Tag Archives: Steven Spielberg

Monthly Roundup – March 2018

31 Saturday Mar 2018

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The LEGO Ninjago Movie (2017) / D: Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher, Bob Logan / 101m

Cast: Jackie Chan, Dave Franco, Justin Theroux, Fred Armisen, Kumail Nanjiani, Michael Peña, Abbi Jacobson, Zach Woods, Olivia Munn

Rating: 6/10 – when you’re the despised son (Franco) of an evil warlord (Theroux), there’s only one thing you can do: vow to defeat him with the aid of your ninja friends; after a superhero mash-up and a solo Batman outing, The LEGO Ninjago Movie brings us ninjas, but in the process forgets to provide viewers with much in the way of story, though the visual  innovation is still there, as is (mostly) the humour, making this something that is only just more of a hit than a miss.

Braven (2018) / D: Lin Oeding / 94m

Cast: Jason Momoa, Garret Dillahunt, Stephen Lang, Jill Wagner, Zahn McClarnon, Brendan Fletcher, Sala Baker, Teach Grant, Sasha Rossof

Rating: 4/10 – a trip for Joe Braven (Momoa) and his father (Lang) to their family cabin located in the Canadian wilderness sees them fighting for their lives when drug runners come to claim a shipment that has been hidden in the cabin; an unsophisticated action thriller, Braven has an earnestness to it that sees it through some of its more absurdist moments, but its Nineties vibe works against it too often for comfort, and despite the occasional effort, Dillahunt remains an unconvincing villain.

Passport to Destiny (1944) / D: Ray McCarey / 61m

Cast: Elsa Lanchester, Gordon Oliver, Lenore Aubert, Lionel Royce, Fritz Feld, Joseph Vitale, Gavin Muir, Lloyd Corrigan

Rating: 6/10 – in World War II, a cleaning woman, Ella Muggins (Lanchester), who believes herself to be protected from harm thanks to a magical glass eye, determines to travel to Berlin and kill Hitler; a whimsical comic fantasy that somehow manages to have its heroine save a German officer (Oliver) and his girlfriend, Passport to Destiny is an uneven yet enjoyable product of its time, with a terrific central performance by Lanchester, and a winning sense of its own absurdity.

Hellraiser: Judgment (2018) / D: Gary J. Tunnicliffe / 81m

Cast: Damon Carney, Randy Wayne, Alexandra Harris, Paul T. Taylor, Gary J. Tunnicliffe, Helena Grace Donald, Heather Langenkamp

Rating: 3/10 – the hunt for a serial killer finds its lead detective (Carney) coming face to face with the Cenobites – still led by Pinhead (Taylor) – but the solution to the case isn’t as obvious as it seems; the tenth movie in the series, Hellraiser: Judgment at least tries to offer something new in terms of the Cenobites’ involvement, but in the end it can’t escape the fact that Pinhead et al are no longer frightening, the franchise’s penchant for sado-masochistic violence has lost any impact it may once have had, and as with every entry since Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), it fails to introduce one single character for the viewer to care about.

The Final Year (2017) / D: Greg Barker / 89m

With: Ben Rhodes, Samantha Power, John Kerry, Barack Obama

Rating: 7/10 – a look at the final year of Barack Obama’s second term as President of the United States focuses on his foreign policy team and their diplomatic efforts on the global stage; featuring contributions from some of the key players, The Final Year is an interesting if not fully realised documentary that never asks (or finds an answer for) the fundamental question of why Obama’s administration chose to concentrate so much on foreign policy in its last days, something that keeps all the good work that was achieved somewhat in isolation from the viewer.

And Then Came Lola (2009) / D: Ellen Seidler, Megan Siler / 71m

Cast: Ashleigh Sumner, Jill Bennett, Cathy DeBuono, Jessica Graham, Angelyna Martinez, Candy Tolentino, Linda Ignazi

Rating: 4/10 – in a series of Groundhog Day-style episodes, the undisciplined Lola (Sumner) is required to rush a set of photographs to her interior designer girlfriend, Casey (Bennett), so she can seal the deal at a job interview – but she has varying degrees of success; an LGBTQ+ comedy that stops the action every so often to allow its female cast to make out with each other, And Then Came Lola doesn’t put enough spins on its central conceit, and doesn’t make you care enough if Lola comes through or not.

The Ritual (2017) / D: David Bruckner / 94m

Cast: Rafe Spall, Arsher Ali, Robert James-Collier, Sam Troughton, Paul Reid, Maria Erwolter

Rating: 7/10 – following the tragic death of one of their friends, four men embark on a memorial hiking trip in Sweden, but when one of them is injured, taking a short cut through a forest puts all their lives in jeopardy; a creature feature with a nasty edge to it and above average performances for a horror movie, The Ritual employs mystery as well as terror as it creates a growing sense of dread before it runs out of narrative steam and tries to give its monster a back story that brings the tension up short and leads to a not entirely credible denouement.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) / D: Jake Kasdan / 119m

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, Rhys Darby, Bobby Cannavale, Nick Jonas, Alex Wolff, Ser’Darius Blain, Madison Iseman, Morgan Turner

Rating: 7/10 – four teenagers find themselves transported into a video game called Jumanji, where, transformed into avatars, they are charged with thwarting the dastardly plans of the game’s chief villain (Cannavale); a reboot more than a sequel, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle has the benefit of well-drawn, likeable characters, winning performances from Johnson, Hart, Black and Gillan, and confident direction from Kasdan, all things that serve to distract from the uninspired game levels and the predictable nature of its main storyline.

