You can’t help but watch the trailer for 55 Steps and think: shameless Oscar-bait. And then hard on the heels of that thought is: and it was released last year?
In truth, the movie received its premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival on 7 September. But since then, Bille August’s latest feature has made an appearance at the Moscow International Film Festival on 20 April 2018, had a limited release in Germany on 3 May (where it’s known as Eleanor & Colette), and a further appearance at Belgium’s Filmfestival Oostende on 8 September. The question arises: if it’s been seen at a handful of festivals (and you’d think festival programmers would be a bit more savvy than most movie watchers), then why such a delayed release?
Well, the trailer does give it away. Although “based on a true story”, and featuring Helena Bonham Carter and Hilary Swank in the lead roles, this has all the hallmarks of an old-fashioned David vs Goliath story, with Swank as the ambitious and out of her depth lawyer taking on the medical establishment, and Carter as the client who behaves oddly but endearingly, and who, despite having mental health problems that would have most people in real life crossing the street to avoid her, is presented here as someone who’s actually really lovely when you get to know her. It’s depressingly predictable, and potentially patronising, and though there’s a serious issue buried deep in the trailer – the risk of prescribed medication causing more problems than the illness or condition it’s meant to treat – you know that the movie’s real focus is going to be on the two women’s friendship, and the positive impact they have on each other’s lives. What’s wrong with that, you might ask. But if you do, then you’re not seeing how formulaic and depressingly banal this movie already looks, and in a format that’s supposed to promote it and persuade people to pay money to see it.
And one final word: when a trailer adds a quote that calls a performance “transformative”, it’s something of an insult to the make up, hair and costume departments who in this case clearly helped Helena Bonham Carter create her character’s look. Instead of praising the actor or actress, how about acknowledging the work of the production team instead?
It looks and sounds exactly like a shaggy dog story: a white New York nightclub bouncer takes a job driving a black pianist around the Deep South on a concert tour – in the 1960’s. What could possibly go wrong? Inspired (as the poster has it) by a true friendship, Green Book clearly has awards bait written all over it, and the double acting powerhouse of Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali is definitely something to look forward to, but perhaps the most surprising aspect of this movie is its director and co-screenwriter, Peter Farrelly. Known, along with his brother Bobby, for some of the most raucous and indelicate of comedies of the last twenty-five years, Farrelly would appear to be an odd choice for a tale of inter-racial harmony, and especially when you consider his last three movies were Hall Pass (2011), The Three Stooges (2012), and Dumb and Dumber To (2014). But the trailer for Green Book – and despite its obvious yearnings for Oscar nominations come February 2019 – shows Farrelly upping his game and getting the measure of both the period and a friendship that doesn’t depend on madcap antics or toilet humour. There is humour, mostly from Mortensen’s less than worldly Tony Lip, but you can see already that his performance won’t be as broad as it looks, while Ali’s exasperated Don Shirley has a quiet sincerity that belies a more passionate soul underneath his reserve. So, early indications are that this could be a movie to resonate with its audience, and in its way, to hold up a mirror to the continuing racial and class divisions that still plague the US fifty years on.
In recent years, the legend of Lizzie Borden has spawned a number of movies, and even a TV series, but it seems this endless fascination with the gruesome murders of her father Andrew and stepmother Abby, and Lizzie herself, has yet to be satiated. Now we have another variation on the classic tale, but one that posits the idea of a lesbian relationship between Lizzie (Chloë Sevigny) and the Bordens’ maid, Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan (Kristen Stewart), something that the author Ed McBain explored in his 1984 novel, Lizzie. True or not, writer Bryce Kass and director Craig William Mcneill appear to have created an atmospheric, and agitated movie that relies on deep rooted passions and a feverish sense of increasing dread in order to relay the events leading up to and following on from the events of 4 August 1892. Sevigny is a great choice for the troubled (and troubling) Lizzie, while Stewart, taking another step further away from the mainstream, looks to be just as good. The only proviso? The depiction of Andrew Borden (Jamey Sheridan) as unremittingly horrible. Whereas the rest of the movie seems to be inhabiting psychological horror territory, his performance appears to be straight out of the Grand Guignol Book of Movie Villains. Still, trailers can be deceptive – and definitely not to be trusted, most of the time – but if this trailer is anything to go by, this might be more intriguing, and unnerving, than expected… and that final shot is undeniably chilling.
If you’ve already seen the trailer for Dumbo (2019) – directed by Tim Burton, and starring Colin Farrell, Eva Green, Danny DeVito, and Michael Keaton – then you might be asking yourself: really? And it would be a fair question. Is anyone, having watched the trailer, really excited to see this unnecessary and unappealing remake? Does anyone truly believe that this incarnation of Helen Aberson’s classic story will be an improvement on Disney’s 1941 original? And perhaps more importantly, just what on Earth are Disney doing?
The answer to that last question is very simple: Disney are trampling all over their legacy as a leading purveyor of animated movies – classic animated movies – in an effort to bring in big box office returns. As a business plan it has its own undeniable merits: give an entirely new generation live action movies based on older, animated movies that Disney have stopped re-releasing on home video via that seven-year cycle that seemed to be the old business plan. Having already gone down the unnecessary and unappealing animated sequel route in the years between 1994 and 2008, Disney have decided that live action versions of their classic (emphasis on the world ‘classic’) animated originals are what’s best for business. And sadly, those live action movies that have already been released have been very successful financially – so why shouldn’t Disney continue milking their very own cash cow?
But though we’ve had Cinderella (2015), and The Jungle Book (2016), and Beauty and the Beast (2017), and though they’ve made a ton of money at the box office, can anyone say, hand on heart, that they’re an improvement on the originals? Or that they’re even a match for the quality of those movies? They’re all missing that vital spark that their animated predecessors all seem to have in abundance. But with Dumbo, Disney have gone several steps further than those other live action “events”. This is one of the synopses for Dumbo that’s listed on IMDb: A young elephant, whose oversized ears enable him to fly, helps save a struggling circus. But when the circus plans a new venture, Dumbo and his friends discover dark secrets beneath its shiny veneer. Dark secrets? Is this what Dumbo needs, dark secrets at the heart of its storyline? Does this adaptation have to be a mystery, a thriller with the usual eccentric Tim Burton elements? Will this make Dumbo one of the must-see movies of 2019? (Sadly, it will probably make no difference at all.) The trailer seems to confirm all these things, and that’s without mentioning the strong whiff of The Greatest Showman (2017) about it all as well. Sometimes, and to paraphrase the well known saying, just because Disney can, doesn’t mean that they should.
