to both its tone and content, Vox Lux is a mixed bag that has the ability to frustrate and reward at the same time; not as compelling a tale of burdensome fame and fortune as it wants to be, but fascinating nevertheless for Corbet’s confidence behind the camera, this is one movie whose merits are likely to be debated for some time to come.

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Cold War (2018)

28 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Drama, France, Joanna Kulig, Lukasz Zal, Music, Pawel Pawlikowski, Poland, Review, Romance, Tomasz Kot

Original title: Zimna wojna

D: Pawel Pawlikowski / 88m

Cast: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, Borys Szyc, Agata Kulesza, Cédric Kahn, Jeanne Balibar, Adam Woronowicz

In the wake of World War II, and with Poland trying to establish a new identity for itself under Communist rule, Wiktor (Kot) and Zula (Kulig) meet at the musical academy where he is one of the directors, and she is a pupil. The academy has been set up as a training ground for performing musicians tasked with spreading Communist propaganda, but despite all the rules and restrictions that prohibit any kind of relationship between them, Wiktor and Zula fall in love. While on a foreign tour, they grab the opportunity of escaping to the West, but their plan means travelling separately, something that leads to both of them making decisions that affect their reunion. When they are eventually reunited in Paris, they renew their love affair while Zula is approached to become a recording artist. Jealousy and distrust begin to undermine their love for each other, and Zula becomes unhappy with her life in France. Looking for a solution to her problems, Zula makes an independent decision that has a far-reaching impact on both her life, and Wiktor’s also…

With Ida (2013), writer/director Pawel Pawlikowski made good on the promise hinted at in the four movies he’d made up ’til then, and showed that he was a movie maker of extraordinary skill and talent. In case anyone thought that movie might be a flash in the pan, here’s Cold War to prove them wrong. Loosely based on the experiences of his own parents, Pawlikowski’s ode to the power and perseverance of love is an impressive, heart-wrenching experience that has flashes of profundity and a clarity of purpose that is outstanding. Everything about Cold War has a note of authenticity about it, from the opening recitations of Polish folk songs, to the austere functionality of the academy and its rural surroundings, to the smoky clubs and bars of late Fifties Paris, and the heady milieu that gave birth to the cultural and artistic explosion that was beginning to make itself felt. But looking and sounding even more authentic is the relationship between Wiktor and Zula, an incandescent, tender, desperate, imploring, fiery, all-consuming romance that can only be sustained in bursts before it tears them apart. Pawlikowski shows the pain and the anguish they feel, and also the need for each other that drives them on, their love prompting them to make sacrifices for each other that may appear foolish to others, but which are true expressions of the depth of their love.

As with Ida, Pawlikowski has chosen to shoot Cold War in black and white, and the decision is yet another reason why he’s such a skilled cinematic interpreter and technician. Working again with DoP Lukasz Zal, Pawlikowski ensures the movie is often breathtaking to look at, whether we’re looking at wintry rural Polish landscapes, or the interior of the garret apartment where Wiktor and Zula live in Paris. Individual frames and compositions leap out, but they’re always in service to the material, and never feel gratuitous. This visual flare is matched by the flawless choice of music that enhances and enthralls, whether it’s the aforementioned (and melancholy sounding) Polish folk songs, or the jazz breakouts, or even the unexpected use of Rock Around the Clock. Pawlikowski melds it all together with a singular ease, tying the characters’ moods and emotions to the music, and enhancing the narrative so much and so effectively that the movie winds up feeling like a lost Sixties New Wave classic being given a long overdue, big screen re-issue. Kulig and Kot give powerful, indelible performances, highlighting their characters’ strengths and shortcomings with equal measures of sympathy and persuasion, and Pawlikowski rounds it all up with a final shot (and line) that is so affecting it almost takes the breath away. It’s simple, and it’s audacious, and it sums up the movie completely.

Rating: 9/10 – a prime contender for best movie of 2018, Cold War is a passionate, beautifully shot tale that exceeds expectations at every turn, and which provides ample rewards for the interested viewer; with this and Ida, Pawlikowski seems to have found his oeuvre, and on this form if he wants to make further features in a similar fashion and/or vein, then he absolutely should be allowed to do so.

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Green Book (2018)

04 Tuesday Dec 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Concert tour, Don Shirley, Drama, Linda Cardellini, Mahershala Ali, Music, Peter Farrelly, Racism, Review, The Deep South, Tony Villalongo, True story, Viggo Mortensen

D: Peter Farrelly / 130m

Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali, Linda Cardellini, Sebastian Maniscalco, Dimiter D. Marinov, Mike Hatton, P.J. Byrne, Joe Cortese, Brian Stepanek

In 1962, in New York City, club bouncer Tony Villalonga (Mortensen) (known as Tony Lip) finds himself temporarily out of work. Though a number of opportunities are open to him, he becomes intrigued when he’s approached through a friend to be a driver for a doctor on a trip down south. At the interview, Tony meets Dr Don Shirley (Ali), and is surprised to learn that Don isn’t a medical doctor, but a doctor of music (amongst other things). The trip down south is a two-month concert tour that will eventually head into the Deep South, and Don needs someone who can keep him out of trouble during the tour. The two men agree terms, and aim to be back in New York City on Xmas Eve. Setting out, their differences in attitude causes friction between them: Tony is uncultured and lacking in certain social graces, while Don is refined and sophisticated. As the trip continues however, Tony and Don begin to develop a mutual respect and understanding, at the same time as the Deep South’s racist agenda begins to threaten the tour’s completion…

If you were black in the early Sixties, and wanted to travel in relative safety through the South, then a good investment would have been a copy of The Negro Motorist Green Book by Victor Hugo Green, a book which listed hotels and restaurants that would accept black people. Tony is given a copy at the start of the tour, and though he has own racist tics, he’s bemused by the idea of such a book. He’s an Italian-American who’s lived his whole life in New York City; his interaction with the kind of institutional racism practiced in the South has been next to zero. For Don, it’s the very fact that this kind of racism is prevalent that he carries out these tours; it’s about not taking the easy option and staying in the North and (literally) playing it safe. But while Green Book has a clearly defined backdrop that encompasses contemporary racism and the social politics of the period, it’s not specifically about those issues. Instead it’s about the blossoming friendship between two men from two very different cultural and social backgrounds who find a common ground through their experiences travelling together. Each learns from the other, and each is a better man for it.

Now, so far it’s another standard tale of friendship achieved between polar opposites, but it’s played out in such a way that both men are made better versions of themselves and without the need for either of them to lose or change any aspect of their character or personality. Instead, they improve themselves, and willingly, seeing their own lives through the ideas and thoughts of each other. This approach takes place over time, and the script – co-written by Villalonga’s real-life son, Nick (who also has a role as one of Tony’s relatives), Farrelly, and Brian Hayes Currie – doesn’t rush things out of any sense of dramatic necessity, relying instead on the subtleties and nuances on the page, and two magnificent performances from Mortensen and Ali. Both actors are on superb form, teasing out small but important revelations about their characters, and relishing the opportunity to work with such strong material. Farrelly, whose output in this decade has been less than compelling – The Three Stooges (2012), anyone? – here hits a home run, getting it tonally and thematically right, and without recourse to unnecessary melodramatics or forced sentimentality. There’s humour amidst the drama, of course (“I knew you had a gun”), but again Farrelly balances it all with skill and intelligence. This is the kind of road trip that you’ll want to go on on a second and maybe a third time, and if you do, you’ll still be as entertained as you were on the first.

Rating: 9/10 – at times, Green Book appears effortless in its attempts to tell a simple story without the need for artifice or contrivance, and it’s this simplicity of style and content – along with a generous helping of cinematic heart and soul – that makes it such a wonderful experience; again, this isn’t about the time period or the geographical area it’s set in, or any combination of the two, it’s about two men with different outlooks and predispositions who become lifelong friends in the unlikeliest of circumstances, and against some pretty long odds.

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Hit So Hard (2011)

30 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Biography, Courtney Love Cobain, Documentary, Drugs, Eric Erlandson, Hole, Melissa Auf der Maur, Music, P. David Ebersole, Patty Schemel, Review

D: P. David Ebersole / 103m

With: Patty Schemel, Eric Erlandson, Courtney Love Cobain, Melissa Auf der Maur, Terry Schemel, Larry Schemel, Nina Gordon, Roddy Bottum, Joe Mama-Nitzberg, Gina Schock, Alice de Buhr, Chris Whitemyer

Patty Schemel began playing drums at the age of eleven. Along with her brother, Larry, she formed her first band, The Milkbones, when she was fifteen. In the late Eighties, Patty played drums in a succession of bands, most of whom were fleeting and/or unsuccessful. Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain considered Patty as the replacement for the band’s original drummer; instead she became the drummer for Courtney Love’s Hole when their original drummer left. Between 1992 and 1998, Patty became an intrinsic member of the band, co-writing songs with Love and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson, and becoming recognised as one of the best female drummers around. However, substance abuse took its toll on Patty’s talent, and by the time Hole came to record their third album, her drug addiction contributed to her being replaced on the album by a session drummer brought in by the producer, and with Love and Erlandson’s agreement. In the wake of this, Patty devloped an addiction to crack cocaine and was homeless for a year. It was only through reaching out to Love that she was able to find her way back to being clean and sober…

Subtitled The Life and Near Death Story of Patty Schemel, Hit So Hard is a frank and – given the excesses on display – sobering account of how lucky Patty was to survive a period when drugs were as prevalent in her life as the music that inspired her. What is perhaps most surprising about Patty’s story is that her drug addiction wasn’t a reaction to the lingering effects of an unhappy childhood, or the fallout from a doomed love affair, or any of the myriad other reasons that some addicts confess to when they reach rock bottom. Instead, Patty was a victim of the drug culture that was tacitly condoned within the music industry, and which claimed the lives of people like Kurt Cobain. She and Cobain were good friends, and the movie reflects on their relationship (she lived with Cobain and Love for a time), while his death acts as a foreshadowing of Patty’s own potential for self-destruction. Even the death of Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff two months later – a blow that might have precipitated a further emotional downward spiral – is dealt with more readily than expected. Losing her role within Hole pushed Patty over the edge, but it was one she was already pre-disposed to fall from.