Paddington 2 (2017) / D: Paul King / 103m

Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Ben Whishaw, Hugh Grant, Brendan Gleeson, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi, Imelda Staunton, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Ben Miller, Jessica Hynes, Noah Taylor, Joanna Lumley

Rating: 9/10 – the theft of a unique pop-up book sees Paddington (Whishaw) end up in jail while the Brown family do their best to track down the real thief, Phoenix Buchanan (Grant); an absolute joy, Paddington 2 is just so unexpectedly good that even just thinking about it is likely to put a smile on your face, something that’s all too rare these days, and which is thanks to an inspired script by director King and Simon Farnaby, terrific performances from all concerned, and buckets of perfectly judged humour.

Gangster Land (2017) / D: Timothy Woodward Jr / 113m

Original title: In the Absence of Good Men

Cast: Sean Faris, Milo Gibson, Jason Patric, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Peter Facinelli, Mark Rolston, Michael Paré

Rating: 4/10 – the rise of boxer Jack McGurn (Faris) from potential champion to right-hand man to Al Capone (Gibson), and his involvement in Capone’s feud with ‘Bugs’ Moran (Facinelli); a biopic that’s hampered by lacklustre performances and a leaden script, Gangster Land wants to be thought of as classy but budgetary constraints mean otherwise, and Woodward Jr’s direction doesn’t inject many scenes with the necessary energy to maintain the viewer’s interest, something that leaves the movie feeling moribund for long stretches.

Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) / D: Trish Sie / 93m

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, Hailee Steinfeld, John Lithgow, Ruby Rose, Matt Lanter, Elizabeth Banks, John Michael Higgins, DJ Khaled

Rating: 4/10 – the Borden Bellas are back for one last reunion before they all go their separate ways, taking part in a European tour and competing for the chance to open for DJ Khaled; a threequel that adds nothing new to the mix (even if you include Lithgow as Wilson’s scoundrel father), and which is as empty-headed as you’d expect, Pitch Perfect 3 isn’t even well thought out enough to justify its existence and trades on old glories in the hope that the audience won’t notice that’s what they are.

Something Real and Good (2013) / D: Luke Rivett / 81m

Cast: Matt Jones, Alex Hannant, Colton Castaneda, Marla Stone

Rating: 4/10 – he (Jones) meets her (Hannant) in an airport lounge, and over the next twenty-four hours, get to know each other, flirt, have fun, and stay in a hotel together due to their flight being cancelled; the slightness of the story – boy meets girl, they talk and talk and talk and talk – is further undermined by the cod-philosophising and trite observations on life and relationships that they come out with, leaving Something Real and Good as a title that’s a little over-optimistic, though if it achieves anything, it’ll be to stop people from striking up random conversations with strangers in airports – and that’s now a good thing.

Ladies First (2017) / D: Uraaz Bahi / 39m

With: Deepika Kumari, Geeta Devi, Shiv Narayan Mahto, Dharmendra Tiwari

Rating: 8/10 – the story of Deepika Kumari, at one time the number one archer in the world, and her efforts to obtain Olympic gold in 2012 and 2016; a sobering documentary that for a while feels like it’s going to be a standard tale of triumph over adversity (here, relating to Indian culture and gender equality), Ladies First offers a much deeper examination of success and failure than might be expected, and shows that in India, as in many other countries, there are precious few opportunities for women to be anything more than wives and mothers.

Heritage Falls (2016) / D: Shea Sizemore / 88m

Cast: David Keith, Coby Ryan McLaughlin, Keean Johnson, Sydney Penny, Nancy Stafford, Devon Ogden

Rating: 4/10 – three generations of males head off for a bonding weekend designed to overcome the divisions that are keeping them distant or apart from each other; a mixed bag of drama and lightweight comedy, Heritage Falls wants to say something sincere and relevant about father-son relationships, but falls way short in its ambitions thanks to a script that can’t provide even one of its protagonists with a convincing argument for their position, a bland visual style, and even blander direction from Sizemore, making this a turgid exercise in emotional dysfunction.

The Long Dark Hall (1951) / D: Anthony Bushell, Reginald Beck / 86m

Cast: Rex Harrison, Lilli Palmer, Denis O’Dea, Reginald Huntley, Anthony Dawson, Brenda de Banzie, Eric Pohlmann

Rating: 7/10 – when an actress is murdered in the room she rents, suspicion falls on her lover, married man Arthur Groome (Harrison), but even though he goes on trial at the Old Bailey, his wife, Mary (Palmer), stands by him; an early UK attempt at film noir, The Long Dark Hall has its fair share of tension, particularly in a scene at the Groome home where Mary is alone with the real killer (Dawson), but Harrison doesn’t seem fully committed (it wasn’t one of his favourite projects), and the screenplay lurches too often into uncomfortable melodrama, though overall this has an air of fatalism that keeps it intriguing for viewers who are used to their crime thrillers being a little more straightforward.