In a summer that will be dominated again by mega-budget blockbusters, trying to pick out a movie or two (or even three) that offers something a little different from heavily edited fight scenes, numerous explosions, and the same characters we’ve seen several times before, is something that will probably require a little persistence. One movie that fits this particular bill is Leave No Trace, the latest drama from Debra Granik, the director of Winter’s Bone (2010). Adapted from the novel My Abandonment by Peter Rock, the movie stars Ben Foster as Will, an ex-military man living in a Portland, Oregon forest with his thirteen year old daughter, Tom, played by Thomasin McKenzie. The pair eschew civilisation, and Will has educated Tom himself. Inevitably their “idyllic” lifestyle is discovered and they are forced into a “normal” life through the intervention of social services. Unable to adapt to their new lives, however, they decide to journey back into the forest.
A movie that looks to be engrossing due to the dynamic of the relationship between Will and Tom, and their commitment to each other, the trailer sets up a number of questions for the potential viewer to be thinking about ahead of seeing Leave No Trace – not the least of which is why are they in the forest in the first place – and it promises excellent performances from its two leads. As a substitute for the usual fare seen in our cinemas during the summer months, this has all the hallmarks of a movie that could quietly gain everyone’s attention, and prove to be an attractive, rewarding alternative to the flash, bang, wallop on offer pretty much across the board.
You’re an accomplished comedienne known for being “edgy” (whatever that really means), and for your award-winning TV show. In 2015, you appear in a comedy drama playing a thinly-veiled version of yourself that picks up a fair degree of critical acclaim. The world, it seems, is your oyster. You can choose your next movie project with the confidence of someone who has put a great big dent in people’s conceptions of who you are. The movie you made is Trainwreck, and you are Amy Schumer. And the project you’ve decided to make next is Snatched (2017).
So, with that in mind, this impromptu, unexpected Question of the Week is really quite simple:
Cast: Dave Johns, Hayley Squires, Briana Shann, Dylan McKiernan, Kate Rutter, Micky McGregor
As the opening credits of I, Daniel Blake are displayed, the viewer gets to hear a conversation that the movie’s title character (Johns) is having with a “healthcare professional”. The “healthcare professional”, a woman, is asking a series of questions that have nothing to do with Daniel’s recent heart attack. As he gets more and more frustrated with her, it becomes clear that he’s already become stuck in a welfare system that can’t deviate from its proscribed formulas and rules. The end result is a situation where Daniel’s health is such that his doctor and his consultant have advised him that he shouldn’t work until he’s fully recovered. But he’s unable to claim the Employment Support Allowance (ESA) that would tide him over until he’s better; he’s just not unwell enough as judged by the criteria. And with the so-called “healthcare professional” not having followed up about his health with his doctor, Daniel finds that if she had, he would have had enough points.
But he’s stuck with having to appeal the decision, which isn’t as straightforward as he expects. While he waits for the appeal to be heard, he has no choice but to claim Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), which is for people who are fit and looking for work. Needing money to live on but now finding himself stuck in a twilight world where strict rules often fail to help an individual’s needs, Daniel soon discovers that getting any kind of financial support is much, much harder than it looks (or should be). A carpenter who’s mostly worked on building sites for forty years, and who has been recently widowed, Daniel isn’t computer literate (instead he’s “pencil literate”, as he puts it) and struggles to fill in the requisite forms online. His efforts to look for work – because he hasn’t got any evidence of doing so that the Job Centre will accept – are looked upon unfavourably, and he’s threatened with sanctions if he doesn’t make more of an effort.
Through all of this, Daniel meets and befriends a young, single mother of two called Katie (Squires). Having had to move from London to Newcastle in order to live somewhere better than a homeless persons’ hostel, Katie is also struggling for money. Daniel helps her out where he can, mostly in a practical way by helping out around her new home, and in the process he bonds with her two children, Daisy (Shann) and Dylan (McKiernan). They support each other, their unlikely friendship borne out of their frustrating efforts to get the UK welfare system to help them in the short term. But even their friendship is put to the test by the system’s lack of support, and when Katie makes a decision that has (potentially) wider consequences, it causes a rift between them, and both find themselves alone again.
A few years ago, Ken Loach announced his retirement from movie making. He’d made Jimmy’s Hall (2014), and wasn’t sure he could continue with the same amount of confidence in his abilities as he had before. It was an understandable feeling, but one that many people hoped Loach would overcome. Obviously, he has. But if anyone had any doubts that Loach wasn’t capable of maintaining his passion for movies, and the making of them, then I, Daniel Blake is the movie to dispel those doubts. Laced with Loach’s trademark vitriol when dealing with blinkered authority, this is a movie that shows Loach has lost none of his skill in dissecting the ills lurking at the heart of British society, and the ways in which the under-privileged are treated with such disdain.
Along with regular screenwriter and collaborator Paul Laverty, Loach has fashioned a caustic tale of intransigence within the UK welfare system, and in doing so, has highlighted some of the more farcical aspects of said system. There’s a scene where Daniel, having given his CV to a number of potential employers, receives a phone call from one of them offering him a job. But because his ESA appeal is still pending he’s unable to take up the offer. This causes the employer to brand him a timewaster and someone who’d rather take benefits than work. It’s an untenable situation, and Daniel has no answer to it except to continue to plough through the mountain of red tape that seems designed to keep him from getting any money at all.
Likewise, Katie has her own problems in getting any JSA. New to the city she misses her first Job Centre appointment by minutes and is told she can’t claim any money because she’s late. There’s no attempt to allow for extenuating circumstances, and when she protests she’s asked to leave; no one is interested in hearing her out. Loach uses examples like these to show just how unyielding and implacable the system is, and how it keeps knocking people down at every opportunity. If, at the start of the movie your understanding of the UK welfare system is that it isn’t as flawed as everyone makes out, then that understanding will be completely washed away by the movie’s end.
Loach’s passionate, didactic approach is, however, as heavy-handed and lacking in subtlety as ever. He and Laverty pile on the problems and the knockbacks and the condescension and the impugnity of uncaring authority figures with little regard for the drama of the piece. The movie is relentless in this respect, adding to Daniel’s woes in almost every scene, and by the end it’s an exhausting experience just watching a once proud man pushed to the limit of what he can endure. Katie also suffers, her efforts to keep her children safe and healthy meaning that she has to experience the opposite. With Loach and Laverty keen to prove just how terrible being dependent on the welfare system can be, their efforts to show just how bad it all is soon feels like they’re trying too hard. It shouldn’t take long for the viewer to understand and appreciate what they’re saying – and within the first twenty minutes, easily – but they can’t resist making it worse the longer the movie continues.