Though drug addiction and its consequences play a large part in Patty’s story, it’s the music that holds centre stage, from her early beginnings in bands such as Sybil and Doll Squad, to the heady days with Hole, and even now, playing with a variety of bands and teaching drumming. Interviews with some of Patty’s contemporaries show the high regard she has within the industry, and even now the other members of Hole acknowledge that the treatment she received on that third album wasn’t right; regret is the rightful order of the day. Through it all, Patty is an honest, engaging presence, certain and concise, and unafraid to confront her own failings. Having found a cache of Hi8 video footage she herself shot while on a world tour to support Hole’s second album, Patty has used this as the basis for the movie, and Ebersole has confidently weaved this and other archival footage into the non-linear narrative of Patty’s life, placing key moments at seemingly odd juxtapositions to other moments that are important (how she came out to her mother, Terry, happens much later in the movie than you might expect). Yet, as a whole, it works, and the reminiscences of Erlandson and Love offer valuable confirmations of Patty’s own recollections. What could have been another rock and roll tragedy is instead a tale of personal triumph, and one that eclipses the fame and fortune she had for six brief but incredible years.

Rating: 8/10 – what could easily have been presented – and promoted – as a cautionary tale, Hit So Hard (ironically a song title from that disastrous third album) avoids being a standard rock biopic, and tells its story simply and in a straightforward manner; there’s plenty of heartache and tragedy on display (and on many levels), but Patty Schemel’s level-headed approach to her own life and career makes hearing her story all the more rewarding and, yes, entertaining.

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Buena Vista Social Club (1999)

28 Wednesday Nov 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Compay Segundo, Cuba, Danzón, Documentary, Ibrahim Ferrer, Music, Omara Portuondo, Review, Rubén González, Ry Cooder, Wim Wenders

D: Wim Wenders / 105m

With: Ry Cooder, Rubén González, Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo, Eliades Ochoa, Orlando “Cachaito” López, Manuel “Guajiro” Mirabal, Joachim Cooder

Ry Cooder had always wanted to make an album featuring the hugely talented musicians who’d been making Cuban music back in the Fifties and Sixties. Finding himself heading to Havana, Cuba, Cooder was surprised to find as well that most of those musicians were still alive, and better yet, still performing the songs that had made them famous (albeit in Cuba alone). Bringing many of them together for the first time in decades, Cooder began recording his album, and was amazed at the quality of their playing after so long. Along with making an album, Cooder had an idea that they should all play together at a handful of concerts. And so, in April 1988, the Buena Vista Social Club played two nights in Amsterdam, and then in July, a single night at New York’s famed Carnegie Hall. Wim Wenders’ movie shows how Cooder assembled this amazing group, the group’s commitment to the music, and the pleasure they gained from playing live to non-Cuban audiences, and all while managing to retain (with apparent ease) a keen sense of their identity as Cubans.

The movie that made the rest of the world sit up and take notice of Cuban music, Buena Vista Social Club is a pure blast of joy from beginning to end. Seeing performers like Segundo (in his early Nineties at the time of the movie’s release) still playing to such a high standard, still enjoying the music they’re playing, and still able to find new ways of interpreting the songs they’ve all known for a lifetime, is both inspiring and moving in equal measure. Their enthusiasm is infectious. When Ry Cooder made the decision to head down to Cuba with his son, Joachim, to make an album of Cuban music featuring the very musicians who’d made danzón (the official musical genre and dance of Cuba) so popular in their own country, he couldn’t have known just how much of an impact the resulting album, and this movie about the making of said album, would have worldwide. The music itself is beautiful, full of emotion and played with a delicacy and finesse that pushes it toward being simply sublime. The live performance sections of the movie are as joyous as you could possibly hope for.

Wenders (who’s made more than a few documentaries over the years) highlights the relish shown by the singers and musicians who bring this music to life, capturing through performances and often surprisingly candid interviews, a sense of the music’s importance in their lives, and it’s importance in Cuban culture in general. It’s a celebration of their lives and the musical heritage that has inspired them, and which continues to do so after fifty, sixty, seventy or more years of living and breathing danzón – and achieving the natural high that keeps them going, keeps them reaching for improvement and mastery over the songs they know so well and love so much. There’s pride there too, in each other, and in their country, a pride that finds meaningful expression in songs such as Chan Chan and Candela. In the end, it’s unsurprising that the music of the Buena Vista Social Club crosses so many international and cultural boundaries; these are songs from the heart, sung and played by artists whose only ambition is to pass on as much of the joy and fervour they themselves feel. Wenders rightly focuses on the Cubans – Cooder barely gets a look-in by comparison – and in doing so, he makes us all wish we had that same attachment to music that the likes of González and Ochoa and Portuondo have.

Rating: 9/10 – an uplifting and inspiring documentary, Buena Vista Social Club is difficult to ignore, or overlook thanks to the sheer exuberance of the music, and the passionate interpretations of the songs by such a talented group of musicians; Cooder’s initial idea proved to be a godsend, and even now, it remains a marvelous, delightful examination of a marvelous, delightful, musically magical moment in time.

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Whitney (2018)

14 Wednesday Nov 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Biography, Bobby Brown, Cissy Houston, Documentary, Drugs, Kevin Macdonald, Music, Review, Singer, Whitney Houston

D: Kevin Macdonald / 120m

With: Cissy Houston, Bobby Brown, Michael Houston, Gary Houston, Mary Jones, John Houston III,  Donna Houston, Debra Martin Chase, Nicole David, Rickey Minor, Kevin Costner

Born into a family with a musical background – her mother, Cissy, was a backing singer for the likes of Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley, before embarking on a successful solo career – Whitney Houston was blessed with the gift of an amazing singing voice. As a youngster she sang in her local church, and at the age of nineteen she was signed to Arista Records; three years later she released her first album: it went to number one on the Billboard 200. Further success followed, and she became the only female artist to have seven consecutive number one singles in the US. 1992 was a banner year for Whitney, with her starring role in The Bodyguard, and her marriage to rapper Bobby Brown. She had a daughter, Bobbi Kristina, and continued success with albums and movies. But towards the end of the Nineties, it became clear that Whitney was struggling with a drug addiction that was interfering with her work, and affecting her voice. Public appearances showed a woman who seemed adrift from herself and unable to find her way back, and in 2012, aged just forty-eight, she died in tragic circumstances…

Watching Whitney, the latest documentary from Kevin Macdonald – Touching the Void (2003), Marley (2012) – you’re almost waiting for that moment, the one where the acclaimed singer took the wrong path, the point where it all started to go horribly, terribly wrong. But as the movie progresses, and several moments appear as if they could be the one, Macdonald reveals a sadder truth: the somber tragedy of Houston’s later life and career was caused by a number of problems that the singer never faced up to or properly dealt with. That’s not to say that Houston was the author of her own downfall, but instead she was someone who was taken advantage of in different ways – by her family, her friends, her various collaborators, her husband – and because these problems were both incremental and consistent, she found herself unable to deal with them. Escape through drugs was her only, perceived, option. As this becomes clearer and more obvious through the testimonies of the people who were with her during the Nineties, another, even sadder truth emerges: no one did anything to help her. Through all the highs and lows of Houston’s life, and despite all the attention she had, and all the success, her loneliness is made undeniably apparent.

Much has been made of the movie’s “revelation” that Houston was molested by her first cousin, Dee Dee Warwick, when she was a child, but Macdonald wisely acknowledges it and the anecdotal nature of its provenance, and doesn’t allow it to take up too much of the running time. He’s too intent on examining her life and career from the arms-length distance of an observer, allowing those who knew her to provide bias or clarity or their own self-interest as appropriate – except for Brown, who is challenged when he asserts that drugs had nothing to do with Houston’s life, or what eventually happened to her. But though the tragedy of Houston’s life is revealed in broad, unhappy swathes that are sometimes hard to watch (a comeback show in Australia is particularly hard to bear), this is still a celebration of a musical talent that touched the lives of millions around the world. Using archival footage, Macdonald shows the impact Houston had, and how deserving she was of the success she achieved. Her talent may have been a blessing and a curse, but what is certain from this sensitive and deftly assembled documentary, is that her talent is what truly defined her, and that’s something that a tragic end can’t erase.