Ready Player One (2018) / D: Steven Spielberg / 140m

Cast: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance, Philip Zhao, Win Morisaki, Hannah John-Kamen

Rating: 7/10 – in 2045, people have become obsessed with a virtual reality game called Oasis where anything can happen, but when its creator (Rylance) reveals there’s a hidden prize within the game, one that will give overall control of the game and its licence to the winner, it’s up to a small group of gamers led by Parzifal (Sheridan) to stop a rival corporation from winning; an elaborate sci-fi fantasy that provides a nostalgia overload for fans of Eighties pop culture in particular, Ready Player One has plenty of visual pizzazz, but soon runs out of steam in the story department, and offers way too much exposition in lieu of a proper script, a situation it tries to overcome by being dazzling if empty-headed, but which in the hands of Steven Spielberg still manages to be very entertaining indeed – if you don’t give it too much thought.

The Temple (2017) / D: Michael Barrett / 78m

Cast: Logan Huffman, Natalia Warner, Brandon Sklenar, Naoto Takenaka, Asahi Uchida

Rating: 4/10 – three American tourists – best friends Chris (Huffman) and Kate (Warner), and Kate’s boyfriend, James (Sklenar) – are travelling in Japan when they hear about an abandoned temple and decide to go there, little knowing what will happen to them once they get there; even with its post-visit framing device designed to add further mystery to events, The Temple is a chore to sit through thanks to its being yet another horror movie where people behave stupidly so that a number of uninspired “shocks” can be trotted out, along with dreary dialogue and the (actually) terrible realisation that movie makers still think that by plundering legends and myths from other countries then their movies will be much more original and scary… and that’s simply not true.

Chokeslam (2016) / D: Robert Cuffley / 102m

Cast: Chris Marquette, Amanda Crew, Michael Eklund, Niall Matter, Gwynyth Walsh, Mick Foley

Rating: 5/10 – a 10-year high school reunion gives deli owner Corey (Marquette) the chance to reconnect with the girl he loved, Sheena (Crew), who is now a famous female wrestler; a lightweight romantic comedy that pokes moderate fun at the world of wrestling, Chokeslam is innocuous where it should be daring, and bland when it should be heartwarming, making it a movie that’s populated almost entirely by stock characters dealing with stock situations and problems, and which, unsurprisingly, provides them with entirely stock solutions.

All the Money in the World (2017) / D: Ridley Scott / 132m

Cast: Michelle Williams, Christopher Plummer, Mark Wahlberg, Romain Duris, Timothy Hutton, Charlie Plummer, Marco Leonardi, Giuseppe Bonifati

Rating: 8/10 – a recreation of the kidnapping in 1973 of John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer), and the subsequent attempts by his mother, Gail (Williams), to persuade his grandfather (Christopher Plummer) to pay the ransom, something the then world’s richest man refuses to do; Scott’s best movie in years, All the Money in the World is a taut, compelling thriller that tells its story with ruthless expediency and features yet another commanding performance from Williams, something that takes the spotlight away from the presence of Christopher Plummer (who’s good but not great), and which serves as a reminder that money isn’t the central concern here, but a mother’s unwavering love for her child.

5 Headed Shark Attack (2017) / D: Nico De Leon / 98m

Cast: Chris Bruno, Nikki Howard, Lindsay Sawyer, Jeffrey Holsman, Chris Costanzo, Amaanda Méndez, Ian Daryk, Jorge Navarro, Lorna Hernandez, Michelle Cortès, Nicholas Nene

Rating: 3/10 – a four-headed shark terrorises the waters off Palomino Island in Puerto Rico before mutating into a five-headed shark, and being hunted by both the island’s police force, and a team of marine biologists from a local aquarium; operating at the bargain bucket end of the movie business, 5 Headed Shark Attack, SyFy’s latest cheaply made farrago, references Sharknado (2013) early on (as if it’s being clever), and then does it’s absolute best to make its audience cringe and wince and wish they’d never started watching in the first place, something the awful screenplay, dialogue, acting, special effects and direction all manage without even trying.

Spielberg (2017)

18 Sunday Mar 2018

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D: Susan Lacy / 147m

With: Steven Spielberg, Leah Adler, Francis Ford Coppola, Daniel Day-Lewis, Brian De Palma, Leonardo DiCaprio, Richard Dreyfuss, Sally Field, Tom Hanks, Michael Kahn, Janusz Kaminski, Tony Kushner, George Lucas, Janet Maslin, Dennis Muren, Martin Scorsese, A.O. Scott, Anne Spielberg, Arnold Spielberg, Nancy Spielberg, Sue Spielberg, John Williams, Vilmos Zsigmond

Spielberg opens with a confession from the man himself: that when he saw Lawrence of Arabia (1962) for the first time, it made him realise he couldn’t be a director. The scope and the depth of David Lean’s extraordinary movie was so far beyond Spielberg’s own capabilities as a budding movie maker that it was overwhelming. But not even Lean’s masterpiece could deter him completely. The next week he saw it again, and again the week after that, and the week after that… Awake to the possibilities that cinema could offer and provide, Spielberg continued to make short movies of his own, including Amblin’ (1968). This brought him to the attention of Sid Sheinberg, then president of Universal, who took a chance on him. A short stint in television led to his first feature, Duel (1971), and just four years later, he changed the face of cinema forever by making the first summer blockbuster, Jaws (1975). The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

Susan Lacy’s celebratory documentary focuses on the various highs of Spielberg’s career, while studiously ignoring the lows. This is to be expected perhaps, but while the likes of Jaws, E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Schindler’s List (1993), Jurassic Park (1993), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Munich (2005), and Lincoln (2012) are studied in some detail, once 1941 (1979) is dealt with (“Why couldn’t I make a comedy?”), the focus settles on establishing Spielberg as a predominantly serious movie maker, and not the populist movie maker who, at his best, can still inspire the kinds of awe and wonder that other directors can only dream of. Lacy looks to how Spielberg has grown as a director, and how he’s used each new experience behind the camera as a way of augmenting and perfecting his craft. Even now, after more than fifty years as a director, Spielberg comes across as someone who’s still learning, and is eager to do so. It doesn’t hurt that he’s an engaging and often self-deprecating interviewee, and throughout he makes references to growing up and being a child of divorce, something that has infused much of his work since.

