Ten films I liked that came out in Australian cinemas in 2016, in no particular order:
Elle - a confronting film in that it consistently refuses to give the audience what they expect (to the point where several synopses tend to describe a far more conventional film than what we get). This is absolutely a vehicle for Isabelle Huppert to play a character who seeks no sympathy and instead is relentlessly fascinating and engrossing. This asks a hell of a lot of questions about sex, violence and female empowerment and answers almost none of them, but it's fascinating none the less.
The Witch - I had a friend who claimed this isn't a horror movie. As far as I'm concerned, he's wrong. This is creepy, twisted cinema that uses the premise "what if everything the puritans feared was real" and goes with it into disturbingly destructive territory. It's about spreading insanity inside an isolated family as the forces that keep them retreated together tear them apart rapidly once darker thoughts come in.
Zootopia - I love this film unabashedly. It's an unusually political film for Disney, about how fear is used in manipulating people, and it's one of Disney's best thought-through worlds, as every animalistic feature is chosen perfectly for the character. It's a film about a society as much as its protagonists, and if it's ultimately more hopeful than the real world has turned out to be this year... well, that's what filmic fantasy is for. Hope.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople - I love this film so much I recommended it to practically everyone I know - there are some films you only recommend to people who are on the right wavelength, but with this one, you just need to be human for it to work. It's a funky fun film about childhood and family and finding your place in the world with its own unique sense of humour, an adventure with heart and soul and toughness in all the right places. It's got Sam Neill's best performance in ages, it's got a kid whose personality bleeds off the screen in Julian Dennison, and it proves Taika Waititi is absolutely a director to watch out for.
Hell or High Water - A west-texas crime thriller that operates without clear goodies and baddies (all the characters live somewhere in a morally grey area), this has Jeff Bridges in possibly his most Jeff-Bridges-iest performance ever, along with strong work from Ben Foster and Chris Pine as a pair of bank robbing brothers - one responsible, one not. If the ending is slightly inevitable, it's none the worse for that - there's a grim logic to this that really works.
I Daniel Blake - Ken Loach apparently came out of retirement to do this, and if so, it's only because this is the film that absolutely sums up all of his strengths (and precious few of his weaknesses). A personal story that also doubles as an indictment of the uncaring economic forces that crush a working-class man struggling to keep afloat after a heart attack, adrift in a social security system that sees him as nothing more than an obligation they want to discharge. It's funny, it's brutal, it's entirely contemporary and it was a justifiable Palme D'Or winner.
Kubo and the Two Strings - This is pure magic from Laika, a story about a boy facing loss and adversity with bravery and compassion. It's got beautiful production design, with strange exotic creatures and landscapes to be traversed, it's got characters of strength and integrity, it's got humour and it's got a clever ending to wrap up things quite unexpectedly.
Room - This is a film that absolutely commits to its core idea and thereby makes something palatable that should by all rights be incredibly off putting. By taking the kids eye view of a situation that is brutal and unpleasant, we somehow get to know exactly what is happening and how horrible it is without ever being completely crushed by it. This idea of a kid's fantasy world redeeming awful events is a concept that Terry Gilliam notably stumbled in with "Tideland", done completely right. Performances by Brie Larson as the mum and Jacob Tremblay as the kid are the pure centre of this film, and both are gripping. If Lenny Abrahamson can do both this and the completely different but also best-of-the-year "Frank", there's no telling what he'll be up to next.
Steve Jobs - Aaron Sorkin cannot write ordinary people having ordinary conversations, or people doing regular things. Stick them anywhere conventional and his people will inevitably sound like self-important twats over-inflating their own worth. Stick them somewhere where that self-importance is at least somewhat justified, though, and you have magic. This is a classic example of "screenplays are structure" - the three-product-launch structure and the conversations taking place beforehand are, of course, absolutely a contrivance (the film even admits to it) but by keeping everything focussed on a couple of small events rather than trying to get everything into two hours, we get to go a bit deeper into what makes Jobs tick, and I found this absolutely compelling viewing.
Green Room - A simply designed but well-excecuted tight thriller as a punk band ends up besieged in the green room of a neo-nazi club (with the nemeses led by an appropriately skin-headed Patrick Stewart), this is tense, gripping cinema to rattle your nerves, effective in keeping the audience tense for as long as possible.
Friday 30 December 2016
Moana
The Disney princess is an ever-expanding world, taking in a wide variety of girls from fish to redheads to even Sarah Silverman (dammit, Vanelope Van Der Schweetz is a Disney Princess). But Moana may be one of their more proactive princesses - there's not even the vaguest hint of a handsome prince in this one, and she's suitably plucky and determined and has a heroic theme-song to voyage forth.
Disney clearly know what they're doing with this sorta thing, and do it very well. Voice casting and direction is top-notch - Dwayne Johnson, for instance, could be counted on to get the braggart and the self-important bits of his demi-god Maui, but who'd have guessed he could be so touching when he needs to be? Clearly Disney did.
This is the typical Disney semi-musical, and in this case the songs are part-written by Broadway Wunderkind of the moment Lin-Manuel Miranda. The're an eclectic bunch - some islander chanting for "We know the way", a traditional heroic-girl-I-want song for "How Far I'll go", a Bowie tribute for Jermaine Clement's monster with "Shiny", and a rumpus for Dwayne Johnson (yes, the Rock sings! Quite well, too!). If there's no breakout "Let it Go" sized hit here, that's probably going to be gratefully appreciated by parents everywhere.
In short, this is good quality Disney work to provide happiness to many, with cute animal sidekicks and everything. Recommended.
Disney clearly know what they're doing with this sorta thing, and do it very well. Voice casting and direction is top-notch - Dwayne Johnson, for instance, could be counted on to get the braggart and the self-important bits of his demi-god Maui, but who'd have guessed he could be so touching when he needs to be? Clearly Disney did.
This is the typical Disney semi-musical, and in this case the songs are part-written by Broadway Wunderkind of the moment Lin-Manuel Miranda. The're an eclectic bunch - some islander chanting for "We know the way", a traditional heroic-girl-I-want song for "How Far I'll go", a Bowie tribute for Jermaine Clement's monster with "Shiny", and a rumpus for Dwayne Johnson (yes, the Rock sings! Quite well, too!). If there's no breakout "Let it Go" sized hit here, that's probably going to be gratefully appreciated by parents everywhere.
In short, this is good quality Disney work to provide happiness to many, with cute animal sidekicks and everything. Recommended.
Thursday 29 December 2016
Allied
Tis the season of everything-old-is-new-again, with this return to the world-war-two thriller genre. Brad Pitt and Marion Cottilard play two anti-german agents in Casablanca, both preparing to kill the local ambassador. Their cover requires them to pose as husband and wife, and faking intimacy leads to a real relationship (including the return of Brad Pitt's bum, the body part that give him his big break back in "Thelma and Louise"). After their mission succeds, he brings her to London, marries her and starts a family - but then the higher ups advise she may actually be a German double-agent. What will he do to find out truth, and what might he have to do once he finds it?
Pitt is much less interesting as a leading man than he is in character roles, and while handsome, that doesn't always translate to romantic chemistry. While the film is a tad more explicit than the old school stuff (Pitt and Cotillard have a big lust-in-the-desert scene and another grapple in the english countyside, plus he drops a few F words, he has a lesbian sister, and there's one party during the blitz that turns into a free-for-all-bachannal), it's still very retro in its general manner. The setup phase during the mission in Casablanca is a bit touch-and-go, too - the film only really starts firing on all cylinders late in that mission, and that rolls into the English sequences.
Ultimately, this is probably pretty disposable stuff - if you miss it, you haven't missed much, but if you see it, you probably won't be too irritated by it.
Pitt is much less interesting as a leading man than he is in character roles, and while handsome, that doesn't always translate to romantic chemistry. While the film is a tad more explicit than the old school stuff (Pitt and Cotillard have a big lust-in-the-desert scene and another grapple in the english countyside, plus he drops a few F words, he has a lesbian sister, and there's one party during the blitz that turns into a free-for-all-bachannal), it's still very retro in its general manner. The setup phase during the mission in Casablanca is a bit touch-and-go, too - the film only really starts firing on all cylinders late in that mission, and that rolls into the English sequences.
Ultimately, this is probably pretty disposable stuff - if you miss it, you haven't missed much, but if you see it, you probably won't be too irritated by it.
The Edge of Seventeen
The coming-of-age movie has a long history to it - and the dysfunctional female-lead teenage comedy goes back to at least "Heathers". "Edge of Seventeen", though, is a strange kinda breakthrough, in that it feels like it's actually about a teenager in all their inward contradictions, rather than an adult who happens to still be in high school. Nadine, our protagonist, desperately wants to transcend everything that keeps her where she is - her family, her virginity, her own personal incompetence - but is trapped by the fact that she's just not ready yet, and frequently lashes out quite unpleasantly at everyone around her. The film sympathises with her without letting her off the hook for her failings - she is a wildly immature young woman, but not a monster. Her crashings and burnings through the trials of teenagehood, when nobody seems to be on her side, is awkward, hilarious and touching.
Wednesday 28 December 2016
Paterson
Jim Jarmusch's minimalism can be disconcerting to someone who is, as I've mentioned elsewhere, as massively-plot-focussed as I am. It seems to work best either in films that have a short-film structure (either directly, like "Night on Earth" or "Coffee and Cigarettes", or mildly hidden, like "Broken Flowers", which essentially restarts the plot every time Bill Murray encounters another character), or films that have a genre-through line that keeps them engaging ("Down By Law" has the prison escape, "Ghost Dog" has the samurai/revenge plot). "Paterson" has little of these (maybe a little of the hidden short-film structure) but instead has a Monday-Sunday structure dealing with Paterson's everyday life as a bus-driver, occasional private poet, and partner to the more ostentatiously artistic Laura. The everydayness (and repetitiveness) can be a little wearying in the early stages, though there is a zen-like calmness and acceptance that comes (it possibly helps that the incidents on Friday, Saturday and Sunday feel a little bigger and more impactful than the early stages).