Rating: 8/10 – an absorbing, entertaining, and thoughtful movie, Whitney makes no judgments about the singer’s life and career, or the choices she made, but it does highlight the various ways in which she lost control of her own destiny; a heartfelt mixture of joy and sadness, with powerful reminders of her prodigious talent, it’s a movie that also reinforces the notion that success and fame aren’t always precursors to happiness.

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The Shape of Water (2017)

19 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Baltimore, Cold War, Creature, Doug Jones, Drama, Guillermo del Toro, Michael Shannon, Michael Stuhlbarg, Music, Octavia Spencer, Review, Richard Jenkins, Romance, Sally Hawkins, Sci-fi, The Sixties

D: Guillermo del Toro / 123m

Cast: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Stuhlbarg, Doug Jones, David Hewlett, Nick Searcy, Lauren Lee Smith

A romantic fairy tale set during the Cold War era of the Sixties, Guillermo del Toro’s latest feature is set in a secret government laboratory in Baltimore. Elisa Esposito (Hawkins) is a cleaner who works the night shift. She’s also mute from birth. One night the laboratory receives a new “asset”, an amphibious creature (Jones) captured in the Amazon river by military man Richard Strickland (Shannon). The creature proves to be humanoid, and though it’s ostensibly dangerous, Elisa develops a bond with it, and even uses sign language to communicate with it on a basic level. With the creature able to breathe in and out of water, the intricacies of its anatomy lead to the decision to have it vivisected. Elisa is horrified by this, and with the aid of her fellow cleaner, Zelda (Spencer), and her neighbour, elderly artist Giles (Jenkins), she determines to free the creature and return it to the sea. As she puts her plan into action, she finds unexpected assistance from one of the scientists at the laboratory, Dr Hoffstetler (Stuhlbarg), and unwanted attention from Strickland.

Fully and firmly back on track after the disappointment that was Crimson Peak (2015), Guillermo del Toro has made perhaps his best movie yet. The Shape of Water is a veritable treasure trove of delights. By turns funny, dramatic, sad, tender, exciting, joyous, imaginative, bold, romantic, uplifting, and poignant, it’s a movie that crams so much into its two hour running time that it should feel heavy-handed. Instead it feels like the lightest of confections, even with the overtly darker undertones that are threaded throughout the narrative and which help the movie add a credible and palpable sense of menace to the overall tone. del Toro has long wanted to make a movie inspired by Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), but it’s unlikely even he could have predicted just how good the end result would be. From Paul D. Austerberry’s masterful period production design, to the efforts of the set dressers (so much detail), this is a movie that is constantly inviting the viewer to come nearer and peer closely at all the objects that fill each frame. And then there are the small yet seemingly effortless moments that pepper the movie, moments such as Elisa and Giles’ seated dance routine, or the man at the bus stop with the partially eaten cake. It all adds up to a richness of texture that is nigh-on faultless.

But the movie isn’t just beautiful to look at, it’s also an old-fashioned love story (an inter-species love story, to be fair, but hey, so what? As Joe E. Brown says at the end of Some Like It Hot (1959), “Nobody’s perfect”). It would have been so easy to misjudge the tone and the mood in presenting this romance, but del Toro and co-screenwriter Vanessa Taylor handle it perfectly, combining elements of magical realism and the aforementioned fairy tale aspect to wonderful effect. Hawkins – for whom the role of Elisa was written – gives a mesmerising performance, passionate and vulnerable, determined and caring, and capable of expressing any of Elisa’s emotions through the delicate shading of her features. As the principal villain, Shannon gets to add unexpected psychological layers to the role of Strickland, something that keeps the part from being that of a stereotypical bad guy, while Jenkins provides the majority of the laughs (and a great deal of pathos) as Giles, an elderly gay man still hoping to find love himself. Everything is rounded off by the music, as del Toro harks back to the golden era of Hollywood musicals. And just when you think he can’t squeeze in anything else, he gives us a black and white dance number featuring Elisa and the creature which is a tribute to Follow the Fleet (1936). This all leaves just one option: this much confidence must be applauded.

Rating: 9/10 – made with an intense amount of love and affection for its central characters, and with an elegance that shines throughout, The Shape of Water is a triumph of both style and substance; look closely, though, and you’ll find del Toro being quietly and unobtrusively subversive: ask yourself – which other movie are you likely to see where the heroes are in turn disabled, gay, black, and a Communist?

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Alive Inside (2014)

26 Friday Aug 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Alzheimers, Bobby McFerrin, Care homes, Dan Cohen, Documentary, Elder care, Gregory Petsko, iPod, Memory, Michael Rossato-Bennett, Music, Music & Memory, Oliver Sacks, Review, Samite Mulando

Alive Inside

aka Personal Song

D: Michael Rossato-Bennett / 78m

With: Dan Cohen, Oliver Sacks, Gregory Petsko, Samite Mulando, Bobby McFerrin, William Thomas, Michael Rossato-Bennett

It’s estimated that as many as 5.1 million Americans may have Alzheimer’s disease. If this figure is correct then the US healthcare system is in for a rocky ride in the decades to come, as that figure rises in line with a rapidly aging – and longer living – population, and the cost of medication to treat the condition rises right alongside it. But what if there was an alternative to the use of drugs such as NAMENDA XR®, or Aricept, an alternative that was also cheaper to implement?

Step forward Dan Cohen, founder of Music & Memory, “a non-profit organization that brings personalized music into the lives of the elderly or infirm through digital music technology”. Michael Rossato-Bennett’s inspiring documentary introduces us to the former consultant/trainer for the U.S. Department of Education as he attempts to convince healthcare professionals and pretty much anyone who will take notice, of the beneficial effects of music on the memories and cognisance of Alzheimer’s sufferers. Originally, Rossato-Bennett was meant to follow Cohen around for one day only, filming his attendance at a care home and recording the effects – if any – on the residents there. Using iPods and music choices that reflected the eras when these people were young, Cohen was able to prove that music could “reawaken” Alzheimer’s sufferers, and retrieve memories long believed lost.

Alive Inside - scene2

Cohen found a perfect example in Henry, a ninety-four year old who was withdrawn and barely able to speak. Within moments of Henry’s being fitted with headphones and music from his youth played for him, he reacted with spontaneous enthusiasm. Henry responded in a way that amazed everyone, and the longer he listened the more articulate he became. He was able to tell Cohen how the music made him feel, and soon he was able to sing independently of the iPod, revealing a deep melodic voice almost unaffected by the passing of the years. (At this point, Rossato-Bennett decided one day of filming Cohen wasn’t enough: he followed him for the next three years.)

Other patients benefitted from Cohen’s approach to palliative care. While the drugs they were taking each day did little to alleviate their isolation, Cohen’s iPods brought people out of their lethargy. Families could reconnect with their loved ones again, and those sufferers who were still able to understand what the disease was doing to them were able to appreciate the renewed lease of life this music therapy afforded them. People like Denise, a bipolar schizophrenic who felt every emotion so intensely that her life was like being on an emotional rollercoaster. Cohen’s “intervention” saw her do away with the walking frame she’d been using constantly for the previous two years, and dance. And for the first time in a long time, she could honestly say she was happy.

Alive Inside - scene3

With such dramatic but telling effects on a range of Alzheimer’s sufferers, it would seem absurd for the US healthcare system to ignore Cohen’s work. But you’d be wrong (if unsurprised). As Gregory Petsko, Professor of Bio-Chemistry and Chemistry at Brandeis University puts it so tellingly, he could write a prescription for a thousand dollar drug and no one would bat an eyelid. But if he wanted to prescribe a forty dollar iPod, then questions would be asked. It’s at this point that Cohen begins to encounter all manner of excuses from doctors and care providers unwilling to adopt his unique methods. (It’s not mainstream enough for them.)

Cohen perseveres though, focusing on the US care home system, but he makes a limited amount of headway, despite continued, and incontrovertible, evidence that his idea works. When the uptake of iPods ends up being less than one per cent, an exasperated Cohen throws in the towel. But the story doesn’t end there. Some time later, footage of Henry is posted on Reddit, and it goes viral, and now Cohen is appearing on television and promoting his use of iPods…

There’s a great deal of joy to be had from Alive Inside. Joy at seeing Alzheimer’s sufferers regain a semblance of their old selves, joy at knowing that this particular form of therapy works independently of any drugs, joy at seeing the relief and happiness it brings to families and loved ones, and joy that Cohen’s efforts haven’t all been for nothing. There’s something incredibly powerful and uplifting in seeing someone who is withdrawn – mentally, emotionally and physically – emerge as if from a deep sleep and re-engage with their past and their present surroundings. There are several of these moments in the movie, and rather than become expected or commonplace, each is a moment to be thankful for, a transformation that reinstates identity and awareness.