His recollections and reminiscences are supported by a range of collaborators and interested parties, but none are as interesting as those supplied by his family, from his mother Leah, father Arnold, and sisters Anne, Nancy and Sue. Their memories of his childhood, coupled with his feelings about being Jewish, help broaden our understanding of Spielberg the person, and what has driven him in his work over the years. But while he’s open and honest about his parents’ divorce and the effect it had on him, and the importance of his own family now, the absence of Kate Capshaw is curious (and unexplained). That aside, and though the movie overall is a fascinating endorsement of his career and achievements, it’s perhaps a little too safe in its approach. Though a plethora of behind the scenes footage, and photographs from his childhood and early career is welcome, and Spielberg is a worthy subject, there’s a sense that his observations about those movies which weren’t so successful – Hook (1991), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), or The BFG (2016) – would have been equally welcome. Lacy correctly focuses on Spielberg’s strengths as a director and the high regard he has amongst his peers, but even that brings up another issue: with Spielberg having had a considerable influence on a range of movie makers over the last forty-plus years, why are their contributions as noticeably absent as Capshaw’s?

Rating: 7/10 – a documentary that isn’t as wide-ranging as it could have been (and despite its running time), Spielberg is still an entertaining journey through the director’s life and career that is informative and convivial; having Spielberg revisit many of his movies is illuminating, and there’s enough here that’s new or previously unrevealed to make this – for now – the place to go to find out how and why he makes the movies he does.

Monthly Roundup – January 2018

31 Wednesday Jan 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Original title: Familien fieber

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The BFG (2016)

31 Thursday Aug 2017

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D: Steven Spielberg / 117m

Cast: Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Penelope Wilton, Jemaine Clement, Rebecca Hall, Rafe Spall, Bill Hader, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Adam Godley, Michael Adamthwaite, Daniel Bacon, Jonathan Holmes, Chris Gibbs, Paul Moniz de Sa

Steven Spielberg meets Roald Dahl against the backdrop of a billion computer generated pixels – less a case of “Who could ask for anything more”, and more a case of “Be careful what you wish for”. This is very much a movie where the child in Spielberg has been sat on and made to go without his dinner. While this is a movie that looks absolutely stunning – in Giant Country at least, London feels drabbed down in comparison – and there’s a richness to the colours and the detail that few other directors would have achieved for their movie, overall The BFG lacks something that has been a consistent part of Spielberg’s directorial skills over the last forty-plus years, and that’s honest, heartfelt emotion.

It’s an odd feeling to realise, but this is a movie where Spielberg has managed to avoid creating an emotional connection between the characters and the audience. Right from the start, and from our first encounter with tomboyish Sophie as she hides under a rug late one night at the orphanage (handily called the Orphanage) where she lives, what should be a tale that inspires various levels of child-friendly awe and wonder, does so in dribs and drabs, and rarely feels inspired or inspirational. Even the moment when Sophie spies a large, very large hand righting a fallen rubbish bin – which should provoke a degree of wonder all by itself – plays out plainly and matter-of-factly. The scene would have played out much the same if it the bin had been knocked over by a cat, and the cat had turned round and picked it up by itself. It’s the first of many moments that fail to achieve the necessary degree of childish delight that would allow viewers – and not just adults – to connect with the material.

Elsewhere, the relationship between Runt (the BFG in question) and Sophie soon develops into the kind of easy-going father-daughter dynamic that allows for few disagreements and full-on harmony. Both of them may be unlocking nurturing instincts in each other, but Melissa Mathison’s adaptation of Dahl’s hugely popular novel foregoes any depth and relates everything in a matter-of-fact manner that leaves their relationship feeling perfunctory instead of earned. While it’s expected that they hit it off and prove to be firm friends, there’s still little in the way of any grounding to their friendship, and it happens with barely a whisper of discord between them. Even when Runt tells Sophie she can’t go back to the orphanage, her reaction has all the impact of a child being told that they can’t have semolina for dessert. It’s another example of the way in which Spielberg’s direction can’t elevate the material and make the movie more interesting. Instead it ambles along, creating indifference for long stretches and relying heavily on Rylance’s performance as the BFG.

Rylance, who has become Spielberg’s first choice, go-to actor since they made Bridge of Spies (2015), is on terrific form, his motion capture performance perhaps the very best thing the movie has to offer. Whether he’s muttering and mumbling about snozzcumbers or frobscottle, or a myriad of other Giant-ish terms, Rylance’s simple, delicate portrayal is affecting and whimsical, an object lesson in how not to let a CGI conversion take anything away from the performance itself. But thanks to Spielberg’s puzzling detachment from the material, Rylance’s portrayal is operating in a vacuum, separated from the rest of the movie by an invisible wall that even he can’t penetrate. It’s like giving the world’s greatest footballer the chance to score from five yards out, and then removing the goal just before he shoots.