This makes the movie sound like a distressing polemic, a one-sided view of life in 21st century Britain. And it is, but thankfully it’s leavened by a streak of mordaunt humour that makes things more tolerable, and which allows Loach to lighten up from time to time and acknowledge that no matter how bad things get, even the most downtrodden of people can find something positive to fall back on. Daniel and Katie have each other, and their shared experiences help make things more bearable for both of them. Loach allows them (and the viewer) hope – and that’s the right thing to do. How else does anyone survive being treated so badly by a system that’s supposed to be helping them?
Loach is ably supported by two commendable performances from Johns and Squires. Johns is a comedian making his feature debut, and he gives a beautifully judged portrayal of a man falling into despair but who’s determined not to give in. His plaintive, frustrated expressions speak volumes, while his attitude and physical presence in certain scenes are deliberately downplayed to show how much his will to fight has been whittled away. Squires is equally impressive, making Katie an entirely believable character whose focus is always on her children, and who is willing to make whatever sacrifice she can to keep them with her. There’s a scene in a food bank that is easily the movie’s best moment, and Squires is magnificent, letting Katie’s fears and desperation overwhelm her to heartbreaking effect.
In the end, much of I, Daniel Blake isn’t “enjoyable” in the traditional sense, and it’s not meant to be, clearly. Loach is on a mission to highlight the absurdity and misery that go hand in hand in today’s Britain if you’re seeking government assistance, and he more than succeeds, even if at times it’s at the expense of narrative consistency (the one authority figure Katie encounters who doesn’t add to her woes, only lets her off the hook because if he didn’t, the script wouldn’t be in a position to allow her to make the decision that causes a rift between her and Daniel), or credible characterisations (one Job Centre operative is so callous and uncaring it’s beyond caricature). But again, Loach isn’t exactly known for his subtlety, but he is aware of the message he’s sending, and in that respect, it’s good to have him back after his “so-called” retirement.
Rating: 8/10 – Loach’s second movie to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes – the first was The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) – I, Daniel Blake is a powerful, depressing, enraging, and yet touching movie made by a director who can still get angry at the injustice he sees being meted out to Britain’s social underclass; whatever your view on Loach’s politics, one thing is undeniable: he’s a director, who at the age of eighty, is still capable of making vital, socially relevant movies after nearly fifty years, and who shows no sign of (really) letting up just yet – and that’s something we should all be grateful for.
The kind of “edgy” romantic comedy that we all know is going to be both mushy and appealingly sentimental at heart, Mr. Right is the latest from the pen of Max Landis – Chronicle (2012), American Ultra (2015), and, uh, Victor Frankenstein (2015) – and brings together Sam Rockwell (the title character) and Anna Kendrick in a tale that promises lots of comedy and some well-choreographed fight scenes. Rockwell is the hitman who’s developed a moral code (he kills the people who hire him instead of the intended victims) and who meets Kendrick’s Martha, a young woman whose last relationship ended badly. Their romance is hopefully the heart of the movie, but there’s bound to be plenty of action as Mr. Right finds himself being hunted down by his employers. With a supporting cast that includes Tim Roth, RZA, James Ransone and Michael Eklund, the only concern is the director, Paco Cabezas, whose last movie was the less than inspiring Rage (2014) starring Nicolas Cage. But festival audiences have taken to the movie so perhaps this will prove as entertaining and endearing as its makers intended.
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Robert Redford, Topher Grace, Dennis Quaid, Elisabeth Moss, Bruce Greenwood, Stacy Keach, Noni Hazlehurst, John Benjamin Hickey, David Lyons, Rachael Blake, Dermot Mulroney, Andrew McFarlane, Connor Burke
In 2004, Mary Mapes (Blanchett) was a producer at CBS’ flagship news programme, 60 Minutes. She worked with the legendary news anchor Dan Rather (Redford), and earlier that year she and her team had produced a news report on the abuse happening at Abu Ghraib (which later won a Peabody Award). Mapes was a highly regarded producer who had been at CBS for fifteen years; when she told her bosses that she wanted to investigate irregularities connected with then President George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard during the early Seventies, she was given the go ahead to look into the matter and prepare a segment for broadcast.
Soon after, Mapes came into possession of documents – memos – that claimed to show Bush had failed to follow orders while in the ANG, and that efforts were made by his superiors to influence and improve his record. These documents were purportedly written by Bush’s commander, the late Jerry B. Killian. Mapes and her team set about trying to find witnesses who could corroborate the content of these memos, but were consistently rebuffed. At the same time they sought to have the documents examined for authenticity. But there were problems: the documents weren’t the originals, and their source wasn’t confirmed before the segment was aired on 8 September 2004. Mapes, even though the documents were copies of the originals, was convinced of their probity at least, and so was Rather. The segment was broadcast, and during it, Rather stated that “the material” had been authenticated.
But this wasn’t true, and soon criticism of the show’s claims were spreading far and wide, and focused primarily on the typography used in the memos and other anachronisms that seemed damning. CBS found themselves backtracking, and Mapes was disturbed to learn that the person who’d given her the documents, retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett (Keach), had lied about where he got them from. With their provenance appearing unsavoury at the least, Mapes came under pressure from the head of CBS, Andrew Heyward (Greenwood), to limit the damage of these revelations, and to find conclusive proof that the memos were even written by Killian. Unable to, and with other accusations of poor journalism coming in thick and fast, Mapes and her team were suspended pending an internal investigation. With his own integrity tarnished by the criticisms, Rather made a public apology regarding the segment, and later, announced his retirement.
Adapted from Mapes’ book Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power, writer/director James Vanderbilt’s debut feature is an awkward beast, telling its story with a great deal of enthusiasm for showing just how tarnished Bush’s ANG record was, but then failing to properly acknowledge just how badly Mapes and her team scored a classic own goal. You don’t have to be an expert in TV news journalism to realise that the whole issue of the memos – their authenticity, their provenance, what they appeared to say – was handled with an irresponsible disregard for true journalistic integrity. Anyone watching Truth, and that really does mean anyone, will be watching events unfold and wincing at just how readily Mapes and her team were willing to put their heads in a collective noose. They failed to do the one thing that any journalist or writer needs to do to make an accusation: have conclusive, incontrovertible proof that what they’re saying is true. And Mapes didn’t have that.