Adam Driver spends a lot of the film reacting rather than necessarily taking particularly active action, but he's a solid protagonist to lay everything else on (and there is one hysterical moment where he tries to keep down an unspeakable meal that Laura makes for him). I wound up quite enjoying this, although I do still feel that the opening thirty-or-so minutes are a bit of a slog (and will admit to having shut-eye during some of them). And this is a small story about a mild man of mild accomplishments. But it does have that certain human something that feels generous of soul.
Adam Driver spends a lot of the film reacting rather than necessarily taking particularly active action, but he's a solid protagonist to lay everything else on (and there is one hysterical moment where he tries to keep down an unspeakable meal that Laura makes for him). I wound up quite enjoying this, although I do still feel that the opening thirty-or-so minutes are a bit of a slog (and will admit to having shut-eye during some of them). And this is a small story about a mild man of mild accomplishments. But it does have that certain human something that feels generous of soul.
Sing!
Sometimes a movie comes along that is so good at what it does that it kills other movies that are trying to be in the same genre. That movie this year, for me, was "Zootopia", which was so good at creating a culture and a purpose for its city-of-talking-animals premise that it's managed to make two of Illumination's animated features look feeble by comparison. "Secret Life of Pets" was generic in several other ways too, from its borrowed-from-Toy-Story-premise of two rival dogs who need to get home downwards, but "Sing", while nice enough in the watching, is separately flawed.
For a start, there's never really a clear idea where it's meant to be taking place. Iconography appears to be grabbed at random between San Francisco and Los Angeles, And there really isn't a reason why many of the animals are the particular animal they are - or if there is, it's used in service of a one off gag only (the payoff to why the impresario of the theatre is a Koala and why his best friend is a sheep is pretty good, but the rest don't really do a lot). The subplots are overloaded and rarely overlap particularly, meaning that the finale concert is just a series of individual endings rather than a team effort. Nothing really seems to be thought through beyond it's immediate effect - Reese Witherspoon's Rosita invents an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine to help her get away to rehearsals, but there's no payoff within the context of the wider film, her abilities are only confined to her subplot).
I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a little bit of entertainment in this - but for a film with a long-ish running time, this doesn't feel like it's been fully thought through and worked on - it feels like the kinda thing Disney would send back for a second or third or fiftieth redraft until the film went from "okay" to "utter perfection". Which is why Disney is Disney and Illumination ... isn't.
For a start, there's never really a clear idea where it's meant to be taking place. Iconography appears to be grabbed at random between San Francisco and Los Angeles, And there really isn't a reason why many of the animals are the particular animal they are - or if there is, it's used in service of a one off gag only (the payoff to why the impresario of the theatre is a Koala and why his best friend is a sheep is pretty good, but the rest don't really do a lot). The subplots are overloaded and rarely overlap particularly, meaning that the finale concert is just a series of individual endings rather than a team effort. Nothing really seems to be thought through beyond it's immediate effect - Reese Witherspoon's Rosita invents an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine to help her get away to rehearsals, but there's no payoff within the context of the wider film, her abilities are only confined to her subplot).
I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a little bit of entertainment in this - but for a film with a long-ish running time, this doesn't feel like it's been fully thought through and worked on - it feels like the kinda thing Disney would send back for a second or third or fiftieth redraft until the film went from "okay" to "utter perfection". Which is why Disney is Disney and Illumination ... isn't.
Tuesday 27 December 2016
Office Christmas Party
A film that's pretty much as generic as it's title, "Office Christmas Party" is very much a standard issue US comedy where the heroic protagonists engage in all kinds of unruly behaviour both to celebrate the season and to hopefully win one big business account. Few actors emerge with particular credit - Jason Bateman is still stuck in roughly exactly the same role he's been performing since 2003's "Arrested Development", TJ Miller's playing a less interesting variation on his "Silicon Valley" character, Jennifer Aniston's applying the same bitchiness she had for "Horrible Bosses", and so on down the cast list. Kate McKinnon almost manages to make her uptight HR figure work (despite more than one fart joke). But really, this feels utterly photocopied from several other movies without an original thought in its brain.
Well, mostly. The last-minute-twist that saves the company is so utterly ludicrous I don't think any other movie would be dumb enough to include it. But one last minute ludicrous twist is not enough to save this from the ranks of the truly inessential.
Well, mostly. The last-minute-twist that saves the company is so utterly ludicrous I don't think any other movie would be dumb enough to include it. But one last minute ludicrous twist is not enough to save this from the ranks of the truly inessential.
Rogue One
"Star Wars" is my generation's mythology. It's simply ingrained in us. There's something fundamental about the battle between good and evil, in a galaxy far far away, where pure heroes fight dark villains.
"Rogue One" takes a couple of interesting risks with this formula - some of which work, some of which don't as well. For starters, this is a story very much about the soldiers on the sidelines - those whose bodycount forms the background for the other films' heroics. A team assembled just to allow other people to get a chance to end the suffering.
The opening couple of scenes are a bit all-over-the-place - our characters aren't quite focussed on a mission, so much as all out for their own ends, without a clear idea where everything is going. But as the plot develops, everything starts to pull together, until the final half-hour is pure epic heroics with a brutal undercurrent, as we know not all the heroes are going to make it out alive.
Director Gareth Edwards excels at the big stuff - the battles and explosions and space battles. The individual character-level stuff is a bit spottier - the two highlights being Alan Tudyk's sarcastic droid and Donnie Yen's blind monk (paying slight tribute to the saga's samurai roots by basically being Zatoichi). Yes, this is a nostalgia trip, but it's a trip that feels rich in its own right, rather than just picking up reflected glories (or, as some nostalgia trips have done, lessening the impact of the first films).
"Rogue One" takes a couple of interesting risks with this formula - some of which work, some of which don't as well. For starters, this is a story very much about the soldiers on the sidelines - those whose bodycount forms the background for the other films' heroics. A team assembled just to allow other people to get a chance to end the suffering.
The opening couple of scenes are a bit all-over-the-place - our characters aren't quite focussed on a mission, so much as all out for their own ends, without a clear idea where everything is going. But as the plot develops, everything starts to pull together, until the final half-hour is pure epic heroics with a brutal undercurrent, as we know not all the heroes are going to make it out alive.
Director Gareth Edwards excels at the big stuff - the battles and explosions and space battles. The individual character-level stuff is a bit spottier - the two highlights being Alan Tudyk's sarcastic droid and Donnie Yen's blind monk (paying slight tribute to the saga's samurai roots by basically being Zatoichi). Yes, this is a nostalgia trip, but it's a trip that feels rich in its own right, rather than just picking up reflected glories (or, as some nostalgia trips have done, lessening the impact of the first films).
Monday 26 December 2016
Rosalie Blum
Vincent is a mildly lonely hairdresser, living downstairs from his mum in a small town, with a life that isn't quite going anywhere. Then a trip across town suddenly introduces him to Rosalie Blum, a woman he's sure he's seen before. And so struck is he by her that he feels the need to follow her. Frequently. Until suddenly something very different starts to reveal itself...
This does sound an awful lot like a "stalking is very charming" film. And to a certain extent, yes, that's the opening premise. But the story does eventually open up to be about something else - somewhere around the one-third mark. This is still a bit of a French Charm Offensive, with everybody kinda sweet and wacky and a little bit odd, but it's an offensive that works - you are won over by these odd people in their individual quests to find something to keep themselves occupied. The story unravels in a smooth, gentle way - not something that's ever going to rock your world, but it's going to make you feel nice and cosy. Jean Rappeneau directs with a firm hand - again, there isn't really anything here where you're going to be knocked out, but it works as what it is, a fun gallic trifle.
This does sound an awful lot like a "stalking is very charming" film. And to a certain extent, yes, that's the opening premise. But the story does eventually open up to be about something else - somewhere around the one-third mark. This is still a bit of a French Charm Offensive, with everybody kinda sweet and wacky and a little bit odd, but it's an offensive that works - you are won over by these odd people in their individual quests to find something to keep themselves occupied. The story unravels in a smooth, gentle way - not something that's ever going to rock your world, but it's going to make you feel nice and cosy. Jean Rappeneau directs with a firm hand - again, there isn't really anything here where you're going to be knocked out, but it works as what it is, a fun gallic trifle.
La La Land
The old-fashioned Hollywood Romance, with singing and dancing and all that, has been long in abeyance. Attempts in the seventies and early eighties to give it a comeback by Martin Scorcese and Francis Ford Coppola were signature flops ("New York New York" and "One from the Heart" respectively). So how is it that Damien Chazelle is able to capture it so well?
Well, it turns out it's the chemistry, stupid. Robert DeNiro and Frederick Forrest are both highly skilled actors, but romantic chemistry is not in their wheelhouse. But it is definitely in Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone's. Chazelle bets a lot on that chemistry - they are basically the only two characters in the film, and if that doesn't work, the entire film disappears down the drain - but it pays off well. You want to see these two people together and you enjoy it when they are.
Of the other elements - the songs themselves are no more than middling, and the plot itself is mostly something that exists to give the characters things to do rather than something particularly driving. But this is such a gorgous film to look at (lush retro cinematography and the not-inconsiderable-charms of the two leads) that it barely matters. It's a bit of a lopsided love-letter to LA, the city that both offers dreams and denies them simultaneously, where this kind of simple fantasy can come alive under the ever-present sun.