On the performance front, Rylance is surprisingly alone in terms of the quality of his portrayal. Elsewhere, there are problems galore, from Barnhill’s stilted line readings to Wilton’s wide-eyed and easily dismayed Queen of England, to Hall’s unexpected and underwhelming turn as the Queen’s maid (a role that could have been played by anyone, such is its importance to the story). And that’s without Clement’s turn as chief unfriendly giant, Fleshlumpeater, a performance that leaves him sounding like David Walliams with a bad nasal infection. Rylance aside, this is a movie where the cast aren’t given much to do, and the imbalance between the success of his efforts and theirs is telling. This is largely the fault of Mathison’s screenplay, which maintains its focus on the BFG at all times, and to the detriment of the other characters, who feel unsupported and under-developed at the same time.

This being a Roald Dahl story, there should be plenty of subtexts shoring up the main plot, and the notion of Runt and Sophie creating their own family as a way of confronting their sense of being alone should be one of them, but instead of informing their bond and its importance to both of them, it’s given an occasional and brief acknowledgment before the movie heads into another visually impressive but empty bout of physical comedy. Said comedy is a mix of pratfalls – cue those loveable cannibal giants! – incredible shrinking orphan moments, and CGI corgis, and these should find favour with viewers younger than ten. But adults, for whom Dahl wrote just as much as he did for children, will find themselves curiously locked out of the garden of delights that have been broadly assembled out of Mathison’s screenplay. A movie then that’s lacking in too many areas for it to be entirely or even moderately successful in its ambitions, a state of affairs that is all the more surprising given the quality of the source material and its director’s affinity for children’s fantasy.

Rating: 5/10 – a movie that’s easy to admire but very difficult to engage with, The BFG sees Spielberg operating at half throttle, and dialling back on the emotional elements of Dahl’s story; Rylance is the key player here, giving a captivating performance and anchoring the movie in a way that he shouldn’t have to given the quality and the experience of the rest of the cast, and the very talented crew.

Steven Spielberg’s 10 Most Successful Movies at the International Box Office

06 Wednesday Jul 2016

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He’s been entertaining audiences for nearly fifty years now, ever since his first professional gig directing an episode of Marcus Welby, M.D. in 1970. Since then he’s become the world’s most successful director, his movies earning a combined total of over four billion dollars. But which of Steven Spielberg’s movies have attracted the biggest audiences and earned the most at the international box office? Read on to find out.

10 – Minority Report (2002) – $358,372,926

“Everybody runs…” stated the tagline, and audiences flocked to see Spielberg’s adaptation of a short story by Philip K. Dick, with its clever, cerebral murder mystery and crunching action sequences. It also marked the first of two collaborations with Tom Cruise, and showed that, once again, Spielberg was more than capable of creating a believable vision of the future.

Minority Report

9 – The Adventures of Tintin (2011) – $373,993,951

Spielberg takes on motion capture with mixed results, in a movie that translates Hergé’s tenacious young detective from page to screen in a way that provides some stunning visuals but which also forgets to make the story more involving than it is. The Bearded One has a ball, and this is perhaps Spielberg’s loosest, most carefree movie since 1941 (1979).

8 – Jaws (1975) – $470,653,000

The movie that made Spielberg a household name, Jaws still has the power to unnerve successive generations of audiences, and persuade viewers that staying out of the water is still a pretty good option. A rollercoaster ride that never lets up, Spielberg pulls out all the stops, makes Peter Benchley’s source novel seem better than it is, and elicits a trio of terrific performances from Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss.

7 – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) – $474,171,806

What should have been the last in the series sees Spielberg make up for the darker excesses of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), and regain the sense of fun that made Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) so appealing. The inclusion of Sean Connery is, of course, a stroke of genius, but the movie’s highlight is that tank chase, a marvellous exercise in thrills, perfectly timed stuntwork, and breezy humour that still impresses today.

6 – Saving Private Ryan (1998) – $481,840,909

After pulling no punches in his examination of the Holocaust in Schindler’s List (1993), Spielberg brought home the true horror of the D-Day landings by thrusting his audience into the thick of it all for twenty of the most gruelling, gut-wrenching minutes in cinema history. The search for Private Ryan and the events that follow lack that initial visceral intensity, but this is still Spielberg operating at a level that few other directors can match.

Saving Private Ryan

5 – War of the Worlds (2005) – $591,745,540

Spielberg’s second collaboration with Tom Cruise was a box office success but lost its way in the final third, leaving critics and audiences alike wondering how Spielberg and screenwriter David Koepp could have failed to maintain the movie’s pace and energy from its stunning opening, and gripping central section. Whatever your view, this is easily one of the best, most effective alien invasion movies ever made, and all because the characters and not the spectacle are the focus.

4 – The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) – $618,638,999

Not one of Spielberg’s best thanks to an erratic screenplay courtesy of the normally reliable David Koepp, this inevitable sequel sees Spielberg struggling to repeat the sense of wonder he brought to the original. It’s overlong as well, and there are only a few instances where Spielberg finds his groove, but this took as much as it did at the box office because nobody else was able to come close to making dinosaurs look this impressive.