Alive Inside - scene1

In between these powerful moments, Rossato-Bennett is astute enough to provide viewers with historical, social, medical and political contexts for the current state of care home facilities, particularly in light of the introduction in 1965 of Medicare and Medicaid. By treating Alzheimer’s sufferers as patients, the elder care programme has effectively mistreated millions of people in the forty-plus years since; they’ve been victims of a system that has failed to do anything other than make them physically comfortable for as long as possible. As one esteemed physician and researcher puts it, he’s worked in the field of dementia for thirty-eight years and he’s not been able to do anything as productive for dementia sufferers as Cohen has with his iPods. It’s admissions like these that add to the emotional impact of seeing the effect of music on so many people, especially when you have someone as authoritative as Oliver Sacks confirming that musical memories are able to withstand the ravages of Alzheimer’s far better than other kinds of memory. (If this is the case then why the hesitation in adopting Cohen’s idea?)

Cohen himself comes across as a committed, dedicated individual with a great deal of empathy for the people he meets, be they Alzheimer’s sufferers, care providers such as nurses, or the families struggling to come to terms with the premature “loss” of a loved one. As the movie follows him on his quest to improve the lives of so many “lost souls”, his approach and consideration of others serves as a reminder that we should cherish our time with our elders, and recognise their value as individuals, even if they are distant or unresponsive. It’s an important message, and one that shouldn’t be diluted or allowed to fade away. Thanks to Cohen and his efforts, and the reawakening of a man named Henry, that’s unlikely to happen anytime in the near future.

Rating: 8/10 – an impressive, solidly mounted documentary, Alive Inside skimps on statistics in its attempt to put across its feelgood story, but that’s a minor quibble when there’s so much that’s delightful to be had; Rossato-Bennett should be congratulated for his efforts, as his movie tells what could have been a remarkable if dour story with careful consideration and passion.

For further information about Dan Cohen and his work, visit http://musicandmemory.org

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Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)

23 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Baseball, Blake Jenner, College, Comedy, Drama, Drinking, Drugs, Glen Powell, J. Quinton Johnson, Music, Review, Richard Linklater, Sex, Texas, Tyler Hoechlin, Zoey Deutch

Everybody Wants Some!!

D: Richard Linklater / 117m

Cast: Blake Jenner, Glen Powell, Tyler Hoechlin, J. Quinton Johnson, Ryan Guzman, Temple Baker, Wyatt Russell, Juston Street, Will Brittain, Austin Amelio, Forrest Vickery, Tanner Kalina, Zoey Deutch

Fresh from his success with Boyhood (2014), writer/director Richard Linklater has created a movie that begins where that movie ended – albeit with different characters. Set over a long weekend before the start of college, Everybody Wants Some!! sees freshman pitcher Jake (Jenner) arrive at a college in Texas and ready to see where college life will take him. It’s not long before he’s introduced to most of the rest of the team, and it’s even sooner when it’s suggested they all go out for a beer. While travelling round they try and tempt girls into coming to their frat house that night, but have middling luck; two girls in particular turn them down flat, though one of them does indicate she thinks Jake is attractive.

Over the course of the day Jake gets to meet everyone on the team, from coolly confident and loquacious Finnegan (Powell), to roommate Billy (renamed Beuter by his teammates) (Brittain), to knowledgeable, helpful Dale (Johnson), all the way to Jay aka Raw Dog (Street), a gonzoid character whose pitching speed is said to be around 95mph. Jake soon fits in with the established team’s sense of camaraderie, and the way they haze each other.  Made to feel at home he soon becomes aware of the various dynamics within the team and learns from other players such as Willoughby (Russell) and McReynolds (Hoechlin) that even though they might party each and every night, nothing is more important than the team and supporting each other, and that they take playing baseball very seriously indeed.

EWS - scene1

Over the course of the weekend, Jake learns some very valuable lessons and takes a chance on contacting the girl who thought he was attractive. While his teammates concentrate on having as much “fun” as they can possibly manage with as many girls as is humanly possible, Jake gets to know the girl, Beverly (Deutch), and discovers that he likes her very much. An invitation to a Sunday night party Beverly is helping to organise for the college performing arts students leads to the team coming along too, and Jake worrying that their behaviour may cause problems, and especially for him with Beverly. But it doesn’t go entirely the way he believes based on his experiences of the previous two days.

Everybody Wants Some!! – the title comes from a Van Halen track off their Women and Children First album – looks at first as if it’s going to be yet another generic coming of age movie where the hero struggles to fit in and must find a way of being accepted by the clique or college fraternity he’s been assigned to. Even Jake’s first encounter with McReynolds, where he makes it clear he doesn’t like pitchers, seems to confirm the antagonism and animosity that Jake is likely to face as he tries to establish himself. But Linklater is not a director who deals in cliché, and what feels like the first of many obstacles Jake has to overcome in order to be accepted, proves to be the last, as his arrival is welcomed and he’s accepted into the fold with alacrity.

EWS - scene3

Linklater is clever enough to make Jake quietly likeable and offhandedly friendly, taking each new introduction as it comes and avoiding being fazed by a lot of the seemingly unfriendly behaviour exhibited by his teammates. He soon comes to realise that he’s no longer the big fish in the little pond of high school, but just a little fish in a much bigger pond, and others on the team – Beuter, fellow freshman Plummer (Baker) – are in the same predicament. Jake doesn’t know how things are going to turn out but he learns early on, that whatever happens his teammates will be there to support him. From the vagaries and disappointments and minor successes of high school, Jake now has to prove himself all over again, but thankfully in a much more encouraging environment.

Of course, this being college, high spirited behaviour is the order of the day, and the movie excels in recreating the kind of unabashed hedonistic lifestyle of the very early Eighties, where excessive drinking and smoking weed and pursuing women for sex was regarded as normal for young males at the time, and whose testosterone-fuelled exploits were (rightly or wrongly) regarded as the stuff of future legend. Out of this, Linklater shows how these young men bond unconditionally, and treat each other with respect even while they’re playing pranks on each other, or treating each other with an apparent disregard for their feelings. They might not say it to each other, and Linklater stops short of saying it directly, but there is a love here that is stronger than any individual relationships they may form outside the team. And they do know how to party, whether it’s at a disco, or at the frat house, or at a country and western bar dancing to Cotton Eye Joe – these guys live for the moment in a way that successive college students (and not just in America) have been trying to emulate ever since. It was in many ways a simpler time: pre-AIDS, pre-designer drugs, and pre-social media, and Linklater highlights how little pressure college students felt as they navigated the rocky road to adulthood.

EWS - scene2

What’s also clever about the movie and its ensemble cast of characters is the speed and succinctness that Linklater employs in allowing the viewer to get to know them. Faced with around a dozen characters, most of whom are given little or no background information to help the viewer distinguish them from each other (at first), the movie could have stumbled around introducing them, and made no impact at all. But Linklater doesn’t put a foot wrong with any of them, and broadens each character’s screen time and appeal as the movie progresses, so that by the time the movie’s reached the halfway point you may well feel you’ve known them a whole lot longer. Linklater is helped in this by some terrific performances, and though it would be a little unfair to pick out any one actor ahead of anyone else, special mention must go to Glen Powell as Finnegan. His performance is the jewel in the movie’s crown: self-assured, confident, engaging, overtly dramatic when required, and quietly impressive throughout.

Of course, Everybody Wants Some!! wouldn’t be a Richard Linklater movie set in the early Eighties without it having a killer soundtrack, and that’s exactly the case, with the director choosing a selection of songs that help both recreate the times and the social atmosphere that went along with them. There’s some iconic tunes to be sure, but it’s the way Linklater uses them that’s so effective, with the likes of Heartbreaker by Pat Benatar and Hand in Hand by Dire Straits used in support of the material and not just because they might sound good at a certain moment. The movie is also beautifully lensed by DoP Shane F. Kelly, which in turn highlights the wonderful period production design and costumes – take a bow Bruce Curtis and Kari Perkins respectively.

Rating: 9/10 – a delightful mix of comedy and drama that doesn’t short change or undermine either discipline, Everybody Wants Some!! is a movie that offers a whole host of rewards for the viewer; with a cast and crew at the top of their game, the movie is honest, reflective, heartfelt, genuinely affecting in places, and a near-perfect example of a simple story told simply and without unnecessary affectation.

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For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 5. Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004)

14 Saturday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Cuba, Cuban Revolution, Dance, Dance competition, Diego Luna, Drama, For One Week Only, Guy Ferland, Havana, John Slattery, Music, Patrick Swayze, Review, Romance, Romola Garai, Sela Ward, Sequel

Introduction

There are dozens of sequels that turn up uninvited, years after their predecessor was first released. Some arrive without any kind of fanfare, while others appear with all the promotional backing available under the sun. Beware of those that arrive under the latter circumstances – sometimes the hype is designed to grab as much at the box office as the movie can manage before word of mouth kicks in and people begin to realise the movie is one to avoid. When the movie in question is a belated sequel to a much-loved original, any abundance of hype is perhaps the biggest clue that the sequel should be avoided. Here is one such example, a movie that came along seventeen years after the original, and still begs the question, why? (Read on for the answer.)

Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004) / D: Guy Ferland / 86m

DDHN

Cast: Diego Luna, Romola Garai, Sela Ward, John Slattery, Jonathan Jackson, Mika Boorem, January Jones, René Lavan, Patrick Swayze, Mya

If you watch the opening credits of Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights closely, you’ll find that one of the producers is called JoAnn Fregalette Jansen (she also has a small, non-speaking role in the movie itself). Jansen lived in Cuba, aged fifteen, during the period the movie is set in, 1958. Playwright Peter Sagal wrote a screenplay based on Jansen’s experiences of the Cuban Revolution, and her relationship with a Cuban revolutionary. The screenplay was titled Cuba Mine and was a serious examination of the events that occurred in Cuba at the time, and how the country’s political idealism became polluted by the Communist ideology that replaced the more liberal regime that existed in the Fifties.