This is a very comfy film to go into awards season with - its major intent is to entertain rather than to deeply plow into the human condition - but none the worse for that.
Well, it turns out it's the chemistry, stupid. Robert DeNiro and Frederick Forrest are both highly skilled actors, but romantic chemistry is not in their wheelhouse. But it is definitely in Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone's. Chazelle bets a lot on that chemistry - they are basically the only two characters in the film, and if that doesn't work, the entire film disappears down the drain - but it pays off well. You want to see these two people together and you enjoy it when they are.
Of the other elements - the songs themselves are no more than middling, and the plot itself is mostly something that exists to give the characters things to do rather than something particularly driving. But this is such a gorgous film to look at (lush retro cinematography and the not-inconsiderable-charms of the two leads) that it barely matters. It's a bit of a lopsided love-letter to LA, the city that both offers dreams and denies them simultaneously, where this kind of simple fantasy can come alive under the ever-present sun.
This is a very comfy film to go into awards season with - its major intent is to entertain rather than to deeply plow into the human condition - but none the worse for that.
Thursday 22 December 2016
Up for Love
Romantic comedy throws a lot of awkward obstacles in the face of true love. Can two people find love on opposite sides of the country (Sleepless in Seattle)? Can love bloom in what starts as a financial transaction? (Pretty Woman) Or in this case - can love bloom when the guy is a whole lot shorter than the girl?
Yes, that does not seem like a particularly compelling concept. And when you consider Jean Dujardin is a regular-highted actor and therefore is only shrunken through special effects, meaning that he and Virginie Efira (as the girl) aren't able to touch particularly regularly (as everytime they do, it's an expensive effects shot), it's even further weakened. With all this obvious baggage on board, the rest of the film is pretty mild and charming in that not-trying-very-hard-French-way, and the story starts to be "can a woman fall in love if all her friends are horrible people". Dujardin's character is a pleasant charmer with not a lot of complications, Efira is a lovely lady with a dodgy ex-husband and a doepy secretary, and it's only very rarely that we get any suggestion that there's anything particularly holding them apart (a brief moment where seeing him in a mirror shows his i childlike proportions to Efira, which is momentarily a bit interesting, but then that's hurried away from again).
This isn't an utterly uncharming way to waste an hour and a half, but it is kinda pointless. It's not so much a "go see it" as "you don't have to run in the opposite direction if this is showing near you"
Yes, that does not seem like a particularly compelling concept. And when you consider Jean Dujardin is a regular-highted actor and therefore is only shrunken through special effects, meaning that he and Virginie Efira (as the girl) aren't able to touch particularly regularly (as everytime they do, it's an expensive effects shot), it's even further weakened. With all this obvious baggage on board, the rest of the film is pretty mild and charming in that not-trying-very-hard-French-way, and the story starts to be "can a woman fall in love if all her friends are horrible people". Dujardin's character is a pleasant charmer with not a lot of complications, Efira is a lovely lady with a dodgy ex-husband and a doepy secretary, and it's only very rarely that we get any suggestion that there's anything particularly holding them apart (a brief moment where seeing him in a mirror shows his i childlike proportions to Efira, which is momentarily a bit interesting, but then that's hurried away from again).
This isn't an utterly uncharming way to waste an hour and a half, but it is kinda pointless. It's not so much a "go see it" as "you don't have to run in the opposite direction if this is showing near you"
Tuesday 20 December 2016
Dancer
There are two things in making a good documentary. First, you must have a good subject. Second, you must exploit that subject to full effect.
"Dancer" has the first, but doesn't quite hit the second. Sergei Polunin is an incredible dancer, with a grand array of leaps and movements and an agressive ability to stalk the stage, dominating it. He's also deeply conflicted about his own job - his family sacrificed incredibly to allow him to train at the top level, but while performing at the UK royal ballet he had a mental snap and fled back to eastern Europe. There's drugs, there's confusion, there's a young man trying to figure out what he wants to do when he's been carved very distinctly into being good at this one, physically demanding, thing.
Alas, this is also an authorised film, so it doesn't quite dwell deeply enough into the various issues involved. The drugs in particular are almost skirted over - we don't really know what this meant to his body, or what this meant to his mind, Polunin's declarations that he's quitting dancing feel particularly weird as ... well, he doesn't actually appear to be doing that. The climactic video, shot by David LaChapelle, is an emotional and artistic crescendo, but the follow up as the video gets comments like "inspires me to be a dancer" should feel far more conflicted than they actually do - is bringing more people into a body-breaking profession like this really a good thing?
Still, this does have Polunin's dancing compiled in interesting ways and a broad outline of the issues that his life gives rise to, even if it doesn't, for my taste, cut quite deep enough.
"Dancer" has the first, but doesn't quite hit the second. Sergei Polunin is an incredible dancer, with a grand array of leaps and movements and an agressive ability to stalk the stage, dominating it. He's also deeply conflicted about his own job - his family sacrificed incredibly to allow him to train at the top level, but while performing at the UK royal ballet he had a mental snap and fled back to eastern Europe. There's drugs, there's confusion, there's a young man trying to figure out what he wants to do when he's been carved very distinctly into being good at this one, physically demanding, thing.
Alas, this is also an authorised film, so it doesn't quite dwell deeply enough into the various issues involved. The drugs in particular are almost skirted over - we don't really know what this meant to his body, or what this meant to his mind, Polunin's declarations that he's quitting dancing feel particularly weird as ... well, he doesn't actually appear to be doing that. The climactic video, shot by David LaChapelle, is an emotional and artistic crescendo, but the follow up as the video gets comments like "inspires me to be a dancer" should feel far more conflicted than they actually do - is bringing more people into a body-breaking profession like this really a good thing?
Still, this does have Polunin's dancing compiled in interesting ways and a broad outline of the issues that his life gives rise to, even if it doesn't, for my taste, cut quite deep enough.
The Fencer
A Finnish/Estonian co-production that tells the story of events in post world-war 2 Estonia, where a country that had been occupied by the Nazis was now occupied by the Russians instead, and where people's pasts could very easily be suddenly used against them. It's a paranoid time into which arrives a new schoolteacher who sets up a fencing club. Many of the kids are orphaned or just have a mother after the war and the soviet purges that have followed, so the activity becomes increasingly appealing to them. But the headmaster and the local political officer are increasingly against the club, and it seems inevitable the secrets of the schoolteacher's past are going to have to come out....
This is a film that has a little bit of cliche at the centre of it - the kids are a ragtag bunch who get inspired by their teacher, and there's elements of the sports movie in the climax as the schoolteacher take the kids to a tournament in Leningrad. But the reason cliches come back is because, if deployed correctly, they work. And they largely work in this - in particular, some of the kid actors are pretty damn good, I can't argue that this is amazing and unmissable, but it is a nice story nicely told.
This is a film that has a little bit of cliche at the centre of it - the kids are a ragtag bunch who get inspired by their teacher, and there's elements of the sports movie in the climax as the schoolteacher take the kids to a tournament in Leningrad. But the reason cliches come back is because, if deployed correctly, they work. And they largely work in this - in particular, some of the kid actors are pretty damn good, I can't argue that this is amazing and unmissable, but it is a nice story nicely told.
The Founder
Ray Kroc is known as the founder of McDonalds. But, well, he isn't. He's the guy that spread the fast-food gospel, getting the franchise to move from one burger stand to the across-America phenomena it became (future CEOs would get it to go international). That simple inflation, though - that desire to be just a bit more than he actually is, defines the guy. He's that dark side of American Capitalism, a kind of pointless desperation just to be the best guy, not for any financial reasons, just because if you're not the best you don't count.
Michael Keaton almost manages to make this creature vaguely sympathetic. It's easier in the early stages, where he's struggling, than it is later on, when he's demolishing people around him just cause he can. He dismisses his marriage (this is a flaw in the film - Laura Dern's wife character disappears after the divorce and doesn't even get the benefit of a closing wrapup "this is what happened to her later" - possibly nothing much did, but I wish the screenwriters had thought her at least wothy of five minutes of research), he dismisses the guys who actually came up with the McDonalds concept (the McDonald brothers, played well by John Carroll Lynch as the avuncular Mac and Nick Offerman as the somewhat more technically minded Dick) and a couple of other business partners along the way.
This is a little bit "failed oscar bait" - it doesn't seem to have picked up on the awards circuit and that does appear to be kinda the reason why it was made. And this is a little soft at the centre - it's not quite willing to commit to blackening the name of American Capitalism, though it does incidentally make it look kinda bad. But it does have a nice motion to it, and a pretty strong cast. I fully admit that I probably buy into the "lives of awful men" trope a fair bit, so I was happy to go with this, but this isn't exactly the strongest meat out there. Still, it's effective in telling the story it's got
Michael Keaton almost manages to make this creature vaguely sympathetic. It's easier in the early stages, where he's struggling, than it is later on, when he's demolishing people around him just cause he can. He dismisses his marriage (this is a flaw in the film - Laura Dern's wife character disappears after the divorce and doesn't even get the benefit of a closing wrapup "this is what happened to her later" - possibly nothing much did, but I wish the screenwriters had thought her at least wothy of five minutes of research), he dismisses the guys who actually came up with the McDonalds concept (the McDonald brothers, played well by John Carroll Lynch as the avuncular Mac and Nick Offerman as the somewhat more technically minded Dick) and a couple of other business partners along the way.