3 – Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) – $786,636,033

A prime example of one too many trips to the well, what was until recently Indiana Jones’s swansong movie – a fifth entry is due in 2019 (when Harrison Ford will be seventy-seven) – this sees Spielberg aiming to restore the last-gasp, derring-do atmosphere of Ark and Crusade, while being undermined by a script that loses sight of what made those movies so enjoyable in the first place.

2 – E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) – $792,910,554

Spielberg’s ode to childhood and miracles can still invoke a wide variety of emotions including wonder. It also provides all the evidence needed to remind audiences that Spielberg is a director who has such a deep connection to the child in all of us, that he can make us wish we were that young again. Forget the minor changes he made in the 20th anniversary re-release, this remains one of the most powerful, and emotional, fantasy movies ever made.

1 – Jurassic Park (1993) – $1,029,153,822

Dinosaurs. ‘Nuff said.

Jurassic Park

Trailers – Our Kind of Traitor (2016), The Family Fang (2015) and The BFG (2016)

11 Monday Apr 2016

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John le Carré has always been a good source for the movies. His stories are both entertaining and complex, and his characters, often as complex and deceptively drawn as le Carré’s plotting, are the kind that actors can have a veritable field day with. Our Kind of Traitor, with its criminal Russian oligarch seeking to defect to the West, is, on the page, a terrific blend of cat-and-mouse political manoeuvring and heightened thrills. By making his main character a naïve teacher (played here by Ewan McGregor), le Carré draws the reader/viewer in by using their lack of experience to muddy the waters further in terms of what’s going on. With luck, the more than competent cast, along with screenwriter Hossein Amini and director Susanna White, can pull off yet another movie adaptation of a le Carré novel that’s both compelling and engrossing, and the cinematic equivalent of a page-turner (just like its source).

 

Making his second directorial feature – after Bad Words (2013) – Jason Bateman brings yet another dysfunctional group to the big screen, The Family Fang. It’s also yet another indie comedy, with quirky characters and even quirkier situations, but this appears to have a better pedigree than most, being an adaptation of the novel by Kevin Wilson – though the script is courtesy of David Lindsay-Abaire, whose last screenplay was for Poltergeist (2015) (not a great recommendation when you think about it). Hopefully, the top-notch cast, including Bateman himself, Christopher Walken, Josh Pais, Kathryn Hahn, Michael Chernus, and Nicole Kidman (in a performance that will hopefully remind us just how good she can be after a slew of recent, underwhelming performances), have brought their A-game to the material, and this will be one movie that proves to be both memorable and funny in equal measure.

 

It’s directed by Steven Spielberg. It’s a children’s fantasy from the extraordinary mind of Roald Dahl. It’s The BFG. And it looks – on the evidence of the trailer – a lot like Pan (2015). But again, this is Spielberg at work here, and when it comes to spinning magic on the big screen, he’s in a league of his own. The BFG also features the final screenplay written by the late Melissa Mathison, whose last collaboration with Spielberg was a little movie called E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). And with recent Oscar-winner Mark Rylance playing the titular giant – his amazing voice tips you off before you even see the BFG’s face – it all looks to be in very good hands, even if – and this is just an instant reaction to seeing them – the other giants, Fleshlumpeater et al., all look like early character designs from Warcraft (2016).

Bridge of Spies (2015)

09 Wednesday Dec 2015

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Bridge of Spies

D: Steven Spielberg / 141m

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

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

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

Bridge of Spies - scene3

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

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

Bridge of Spies - scene2

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

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

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

Bridge of Spies - scene1

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

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

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

10 Movies That Are 40 Years Old This Year – 2015

31 Friday Jul 2015

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If 1974 was a banner year, then surprisingly 1975 kept up the level of quality from around the globe. A closer look at the releases for 1975 show an amazing amount of movies that simply shone, and for all kinds of reasons. As with the list for 1974, there could have been a lot more movies included here, and the ten featured below were difficult to choose from out of all the fantastic movies available, but I think these are as representative of what a great year 1975 was as you’re likely to get.

1) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey’s landmark novel was given the best screen treatment possible, one of the best ensemble casts ever, and placed in the hands of a director, Milos Forman, who was able to tease out every nuance and subtlety of emotion that the movie required. At once depressing, sad, comedic and poignant, but ultimately uplifting, this is the finest hour for everyone concerned and one of the few movies to tackle issues of mental health head on and without flinching.

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

2) Jaws – The grandaddy of all Summer tentpole movies, it’s still easy to see why Steven Spielberg’s make-or-break movie was so successful, and caused audiences around the world to stay out of the water. With that menacing score by John Williams, one of the most effective jump scares in screen history, a great trio of performances from Shaw, Dreyfuss and Scheider, some of the most intense cat-and-shark sequences ever, it all adds up to a movie that still terrifies as much today as it did back then.

Jaws

3) Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom – Pasolini’s fierce condemnation of the Italian Fascist ruling classes during World War II, and the increasing lack of empathy in modern society, is one long, intentionally nihilistic piece of anguished propaganda. Difficult to watch, with long scenes that test the audience’s endurance, Pasolini’s last movie before he was murdered is shot through with despair and lacking completely in hope, or faith in the goodness of man, and is as powerful a vision of hell on earth as you’re ever likely to see.