But again, the movie tries its best to avoid acknowledging what should be obvious to anyone watching. It still supports Mapes in her efforts to “get out from under” the storm of approbation and scathing criticism that rains down on her once the segment airs. And it tries to make her into a scapegoat for a much larger conspiracy, one that’s expressed with anguished contempt by her colleague, Mike Smith (Grace), but the whole idea lacks weight, despite the movie clinging to it unashamedly for the last thirty minutes. This may be how Mapes and her team felt at the time, but a judicious helmer would have excised it for being too incongruous and absurd a proposition (it’s also one of those embarrassing tantrums that people have when they haven’t got anyone else to blame but themselves).
All this leads to an inescapable, but strangely welcome conclusion: the movie you’re watching is about failure, a rare topic in American movies, but one that Vanderbilt at least tries to embrace, even if he doesn’t quite know what to do with it, hence the ambivalence towards Mapes and the schoolboy errors she makes. Rather makes his apology but is seen doing so on a variety of TV screens and monitors, rather than up close, thereby limiting the effect of his regret and the connection we can make to it; it’s almost inconsequential to what’s happening to Mapes at the time, as if the movie has to acknowledge it occurred but doesn’t want to lend it too much importance. It’s like when someone says to you, “Oh, by the way…” But Mapes is resolute in her convictions right up until the credits. In any other movie the audience would be applauding her for standing up for her beliefs, but instead you can’t help but wonder if she ever learnt anything of personal value from it all.
In the end we’re asked to have a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mapes and the way she’s treated, but it becomes increasingly difficult. Even Blanchett can’t make her entirely sympathetic, and while she gives a good performance, she’s hampered by the fact that she’s trying to elevate the position of someone who was the author of her own downfall. As Rather, Redford is a bit of a distraction, not because of how we see him after all these years, but because we have no idea if he’s portraying Rather with any degree of accuracy; there’s just not enough there for us to be sure. Further down the cast list, Grace essays yet another earnest young man role, while Quaid adds gravitas as the ex-military man on Mapes’ team. Moss rounds out Mapes’ (in)famous five, Greenwood is her angry, unsupportive boss, and Keach is the whistle blower who isn’t telling the whole truth. All give adequate performances but bow to Blanchett’s greater involvement and do their best not to get in the way when she’s in full flow (which is often).
With half an eye trained on being a prestige, awards-gathering picture, Truth aims for solid and dependable, and for the most part achieves those aims, but lacks the passion that would have made all the difference to the material. Vanderbilt has the talent to make better, more focused movies, and he’s to be congratulated for attracting what is a top-notch cast for his first project, but too often they’re operating at the edge of the frame to be effective, and are given few chances to shine (except for Blanchett, that is). And Vanderbilt needs to interpret his material more, to let it breathe and grow beyond the obvious, as several scenes in Truth have the feel of filler instead of moments that advance the storyline. But these are forgivable errors for a first-time director to make, and though the movie isn’t entirely successful on its own merit, there’s just enough here to make the experience pleasant enough to hang around til the end.
Rating: 6/10 – flawed, and with a central character who loses the audience’s sympathy with each passing minute, Truth should be an engrossing exposé of journalistic persecution, but instead proves to be far stranger, less convincing affair; Blanchett does her best to hold it all together, but she’s defeated by the material and Mapes’ recurring ability to undermine herself without anyone else’s help.
This may be unfair, and God knows there’s no real reason it should be getting any more exposure than it already has, but spare a thought for the people who put together the trailer for Term Life, the latest from Vince Vaughn, an actor who now wants to impose his tired, fast-talking idiot schtick on an action movie. This must have been a real challenge to assemble because this movie looks like it’d drain the life from you with every single minute of its running time (and do it deliberately). If this has anything going for it, the trailer fails to showcase it, and watching it gives the very real sense that the company responsible for the trailer must have been banging their heads against the wall trying to make the movie look less disappointing than the finished product’s likely to be. And when the trailer for your new movie makes it look this bad – even after a bunch of guys (presumably) have worked their asses off to make it look halfway decent – maybe it’s time to cancel any plans you had for promoting it, and just move on to the next project. If you’re still in any doubt about how bad this movie could be, then check out the trailer. And if after seeing it you think it’s not bad, or it’s a movie you’re now looking forward to, then drop me a line – I’d love to hear your reasons.
The latest trailer for Suicide Squad wouldn’t normally be a candidate for inclusion on thedullwoodexperiment – after all, the first one wasn’t. But someone, somewhere had the inspired idea that this trailer should be accompanied by, and edited to fit the rhythms of, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. And in a very strange way, it absolutely, positively works. Even if the movie proves to be lacklustre and disappointing, it will at least have this trailer to remind people of what could have been, and is a fitting testament to the idea that sometimes, trailers are a lot better than the finished product.
In America, the most requested photograph held in the National Archives is the one that depicts then President Richard Nixon shaking hands with Elvis Presley. Using this iconic image, Elvis & Nixon seeks to tell the story of the meeting that took place between the two men on 21 December 1970. The circumstances were certainly bizarre – and have already been explored in the movie Elvis Meets Nixon (1997) – but it is true that Elvis went to the White House to seek Nixon’s approval to become what he termed a “Federal Agent at Large” for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Nixon thought the meeting would help with his lack of popularity with younger voters. That two men could be so deluded is hard to believe but as they say sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. The absurdities of the situation and the meeting seems to be well covered, and Spacey as Nixon is the kind of casting that should have happened long ago. Shannon as Elvis may prove to be a tougher sell though, as the actor has a very distinct screen presence, but he does seem to have nailed the craziness of Elvis’s delusion. However the movie turns out it’s definitely one to check out, and could be an outside contender come the awards season next year.
A perceptive drama set in a Havana nightclub that acts as a showcase for drag performers, Viva tells the story of Jesus (Héctor Medina), a young man who does the performers’ hair and make up. Wanting to take the stage himself, Jesus is finally given the chance to do so, but the occasion is disrupted by the arrival of his father, who he hasn’t seen in fifteen years. What follows is a touching, heartfelt tale of estrangement and reconnection between two men with opposing feelings and views on life and each other (and in its own way is a kind of love story). What makes this particular movie of interest is that it’s from Ireland, it was a hit at the 2015 Telluride Film Festival, and it’s also Ireland’s official entry for the Best Foreign Film Academy Award this year. But even without that endorsement, this still looks like a movie that should gain audience approval in 2016.