This is a little bit "failed oscar bait" - it doesn't seem to have picked up on the awards circuit and that does appear to be kinda the reason why it was made. And this is a little soft at the centre - it's not quite willing to commit to blackening the name of American Capitalism, though it does incidentally make it look kinda bad. But it does have a nice motion to it, and a pretty strong cast. I fully admit that I probably buy into the "lives of awful men" trope a fair bit, so I was happy to go with this, but this isn't exactly the strongest meat out there. Still, it's effective in telling the story it's got
Thursday 24 November 2016
Fantastic Beasts and Where To find them
It's about 5 years since the Harry Potter series wound up, and in these new franchise-happy days, that means it's time to give it a bit of a thump-along. So "Fantastic Beasts" is along to tell new stories in the same world of secretive magicians and witches, this one with a largely adult cast and a move sideways and back in time to 1920s New York.
It's a fairly basic setup - a travelling beast-collecting wizard arrives in New York and a few of his creatures escape, meanwhile a larger beastly menace is threatening to shatter the secret that keeps the magic world safe from the rampaging humans. But given JK Rowling's usual adept handling of plot and character, lightly painting a deep and complex world with just a couple of gestures, it's quite an easy film to take. And the emphasis on magical creatures means that there's a whole lot of adorably strange animals to watch.
The humans are mostly not too bad either. Eddie Redmayne has often been an actor I've found wandering between hammy and precious, but he hits a good sweet spot here as the mildly inwardly-focussed Newt. Katherine Waterston as his primary American offsider has a good tightly-wound personality. Dan Fogler as the token regular-human is basically there to receive exposition, but he functions as a sympathetic regular-guy at the same time. Colin Farrell is his usual self when he has an American accent, which is to say, middling (he's much better when Irish).
This works better as a standalone film than it does as a setup for a brand new five-film series (the "bigger picture" stuff is a tad awkward, and as usual the magical-government stuff wanders between wildly incompetent and actively unpleasant) but as a standalone film it's quite enterntaining.
It's a fairly basic setup - a travelling beast-collecting wizard arrives in New York and a few of his creatures escape, meanwhile a larger beastly menace is threatening to shatter the secret that keeps the magic world safe from the rampaging humans. But given JK Rowling's usual adept handling of plot and character, lightly painting a deep and complex world with just a couple of gestures, it's quite an easy film to take. And the emphasis on magical creatures means that there's a whole lot of adorably strange animals to watch.
The humans are mostly not too bad either. Eddie Redmayne has often been an actor I've found wandering between hammy and precious, but he hits a good sweet spot here as the mildly inwardly-focussed Newt. Katherine Waterston as his primary American offsider has a good tightly-wound personality. Dan Fogler as the token regular-human is basically there to receive exposition, but he functions as a sympathetic regular-guy at the same time. Colin Farrell is his usual self when he has an American accent, which is to say, middling (he's much better when Irish).
This works better as a standalone film than it does as a setup for a brand new five-film series (the "bigger picture" stuff is a tad awkward, and as usual the magical-government stuff wanders between wildly incompetent and actively unpleasant) but as a standalone film it's quite enterntaining.
Saturday 19 November 2016
War on Everything
Alexander Skaarsgard and Michael Pena are reasonably charasmatic actors. And director John Michael McDonagh has done reasonable films before. So why is the film they've done together so very very dull?
The basic setup of two cops who are utterly disinterested in protecting the public and just want to run around shooting people is not completely without merit. But in execution, neither character has anything going on apart from their complete amorality to make them interesting. They don't show a particular joy in their crimes, and there isn't any fun or insight for the audience either. It's 100 minutes or so of not-very-much-interesting happening. Even a side trip to Iceland, or a sudden appearance by RuPaul Drag Race alumnus Derrick Barry doesn't offer very much new or interesting to do with them. This is pretty much a waste of everyone's time. So avoid.
The basic setup of two cops who are utterly disinterested in protecting the public and just want to run around shooting people is not completely without merit. But in execution, neither character has anything going on apart from their complete amorality to make them interesting. They don't show a particular joy in their crimes, and there isn't any fun or insight for the audience either. It's 100 minutes or so of not-very-much-interesting happening. Even a side trip to Iceland, or a sudden appearance by RuPaul Drag Race alumnus Derrick Barry doesn't offer very much new or interesting to do with them. This is pretty much a waste of everyone's time. So avoid.
Thursday 17 November 2016
Nocturnal Animals
Tom Ford's previous film, "A Single Man", had a little bit of the "very prettily designed" about it - not surprisingly, as Ford's other career is as a fashion designer. But the combo of Colin Firth's deeply felt performance and Christopher Isherwood's original novel still gave it a depth beyond the pictures, a certain solemnity and basic soul in among the pretty pictures.
"Nocturnal Animals" doesn't quite have that. There's three stories being told here - Plot One is the wraparound, as Amy Adams' gallery owner recieves a book from her ex-husband, Jake Gyllenhall, and starts reading it. Plot Two is the plot of the book, as a husband (Gyllenhall again) finds himself confronted with some brutal rednecks (led by Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and pursues revenge. Plot three is the flashbacks as we see how Adams and Gyllenhall's marriage fell apart.
The main issue is that two of these plots are pretty shallow. Adams has nothing much to do in Plot One except walk around artsy places in smart clothing and have reaction shots to events in the book (and there are no other sustaining characters in Plot One, everybody else is a cameo). And Plot Three, barring a strong cameo from Laura Linney, doesn't really offer anything much new - it's familiar disintegrating-marriage-by-numbers-stuff. Plot Two is somewhat more interesting, largely because it's got the best use of Taylor-Johnson in ages, and because it also has Michael Shannon in it, playing a slightly unpredictable sherrif who helps out Gyllenhall. But the way that the three plots work together end up turing this into a sad straight man whine about how his ex-wife just didn't appreciate him (despite him not really appearing to have a hell of a lot going for him). It's emotional childishness trying to feel profound and failing rather badly.
So no, I didn't love this.
"Nocturnal Animals" doesn't quite have that. There's three stories being told here - Plot One is the wraparound, as Amy Adams' gallery owner recieves a book from her ex-husband, Jake Gyllenhall, and starts reading it. Plot Two is the plot of the book, as a husband (Gyllenhall again) finds himself confronted with some brutal rednecks (led by Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and pursues revenge. Plot three is the flashbacks as we see how Adams and Gyllenhall's marriage fell apart.
The main issue is that two of these plots are pretty shallow. Adams has nothing much to do in Plot One except walk around artsy places in smart clothing and have reaction shots to events in the book (and there are no other sustaining characters in Plot One, everybody else is a cameo). And Plot Three, barring a strong cameo from Laura Linney, doesn't really offer anything much new - it's familiar disintegrating-marriage-by-numbers-stuff. Plot Two is somewhat more interesting, largely because it's got the best use of Taylor-Johnson in ages, and because it also has Michael Shannon in it, playing a slightly unpredictable sherrif who helps out Gyllenhall. But the way that the three plots work together end up turing this into a sad straight man whine about how his ex-wife just didn't appreciate him (despite him not really appearing to have a hell of a lot going for him). It's emotional childishness trying to feel profound and failing rather badly.
So no, I didn't love this.
Thursday 10 November 2016
Arrival
It's seemed to become an annual tradition in the last four years. Sometime in October/November an honest-to-goodness adult hard-sci-fi film will release and be one of the more interesting films of the year. Not all of them entirely hold together intellectually (hi, Interstellar), and some lean harder on the "fun" size of the equation than other (hi, The Martian), and some just have bravura film-making and engaging visuals to tide over what is a pretty minamilist plot (hi Gravity), but certainly, this is an annual trend I can get behind, as an old-school scifi nerd who appreciates something trying to be a bit thinky.
"Arrival" is surprisingly tense and engrossing, given for at least half its length it's basically a film about linguistics. Amy Adams plays a linguistic professor called in by the US Military when alien ships arrive all over the world, brought in to try to find ways to communicate with an alien species. The whole film is really her journey as she develops a stronger understanding of a very different kind of sentient life. Dennis Vilneuve directs with engaging simplicity and drive - the small events of first contact loom large as they have planetary implications, and Adams is our engaging, smart centre of it all.
Which is not to suggest all of this is dry sciencey theorising. There's an engaging human story to be told in here too about discoveries and pesonal histories. But there's a lot here that's better discovered by watching the film Go see and enjoy the thinks.
"Arrival" is surprisingly tense and engrossing, given for at least half its length it's basically a film about linguistics. Amy Adams plays a linguistic professor called in by the US Military when alien ships arrive all over the world, brought in to try to find ways to communicate with an alien species. The whole film is really her journey as she develops a stronger understanding of a very different kind of sentient life. Dennis Vilneuve directs with engaging simplicity and drive - the small events of first contact loom large as they have planetary implications, and Adams is our engaging, smart centre of it all.
Which is not to suggest all of this is dry sciencey theorising. There's an engaging human story to be told in here too about discoveries and pesonal histories. But there's a lot here that's better discovered by watching the film Go see and enjoy the thinks.
The Accountant
"The Accountant" is a bit of a shemozzle of a film. THere are about four separate films fighting for space here, and most of them are not served particularly well. Ben Affleck's titular accountant is irritatingly cliche - the autistic book-keeper to all kinds of evil-doers who also happens to be an ass-kicking badass with his own complicated (or possibly just wildly confused) moral code.
There's a strong cast here, but most of them, in their various ways, are mildly wasted - Jeffery Tambor gets a scene or two but is less a character than a plot device, Anna Kendrick is adorable and sweet and is completely dumped by the film thirty minutes from the end because the writers have no use for her any more, John Lithgow again is less character than plot functionary, and Jon Benthal has some intersting moments as a potential nemesis before last minute revelations render him kinda ludicrous. JK Simmons and Cynthia Addai-Robinson are in the one interesting thread as the Treasury agents on his trail, but the film they're in really never connects with the rest of the film so much as acts as a device to provide exposition.