Salo

4) Dog Day Afternoon – Based on a true story, Sidney Lumet’s triumphant telling of friendship and compassion and the lengths one person will go to to ensure their friend’s happiness boasts a stunning performance from Al Pacino, and is as tense as any other thriller out there. Mixing high drama with situational comedy borne out of the characters themselves, Dog Day Afternoon is unexpectedly affecting and is one of those movies that reveals different facets to its story with each successive viewing.

Dog Day Afternoon

5) Nashville – The ensemble movie’s highpoint, Robert Altman’s look at the contemporary US political scene is merely a backdrop for some of the most riveting dissections of people’s behaviour and (in)tolerances yet seen in the movies. Full of standout moments (and none more so than Keith Carradine’s rendition of I’m Easy), and with Altman in firm control at the helm, this is another movie that rewards with every viewing.

Nashville

6) Grey Gardens – One of the finest documentaries ever made, Grey Gardens is as compelling as any thriller and as absorbing as any intimate portrait of an unusual lifestyle can be. Produced and co-directed by Albert and David Maysles, the lives of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, “Little Edie”, are highlighted in haunting, intimate detail, and prove that any notions of strangeness in others is merely a matter of misguided perception.

Grey Gardens

7) Picnic at Hanging Rock – Peter Weir’s haunting, immaculately filmed mystery is one of the most memorably eerie movies ever made, its sense of time and place and mood all combining to create a cinematic experience that remains unmatched. A true classic of Australian cinema and the movie that catapulted Weir – deservedly – onto the international scene, it’s as unsettling now as it was back when it was first released.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

8) Dersu Uzala – Kurosawa’s examination of the differences that exist between the old ways of nature and the apparent progress that civilisation brings is enhanced by some stunning cinematography and two magnificent central performances by Yuriy Solomin and Maksim Munzuk. By turns deceptively gripping and subtly elegiac, the movie has an emotional honesty to it that makes the development of the relationship between the explorer and the hunter that much more convincing and affecting.

Dersu Uzala

9) The Man Who Would Be King – One of director John Huston’s favourite projects, this adaptation of a story by Rudyard Kipling is the kind of rip-roaring adventure tale that doesn’t really get made any more, and features drama, comedy, suspense, action and two lovely performances from Sean Connery and Michael Caine. At its core it’s a heartfelt look at an enduring friendship overtaken by one man’s delusion of grandeur, but it’s also a penetrating examination of the abuse of power and the consequences thereof.

Man Who Would Be King, The

10) Shampoo – For some this is Warren Beatty’s finest hour, but the plaudits must go to his co-screenwriter, Robert Towne, for constructing such a beautifully realised satire on the fallout from the sexual revolution that took place in the Sixties and the way in which it gave way to a period of political paranoia. The cast hit all the right notes with ease, Hal Ashby directs with his usual simplicity and attention to framing, and the caustic humour is used more subtly than expected, making the contexts it relates to more important – and effective – than having a slew of one-liners.

Shampoo

The Terminal (2004)

16 Saturday Aug 2014

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Terminal, The

D: Steven Spielberg / 128m

Cast: Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Stanley Tucci, Chi McBride, Diego Luna, Barry Shabaka Henley, Kumar Pallana, Zoe Saldana, Eddie Jones, Michael Nouri

Arriving at JFK International Airport, Viktor Navorski (Hanks) learns that while he was travelling from his home country of Krakozhia, a civil war has broken out and all travel permits and visas have been suspended; this means he can’t return home.  To make matters worse, the US government is refusing to recognise the revolutionary Krakozhian government, so won’t allow anyone from there to enter the US.  This makes Viktor “unacceptable”.  The only place he can stay is in the airport’s international terminal, something that Customs and Border Protection head Frank Dixon (Tucci) isn’t happy about but believes will be only temporary.

Viktor settles in at Gate 67 which is unfinished.  From there he ventures forth each day in the hope that the civil war has ended and he can either go home or go into New York as he’d originally planned (he has made a promise to do something for his father, who has recently died).  Through this he strikes up a friendship with Dolores (Saldana), a Customs officer who processes visa applications.  This in turn leads to a friendship with Enrique (Luna), an airport worker who has a crush on Dolores.  In return for food that hasn’t been used on flights, Viktor learns about Dolores’ likes and dislikes and relays this information back to Enrique.  During this time, Viktor also meets air stewardess Amelia (Zeta-Jones).  His attraction to her is tempered by her seeing a married man, Max (Nouri), but a relationship develops between them nevertheless.

As Viktor gets to know more of the airport staff – including Mulroy (McBride) and Gupta (Pallana) – Dixon becomes more and more irritated by his presence in the airport.  He tries to persuade Viktor to leave the airport but Viktor doesn’t take the bait.  With an important inspection coming up that will help towards an expected promotion, Dixon is anxious that nothing interfere with his plans, yet when a desperate Russian with undocumented drugs for his father arrives on the day of the inspection, Viktor interprets for him and resolves the situation with a lie, making Dixon furious with him. This makes Viktor very popular with the rest of the airport staff.

Viktor also continues to see Amelia when she flies in and when she tells him she’s stopped seeing Max, Viktor arranges a romantic dinner but it turns out Amelia has resumed the relationship (though this has an unexpected benefit later on).  When the war in Krakozhia ends, Dixon tells Viktor he has to return home and that he can’t go into New York; with the plane home ready to take off, Gupta stands on the tarmac and blocks it from moving, giving Viktor the chance to leave the airport and honour the promise he made to his father.