The script was commissioned by Lawrence Bender in 1992. Bender was fresh from the success of producing Reservoir Dogs (1992), but the script went unproduced until Bender revisited it again ten years later. However, Sagal’s script was only used as the basis of a completely new script by Boaz Yakin and Victoria Arch. The end result? A disastrous attempt to recreate the magic of Dirty Dancing (1987).

DDHN - scene1

With the original having proved so successful, and having gained a place within the cultural zeitgeist (“Nobody puts Baby in a corner”), a sequel was always likely to appear eventually, but this is a movie that spends its thankfully short running time replicating the original’s storyline instead of coming up with something new. It’s the eternal problem facing sequels everywhere: how to combine enough DNA from the original movie with newer, fresher elements to make a satisfying whole. Sadly, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights is a sequel that can’t even assemble enough DNA from its predecessor to make much of a difference. It’s perfunctory, lazy, and lacks impact.

It also has a hard time doing the one thing that it should get right above all else, namely the dance routines. Thanks to the movie’s Cuban setting, the music and dance numbers are meant to be energetic, effortlessly fluid, and somewhat mildly erotic, but thanks to the movie’s determined efforts to edit the dance sequences into bite-sized shots that often don’t match the moves on show immediately before and after each shot, the very elements that are meant to draw in an audience are undermined from the word go. Now this could be a conscious, artisitic decision made by director Guy Ferland and his editors, Luis Colina and Scott Richter, in which case the trio have no idea of how to put together a dance sequence; or it could be that Luna and Garai’s moves weren’t quite as impressive as everyone hoped and they needed a little “help” in looking so accomplished (you decide).

DDHN - scene2

Elsewhere the movie is equally determined to rely on cinematic and cultural clichés in order to tell its story. If the movie was even remotely realistic, it would be easy to believe that, before the revolution, all Cubans were happy-go-lucky souls who never tired of singing and dancing on pretty much every street corner. There are moments of casual racism that don’t amount to anything in terms of the drama, as well as cursory references to the political struggle happening at the time. Luna’s hotel waiter, Javier, evinces his distrust of Americans only until Garai’s preppy Katey waves the lure of competition prize money under his nose, while Katey’s family hang around in the background waiting to be given something to do.

The performances are average, with Luna and Garai developing an uneasy chemistry that seems more convincing on the dance floor than anywhere else, while Ward and Slattery get to play good cop/bad cop once Katey’s relationship with Javier is revealed (the scene in question is notable for playing like an outtake from a TV soap opera). Spare a thought though for poor old Patrick Swayze, co-opted into the script as a dance class instructor who gets to show Katey some moves before being reduced to providing reaction shots during the dance competition. Swayze looks uncomfortable in his scenes, as if he’s having second thoughts about being in the movie but also realising it’s too late to back out.

DDHN - scene3

The movie is a sloppy mess, shot through with an earnest quality that wants to be taken for drama. But like so much on display it’s often involuntary, as if the various elements of the screenplay were put together in a blender rather than a word processor. Ferland directs it all with little or no attention to the emotions of the characters – Garai spends quite a bit of time looking upset but gets over it all just as quickly as it’s started – but at least he manages to make the Puerto Rican locations look suitably beautiful, throwing in wondrous sunsets and sunrises with giddy, artistic abandon.

Rating: 3/10 – unimaginative, even in its dance routines, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights lacks a compelling storyline and characters to care about; with so many aspects not working to their full potential, the movie proves to be inferior in almost every way to its predecessor – and no one should be surprised.

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Ricki and the Flash (2015)

06 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

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

Ricki and the Flash

D: Jonathan Demme / 101m

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

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

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

Ricki and the Flash - scene

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

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

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

Julie (Mamie Gummer) and Ricki (Meryl Streep) in TriStar Pictures' RICKI AND THE FLASH.

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

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

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To Sir, With Love (1967)

04 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Christian Roberts, Drama, E.R. Braithwaite, East End, James Clavell, Judy Geeson, Literary adaptation, London, Lulu, Music, North Quay Secondary School, Review, Sidney Poitier, Teaching

To Sir, With Love

D: James Clavell / 105m

Cast: Sidney Poitier, Christian Roberts, Judy Geeson, Suzy Kendall, Lulu, Faith Brook, Patricia Routledge, Geoffrey Bayldon, Chris Chittell, Adrienne Posta, Edward Burnham, Anthony Villaroel, Rita Webb, Ann Bell

Having qualified as an engineer, British Guyana-born Mark Thackeray (Poitier) finds himself getting nowhere with job applications in his chosen field. Needing to make ends meet while he continues to look for an engineering post, he takes a position as a teacher at North Quay Secondary School in London’s tough East End. On his first day he’s warned that the children in his class will be unruly and will challenge his authority, and that their behaviour caused their previous teacher to resign. Further advised that they’re pupils that other schools have given up on, Thackeray begins to realise the task ahead of him.

The other teachers prove to be right. Led by Bert Denham (Roberts) and Pamela Dare (Geeson), the pupils in Thackeray’s class show a lack of interest, swear constantly, and are openly hostile and disrespectful. He retains a calm composure, however, and despite the pupils’ best efforts, manages to keep an uneasy control over them… until one morning when he arrives to discover that they’ve put a sanitary towel in the classroom grate and set it alight. Disgusted by this he tells the boys to get out and then rounds on the girls, lambasting them for their “sluttish” behaviour. Later, in the staff room, he rebukes himself for losing his temper, and for being so easily provoked by a bunch of “kids”. It’s then that he realises where he’s been going wrong.

He returns to the class and informs them that as they are all leaving school at the end of the term, and are going out into the world, he will now treat them as adults, and expect them to behave accordingly. The pupils, particularly the girls, are soon won over by this, and it’s not long before the boys are too; only Denham resists. He arranges an outing for them to the British History Museum and finds them all well-dressed and looking clean and tidy. The trip is a success, but things take a more serious turn when one of the class is bullied during a gym lesson. He suffers an injury and the rest of the boys round on the teacher; Potter (Chittell) picks up a piece of wood and threatens him with it. Thackeray is called to intervene, and manages to defuse the situation, but when he tells Potter that he should apologise for his actions, he begins to lose the respect he’s worked so hard to establish, and things begin to how they were when he first arrived.

To Sir, With Love - scene

Adapted by Clavell from E.R. Braithwaite’s semi-autobiographical 1959 novel, To Sir, With Love opens with Thackeray journeying to his new teaching post through London’s East End. These brief establishing shots plus a comic bus ride are used to show the kind of area he’s venturing into, a tough, run down borough where post-War renovations have yet to happen on the scale required. It’s a trenchant observation, and serves to illustrate the movie’s central message, one that will be more explicitly referred to later on. It could even be said that Thackeray is akin to Daniel entering the lion’s den, and such is the welcome from his fellow teachers, especially the cynical Weston (Bayldon), that his time at North Quay may turn out to be even less favourable.

And so we meet the pupils, and their rowdiness and lack of respect is explained away by virtue of their coming from broken or abusive homes (or both), and by the way in which they feel they’ve been let down by the adults around them. As they search for their own identities and place in the world, they make the same mistake that every confused or angry teenager makes: that soon they too will be adults and will have to face the same challenges every other adult has to deal with. It’s an obvious point, and the movie makes it very succinctly in a scene where Thackeray insists they all treat each other with respect. For the pupils to be treated this way is a revelation to them, and they begin to see advantages to their new behaviour, advantages that help them deal with each other and make sense of what’s expected of them. In essence, they can be whomever they want, and do whatever they want; all they have to do is believe in themselves (and this is the message our first sight of Thackeray travelling through the East End sets up for us: here’s a man of determination who has made something of himself).

By concentrating on Thackeray’s empowerment of his pupils, the social aspects of Braithwaite’s story are pushed to the background, and receive only occasional mentions – the girl who can’t come to school because her mother has just given birth and needs help at home, the boy whose mother dies but whose bi-racial background means the other pupils can’t be seen to take some flowers to his home – and this leaves the drama of the piece feeling slightly muted, as if Clavell has recognised the importance of including such issues but doesn’t feel comfortable in criticising them too loudly. The same is true of Pamela Dare’s obvious attraction for Thackeray, a strand that leads nowhere in dramatic terms but which does lead to a scene at the end where racial and social concerns, and awkward convention, are ignored in favour of a feelgood moment that doesn’t feel realistic at all.

To Sir, With Love - scene2

One area where the movie is successful is in its musical interludes, which give Lulu (making her movie debut) the kind of promotional boost that’s worth its weight in gold – her rendition of the title song stayed at Number 1 in the US pop charts for five weeks. As well as the songs there’s the inevitable moving and grooving that, viewed nearly fifty years later, looks embarrassing, but which also retains a charming naïvete. And it’s this naïvete that, ultimately, makes the movie work as well as it does, and has allowed it to remain such a firm favourite after all these years. It sets itself up as a searing indictment of the British class and education systems, but then changes tack as soon as it can to become an inspirational tract for the young and disaffected. From then on there are no problems that can’t be overcome, and no situations that won’t turn out for the best. It’s not real life, it’s a cannily produced and played wish fulfilment tale that steals up on its audience and leaves a warm, enjoyable glow in its wake.