Richard Linklater follows up his award-winning Boyhood (2014) with this wild and carefree ode to the Eighties, a companion piece of sorts to his Seventies movie, Dazed and Confused (1993). Focusing on a college baseball team, and in particular newbie Jake (played by Blake Jenner), as they try their best (and worst) to make sense of their lives on the road to becoming adults, this promises to be funny and poignant in equal measure. Originally titled That’s What I’m Talking About, and with a cast of unfamiliar faces, Linklater looks to have captured the hedonistic lifestyle of the times, as well as the inherent, gloriously anarchic nature of college life (in the US at least). And knowing Linklater, it’ll have a killer soundtrack as well.
In the past week or so we’ve seen the arrival of trailers for Captain America: Civil War, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, X-Men: Apocalypse, Independence Day: Resurgence, and Star Trek: Beyond. What these movies have in common of course – aside from an unhealthy reliance on colons and secondary titles – is that they’re all big-budget sci-fi movies that the various studios/prodcution companies behind them hope will bring in enough moolah at the box office to keep them going for another year (or more). They’re also sequels, and while we all know that familiarity breeds bums on seats, it also breeds laziness, and reconfirms that old phrase about the law of diminishing returns.
So in the period when it seems as if every potential tentpole movie of 2016 (and the TMNT movie) has been revealed to the public at large, it’s a relief to see a movie trailer that doesn’t rely on vast action sequences, characters in costume, or an in-built audience who’ll go however good or bad a movie is as long as they can release their inner geek for a couple of hours. The movie in question is also a re-release, and from 1980 at that. (Hey, this post is going from bad to worse!) But it’s also a movie by Federico Fellini, an amazing visual cornucopia exploring the nature of women and Fellini’s continuing fascination with them. It’s one of those movies that has to be seen to be fully appreciated, a dazzling, lunatic, magic carpet ride of sexual mores, confused male desire (as represented by Marcello Mastroianni), and satirical jamborees through the post-punk culture expressing itself in Italy at the time. City of Women is being re-released following a 2k restoration, and will never have looked as good as it does now, which is reason enough to see it, but it’s also Fellini, and while he did make some movies that didn’t work on their own terms, this is not one of them. See it if you can.
It seems that eventually, and even if you’re an actress whose career to date has involved making largely independent movies with the occasional foray into big budget features, then it will come to pass that you will play the heroine in an action movie. And now it’s Natalie Portman’s turn (and before anyone mentions it, no, her role in Your Highness (2011) doesn’t count – it’s just a crap comedy, not an action movie). Here she plays a frontierswoman who falls foul of a ruthless gang of outlaws (led by Ewan McGregor) when her husband crosses their path. She seeks the help of an ex-lover (played by Joel Edgerton) to face them down. From the trailer it’s clear that Jane Got a Gun looks as if it’s got enough Western clichés in it to stuff an unfortunate mule, but the cast usually deliver good value, and though the production has had its problems – original director Lynne Ramsay quit the project early on, cinematographer Darius Khondji and star Jude Law quit as well in support of Ramsay, its world premiere was scheduled for 16 November in Paris, but following the terror attacks was cancelled – there’s still enough here to keep the movie looking like an interesting prospect, and Portman’s final line in the trailer is delivered so convincingly you’ll want to see the movie just to find out if she does what she threatens.
It may seem strange, but on 1 January 2014 it became legal to buy marijuana in the US state of Colorado. That’s right, you could legally buy pot from a store and not get arrested. This groundbreaking event was obviously big local news and The Denver Post responded by creating the first section in a US newspaper, The Cannabist, devoted entirely to pot: its production, its sale, strain reviews, recipes, you name it. The newspaper appointed an editor to oversee the section, Ricardo Baca, who surrounded himself with freelance journalists and in-house staffers with, shall we say, an affinity for the project. All this is covered in Mitch Dickman’s entertaining, wickedly funny documentary that tells the story of what might be regarded as a desperate ploy to boost sales, or an extraordinarily relevant reaction to a new social phenomenon – you decide. But when you do, ask yourself this question first: are you high?
There are three types of Pixar sequel: the first is the assured, perfectly realised sequel that works on all levels and shows the company’s creativity isn’t hampered by there being a number in the title – like Toy Story 2 for example (or even Toy Story 3). Then there’s the sequel that occupies the middle ground, the sequel that is warmly received, enjoyable even, but which ultimately doesn’t add much to the lustre of its predecessor – like Monsters University for example. And then there’s the third type, the sequel that really shouldn’t have been made, and should have been filed away in John Lasseter’s head as “one trip to the well too far” – like Cars 2 (the only example, actually). Which category Finding Dory will fit into is yet to be seen, and the trailer doesn’t really give us a clue (maybe the next one will), but if it’s as good as Finding Nemo then Pixar will deserve every plaudit coming to them. Fingers crossed!
The gaming community has been longing to see a movie based on the World of Warcraft series, and next year they’ll get their wish. But watching this first trailer, two things spring to mind: just how much is this movie going to look like The Lord of the Rings, and just how much of it is going to be accessible to newbies who’ve never played WoW in their lives (or even heard of it). On the first point, it’s going to look a lot like The Lord of the Rings unless they sharpen up the CGI (the orcs don’t look that great yet), and on the second point, the storyline looks simple enough to follow from what’s shown in the trailer, but let’s hope it’s not too simple. Director Duncan Jones is a good choice, and he’s got a great cast helping him bring it all to life, but at this stage, it’s still too early to tell whether this will be more miss than hit, or vice versa.
In the October issue of UK movie magazine Sight & Sound, the feature article was entitled, The Female Gaze: 100 Overlooked Films Directed by Women. In the article’s introduction, Isabel Stevens asks the question, “Other than decrying the status quo and highlighting and critiquing new films by female directors, what can a film magazine do?” The answer is to shed light on a variety of movies made by women directors and to reinforce the notion that they were and are just as capable as their male counterparts of making intelligent, thought-provoking, and entertaining movies on a wide variety of subjects.
In recognition of this, and over the coming week, thedullwoodexperiment will be looking at some of the movies on the Sight & Sound list, and celebrating the contribution that women directors have made since those groundbreaking days of 1896. In the meantime you may want to look at the reviews of the movies directed by women that are already on the site, women such as:
Good (really good) comedies are thin on the ground these days, and although the latest from Jared Hess – Napoleon Dynamite (2004), Nacho Libre (2006) – does look a little rough around the edges, there’s enough potential seen in the trailer to warrant a good degree of anticipation. The movie’s tale of religious oneupmanship and archaeological fraud is certainly ripe for laughs, and the presence of Rockwell in the title role bodes well, but this will be down to Hess and whether or not his script (co-written by his wife Jerusha) is as finely crafted as Napoleon Dynamite was, and if it can steer clear of being more farce than parody. If so, then with a bit of (divine?) luck it could be a breath of fresh air in an otherwise currently stale genre.