Gavin O'Connor's direction doesn't really embrace the ludicrousness of much of the plot so much as tries to make it look prestigious and classy - I may have enjoyed the trashy version of this, but this is nonsense that is trying to pretend to be smart and instead winds up just dull and flat.
There's a strong cast here, but most of them, in their various ways, are mildly wasted - Jeffery Tambor gets a scene or two but is less a character than a plot device, Anna Kendrick is adorable and sweet and is completely dumped by the film thirty minutes from the end because the writers have no use for her any more, John Lithgow again is less character than plot functionary, and Jon Benthal has some intersting moments as a potential nemesis before last minute revelations render him kinda ludicrous. JK Simmons and Cynthia Addai-Robinson are in the one interesting thread as the Treasury agents on his trail, but the film they're in really never connects with the rest of the film so much as acts as a device to provide exposition.
Gavin O'Connor's direction doesn't really embrace the ludicrousness of much of the plot so much as tries to make it look prestigious and classy - I may have enjoyed the trashy version of this, but this is nonsense that is trying to pretend to be smart and instead winds up just dull and flat.
Hell or High Water
Two brothers are robbing banks in West Texas. Only small amounts, only what's in the till, nothing too substantial. Two Texas Rangers are on their trail. But what motivates them and what will become of them is the meat of this engaging thriller-drama. It's clearly got modern-western influences (the depleted nature of the rural communities, the Nick Cave/Warren Ellis soundtrack, even Jeff Bridges performance, which is not wildly far away from his "True Grit" performance even if a tad less mumbly).
But most of all this is a vehicle from some great performances - Chris Pine stands out as the somewhat more decent brother, solid and true, but Ben Foster also enjoys his moments as the more improvisational-wild-card brother. And Bridges and Gil Bermingham have a lovely give-and-take companionship as the two rangers - while having Bridges be just-short-of-retirement should feel slightly cliched at this point, it mostly serves to let him be slightly outmoded and a little carefree in how he goes about his work, with Bermingham largely being his straight-man companion.
There is a pure rage that's boiling just under this about the unconscionable nature of banking in destroying rural communities, but it's never quite at the polemic level, instead letting this be about the people and the story. And this is a solidly engaging story, well told, and well worth catching.
But most of all this is a vehicle from some great performances - Chris Pine stands out as the somewhat more decent brother, solid and true, but Ben Foster also enjoys his moments as the more improvisational-wild-card brother. And Bridges and Gil Bermingham have a lovely give-and-take companionship as the two rangers - while having Bridges be just-short-of-retirement should feel slightly cliched at this point, it mostly serves to let him be slightly outmoded and a little carefree in how he goes about his work, with Bermingham largely being his straight-man companion.
There is a pure rage that's boiling just under this about the unconscionable nature of banking in destroying rural communities, but it's never quite at the polemic level, instead letting this be about the people and the story. And this is a solidly engaging story, well told, and well worth catching.
Elle
Paul Verhoven's films have played very strongly on the twin poles of Sex and Violence. And his latest film is no exception. It's a very direct film about how sex and violence affect a middle aged, wealthy frenchwoman (played astonishingly well by Isabelle Huppert). She's both victim of and practitioner of some of the worst sterotypes of sexual violence (as a top-level games designer whose work features creatures killing and raping with abandon), and a wildly human presence at the centre of many different plot threads (from family relationships to work to her religious neighbors to the film's inciting incident, a brutal assault).
It's a quite provocative film largely because it does not pretend that any one factor entirely explains a person and their experiences. Huppert gets the chance to be a truly complex character who can simultaneously be kinda an awful human being and a quite sympathetic one. It's a film that can be quite witty at some turns, quite disturbing at others. Verhoven captures a wealth of tones in a rich probing character study that is edgy, provocative, smart and moving.
It's a quite provocative film largely because it does not pretend that any one factor entirely explains a person and their experiences. Huppert gets the chance to be a truly complex character who can simultaneously be kinda an awful human being and a quite sympathetic one. It's a film that can be quite witty at some turns, quite disturbing at others. Verhoven captures a wealth of tones in a rich probing character study that is edgy, provocative, smart and moving.
Saturday 5 November 2016
Doctor Strange
I will admit it, I'm a Marvel-holic. Even the weakest of the official Marvel Cinematic Universe films usually makes me at least somewhat happy. Yes, they are simplistic blockbusters with somewhat weakly defined villians and often have a tendency to end with the baddy fighting the goody somewhere fairly high up with somewhat generic fight choreography, but for all that there's a charming lack-of-pretension and an all-round sense that it's great to spend time with these characters.
"Doctor Strange" introduces a tad more visual extravagance to the Marvel formula than usual, with the hero in this case becoming a magically-endowed sorcerer producing all kinds of fantastic effects with the aid of a bit of hand waving and a mythical artefact or two. Benedict Cumberbatch manages to trudge the path from arrogant neurosurgeon to befuddled neophyte to heroic figure (though, I note, never superbly-over-confidently-powerful - wisely, the writers give him room to get better during the sequels) with aplomb. Tilda Swinton does the lions share of the training gobbledegook and makes it sound simultaneously profound and obvious rather than befuddling and ridiculous. Benedict Wong has grumpy librarian down pat, and Chewitel Ejiofor has a nice sparkle in his eye as he appropriately doubts Strange's abilities to do the impossible. Rachel McAdams has a pretty perfunctory almost-girlfriend part (she and Strange are more exes than a couple, but she does connect back to him in one mid-film sequence that gets STrange back into the regular world before shooting him off to the impossible again) and Mads Mikkelsen glowers well as a bad guy who's doing the usual stomping around for power and dominance without much of an indication of what he's planning to do with it once he gets it.
Scott Derriksen's direction combines Marvel's usual deft character work with a bit more spectacle than usual, and never lets the people get lost in the mass of action. While there is a certain amount off bitching about superhero movies out there, if all of them were this kinda fun, I'm sure there would be much less.
"Doctor Strange" introduces a tad more visual extravagance to the Marvel formula than usual, with the hero in this case becoming a magically-endowed sorcerer producing all kinds of fantastic effects with the aid of a bit of hand waving and a mythical artefact or two. Benedict Cumberbatch manages to trudge the path from arrogant neurosurgeon to befuddled neophyte to heroic figure (though, I note, never superbly-over-confidently-powerful - wisely, the writers give him room to get better during the sequels) with aplomb. Tilda Swinton does the lions share of the training gobbledegook and makes it sound simultaneously profound and obvious rather than befuddling and ridiculous. Benedict Wong has grumpy librarian down pat, and Chewitel Ejiofor has a nice sparkle in his eye as he appropriately doubts Strange's abilities to do the impossible. Rachel McAdams has a pretty perfunctory almost-girlfriend part (she and Strange are more exes than a couple, but she does connect back to him in one mid-film sequence that gets STrange back into the regular world before shooting him off to the impossible again) and Mads Mikkelsen glowers well as a bad guy who's doing the usual stomping around for power and dominance without much of an indication of what he's planning to do with it once he gets it.
Scott Derriksen's direction combines Marvel's usual deft character work with a bit more spectacle than usual, and never lets the people get lost in the mass of action. While there is a certain amount off bitching about superhero movies out there, if all of them were this kinda fun, I'm sure there would be much less.
Sunday 30 October 2016
The Neon Demon
An arthouse inspection of the beauty industry, with the thin lines that separate appreciation and exploitation hopscotched over, "Neon Demon" is one of those films that is fascinating to look at even as you are somewhat bewildered by the thinking that went on behind it. For the first hour and a half or so, this is a reasonably standard story as Elle Fanning's Jesse wanders though the fashion industry, rising from photo shoots to catwalk and arousing the envy of some of her compeitotors, the admiration of designers, photographers and makeup artists, and the somewhat creepy attentions of her hotel landlord (Keanu Reeves).
Then for the last twenty-thirty minutes, the film goes notably insane in a grand-guignol kinda way. Much of the film beforehand does feel like a prelude to the violence to come - some of the photoshoots see Jesse manhandled and objectified in ways that feel viscerally unpleasant - but still, this isn't a film where logic is necessarily going to lead the way. It is glossy throughout, highly styalised both in look and performance.
I didn't love this - there isn't quite enough going on for the eyes or the brain that you can ignore that there isn't really a lot of empathy for anybody being shown here, But it's not utterly dismissable either - the last portion offers a couple of sights that you probably won't see many other places and a glorious lack of tastefulless.
Then for the last twenty-thirty minutes, the film goes notably insane in a grand-guignol kinda way. Much of the film beforehand does feel like a prelude to the violence to come - some of the photoshoots see Jesse manhandled and objectified in ways that feel viscerally unpleasant - but still, this isn't a film where logic is necessarily going to lead the way. It is glossy throughout, highly styalised both in look and performance.
I didn't love this - there isn't quite enough going on for the eyes or the brain that you can ignore that there isn't really a lot of empathy for anybody being shown here, But it's not utterly dismissable either - the last portion offers a couple of sights that you probably won't see many other places and a glorious lack of tastefulless.
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
The first "Jack Reacher" was perfectly well done nonsensical pulp. The character of Jack Reacher, as I gathered from that film and from a little bit of info about Lee Child's numerous novels, is a macho paladin, an ex-army Major who now wanders the US with little cash and few possessions, doing heroic deeds just because of the pure awesomeness of his nature. The fact that in the books he's ridiculously tall and in the films he's played by the not-quite-as-tall Tom Cruise doesn't particularly matter, in every other way Cruise epitomised the "I'm right and everybody else is wrong" arrogance of a pup-fiction protagonist.