Of course, the movie relies heavily on the presence of Poitier, his every feeling and emotion writ large on his surprisingly expressive face, and he’s quickly embedded as the movie’s heart and soul, leading the audience from scene to scene and showdown to showdown with such good nature and patience that his outburst over the burning sanitary towel is a welcome relief. Roberts is a sneering, dismissive Denham, all squared shoulders and challenging smirk. Geeson manages the impressive feat of being knowingly attractive and yet sexually reticent at the same time, as the script effectively neuters her to avoid any unpleasant complaints that it’s encouraging or supporting miscegenation. And there’s a raft of familiar British character actors in smaller roles that adds to the movie’s cosy, reassuring nature.

Clavell, an Australian who made his name writing big fat bestselling novels such as Tai-Pan and Shogun, directs with a firm understanding of what he wants from his own script, and doesn’t stray too far from its remit. He plays down the humour that arises in the classroom, making it seem more natural and less rehearsed, and wisely shoots Poitier in close up as often as he can. But he does dampen down the drama a little too often, leaving some scenes feeling under-developed, while others are focused on to the point where their importance feels forced. Thankfully, he’s aided by crisp, well-framed photography courtesy of Paul Beeson, and a fine, unintrusive score by Ron Grainer (who also composed the theme tune for Doctor Who).

Rating: 7/10 – well-loved and optimistic, To Sir, With Love has stood the test of time thanks to its effective performances and inherent charm; as a snapshot of a bygone era it’s not quite the social document it appears to be, but it has a freshness that hasn’t faded, and a winning feel to it that offsets the lack of depth.

The following trailer is from America, and is a priceless example of the way in which British movies were marketed at the time, and features a voice over that has to be heard to be believed.

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Like Sunday, Like Rain (2014)

27 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Billie Joe Armstrong, Cello player, Child prodigy, Debra Messing, Drama, Frank Whaley, Julian Shatkin, Leighton Meester, Music, Relationships, Review

Like Sunday Like Rain

D: Frank Whaley / 104m

Cast: Leighton Meester, Julian Shatkin, Billie Joe Armstrong, Debra Messing, Olga Merediz, J. Smith-Cameron, James McCaffrey, Sammy Pignalosa

Eleanor (Meester) is a twenty-three year old waitress whose relationship with aspiring musician Dennis (Armstrong) comes to an end when he fails yet again to return home one night from a gig. Reggie (Shatkin) is a twelve year old child prodigy whose advanced intellect keeps him remote from everyone around him. When an argument with Dennis at her place of work leads to Eleanor losing her job, a friend of hers recommends signing up with an agency. When she does she’s told about a job as a nanny that requires a same day start. Interviewed and hired by Reggie’s mother, Barbara (Messing), the job involves making sure Reggie gets to and from school and that he eats while Barbara is away for the next two months.

Eleanor soon finds that Reggie has his own unique way of looking at the world, and her expectations are swept aside as Reggie refuses to go to camp as planned and she begins to get to know someone who believes that “art as a language is dead”. Reggie and Eleanor spend time in the park, watching movies, and eating out, and as time goes by, the two grow closer, while Dennis refuses to accept that his relationship with Eleanor is over. One night though, Eleanor receives a call from her uncle Dale (McCaffrey) telling her that her father is seriously ill in hospital. She tells Reggie that she has to leave for a couple of days, but rather than be left in the care of someone he doesn’t know, Reggie offers to go with her.

They travel to Eleanor’s home town where they receive a less than hospitable welcome from Eleanor’s mother (Smith-Cameron). They switch to a motel where Eleanor reveals that she too has a musical talent (Reggie is a gifted cellist and composer), and that she once got into Juilliard but they couldn’t give her a full scholarship. Reggie decides that he’ll include a part of the cornet (Eleanor’s instrument) in the composition he’s written called Like Sunday, Like Rain. At the hospital, Eleanor learns that no one has been in to see her father; when she goes back home it leads to a row that has her vowing never to return. With her job looking after Reggie coming to an end, and with her bridges burnt at home, Eleanor now has to plan for her immediate future, a future that means leaving Reggie behind…

Like Sunday Like Rain - scene

The fourth feature from writer/director/actor Whaley, Like Sunday, Like Rain is a movie in which not a lot happens in terms of plot or even in dramatic terms, but which explores the dynamics of its central characters’ relationship with a great deal of charm and skill. As Eleanor and Reggie get to know each other – and we get to know them – the emotional differences between them become blurred, and various connections become apparent. It’s a delicate movie in many ways, with Whaley taking the time to explore Eleanor and Reggie’s personalities in deceptively fine detail, and in the process, allowing their eventual bond to become entirely believable.

As a result of ending her relationship with Dennis, Eleanor is both jobless and homeless, and at a crossroads in her life. Thanks to Meester’s intuitive, adept portrayal, Eleanor’s predicament is given a realistically poignant feel further enhanced by the combined expressions of resignation and frustration she evinces. It’s a subtler performance than it seems at first, and Meester shines throughout, building layer upon layer of resilience and determination and allowing Eleanor the opportunity to move forward with her life.

But this is Shatkin’s movie pure and simple, his performance another of those given by a child actor that is so perfectly gauged and delivered it puts most adult actors and actresses to shame (it’s a good job that Meester is a match for him). It’s a showy role – just watch Reggie’s response to his friend Raj’s crossword clue – but Shatkin is more than up to the task, and steals almost every scene he’s in, whether it’s questioning the maid, Esa (Merediz), as to the content of his meals, or quoting the sad fate of the artist Modigliani. Reggie’s over-confidence and child prodigy status hides a deep-rooted vulnerability, and Shatkin is excellent at showing the emotionally scared young boy hidden beneath the academic outer shell. His expression when Eleanor announces she has to leave to visit her father is a perfect display of need and understanding at war with each other.

Alas, where Whaley puts so much time and effort into making Eleanor and Reggie as credible as characters as he possibly can, the same can’t be said for Barbara and Dennis. Barbara is the stereotypical socialite so wrapped up in her own world she can’t be bothered to remember Eleanor’s name two minutes after she’s heard it. It’s a mannered, brittle performance by Messing, and amounts to barely ten minutes of screen time as she’s shuffled off to China to make way for Eleanor and Reggie to begin bonding. As Dennis, a musician with delusions of adequacy, Armstrong is a better singer than he is an actor, and Whaley doesn’t really do anything with the character other than to make him consistently whiny and annoying. Faced with such a limited characterisation, Armstrong doesn’t have the experience to make any more of the role, and consequently he’s the weakest link in the movie.

By concentrating on the subtle and meaningful ways in which two people, despite the gap in their ages and experiences of life, can develop a friendship that’s mutually beneficial and rewarding, Whaley makes Like Sunday, Like Rain a pleasure to watch despite its more dramatic turn when Eleanor goes home. This section of the movie feels a little rushed, as Eleanor’s differences with her family are brought to the fore in what are very broad strokes. But the ending restores the tone and the simplicity of what’s gone before, and the movie, already a pleasure to be a part of, concludes on a perfect note of synchronicity.

Rating: 8/10 – a slow-moving, leisurely paced movie that draws in the viewer and makes them care about its two central characters, Like Sunday, Like Rain is a small-scale movie that can be treasured time and time again; with terrific performances from Meester and Shatkin, and a nuanced script from Whaley, it’s a winning combination that rewards throughout.

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Whiplash (2014)

17 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Andrew Neiman, Core drummer, Damien Chazelle, Drama, Drumming, J.K. Simmons, Jazz, Melissa Benoist, Miles Teller, Music, Paul Reiser, Review, Shaffer Conservatory, Terence Fletcher

Whiplash

D: Damien Chazelle / 107m

Cast: Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Paul Reiser, Melissa Benoist, Austin Stowell, Nate Long, Chris Mulkey, Damon Gupton, Suanne Smoke

At the prestigious Shaffer Conservatory of Music, nineteen year old Andrew Neiman (Teller) is an aspiring jazz drummer who wants to be the best in the world, as good if not better than Buddy Rich, his idol. He attracts the attention of tyrannical conductor Terence Fletcher (Simmons) who is looking for a drum alternate for his band. At a concert where the band is performing, the core drummer loses his sheet music and is unable to play the next piece from memory. Andrew steps in and, to his mind, becomes the new core drummer as a result.

Andrew subsequently begins a relationship with Nicole (Benoist), but after a handful of dates he takes the view that their relationship won’t work because he has to dedicate all his time to perfecting his drumming, and she will eventually become resentful of this. He tells her this quite bluntly and they break up. Meanwhile, much to Andrew’s surprise, Fletcher replaces him with another drummer, Ryan (Stowell). A few days later, Fletcher becomes emotional in class when referring to an old pupil of his who has passed away. This display of emotion is unexpected, but Fletcher soon reverts to his usual aggressive ways when he introduces a new piece and neither Andrew, Ryan or the original band drummer can maintain the right tempo. Eventually, Andrew gets it right and retains his role as core drummer ahead of an upcoming concert.