Terminal, The - scene

With a wonderful central performance from Hanks, The Terminal is glossy whimsy of the highest quality, a modern day fairy tale that features a princess in peril (Amelia), a wicked ogre (Dixon), three fairy godmothers (Enrique, Mulroy and Gupta), a maid (Dolores), and a handsome prince (Viktor – kind of).  It’s hugely enjoyable and is the type of movie that you can watch over and over again and still spot things you missed every other time (such as the head of the Statue of Liberty – keep an eye peeled, it’s there).  And like all good fairy tales it has a happy ending (though not the kind you might be thinking of).

Based around the true story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian refugee who spent eighteen years living in the departure lounge of Terminal One at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport, The Terminal downplays the drama inherent in such a predicament in favour of a heartwarming tale that is often hilarious, and which adds a romantic element that is both cute and bittersweet.  The script by Sacha Gervasi and Jeff Nathanson is structured much like a play, with act one concerning Viktor’s arrival at the airport, act two detailing his coming to terms with living in the airport, and act three showing his becoming a valued and respected member of the airport “staff”.  It’s a cleverly constructed script, with nods to wider issues such as immigration and racism, but included in such a way that they don’t intrude on the feelgood, aspirational  drive of the movie, or its message that tenacity and self-belief will always see you through.

It’s Viktor’s positive nature – so ably portrayed by Hanks – that is so affecting, his resourcefulness and persistence the very qualities we would like to think we’d have if we were in his position.  Hanks is nothing less than superb in a performance that is as richly nuanced as any other he’s given.  His choice of expressions alone offers a masterclass in acting; the scene in the men’s room when a traveller asks him, “Ever feel like you’re living in an airport?” is worth watching just for the stupefied look Viktor gives as a silent reply – and it’s made all the more impressive for being a reflection (and Hanks makes it all seem so effortless).

He has some great support too.  Zeta-Jones, still fresh from her Oscar-winning turn in Chicago (2002), makes Amelia appealing and sad at the same time, and in doing so makes the character more credible as Viktor’s possible love interest.  As the hard-nosed Customs and Borderland Protection administrator, Tucci is contained and hard to like but it’s a subtler performance than at first meets the eye, with echoes of a more sympathetic man showing through at odd moments.  And then there’s Pallana, whose deceptively expressive features are a joy to watch, his character’s unwavering paranoia amusing and wistful and, ultimately, well justified.  Luna plays Enrique as an adorable puppy, while McBride and Hensley are more stoic, and as Dolores, Saldana’s sunny approach to the character makes her more and more likeable as the movie goes on (it’s also fun to discover that Dolores is a Trekkie).

With all this favourable material allied to a raft of great performances, it comes as no surprise that Spielberg orchestrates everything with consummate ease, employing a lightness of touch that helps elevate Viktor’s plight from personal tragedy to unalloyed victory.  There’s more than a hint of Thirties screwball comedy in The Terminal, especially in Viktor’s confrontations with Dixon, and it’s to Spielberg’s credit that he augments such a contemporary story with such “old-fashioned” elements, and does it so seamlessly.  As with Hanks’ performance, this is one of Spielberg’s less appreciated movies, but one serious misstep aside – would Dixon really have been promoted after he grabbed Viktor by the neck and remonstrated with him? – he hits the movie out of the ballpark.

Rating: 8/10 – ripe for reassessment, The Terminal showcases an actor and a director working completely in synch, and providing their audience with a delightful slice of feelgood entertainment; richly detailed and with a clutch of stand-out moments, this is avowedly superior stuff.

 

Poster of the Week – Schindler’s List (1993)

05 Tuesday Aug 2014

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Schindler's List

Schindler’s List (1993)

Sometimes the most effective posters are the simplest, the ones that offer the least amount of graphics, the least amount of text, and the least amount of information.  Often it’s a single image that will feature, something that is integral to the mood of the movie, or gives an impression of the subject matter.  At other times, it’s just the movie’s title, bold against a plain background, that is all that’s needed.  In many ways it’s this simplicity that is more effective than a poster that has lots of things “going on” in it, where the publicity department has decided sensory overload is the way to go.

But this poster for Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece is a perfect match for the movie’s solemn, haunting intensity.  With its uncompromising black background and sombre appearance the potential viewer is immediately alerted to the serious nature of the movie itself.  It’s a striking effect, that background, harsh and forbidding and so unlike the usual colourful or artistically driven posters that we’re more used to.

The background, while effective on its own, also serves to highlight the three components that make up the only respite from all that darkness.  There’s the legend “A Film by Steven Spielberg” tightly assembled above the movie’s title, the first of three complementary fonts used, but not overshadowing the title, its larger, more decorative appearance drawing the eye first and foremost.  And then the eye is drawn downward to the quote from the Talmud, the words slightly transparent towards the top of each letter, as if the very saying itself is in danger of disappearing, a subtle underlining of its importance to the story itself.

And then there’s the single image, a dying candle in its holder, a red flame representing fading hope but also endurance, its splash of colour both relevant to the image and reflective of the visual motif that appears in the movie itself.  It’s a quiet masterstroke, a beautiful touch that speaks volumes, affecting and dramatic and powerful all at the same time.

Agree?  Disagree?  Feel free to let me know.