"Never Go Back" softens this a bit (possibly because it can't quite go to the almost self-parodistic lengths of the first one), introducing Major Turner (Cobie Smulders), who's inherited Reacher's old job and has a phone correspondence with him. When he eventually shows up to meet her in Washington, she turns out to have been accused of treason - and Reacher therefore is compelled to clear her name, via the ever popular "beating up a whole lot of goons" method.
A scrappier, more down-and-dirty franchise than the glossy "Mission Impossible" series, this one does attempt to soften the edges a tad - by allowing Smulders to be right about things occasionally, and by introducing a 15 year old who could possibly be Reacher's daughter as a tag-along-cum-occasional-hostage. It putters along reasonably (although this also lacks the iconic villainy that Werner Herzog gave the first film), with a lot of quality punching people in the head, but this is pretty much an airport novel of a film - you're unlikely to remember much of this after you left the cinema but you may enjoy it while you're there.
"Never Go Back" softens this a bit (possibly because it can't quite go to the almost self-parodistic lengths of the first one), introducing Major Turner (Cobie Smulders), who's inherited Reacher's old job and has a phone correspondence with him. When he eventually shows up to meet her in Washington, she turns out to have been accused of treason - and Reacher therefore is compelled to clear her name, via the ever popular "beating up a whole lot of goons" method.
A scrappier, more down-and-dirty franchise than the glossy "Mission Impossible" series, this one does attempt to soften the edges a tad - by allowing Smulders to be right about things occasionally, and by introducing a 15 year old who could possibly be Reacher's daughter as a tag-along-cum-occasional-hostage. It putters along reasonably (although this also lacks the iconic villainy that Werner Herzog gave the first film), with a lot of quality punching people in the head, but this is pretty much an airport novel of a film - you're unlikely to remember much of this after you left the cinema but you may enjoy it while you're there.
Sunday 23 October 2016
Cafe Society
From I Daniel Blake to Cafe Society may seem a long way, but there are similarities ... Primarily that Loach and Allen are filmmakers with long resumes, and both turned 80 this year.
That's about where the resemblance stops, though. Allen has been massively uneven most of this millennium, with his dialogue increasingly feeling tired and like nothing any human has ever said, with the talented cast and crew doing their best to prop up an uninspired story that meanders and never really comes to a satisfactory conclusion. As a comedy it's not funny enough, and as a study of morality it's not penetrating enough. It's a well-decorated piece of nothing that means you're left to concentrate on the set-dressing and period costumes all too frequently. While there is theoretically a certain amount of plot going on screen (as Jesse Eisenberg's young Woody-surrogate visits LA to seek his fortune, is taken under the wing of his uncle, Steve Carell, and finds romance with his uncle's secretary, Kirsten Stewart), we're never really emotionally drawn in by any of this - Stewart is doing quite a lot of good work but still, it's difficult to accept she's particularly drawn to the dull, plodding, navel-gazing Eisenberg (as he's rather charmless, despite regular dialogue insistence that he's somehow very charming).
It does still have all the externals of a Woody Allen movie - the credits, the music, even the narration is by Allen. But there's nothing going on inside this, nothing compelling to tie the film together, apart from nice decor and cinematography. So it's a rather big miss.
That's about where the resemblance stops, though. Allen has been massively uneven most of this millennium, with his dialogue increasingly feeling tired and like nothing any human has ever said, with the talented cast and crew doing their best to prop up an uninspired story that meanders and never really comes to a satisfactory conclusion. As a comedy it's not funny enough, and as a study of morality it's not penetrating enough. It's a well-decorated piece of nothing that means you're left to concentrate on the set-dressing and period costumes all too frequently. While there is theoretically a certain amount of plot going on screen (as Jesse Eisenberg's young Woody-surrogate visits LA to seek his fortune, is taken under the wing of his uncle, Steve Carell, and finds romance with his uncle's secretary, Kirsten Stewart), we're never really emotionally drawn in by any of this - Stewart is doing quite a lot of good work but still, it's difficult to accept she's particularly drawn to the dull, plodding, navel-gazing Eisenberg (as he's rather charmless, despite regular dialogue insistence that he's somehow very charming).
It does still have all the externals of a Woody Allen movie - the credits, the music, even the narration is by Allen. But there's nothing going on inside this, nothing compelling to tie the film together, apart from nice decor and cinematography. So it's a rather big miss.
I Daniel Blake
Ken Loach is one of the stalwarts of the British film industry. And at age 80, he's made one of his best films, a worthy Palm D'Or winner, a scathing portrait of the modern English welfare state that keeps its characters human and engaging, simultaneously strongly political and specifically personal. It's as much about the decency of people as it is about the indecency of the systems that are meant to protect them but instead antagonise them.
The story is pretty simple: Daniel is a widower and a carpenter, but his recent heart attack means he can't work. But when his application for health benefits is knocked back, he's required to sign on as a job-seeker, even though he medically can't take any jobs that he's offered. While he waits for his appeal to be heard, he befriends a single mother whose state housing is on the other side of the country to any of her family, and helps her look after the kids as she tries to keep their family going.
Surprisingly, this isn't a miserable slog - this is a constantly lively story. Daniel himself is a pragmatic, practical, striving figure of great compassion and soul, and the characters are given their dignity even in the most trying of circumstances. We are engaged, enthralled, heartbroken and enraged. This is a masterwork from a director at the top of his game. Don't miss it.
The story is pretty simple: Daniel is a widower and a carpenter, but his recent heart attack means he can't work. But when his application for health benefits is knocked back, he's required to sign on as a job-seeker, even though he medically can't take any jobs that he's offered. While he waits for his appeal to be heard, he befriends a single mother whose state housing is on the other side of the country to any of her family, and helps her look after the kids as she tries to keep their family going.
Surprisingly, this isn't a miserable slog - this is a constantly lively story. Daniel himself is a pragmatic, practical, striving figure of great compassion and soul, and the characters are given their dignity even in the most trying of circumstances. We are engaged, enthralled, heartbroken and enraged. This is a masterwork from a director at the top of his game. Don't miss it.
Thursday 20 October 2016
Julieta
Pedro Almodavar is one of the world's most distinctive auteurs - a lot of his films are female-centred melodramas with a rich colour scheme and deeply emotional content. "Julieta" follows the trend, and centres on a woman in her early 50s who seems to have a fine house and a loving partner, and is preparing to head with him to Portugal. But a sudden encounter with a friend of her daughter sees her suddenly calling things off with the partner and moving to a cheaper apartment to write the story of her past - of how she met a man, had her daughter and what happened between them to bring her to this point.
This is really visually rich, romantic, old-school cinema. It's a pleasurable emotional indulgence. If I have a mild criticism, it's that this doesn't seem to cut as deep as some of Almodovar's work does - that you don't quite get that moment where you're caught between laughing at the hysterics and weeping at the emotional wreckage. It's a very beautiful film that didn't quite capture me by the heart, but did at least give my brains a few things to do. So that's almost enough.
This is really visually rich, romantic, old-school cinema. It's a pleasurable emotional indulgence. If I have a mild criticism, it's that this doesn't seem to cut as deep as some of Almodovar's work does - that you don't quite get that moment where you're caught between laughing at the hysterics and weeping at the emotional wreckage. It's a very beautiful film that didn't quite capture me by the heart, but did at least give my brains a few things to do. So that's almost enough.
Wednesday 19 October 2016
Inferno
No. Just ... no.
Look, I'm sure someone out there enjoys Dan Brown's weird little angle of regurgitated cultural history with a bit of conspiracy thread tying through. But really, these are very silly stories. Admittedly, the last film, "Angels and Demons", kinda had a bit of fun with it (including killing off a few cardinals in grand guignol ways and having a climax that involved anti-matter) but this is back to something largely dull. Ron Howard attempts to liven things up a bit by giving the hero demonic visions but ... it's Ron Howard doing demonic visions, it doesn't exactly startle anybody. There is no pretense that Tom Hanks and Felicity Jones are at all age-appropriate for a romance plot, which helps slightly, and Iffran Khan shows up as a shadowy fixer with a nicely sarcastic lot of dialogue, but all in all, this is a fairly dull retread in which people run around very pretty European locations to spout exposition to each other but rarely to actually do anything interesting.
Skip it.
Look, I'm sure someone out there enjoys Dan Brown's weird little angle of regurgitated cultural history with a bit of conspiracy thread tying through. But really, these are very silly stories. Admittedly, the last film, "Angels and Demons", kinda had a bit of fun with it (including killing off a few cardinals in grand guignol ways and having a climax that involved anti-matter) but this is back to something largely dull. Ron Howard attempts to liven things up a bit by giving the hero demonic visions but ... it's Ron Howard doing demonic visions, it doesn't exactly startle anybody. There is no pretense that Tom Hanks and Felicity Jones are at all age-appropriate for a romance plot, which helps slightly, and Iffran Khan shows up as a shadowy fixer with a nicely sarcastic lot of dialogue, but all in all, this is a fairly dull retread in which people run around very pretty European locations to spout exposition to each other but rarely to actually do anything interesting.
Skip it.
Shin Godzilla
Godzilla as a cinematic franchise has been around for a bit over 60 years and 31 films. So you'd think there's very little new to be said abut the creature. Shows up, stomps Tokyo, battles something, stomps off again til the next sequel.
But Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi's film is a little different. For a start, it ignores most of that 60 years of history and starts all over again with the Japanese government facing an apparently brand new strange radioactive creature which changes forms repeatedly over the course of the film. And gosh does the Japanese Government have a lot of meetings. It's pretty much "The West Wing" meets Godzilla, with lots of fast-paced discussion scenes, including a fair bit of bureaucratic ineptness going on before we get the right number of heroic scientists working together to try to crack what the hell this thing is and how on earth it can be stopped.
