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.
Thursday 24 November 2016
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.
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