On the day of the concert, Andrew is late to the rehearsal because his bus breaks down and he has to hire a rental car to get him there. He’s also left his drumsticks at the rental office; he retrieves them but on his way back his car is hit by a truck. Despite suffering a head injury and a broken left hand, he makes it to the concert in time to take part but is unable to play properly. Fletcher calls a halt and tells Andrew he’s done. In a fit of rage, Andrew attacks him in full view of everyone there.

A few weeks pass. Andrew has been expelled. He learns that the pupil who passed away actually killed himself, and his family are blaming Fletcher, saying that his abusive behaviour caused their son’s depression and subsequent suicide. Andrew agrees to anonymously testify for them and Fletcher is dismissed. Months later, Andrew runs into Fletcher at a bar. Fletcher explains his reasons for behaving the way he did and says it was because he wanted to help his students be the best. Before they part, Fletcher invites Andrew to sit in for the drummer in his band at a festival concert. Andrew agrees, but just before the concert begins and with Andrew sitting behind his drum kit, Fletcher tells him he knows Andrew testified, and Andrew realises the first song is one he doesn’t know and doesn’t have the sheet music for.

tn_gnp_et_1011_whiplash

Based on writer/director Chazelle’s own experiences in high school, Whiplash paints a compelling portrait of intense dedication and monstrous manipulation. It’s an elemental battle of wills, with neither Andrew nor Fletcher giving any quarter, nor expecting any. The irony of it all is that both characters are as “bad” in their own way as each other: arrogant, overly self-confident, uncompromising, narcissistic, unfeeling, and committed to pushing each other as far as they can. It’s a dance, one with domination as the ultimate achievement, and they spar and fight with undisguised aggression. (If this is what band practice is really like, then best take a stab jacket and helmet.)

If Andrew learns to behave like Fletcher then the potential has been there all along, and rather than retain a spark of humanity against the onslaught of Fletcher’s callous teaching methods, by the time of the second concert he’s become an even darker version of Fletcher, dismissive of his rivals’ talents and so arrogant that he believes no one else can match him. It’s all credit to Chazelle that at this point in the movie it’s Andrew who’s clearly the monster, and not Fletcher (the clues have been there from the beginning, from the way he treats his family and Nicole). Pulling such a switch is an audacious move on Chazelle’s part but it works magnificently; instead of being appalled at Fletcher’s angry reaction to Andrew’s being late, the viewer is appalled by the degree of Andrew’s arrogance.

From there, however, the movie has a problem it never really recovers from. With both men removed from the confines of the conservatory the movie bleeds tension with every passing minute, and the urgency and drama of the first hour are replaced with a less involving period where Andrew tries to move on with his life before he and Fletcher meet up again. Then it’s on to the crowd-pleasing finale that we’ve all been waiting for (and it is well worth the wait). Chazelle redeems himself here and with editor Tom Cross, assembles one of the most exciting and breathtaking musical sequences ever committed to film.

Much has already been made of the performances, and justly so. Teller displays a maturity and confidence that removes any idea that he’s only good for rom-coms, and nails the various turbulent emotions that Andrew experiences in his efforts to be the best. It’s a breakthrough performance, riveting and compelling, and Teller is nothing short of brilliant. The same is true of Simmons, making Fletcher repellent and vicious and uncaring and horrible, and sounding like the long-lost cousin of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket (1987). It’s a mesmerising performance, and Simmons inhabits the role with a reptilian intensity that is both shocking and dismayingly funny (“I can still fucking see you, Mini-Me!”). Both actors are at the top of their game, and Chazelle capitalises on their efforts to the full, knowing just when to keep the camera on either one of them, and showing a judicious use of close-ups.

The musical scenes are shot with a close attention to the physical detail of the performances, with each cymbal crash or high note or trombone thrust highlighted by the editing, making each song a visual experience as well as an aural one. Sharone Meir’s detail-rich photography is almost a character by itself, and captures every bead of sweat and drop of blood that Andrew loses. But in a movie where the music is such an integral part of the story and plot, it’s the two compositions, “Whiplash” by Hank Levy, and “Caravan” by Juan Tizol, that stand out, two perfect choices to show how much Teller achieved through practicing four hours a day for two months, and which are fantastic compositions all by themselves.

Rating: 8/10 – with both Andrew and Fletcher removed from the conservatory, Whiplash grinds to an unexpected halt and takes too long to recover (but when it does it’s as impressive as in its first hour); with two stunning central performances, and a visceral ferocity to the drumming sequences, this is a powerful, gripping movie that plays like a sports movie and displays just as much unfettered testosterone (and that’s a good thing).

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Begin Again (2013)

14 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Adam Levine, Drama, Gregg Alexander, Hailee Steinfeld, John Carney, Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, Music, Record producer, Review, Romance, Singer-songwriter, Songs

Begin Again

D: John Carney / 104m

Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Keira Knightley, Hailee Steinfeld, Adam Levine, James Corden, Yasiin Bey, Catherine Keener, CeeLo Green

Record label executive Dan Mulligan (Ruffalo) is struggling to keep up with the changing pace of the modern music industry. Separated from his wife Miriam (Keener) and estranged from his daughter Violet (Seinfeld), Dan’s partner in the record company he co-founded, Saul (Bey) fires him. He goes on a drinking binge that sees him end up in bar where English singer-songwriter Gretta James (Knightley) is persuaded to take to the stage by her friend, Steve (Corden). The song she sings captivates Dan and he approaches Gretta with the offer of signing her.

Gretta isn’t interested in Dan’s offer because she’s planning to return to England the next day. She’s in the US because she came over with her boyfriend, Dave Kohl (Levine), when he was signed to a record label. While on a promotional jaunt, he slept with a record label executive; unhappy and discouraged, Gretta just wants to leave and put her relationship with Dave behind her. The next morning, though, she takes up Dan on his offer. This forces him to come clean about his position, but he convinces her to go with him to see Saul; Dan is sure Saul will sign her, but without a demo to give him, he passes.

Undeterred, Dan comes up with a plan to make an album of Gretta’s songs by recording them all over the city: on rooftops, subway platforms, alleyways, wherever they can. Dan assembles a team of musicians that includes Steve, while Gretta, in an attempt to reunite him with his daughter, arranges for Violet to play guitar on one of the songs. With the album completed they see Saul again but leave without a deal having been reached (Gretta wants Dan to get his job back as well as a bigger cut of the profits).

Shortly after, Gretta sees Dave accepting an award on TV and believing him to have sold out, pours out her feelings in a song she sings and leaves on his voicemail. Dave gets in touch with her and asks to meet when he’s back in New York. Greta agrees but finds that her feelings for Dan are changing from professional to personal. Unsure of which way to turn, Gretta meets Dave in the hope that she’ll be able to decide which path to take.

Begin Again - scene

A fresh take on an age-old story, Begin Again belies its Svengali-like origins to give its audience a modern day interpretation that sidesteps many of its genre conventions with a knowing wink and a shrug of indifference. Working from his own script, director Carney fashions a story of two peoples’ separate roads to personal empowerment and redemption that neatly avoids the clichés inherent in such scenarios, and makes the movie feel like a breath of fresh air.

Playing around with the structure in the movie’s first half hour, Carney introduces the viewer to Dan and Gretta with a view to telling their back stories in such a way that by the time they begin to make the album they’re like old friends we’ve known for ages. We get to see Dan at his worst and Gretta at her most trusting. We see them come together and start to rely on each other as they begin to rebuild their lives. It’s in these opening scenes that Carney draws the audience in and sets up the dramatic elements that will pay off later on in the movie (but not in the way that you might expect). And he doesn’t fall into the usual traps, for example: despite the predictable nature of Gretta and Dave’s break up, it’s presented in the kind of “adult” way you rarely see in movies. It’s a relatively short scene but Carney packs it with an emotional punch that is frankly disarming (and he’s ably abetted by Knightley and Levine).

With Dan and Gretta’s relationship so well cemented the movie’s central section becomes a joyous evocation of making an album. This is Begin Again at its most winning and infectious, the sheer pleasure of making music in a live environment so evident you can’t help but tap your feet along with the songs. And thanks to the efforts of composer Gregg Alexander these are terrific songs indeed, catchy and effortlessly perceptive about life and love and the pitfalls of both. Knightley, who hadn’t sung before, is assured here, her soft, soulful voice a perfect match for the material.

Alas, the final third, with its need to wrap things up, undermines some of the good work Carney has put in. Gretta and Dan each arrive at a place that befits their individual struggles, but there’s a sense that they’ve been let down by Carney’s determination not to play it safe and to avoid the movie having a predictable ending. Even with this, his leads remain convincing throughout, handling their characters’ journeys from start to finish with skill, confidence and conviction. Ruffalo gives such an impressive performance it’s hard to take your eyes off him, while Knightley invests Gretta with a stubborn, earnest vulnerability that is mesmerising. When on screen together they spark off each other, each raising their game, each making the movie even richer. In support, Steinfeld, Keener and Corden all provide charming turns, while Levine (from Maroon 5) makes his feature debut and is very good indeed.