Yes, the humans are less interesting than the monster but they're never particularly dull and the film does ratchet along rather well. It's intriguing that there's some distinct anti-Americanism going on here with suspicions about how they may be involved, although this does also give rise to the one big flaw- the mainly subtitled film goes non-subtitled when the characters speak English, and by far the worst English is spoken by a character who's meant to be an American representative.
Obviously if you're looking for something with a particular amount of depth ... no, this is still a Godzilla movie, go elsewhere. But if you're okay with just going along with the destruction and conspiracy, this is quite an enjoyable flick.
Thursday 13 October 2016
Deepwater Horizon
In 2010 the Deepwater Horizon oil rig malfunctioned causing a vast oil leak in the gulf of Mexico which was covered by the media for months. The malfunction also killed 11 people,
The film version focuses on the second fact, not on the first, and turns this story into a somewhat conventional disaster movie, complete with heroic working-class engineers (played by Mark Wahlberg and Kurt Russell), weaselly corporate higher ups (embodied principally by John Malkovich, relishing an extreme Texas accent), And as a big-budget disaster movie, it works effectively enough - the heroics are suitably heroic, the disaster suitably disastrous and the panic and tension in the moment grips effecively.
It's in the bigger picture where things don't work as well. Kate Hudson gets the usual part of the wife-at-home-who-wonders-what's-happened-to-her-man and does nothing more with this part than generations of actresses have done with the nothing role that it continues to be. There is a nice moment near the end where it appears pretty clear Wahlberg is going through PTSD, but it goes by so fast it can only be a gesture rather than something dwelling. And it's in the conflict between wanting rah-rah triumph and wanting to tell a somewhat more serious story about an actual event that had consequences that this doesn't quite satisfy. It isn't deep enough to really tell the serious story, but it keeps enough of the serious elements that it doesn't quite work as rah-rah triumph either.
Saturday 8 October 2016
The Girl on the Train
Another best-selling-novel turned movie, "Girl on the Train" has a couple of challenges that means that it remains a servicable thriller rather than an excellent one.The titular girl, played by Emily Blunt, is a depressed woman who watches her ex-husband and his new wife as she regularly catches the train into New York and back home again, and also their young neighbor and her husband (and the young neighbour's possible lover/shrink) - so depressed by her contrasting lonliness that she's a regular drinker and suffers from occasional blackouts. One night she sees the neighbor out and about and then blacks out ... and the next day, discovers the young neighbour has gone missing. And the police know that she was nearby and she doesn't know what she might have done...
The most recent model of this kinda thriller is Gone Girl, but that had a grand guignol glee that is sorely lacking here. This treats its situations fairly straight - while Blunt is a solid actresss (as are most of the supporting cast, including Alison Janney as the disbelieving detective, Rebecca Ferguson as the new wife and Laura Prepon as her flatmate), her character's moroseness does tend to drag a lot of the action of the film down for the first two-thirds or so. There's also a little bit of a perfuctoryness about how the plot resolves - Lisa Kudrow is literally cast as a minor character early on so she can return and be instantly recognisable when she provides exposition that resolves much of the plot; and once the audince has worked out who-dun-it, we then have to get a laborious flashback that shows what-they-did, which most of the audience should be ahead of already.
THere is some intriguing stuff in the setup (particularly the storytelling from three different women's perspectives) but that tends to boil away as the plot continues. So this has to be a "just okay" experience.
The most recent model of this kinda thriller is Gone Girl, but that had a grand guignol glee that is sorely lacking here. This treats its situations fairly straight - while Blunt is a solid actresss (as are most of the supporting cast, including Alison Janney as the disbelieving detective, Rebecca Ferguson as the new wife and Laura Prepon as her flatmate), her character's moroseness does tend to drag a lot of the action of the film down for the first two-thirds or so. There's also a little bit of a perfuctoryness about how the plot resolves - Lisa Kudrow is literally cast as a minor character early on so she can return and be instantly recognisable when she provides exposition that resolves much of the plot; and once the audince has worked out who-dun-it, we then have to get a laborious flashback that shows what-they-did, which most of the audience should be ahead of already.
THere is some intriguing stuff in the setup (particularly the storytelling from three different women's perspectives) but that tends to boil away as the plot continues. So this has to be a "just okay" experience.
Friday 7 October 2016
The Red Turtle
A distinctly artsy animation about a man who washes up on a desert island and his (largely dialogue-less) adventures, this is a case of a PG-rated animation that really isn't for kids. While it's only 80 minutes, this is a film that relishes simplicity and quietude above plot and incident, meaning this is more for the arty-kinda-filmgoer. And a key incident in what plot there is falls into the "magic realism" camp, meaning you do have to just go with the film's own priorities and pacing.
Having said that, there's distinct enjoyment to be had here. The film is, no doubt about it, beautiful to look at, and has moments of tension, sensitivity and the occasional laugh. There's also a lush orchestral score to accompany the events on screen.
In the end, I'm reluctant to wholeheartedly reccomend this because, well, it's not very plotty (and I do like plots) and I can easily see this kinda boring a fair number of people. It's in the "I liked rather than loved this" category.
Tuesday 4 October 2016
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Tim Burton is a filmmaker whose reputation has slipped a bit over the years. His arrival with Beetlejuice and Pee Wees Big Adventure saw a particular creative vision, with lightness of touch, eccentricity, and the best animator-sensibility-turned-to-live-action since Frank Tashlin. But he's been slipping by in recent years, and hasn't had what I'd call a good movie in almost a decade (I liked 2007's "Sweeney Todd"), and has regularly had problems with middling or inept scripts, an overindulgence towards Johnny Depp and a general sense that he was more into style over substance.
Alas, for me, anyway, "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" isn't really a return to form - except that in this case, Burton feels peculiarly trapped by his screenplay and by some of his casting. THere are a couple of sequences near the end where the impulsive whimsical Burton breaks free, and they're fine, but for a lot of its length there's quite laborious exposition and a framing device seeing a character from "The Real World" entering into a fantastic world of strange children with powers and magic and wonder. And for me, the film really didn't need all the fart-arsing around with a real world, which never got particularly engaging.
A lot of very good actors are quite under-used - Eva Green as the titular Miss Peregrine spends a lot of time expositioning, quite charmingly but with no real active characterisation until suddenly the plot kicks in and she's marginalised, Judi Dench similarly gets marginalised very quickly, as do Alison Janney and Rupert Everett. Chris O'Dowd is completely wasted as the lead's very dull father. Samuel L. Jackson gets a bit more to play with as the bad guy (although he still takes until two thirds of the movie to enter) - still, he eats scenery nicely.
All in all, it's a bit of a disappointment.
Alas, for me, anyway, "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" isn't really a return to form - except that in this case, Burton feels peculiarly trapped by his screenplay and by some of his casting. THere are a couple of sequences near the end where the impulsive whimsical Burton breaks free, and they're fine, but for a lot of its length there's quite laborious exposition and a framing device seeing a character from "The Real World" entering into a fantastic world of strange children with powers and magic and wonder. And for me, the film really didn't need all the fart-arsing around with a real world, which never got particularly engaging.
A lot of very good actors are quite under-used - Eva Green as the titular Miss Peregrine spends a lot of time expositioning, quite charmingly but with no real active characterisation until suddenly the plot kicks in and she's marginalised, Judi Dench similarly gets marginalised very quickly, as do Alison Janney and Rupert Everett. Chris O'Dowd is completely wasted as the lead's very dull father. Samuel L. Jackson gets a bit more to play with as the bad guy (although he still takes until two thirds of the movie to enter) - still, he eats scenery nicely.
All in all, it's a bit of a disappointment.
Sunday 25 September 2016
Pete's Dragon
Disney's been doing live-action reinventions of a bunch of its films lately - mostly the better-known ones (along the lines of Jungle Book, Cindarella and Malificent). But "Pete's Dragon" falls more into the obscure line of Disney's back catalogue - the original is a pretty mixed bag, with a delightful animated dragon but an overstuffed plot with two sets of villains competing for screentime in a film that never quite settles on a consistent tone. This redo throws out the villains and the 1900s setting and brings it back to basics - a boy, a dragon, and what happens when the boy finds himself back in the world outside.
David Lowery's direction exactly captures the tone of gentle wonder - his Pete (Oakes Fegley) is a reserved, confused kid whose enjoyment of his wilderness lifestyle is contagious, and whose curiosity when he bumps up against other people again is palpable. Bryce Dallas Howard has all the warmth she failed to get in "Jurassic World", and Robert Redford in a smallish role gets the exposition about dragons and a sense of wonder and security that makes this one of the best things I've seen him in too. The closest the film gets to a bad guy is Karl Urban, but even here the film isn't quite prepared to demonise him so much as make him a little misguided.
In short, this is as sweet and fun without being sentimental gludge as a kids film can be. Well worth catching.
David Lowery's direction exactly captures the tone of gentle wonder - his Pete (Oakes Fegley) is a reserved, confused kid whose enjoyment of his wilderness lifestyle is contagious, and whose curiosity when he bumps up against other people again is palpable. Bryce Dallas Howard has all the warmth she failed to get in "Jurassic World", and Robert Redford in a smallish role gets the exposition about dragons and a sense of wonder and security that makes this one of the best things I've seen him in too. The closest the film gets to a bad guy is Karl Urban, but even here the film isn't quite prepared to demonise him so much as make him a little misguided.
In short, this is as sweet and fun without being sentimental gludge as a kids film can be. Well worth catching.
Kubo and the Two Strings
Laika Studios has been kicking major goals in the stop-motion animation field in the last couple of years - between "Coraline", "Paranorman" and "The Boxtrolls", they've delivered state of the art stop-motion in stories that are a little bit creepy, a little bit odd, but also a little bit heartwarming. "Kubo" is their latest, using the milleau of feudal Japan in a story of loss, family, adventure and reconciliation.