This year’s BFI London Film Festival began on 7 October 2015 with a gala screening of Suffragette. The festival, which boasts 240 films from 72 countries in 16 cinemas over 12 days, is a must-visit for this particular blogger, and each year I aim to cram as many movies into five days as I possibly can. This year, I was able to see two extra movies, the surprising and brutal Bone Tomahawk, and Black Mass, which sees Johnny Depp remind everyone he can still act/put in a good performance/be hypnotic for all the right reasons. With those movies already under my belt – and having proved so good as well – my optimism for the other movies I’ve chosen to see is running high.
As an appetiser for those five days (and to give everyone an idea of some of the movies that are likely to be reviewed in the near future), here are the movies I’ve pinned my hopes on, and which will hopefully prove to be as gripping and/or entertaining, or as absorbing and/or rewarding as they look likely to be. (A special thanks to the various reviewers on the BFI website, whose capsule reviews I’ve taken the liberty of adapting for this post.)
Wednesday 14 October
The Witch – In 17th-century New England, a devout Christian family are banished from their plantation. They relocate to a humble farm situated on the edge of a dense forest to live a life of self-sufficiency. With the elements taking their toll and food growing scarce, the family are thrown into despair when their youngest child inexplicably goes missing. As they hunt desperately for the lost child, tensions and paranoia breeds within the family and the growing belief that a supernatural force is at work slowly leads them to turn on each other.
Chronic – An uncompromising study of grief and isolation, which focuses on David, a full time care-giver for the terminally ill. Seemingly altruistic and entirely devoted to his work, it becomes clear that David’s dedication to his patients comes at the expense of his own personal life and with each new client his attachment to them veers increasingly toward the unhealthy. Starring Tim Roth.
Desierto – Whilst attempting to cross the border from Mexico into the United States, a group of illegal immigrants find themselves stranded when their truck breaks down, leaving them no choice but to make the rest of the journey by foot. But upon entering US territory, the gang become the unsuspecting target of a gun toting racist who has taken the concept of border control into his own hands, and is determined to pick them off one by one. The second feature from Jonás Cuarón.
The Ones Below – Kate and Justin are a successful, wealthy couple expecting the birth of their first child. One day they notice that the vacant apartment below theirs has new occupants, Jon and Theresa, a married couple also expecting a new addition to the family. Kate and Theresa strike up a tentative friendship, but while Kate experiences fears and doubts concerning her pregnancy, Theresa is filled with the unquestioning joys of impending motherhood, as though it were her life’s vocation. When Kate and Justin have their new neighbours over for dinner, an already awkward night is shattered by a tragic accident which has a chilling impact on all their lives.
Thursday 15 October
Carol – Therese (Rooney Mara) is an aspiring photographer, working in a Manhattan department store where she first encounters Carol (Cate Blanchett), an alluring older woman whose marriage is breaking down. Ambushed by their sudden attraction, the two women gravitate toward each other despite the threat their connection poses to both Therese’s relationship with her steady beau and Carol’s custody of her beloved young daughter. The latest from Todd Haynes.
Truman – A character study of two old friends – Julián and Tomás – who are reunited, just as Julián is entering the final stages of cancer. Tomás flies over from Canada to Madrid to visit the ailing actor and his pet dog Truman, to whom Julián is devoted. Over four intense days, as the focus of conversation constantly reverts to the notion of mortality, the friends look back on their lives – their loves, successes and failures – and speculate on what the future holds.
Green Room – When an unsigned punk band, The Ain’t Rights, book an impromtu gig at a seedy dive bar frequented by neo-Nazis, they are expecting a tough night. But when they accidentally become witness to a murder, the band find themselves trapped in the venue’s green room, hunted down by a gang of thuggish mercenaries (fronted by a truly unsettling Patrick Stewart) determined to ensure they keep their mouths shut.
Friday 16 October
The End of the Tour – A low-key two-hander by James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now), which documents the five days that Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky (played by Jesse Eisenberg) spent with acclaimed writer David Foster Wallace in 1996, following a national tour to promote his novel Infinite Jest. Based on the many hours of taped conversations that Lipsky recorded, Ponsoldt’s film creates an intimate portrait of the man and his art, anchored by an intuitive performance from Jason Segel as Wallace.
Rediscovered Laurel and Hardy: The Battle of the Century (1927) – The long, thought-to-be-lost Laurel and Hardy silent comedy, The Battle of the Century has been rediscovered via the ‘Mostly Lost’ film Workshop at the Library of Congress Film department. It comes courtesy of a collector – an eagle-eyed film accompanist – and has been restored by Serge Bromberg. The eponymous battle starts in the ring then turns into a battle royale of staggering scale… with pies! Only half of the film had been available to watch – including a section of the pie fight – until now. Also showing: You’re Darn Tootin’ (1928), Double Whoopee (1929), and Big Business (1929).
Saturday 17 October
Schneider vs. Bax – Nobody wants to work on their birthday. Neither does Schneider (Tom Dewispelaere), a suburban father whose glamorous wife is planning a dinner party to celebrate. Nevertheless, he takes the job and travels to the countryside where he must shoot and kill one Ramon Bax, a novelist who lives alone in the reed fields of the Netherlands. It should be a piece of cake for a slick and experienced professional killer like Schneider, but much like Bax, nothing in this oddball thriller is easy to execute: the writer’s neurotic daughter turns up unexpectedly, while the assassin accidentally picks up an unwanted passenger along the way.
Ruben Guthrie – ‘Let’s get smashed!’ The battle cry of our eponymous, party animal ad-man proves inadvertently prophetic after a drunken rooftop dive from his swanky Sydney pad. Adding insult to near-fatal injury, Ruben’s long-suffering Czech model fiancée Zoya walks out, issuing an ultimatum: quit alcohol for a whole year and she’ll return. Maybe. Sceptical at first, it’s only when Ruben genuinely attempts to sober up that he realises just how much his job, his lifestyle and an entire society isn’t just underpinned by boozy excess, but actively enables it.