With its emotional content linked directly to, and expressively through, its songs, Begin Again is a musical drama that packs several unexpected punches, and if its near rags-to-riches feel has an unavoidable touch of whimsy wrapped around it, then it’s no bad thing. This is a feelgood movie, and unashamedly so.

Rating: 8/10 – guaranteed to put a smile on anyone’s face during its musical numbers, Begin Again is a lively, effervescent movie that is both delightful and poignant in equal measure; with assured turns from its two leads, it’s a movie that entertains and rewards far more than it should do given its bittersweet ending.

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Phil Spector (2013)

17 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Al Pacino, Ballistics, David Mamet, Defence, Helen Mirren, Lana Clarkson, Linda Kenney Baden, Murder trial, Music, Record producer, Suicide, True story

Phil Spector

D: David Mamet / 92m

Cast: Al Pacino, Helen Mirren, Jeffrey Tambor, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rebecca Pidgeon, John Pirruccello, James Tolkan, David Aaron Baker, Matt Malloy

In the aftermath of the death of actress Lana Clarkson at the home of legendary music producer Phil Spector (Pacino), his defence attorney, Bruce Cutler (Tambor) persuades Linda Kenney Baden (Mirren), another attorney, to help with the case and the upcoming trial.  Baden is convinced at first that Spector is guilty and that the case can’t be won.  Her opinion begins to change when she meets Spector for the first time at his home.  Spector’s rambling, paranoid arguments in support of his innocence leave their mark on Baden, and she endeavours to find a way of combating the public’s view of Spector as a “freak”.  She dismisses attacking the victim, or any of the other women who have come forward to claim that the producer also threatened them with a gun at his home.  Instead, she focuses on the discrepancies that she finds in the ballistics report: principally that if Spector did shoot Clarkson by putting a gun in her mouth and pulling the trigger, why wasn’t he covered in her blood?

As Baden persists in her efforts to have simulations of the gunshot entered as evidence at the trial, Spector becomes impressed by her tenacity and places his trust in her and her instincts.  Meanwhile, disturbing evidence continues to be uncovered that points to Spector’s unhealthy interest in guns and his volatile anger.  Baden perseveres with the ballistics evidence but finds that the only way she can introduce it into the trial is by putting Spector on the stand.  To prepare him, she puts him through a mock cross-examination, but Spector reacts badly when shown videotaped accusations of abuse by his ex-wife.  The next day, Spector’s arrival at the trial causes a stir that leads Baden to question whether her decision to let him testify was too hasty…

Phil Spector - scene

Opening with the disclaimer that Phil Spector is a work of fiction based around the true events of the record producer’s trial for murder in 2007, the movie charts what may have happened behind the scenes both with the man himself and his defence team.  It’s a bold, heavily stylised approach, and one that allows for a great deal of conjecture to be indulged in.  Spector’s guilt or innocence is debated but the script by David Mamet never comes down on one side or the other (even if it seems to be saying that he couldn’t have done it because of the lack of blood spatter); instead it presents the evidence that was available at the time, and backs it up with references to the trial itself and how it was conducted.  From this it’s up to the viewer to decide if Spector was guilty or not.

Taking such dramatic licence, the movie could easily be accused of being pure fabrication but it has input from the real Linda Kenney Baden, and so its authenticity is more credibly established.  The nuts and bolts of the defence team’s efforts to find a way of getting Spector acquitted are often quietly intense, and are offset against the more sensational reporting of the trial itself (seen through both contemporary footage and scenes set outside the courthouse).  And then there’s Spector himself, a vain, arrogant, irrational, and lonely figure (as presented here) who may or may not be the real victim.  Mamet’s script allows the man several chances to express his views on the world, and the press, and fame, and his own self-importance, and it’s in these moments that the movie most draws in the viewer, as the apparent depth of Spector’s dissociation from “normal” society is revealed, and the script paints him as too egotistical to fully understand just how his behaviour and demeanour are detrimental to his defence.

It’s a powerhouse performance from Pacino, mesmerising and enthralling, his distinctive vocalising fitting a character who declaims as much as he discusses.  Looking out from under a succession of wigs – including the “tribute to Jimi Hendrix” wig he wore on the day he was due to testify – Spector is portrayed as a man with serious psychological issues allied to an unhealthy disregard for those around him; he only takes to Baden because she believes in his innocence.  Pacino chews the scenery as much as he ever does, but here it suits the larger than life personality that Spector forged for himself, and the actor applies himself to Mamet’s florid dialogue with undisguised glee.  As the quieter, but no less passionate Baden, Mirren puts in an award-winning performance that serves as the perfect balance to Pacino’s more grandiose approach, and in doing so, is so impressive that she steals the limelight from Pacino with ease.  Her no-nonsense attitude and glowering disposition speaks volumes throughout, and Baden’s patience with Spector, and her ability to “manage” him, highlights the sound judgment Bruce Cutler made by hiring her in the first place.  When the two are together on screen it’s nothing short of hypnotic to watch.

The supporting cast flesh out their roles with aplomb, and the recreation of events surrounding the trial is skilfully done – though the lighting is gloomy throughout the whole movie, as if the subject matter is ultimately too depressing to deal with.  Mamet directs his script in a deliberate, TV-movie-of-the-week style that actually seems appropriate to the material, and he cleverly manages to blur the distinctions between what actually happened the night Clarkson died, and what may have happened.  It’s a neat trick, and it makes the movie a more intriguing watch than you might expect.

Rating: 8/10 – an absorbing and unexpectedly gripping account of the downfall of a music industry legend, Phil Spector is sharp, intelligent, and features two hugely impressive performances from its lead actors; at its heart, a powerful insight into how one man’s insularity and overwhelming self-belief can lead to their eventual downfall.

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Springsteen & I (2013)

19 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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"I'll be ur Courteney Cox", Baillie Walsh, Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen, Concert footage, Elvis, Fans, Jojo, Music, Orange wristband, Review, The E Street Band, Videos

Springsteen & I

D: Baillie Walsh / 124m

A documentary with a difference, Springsteen & I isn’t a straightforward trawl through the life and triumphs of the man they call The Boss, but a kind of accidental biography, a look back over his life, certainly, but at a remove, and as seen through the eyes of his fans (and one non-fan). It’s a novel approach, and one that conveniently circumvents any danger of the intended subject deciding he or she doesn’t want anything to do with the project (though here, Springsteen has generously allowed previously unseen live footage to be used).

So instead of The Boss talking about the ups and downs of his forty-year plus career, we get The Boss’s fans talking about their ups and downs in relation to him over the course of that career. In particular, we hear from three people who have shared the limelight with Bruce: a young woman who joined him on stage after waving a banner that stated “I’ll be ur Courteney Cox” (a reference to Cox’s appearing in the Dancing in the Dark video); an Elvis impersonator who sang Hound Dog with Bruce live on stage (and cheekily tried to add Blue Suede Shoes before realising he’d outstayed his welcome); and a musician who jammed with Bruce on a New York street. All three “collaborations” were filmed and it’s these instances that perhaps give the best insight into the man himself. Here, Springsteen comes across as unselfish, at ease with both his personal and professional image, genuinely supportive of others, and – this won’t be the first time it’s been mentioned – a really nice guy.

The rest of the movie follows a similar line, with fans queuing up to say how wonderful he is and how his music has had a profound influence on their lives, from the woman who plays nothing but Springsteen on her car stereo (her kids know not to ask for anything else), to the couple who have never seen him live but feel blessed to have his music enriching their lives, to the British fan who found himself and his wife given an unexpected upgrade at Madison Square Garden that saw them move from the very upper reaches of the venue to the front row itself; all these stories reinforce the positive effects Springsteen and his music have had on so many different people over so many years.

Springsteen & I - scene

Much is made of Springsteen’s writing about and for the working class in America, the blue collar part of the electorate who seem to have their hopes and dreams denied them time and time again, but remain determined to make something of their lives. This struggle is a recurring theme in Springsteen’s music, and finds it’s most apt expression in the comments made by a female trucker who has found empowerment through his lyrics.

Of course, the average viewer’s tolerance for all this will depend on their appreciation of Springsteen and how much of his music is familiar to them. Fans will lap this up, and are likely to derive intense satisfaction from seeing their own views reflected back at them, while those less familiar with The Boss’s output will quickly wonder if there’s going to be any alternative to all the cheery – but still heartfelt – eulogising (there is – twice – but they’re brief moments, although the second has one of the best responses to an off-camera question you’re ever likely to hear).

With other fans providing succinct three word appraisals of Springsteen – though some struggle to stop at three – as well as plenty of concert footage taken from various periods of Springsteen’s career (including a very early acoustic performance of Growin’ Up), the movie benefits greatly from the choices director Walsh has made for inclusion and the sure-handed editorial approach taken with the material. A word of caution though: the documentary proper ends around the eighty minute mark. The rest of the movie is taken up by live footage taken from Springsteen’s London concert in 2012 (and featuring Paul McCartney on a couple of Beatles tracks), and following that, a real surprise for the viewer (and some of the fans).

Rating: 8/10 – a well-constructed documentary that avoids any accusations of superficiality by virtue of the obvious sincerity of its participants; a treat for fans and a reminder of Springsteen’s enduring musical legacy.

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