The production design is, as usual, gorgeous, featuring strange and wonderful sights and beasts in the course of an adventure that roams through a strange world of magic with powerful enemies hunting a young boy, defended only by a Monkey (voiced by Charlize Theron) animated by the dying wish of Kubo's mother and a samurai warrior (McConaghey) who has been converted into a beetle. The story has a few secrets and surprises to unroll, along with several dangerous creatures, but there's an essential charming simplicity about this that keeps it rolling forward. There's a slightly melancholic tone that allows the sorrows and dangers to land solidly while never bogging down into self-induiglence.
In short this is recommended for anyone who enjoys a tale well told - while it features mortality and loss, it ultimately reveals a generous spirit in transcending the sadness of your past while holding onto its values.
Saturday 17 September 2016
Queen of Ireland
A documentary on the Irish drag-queen Panti Bliss who became the forefront of movements for free speech and marriage equality, this is the classic example of a documentary that is more interesting for what it's about than how it's about it - this is pretty rudimentary documentary making. It's presented very much from Panti's perspective, and tells large chunks of the life story, from childhood in an Irish small village to early emergence in Japan, to the return to Ireland and involvement in the Dublin alternative club movements, to suddenly hitting the international stage after a speech on youtube got retweeted by celebrities from Madonna to Stephen Fry.
The problem is, much of this is not quite as fascinating as it should be. Everything feels very skimmed over, resulting in a rather shallow experience. Yes, there is a heroic ending, and yes, Panti can be amusing and witty, but without the detail and complexity, we end up with more of a puff piece than perhaps would be helpful. It's nice, well intentioned work, but it's not essential.
The problem is, much of this is not quite as fascinating as it should be. Everything feels very skimmed over, resulting in a rather shallow experience. Yes, there is a heroic ending, and yes, Panti can be amusing and witty, but without the detail and complexity, we end up with more of a puff piece than perhaps would be helpful. It's nice, well intentioned work, but it's not essential.
Girl Asleep
An awkward teenage story as a girl experiences her dreaded 15th birthday party, "Girl Asleep" has a distinctly low-budget-surrealistic style that works interestingly in a short (77 minute) running time. Publicity has invoked "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Mighty Boosh" but this has a much milder and personal approach than either - there's very little ironic distance from our slightly daggy heroine and her daggier surroundings in what looks very much like a 1970s suburban world.
This does, admittedly, feel more like a long film-school short than a fully fleshed out movie - it's more of a mood piece and less led by logical incident. But there's a gentle charm here that is unusual and worth catching.
This does, admittedly, feel more like a long film-school short than a fully fleshed out movie - it's more of a mood piece and less led by logical incident. But there's a gentle charm here that is unusual and worth catching.
Sunday 11 September 2016
The Secret Life of Pets
Illumination is the Studio That Minions Built. And, indeed, their latest film starts with a Minions short, high on physical comedy, short on logic, with much harmless destruction, fire and nudity. While I prefer my incomprehensible euro-muttering-creatures in the form of Rabid Rabbids, it's a reasonable enough short.
The feature that follows is, alas, generic family movie stuff. Slightly selfish protagonist gets an intruder into his comfortable life and ends up having an adventure in the outside world that bonds them, straight out of Toy Story? Check. Celebrity voices? Check. Lotsa running around and yelling? Check. Character motivations that seem to shift at random? Check. Major property damage? Check.
The character designs are reasonably cute, there are some nice people in the voice cast, but this one doesn't really break any new mould or do anything particularly better than anything you've seen before. Middle of the road.
The feature that follows is, alas, generic family movie stuff. Slightly selfish protagonist gets an intruder into his comfortable life and ends up having an adventure in the outside world that bonds them, straight out of Toy Story? Check. Celebrity voices? Check. Lotsa running around and yelling? Check. Character motivations that seem to shift at random? Check. Major property damage? Check.
The character designs are reasonably cute, there are some nice people in the voice cast, but this one doesn't really break any new mould or do anything particularly better than anything you've seen before. Middle of the road.
Captain Fantastic
This is a bit of an indie-by-numbers, with an ending that is rather transparently bogus. But like most road movies, there are pleasures to be had along the way.
Viggo Mortensen plays the father of six children, who has taken to raising them in the wilderness, outside the structures of society. His child-raising methods are undoubtedly unconventional (all the kids have their own hunting knives, and read everything from "The Brothers Karamazov" to "Lolita"), but they seem tight enough. Until the death of their mother (who has been suffering from a mental illness and has committed suicide) sees them having to return into the wider world to go to her funeral. The roadtrip adventures form the bulk of the film, with the simmering question behind being "should the kids stay like this or not".
Unfortunately the ending kinda squiffs everything in sentimental fluffiness. While there are amusements along the way, the general smugness of insisting that these escapees from society are superior to the rest of the world starts to grate rather a lot, and the film never really faces up to the risks it implies that this living situation creates for the kids, in their physical safety as much as their mental health. It has a certain sentimental cuteness, but in the end there's not a lot more to this.
Viggo Mortensen plays the father of six children, who has taken to raising them in the wilderness, outside the structures of society. His child-raising methods are undoubtedly unconventional (all the kids have their own hunting knives, and read everything from "The Brothers Karamazov" to "Lolita"), but they seem tight enough. Until the death of their mother (who has been suffering from a mental illness and has committed suicide) sees them having to return into the wider world to go to her funeral. The roadtrip adventures form the bulk of the film, with the simmering question behind being "should the kids stay like this or not".
Unfortunately the ending kinda squiffs everything in sentimental fluffiness. While there are amusements along the way, the general smugness of insisting that these escapees from society are superior to the rest of the world starts to grate rather a lot, and the film never really faces up to the risks it implies that this living situation creates for the kids, in their physical safety as much as their mental health. It has a certain sentimental cuteness, but in the end there's not a lot more to this.
Sunday 4 September 2016
Blood Father/Don't Breathe
Hi there. You might remember me as "That Guy who writes about Canberra Theatre". Or maybe not. Most of the people who read the reviews seem to particularly read the ones of shows that they're either in or that friends are in, and that's okay. But part of the point of that exercise is to try to record my thoughts on the theatre I choose to watch and to be, theoretically, a better reviewer. I don't know if I'm succeeding, but some people seem to like 'em.
Anyway, I'm seeing a fair few movies at the moment as well, so I thought I may as well start reviewing movies too. So that's what this blog is for.
First up this weekend is "Blood Father", Mel Gibson's entry in the old-geezer-action-flick genre that got a kick in the arm a few years ago when Liam Neeson's daughter was Taken. In this one, Mel's a recovering alcoholic and ex-con who's reunited with his runaway daughter when she falls afoul of a Mexican drug cartel and needs to go on the lam. Gibson has form as recovering alcoholic and that is reasonably well exploited in his role (though of course Gibson's very specific transgressions aren't gone into, instead making vague references to his character's criminal past), but as a whole this doesn't really do it for me. Despite being in most of the movie, Erin Moriarty's daughter never really becomes fully fleshed or real - she's more an object to be protected rather than a full character, and her tough-life-as-a-runaway-kid is more an informed attribute than something that we get the sense she's actually lived. The film also commits the crime of wasting William H. Macy (his role as Gibson's AA sponsor feels like it has potential but it piddles away into not-very much). Gibson's charisma is still considerable, but there isn't really enough otherwise that brings this up above generic crime-flick cliches.
Second, "Don't Breathe", This is a horror/thriller about three criminals who think they're about to score big by robbing a blind man in a run-down Detroit house. They find out it's a lot more dangerous than they planned. This is pretty effective stuff - no, the three crooks aren't entirely sympathetic, but this exploits very well the sense of how silent the three protagonists have to be if they're going to get away from the house. This is pretty big on the classical unities (small cast, mostly taking place in the one house, over the course of roughly one night), and very effectively immerses the audience in a fair bit of tension. It's wildly exploitative and possibly a little bit tasteless as well, but goddamn if it isn't effective.
Anyway, I'm seeing a fair few movies at the moment as well, so I thought I may as well start reviewing movies too. So that's what this blog is for.
First up this weekend is "Blood Father", Mel Gibson's entry in the old-geezer-action-flick genre that got a kick in the arm a few years ago when Liam Neeson's daughter was Taken. In this one, Mel's a recovering alcoholic and ex-con who's reunited with his runaway daughter when she falls afoul of a Mexican drug cartel and needs to go on the lam. Gibson has form as recovering alcoholic and that is reasonably well exploited in his role (though of course Gibson's very specific transgressions aren't gone into, instead making vague references to his character's criminal past), but as a whole this doesn't really do it for me. Despite being in most of the movie, Erin Moriarty's daughter never really becomes fully fleshed or real - she's more an object to be protected rather than a full character, and her tough-life-as-a-runaway-kid is more an informed attribute than something that we get the sense she's actually lived. The film also commits the crime of wasting William H. Macy (his role as Gibson's AA sponsor feels like it has potential but it piddles away into not-very much). Gibson's charisma is still considerable, but there isn't really enough otherwise that brings this up above generic crime-flick cliches.
Second, "Don't Breathe", This is a horror/thriller about three criminals who think they're about to score big by robbing a blind man in a run-down Detroit house. They find out it's a lot more dangerous than they planned. This is pretty effective stuff - no, the three crooks aren't entirely sympathetic, but this exploits very well the sense of how silent the three protagonists have to be if they're going to get away from the house. This is pretty big on the classical unities (small cast, mostly taking place in the one house, over the course of roughly one night), and very effectively immerses the audience in a fair bit of tension. It's wildly exploitative and possibly a little bit tasteless as well, but goddamn if it isn't effective.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)