Sunday 18 October
Sunset Song – It’s the early 20th-century in rural Scotland and Chris Guthrie is a young woman with plans. Excelling at her schooling and in possession of a burgeoning independent streak, she seems destined for a job in teaching. But family life has its own pull and her religious father exerts a formidable force on his brood, as well as on her mother whose body he treats as both refuge and battleground. As the constellation of her family shifts around her and romance comes calling, Chris grows into womanhood just as the First World War begins to devastate a generation. The latest from Terence Davies.
Sherlock Holmes (1916) – News that a long sought-after Sherlock Holmes film had been found caused a sensation amongst fans of the great detective. It was based on the popular play by William Gillette and links film representations back to this key stage work in the Holmesian canon. Gillette made a unique contribution to our image of how Holmes looks and to the development of the character of Moriarty. Gillette’s performance is the key thing to watch out for here. And for Chaplin fans, there is a chance to see the character of Billy in action, which he played on stage back in 1903. Beautifully restored and tinted by Rob Byrne of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.
The Wave – Kristoffer Joner plays Kristian Eikfjord, a first-rate geologist who is about to leave the remote town of Geiranger, Norway to take a top job with an oil company in the big city. Leaving his wife Idun (Ane Dahl Torp) to join them later, Kristian sets off with the kids, but some unexplained power outages in the nearby mountains are playing on his mind. If his suspicions of an impending landfall are correct, the town will have only ten minutes to evacuate before an 80ft tsunami engulfs it.
You’ve got to hand it to the Coen Brothers, they sure know how to make a period movie shine. Watching the trailer for their latest movie is like opening a window onto an older but seemingly more vibrant time, with the colour design and the lighting making the whole thing look lit up from within. Even if the story isn’t up to much – and who am I kidding? – Hail, Caesar! looks certain to be one of 2016’s most beautifully lensed movies (thanks to the estimable Roger Deakins), uproariously funny, and with its affectionate recreation of Hollywood in the 1950’s, looks certain to be in the running for an Oscar or two come 2017. And if you think the cast highlighted in the trailer is pretty good, that’s without Dolph Lundgren, David Krumholtz, Clancy Brown, Christopher Lambert, Fred Melamed, and Robert Picardo being included as well.
Back in 1999, when The Iron Giant was first released, Warner Bros.’ marketing of the movie was so ham-fisted that the movie – which would be described by one critic as “the best non-Disney animated film” – was a disaster at the box office, recouping just over $23 million in the US against a budget of $70 million. If ever there was a case of a studio having absolutely no idea what to do with a movie, then this fits the bill completely. But thanks to positive word-of-mouth, and the advent of DVD sales, everyone could now see what the critics had been so captivated and impressed by: an animated Cold War thriller with an alien, metal giant protagonist and the young boy who befriends him.
Now, the movie is rightly regarded as one of the finest animated movies of all time, and Warner Bros. have decided to re-release The Iron Giant in selected US cinemas for two separate days only – September 30 and October 4 – ahead of a late-2015 blu-ray release. What makes such a re-release so noteworthy? Well, two scenes that were abandoned during the original production phase have been completed, and are now ready to be seen for the first time. They increase the movie’s running time by around ten minutes, and have led to this version being branded… the Signature Edition. It has Brad Bird’s full support, the HD quality of the image is breathtaking, and even though the trailer gives away too much for audiences who didn’t see the movie on its first release, it still makes the movie look as poignant and funny and heart-wrenching as it’s always been.
The first feature from cinematographer Reed Morano – Kill Your Darlings (2013), The Skeleton Twins (2014) – is a searing portrait of a couple desperately trying to cope in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy. Uncompromising and unflinching, it stars Olivia Wilde and Luke Wilson as the rapidly unravelling couple, and features a strong supporting cast that includes Giovanni Ribisi, Juno Temple and John Leguizamo. Not for all tastes, certainly, but for those who like their dramas to be bold and emotionally devastating, this looks like it will fit the bill completely.
As part of my look ahead to 2016, here’s the trailer to a movie whose combination of Independence Day destruction and Divergent series’ teen action heroics could prove to be an enormous crowd pleaser. Trading on her action star status from the Kick Ass movies, Chloë Grace Moretz looks convincing as the teenager taking a lonely stand against an alien invasion, while the visuals have that crisp, arresting style that allows for moments where the audience can safely allow their jaws to hit the floor. It’s based on a novel by Rick Yancey, and if successful, we’ll see two sequels hit our screens in the coming years (unless the last in the trilogy – still to be published – is split into two movies).
Disney’s new live action version of The Jungle Book looks to be a million miles away from the simple pleasures to be had from the 1967 animated original, with its emphasis on action and adventure (though the last shot is a nice way to end the trailer). But director Jon Favreau has been championing this project for a while now, and he’s assembled a very talented voice cast including Scarlett Johansson as Kaa, and Bill Murray (who else?) as Baloo. With Warner Bros.’ rival, animated, version, Jungle Book: Origins, now pushed back to 2017, this update has the potential to be a huge success, and with the backing of the mighty House of Mouse, it could well be the family movie of 2016.
One critic calls Sarah Silverman’s performance in I Smile Back a “career changer”, and from what can be seen in the trailer, they’re not far wrong. Known primarily for her stand up persona, and appearances in screen comedies, Silverman has taken on the most challenging role of her career as Laney, a wife and mother whose drug and alcohol addictions and self-destructive tendencies are pushing her to the point where she’s about to lose everything. It promises to be both an eye opener in terms of the performance, and the role that changes audience perceptions of her as an actress. If she’s also in the running come the awards season then it won’t necessarily be a surprise, but if she is looking to take on further dramatic roles, then this will have been a great first choice.
The latest movie adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth features the dream pairing of Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard as the tragic Scot and his manipulative wife, and has already impressed critics with its blend of visceral shocks and bold interpretation of the text. It certainly looks good, with vivid battle scenes, three very unnerving witches, several hints of uncompromising bloodshed, and a sense of time and place that reeks of febrile intensity. And that’s without the foreboding atmosphere, or themes of madness, betrayal and paranoia. All in all, this should be a movie lover’s delight, and a prime contender come the awards season.
A reworking of Mary Shelley’s classic tale, Victor Frankenstein has long been touted as a story that concentrates on the relationship between the titular scientist (James McAvoy) and his assistant Igor (Daniel Radcliffe). It sounded like an interesting premise, and with the two stars firmly committed to the project, hopes have been high that this version will show audiences a new, different take on what is now a very familiar story. But this first trailer raises a variety of concerns, not least in that the relationship so focused on during production seems to have been over-emphasised (there’s certainly no glimpse of it in the trailer), and there are too many occasions where McAvoy seems to be cracking one-liners. Whether or not this version proves to be a stylish, thought-provoking addition to the ranks of Frankenstein movies, or something that sits uncomfortably close to Mel Brooks’ brilliant homage remains to be seen, but on this evidence there’s very much room for concern (and the introduction doesn’t help either).
The second trailer for The Last Witch Hunter appears to be an object lesson in how NOT to sell a movie. Usually, these trailer alerts are to bring attention to movies that look like they could be fun, or entertaining, or thought-provoking, or just a little bit different from the standard fare served up to us. But this is something altogether more dispiriting, and more of a cause for alarm. The producers obviously think we’ve forgotten about Van Helsing (2004), Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013), I, Frankenstein (2014), and all of the Underworld movies, because otherwise why would they make such a movie, and why would they advertise it in exactly the same way as the trailers for those movies? (Having said that, alarm bells started to ring for me when I saw that beard.) I might be wrong, but on this evidence, this looks to be one movie where anticipation can be scaled back and disappointment can be prepared for.
After a less than stellar introduction in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), the self-styled Merc With the Mouth is back, and in a movie that seems certain to banish all memories of that particular (mute) incarnation. With Deadpool fan Ryan Reynolds donning the red and black costume, and strong support from the likes of Morena Baccarin and T.J. Miller, this promises to be as funny as it is violent, and seems likely to please fans everywhere. For a proper taste of the movie, it has to be the Red Band trailer – presented here – though it does lack the slightly creepy request that Deadpool makes at the end of the standard trailer. In any case, it all looks as if this could be the first Marvel character to really push the envelope in terms of adult material… and if so, then it’s a big m*therf*cking amen to that.
When The Secret in Their Eyes, an Argentinian thriller, was released in 2009, it was perhaps inevitable, given its critical success, that Hollywood would attempt a remake at some point – and here it is. Boasting a fantastic cast, including an almost unrecognisable Julia Roberts (could they have made her look more dowdy?), Secret in Their Eyes looks edgy and dark and compelling, and with Billy Ray in the driving seat as director and writer (bear in mind his last script was for Captain Phillips), this has all the potential to be as riveting as its predecessor, and pick up a healthy clutch of awards come 2016.
A powerful story of systematic, uncontrolled child abuse committed by the Catholic clergy across decades, and the journalistic investigation that exposed it, Spotlight has all the hallmarks of a real life thriller built in, and a cast that all look to be on top form. The scandal, and the extent of it, can still be felt today, but in telling this true story centred on abuse that happened in Boston, the movie has the potential to act as a microcosm of how and why these things happened – and continue to in other parts of the globe. It’s sure to be fascinating, gripping stuff, and come awards time, in the running for multiple awards.
After taking a year off in 2014, Pixar are back this year with two new movies – it’s like having two Xmases. Inside Out has already charmed both critics and audiences alike, and by the look of The Good Dinosaur, it’s pretty certain that Pixar have come up with another winner. The story of what might have happened if a meteorite hadn’t hit Earth sixty-five million years ago, and the unlikely relationship that develops between an Apatosaurus named Arlo and a human child, this has attracted criticism for the way that Arlo looks against the photo-realistic background – check out the shot of leaves in the rain – but however he looks this is probably going to tug at the heartstrings just as effectively as the beautifully compiled montage in Up (2009).
After his audacious, Oscar-winning Birdman: or (the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Alejandro González Iñárritu turns his attention to a story – based on real events – that takes place in America’s uncharted wilderness in the 1820’s. Leonardo DiCaprio is the frontiersman betrayed and left for dead by his best friend (played by Tom Hardy), and whose fight for survival following a bear attack looks to be as harsh and as gripping as conditions at the time would have merited. The supporting cast includes Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter and Lukas Haas, and the spectacular visuals are courtesy of Iñárritu’s long-time cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki. All in all, it makes The Revenant look like a must-see (and a shoo-in for a slew of awards).
The Finest Hours is based on a true story, and is set in 1952, when a nor’easter off the New England coast tore two oil tankers – the SS Mercer and the SS Pendleton – in half. The ensuing rescue mission took place in some of the most extreme sea weather ever experienced, and was fraught with danger. The cast includes Casey Affleck, Chris Pine, Eric Bana, Ben Foster, and fresh from The Riot Club (2014), Holliday Grainger, and the cinematographer is Javier Aguirresarobe, whose work on movies such as The Road (2009), A Better Life (2011) and Blue Jasmine (2013), is a strong indication that this may well be one of the most strikingly shot dramas of 2016. But what is clear from the trailer is that this is one movie that might just eclipse The Perfect Storm (2000) for storm-drenched action.
A documentary about seven children – six brothers and one sister – who were home-schooled by their parents and rarely allowed out of their sixteenth-story, four-bedroom apartment except on strictly controlled trips, The Wolfpack is a startling look at the redeeming and transformative nature of movies, and how they enabled the Angulo children to overcome the limitations imposed upon them by their father. Despite the intriguing and fascinating subject matter, it’s likely that The Wolfpack won’t get the wide release it probably deserves, but it’s definitely one to watch.
Just now getting a wider release – though in the USA only – after being shown at various festivals and on release in its native Argentina and Brazil, Hernán Guerschuny’s The Film Critic looks like a cineaste’s dream… or a gooey treat for lovers of romantic comedies. Either way, the trailer’s deconstruction of the classic romantic comedy set up is hilarious by itself, and bodes well for the movie as a whole. Let’s hope it lives up to its promise and gains a wider, international release before long.
When Sesame Street debuted in 1969, it would have been regarded as a bit of a long shot that the same performer would still be playing the same role, and on such a regular basis, over forty-five years later. But in the case of Caroll Spinney (aka Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch), that’s exactly what’s happened. This documentary about the man in the orange and black striped leggings has all the hallmarks of a lovingly crafted appreciation of one of the show’s (largely) unsung heroes. As a trip down Memory Lane for many of us, it’s a reminder of just how good a performer he is – and if you’ve seen his recent spoof of Birdman or (the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), how good a performer he still is.
Promising yet another spirited, and occasionally vulgar performance from the ever-reliable Maggie Smith, The Lady in the Van looks and feels like another British movie that will tug on the heartstrings while also having its audience laughing at the more absurd elements of this true story. With a script by Alan Bennett taken from his own experiences, and featuring a supporting cast that includes James Corden, Dominic Cooper and Jim Broadbent, this may not set the box office alight, but it should find a place in several moviegoers’ hearts when it hits our screens.
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